In the field of economic
psychology, too, we might ask how far the study of attention, or of
perception, or of feeling, or of will, or of memory, and so on, can be
useful for the purposes of the business man. Or here, too, we might
begin with the consideration of the various ends and purposes. The
ends of commerce are different from those of industry, those of
publishing different from those of transportation, those of
agriculture different from those of mining; or, in the field of
commerce, the purposes of the retailer are different from those of the
wholesale merchant. There can be no limit to such subdivisions; each
particular industry has its own aims, and in the same industry a large
variety of tasks are united. We should accordingly be led to an ample
classification of special economic ends with pigeonholes for every
possible kind of business and of labor. The psychologist would have to
find for every one of these ends the right mental means. This would be
the ideal system of economic psychology.
But we are still endlessly far from such a perfect system. Modern
educational psychology and medical psychology have reached a stage at
which an effort for such a complete system might be realized, but
economic psychology is still at too early a stage of development. It
would be entirely artificial to-day to aim at such ideal completeness.
If we were to construct such a complete system of questions, we should
have no answers.
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