A science of the archive must include the theory of [its] institutionalization, that is to say, at once of the law which begins by inscribing itself there and of the right which authorizes it. This right imposes or supposes a bundle of limits which have a history, a deconstructable history (…) the limits, the borders, and the distinctions have been shaken by an earthquake from which no classificational concept and no implementation of the archive can be sheltered. Order is no longer assured…(Derrida, Archive Fever, 1994, 50 years after Innis’ 1944 lecture.)¹

In his presidential address to the Economic History Association in September 1944, ‘The Economic Significance of Culture’,² Innis began by setting out a series of limitations to economic thought — limitations,  that is, to any attempt to formulate an ‘account’ (nomos) of the ‘household’ (eco). At bottom, the central problem to this part of the address was to engage the questionability of both of these components of ‘eco-nomics‘: what is it to render an ‘account’? what limitations must be considered in doing so (if, that is, the account is to be made comprehensively and conscientiously)? and just what is the human ‘household’?³

In addressing “the limitations of economic history or of the social sciences“, more generally, Innis specified that we must focus on “the ques­tion of their [limiting] boundaries or what cannot be done” in them:

In attempting to answer this question perhaps we can improve our perspective regarding the place of the field of economic history, and in turn of the social sciences, in Western civilization. We need a sociology or a philosophy of the social sciences, and particularly of economics, an economic history of knowledge, or an economic history of economic history. Economic history may enable us to understand the background of economic thought, or of the organization of economic thought, or of thought in the social sciences.⁴

Inquiry into this question complex immediately precipitates the problem that it is located within the tradition about which it proposes to inquire. It is delimited by the circularity of attempting “a sociology (…) of the social sciences” or an “economic history of economic history”.⁵

The inherently limited “application of scarce means” to “the vast range of social phenomena” demands that any “weakness for omniscience“⁶ be jettisoned at the outset.

Further, according to Innis, the investigation of economic history (dual genitive) must recognize other limitations, both internal and external, beyond that of its inherent circularity:

• the pecuniary approach, when all pervasive (…) has threatened to make economics a branch of higher accountancy.⁷
• As slot machines have been built up around the sizes and weights of various denominations of coins so there has been a tendency for economics to be built up around the monetary structure.⁸  
• statistics has been particularly dangerous to modern society by strengthening the cult of economics and [thereby] weakening other social sciences and the humanities.
• “Left to themselves all find their level price / Potatoes, verses, turnips, Greek, and rice.”⁹
• administrative machinery and preservation of records have impressed on historical writing the imprint of the state and fostered the bias which [has] made history the handmaid of politics.¹⁰
• the modern tendency to find mental satisfaction in measuring everything by a fixed rational standard, and the way it takes for granted that everything can be related to everything else [like potatoes and verses, and turnips and Greek].¹¹ 
• scholarship is harassed by the demands of pressure groups.
• concentration on the price system, driven by mathematics (…) emphasizes short-run points of view (…) rather than long-term (…) an equilibrium of approaches to the study of economic phenomena becomes exceedingly difficult to achieve with (…) the obsession with the present.¹² 
• [there is] neglect of the technological conditions under which prices operate.
• such work must emphasize not only technical changes but [also] their significance.
• the important contributions of geography (…) have not been incorporated effectively in economic history (…) Geography provides the grooves which determine the course and to a large extent the character of economic life. (…) Geography has been effective in determining the grooves of economic life through its effects on transportation and communication.¹³
• Disturbances to (…) regular trends were a result of sudden developments (…) of cyclonic activities such as accom­panied the gold rushes.¹⁴ 

Innis concluded his barrage of observations on the fundamental limitations of the social sciences (objective genitive!) with this attestation:

[It is] the influence of the Greeks [that] compels us to raise [such] questions about the limitations of the social sciences.¹⁵

“The influence of the Greeks” does not only not turn away from limitations, according to Innis, it urges and even needs and welcomes them. Our ‘household’ as defined by “Western civilization” through “the influence of the Greeks” would therefore be founded on limitation — limitation not as dis-abling, or not only as dis-abling, but also as en-abling.

In the face of such enabling limitations, the first demand on economic history is what Innis called “an equilibrium of approaches” — for there are bordering limitations also between different “approaches”, marking their plurality:

Economic history can point to the dangers of bias and the necessity for a broader perspective (…) an equilibrium of approaches (…) the integration of basic approaches (…) a broader synthesis…

This would, however, be no mere matter of capaciousness: “a recognition of factors affecting irrationality is [only] a beginning”.¹⁶ Much more, or much less, any such “broader synthesis” would have to take upon itself the demand implicated in “the collapse of Western civilization” for a new “solution to the problem of law and order”, for “an anchorage or a point of view from which to approach the problem of European civilization” — namely its exposure to “cyclonic” or catastrophic destabilization:

• In all this we can see at least a part of the background of the collapse of Western civilization which begins with the present century. The compara­tive peace of the nineteenth century is followed by a period in which we have been unable to find a solution to the problem of law and order, and have re­sorted to force rather than to persuasion, bullets rather than ballots.
• The inability of the twentieth century to find a solution to the eternal problem of freedom and power is basically significant to the study of economic history.
• [we have lost] an anchorage or a point of view from which to approach the problem of European civilization.¹⁷

When a field is subject to general destabilization, the unavoidable inference is that it is subject to forces larger than it — to forces outside of it.  At their broadest, these forces might be termed “the mysteries of life and death”:

• economic history (…) should indicate the extent and significance of the irrational¹⁸ as contrasted with the rational
• religion is an effort to organize irrationality and as such appears in all (…) organizations of knowl­edge.¹⁹
• economic history may provide grappling irons with which to lay hold of areas on the fringe of economics, whether in religion or in art 
• By drawing attention to the limitations of the social sciences and of the price system, [economics] can show the importance of religion²⁰

The “collapse of Western civilization” in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries reflects a general inability to relate to “the mysteries of life and death” and, consequently, to respond to them as we must — if we are to survive. This amounts to — or results from — the death of religion since within Western civilization it is “religion [that] has been vitally related to the mysteries of life and death”. This, too, is through “the influence of the Greeks”.

Innis would have economic history and the social sciences generally begin their investigations with an acknowledgement of their situation (situation?) in the general collapse of the tradition within which they would have their ground and their possibility of significance — if, that is, they had ground and the possibility of significance. This is, he maintained, the abysmal groundlessness in which today, and in which alone today, authentic ‘account’ may be rendered. At the same time, he would on no account forget what former ages knew, and knew accountably, concerning those very “mysteries of life and death” and which gave them “anchorage” within “European civilization”. A renewed sense of ‘household’ would need to embrace both that abysmal groundlessness and that accountable hold.²¹