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CHAPTER 24The Lesson Restated1Economics, as we have now seen again and again, is a science ofrecognizing secondary consequences. It is also a science of seeinggeneral consequences. It is the science of tracing the effects of someproposed or existing policy not only on some special interest in the shortrun, but on the general interest in the long run.This is the lesson that has been the special concern of this book.We stated it first in skeleton form, and then put flesh and skin on itthrough more than a score of practical applications.But in the course of specific illustration we have found hints ofother general lessons; and we should do well to state these lessons toourselves more clearly.In seeing that economics is a science of tracing consequences, wemust have become aware that, like logic and mathematics, it is a scienceof recognizing inevitable implications.We may illustrate this by an elementary equation in algebra. Supposewe say that if x = 5 then x + y = 12. The “solution” to this equationis that y equals 7; but this is so precisely because the equation tellsus in effect that y equals 7. It does not make that assertion directly, butit inevitably implies it.What is true of this elementary equation is true of the most complicatedand abstruse equations encountered in mathematics. The175