43+ POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Position of Taxation in General Literature. All gen- 

 eral treatises on political economy devote more or less space to 

 the consideration of taxation ; and there have been many publi- 

 cations in the nature of oflBcial reports, compendiums of tax laws, 

 and their interpretation by legal tribunals, and special essays on 

 particular forms of taxes. But, at the same time, notwithstand- 

 ing the vastness and importance of the subject, its symbolism and 

 exemplification of sovereignty, its influence for weal or woe on 

 every citizen and on every industry, according as the power in- 

 volved is properly or improperly exercised, and the part it has 

 played in history, its position in economic literature is so com- 

 paratively insignificant that there is not a single publication at 

 present in the English language which is entitled to be considered 

 as a full and complete treatise ; certainly none such as are readily 

 at the command of every person desirous of becoming reasonably 

 proficient in any of the other leading branches of learning. Prof. 

 Cossa, of the University of Pavia, Italy, in a bibliography of tax- 

 ation incorporated in a brief treatise on the Science of Finance, 

 published in 1882, and brought up to the times by an American 

 translation in 1888,* does not mention even one title of this char- 

 acter. And, although there are works on taxation more or less 

 general in their scope in other languages especially in Fi'ench 

 and German and to some of which high merit is accorded, there 

 are none which any considerable number of economists are will- 

 ing to accept as standard or authoritative in all departments ; the 

 chapter on taxation in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations consti- 

 tuting the only treatise which can possibly be regarded as an 

 exception. f For such a result it is not easy to account. Possibly, 

 owing to the want of accord among writers on economic and 

 financial subjects, an opinion has come to prevail that no consist- 

 ent treatment of the subject, as a whole, is possible; that the 

 financial and industrial condition of nations or states differs so 

 widely that no uniform rules of practice for the raising of revenue 

 can be established ; and, finally, if such a code of rules were uni- 

 versally accepted, the varying necessities of nations would com- 



the hour arrives when the mind is ripened ; then we behold them." Emerson^ Spiritual 

 Laws, First Series of Esuays, p. 139. 



* Taxation, its Principles and Methods. Translated from the Scienza delle Finanze of 

 Dr. Luigi Cossa, Professor of the University of Pavia, Italy ; with an Introduction and 

 Notes by Horace White. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1 888. 



f " It is well known that during the period from Adam Smith to the close of John 

 Stuart Mill's activity that is, for fully one hundred years English political economy treated 

 the science of finance " (embracing the raising of revenue) " as nothing better than a scanty 

 appendage. It is a significant fact that no work worth mentioning on the science of 

 finance has yet (1889) been published in the English language, though some considerable 

 contributions have been made to financial history." CohCs 8de7ice of Fhiance. 



