Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ...later increments. But it means that should additional increments be employed, the average return for all would be less than it actually is. In other words, diminishing returns, when referred to a given unit or dose of investment in a given round of production, are not actual but theoretical and potential. They are always described by the auxiliary would. They are a product of the intellect, and are conceived only by comparing the returns in one round of production where a given amount of capital and labour is invested, with another possible or prospective round having a larger investment. It is only by a logical device that the different increments invested in the given round are attributed with different amounts of the total product. Yet this logical device is legitimate, and furnishes the only means of tracing out primary causes. It is only by referring to what would have been or what might have been that we are able to ascribe different effects to different units in actual production. This is simply one way in which theory descends beneath the phenomena of practice, and by means of analysis searches out primary causes and relations. The so-called opposition between theory and practice is only an opposition between incorrect theory and practice. Theory rightly viewed is an explanation of practice, or at least an attempt at explanation. In Diagram VI., it is evident that the marginal investment, instead of being carried out to a'b' will be carried only to, say, a'b," where the value of the marginal product will be b"c," and the value of the total product will be the area a'b"c"f. This product would, then, on the average just cover the total expenses, a'b"o"'d'. The distinction here noticed may be better...
