HENRY CHARLES CAREY. 41T 



ASSOCIATE FELLOWS. 



HENRY CIIAKLES CAREY. 



Henry Charles Caret,* born in Philadelphia, Dec. 15, 1793, 

 was elected an Associate Fellow of this Academy Nov. 11, 1863. 

 By his death, which occurred Oct. 13, 1879, in his native city, 

 ' economic science has lost the most eminent of its American inves- 

 tigators. 



Mr. Carey was the son of Matthew Carey, an Irish exile who in 

 the earlier part of this century had become a man of mark in this 

 country both as a publisher and as a writer on economical and politi- 

 cal questions. The son took an important place in his father's estab- 

 lishment when only twelve years old, and upon his father's retirement 

 in 1821 became the leading partner in the well-remembered publishing 

 house of Carey and Lea ; and finally, after a prosperous career, retired 

 from active business in 1835, and from that time devoted his leisure 

 to economic science and to an extensive range of collateral inves- 

 tigations. Beginning with the publication of an essay on the Rate 

 of Wages in 1835, his fertility as an author continued until his death. 

 Thirteen octavo volumes and three thousand pages in pamphlet form 

 are the visible memorials of his activity, while it is estimated that twice 

 this amount of matter was contributed by him to the newspaper press. 

 When it is added that some of his more important works have been 

 translated into French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Rus- 

 sian, Magyar, and even Japanese, it is clear that few writers on 

 economic topics have had his power of commanding the attention 

 of readers and his opportunity for directing the course of scientific 

 thought. 



This remarkable success as an author, in a field not usually attrac- 

 tive to a wide circle of readers, was no doubt due in part to the 

 inherited fervor with which he entered into economic discussion, but 

 also in part to the boldness of his undertaking, which was nothing 

 less than a revolution in the methods and in the doctrines of political 

 economy. He began his work at a time when the English school ap- 

 peared to have exhausted its deductions from assumed premises, and 

 to be reluctant in applying its conclusions under the varied condi- 

 tions of society as it is. The agitation of social questions was gather- 



* Notice omitted in Vol. XV. 

 VOL. XVII. (n.s. IX.) 27 



