SCOPE AND METHOD OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 59 



He describes in his journal under date of April 30, 1801, his sys- 

 tematic manner of approach: " In the afternoon Lord Webb and 

 I made our second attack upon Smith's Wealth of Nations, and 

 finished, for the present, the subject of the division of labor. Our 

 mode of reading is, first to go through each chapter with a minute 

 attention to the accuracy of the argument, endeavoring at the same 

 time to recollect all the illustrations by which we can either confirm, 

 contradict, or modify his general principles; when we have read as 

 many chapters as make a complete subject of itself, we review the 

 whole in a more general manner, and take a note of such subjects of 

 future investigation as seem necessary to complete the theory." 

 From the detailed study of Adam Smith, young Horner passed to the 

 writings of the Economistes, finding comfort in Lauderdale's remark 

 that he (Lauderdale) " had repeatedly left the study of the Tableau 

 Economique, cursing himself for a block-head." When Adam 

 Smith's perplexing fifth chapter on value and price proved a maze, 

 he sought the clue in the currency tracts of Rice Yaughan, Harris, 

 Bodin, Lowncles, and Locke. 



It is to this fact of earnest and enthusiastic study, rather than to 

 any formal principle of schematization or methodology that we must 

 ascribe the Ricardians' easy use of the term " the science of political 

 economy." When Ricardo writes to Hutches Trower: " 1 am very 

 sorry to be obliged to agree with you that there are a very few who 

 are perfect masters of the science of political economy," or when he 

 states that it is in the domain of taxation that " the most perfect 

 knowledge of the science is required " the concept of science 

 which he has in mind is a body of principles relating to the pro- 

 duction and distribution of wealth, obtained by systematic observa- 

 tion of actual phenomena on the part of a group of capable minds and 

 made useful by affording governments the possibility of wise economic 

 policies. 



Sixty years after the Wealth of Nations was published, at the very 

 close of the first half of the century and a quarter that go to make up 

 the modern history of economic study, virtual unanimity had been 

 reached as to the changed purpose of economic inquiry. Rules of 

 governmental conduct had passed from primary to secondary 

 endeavor, and conceived as a science, political economy has become 

 the study of the phenomena of wealth, having for its object the 

 formulation of a body of abstract principles which should be capable 

 in their application of shaping public policy in economic affairs. 



In 1837, Senior formulated the distinction by differentiating 

 theoretical political economy, which " explains the nature, production, 

 and distribution of wealth " from practical political economy, which 

 " ascertains what institutions are most favorable to wealth." John 

 Stuart Mill and Cairnes took practically the same view, and with 



