As the title-page implies, the work was originally begun at the suggestion of the late Professor Smart of Glasgow, and to-day more than ever I am conscious of what I owe to his kindly criticism and genial encouragement.
The passage of the book through the press has been watched with assiduous care by Mr. C. C. Wood, who is also responsible for the Index at the end of the volume. I can scarcely express the measure of my indebtedness to him. To my friends Mr. W. H. Porter, M.A., and Mr. J. G. Williams, M.A., both of Bangor, I am also indebted for reading some of the proofs.
R. RICHARDS
PREFACE
In the economic curricula of French universities much greater stress is laid upon the history of economic theory than is the case anywhere else. Attached to the Faculty of Law in each of these universities is a separate chair specially devoted to this subject; at the examination for the doctor’s degree a special paper is set in the history of theory, and if necessary further proof of competence is demanded from the student before his final admission to the degree. At the Sorbonne, where there is only one chair in economics, that chair is exclusively devoted to the history of doctrines, and the same is true of the chair recently founded at the École des Hautes Études.
Such prominence given to the history of theory must seem excessive, especially when it is remembered that in economic history, as distinct from the history of economics, there is not a single chair in the whole of France. Those who believe that the French people are somewhat prone to ideology will not fail to see in this fact a somewhat unfortunate manifestation of that tendency. Elsewhere the positions are reversed, the premier place being given to the study of facts rather than ideas. Extreme partisans of the historical method, especially the advocates of historical materialism, regard doctrines and systems as nothing better than a pale reflection of facts. It is a part of their belief that facts are the only things that matter, and that the history of the evolution of property or the rise of the wage system may prove quite as instructive as the history of the controversies concerning the nature of the right of property or the wages-fund theory.
Such views as we have just expressed, however, are not altogether devoid of exaggeration, though of a kind directly opposite to that which we would naturally impute to them. The influence exerted by the economic environment, whence even the most abstract economist gets material for reflection and the exercise of his logical acumen, is indisputable. The problems which the theorist has to solve are suggested by the rise of certain phenomena which at one moment cut a very prominent figure and at another disappear altogether. Such problems must vary in different places and at different times. The peculiar economic condition in which England found herself at the beginning of the nineteenth century had a great deal to do in directing Ricardo’s thought to the study of the problems of rent and note issue. But for the advent of machinery, with the subsequent increase in industrial activity and the parallel growth of a proletarian class, followed by the recurrence of economic crises, we may be certain that neither the doctrine of Sismondi nor that of Karl Marx would ever have seen the light of day. It is equally safe to assume that the attention which economists have recently bestowed upon the theory of monopoly is not altogether unconnected with the contemporary development of the trust movement.