of the economic world
is ultimately controlled by the purpose of satisfying certain
psychical desires. Hence this psychical effect is still more
fundamental for the economic process than its psychical origin in the
mental conditions of the worker. The task of psychotechnics is
accordingly to determine by exact psychological experiments how this
mental effect, the satisfaction of economic desires, can be secured in
the quickest, in the easiest, in the safest, in the most enduring, and
in the most satisfactory way.

But we must not deceive ourselves as to the humiliating truth that so
far not the slightest effort has been made toward the answering of
this central scientific question. If the inquiry into the psychical
effects were really to be confined to this problem of the ultimate
satisfaction of economic desires, scientific psychology could not
contribute any results and could not offer anything but hopes and
wishes for the future. At the first glance it might appear as if just
here a large amount of literature exists; moreover, a literature rich
in excellent investigations and ample empirical material. On the one
side the political economists, with their theories of economic value
and their investigations concerning the conditions of prices and the
development of luxury, the calculation of economic values from
pleasure and displeasure and many similar studies, have connected the
economic processes with mental life; on the other side the
philosophers, with their theories of value, have not confined
themselves to the ethical and aesthetic motives, but have gone deeply
into the economic life too. While such studies of the economists and
of the philosophers are chiefly meant to serve theoretical
understanding, it might seem easy to deduce from them technical
practical prescriptions as well. If we know that under particular
conditions certain demands will be satisfied, we draw the conclusion
that we must realize those conditions whenever such demands are to be
satisfied. The theoretical views of the economists and of the
philosophers of value might thus be directly translated into
psychotechnical advice.

As soon as we look deeper into the situation, we must recognize that
this surface impression is entirely misleading. Certainly whenever
the philosophers or political economists discuss the problems of value
and of the satisfaction of human demands, they are using psychological
terms, but the whole meaning which they at