Review of Veblen's "The Place of Science in Modern Civilization,"
by H[arry] A[llen] Overstreet

The Nation, (New York), vol. 111, No. 2878, (Aug., 28, 1920), p. 250.
['article: The Place of Science'.]
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[250]
The Place of Science

The Place of Science in Modern Civilization, and Other Essays.
By Thorstein Veblen. B. W. Huebsch.

This book is a treasure for those students of economic and social problems 
who are willing to put some effort into their thinking. Mr. Veblen is like 
the North from which he hales - abundantly, unexpectedly generous to the man 
who will sweat for his living; brutally indifferent to the one who expects 
the fruit of the gods to drop into his mouth. Reading him tightens the 
muscles and stiffens the intellectual spine. One comes away from him a bit 
bruised and panting but with a sense of power exerted and power achieved. It 
has been suggested that some one ought to rewrite Mr. Veblen, to put him into 
such flowing measures as would delight the readers of the Saturday Evening 
Post. But then there would be no Mr. Veblen. We should be one step nearer to 
popular education, but scarcely nearer to the powerful joys of intelligence.

The three chapters on the Preconceptions of Economic Science are of especial 
value to the modern economist (or citizen) who has a suspicion that all is 
not well with the economic science which derives from the "classicals." Mr. 
Veblen works through the presuppositions underlying the economics of the 
Physiocrats, Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Cairnes, and Marshall, tracing the 
fortunes of the animistic metaphysics, the associational, hedonistic 
psychology, and the non-evolutionary approach that have in greater or less 
degree characterized them. He shows the increasing movement in other sciences 
toward a biological over against a metaphysical psychology and predicts his 
development for economics. "All this, of course," he says, "is intended to 
convey no dispraise of the work done, nor in any way to disparage the 
theories which the passing generation of economists have elaborated, or the 
really great and admirable body of knowledge which they have brought under 
the hand of science; but only to indicate the direction in which the inquiry 
in its later phases - not always with full consciousness – is shifting as 
regards its categories and its point of view. ..." Foot-pounds, calories, 
geometrically progressive procreation, and doses of capital have not been 
supplanted by the equally uncouth denominations of habits, propensities, 
aptitudes, and conventions, nor does there seem to be any probability that 
they will be; but the discussion which continues to run in terms of the 
former class of concepts is in an increasing degree seeking support in 
concepts of the latter class.

The chapter on Some Neglected Points in the Theory of Socialism will be a 
delight even to the more casual reader because of its profound analysis of 
the “struggle for respectability” as the outgrowth of emulation in a society 
based upon private property, as well as because of its discussion of the 
“constitutional method applied to industry.” To those who see no alternatives 
other than contract (competition) and status (bureaucracy), this chapter will 
be most illuminating. The book is a rich contribution to economic and social 
literature, and is, in a way, Mr. Veblen at his scientific best.

H. A. OVERSTREET
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