214 HISTORY OF ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS 



the colossal wealth of individuals accumulated at the cost of the 

 lower and middle classes or is it developed concurrently with the 

 wealth of all classes? Opinions stand in violent opposition. A deter- 

 mination of the form which this relation has here taken would be 

 nothing less than decisive, for all the characteristics of the prevailing 

 tendency are here more pronounced than anywhere else and their 

 effects are typical, though only of course conditionally, for European 

 countries. The question naturally cannot be solved with the first 

 attempt, but it is capable of solution if all the different phenomena 

 of social and economic life are taken into account. 



American students could do us, science, and their own country 

 no greater service than by devoting themselves to the historical 

 investigation of their own economic life. We surely on our side 

 shall not fall behind them in the corresponding study of European 

 economic history. But here also comparison and cooperation in 

 the labor of the two halves of the world will prove exceedingly 

 fruitful and even decisive for progress. 



