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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898. Excerpt:... CHAPTER III OF WANTS § 1. That Economic Actions are such as are caused by the Existence of a Want In the course of the foregoing discussion of the hedonic' principle, we have implicitly assumed a fact which must now be verified, viz. that economic science is by no means concerned with every kind of human actions. In the first place, in economics, those actions are disregarded which are due directly, and without any intervention of the human will, to the mechanic influence of the environment. A man who falls from a fifth story does not, qud his fall, act economically. Indeed, in vulgar parlance, the fall would not be considered as his act. Still the transition from motions effected under the influence of physical laws to movements that are acts adjusted to a preconceived end, is so gradual, that no well-defined line of demarcation can be drawn between them. Besides actions of this kind, we must exclude those that are unconscious, such as most of the organic processes and reflex acts. The human body performs-a great number of acts that tend to adapt it to new conditions in the environment: inspiration is followed spontaneously by expiration; the pulsations of the heart and the digestive processes are accomplished unconsciously, and are independent of our will, even when they cause us pain. The reason why these two kinds of actions are outside the range of economic subjects, is that the psychological law of the minimum of action, or hedonic postulate, cannot be manifested in them. Only those actions accordingly are economic which are due to the desire to rid oneself of pain, or to lessen or avoid pain, and which are the fruit of our consciousness and will. This sphere of human activity, which is certainly very limited, and possibly altogether non-existe...