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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 168 



the state ; in the middle ages we have found a 

 civilization founded on the all - engrossing con- 

 ception of justum pretium; at the beginning of 

 the nineteenth century we notice a regime of 

 pure individualism, of unalloyed free competition. 

 Must we not confess the relative justifiability of 

 the early municipal regulations of trade and in- 

 dustry, or the bullionist idea of hoards of precious 

 metals, in a time when warfare was perpetual 

 and bills of exchange unknown ? The truly his- 

 torical mind will acknowledge, with Adam Smith, 

 the immense benefits of Cromwell's navigation 

 act, but will rejoice, with Cobden, at the repeal 

 of the corn-laws ; he will praise, with Gournay, 

 the attempts to unshackle industry, but will de- 

 plore Eicardo's opposition to the factory acts ; he 

 will applaud Bentham's demolition of the usury 

 laws, but will realize the legitimacy of recent en- 

 deavors to avoid the unquestioned evil of absolute 

 liberty in loans. He will, in one word, maintain 

 the relativity of theory ; he will divest the so- 

 called absolute laws of much of their sanctity, 

 and thus henceforth render impossible the base- 

 less superstition that all problems can be solved 

 by appeal to the fiat of bygone economists. 



But, second, we must repudiate the assertion 

 that the new movement is a German movement. 

 The discontent with the continued application of 

 antiquated doctrines made itself felt in the valley 

 of the Po, in the heart of New England, and on 

 the banks of the Thames. It is true that Germans 

 happened to formulate the discontent more sys- 

 tematically at first ; but the present movement 

 would ultimately have attained the same propor- 

 tions had Roscher and Knies never lived, just as 

 Adam Smith would have expressed his ideas had 

 the physiocrats never existed. The new school is 

 the product of the age, of the Zeitgeist, not of any 

 particular country ; for the underlying evolution- 

 ary thoughts of a generation sweep resistlessly 

 throughout all countries whose social conditions 

 are ripe for a change. The more extreme of the 

 Germans, moreover, have themselves overshot the 

 mark, have unduly undervalued the work of the 

 English school, and have in their zeal too dog- 

 matically denied the possibility of formulating 

 any general laws. 



Finally, we have established the continuity of 

 political economy. The history of economics 

 demonstrates how certain doctrines arose, devel- 

 oped in succeeding generations, and were ulti- 

 mately overthrown, or, on the contrary, shown to 

 be fundamental truths ; how the teachings of suc- 

 cessive schools or of individual writers developed 

 the germ of scientific explanation, expanded the 

 law and gradually stripped it of its inaccuracies 

 and redundancies, until many of the complicated 



phenomena were shown to be manifestations of 

 distinct and well-settled principles. The doctrine 

 of international exchanges underwent a progres- 

 sive modification, from Hume, Smith, Say, Ri- 

 cardo, Mill, to Cairnes and Roscher. The theory 

 of the wages-fund, on the other hand, as formu- 

 lated by Turgot, Malthus, Senior, and McCulloch, 

 was discredited by Herrmann and Sismondi, until 

 finally overthrown by Longe, Brentano, and 

 Walker ; and in like manner with every other 

 principle. The new movement in political econ- 

 omy simply intonates this progressive continuity. 

 It maintains that the explanations of phenomena 

 are inextricably interwoven with the institutions 

 of the period, and that the practical conclusions 

 must not be disassociated from the shifting neces- 

 sities of the age. We accept with gratitude the 

 results of former economists, as containing much 

 of what was true at the time ; but we protest 

 against the acceptance of all their principles as 

 practical guides for the present generation. We 

 use the preliminary results of former decades as 

 forming approximately secure bases ; but we de- 

 sire to erect a structure more suitable to the 

 exigencies of the present. The paramount ques- 

 tion of political economy to-day is the question of 

 distribution, and in it the social problem (the 

 question of labor, of the laborer), — how, consist- 

 ently with a healthy development on the lines of 

 moderate progress, social reform may be accom- 

 plished ; how and in what degree the chasm be- 

 tween the ' haves ' and the ' have-nots ' may be 

 bridged over ; how and in what degree private 

 initiative and governmental action may strive, 

 separately or conjointly, to lessen the tension of 

 industrial existence, to render the life of the 

 largest social class indeed worth living. This and 

 the other complex problems of the present day 

 cannot be solved by a simple adherence to the 

 principles of a bygone generation. The tenets of 

 a bald individualism have been placed in the 

 scales of experience, and have been found want- 

 ing. The continuity of political economy incul- 

 cates the lesson, no less profound than salutary, 

 that there still remains something to be learned, 

 and much to be done, before its teachings can be 

 accepted as the loadstars of the present genera- 

 tion, — a lesson whose recognition will preserve us 

 from two violent extremes : that of falling into a 

 state of quiescent conservatism, which regards 

 all that is as good ; or that of adopting the vaga- 

 ries of the radicals, who look upon all that is as 

 bad, and who consider the foundations of the 

 science itself as unsatisfactory as the positive in- 

 stitutions. The continuity of political economy 

 teaches, in other words, the golden mean. 



Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D. 



