PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 587 
[t has not been my purpose in thus displaying the present position of abstract 
economics to deny its interest. Its study is certainly sharpening to the wits, and 
it is hardly likely that all the opposing doctrines are mistaken. It may be that in 
another quarter of a century opinions will have shaken themselves down and 
assumed their permanent places and proportions, and then the ‘system’ to which 
we shall have arrived may be of evident assistance in the understanding of life. 
Meanwhile, an Englishman may feel a just satisfaction in the width of sympathies 
and the sober balance of judgment which marks the chief English treatise of this 
period, and even an untheoretical reader will gratefully acknowledge the abundant 
help to be derived from Professor Marshall’s knowledge and insight. My purpose 
was simply to show that, though there has been a new growth of abstract 
speculation since the first phase of orthodoxy passed away, there has not emerged 
a second orthodoxy so far. There is no reason why those who think that a very 
moderate amount of general reasoning will go a long way in the interpretation of 
facts, when once these facts have been collected and arranged, should be so dazzled 
by any of the new systems as to be checked in their own more plodding career. 
Side by side, however, with all this activity in the field of theory—an activity 
which, it must be confessed, has almost monopolised the attention of professed 
economists—there has been a most remarkable awakening of interest in the actual 
economic history of our land. As I have already observed, the criticisms of the 
historical school have not led, so far, to the creation of a new political economy on 
historical lines ; even in Germany it is only within very recent years that some ot 
the larger outlines of such an economics have begun to loom up before us in the 
great treatise of Gustav Schmoller. But what has, at any rate, been secured in 
this country is a most substantial increase in the knowledge of our own economic 
past. How remarkable the progress has been we only realise when we begin to 
look back and take stock of our recent acquisitions. Five-and-twenty years ago 
interest in the subject was curiously languid. This had not always been the case. 
In the eighteenth century Anderson and Eden had brought together great collec- 
tions of material; and in the thirties and forties of last century the currency 
discussion had produced the work of Tooke, and pride in the new inventions a 
number of histories of particular trades. The most typical book of this later 
period, however, was the work of Ricardo’s brother-in-law, the first head of the 
Statistical Department of the Board of Trade. Porter's ‘ Progress of the Nation’ 
(1836-1843) was a prolonged statistical pean of triumph over the results ot 
growing enlightenment. The blessings of the new era having thus been displayed, 
it might seem asif it was hardly worth while to learn anything more about the 
past. Ifa student had inquired in 1880 for the best recent treatises dealing with 
our economic history at large, he would have been referred to Leone Levi's ‘ History 
of British Commerce’ from 1763, and to the first two volumes of Thorold Rogers’ 
‘History of Agriculture and Prices,’ coming down to 1400. The former was a 
useful compilation put together in the most unscientific and philistine spirit; the 
latter was the outcome of a vast amount of toil, but the material collected was not 
of such a nature as to afford a clear understanding of the fundamental institutions 
of the Middle Ages. Accordingly, those who began to interest themselves in such 
subjects were compelled to look abroad. In the works of Brentano, Ochenkowski, 
Schanz, Nasse, and Held they found, in varying degrees, a scientific method and a 
stimulus not to be met with at home; and there can be little wonder if they were 
inclined to assign to one or other of these German monographs more weight than 
really belonged to it. 
But the years 1882-1884 marked the beginning of a better time. Three 
books appeared, very different in their character, but each in its way opening 
-a new era. To Toynbee’s ‘ Industrial Revolution’ (1884) I have already referred. 
Its chief value lay in its showing how impartial investigation of the past could 
be combined with ardent enthusiasm for social improvement. Shortly before, 
Dr. Cunningham’s ‘Growth of English History and Commerce’ (1882) had 
given us for the first time a treatise which attempted to cover the whole 
historical ground. It was the forerunner of those enlarged and rewritten 
editions which have grown into the three stately volumes now on our shelves. 
