The invitation to deliver this Lecture on the Joseph Fisher foundation came to me in California. The honour and privilege of delivering such a Lecture in the land of my birth moved me very deeply. I was so pleased to have my name added to the list of those honoured by the University of Adelaide that I wrote at once to accept the invitation. In my haste I sent a title which I do not find easy to justify. If I had taken more time to reflect, I might not have ventured upon such a title; but once sent, I could hardly recall it.

I must begin, therefore, with a series of limiting definitions. Economists have been tempted to talk of the economic consequences of something or other ever since Mr. Keynes, as he then was, used the phrase to describe some unfortunate aspects of the peace treaties that ended the first world war. A young Frenchman who was killed in the second world war turned the phrase on Keynes himself. Before that, Keynes had entitled one of his most effective tracts, “The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill.” I submit to you that in 1925 no one could have foreseen the consequences of Mr. Churchill – political, literary, oratorical, strategic or economic. There are some phenomena whose consequences are incalculable. Mr. Churchill is one of them. Scientific research is another. The best one can do is to single out some of the more obvious influences such phenomena seem likely to exert in specific fields of human action.