234 Annual Report of the Council. 



Javanovich. The second volume, devoted to agriculture 

 and its allied industries, appeared in 1859, and was also 

 translated into French by Wolowski, into Italian by 

 Luzzatti, and into Russian by Schtschepkin and Zimmer- 

 mann. The third volume, which deals with trade, monetary 

 systems, the exchanges, and manufacturing industry, did 

 not appear until after an interval of twelve years, in 1881, 

 and the fourth volume, on financial science, was published 

 in 1886. All these volumes, except the last, have gone 

 through many editions. In the third volume Roscher fully 

 justifies Wolowski's monetary theory, but throughout the 

 whole work the tone adopted is eminently judicial, while 

 the industry and scholarship displayed in the collection and 

 quotation of authorities on every statement in the text is 

 nothing less than marvellous. No other work on the 

 subject can be compared with it as a treasury of economic 

 facts and deductions. Other works may deal with particular 

 points in more elaborate detail ; but Roscher has presented 

 a comprehensive and analytical survey of all experience 

 and knowledge on the subject, distinguished by absolute 

 freedom from the doctrinaire spirit. His method of investi- 

 gation is eminently that of the unbiassed experimentalist in 

 physical science ; he seeks the truth rather than the confir- 

 mation of a theory. He defined political economy as the 

 facts of the development of the social life as well as of the 

 economic life of the people, and as embracing, like all social 

 science, the consideration not only of the individual man, 

 but of the human race. The speech, the religion, the art, 

 the science, the laws, the economic condition, the constitu- 

 tion of the State, the family life, are all factors in Roscher's 

 science, and the line of investigation in any particular case 

 must, in his opinion, be " not only historical but physio- 

 logical." It will be seen that Roscher was no teacher of 

 abstract dogmas by which the actions of men may be 

 foretold, or with which legislation must be squared. The 



