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It is, perhaps, at least partly an unfortunate consequence of the pressure for brevity in the formulation of titles that Professor Knight begins his critical discussion of my article with the statement that though it "in terms of bulk consists of sound and valuable insights" it is "utterly misleading with respect to the main question at issue." It may be permissible to suggest that for Professor Knight and myself the main questions at issue are not identical, as so often happens in intellectual discussion. To help clarify the question I shall attempt to state more explicitly than was done in the article itself what it was designed to accomplish.The aim of this tentative outline was overwhelmingly positive rather than critical. It contained, in the introductory paragraphs, only sufficient statement of the historical and interdisciplinary aspects of the problem of "self-interest" to give a very broad orientation to the setting of the problem. The bulk of the article, which it may be hoped includes at least partly the "sound and valuable insights" of which Professor Kjiight speaks, was devoted to the outlining of what seems to the author, in the light of the present state of development both of economic and of sociological theory, to be the closest attainable approach, in such broad outline, to a satisfactorily usable account of the subject.

Any attempt to discuss the way in which railroads have promoted the rise of the American economy must assume some theory of economic evolution. The following analysis is based upon Schumpeter's theory of innovations. Briefly this theory holds that economic evolution in capitalistic society is started by innovation in some production function, that is, by new combinations of the factors in the economic process. These innovations may center in new commodities or new services, new types of machinery, new forms of organization, new firms, new resources, or new areas. As Schumpeter makes clear, this is not a general theory of economic, much less of social, change. Innovation is an internal factor operating within a given economic system while the system is also affected by external factors (many of them sociological) and by growth (which means, substantially, changes in population and in the sum total of savings made by individuals and firms). These sets of factors interact in economic change. "The changes in the economic process brought about by innovation, together with all their effects, and the response to them by the economic system" constitute economic evolution for Schumpeter.

During the last few decades, legal theorists have given increased attention to the relationship between municipal and international law. Few have attacked the problem with greater acumen than Alfred Verdross, who belongs to that school of Austrians, sometimes referred to as legal purists, with which the names of Hans Kelsen and Fritz Sander are so prominently associated. Verdross' contribution to legal theory has not found as wide an audience as it deserves. This inattention is probably due to the fact that the "theologians" of positivism dismiss Verdross' theory for his disbelief in the "holy trinity" of that school: the personified state, sovereignty, and the will of the state.Verdross professes to adhere to the empirical method. It will be seen that for him a norm is law only if it manifests itself in political reality. But, being a legal purist, Verdross is not concerned with, nor does he attempt to deal with, this objective actuality, i.e., his is not a sociological study. Verdross has been criticised for not limiting himself to a portrayal of facts and for affirming "a prioriinternational legal norms, viewed as an international constitution."

It is most unfortunate that a paper the main content of which in terms of bulk consists of sound and valuable insights to the extent that this is true of Professor Talcott Parsons's article on "The Motivation of Economic Activities" should be utterly misleading with respect to the main question at issue. Without quoting or mentioning any single author, or referring in any specific way to any group, school, or tendency among economists themselves, Professor Parsons tells us merely that: "On the economic side the impression has been wide-spread that a predominantly 'self-interested' or 'egoistic' theory of the motivation of economic activities was a logical necessity of economic theory" (p. 189, my italics). Throughout his own article, Professor Parsons certainly gives the "impression" that the position he has indicated is that which characterizes the typical writings of reputable economists extant and down to date.In view of the author's standing as a sociological interpreter of economic concepts to both sociologists and economists, and also, as already observed, the great merit of his concrete observations on motivation in this particular article, this second impression should not be allowed to stand unchallenged. For the facts are definitely to the contrary. And the true position regarding the type of attitude which may be referred to as "self-interest" in the structure and methodology of modern economic theory should be stated. Still more desirable, if it were possible, would be some intelligible statement as to what this attitude is, or what the expression may be taken to mean. For Professor Parsons gives practically no positive indication of the content of the position he is arguing against. He affords an example more flagrant than that of the economists criticized of what is their real fault. For he himself warily steers clear of any effort to say what he means by the term self-interest or egoism. We find only the negative and noncommittal statement that the assumption proper to economic theory "does not necessarily have anything to do with 'egoism' in the usual sense" (p. 189, my italics).

The late Professor William A. Dunning is reported to have said of the recent political theories which attempt to replace the conception of state sovereignty by some pluralistic grouping of social forces, that they were "radically unintelligible." It is hard for political theorists who have been accustomed to regard the conception of sovereignty as a foundation stone and a sort of "rock of ages" for their faith to be told (as one is every day, more or less) that the anti-intellectualistic type of a sociological basis is the only valid one for juristic structure. For that, according to the old rationalistic conceptions of analytical jurisprudence, is indeed to base sovereignty upon shifting sands and to deprive law of any special significance of its own by equating it with social reactions of the most indeterminate character. But the anti-intellectualistic trend of modern political theory indignantly denies this charge. The assumption, it counters, that any legal center of reference can be final in its authority or in its right to command is an outworn Hegelianism, discredited by practice and theory alike. Law is too much a thing of fictions to be taken seriously in its claims, when it pretends to be giving an accurate description of facts in the abstract terms of a pretended right on the part of the state to be the sole author of enforceable commands and the only rightful claimant of men's ultimate loyalty.