The popular ideas concerning the methods the economists
employ or ought to employ in the pursuit of their studies are
fashioned by the belief that the methods of the natural sciences
are also adequate for the study of human action. This fable is
supported by the usage that mistakes economic history for eco-
nomics. A historian, whether he deals with what is called general
history or with economic history, has to study and to analyze
the available records. He must embark upon research. Although
the research activities of a historian are epistemologically and
methodologically different from those of a physicist or a biologist,
there is no harm in employing for all of them the same appella-
tion, viz., research. Research is not only time-consuming. It is
also more or less expensive.

But economics is not history. Economics is a branch of prax-
eology, the aprioristic theory of human action. The economist
does not base his theories upon historical research, but upon
theoretical thinking like that of the logician or the mathematician.
Although history is, like all other sciences, at the background
of his studies, he does not learn directly from history. It is, on
the contrary, economic history that needs to be interpreted with
the aid of the theories developed by economics.

-73-