April 23, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



377 



could get, or, on the contrary, to demand less 

 than his neighbor, and thus undersell him. The 

 great offences of mediaeval trade in England, for 

 instance, were regrating, forestalling, and engross- 

 ing, — buying in order to sell at enhanced prices, 

 intercepting goods on the way to market to pro- 

 cure them more cheaply, and keeping back wares 

 purchased at wholesale in order to strike a more 

 favorable bargain subsequently. But, above all, 

 great solicitude was shown for the interests of con- 

 sumers, and every precaution was observed to 

 preclude the possibility of overreaching the public. 

 It was deemed of paramount importance to watch 

 over every stage of production ; and the whole 

 institution of craft-guilds was nothing but an 

 adjunct to the municipal administration in the 

 endeavor to attain this end. Erroneous and mis- 

 guided as was some of this legislation, there is 

 no doubt that it was the outgrowth of moral 

 ideas, and to a certain extent justified by eco- 

 nomic necessities. Justum pretium was the 

 manifestation of a great moral principle, and un- 

 til the decay and disintegration of the guild sys- 

 tem, through the growth of competition and the 

 development of a distinctively capitalistic class, 

 s*et in, the mediaeval doctrines and institutions 

 were undeniably well suited to the exigencies of 

 economic life. 



3. The so-called mercantile system was simply 

 the manifestation, in one particular direction, of 

 the general mediaeval conception of national 

 polity. The commonly accepted notions of its 

 teachings form nothing but a distorted caricature, 

 and it would indeed be surprising if a set of ideas 

 upheld by the leading minds for many genera- 

 tions should be such a tissue of absurdities as some 

 would have us believe. The earliest writers, such 

 as Bodin in France (1578), and Stafford in Eng- 

 land (1581), had their attention called to the gen- 

 eral disarrangement of industry and prices, 

 caused in great part by the influx of bullion from 

 America and by the gradual development of com- 

 petition, as against custom. Their ideas, as ex- 

 panded in the seventeenth century by English 

 and continental economists, were simply to foster 

 industry, to increase population, and thus to bring 

 about a general prosperity. The great writers of 

 the times never entertained such an absurd idea 

 as that wealth consisted of money ; they, indeed, 

 had a somewhat exaggerated opinion of money 

 as an evidence of national prosperity, and some 

 of them laid undue weight on the importance of 

 the ' balance of trade ' argument : but then ulti- 

 mate aim was national aggrandizement through 

 industrial as well as commercial supremacy. The 

 economic policy of Colbert, of Frederick of Prus- 

 sia, does not at all correspond with the accounts 



usually advanced, and was in reality dictated by 

 considerations of the highest statesmanship, and 

 in many respects eminently well fitted to the 

 necessities of the period. The prominent English 

 writers of the seventeenth century, such as Child, 

 Petty, North, Locke, etc. , entertained opinions on 

 the subject of international trade, which closely 

 approximate to the principles laid down by Ricardo 

 and Cairnes in this century. Their ideas on the 

 nature of national wealth, moreover, were in the 

 main correct ; and they perceived and explained 

 with lucidity the shortcomings of the industrial 

 system, which was then gradually becoming un- 

 suited to the altered conditions of the period. 

 The English authors struggle for free trade, in 

 the sense of freedom of exportation ; the Italian 

 Serra (1613) invokes the principle of ' liberty of 

 contract ; ' the Frenchman Montchretien (1615) 

 does not think of subordinating agriculture and 

 industry to commerce. 



The mercantile system, even in its crudest form, 

 showed that statesmen and authors began to form 

 some conception of a national economy. Prac- 

 tical economic systems can never be entirely 

 divorced from political considerations ; and it is 

 these political considerations alone which enable 

 us to understand some of the fundamental mer- 

 cantilists notions, such as the desire for increased 

 population or the ' balance of power ' argument. 

 The mercantile system formed a fitting pendant 

 to the political attempts of the absolute monarchy, 

 which the new political science has taught us to 

 regard not only as a necessary, but as a most 

 salutary, step in the advance from mediaeval 

 feudalism to modern constitutionalism. The 

 doctrines themselves underwent a gradual modifi- 

 cation, and in their final form simply taught that 

 the real advantage lay in the stimulation of pro- 

 duction and the greater activity of industry. The 

 mercantile system had, at the time, undeniably a 

 certain historic justification. 



4. In the eighteenth century, however, the sys- 

 tem, with its restrictive measures and its illiberal 

 policy of national exclusiveness, had become an- 

 tiquated. Inquisitorial custom-houses and tariff 

 wars were multiplied ; industry was fairly throt- 

 tled by minute regulation of details : in France 

 alone four large quarto volumes were filled with 

 complicated, unintelligible, and contradictory 

 regulations of manufactures. The confusion was 

 heightened by the excesses of the monopolistic 

 companies and the degeneration of the craft- 

 guilds, which now, far from being welcome 

 auxiliaries to the municipal administration, had 

 become oppressive, exclusive bodies, with an 

 hereditary, caste-like organization. What won- 

 der, then, that a sect of men should arise who 



