Part 1 - The Institute Libraries - Institute for Advanced Study

There is no mclre important subject tbn the evolutfon of
the social organism, and the socizl organism is developing
now as never before under the pressure of economic forces,
Before our very eyes, mankind i s conducting portentous
social-economic experiments. Science and philosophy are
creating new means and new goels; the economist must have
something to say as to their value and feasibilit
But where does the economist enjoy the independence and the
leisure which heve for a century been enjoyed by the philoscm
pher and the physicist? Where is the economist who is by
turns a student of practice and a thinker -- in touch with
realities, yet never their slave?.,.Economics, hard pressed
by the tasks of the day, has not uselly enlisted minds
willing to work in leisurely end philosphic fa$li~~...Nawhere
does a group of econmiists enjoy the conditions uhich Pasteur
enjoyed, when he was working out the foundations of preventive
medicine.. .
Physical plegues had been lzxgely eradicsted by medical science.
But econmic plagues, like the one which then was par~lyeing the world,
continued their periodic ravages for reasons not understood. "The fnstf-
i.
tute for Advanced Study has here a pressing opportunity; and assuredly
at no tire in the worldvs history have phenomena more irrrportanr to study
presented themselves. For the plague is upon us, and one cannot well
study plagues after they have run their course...w He spoke of economics,
-
he said, in the broad sense, "inclusive of political theory, ethics and
other subjects that are involved therefn,- His visfon:
Thus I conceive a graup of economists and their associates,
financially independent, unhurried and disinterested, in
closest possible contact with the phenomena of business and
govemnt and at this high level endezvoring to understand
she novel phenomena taking place before our eyes. Tbe
mthematician is in a sense secure from imdiacy; the econ-
mist must be mde so. He has at tines to mingle vtth the
strezm of life; we must rrrake it safe for him to do so. He
nust be enabled to take the sane attitude touards social
phenmna that the medical scientist has now been enabled
to take toward disease.,.
Beyond these two subjects, Flexner suggested that in the futuse