«Принципы политической экономии, том 1»

1817 году сорок восемь миллионов гектолитров, с меновой стоимостью в две тысячи сорок шесть миллионов франков; в

1818 году пятьдесят три миллиона гектолитров, с меновой стоимостью в одну тысячу четыреста сорок два миллиона франков; в

1819 году шестьдесят четыре миллиона гектолитров, с меновой стоимостью в одну тысячу сто семьдесят миллионов франков.

Рост меновой стоимости пшеницы, подобный тому, который наблюдался в 1817 году, равносилен снижению меновой стоимости денег и всех тех товаров, чья денежная цена не выросла. Не является возражением против здесь отстаиваемых взглядов то, что когда предметы первой необходимости очень дефицитны, потребность в одежде, мебели, предметах роскоши и т. д. ощущается не так остро, как в другое время, и что потребительная стоимость этих товаров действительно падает; и наоборот. 87.Compare B. Hildebrand, N. Œkonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft, 1848, I, p. 316 ff. Knies, loc. cit.88.The greater importance attached, in our days, to value in exchange, than to value in use, is seen especially in the attitude which the buyer, who is possessed of the more current commodity (money), assumes toward the seller,—an attitude not unlike that of a patron towards his client. In the interior of Africa, the possessor of money, as such, would scarcely look down on the possessor of the means of subsistence. The South American Indians are ready to render an amount of service for a little brandy, which it would be in vain to ask them to perform for ten times its value in gold. (Ausland, Jan. 15, 1870.) The miser estimates the possibility of being able to procure for himself, for one dollar, a hundred different articles worth a dollar each, to be worth one hundred dollars.89.When the wants of a person or of a people change, it is possible for the value in use of one kind of goods, which had the greater prominence before, to take the place occupied previously by its value in exchange; and vice versa. Thus, the youth sells the plaything he used in childhood; the man, the educational apparatus of his earlier years; the old man, the implements that enabled him to acquire wealth, and which he can no longer use except with great effort. (Menger, Grundsätze, I, 220 ff.)90.Рау (Lehrbuch, I, § 61 ff.) различает конкретную или количественную стоимость, которую определенный вид товаров может иметь для определенного лица при определенных обстоятельствах, и абстрактную или видовую стоимость, которую целый класс товаров может иметь для людей в целом.

Но Ф. Дж. Нойман (Tübinger Zeitschrift, 1872, стр. 288 ff.) возражает, что даже абстрактная стоимость товара всегда предполагает отношение определенного числа конкретных людей к определенному количеству товаров; иначе под выражением «стоимость товаров» следует понимать не то, что обычно имеется в виду, а только способность удовлетворить единственную потребность. 91.Storch, Ueber die Natur des Nationaleinkommens (1824, 1825), 5, defines (Vermögen) thus: a source of income, permanent in its nature, and capable of being transmitted, the possessor of which does not need to work, on its account. Hence he does not approve of the expression “the people's resources” (Volksvermögen).92.See especially Lord Lauderdale, Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth, 1804, ch. 2. Storch, loc. cit.93.Moreau de Jonnès, Le Commerce au 19. Siècle (1825) I, 114 ff., says that the United States imported from abroad 9.6, France 6, and Great Britain 5.8 per cent. of their annual consumption; and exported respectively 10.4, 6.2, 9.8 per cent. of their annual production. The recent free trade tendencies, and the improvement in the international means of transportation, have certainly increased the relative importance of foreign commerce. In the kingdom of Saxony (1853), Engel estimates that 10/47 of the whole production of the country was destined for foreign countries, and that 10/47 of the consumption was imported.94.When the land of a country becomes dearer, simply on account of the increase of population, or goods, the quantity of which is susceptible of increase, because the cost of production has been increased, this cannot be considered an increase in the wealth of the people, (v. Mangoldt.)95.Neither is value in exchange a quality inherent in goods, but only a relation between them and other goods. Hence it is absurd to speak of a rise or fall of all values in exchange. If the goods A lose in capacity to be exchanged against goods B, goods B of course increase in exchange power as compared with A, and vice versa. It is necessary to guard against being misled here by the intervention of money, that is, by the custom universal among men of employing a definite kind of goods as a medium of exchange for all others. Yet there are many writers who have been thus misled. Thus Galiani, Delia Moneta (1750), II, p. 2, who regards the lasting increase of the prices of all commodities as an infallible sign of national prosperity. To the same effect is the motto of the Physiocrates: Abondance et cherté c'est opulence. In its coarsest form, in Saint Chamans, Nouv. Essai sur la Richesse des Nations (1824), 456, who would have that which is now the free gift of nature, to come to us or be produced only as the reward of toil. Verri, on the other hand, Meditazioni sull. econ. pol. (1771), ch. V, thinks that the number of buyers in a country should be as small as possible, and that of sellers as great as possible, in order that thus prices might be low; (as if every buyer was not, eo ipso, also a seller.)96.Kaufmann, Untersuchungen, I, p. 165 seq. Also, Verri, Meditazioni, XVII, 2.97.The differences characteristic of poverty, indigence, managing to live, fortune and wealth, cleverly treated by von Justi, Staatswirthschaft, I, p. 449, seq. Rau, Lehrbuch I, § 76, seq., establishes the following gradation: privation and wretchedness, poverty, indigence, “getting on,” comfort, wealth, superfluity. L. Say calls those who can satisfy the wants of luxury rich; well-to-do, those who can command the comforts of life; and wretched, those who cannot obtain a sufficiency of the objects of prime necessity. In France, the limits of these situations are marked by an income of respectively 60,000, 6,000 and 900 francs per family, so that a family with an income of only 300 francs per year is in a condition of wretchedness. (Traité de la Richesse, 1827, I ff., 71 ff.)98.Palmieri, Ricchezza nazionale, Introd. The greater number of the definitions of wealth are rather onesided than false. Socrates, for instance, looks only at the relation existing between means and their owner's wants. (Xenoph. Memor., IV, 2, 37, seq. Œconom. II, 2 ff.). Plato, on the other hand, as the socialists are wont to do, looks to the excess over that possessed by others. (Legg. V, 742, seq.). Xenophon's observations, Hiero, 4, on the nature of wealth, are many-sided and beautiful. Aristotle distinguishes between natural and artificial wealth: πλῆθος ὀργάνων οἰκονομακῶν καὶ πολιτικῶν—πλῆθος νομίσματος. (Polit, I, 3, 9, 16.) Compare Cicero, Parad. VI. The dominant idea of the so-called Mercantile System is thus expressed in a Saxon pamphlet of 1530 (Müntzbelangende Antwort, etc.): “Money is the real watchword; where there is much money, there is wealth, it is clear.” Compare Luther, Werke, Irmisch edition, XXII, p. 200 seq. See some excellent remarks in opposition hereto, in the Saxon pamphlet, Gemeyne Stimmen von der Müntz, 1530. Schröder, Fürstliche Schatz-und Rentkammer, 1686, ch XXIX. “A country grows rich in proportion as it draws gold or money, either from the earth or from other countries; poor, in proportion as money leaves it. The wealth of a country must be estimated by the quantity of gold and silver in it.” See a very passionate argument against this view in Boisguillebert, Dissertation sur la Nature des Richesses, written sometime between 1697 and 1714. Berkeley, Querist (1735), Nos. 562, 542. Among Englishmen, the correct view was prevalent much earlier, especially among the founders of the American colonial empire. See Hachluyt, Voyages (1600) III, 22 ff. 45 ff. 152 ff. 165 ff. 182 ff. 266 ff; but especially the work “Virginia's Verger” in “Purchas Pilgrims” (1625), IV, p. 809 ff. However, several Spaniards were led by hard experience to adopt a view opposed to the Midas-view (compare Aristotle, Polit. I, ch. 3, 16), by which the first American explorers were carried away: Garcilasso de la Vega (1609), Comment. reales II, ch. 6; Saavedra Faxardo, Idea Principis christiani (1640) Symb. 69: potissimæ divitiæ ac opes terræ fructus sunt, nec ditiores in regnis fodinæ, quam agricultura; plus emolumenti, acclivia montis Vesuvii latera adverunt, quam Potosus mons. Contemporary with those Englishmen, was the Italian, Giov. Botero, who called attention to the fact, that France and Italy were the countries of Europe richest in gold, although they possessed no mines of the precious metal themselves: Della Ragion di Stato (1591) p. 88 ff. Also Sully, who called agriculture and cattle-breeding the breasts of the state, the real mines and pearls of Peru. (Economies royales I, ch. 81. See however, II, p. 381). Montchrêtien, Traité d'Économie politique (1615) 81, 172 seq. According to Sir D. North's Discourses upon Trade, 1691, wealth is synonymous with freedom from want, and the ability to procure many comforts, while Temple (ob. 1700, Works I, 140 seq.) looks entirely at the subjective side of wealth. Pollexfen, “England and East India inconsistent in their Manufactures” (1697), considers gold and silver as the only real wealth. To this definition Davenant (ob. 1714), opposes another. Wealth, according to him, is whatever places prince or people in a condition of superabundance, peace and security. See his Works, I, p. 381 seq. He even reckons intellectual powers, alliances etc., among the national wealth. Compare W. Roscher, Zur Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre 1851, in the acts of the royal Saxon Academy of Sciences, vol. III. Vauban (Dime royale 1707), Daire's edition, says: “The real wealth of a people consists in an abundance of those things, the use of which is so necessary to sustain the life of man, that they cannot at all be dispensed with.” By the wealth of a people Galiani, Della Moneta II, c. 2, understands the aggregate of all lands, houses, movable property, money, etc. which belong to them, but, that the chief element of wealth, and the condition precedent of all others, is men themselves. Hence, the process of the impoverishment of a people in their decline, takes the following course: money first emigrates, next, population diminishes, afterwards, the houses fall in ruin, finally, the land itself becomes a waste. According to Broggia, wealth is un avanzo osia valore di tutto cio che avanza al proprio consumo e bisogno, Delle Monete, 1743, IV, 307, 314; Cust. Palmieri (ob. 1794), also says: il superfluo constituisce la richezza. (Publica Felicità.) According to Turgot, Sur la Formation et Distribution des Richesses 1771, § 90, the wealth of a nation consists in the net proceeds of landed property capitalized at the ordinary price of land, and then of the aggregate of all the movable property of the country. Büsch, Geluumlauf III, § 27, considers a certain duration of the produce or revenue as an essential element in the idea of wealth. Lauderdale, Inquiry, ch. II, distinguishes national wealth and private wealth; the former embracing all that man covets as agreeable or desirable; while it is one of the marks of the latter, that there should be no general superfluity of it on hand. Several modern English economists call wealth only that, the production of which cost human labor. Thus, Malthus, Definitions (1827) p. 234. Torrens, Production of Wealth, 1821, ch. I. When Rossi, Cours d'Economie politique, 1835, L. 2, says: tout chose propre à satisfaire aux besoins de l'homme est richesse, he demonstrates how the frequent inaccuracy of the French language stands in the way of a close analysis. The greater number of more recent definitions are true of resources rather than of wealth. Bastiat distinguishes between richesse effective and relative, the former being based on utilité, the latter on valeur. (Harmonies, ch. 6.)99.The national wealth of Athens, at the time of the hundredth Olympiad, is estimated by Böckh (Staatshaushalt der Athen, I, p. 636, 2d ed.) to have been from thirty to forty thousand talents, besides the non-taxable property of the state. That of Great Britain is estimated at about 8,000 million pounds sterling. (Athenæum 5 March, 1853.) Wolowski estimated that of France at, at least, 116 milliards of francs, with an annual increase of 1-½ milliards, (L'or et l'Argent, 1870. Enquête, 59.) David A. Wells estimated that of the United States, in 1860, slaves not included, at 14,183 million dollars, or $451.20 per capita, whereas in England, the per capita wealth was about $1,000. (Hildebrand's Jahib., 1870, I, 431.) The national wealth of the kingdom of Saxony is equal to 600 million thalers immovable, and 600 million movable, property. (Engel, Statist. Zeitschr. August, 1856). That of Würtemberg=2,710 million florins, of which 700 millions represent movable goods, and 100 million, claims on foreign countries. (Statistisches Handbuch, 1863.) Of course all these estimates are very inexact.100.Ch. Dupin, Forces productives, p. 82. See infra, § 230.101.Compare Meidinger, Das britische Reich in Europa, pp. 79, 238, 261.102.Davenant considers an increase in the number of houses, ships and stocks of goods, as the surest sign of an increase in the national wealth; and on the other hand, a high rate of interest, a low price of land, small wages, a decrease of population, and an increase of uncultivated land, as the signs of national impoverishment. (Works, I, pp. 354, seq. II, p. 283.) Sir M. Decker, Essay on the Causes of Decline of Foreign Trade (1744), 3, gives as the signs of impoverishment, the following: a wretched condition of the poor and of manufactures, a low price of wool, long credit to retail dealers, frequent cases of bankruptcy, exportation of the metals, unfavorable exchange, few new coins, many cases of unpaid rent of leased land, and high poor rates.103.Storch, Handbuch, I, 45. Compare infra, § 187.104.On the difference between human and animal economy, see Schön, Neue Untersuchungen der N. Œkonomie, (1835), 4.105.Compare Schäffle, System, III, Aufl. I, 2, 28.106.Knies, in his Polit. Œkonomie vom geschichtl. Standpunkte, 1853, p. 160 ff., shows, very happily, how the love of one's self,—which must, indeed, be distinguished from self-seeking—is not in conflict with the love of one's neighbor; but that, in healthy natures, it is found allied with a feeling of equity, and of the common good. See, also, F. Fuoco, Saggi economici, Pisa, 1825, Nr. 7. Schutz, Das sittliche Element in der Volswirthschaft: Tübinger Zeitschrift für Staatswissensch. 1844, p. 132, ff.107.“That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him.” (Acts, 17, 27. Compare Matthew, 6:33, also I. Timothy, 5:8.) Adam Müller in his Nothwendigkeit einer theolog. Grundlage, 49 seq., is a strong advocate of all this, but a rather narrow one. The farmer, he says, should first work for the love of God, then for the fruit, that is, for the gross product, and lastly for the net product. His work is a trust. Müller considers the business relations of men, as they exist at present, as “the comfortless mutual slavery of all.” (Nothwendigkeit einer theolog. Grundlage, 49 ff.) The economist, Ch. Perin, who writes from the Catholic politico-economical standpoint, substitutes for conscience, renoncement, as the force antagonistic to intérêt, an expression inappropriate, because merely negative, although in perfect harmony with the ascetic religiousness of the middle ages. (De la Richesse dans les Sociétiés chrêtiennes, 1861, II vol., passim) Compare Roscher in Gelzer's Protestant. Monatsblättern, Jan. 1863. Puchta, Institutionen, I, f. 8, opposes to individualism—or the impulse to distinguish ourselves from others, and which, when uncontrolled, leads to egotism, pride and hate—love and right, which are controlling powers over the former.108.Even the ancients conceived Eros as a world-building principle. According to Schön's expression, loc. cit., which it is not difficult to misconstrue, the feeling of the common interest manifests itself, both as law and force. And, in reality, it is necessary that, in order not to permit the drowsy conscience to fall too far behind self-interest, which is always awake, it should create lasting institutions and regulations above and beyond the caprice of the individual or of the moment; for instance, in the family, marriage, education etc.109.The more private interest ceases to be momentary, and becomes life-long and even hereditary, the better does it harmonize with the feeling of the common interest.110.Perin says (1, 93), that the conflict of interest is reconciled in the seeking for the attainment of the supreme good, that is God, “who gives himself to all in equal measure, and yet always remains the same, and out of whose fulness all may draw, and yet no one's share grows less.” But the same is true of all ideal goods, and of every form of the feeling for the common interest, the highest of which is, indeed, religiousness.111.According to Kant, Anthropologie, p. 239, the desire of comfort and well-being, and the inclination to virtue, when the former is properly restrained by the latter, produce the highest degree of moral, united to the highest degree of physical, good. It is well known, that during the middle ages, in all countries except Italy and, even up to the seventeenth century, the moral sciences were under a one-sided theological influence, whose ascetic condemnation of self-interest may have been well enough during a period of violence. By virtue of a very natural reaction, and as a protest of individualism against the constraint of absolute monarchy, the materialists of the eighteenth century endeavored to discover, even in the most exalted phenomena of human society, only the expression of an enlightened self-interest. See Mandeville's Fable of the Bees, or private Vices public Virtues (1723), but especially, Helvétius, De l'Esprit (1758). Voltaire says, that, in all the celebrated maxims of De Rochefoucauld (1665) there is but one truth contained, que l'amour propre est le mobile de toutes nos actions. (But see, per contra, Pufendorf, Jus Naturæ et Gentium, 1672, II, 3, 15.) This tendency was opposed, especially by the English, who could not be blind to the influence exerted in public life by the feeling for the common good. David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature (1739), III, 54, is of opinion that the interests of others are, on the whole, in the case of nearly every man stronger than even his own self interest. Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy (1755), speaks of the innate principle of benevolence. Man is not a perfect whole; a part belongs to his own person, part to his family, part to the nation, part even to all humanity. Burke, Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), distinguishes two fundamental principles of action, that of self-preservation and that of society. On the former is based the sense of the sublime; on the latter, of the beautiful. According to Ferguson, History of Civil Society, (1767), I, 3, 4, the “sense of union” is frequently strongest where the advantage drawn from the connection is smallest; for instance, it is weakest in highly cultured commercial countries. Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1768), has been as one-sided in reducing everything to “sympathy,” as he has been in his Wealth of Nations in reducing everything to “self-interest;” but not without the consciousness, that to explain the reality, it is necessary to take both into consideration (Buckle). It would, indeed, be just as preposterous to base economy on self-interest alone, as to base marriage merely on the sexual appetite. Recently, Hermann, Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen, 1st ed., part 1st, discovers in self-interest, and in the feeling for the common good, the two springs of all economy. He would even base the so-called theoretic Political Economy, on the study of self-interest, its practice in that of the common good. M. Chevalier, Cours d'Economie politique, 1844, II, 412 ff., understands something very like this by the contrast between liberty and centralization. The antagonisme and association of Bazard, Exposition de la Doctrine de Saint Simon (1829), p. 144 ff. Closer investigation will show, however, that self-interest, which must not be confounded with egotism, and the common interest, are neither coördinate nor exhaustive opposites. Compare the beautiful contrast drawn by Goethe (Pocket edition of 1833, vol. 46, 97), between “Pietät” and “Egoisterei.”112.Paul, I. Corinth. 12, gives the most beautiful model description of a social organism. Compare, however, the fable of Menenius Agrippa in Livy, II, 32.113.Excellent beginnings of a general theory of economies in common in Schäffle, N. Œkonomie, II, Aufl., 62 ff., 331 ff.114.The French and English, with their strong political bias, use the expressions respectively economie politique and Political Economy. In Germany, where the terms the people (Volk) and the state (Staat) are much less nearly coextensive, the words Volkswirthschaft and Nationalökonomie are preferred. But even Hufeland, who first gave currency to the term Volkswirthschaft (Grundlegung, I, 14), called attention to the peculiarity “that the term economy suggests that there is one who economizes and guides, an economist in chief, and that such a one is, even according to the most correct opinion, wanting in the public economy of a people.”115.Согласно Т. Куперу, «Лекции об элементах политической экономии» (1726), 1, 15 ff. 117, богатство общества — это не что иное, как совокупное богатство всех индивидов, которые его составляют. Каждый индивид лучше всего заботится о своих собственных интересах, и, следовательно, та нация должна быть самой богатой, в которой каждый индивид наиболее полно предоставлен самому себе. (Если бы это было так, дикие народы были бы самыми богатыми!) Купер заходит так далеко, что не одобряет защиту, предоставляемую торговле в открытом море национальным флотом; никакая морская война не стоит того, что она стоит, и купцы должны защищать себя сами. Он также говорит, что слово «нация» — это изобретение грамматиков, сделанное, чтобы избавить от хлопот с описательными оборотами, небытие! Адам Смит, как и следовало ожидать, далек от таких абсурдов. (Сравните «Богатство народов», IV, гл. 2, и конец четвертой книги.) Но даже он придерживается мнения, что люди, в изучении своей собственной выгоды, ведомы «естественно, или скорее необходимо» (IV, гл. 2) к занятию, которое наиболее полезно для общества. Но здесь Адам Смит упускает из виду тот факт, что каждая отдельная нация стремится к земному бессмертию и, как следствие, часто вынуждена идти на немедленные жертвы ради далекого будущего, вещь, которая никогда не может быть в частном интересе смертных индивидов, которые ее составляют. И таким образом, Д. Норт, «Рассуждения о торговле» (1691), 13 seq., говорит, что в коммерческих делах разные нации находятся в точно таком же отношении ко всему миру, в каком отдельные города находятся к королевству, а отдельные семьи — к городу. Точно так же Буагильбер, «Factum de la France», гл. 10, 327, издание Дэра. Бенджамин Франклин (ум. 1790), «Политические бумаги», § 4. И Ж. Б. Сэй, «Трактат по политической экономии» (1802) I, 15: каждая нация находится, по отношению к соседним нациям, в положении провинции по отношению к соседним провинциям. К сожалению, такое учение слишком очевидно опровергается каждой войной! Высказывание Дж. Бентама: «Les intérêts individuels sont les seuls intérêts réels» (Traité de Législation, I, 229). См. ниже § 98.

Среди тех, кто в древности наиболее энергично утверждал, что идея национальной экономики не является чисто номинальной, — Платон (De Republ., IV, 420, I, 462); более недавно, Фихте («Замкнутое торговое государство», 1800), хотя, в общем, социалисты придают национальности так же мало значения, как и их самые решительные противники. Адам Мюллер — писатель, который заслуживает признания за свою защиту национальной экономики и государства в целом, превосходящего индивидов и даже поколения. Он приписывает войне заслугу в том, что она заставила научное знание о государстве пустить более глубокие корни и просветила индивидов самым убедительным образом, что они являются частями одного великого целого. (Elemente der Staatskunst, 1809, I, 7, 113). Он называет общественную экономику в целом продуктом всех продуктов. Какая, спрашивает он, польза от всего богатства, если оно не гарантирует само себя? И это оно может сделать только через организацию всего народа, то есть через нацию (I, 202). Теория труда Адама Смита была бы правильной, если бы она рассматривала всю национальную жизнь народа как один огромный кусок труда. (II, 265). И так, Мюллер направляет свою полемику против предпосылки Адама Смита о чисто меркантильном мировом рынке. (II, 290). Точно так же теоретики протекционистского тарифа, Ганье, Théorie de l'Economie politique (1822), II, 198 ff. и Фр. Лист, «Национальная система политической экономии» (1842), I, 240 ff. Колтон, «Политическая экономия Соединенных Штатов», 1853. Сисмонди, «Новые принципы» (1819), I, 197, высмеивает мнение, которое сводит общественный интерес к чисто частным интересам: в интересах А грабить Б; Б, более слабый, в равной степени заинтересован в том, чтобы позволить себя ограбить, чтобы ему не пришлось хуже. Но государство —?! 116.National wars are really no mere operations of the will of the state! Since 1800, Ireland, and, since 1858, even British India, constitute one state with England, and yet how different are the economic tendencies of these different countries of which the individual husbandman or business man must take cognizance!117.One might also deny the reality of a stream, considered as a whole, since its bed, no one calls a stream, and its watery contents change every moment. And yet, it is well known to scientific geography that every stream has its own individual character.118.This would be to be guilty of explaining ignotum per ignotius. And yet, there are a great many modern writers who imagine that they have said something all-sufficient, when they have told us that the state is an organism. As early a writer as Hufeland (N. Grundlegung, I, 113), enters his protest against such abuses. The person who would operate with this notion, should, at least, have read the acute observations, so well calculated to dissipate preconceived opinions, made by Lotze, in his Allgemeine Physiologie des körperlichen Lebens, 1-165. The organic conception of national life, the life of a whole people, where the individual organs are free and rational beings, is evidently a much more difficult one to form than that of the animal or human body.119.I first called attention, in my work on the life-work and age of Thucydides, to the fact that that great historian always accounts for causes in the following manner: A. is produced by B., and B. by A. (Roscher, Leben Work und Zeitalter des Thukydides, 199 ff.; compare especially Thucyd., I, 2, 7, seq.) Such a circle is not a vicious one. All first class historians have thus explained historical phenomena. The one-sided deduction of A. from B., and B. from C., etc., which the so-called pragmatic writers like Polybius, for instance, is the result of overlooking all reciprocal action. Scialoja, Principii (1840), p. 60, makes a somewhat similar observation for Political Economy.120.Whether we call the unknown and inexplicable ground back of all analysis, and which our analysis cannot reach, vital force, generic form, spirit of the nation, or God's thought, is for the present a matter of scientific indifference. All the more necessary are the self-knowledge and honesty, in general, which admit the existence of this background, and which do not, by denying it, deny the connection of the whole, which is, for the most part, much more important than the analyzed parts. But I must at the same time, enter my energetic protest against the imputations of heresy made by those who do not comprehend the sacred duty of science, by never ceasing investigation, to push farther back the bounds of this inexplicable background.121.When Hildebrand, for instance, objects to the application of the expression “natural law” to the economic actions of man, for the reason that it conflicts with human freedom and man's capacity for progress (Jahrbücher der N. Œek. und Statistik., 1863, Heft., I), I cannot agree with him. I use the expression “natural law” wherever I observe uniformity, explicable in its broader connections, and not dependent on human design. That there are such uniformities there can be no question. I need only mention the philological law of the so-called “permutation of consonants,” which individuals follow when speaking—certainly not through compulsion,—and, by means of which, the progress of the speaking aggregate is made manifest. Or, I might call attention to the well known fact, that, in populous countries marriages and crimes, which are for the most part free, are divided among the different age-classes in a proportion much more uniform, from year to year, than are deaths, which are not free. I adhere all the more firmly to the expression “natural law,” because no one takes offense at or objects to the expression, “nature of the human soul.” But to this very nature of the human soul belong the freedom and responsibility of the individual, as well as the capacity of the species for progress. Compare A. Wagner, on Law in the Apparently capricious Actions of Man (Die Gesetzmässigkeit in den scheinbar willkürlichen menschlichen Handlungen, 1864, p. 63 seq.), in which, however, he only goes so far as to show that law and freedom coexist side by side as indubitable facts, while the seeming contradiction between the two remains. Drobisch's Moralische Statistik und die menschliche Willensfreiheit, 1867, is an important contribution to the literature of this question.122.Whately, in his fourth lecture (Lectures, 1831), shows in a very clear way, how London is supplied and provisioned by men with no object in view but their own personal interest, each of whom is possessed of but a very limited knowledge of the aggregate wants of its inhabitants, and yet they work into one another's hands, in the interests of the whole, purely instinctively, and infinitely better, perhaps, than the operations of the most skillful governmental commission, organized for the same purpose.123.Alphonsus of Castile, the king astrologer of the thirteenth century, is reported to have said, that the universe would have been much better constituted, if the Creator had asked his advice beforehand. Astronomers like Newton and Gauss have, certainly, judged otherwise.124.MacCulloch remarks, that there is an essential difference between the physical and the moral and political sciences in this, that the principles of the former apply in all cases, those of the latter, only in the greater number of cases—a thought very ably developed by Knies, loc. cit., passim. If, with Newmarch, (London Statistical Journal, 1861, p. 460 seq.), we could grant, that there is no “law,” except where it is possible to predict each individual occurrence under it, there would be no such thing even as the “laws” of the probability of life. The word “element,” also, means something very different in Political Economy from what it does in chemistry: a combination which might be broken up, but which that science leaves it to other sciences to do. The “element” of Political Economy is Man. Compare Pickford, Einleitung in die politische Œk., 1860, 17.125.It is in this sense that Aristotle (Polit., I, p. 1, 9 Schn.) says: φανερὸν, ὅτι τῶν φύσει ἡ πόλις ἐστὶ, καὶ ὅτι ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῶον. According to L. Stein, Lehrbuch der Volkswirthschaft, 1858, 33, the political economy of a people begins at the point where the overplus of individuals begins.126.Compare K. L. von Haller, Restauration der Staatswissenchaft, I, p. 446 ff.127.As Sallust characterizes the political apogee of the Romans: Optimis moribus et maxima concordia egit populus Romanus inter secundum atque postremum bellum Carthaginiense. See Augustin (Civ. Dei II, 18). Puchta (Institutionen, I, f. 83), with a great deal of good sense, distinguishes in every people their individual character from that which they share in common with all mankind. The latter exists among savage nations, only as a germ buried under the overpowering weight of that which is special to them. The period of the perfect equilibrium of both elements is coincident with that of a people's real culture. In the further course of development, the latter, more general element becomes gradually over-powerful, destroys the individual, and thus dissolves nationality.128.Thus formulated, the principles of the two great parties, evidently, no more contradict one another than their ordinary watchwords, “freedom” and “order,” are in contrast with one another. Hence all the great statesmen of the best periods of history have adopted the middle course recommended by Aristotle.129.See Lotze, Allgemeine Pathologie, 1842. Ruete, Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Therapie, 1852. These analogies, obviously, should not be pushed too far. One of the most essential differences between the two consists in this, that in the diseases of the body politic, physicians and nurses are themselves part of the diseased organism.130.See Ahren's very beautiful exposition, Organische Staatslehre, 1850, I, 77. National economy (Nationalökonomie=public economy); national economics (Nationalökonomik=the science of public economy). The latter term was first proposed, in Germany, in 1849, by Uhde; the former was naturalized therein 1805: v. Soden, Nationalökonomie, 1805; Jacob, Grundsätze der N. Œk., 1806. In Italy, G. Ortes used it as early as 1774, in his Dell Economia nazionale, and in England it was employed, even in 1867, by Ferguson, History of Civil Society, III, p. 4. Holland. Volkshuyshoudkunde. As a rule, outside of Germany, the term political economy, économie politique, one which is somewhat calculated to mislead the student, is used. (Thus Montchrêtien sieur de Vatteville, Traité de l'Economie politique, 165; later J. J. Rousseau, Discours sur l'Economie politique, later yet the Traités d'E. p., Maillardère, Page and J. B. Say, 1801-1803). Political Economy (Sir J. Stewart, Inquiry into the principles of P. E., 1767); also Public Economy (Petty, several Essays, 1682, 35); Economia politica or pubblica (the latter by Verri and Beccaria). The title Economia civile (Genovesi, Lezioni, d'Ec. civ. 1769), has found few adherents. It has, however, been used recently by Cernuschi: Illusions des Sociétés coöperatrices (1866). The term, Economie sociale has been used all the more in France (Dunoyer, Nouveau Traité d'Ec. soc., 1830), since recommended by J. B. Say, and employed by Buat (Des vrais Principes de l'Origine et de la Filiation du Mot Economie politique, in the Journal des Economistes, 1852.)131.Stein, Lehrbuck der V. W., prefaces his “Science of Public Economy” (pp. 329-358), by a “Science of Economy” (pp. 96-328), which, however, treats individual economies only as the elements of the national economy. A science of household or isolated individual economy could, of course, treat only of the economic relations of anchorites. Those who object that Political Economy is not a real whole will be satisfied with the definition of it given by F. I. Neumann: “The Science of the bearing of household or separate economies to one another, and to the state as a whole.” (Tüb. Zeitschr., 1872, 267.)132.In so far as these various institutions are concerned, with objects beyond the human, or supernatural, only the manner in which they are accepted, or in which they are made use of, is an expression of national life.133.Thus, J. Tucker thinks that religion, the state and commerce, are only the parts of one same general plan: no institution, therefore, can be called appropriate, within the limits of the province of any one of these, if it be clearly in opposition to the other two, because the harmony of God's work can not be broken up. (Four Tracts and two Sermons on political and commercial Subjects, 1774, Serm. I.)134.Riedel (National Œkonomie, 1838, I, p. 178 seq.), gives a good illustration of the difference between the manner in which law and Political Economy look at the same question. The law (to avoid strife, or to settle controversies) looks upon the debtor as the owner of the capital, and lets him run all the risk; Political Economy, on the other hand, looking deeper into the nature of the contract, reaches an entirely opposite result. The mere jurist has a dangerous tendency to undervalue the reign of the laws of nature; the mere political economist, just as readily, undervalues the element of free will. (Arnold, Cultur und Recht I, 97.) In this respect, the two sciences complement each other very well. Roesler (Hildebrand's Jahrb., 1868, II, and 1869, I.) shows, and he does not exaggerate the fact, that political economists have made altogether too little use of the results of the science of law.135.Jurists will always experience the want of divesting their isolated ideas of their purely accidental character, by grouping them together in such a manner as to make them constitute a complete and independent whole. One must be possessed of profound knowledge to perceive their necessary connection from an historico-juridical point of view. Political Economy, with its characteristic accuracy and practical utility, can best take its place, at the present time. It is in the greater number of legal questions, the systematically elaborated science of “the nature of the thing.” See the able beginnings of a policy of legislation and higher history of law, based on Political Economy, by H. Dankwardt: N. Œk. und Jurisprudenz, 3 Hefte, 1857, and my preface to Dankwardt's Nationalökonomisch-civilistischen Studien, 1862.136.The intellectual power of a people depends upon the vigorous and harmonious development of all seven spheres of life.137.Montecuccoli, Besondere und geheime Kriegsnachrichten (Leipzig, 1736). A very similar judgment by Cæsar in Dio Cass., XLII, 49.138.Bülan, Handbuch der Staatswirthschaftslehre, 1835.139.Thus v. Justi, Staatswirthschaft 1755. Kraus, Staatswirthschaft, published by Auerswald, 1808; Schmalz, Handbuch der Staatswirthschaft, 1808. More recently, Hermann, Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen, 1832. In France, the expression économie de l'état, is very seldom used. Gavard, Principes del'E. d'Etat, 1796.140.Pölitz, Staatswissenschaften im Lichte unserer Zeit, II, 3. Compare Lotz, Handbuch der Staatswirthschaft (2d ed., 1837), I, 10 ff.141.Our view of Political Economy holds a middle place between opposed extremes. The view expressed by Whately, Lectures on Political Economy (1831), No. 1, and covered by the proposed term “catalactics,” is by far too narrow. Similarly, Macleod, Elements of Political Economy, 1858, I, 11. A like objection may be raised to the earlier title of Pritzwitz's book: Die Kunst reich zu werden,—the art of growing rich. On the other hand, Dunoyer, Liberté du Travail (1845), L. IX, ch. I, goes too far altogether: “not only in what manner a nation grows rich, but according to what laws it best succeeds, in the execution of all its functions.” And so Storch, Handbuch, translated into German by Rau, I, 9. Many modern writers define Political Economy simply as the theory of society; for instance, Scialoja, Principj. dell'Economia sociale, 1840. Cibrario, E. polit. del medio Evo, III, 1842.142.For the many and various definitions of the police power, see von Berg, Handbuch des Polezeirechts, I, 1-12; Butte, Versuch der Begründung eines System der Polezei (1807), 6 ff.; Rosshirt, Ueber den Begriff der Staatspolizoi (1817), 34 ff. One of the principal difficulties is, that the practical domain of the police power is, in consequence of the successive grades of civilization through which a people passes, subject to greater modifications than any other state power. We call attention especially to the expressions “without mediation, to prevent,” and “external order,” in our definition. The church, the school, the administration of justice etc., act mediately towards the prevention of such disturbances; and there are many other institutions which offer immediate protection to order of a higher and more intellectual nature.143.See the great number of earlier definitions collected in R. von Mohl, Gesch. und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften III, pp. 637 ff. There are two principal groups of them, the one of which considers it as the science of things of political note, the other as the science of actual or past conditions.144.See Dufau, Traité de Statistique, 1840; Moreau de Jonnès, Elements de Statistique, 1847; Knies, Die Statistik als selbstständige Wissenschaft, 1850. B. Hildebrand, in his Jahrbüchern, 1866, I etc., but especially Quetelet's works. For the contrary view, see Fallati, Einleitung in die Wissenschaft der Statistik der St., 1843; Jonak, Theorie der Statistik, 1856, and Heeren, in the Gött. Gelehrten Anzeigen, 1806, No. 84, 1807, 1302.145.So thinks v. Rümelin (Tübinger Zeitschr., 1863, 653 ff.); and he recommends in place of statistics an independent branch of learning bordering on history and geography, to be called demography. His statistics is a science auxiliary to all the experimental sciences of man, just as criticism and hermeneutics are a methodological science auxiliary to many sciences, otherwise different. It would be difficult to justify the use of the name statistics for such a science, as such a science corresponds to neither of the two meanings of the word status (state—condition).146.The ancients understood by the term καμάρα camera, covered places such especially as were vaulted, also vaults of the most varied kind. Compare Herod, I, 199; Diod., II, 9; Strabo, XI, 495; Arrian, Exp. Alex., VII, 5, 55; Dio Cass. XXXVI, 32; Sallust, B. C., 55; Cicero, ad Q. fratrem III, 1; Plin., H. N. XXX, 27; Seneca, Epist., 86; Tacit. Hist. III, 47; Sueton, Nero, 34. During the middle ages, the meaning treasure-chamber (Schatzkammer) became predominant: camera est locus, in quem thesaurus recoilligitur, vel conclave, in quo pecunia reservatur (Ocham, Cap. Quid sit Scaccarium). It gradually became synonymous with finance,—from the time of Charlemagne, or at least since Louis II. (Charter of 874). See Ducange, Glossarium, v. Camera, and Muratori Antiquitt. Ital., I, 932 ff.147.“A husbandman must plow and manure his land if he would reap a harvest from it. He must fatten his cattle if he would slaughter them; and furnish his cows with good fodder if he would have them give good milk. In like manner, a prince should begin by assuring his subjects healthy and abundant food, if he would take anything from them.” von Schröder, Fürstl. Schatz-und Rentkammer (1686), preface, § 11. Von Horneck before him, Oesterreich über alles wann es nur will, p. 220, ed. of 1707, had expressed the idea that the watchful solicitude for the public economy of the country was no parergon, no appendix, to the council (Kammer), but its real basis, and that it embraced many subjects which had nothing in common with the cameralia (“Cameralien”).148.Morhof, Polyhistor (1688), III. Thomasius, 1728, Cautelæ circa præcognita Jurisprudentiæ (1710), ch. 17. (Cautelæ circa studium œconomicum.) Also, in his lectures on Seckendorff's “Teutschen Fürstenstaat.” Compare Roscher, Gesch. der N. Œk. in Deutschland, 328 ff.149.While Dithmar (1731) distinguishes economy-police and cameralistic sciences and restricts the latter to finance and taxation; Darjes (1756) comprises under the name of cameralistic science, economy (municipal and rural), and police, as well as cameralistic subjects in the strict sense of the term, that is, the public, domain and regal rights. While Nau (1791), in his “Ersten Linien der C.,” treats only of the branches of private economy, Schmalz, (1797) treats also of national or public economy, and Rössig (1792) divides cameralistic science into the doctrine of the public demesne and regal rights (cameralistic science in the narrower sense), and the doctrine of taxation and police.150.Thus, for instance, all that concerns domestic economy, book-keeping and private financial administration.151.Джон Стюарт Милль, «Принципы политической экономии» (1848), I, стр. 25, проводит различие между физическими условиями, которые влияют на экономическое положение народа, и моральными и психологическими условиями; последние имеют свое происхождение в социальных институтах или в фундаментальных принципах человеческой природы. Только последние принадлежат к области политической экономии. Согласно Ж. Б. Сэю, «Трактат», введение, эта наука охватывает одновременно сельское хозяйство, промышленность и торговлю, но только в их отношении к увеличению или уменьшению богатства, и не занимается средствами, используемыми для достижения желаемой цели. Как правило, говорит Арндт («Естественная народная экономика», 1851, стр. 16), она принимает во внимание не столько сами вещи, сколько их меновую стоимость. Лотц («Руководство», I, стр. 6 seq.), подобным образом, определяет политическую экономию — науку об одной деятельности, которая составляет основу всех отраслей промышленности и т. д. Ф. Г. Шульце («О народнохозяйственном обосновании промысловых наук», 1826) характеризует политическую экономию как науку об основных условиях благополучия народа, поскольку они лежат в человеческой природе.

Когда Адам Смит (книга IV, гл. II) говорит, что правительство в отношении вопросов экономики уступает первому встречному человеку, занимающемуся промышленными делами, он прав только с технической точки зрения. И когда Стюарт, с другой стороны, отстаивает для государства должность pater-familias (книга II, гл. 13), он, очевидно, имеет в виду только в народнохозяйственных делах. 152.See also Rau (Ueber die Cameralwissenschaft, Entwickelung ihres Wesens und ihrer Theile, 1825); Baumstark (Cameralistische Enclycopädie, 1835).153.Xenoph. Œconom. I, 8 ff. Cyrop. VIII; 2, 23. He saw with equal clearness the moral light and shade of wealth. (Œcon. XI. 9. Conviv. 4. Memor. I, 6. Cyrop. VIII, 3, 35 ff. Hiero 4.)154.Thomas Aquinas values earthly goods according to the end they are made to serve; when used for a good purpose, they have a mediately true value. Hence it was an error of the stoics to despise them under all circumstances. (Summa Theol. II, 2. Qu., 50, 3. 58, 2. 59, 3. 125, 4.)155.Whateley considers the savage much beneath the materialist, instead of superior to him. The latter possesses, although he frequently abuses it, the faculty of self-control and forethought, which is entirely wanting in the former. (Lectures, No. 6.) Dunoyer, De la Liberté du Traväil, liv. IV, ch. I, 8, an apology for the moral wholesomeness of civilization, since promotive of military prowess, favorable to the development of the sciences, and even poetical. Baudrillart, Manual d'Œkonomie politique, 1857, 24. See Fallati, Ueber die sogennannte materiellen Tendenz der Gegenwart, 1842.156.See the inscription on the tomb of Sardanapalus: ταῦτ᾽ ἔχω, ὄσσ᾽ ἔφαγον καὶ ἐφύβρισα καί μετ᾽ ἔδωτος τέδπν ἔπαθον. (Strabo, XIV, 672.) Isaiah, 122, 13, 56, 12, and the book of wisdom (2) characterizes the view of the fallen Jewish people. In Greece, the Cynic and Epicurean schools were only different phases of the same degeneration. “Thirst, for money, and nothing else, will be the ruin of Sparta!” (Cicero, De Offic, II, 22, 77.) See the magnificent description by Demosthenes, in which he shows the over-estimation of material things to be the principal cause of the decline of Athens, and in which he lays great stress on the fact, that Athens, on its decay, had a larger population, more wealth, ships, and evidences of external power, than in its golden age. (Phil., III, 120 seq.) Also Phil., IV, 144, cautions us against the Manchester criterion of national prosperity. See Plato, De Rep., VIII. In Rome, the principle ommia venalia esse was a chief element in the total decline and fall of the republic. (Sallust, Cat., 10 ff., Jug., 8 ff.) In an age when people think they can do everything with money, the ruin of all things is the last end of mercantile, financial and political speculation. (Condillac, Le Commerce et le Gouverment, 1776, II, 18.)157.Under Pericles, the Athenian treasury of the state contained at most 9,700 talents. (Thucyd. II, 13.) On the other hand, Alexander the Great had a treasure of 180,000 talents accumulated in the citadel of Ecbatana. (Strabo, XV, 731); Ptolomy II. left after him 740,000 talents. (Appian. præf. 10, Droysen, Geschichte des Hellenismus II, 44 ff.) In Nero's time there was many a freedman's daughter who owned a looking glass worth a greater sum than the senate had appropriated as a dowry to the daughter of the great Scipio. (Seneca, Quæst. Natur. I, 17. Compare Cons, ad Helviam, 12.) McCulloch says that an intelligent despotism can enrich a nation as well as freedom. (In his Discourse on the Rise, etc. of Polit. Econ., 1825, 77 seq.)158.Bacon (Sermones, 56) says that youthful states distinguish themselves specially by their warlike instincts; mature states in literature; old and decaying ones in industry and commerce. Davenant very happily remarks, that the development of commerce among a people has an ambiguous value. It, indeed, increases wealth, but, at the same time, it may introduce luxury, covetousness and fraud, destroy virtue, do away with simplicity of manners and customs, and then it inevitably ends in internal or external slavery. (Works II, 275.) The simplicity of the patriarchal state, however, cannot last always, if for no other reason, because of the emulation of foreign nations. (1, 348, ff.) The impoverishment of even the wealthiest nation is certainly inevitable when its morality declines. It is especially true, that the public economy of a people can be prosperous only where political liberty obtains, and this, independent of the fact that wealth without freedom has no value. (II, 336 ff., 380, ff., 285.) According to Ferguson, private wealth, honestly acquired, used rightly and with moderation, managed with a sense of independence, may be to those who possess it, an element of self-confidence and of liberty, provided they loosen their purse strings not through vanity or for their personal gratification, but for commendable party purposes. But in periods of decay, even a greater amount of wealth is very far from producing these results. (History of Civil Society, VI, 5.) Whately, on the contrary, maintains that only personal wealth—never national wealth—has a disastrous influence on morals. Lectures, No. 2.159.“The method of a science is of much greater importance than any individual discovery, however wonderful.” (Cuvier.)160.Thus, for instance, G. Biel (ob. 1495), the “last of the schoolmen,” gives us his doctrine of Political Economy, in a work on Dogmatic Theology, in the chapter on Penance, his starting point being the inquiry, how the economic damage caused by the sinner may be repaired. Roscher, Geschichte der Nationalökonomik in Deutchland, 1074, I, 23. The Melittotheologia, Arachnotheologia of later times! A recent attempt in this direction has been made by Ad. Müller, Nothwendigkeit einer theologischen Grundage der gesammten Staatswissenschaften und der Staatswirthschaft insbesondere (1819), i.e., “necessity of a theological basis for all political science, and especially for Political Economy.” He divides political science into two parts: the science of law, and the science of wisdom, embracing under the latter denomination, politics, Political Economy, etc. Law emanates from God, as supreme judge; the science of wisdom from God, as our Supreme Father.161.Abstraction is indulged in on a large scale, when a number of elements which are always found combined in life, are here separated and examined apart. It is precisely thus that anatomy proceeds, dissecting each member of the human frame, separating the bones, ligaments and muscles from one another, thus becoming the necessary preparatory school to physiology.162.Thus, for instance, Canard, Principes d'Economie politique (1801). Also Kröncke, in several of his works, and Count Buquoy, in his Theorie der Nationalwirthschaft (1816), p. 333 ff.; Lang, Grundlinien einer politischen Arithmetik, Charkow, 1811, and more especially v. Thünen, Der isolirte Staat, vol. I (1842), vol. II, 1850. See my criticism of his method in Birnbaum's Georgika, 1869, 77 ff. Voa Thünen's first volume is an essay towards a geometrical exposition of the science. See also Rau, Lehrbuch I, § 154, appendix; von Mangoldt, Grundriss der Volkswirthschaftslehre (1862); Cazaux, Elements d'Economie privée et Principes mathématiques de la Théorie des Richesses (1838); F. Fuoco, Saggi economici (1827) II, 61 ff. Walras, Eléments d'Econ. politique pure (1874). Jevons has recently endeavored to give Political Economy a mathematical basis by reducing the objects of which it treats to the calculable feelings of pleasure (+) and pain (-). The duration of a feeling is treated as an abscissa, its intensity as the ordinate of a curve, and its quantity as the area. Future feelings are reduced to present ones, by allowing for their distance, and the uncertainty of their occurrence. All this, however, is rather curious than scientifically useful.163.Herbart, Ueber die Möglichkeit und Nothwendigkeit, Mathematik auf Psychologie anzuwenden; Kleinere Schriften, II, 417.164.How detrimental it is to ignore the psychological nature of Political Economy is evident from the errors of Karl Marx, who personifies things in a manner almost mythological. Thus, according to him, modesty should be ascribed to a coat which exchanges for a piece of linen, and purpose to the linen, etc. (Das Kapital, 1867, I, 19, 22, seq.) The greatest fault of this intelligent but not very acute man, his inability to reduce complicated phenomena to their constituent elements, is greatly increased by his way of thus looking at things.165.Compare J. B. Say, Traité I, introd. Thus, it would be certainly possible to describe every individual's physiognomy by means of a very complicated mathematical formula, and yet there is no one who would not prefer the usual mode of taking pictures. The simple motions of the heavenly bodies, on the contrary, are always treated mathematically. (Lotze, Allgemeine Physiologie, 322 ff.)166.When Fawcett says that all “principles of Political Economy are describing tendencies instead of actual results” (Manual of Political Economy, 1863, p. 90), our method, the historical, would give also the theory of the latter.167.This was lost sight of by most writers during the second half of the eighteenth century, because they looked upon that equality as the really oldest condition, and its restoration the ideal to be striven for. How much of this still clings to the present free-trade school; see in Roscher, Gesch. der N. Œk. in Deutschland, 10, 17 ff.168.Thus, for instance, Ricardo examines, almost exclusively, the actual condition of things, while the socialists confine themselves, still more exclusively, to the investigation of how things should be. It has been very usual in Germany since Rau wrote, to draw a distinction between theoretical and practical Political Economy. There are many who think that a good manual of practical Political Economy, dropping the introduction, demonstrations etc., would be also a good code of law, of universal application. Mercier de la Rivière has said that he wished to propose an organization which should be necessarily productive of all the happiness which can be enjoyed on earth. (Ordre essentiel et naturel (1767), Disc. prélim.) Compare, also, Sismondi, N. Principes, I, ch. 2.169.The word method is used in an essentially different sense, when the inquiry is, whether the inductive or deductive method is followed in Political Economy. J. S. Mill calls Political Economy, and, indeed, all “sociology,” a concrete deductive science, whose a priori conclusions, based on the laws of human nature, must be tested by experience, either by comparing them with the concrete phenomena themselves, or with their emperical laws. It, in this, resembles astronomy and physics. (System of Logic VI, ch. 9. Essays on some unsettled questions of Political E., No. 5.) According to this, an economic fact can be said to have received a scientific explanation only when its deductive and inductive explanations have met and agreed. “Only those principles which, after they have been obtained by the one, are confirmed by the other method, can be said to have a scientific basis.” (von Mangoldt, Grundriss, 8.) While I agree to this view, it seems necessary to me to mention points wherein caution is necessary: A. Even the deductive explanation of economic facts is based on observation, namely, on the self-observation of the person accounting for them, who, consciously or unconsciously, must always inquire: If I had experienced or accomplished the same fact, what should I have thought, willed and felt? The man who cannot translate himself into the souls of others, will give a wrong explanation of most economic facts. In the question, for instance, of the determination of the price of an article, the person who can look into the mind of one of the contracting parties only, will give a one-sided explanation of the facts. B. Moreover, every explanation, that is, satisfactory connection of the fact seeking explanation with other facts which are already clear, can be only provisional. The wider our horizon grows, the deeper should our solution of all questions become. A hundred years hence, should science increase in the mean time, the solutions which are satisfactory to us will be looked down upon by our posterity, as the speculations of our fathers antecedent to Adam Smith's time are looked down upon by us.170.Tanquam e vinculis sermocinantur, says Bacon (De Dignit. et Augm. Scient., III, 3), of those who have written in a not non-practical way on the laws. Hugo, also (Naturrecht, 1819, p. 9), calls attention to the resemblance of the so-called laws of nature, to the positive law in force at the time. As to political idealism, see Roscher: De historicæ doctrinæ apud sophistas majores vestigiis (Gött. 1838, 26 ff.). The only exceptions to this rule are the eclectics, who form their own system from the blossoms of all foreign ones, a system, indeed, without root, and which therefore must soon wither.171.In this place, naturally, such an assertion can be made only as a programme to be carried out, the proof whereof is to be sought in the rest of the work. By “the people,” we do not mean the governed, to the exclusion of the governing classes, but both classes together. We attach to the expression the most extensive meaning possible. We do not limit it to the present generation, but intend it to cover all the generations from the beginning of a people's history to its end.172.The custom, which has become general, of calling all democratic movements, and them only, revolutions (thus Stahl: Was ist Revolution? 1852, and many other writers of an entirely opposite tendency, especially in France), is not warranted. It is true that democratic (and imperial) revolutions are more frequent than others in our times, just as aristocratic revolutions were in the middle ages, and monarchical at the beginning of modern history. The essence of revolution, however, is in the operation of change contrary to positive law, acknowledged as such by the consciousness of the people.173.Compare, especially, the first pages of Sir J. Stewart, Principles of Polit. Economy.174.See Colton, Public Economy of the United States, p. 28, who, indeed, unwarrantedly, refers to the whole of Political Economy, what properly belongs to its precepts.175.Je n'impose rien, je ne propose même rien: j'expose. (Ch. Dunoyer). Cherbuliez, Précis de la Science économique, 1862, p. 7 ff., has exaggerated this idea in a strangely non-practical manner. That the historical method does not differ essentially from the statistical as recently recommended, see Roscher, Gesch. der Nat. Œk., 1035 seq.176.Storch, Handbuch, II, 222.177.Ad. Müller, an essentially mediæval mind, is guilty of this same braggadocio in an opposite direction, when he calls the “present with its political disorders simply an intermediate state,—the transmission of the natural or unconscious wisdom of the fathers, through the inquisitiveness of their children to the rational acknowledgment of that wisdom by their grandsons.” (Theorie des Geldes, 1816, pref.)178.Thus, for instance, it can not be said that a model university is better than a model public school; and yet the former is higher, because the age to which it is adapted is doubtless intellectually higher.179.Knies (Polit. Œk., 256 seq.) remarks, that it would be a great mistake, and it is the mistake of the majority, to consider what has been achieved or striven for in the present, as the absolute non plus ultra, and thus to look upon all future generations as called upon to play the parts of apes and ruminators; a remark worthy to be taken to heart.180.I have, myself, no doubt, that up to the present time, mankind, as a whole, has, from the beginning of historical knowledge, always advanced. In individual cases, their movement has been interrupted by so many pauses, and even by so many occasional retrogressions, that great care must be taken not to infer superior excellence from mere subsequency.181.Buckle writes of people whose knowledge is about limited to that which they see going on under their eyes, and who are called practical, only because of their ignorance; and he adds that, although they assume to despise theory, they are in fact slaves of theory, of others' theories.182.Compare this whole chapter with Roscher, Leben Werk und Zeitalter des Thukydides, 1842, pp. 25, 239-275; Roscher, Grundries zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach geschichtlicher Methode, 1843, preface; Roscher Geschichte der Nat. Œk. in Deutchland (1874), 882 f., 1017 seq., and D. Vierteljahrsschrift, ff. See also J. Kautz's learned and accurate Theorie und Geschichte der N. Œkonomik, vol. I, 1858, II, 1860. I find no real contradiction between the views here expressed and those of Kautz, when he (I, pp. 313 ff.) introduces history and ethico-practical reason with their ideals as sources of Political Economy, to the end that the science may be something more than simply a picture, namely, a model of economic life. Apart from the fact that it is only the ethico-practical reason that can understand history at all, the ideals of a period constitute one of the most important elements of its history. The aspirations of an age find in them their best expression. The historical political, economist as such, is certainly not disinclined to form plans of reform, nor can it be said that he is not adapted to the performance of such a task. Only, he will scarcely recommend his reforms as absolutely better than what they are intended to supplant. He will confine himself to showing that there is a want which may, probably, be best satisfied by what he proposes. See Sartorius, Einladungsblätter zu Vorlesungen über die Politik, 1793.183.“There is a book which youth may use to grow old, and the old to remain young—History.” (K. S. Zaccharia).184.