Section VI.. Paper Money—a Curse or a Blessing?

Paper Money—A Curse Or A Blessing?

Considering the double-edged-sword character of this mighty instrument,(946) and the frightful consequences which its abuse produces, it is easy to conceive why so many political economists have expressed such serious doubts as to whether, on the whole, the invention of paper money has been more of a curse or of a blessing to mankind. The controversy is an idle one to a certain extent, since no mature nation (or individual), and no nation which considers itself mature will renounce the possibility of a brilliant growth simply because it fears that it may not be able to withstand the temptations to dangerous abuse connected therewith. Politically, the best safeguard against such temptation is a so-called moderate constitution, which compels the supreme power in the state by wise and appropriate counterweights, to allow all rightful interests to assert themselves, or at least to find expression; and itself to make use not only of the most skillful but also of the most highly esteemed instruments and measures. Such a constitution, indeed, cannot be made; it must be the ripe fruit of a long continued and well conducted national life.(947) Of the extremes of forms of government, unlimited monarchy and democracy are about equally exposed to the paper-money disease.(948) Aristocracies are less exposed to it, for the reason that from their very nature they eschew centralization; and the paper-money system is intimately connected with the latter. Nothing so strengthens the central authority as the paper-prerogative with an unlimited power over the prices of all commodities; and, on the other hand, whenever paper money is to have a wide field for action, there is supposed(949) a far-reaching and intimate interwearing of the different members of the nation’s economy with one another. And in what concerns the various economic stages, paper money is far removed from all medieval times; and for the same reasons that make external commerce here preponderant and condense all commerce into caravans, staple-towns, fairs, and recommend the collection of treasure etc.(950) Later, on the other hand, we find two stages especially adapted to paper money. We have first, as yet undeveloped but intellectually active (and therefore desirous of progress) colonial countries, possessed in abundance of natural means of production without however being able to concentrate them into the hands of an undertaker (Unternehmer) for want of money.(951) Here both the saving of the precious metals and the facilitation of transportation effected by means of paper money are of greatest utility. And then we have very highly developed and rich countries; not only because their economic popular education may protect them against the dangers of paper money, but because the rich man has relatively least need of money and may dispense with stores of specie most readily, because of his influence over the supply of others.(952)

FOOTNOTES

1 The author’s preface to the twelfth edition is confined to pointing out the improvements etc., made in the eleventh. There is no new preface to the thirteenth edition of the original, which appeared in 1877.—TRANSLATOR.

2 “We shall never thoroughly understand the reason of customary law unless we also have a knowledge of that which is not customary. The one is connected and bound to the other. We have no slaves; why vex ourselves with questions about slaves?—Words worthy of a novice.”

3 “I am a man; I think nothing foreign to me that pertains to man.”

4 “That excellent and glorious philosophy.”

5 Introduction to the Civilistisches Magazin.

6 Dunoyer, De la Liberté du Travail.

7 Cicero, De Leg., I.

8 Discours Préliminaire du Code Civil.

9 Cicero, De Leg., II, 4. “Legem neque hominum ingeniis excogitatam, nec scitum aliquod esse populorum, sed æternum quiddam quod universum mundum regeret, imperandi, prohibendique sapientia.” Ibid.

10 Revue de Législ. et de Jurispr. (1841, XIII, p. 39.) Montesquieu says: “The relations of justice and equity are anterior to all positive laws.”

11 Mr. Wolowski translated the second edition of Roscher’s Principles into French, and prefixed the present essay thereto as a preface. Since Wolowski’s translation appeared, the original work has gone through eleven editions, been largely increased in size, and enriched with new notes, the result of nearly twenty additional years of research and thought. The thirteenth German edition, from which the present translation is made, is larger than the first by one hundred and seventy pages.—Translator’s note.

12 And he adds: “Animals which yield only to an impulse or blind instinct, come together only fortuitously or periodically and in a manner destitute of all morality. But in the case of men, reason is mixed up more or less with every act of their lives. Sentiment is found side by side with desire, and right succeeds instinct. I discover a real contract in the union of the two sexes.”

It would be impossible to present a more complete or eloquent refutation of the definition of the Roman jurisconsults which debases marriage to the level of the promiscuous coming together of animals, and which limits the natural law to the law common to man and beast. “Jus naturale est quod natura omnia animalia docuit; nam jus istud non humani generis proprium, sed omnium animalium quæ in terra, quæ in mare nascuntur, avium quoque commune est. Hinc descendit maris atque feminæ conjunctio, quam nos matrimonium appellamus, hinc liberorum procreatio, hinc educatio; videmus etenim cætera quoque animalia, feras etiam, istius juris peritia censeri.” D. L. I. De Just. et Jure.

13 Comment. in tit. Dig., De Just. et Jure, VII, 11th Naples edition. The ingenious argument of the great jurisconsult falls to the ground under the beautiful words of Cicero: “Ut justitia, ita jus sine ratione non consistit; soli ratione utentes jure ac lege vivunt.” De Natura Deorum, II, 62. “Virtus ratione constat, brutæ ratione non utuntur, cujus sunt expertia, ergo jure non vivunt, et ut rationis, sic jures sunt expertia.” Besides, Cujas himself recognizes how faulty and incomplete was the definition he was defending: “At ne jus quidem naturale, de quo agimus, est commune omnium animalium quatenus rationale, est, sed quatenus sensible est, sensui congruit. Tullius participare hominem cum brutis eo quod sentit, sed ratione ab eo differre. Et alio loco: jus naturale esse commune omnium Quiritium, veluti ut se velint tueri: sed hoc distare hominem a bellua, quod bellua sensu moveatur, homo etiam ratione.”

14 Rossi.

15 Politics, I, ch. I, II.

16 Ueber die Nothwendigkeit eines Allgemeinen burgerlichen Rechts fur Deutschland.

17 Vom Beruf unserer Zeit für Gesetzgebung etc.

18 In one of his latest productions (Ueber die sogennante historische und nicht historische Rechtsschule, Archives du Droit Civil, Heidelberg, XXI 1838) the veteran of the philosophical school, resuming a debate begun a quarter of a century before, energetically defends himself against the erroneous interpretations which it was sought to give to his thoughts. “Does it follow,” he inquires, “that because a man is desirous of reform, he must surrender the study of the past? And if there be new laws to construe, how could his evil genius deter him from the necessary knowledge of ancient laws? Is there a single jurisconsult, who, in the hope of a better future, despises the meaning and spirit of that which still exists? I do not know even one.... And when I am accused of passing by the institutions of the past with coldness and hatred in my heart, because I was one of the first to express the hope of a better future, a charge is laid at my door which is perfectly incomprehensible ... I am reproached with despising the history of law. It is a slander on me. Although I have only laughed at these reports, one man’s mistake grieved me; for that man’s name was Niebuhr.... When he [Niebuhr] returned from Italy to devote himself entirely to science, in his retreat at Bonn, he passed through Heidelberg, where he remained five or six days. During a great part of that time we came frequently together. He was at first a little cold; but Cicero made us friends. After a happy word let drop concerning that writer, he asked me what I thought of him. I answered laconically: ‘If they were burning all the Latin authors, and I were permitted to grant a pardon to one of them, I should say, without hesitation: Spare the works of Cicero.’ He joyfully exclaimed: ‘I have at last found a man who judges rightly of Cicero. I share your admiration for him, and that is the reason I have given my boy the name of Marcus.’ The ice was now broken, and he frankly told me that he could not understand how I could be an inveterate enemy of Roman law and of the history of law. I gave him to understand that I had simply been slandered, and I added, that, in order to live entirely with the classics, I had always refused to give legal advice, or act as a counsellor, although I might have made a fortune in that way. I told him that I owed my gayety and vigor, in great part, to my love for the classics of all ages, even those outside the domain of jurisprudence; but that I held, above all things, to the good qualities of the German nation, and that I did not hesitate to say with Facciolatus: ‘Expedit omnes gentes Romanis legibus operam dare, suis vivere.’

“When he heard those words of mine, he exclaimed with his usual energy and vivacity: ‘Habes me consentientem, labes me consentientem.’ From that moment all coldness between us was at an end, and we approached, without any embarrassment, a host of questions in one conversation in which I endeavored, as I had before, to learn from him.

“Thus I receive with sincere gratitude, all the works, both useful and profound, which have appeared in our day on the history of law. It would be folly in me to deny the impetus which the study of positive law has received. New sources have been discovered. Their newness and importance have excited the zeal of many scholars who have studied them profoundly; a fact which made a review of the older sources, still by far the most important, necessary. These two circumstances soon rendered it imperative to proceed to the making of scrupulous dogmatic researches. Thus there now is a new life among jurisconsults, and a great activity, which, it is my hope, may continue long.”

19 Revue de Législ. et de Jurisprudence, 1834-35.

20 Rossi.

21 M. de Bonald.

22 M. Cousin has brought this out in an admirable manner in his lectures on Adam Smith. Cours de Philosophie Moderne.

23 Channing.

24 Knies. Die politische Œkonomie vom Standpunkte der geschichtlichen Methode, Braunschweig, 1853.

25 Cours Complet d’ Economie politique, II, 540, éd. Guillaumin.

26 Cousin.

27 We here append an extract from Heinrich Contzen’s Geschichte, Literatur, und Bedeutung der Nationalökonomie, Cassel und Leipzig, 1876, p. 7: “Roscher ... is rightfully considered the real founder and the principal representative of the historical school. This school is continually gaining in extent, and has found, both in Germany and in France, the most distinguished disciples—men who honor Roscher as their teacher and master, the leader whose beacon light they follow. Roscher combines the richest positive learning with rare clearness and plastic beauty in the presentation of his thought. These are conceded to him on every hand; and it does not detract from him, or alter the fact that he possesses them, that, here and there, an ill-humored or maliciously snappish critic calls them in question.” It should be borne in mind here that Wolowski wrote in 1857; Contzen, like Wolowski, a politico-economical writer of mark, in 1876.—Translator’s note.

28 Leben, Werk und Zeitalter des Thukydides.

29 Rau’s Archiv., Heidelberg. This remarkable essay has since appeared in Roscher’s Ansichten der Volkswirthschalt vom geschichtlichen Standpunkte, 1861.—Translator’s note.

30 Grundriss zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach geschichtlichen Methode.

31 Berliner Zeitschrift für allgem Geschichte.

32 Ueber Kornhandel und Theuerungspolitik, 3d ed., 1852.

33 Untersuchungen über das Kolonialwesen.

34 Umrisse zur Naturlehre der drei Staatsformen (Berliner Zeitschrift, 1847-1848).

35 Ueber das Verhältniss der Nationalökonomie zum klassischen Alterthume (K. Sachs Akademie der Wissenschaft, 1849). Also to be found in Roscher’s Ansichten etc.—Translator.

36 Zur Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre im 16 und 17 Jahrh.

37 Ein nationalökonom. Princep der Forstwirthschaft.

38 Roscher’s complete work he calls “A System of Political Economy.” It embraces the four parts above referred to; but each of these parts constitutes an independent work. The first part, or the Principles of Political Economy, covers the ground generally covered by English treatises on Political Economy.

Besides the works above mentioned, Professor Roscher has written Ansichten der Volkswirthschaft aus dem geschichtlichen Standpunkte, 2d ed., Leipzig, 1861; Die deutche Nationalökonomik an der Grenzscheide des sechszehnten und siebenzehnten Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1862; Gründungsgeschichte des Zollvereins, Berlin, 1870; Betrachtungen über die geographische Lage der grossen Städte, Leipzig, 1871; Bertrachtungen über die Währungsfrage der deutschen Münzreform, Berlin, 1872; Geschichte der Nationalökonomik in Deutschland, Munich, 1874; Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, 8th ed., Stuttgart, 1875.—Translator’s note.

39 Die politische Œkonomie vom Standpunkte der geschichtlichen Methode.

40 Die National Œkonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft.

41 Recherches sur les Finances de France.

42 Frédéric Passy, de la Contrainte et de la Liberté.

43 Poor peasantry, poor kingdom; poor kingdom, poor sovereign.

44 Cours d’ Econ. polit., 2e., Leçon I, p. 33.

45 This would be: Propter vitiam, vitæ perdere causas.

46 Cousin, loc. cit., p. 276.

47 Ibid., 274.

48 Frédéric Passy: De la Contrainte et de la Liberté.

49 Schäffle, Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift (1861), emphasizes this. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776), very characteristically, begins with the yearly labor of the nation; J. B. Say (Traité d’Economie Politique, 1802), with richesses; Ricardo (Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817), with the idea of value.

50 The sum total of the wants (Bedarf) of the Bavarian people, for a whole year, is estimated by Hermann, Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen (2d ed., 1870, p. 81), at 177,000,000 florins for food (77 millions for wheat and potatoes, 69 millions for meat, 15 millions for milk etc., 16 millions for eggs, vegetables, salt and spices); 50 millions for clothing, 45 millions for shelter, 37.5 millions for fuel, 60 millions for beverages.

51 The original adds: deren Gesammtheit sein Bedarf heisst; the aggregate of which is called his [man’s] Requisite (Bedarf). There being no exact equivalent in English for the word Bedarf in this connection, this note is appended.—Translator.

52 According to Boisguillebert (ob. 1714) Traité des Grains, I., c. 4, the wants nécessaire, commode, délicat, superflu, magnifique, arise in successive order with increasing welfare or prosperity, and are surrendered in a reverse order, with increasing need. Tucker distinguishes necessaries, comforts, and conveniences of the respective conditions, elegancies and refinements, and lastly, “grand and magnificent.” (Two Sermons, 1774, 29 ff.); F. B. W. Hermann, loc. cit, 1st, ed., 1832, 68; necessary goods (Güter der Nothdurft), goods that contribute to pleasure and recuperation, to culture and splendor.

53 Compare Tucker, On the Naturalization Bill (1751 seq.), IV, note.

54 No people without fire (Prometheus!); and it seems that broiling was the earliest mode of preparing food; then followed baking in heated cavities, and lastly came boiling in vessels. (Klemm, Allgemeine Kulturgeschichte, I, 180, 343.)

55 There is an interesting attempt by Faucher, in the Vierteljahrsschrift für Volkswirthschaft und Kulturgeschichte, 1868, III, 148 ff., to determine the relative place of our various wants according to their capacity for extension or contraction.

56 The qualification “true,” excludes from the circle of goods, not only all those things which might satisfy only irrational or immoral wants (compare Mischler, Grundsätze der Nationalökonomie, 1856, I, 187), but also vindicates the fundamental idea of the whole system of Political Economy, as a subject of moral as well as of psychological investigation.

57 Even Aristotle (Eth. nicom. V, 8), considers that all things intended to enter into commerce, should be susceptible of comparison with one another, and that the measure of this comparison is want, which is the foundation of all association among men.

58 An Arab helped pillage a caravan, and carried away, as his share of the booty, a chest of pearls. He thought it a box of rice, and gave them to his wife to cook, but finding they did not boil tender, he threw them away. (Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 383). See a similar anecdote in Ammian. Marcell., XXII. Compare Strabo, VIII, 381.

59 As soon as the Persians renounce the superstition that the daily contemplation of a turquoise is a talisman against the "evil eye" (K. Ritter, Erdkunde, VIII, 327), that precious stone will lose much of its value. On the other hand, the amulets of antiquity, although they have long lost the quality of goods as objects of superstition, have now a real value for the archæologist.

60 Since observation shows, that, as time runs on, matter tends more and more to become goods, the blind forms of motion in nature to become useful labor and useful sustenance, impersonal and objectless existence to be transformed into personal property and personal culture, Schäffle inclines to the belief that the whole mechanism of unconsciously governing nature is destined ultimately to aid in the realization of moral good, which alone is really valuable. Das gesellschaftliche System der menschlichen Wirthschaft, III, Auff., 1873, I, 3.

61 Hermann, loc. cit, 1st ed., I, calls internal goods whatever each of us finds in himself, the free gift of nature; also that which we develop in ourselves by our own free action; and external, whatever we create or obtain, through the external world, as a means of satisfying our wants. The internal goods of one man may be external goods to another, as, for instance, when the former conveys them directly to the latter to be enjoyed, by words, demeanor, etc., or indirectly, in combination with other external goods.

62 The exclusion of all else, has, indeed, been called one-sidedness and materialism. But, as Senior says, no one blames the writer on tactics, because he confines his attention to military subjects; nor is the objection raised, that by so doing, he is encouraging eternal war. On the other hand, J. B. Storch (1815) devoted a special division of his work to the consideration of “internal goods” (health, knowledge, morality, security, leisure,.etc.). See Rau’s translation of his Manual, II, 337 ff. Compare Gioja, Nuovo Prospetto delle Scienze economiche, 1815 ff. VIII.

63 The inclination to exchange is, according to Adam Smith, one of the most important marks which distinguish man from the brute. (Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 2). But see Büsch, Geldumlanf (1780), I, § 29, on exchange among the lower animals.

64 Observed by Aristot. Polit. I, ch. 6.

65 The efforts of political economists to select from among the infinite number of goods, those which should constitute the subject of their investigations, have taken two directions in recent times. Bastiat here confines himself too exclusively to commerce. The political economist should concern himself only with wants and satisfactions, where the labor, which is the connecting link between them, is undertaken by some other person for a consideration. Thus the ordinary act of respiration lies outside the circle, that of the diver, which is paid for, does not. (Harmonies économiques, 1850, 68 ff.) But even Robinson Crusoe had his own system of economy. Are the products which the farmer consumes in his own home, the work he does himself, any the less matters of economic moment than the products he sells, or the labors of his servants? Schäffle is right when he says that ordinary respiration is no economic function, because it is an unconscious necessity of nature. But his definition is too broad, inasmuch as he places the essence of the economic character of goods or of an act, in the conscious adaptation of means to human ends. (Tübinger Progr. z. 27 Sept. 1862, 9, 24 seq.) To take a walk is no economic operation, although it may be the best means to a very important end,—health. The same goods or the same act may have, frequently, according to the end proposed, an economic or non-economic character. The beauty of the human body, for instance, however systematically made use of for purposes of vanity, is not economic goods. But it is an economic speculation, base though it be, when a man relies on his handsome figure to secure a wealthy wife, or, for purposes of gain, allows her to pose as a model to artists or to take part in tableaux vivants. According to C. Menger, Grundsätze der Volkswirthschaftslehre (1871) I, 51 ff., there are no economic goods, but those the disposable supply of which is, at most, equal to the quantity that is required. But is not the largest navigable stream, even in the most thinly populated country, an economic good?

66 Hegel, Rechtsphilosophie, § 67. Even the use of a corpse as manure, or for any mercantile purpose, is repugnant to our feelings, “because of the dignity of personality.” (Schäffle, National Œkonomie, 1860, 28.) In this respect, prostitution is a remnant of slavery. Schäffle is right, when he says that to repay personal services with material commodities which do not afford as much food etc., as the former have cost in expenditure of vital energy, is a slow and frequently a very cruel kind of cannibalism. (Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 1870, 18).

67 Bornitz, De rerum Sufficientia in Republica procuranda, 1625, gives in this encyclopædia of political science, together with a dissertation on agriculture, commerce and manufactures, a complete survey of the ministeria. Several modern writers refuse to look upon personal services, or the ability to render such services, as elements of wealth: compare Kaufmann, Untersuchungen im Gebiete der politischen Œkonomie, 1830, II, Heft I. They demonstrate, however, no more than this, that that class of goods has something very peculiar. Thus Malthus, Principles of Political Economy (1820), chap. I, sect. I, objects that they cannot be inventoried or taxed; but can material goods be so completely? Can all the parts of the wealth of a nation be so inventoried and taxed? Rau, Lehrbuch der pol. Œkonomie (1826) I, § 46, remarks that the personal aptitude to perform services dies with the person, and that personal services cannot be stored up (?), etc. I appeal simply to the definition I have given above of economic goods, and which applies equally to services of every kind which can be performed for other people. Besides, those who oppose this view are unable to give a satisfactory explanation of all the phenomena of commerce. Of course, the qualification “recognized as useful” is of the utmost importance as a mark to determine what is goods. But a prima donna, or a world-renowned physician, cast naked by shipwreck on the shores of North America, is certainly, better off than a blind beggar, his fellow sufferer. Compare Storch, Handbuch II, 335 ff. and his Considérations sur la Nature du Revenu National.

68 Ad. Müller compares persons, so far as they render any kind of service, to things, and, so far as they are required to be preserved in their individuality, to persons. The children in the “status” of a country gentleman, for instance, are treated more as persons, and domestics, more like things; the land partakes of a species of personality, but not the implements of labor. (Nothwendigkeit einer theolog. Grundlage der Staatswissenschaft, 1819, 48.)

69 The privilege of selling refreshments in the garden of the Palais Royal was formerly let for 38,000 francs a year.

70 See the cases cited by Hermann, Staatswirtsch. Untersuchungen, 6 ff. and by Bernoulli, Schweiz. Archiv. für Statistik und N. Œkon. II, 55. Think of the firm of J. M. Farina! In Athens, good stands were leased at a very high rent, even where there was no investment of the lessee’s capital. (Demosthenes, pro. Phorm., 948; adv. Steph. I, iiii.) There is, again, the sale of inventions, while they are still “mere ideas.” According to Schäffle, Theorie der ausschliessendnen Verhältnisse, 1857, II ff., the value in exchange of these relations depends on the extra income which is assured in fact, or in law, against diminution, by the exclusion of competition. He, therefore, recommends, instead of the word “relations,” “custom,” or “publicum.” But these words, by no means, exhaust the meaning expressed by “relation.” Thus, the good administration of public affairs, although it has no value in exchange, is one of the most valuable economic goods which a people can possess.

71 The relation mentioned above of a general to an army may even have great value in exchange. Instance, the Italian condottieri in the fifteenth century!

72 Relations which take from one man, as much as they afford to their possessor, are of value as components of a man’s private fortune, but not of the wealth of the nation. To this class belong debts due from persons or from things, compulsory custom or good-will of every description; as for instance, the seventy-two places of the agents de change in Paris, each of which was worth more than a million of francs; or the right of navigating the Elbe as far as Magdeburg, which, about the beginning of this century, was worth in every instance about 10,000 thalers. (Krug, Abriss. der St. Œkonomie, 62.)

73 Schäffle, N. Œkonomie, 10. In the German language, this same word is used to designate utility, and sometimes useful objects (so called values). A clear distinction, however, should be made between utility and value in use. Utility is a quality of things themselves, in relation, it is true, to human wants. Value in use is a quality imputed to them, the result of man’s thought, or of his view of them. Thus, for instance, in a beleagured city, the stores of food do not increase in utility, but their value in use does. Compare Schäffle, System, III, I, 170.

74 Genovesi, Economia civile (1869), II, I, 7. L. Say, De la Richesse individuelle et de la Richesse publique (1827), 29, estimates the value of goods according to the degree of discomfort attendant on the privation of them.

75 Friedländer has, however, made a general attempt in this direction. Theorie des Werthes (Dorpat, 1852). But says Th. Fix (Journal des Economistes, 1844, IX, 12): “It is as impossible to establish a scale of values, as it is to find an exact mathematical and permanent measure of our wants, passions, desires, tastes and fancies.”

76 Compare Knies, Geld und Credit, 1873, I, 126 ff. The very respectable attempt made by A. Samter, Sociallehre (1875), with the idea society-value (Gesellschaftswerth) covers too nearly the idea of value in exchange. Further research will here have to be made, with the idea of “impotent need,” inasmuch as, from a high ethical, national-dietetical point of view, the question is asked whether, to what extent, and how, “impotent need” may be made a potent one.

77 Friedländer, loc. cit, 50. If too many copies of the very best book be published, there is a certainty that a number of them will remain little better than waste paper.

78 Schäffle, System, II, aufl., 55. See also his Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 1870, 31, 35, 43.

79 Thus Kleinwächter (Hildebrand’s Jahrbücher für N. Oek. und Statistik, 1867, II, 318), defines value in exchange=value in use + costliness. According to Schäffle, it is “a covert comparison between the cost-value and the value in use of the two kinds of goods to be exchanged.” (Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 35.)

80 An intermediate dealer can, so far as he is himself concerned, attribute value in exchange to goods only to the extent that they have use for the last person who has acquired them. Hence, Storch calls value in use immediate, and value in exchange, mediate value. As the English are always wont to express the immediate in words of Germanic origin, and the mediate in words borrowed from the Latin, Locke calls value in use “worth,” and value in exchange, simply “value.” (K. Marx, Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Œkonomie, 1867, I, 2.)

81 It is, of course, otherwise when, for instance, a beautiful sea view, or a desirable position as regards air and sunshine, is connected with a piece of land.

82 In Ravenna a cistern had greater value in exchange than a vineyard: Martial, III, 56. In Paris, too, drinking water, which is transported only with considerable trouble, costs 1-1/3 thalers per cubic meter. We may also mention snow and ice in summer, which last sells in the capitals of southern Europe at 0.34, silber groschens per pound. According to Carey, “utility” is the measure of man’s power over nature, “value,” the measure of nature’s power over man. He very inaccurately adds, that both are always in an opposite direction. (Principles of Social Science, 1861, VI, ch. 9.)

83 Hence Ad. Müller calls value in use, individual value, and value in exchange, social value. The Germans call the value of goods whose value in use is recognized by only one person, Affectionswerth, (affection-value) a value which influences its value in exchange only when the individual who holds it in high esteem is not himself the possessor of the goods. An instance of this latter is a piece of paper covered with notes, intelligible only to the maker of them.

84 The very important difference between value in use and value in exchange was recognized oven by Aristotle. Aristot. Pol. I, 9. Hutchinson, System of Moral Philosophy (1755), II, 53 ff. The Physiocrates speak very frequently of valeur usuelle and vénale, on which, according to Dupont, Physiocratie, CXVIII, the difference between biens and richesses is based. La valeur d’un septicr de blé, considéré comme richesse ne consiste que dans son prix. (Quesnay, éd. Daire, 300.) Turgot distinguishes between “valeur estimative” and “échangeable or appréciative;” the former designating the relation between the amount of energy, physical and mental, which one is willing to spend in order to obtain the goods, to the sum total of his energies, physical and mental; the latter the relation between the aggregate like energy of two persons which they are willing to spend in order to procure each of the goods to be exchanged, and the sum total of their energies in general. (Valeurs et Monnaies, p. 87, seq., éd. Daire.) Ad. Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 4, shows that he knew the difference between value in use and value in exchange; but he afterwards drops the consideration of the former, altogether. In this respect he has had only too faithful and one-sided followers among his countrymen, so that Ricardo, Principles, ch. 28, asks what value in exchange can have in common with the capacity of commodities to serve as food or clothing. (See, however, ch. XIX seq.) Many “free traders” would have no objection to interpose, if a people should abandon the cultivation of wheat, etc., to devote themselves exclusively to the manufacture of point lace, provided the latter had a greater value in exchange. The two degrees of the idea of value have been examined with much thoroughness by Hufeland in his Neue Grundlegung der Staatswirthschaftskunst (1807), I, 118 ff.; Lotz, Revision der Grundbegriffe (1811 ff.), I, 31, ff.; Storch, Handbuch, I; Rau, Lehrbuch, I, 56, ff.; Thomas, Theorie des Verkehrs, I, p. 11; Knies, Tübing. Zeitschr. 1855; Bastiat’s declaration (Harmonies, p. 171 ff.): that “valeur” (by which Bastiat means only value in exchange), = le raport de deux services échangés, contains a two-fold error: the ambiguity of the word services, which applies equally to a yielding or affording of utility, as to useful labor, and the error that the labor necessary to produce a commodity, and of which the purchaser is relieved, alone determines its value in exchange. Compare infra §§ 47, 107, 110, 115 ff., and Knies, loc. cit., p. 644 ff.

85 Proudhon, Système des Contradictions économiques, 1846, ch. 2.

86 In France, according to Cordier (Mémoire sur l’Agriculture de la Flandre Française), the wheat harvest yielded, in

1817, forty-eight million hectolitres, with a value in exchange of two thousand and forty-six million francs; in

1818, fifty-three million hectolitres, with a value in exchange of one thousand and four hundred and forty-two million francs; in

1819, sixty-four million hectolitres, with a value in exchange of one thousand and one hundred and seventy million francs.

A rise in the value in exchange of wheat, such as was witnessed in 1817, is synonymous with a decline in the value in exchange of money, and of all those goods whose money price has not risen. It is no objection to the views here advocated, that when the necessaries of life are very scarce, the want of clothing, furniture, articles of luxury etc., is not felt so keenly as at other times, and that the value in use of these commodities really falls; and vice versa.

87 Compare B. Hildebrand, N. Œkonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft, 1848, I, p. 316 ff. Knies, loc. cit.

88 The greater importance attached, in our days, to value in exchange, than to value in use, is seen especially in the attitude which the buyer, who is possessed of the more current commodity (money), assumes toward the seller,—an attitude not unlike that of a patron towards his client. In the interior of Africa, the possessor of money, as such, would scarcely look down on the possessor of the means of subsistence. The South American Indians are ready to render an amount of service for a little brandy, which it would be in vain to ask them to perform for ten times its value in gold. (Ausland, Jan. 15, 1870.) The miser estimates the possibility of being able to procure for himself, for one dollar, a hundred different articles worth a dollar each, to be worth one hundred dollars.

89 When the wants of a person or of a people change, it is possible for the value in use of one kind of goods, which had the greater prominence before, to take the place occupied previously by its value in exchange; and vice versa. Thus, the youth sells the plaything he used in childhood; the man, the educational apparatus of his earlier years; the old man, the implements that enabled him to acquire wealth, and which he can no longer use except with great effort. (Menger, Grundsätze, I, 220 ff.)

90 Rau (Lehrbuch, I, § 61 ff.) distinguishes between the concrete or quantitative value which a certain kind of goods may have for a certain person, under certain circumstances, and the abstract or species-value which a whole class of commodities may have for men in general.

But F. J. Neumann, (Tübinger Zeitschrift, 1872, p. 288 ff.) objects, that even the abstract value of a commodity always suggests the relation of a definite number of concrete men to a definite quantity of goods; else, by the expression, value of goods, is to be understood not what it is generally meant to signify, but only the capacity to satisfy a single want.

91 Storch, Ueber die Natur des Nationaleinkommens (1824, 1825), 5, defines (Vermögen) thus: a source of income, permanent in its nature, and capable of being transmitted, the possessor of which does not need to work, on its account. Hence he does not approve of the expression “the people’s resources” (Volksvermögen).

92 See especially Lord Lauderdale, Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth, 1804, ch. 2. Storch, loc. cit.

93 Moreau de Jonnès, Le Commerce au 19. Siècle (1825) I, 114 ff., says that the United States imported from abroad 9.6, France 6, and Great Britain 5.8 per cent. of their annual consumption; and exported respectively 10.4, 6.2, 9.8 per cent. of their annual production. The recent free trade tendencies, and the improvement in the international means of transportation, have certainly increased the relative importance of foreign commerce. In the kingdom of Saxony (1853), Engel estimates that 10/47 of the whole production of the country was destined for foreign countries, and that 10/47 of the consumption was imported.

94 When the land of a country becomes dearer, simply on account of the increase of population, or goods, the quantity of which is susceptible of increase, because the cost of production has been increased, this cannot be considered an increase in the wealth of the people, (v. Mangoldt.)

95 Neither is value in exchange a quality inherent in goods, but only a relation between them and other goods. Hence it is absurd to speak of a rise or fall of all values in exchange. If the goods A lose in capacity to be exchanged against goods B, goods B of course increase in exchange power as compared with A, and vice versa. It is necessary to guard against being misled here by the intervention of money, that is, by the custom universal among men of employing a definite kind of goods as a medium of exchange for all others. Yet there are many writers who have been thus misled. Thus Galiani, Delia Moneta (1750), II, p. 2, who regards the lasting increase of the prices of all commodities as an infallible sign of national prosperity. To the same effect is the motto of the Physiocrates: Abondance et cherté c’est opulence. In its coarsest form, in Saint Chamans, Nouv. Essai sur la Richesse des Nations (1824), 456, who would have that which is now the free gift of nature, to come to us or be produced only as the reward of toil. Verri, on the other hand, Meditazioni sull. econ. pol. (1771), ch. V, thinks that the number of buyers in a country should be as small as possible, and that of sellers as great as possible, in order that thus prices might be low; (as if every buyer was not, eo ipso, also a seller.)

96 Kaufmann, Untersuchungen, I, p. 165 seq. Also, Verri, Meditazioni, XVII, 2.

97 The differences characteristic of poverty, indigence, managing to live, fortune and wealth, cleverly treated by von Justi, Staatswirthschaft, I, p. 449, seq. Rau, Lehrbuch I, § 76, seq., establishes the following gradation: privation and wretchedness, poverty, indigence, “getting on,” comfort, wealth, superfluity. L. Say calls those who can satisfy the wants of luxury rich; well-to-do, those who can command the comforts of life; and wretched, those who cannot obtain a sufficiency of the objects of prime necessity. In France, the limits of these situations are marked by an income of respectively 60,000, 6,000 and 900 francs per family, so that a family with an income of only 300 francs per year is in a condition of wretchedness. (Traité de la Richesse, 1827, I ff., 71 ff.)

98 Palmieri, Ricchezza nazionale, Introd. The greater number of the definitions of wealth are rather onesided than false. Socrates, for instance, looks only at the relation existing between means and their owner’s wants. (Xenoph. Memor., IV, 2, 37, seq. Œconom. II, 2 ff.). Plato, on the other hand, as the socialists are wont to do, looks to the excess over that possessed by others. (Legg. V, 742, seq.). Xenophon’s observations, Hiero, 4, on the nature of wealth, are many-sided and beautiful. Aristotle distinguishes between natural and artificial wealth: πλῆθος ὀργάνων οἰκονομακῶν καὶ πολιτικῶν—πλῆθος νομίσματος. (Polit, I, 3, 9, 16.) Compare Cicero, Parad. VI. The dominant idea of the so-called Mercantile System is thus expressed in a Saxon pamphlet of 1530 (Müntzbelangende Antwort, etc.): “Money is the real watchword; where there is much money, there is wealth, it is clear.” Compare Luther, Werke, Irmisch edition, XXII, p. 200 seq. See some excellent remarks in opposition hereto, in the Saxon pamphlet, Gemeyne Stimmen von der Müntz, 1530. Schröder, Fürstliche Schatz-und Rentkammer, 1686, ch XXIX. “A country grows rich in proportion as it draws gold or money, either from the earth or from other countries; poor, in proportion as money leaves it. The wealth of a country must be estimated by the quantity of gold and silver in it.” See a very passionate argument against this view in Boisguillebert, Dissertation sur la Nature des Richesses, written sometime between 1697 and 1714. Berkeley, Querist (1735), Nos. 562, 542. Among Englishmen, the correct view was prevalent much earlier, especially among the founders of the American colonial empire. See Hachluyt, Voyages (1600) III, 22 ff. 45 ff. 152 ff. 165 ff. 182 ff. 266 ff; but especially the work “Virginia’s Verger” in “Purchas Pilgrims” (1625), IV, p. 809 ff. However, several Spaniards were led by hard experience to adopt a view opposed to the Midas-view (compare Aristotle, Polit. I, ch. 3, 16), by which the first American explorers were carried away: Garcilasso de la Vega (1609), Comment. reales II, ch. 6; Saavedra Faxardo, Idea Principis christiani (1640) Symb. 69: potissimæ divitiæ ac opes terræ fructus sunt, nec ditiores in regnis fodinæ, quam agricultura; plus emolumenti, acclivia montis Vesuvii latera adverunt, quam Potosus mons. Contemporary with those Englishmen, was the Italian, Giov. Botero, who called attention to the fact, that France and Italy were the countries of Europe richest in gold, although they possessed no mines of the precious metal themselves: Della Ragion di Stato (1591) p. 88 ff. Also Sully, who called agriculture and cattle-breeding the breasts of the state, the real mines and pearls of Peru. (Economies royales I, ch. 81. See however, II, p. 381). Montchrêtien, Traité d’Économie politique (1615) 81, 172 seq. According to Sir D. North’s Discourses upon Trade, 1691, wealth is synonymous with freedom from want, and the ability to procure many comforts, while Temple (ob. 1700, Works I, 140 seq.) looks entirely at the subjective side of wealth. Pollexfen, “England and East India inconsistent in their Manufactures” (1697), considers gold and silver as the only real wealth. To this definition Davenant (ob. 1714), opposes another. Wealth, according to him, is whatever places prince or people in a condition of superabundance, peace and security. See his Works, I, p. 381 seq. He even reckons intellectual powers, alliances etc., among the national wealth. Compare W. Roscher, Zur Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre 1851, in the acts of the royal Saxon Academy of Sciences, vol. III. Vauban (Dime royale 1707), Daire’s edition, says: “The real wealth of a people consists in an abundance of those things, the use of which is so necessary to sustain the life of man, that they cannot at all be dispensed with.” By the wealth of a people Galiani, Della Moneta II, c. 2, understands the aggregate of all lands, houses, movable property, money, etc. which belong to them, but, that the chief element of wealth, and the condition precedent of all others, is men themselves. Hence, the process of the impoverishment of a people in their decline, takes the following course: money first emigrates, next, population diminishes, afterwards, the houses fall in ruin, finally, the land itself becomes a waste. According to Broggia, wealth is un avanzo osia valore di tutto cio che avanza al proprio consumo e bisogno, Delle Monete, 1743, IV, 307, 314; Cust. Palmieri (ob. 1794), also says: il superfluo constituisce la richezza. (Publica Felicità.) According to Turgot, Sur la Formation et Distribution des Richesses 1771, § 90, the wealth of a nation consists in the net proceeds of landed property capitalized at the ordinary price of land, and then of the aggregate of all the movable property of the country. Büsch, Geluumlauf III, § 27, considers a certain duration of the produce or revenue as an essential element in the idea of wealth. Lauderdale, Inquiry, ch. II, distinguishes national wealth and private wealth; the former embracing all that man covets as agreeable or desirable; while it is one of the marks of the latter, that there should be no general superfluity of it on hand. Several modern English economists call wealth only that, the production of which cost human labor. Thus, Malthus, Definitions (1827) p. 234. Torrens, Production of Wealth, 1821, ch. I. When Rossi, Cours d’Economie politique, 1835, L. 2, says: tout chose propre à satisfaire aux besoins de l’homme est richesse, he demonstrates how the frequent inaccuracy of the French language stands in the way of a close analysis. The greater number of more recent definitions are true of resources rather than of wealth. Bastiat distinguishes between richesse effective and relative, the former being based on utilité, the latter on valeur. (Harmonies, ch. 6.)

99 The national wealth of Athens, at the time of the hundredth Olympiad, is estimated by Böckh (Staatshaushalt der Athen, I, p. 636, 2d ed.) to have been from thirty to forty thousand talents, besides the non-taxable property of the state. That of Great Britain is estimated at about 8,000 million pounds sterling. (Athenæum 5 March, 1853.) Wolowski estimated that of France at, at least, 116 milliards of francs, with an annual increase of 1-½ milliards, (L’or et l’Argent, 1870. Enquête, 59.) David A. Wells estimated that of the United States, in 1860, slaves not included, at 14,183 million dollars, or $451.20 per capita, whereas in England, the per capita wealth was about $1,000. (Hildebrand’s Jahib., 1870, I, 431.) The national wealth of the kingdom of Saxony is equal to 600 million thalers immovable, and 600 million movable, property. (Engel, Statist. Zeitschr. August, 1856). That of Würtemberg=2,710 million florins, of which 700 millions represent movable goods, and 100 million, claims on foreign countries. (Statistisches Handbuch, 1863.) Of course all these estimates are very inexact.

100 Ch. Dupin, Forces productives, p. 82. See infra, § 230.

101 Compare Meidinger, Das britische Reich in Europa, pp. 79, 238, 261.

102 Davenant considers an increase in the number of houses, ships and stocks of goods, as the surest sign of an increase in the national wealth; and on the other hand, a high rate of interest, a low price of land, small wages, a decrease of population, and an increase of uncultivated land, as the signs of national impoverishment. (Works, I, pp. 354, seq. II, p. 283.) Sir M. Decker, Essay on the Causes of Decline of Foreign Trade (1744), 3, gives as the signs of impoverishment, the following: a wretched condition of the poor and of manufactures, a low price of wool, long credit to retail dealers, frequent cases of bankruptcy, exportation of the metals, unfavorable exchange, few new coins, many cases of unpaid rent of leased land, and high poor rates.

103 Storch, Handbuch, I, 45. Compare infra, § 187.

104 On the difference between human and animal economy, see Schön, Neue Untersuchungen der N. Œkonomie, (1835), 4.

105 Compare Schäffle, System, III, Aufl. I, 2, 28.

106 Knies, in his Polit. Œkonomie vom geschichtl. Standpunkte, 1853, p. 160 ff., shows, very happily, how the love of one’s self,—which must, indeed, be distinguished from self-seeking—is not in conflict with the love of one’s neighbor; but that, in healthy natures, it is found allied with a feeling of equity, and of the common good. See, also, F. Fuoco, Saggi economici, Pisa, 1825, Nr. 7. Schutz, Das sittliche Element in der Volswirthschaft: Tübinger Zeitschrift für Staatswissensch. 1844, p. 132, ff.

107 “That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him.” (Acts, 17, 27. Compare Matthew, 6:33, also I. Timothy, 5:8.) Adam Müller in his Nothwendigkeit einer theolog. Grundlage, 49 seq., is a strong advocate of all this, but a rather narrow one. The farmer, he says, should first work for the love of God, then for the fruit, that is, for the gross product, and lastly for the net product. His work is a trust. Müller considers the business relations of men, as they exist at present, as “the comfortless mutual slavery of all.” (Nothwendigkeit einer theolog. Grundlage, 49 ff.) The economist, Ch. Perin, who writes from the Catholic politico-economical standpoint, substitutes for conscience, renoncement, as the force antagonistic to intérêt, an expression inappropriate, because merely negative, although in perfect harmony with the ascetic religiousness of the middle ages. (De la Richesse dans les Sociétiés chrêtiennes, 1861, II vol., passim) Compare Roscher in Gelzer’s Protestant. Monatsblättern, Jan. 1863. Puchta, Institutionen, I, f. 8, opposes to individualism—or the impulse to distinguish ourselves from others, and which, when uncontrolled, leads to egotism, pride and hate—love and right, which are controlling powers over the former.

108 Even the ancients conceived Eros as a world-building principle. According to Schön’s expression, loc. cit., which it is not difficult to misconstrue, the feeling of the common interest manifests itself, both as law and force. And, in reality, it is necessary that, in order not to permit the drowsy conscience to fall too far behind self-interest, which is always awake, it should create lasting institutions and regulations above and beyond the caprice of the individual or of the moment; for instance, in the family, marriage, education etc.

109 The more private interest ceases to be momentary, and becomes life-long and even hereditary, the better does it harmonize with the feeling of the common interest.

110 Perin says (1, 93), that the conflict of interest is reconciled in the seeking for the attainment of the supreme good, that is God, “who gives himself to all in equal measure, and yet always remains the same, and out of whose fulness all may draw, and yet no one’s share grows less.” But the same is true of all ideal goods, and of every form of the feeling for the common interest, the highest of which is, indeed, religiousness.

111 According to Kant, Anthropologie, p. 239, the desire of comfort and well-being, and the inclination to virtue, when the former is properly restrained by the latter, produce the highest degree of moral, united to the highest degree of physical, good. It is well known, that during the middle ages, in all countries except Italy and, even up to the seventeenth century, the moral sciences were under a one-sided theological influence, whose ascetic condemnation of self-interest may have been well enough during a period of violence. By virtue of a very natural reaction, and as a protest of individualism against the constraint of absolute monarchy, the materialists of the eighteenth century endeavored to discover, even in the most exalted phenomena of human society, only the expression of an enlightened self-interest. See Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, or private Vices public Virtues (1723), but especially, Helvétius, De l’Esprit (1758). Voltaire says, that, in all the celebrated maxims of De Rochefoucauld (1665) there is but one truth contained, que l’amour propre est le mobile de toutes nos actions. (But see, per contra, Pufendorf, Jus Naturæ et Gentium, 1672, II, 3, 15.) This tendency was opposed, especially by the English, who could not be blind to the influence exerted in public life by the feeling for the common good. David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature (1739), III, 54, is of opinion that the interests of others are, on the whole, in the case of nearly every man stronger than even his own self interest. Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy (1755), speaks of the innate principle of benevolence. Man is not a perfect whole; a part belongs to his own person, part to his family, part to the nation, part even to all humanity. Burke, Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), distinguishes two fundamental principles of action, that of self-preservation and that of society. On the former is based the sense of the sublime; on the latter, of the beautiful. According to Ferguson, History of Civil Society, (1767), I, 3, 4, the “sense of union” is frequently strongest where the advantage drawn from the connection is smallest; for instance, it is weakest in highly cultured commercial countries. Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1768), has been as one-sided in reducing everything to “sympathy,” as he has been in his Wealth of Nations in reducing everything to “self-interest;” but not without the consciousness, that to explain the reality, it is necessary to take both into consideration (Buckle). It would, indeed, be just as preposterous to base economy on self-interest alone, as to base marriage merely on the sexual appetite. Recently, Hermann, Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen, 1st ed., part 1st, discovers in self-interest, and in the feeling for the common good, the two springs of all economy. He would even base the so-called theoretic Political Economy, on the study of self-interest, its practice in that of the common good. M. Chevalier, Cours d’Economie politique, 1844, II, 412 ff., understands something very like this by the contrast between liberty and centralization. The antagonisme and association of Bazard, Exposition de la Doctrine de Saint Simon (1829), p. 144 ff. Closer investigation will show, however, that self-interest, which must not be confounded with egotism, and the common interest, are neither coördinate nor exhaustive opposites. Compare the beautiful contrast drawn by Goethe (Pocket edition of 1833, vol. 46, 97), between “Pietät” and “Egoisterei.”

112 Paul, I. Corinth. 12, gives the most beautiful model description of a social organism. Compare, however, the fable of Menenius Agrippa in Livy, II, 32.

113 Excellent beginnings of a general theory of economies in common in Schäffle, N. Œkonomie, II, Aufl., 62 ff., 331 ff.

114 The French and English, with their strong political bias, use the expressions respectively economie politique and Political Economy. In Germany, where the terms the people (Volk) and the state (Staat) are much less nearly coextensive, the words Volkswirthschaft and Nationalökonomie are preferred. But even Hufeland, who first gave currency to the term Volkswirthschaft (Grundlegung, I, 14), called attention to the peculiarity “that the term economy suggests that there is one who economizes and guides, an economist in chief, and that such a one is, even according to the most correct opinion, wanting in the public economy of a people.”

115 According to Th. Cooper, Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy, (1726), 1, 15 ff. 117, the wealth of society is nothing but the aggregate wealth of all the individuals that compose it. Each individual looks out best for his own interests, and, hence, that nation must be the richest, in which each individual is most completely left to himself. (If this were so, savage nations would be the richest!) Cooper goes so far as to disapprove of the protection afforded to commerce on the high seas by a national navy; no naval war is worth what it costs, and merchants should protect themselves. He says, too, that the word “nation” is an invention of the grammarians, made to save the trouble of circumlocution, a nonentity! Adam Smith is, as might be expected, far removed from such absurdities. (Compare Wealth of Nations, IV, ch. 2, and the end of the fourth book.) But, even he is of opinion that men, in the study of their own advantage are led “naturally, or rather necessarily” (IV, ch. 2), to the employment which is most useful to society. But here Adam Smith overlooks the fact, that every individual nation strives after earthly immortality, and is, in consequence, frequently compelled to make immediate sacrifices for the sake of a distant future, a thing which can never be to the private interest of the mortal individuals who compose it. And thus, D. North, Discourses upon Trade (1691), 13 seq., says, that in commercial matters, different nations stand in precisely the same relation to the whole world, that individual cities do to the kingdom, and individual families to the city. Similarly, Boisguillebert, Factum de la France, ch. 10, 327, Daire’s edition. Benjamin Franklin (ob. 1790), Political Papers, § 4. And J. B. Say, Traité d’Economie politique (1802) I, 15: every nation is, in relation to neighboring nations, in the situation of a province in relation to neighboring provinces. Unfortunately, such doctrine is only too palpably refuted by every war! J. Bentham’s saying: Les intérêts individuels sont les seuls intérêts réels (Traité de Législation, I, 229). Infra § 98.

Among those who, in antiquity, most energetically maintained that the idea of national economy is not a merely nominal one, is Plato (De Republ., IV, 420, I, 462); more recently, Fichte (Der geschlossene Handelstaat, 1800), although, in general, the socialists attach as little importance to nationality as their most decided opponents. Adam Müller is a writer who deserves recognition for his advocacy of national economy, and of the state as a whole, paramount to individuals, and even generations. He gives war the credit of causing the scientific knowledge of the state to cast deeper roots, and of enlightening individuals in the most forcible way, that they are parts of one great whole. (Elemente der Staatskunst, 1809, I, 7, 113). He calls public economy, as a whole, the product of all products. What, he inquires, is the use of all wealth, if it does not guarantee itself? And this, it can do, only through the organization of the whole people, that is, through the nation (I, 202). Adam Smith’s theory of labor would be correct if it considered the entire national life of a people itself as one huge piece of labor. (II, 265). And so, Müller directs his polemics against Adam Smith’s premise of a merely mercantile world-market. (II, 290). Similarly, the protective tariff theoreticians, Ganieh, Théorie de l’Economie politique (1822), II, 198 ff. and Fr. List, Nationales System der politischen Oek. (1842), I, 240 ff. Colton, Political Economy of the United States, 1853. Sismondi, Nouveaux Principes (1819), I, 197, ridicules the opinion which resolves the public interest into merely private interests: It is A’s interest to rob B; B, the weaker, is equally interested to let himself be robbed, that he may fare no worse. But the state—?!

116 National wars are really no mere operations of the will of the state! Since 1800, Ireland, and, since 1858, even British India, constitute one state with England, and yet how different are the economic tendencies of these different countries of which the individual husbandman or business man must take cognizance!

117 One might also deny the reality of a stream, considered as a whole, since its bed, no one calls a stream, and its watery contents change every moment. And yet, it is well known to scientific geography that every stream has its own individual character.

118 This would be to be guilty of explaining ignotum per ignotius. And yet, there are a great many modern writers who imagine that they have said something all-sufficient, when they have told us that the state is an organism. As early a writer as Hufeland (N. Grundlegung, I, 113), enters his protest against such abuses. The person who would operate with this notion, should, at least, have read the acute observations, so well calculated to dissipate preconceived opinions, made by Lotze, in his Allgemeine Physiologie des körperlichen Lebens, 1-165. The organic conception of national life, the life of a whole people, where the individual organs are free and rational beings, is evidently a much more difficult one to form than that of the animal or human body.

119 I first called attention, in my work on the life-work and age of Thucydides, to the fact that that great historian always accounts for causes in the following manner: A. is produced by B., and B. by A. (Roscher, Leben Work und Zeitalter des Thukydides, 199 ff.; compare especially Thucyd., I, 2, 7, seq.) Such a circle is not a vicious one. All first class historians have thus explained historical phenomena. The one-sided deduction of A. from B., and B. from C., etc., which the so-called pragmatic writers like Polybius, for instance, is the result of overlooking all reciprocal action. Scialoja, Principii (1840), p. 60, makes a somewhat similar observation for Political Economy.

120 Whether we call the unknown and inexplicable ground back of all analysis, and which our analysis cannot reach, vital force, generic form, spirit of the nation, or God’s thought, is for the present a matter of scientific indifference. All the more necessary are the self-knowledge and honesty, in general, which admit the existence of this background, and which do not, by denying it, deny the connection of the whole, which is, for the most part, much more important than the analyzed parts. But I must at the same time, enter my energetic protest against the imputations of heresy made by those who do not comprehend the sacred duty of science, by never ceasing investigation, to push farther back the bounds of this inexplicable background.

121 When Hildebrand, for instance, objects to the application of the expression “natural law” to the economic actions of man, for the reason that it conflicts with human freedom and man’s capacity for progress (Jahrbücher der N. Œek. und Statistik., 1863, Heft., I), I cannot agree with him. I use the expression “natural law” wherever I observe uniformity, explicable in its broader connections, and not dependent on human design. That there are such uniformities there can be no question. I need only mention the philological law of the so-called “permutation of consonants,” which individuals follow when speaking—certainly not through compulsion,—and, by means of which, the progress of the speaking aggregate is made manifest. Or, I might call attention to the well known fact, that, in populous countries marriages and crimes, which are for the most part free, are divided among the different age-classes in a proportion much more uniform, from year to year, than are deaths, which are not free. I adhere all the more firmly to the expression “natural law,” because no one takes offense at or objects to the expression, “nature of the human soul.” But to this very nature of the human soul belong the freedom and responsibility of the individual, as well as the capacity of the species for progress. Compare A. Wagner, on Law in the Apparently capricious Actions of Man (Die Gesetzmässigkeit in den scheinbar willkürlichen menschlichen Handlungen, 1864, p. 63 seq.), in which, however, he only goes so far as to show that law and freedom coexist side by side as indubitable facts, while the seeming contradiction between the two remains. Drobisch’s Moralische Statistik und die menschliche Willensfreiheit, 1867, is an important contribution to the literature of this question.

122 Whately, in his fourth lecture (Lectures, 1831), shows in a very clear way, how London is supplied and provisioned by men with no object in view but their own personal interest, each of whom is possessed of but a very limited knowledge of the aggregate wants of its inhabitants, and yet they work into one another’s hands, in the interests of the whole, purely instinctively, and infinitely better, perhaps, than the operations of the most skillful governmental commission, organized for the same purpose.

123 Alphonsus of Castile, the king astrologer of the thirteenth century, is reported to have said, that the universe would have been much better constituted, if the Creator had asked his advice beforehand. Astronomers like Newton and Gauss have, certainly, judged otherwise.

124 MacCulloch remarks, that there is an essential difference between the physical and the moral and political sciences in this, that the principles of the former apply in all cases, those of the latter, only in the greater number of cases—a thought very ably developed by Knies, loc. cit., passim. If, with Newmarch, (London Statistical Journal, 1861, p. 460 seq.), we could grant, that there is no “law,” except where it is possible to predict each individual occurrence under it, there would be no such thing even as the “laws” of the probability of life. The word “element,” also, means something very different in Political Economy from what it does in chemistry: a combination which might be broken up, but which that science leaves it to other sciences to do. The “element” of Political Economy is Man. Compare Pickford, Einleitung in die politische Œk., 1860, 17.

125 It is in this sense that Aristotle (Polit., I, p. 1, 9 Schn.) says: φανερὸν, ὅτι τῶν φύσει ἡ πόλις ἐστὶ, καὶ ὅτι ἄνθρωπος φύσει πολιτικὸν ζῶον. According to L. Stein, Lehrbuch der Volkswirthschaft, 1858, 33, the political economy of a people begins at the point where the overplus of individuals begins.

126 Compare K. L. von Haller, Restauration der Staatswissenchaft, I, p. 446 ff.

127 As Sallust characterizes the political apogee of the Romans: Optimis moribus et maxima concordia egit populus Romanus inter secundum atque postremum bellum Carthaginiense. See Augustin (Civ. Dei II, 18). Puchta (Institutionen, I, f. 83), with a great deal of good sense, distinguishes in every people their individual character from that which they share in common with all mankind. The latter exists among savage nations, only as a germ buried under the overpowering weight of that which is special to them. The period of the perfect equilibrium of both elements is coincident with that of a people’s real culture. In the further course of development, the latter, more general element becomes gradually over-powerful, destroys the individual, and thus dissolves nationality.

128 Thus formulated, the principles of the two great parties, evidently, no more contradict one another than their ordinary watchwords, “freedom” and “order,” are in contrast with one another. Hence all the great statesmen of the best periods of history have adopted the middle course recommended by Aristotle.

129 See Lotze, Allgemeine Pathologie, 1842. Ruete, Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Therapie, 1852. These analogies, obviously, should not be pushed too far. One of the most essential differences between the two consists in this, that in the diseases of the body politic, physicians and nurses are themselves part of the diseased organism.

130 See Ahren’s very beautiful exposition, Organische Staatslehre, 1850, I, 77. National economy (Nationalökonomie=public economy); national economics (Nationalökonomik=the science of public economy). The latter term was first proposed, in Germany, in 1849, by Uhde; the former was naturalized therein 1805: v. Soden, Nationalökonomie, 1805; Jacob, Grundsätze der N. Œk., 1806. In Italy, G. Ortes used it as early as 1774, in his Dell Economia nazionale, and in England it was employed, even in 1867, by Ferguson, History of Civil Society, III, p. 4. Holland. Volkshuyshoudkunde. As a rule, outside of Germany, the term political economy, économie politique, one which is somewhat calculated to mislead the student, is used. (Thus Montchrêtien sieur de Vatteville, Traité de l’Economie politique, 165; later J. J. Rousseau, Discours sur l’Economie politique, later yet the Traités d’E. p., Maillardère, Page and J. B. Say, 1801-1803). Political Economy (Sir J. Stewart, Inquiry into the principles of P. E., 1767); also Public Economy (Petty, several Essays, 1682, 35); Economia politica or pubblica (the latter by Verri and Beccaria). The title Economia civile (Genovesi, Lezioni, d’Ec. civ. 1769), has found few adherents. It has, however, been used recently by Cernuschi: Illusions des Sociétés coöperatrices (1866). The term, Economie sociale has been used all the more in France (Dunoyer, Nouveau Traité d’Ec. soc., 1830), since recommended by J. B. Say, and employed by Buat (Des vrais Principes de l’Origine et de la Filiation du Mot Economie politique, in the Journal des Economistes, 1852.)

131 Stein, Lehrbuck der V. W., prefaces his “Science of Public Economy” (pp. 329-358), by a “Science of Economy” (pp. 96-328), which, however, treats individual economies only as the elements of the national economy. A science of household or isolated individual economy could, of course, treat only of the economic relations of anchorites. Those who object that Political Economy is not a real whole will be satisfied with the definition of it given by F. I. Neumann: “The Science of the bearing of household or separate economies to one another, and to the state as a whole.” (Tüb. Zeitschr., 1872, 267.)

132 In so far as these various institutions are concerned, with objects beyond the human, or supernatural, only the manner in which they are accepted, or in which they are made use of, is an expression of national life.

133 Thus, J. Tucker thinks that religion, the state and commerce, are only the parts of one same general plan: no institution, therefore, can be called appropriate, within the limits of the province of any one of these, if it be clearly in opposition to the other two, because the harmony of God’s work can not be broken up. (Four Tracts and two Sermons on political and commercial Subjects, 1774, Serm. I.)

134 Riedel (National Œkonomie, 1838, I, p. 178 seq.), gives a good illustration of the difference between the manner in which law and Political Economy look at the same question. The law (to avoid strife, or to settle controversies) looks upon the debtor as the owner of the capital, and lets him run all the risk; Political Economy, on the other hand, looking deeper into the nature of the contract, reaches an entirely opposite result. The mere jurist has a dangerous tendency to undervalue the reign of the laws of nature; the mere political economist, just as readily, undervalues the element of free will. (Arnold, Cultur und Recht I, 97.) In this respect, the two sciences complement each other very well. Roesler (Hildebrand’s Jahrb., 1868, II, and 1869, I.) shows, and he does not exaggerate the fact, that political economists have made altogether too little use of the results of the science of law.

135 Jurists will always experience the want of divesting their isolated ideas of their purely accidental character, by grouping them together in such a manner as to make them constitute a complete and independent whole. One must be possessed of profound knowledge to perceive their necessary connection from an historico-juridical point of view. Political Economy, with its characteristic accuracy and practical utility, can best take its place, at the present time. It is in the greater number of legal questions, the systematically elaborated science of “the nature of the thing.” See the able beginnings of a policy of legislation and higher history of law, based on Political Economy, by H. Dankwardt: N. Œk. und Jurisprudenz, 3 Hefte, 1857, and my preface to Dankwardt’s Nationalökonomisch-civilistischen Studien, 1862.

136 The intellectual power of a people depends upon the vigorous and harmonious development of all seven spheres of life.

137 Montecuccoli, Besondere und geheime Kriegsnachrichten (Leipzig, 1736). A very similar judgment by Cæsar in Dio Cass., XLII, 49.

138 Bülan, Handbuch der Staatswirthschaftslehre, 1835.

139 Thus v. Justi, Staatswirthschaft 1755. Kraus, Staatswirthschaft, published by Auerswald, 1808; Schmalz, Handbuch der Staatswirthschaft, 1808. More recently, Hermann, Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen, 1832. In France, the expression économie de l’état, is very seldom used. Gavard, Principes del’E. d’Etat, 1796.

140 Pölitz, Staatswissenschaften im Lichte unserer Zeit, II, 3. Compare Lotz, Handbuch der Staatswirthschaft (2d ed., 1837), I, 10 ff.

141 Our view of Political Economy holds a middle place between opposed extremes. The view expressed by Whately, Lectures on Political Economy (1831), No. 1, and covered by the proposed term “catalactics,” is by far too narrow. Similarly, Macleod, Elements of Political Economy, 1858, I, 11. A like objection may be raised to the earlier title of Pritzwitz’s book: Die Kunst reich zu werden,—the art of growing rich. On the other hand, Dunoyer, Liberté du Travail (1845), L. IX, ch. I, goes too far altogether: “not only in what manner a nation grows rich, but according to what laws it best succeeds, in the execution of all its functions.” And so Storch, Handbuch, translated into German by Rau, I, 9. Many modern writers define Political Economy simply as the theory of society; for instance, Scialoja, Principj. dell’Economia sociale, 1840. Cibrario, E. polit. del medio Evo, III, 1842.

142 For the many and various definitions of the police power, see von Berg, Handbuch des Polezeirechts, I, 1-12; Butte, Versuch der Begründung eines System der Polezei (1807), 6 ff.; Rosshirt, Ueber den Begriff der Staatspolizoi (1817), 34 ff. One of the principal difficulties is, that the practical domain of the police power is, in consequence of the successive grades of civilization through which a people passes, subject to greater modifications than any other state power. We call attention especially to the expressions “without mediation, to prevent,” and “external order,” in our definition. The church, the school, the administration of justice etc., act mediately towards the prevention of such disturbances; and there are many other institutions which offer immediate protection to order of a higher and more intellectual nature.

143 See the great number of earlier definitions collected in R. von Mohl, Gesch. und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften III, pp. 637 ff. There are two principal groups of them, the one of which considers it as the science of things of political note, the other as the science of actual or past conditions.

144 See Dufau, Traité de Statistique, 1840; Moreau de Jonnès, Elements de Statistique, 1847; Knies, Die Statistik als selbstständige Wissenschaft, 1850. B. Hildebrand, in his Jahrbüchern, 1866, I etc., but especially Quetelet’s works. For the contrary view, see Fallati, Einleitung in die Wissenschaft der Statistik der St., 1843; Jonak, Theorie der Statistik, 1856, and Heeren, in the Gött. Gelehrten Anzeigen, 1806, No. 84, 1807, 1302.

145 So thinks v. Rümelin (Tübinger Zeitschr., 1863, 653 ff.); and he recommends in place of statistics an independent branch of learning bordering on history and geography, to be called demography. His statistics is a science auxiliary to all the experimental sciences of man, just as criticism and hermeneutics are a methodological science auxiliary to many sciences, otherwise different. It would be difficult to justify the use of the name statistics for such a science, as such a science corresponds to neither of the two meanings of the word status (state—condition).

146 The ancients understood by the term καμάρα camera, covered places such especially as were vaulted, also vaults of the most varied kind. Compare Herod, I, 199; Diod., II, 9; Strabo, XI, 495; Arrian, Exp. Alex., VII, 5, 55; Dio Cass. XXXVI, 32; Sallust, B. C., 55; Cicero, ad Q. fratrem III, 1; Plin., H. N. XXX, 27; Seneca, Epist., 86; Tacit. Hist. III, 47; Sueton, Nero, 34. During the middle ages, the meaning treasure-chamber (Schatzkammer) became predominant: camera est locus, in quem thesaurus recoilligitur, vel conclave, in quo pecunia reservatur (Ocham, Cap. Quid sit Scaccarium). It gradually became synonymous with finance,—from the time of Charlemagne, or at least since Louis II. (Charter of 874). See Ducange, Glossarium, v. Camera, and Muratori Antiquitt. Ital., I, 932 ff.

147 “A husbandman must plow and manure his land if he would reap a harvest from it. He must fatten his cattle if he would slaughter them; and furnish his cows with good fodder if he would have them give good milk. In like manner, a prince should begin by assuring his subjects healthy and abundant food, if he would take anything from them.” von Schröder, Fürstl. Schatz-und Rentkammer (1686), preface, § 11. Von Horneck before him, Oesterreich über alles wann es nur will, p. 220, ed. of 1707, had expressed the idea that the watchful solicitude for the public economy of the country was no parergon, no appendix, to the council (Kammer), but its real basis, and that it embraced many subjects which had nothing in common with the cameralia (“Cameralien”).

148 Morhof, Polyhistor (1688), III. Thomasius, 1728, Cautelæ circa præcognita Jurisprudentiæ (1710), ch. 17. (Cautelæ circa studium œconomicum.) Also, in his lectures on Seckendorff’s “Teutschen Fürstenstaat.” Compare Roscher, Gesch. der N. Œk. in Deutschland, 328 ff.

149 While Dithmar (1731) distinguishes economy-police and cameralistic sciences and restricts the latter to finance and taxation; Darjes (1756) comprises under the name of cameralistic science, economy (municipal and rural), and police, as well as cameralistic subjects in the strict sense of the term, that is, the public, domain and regal rights. While Nau (1791), in his “Ersten Linien der C.,” treats only of the branches of private economy, Schmalz, (1797) treats also of national or public economy, and Rössig (1792) divides cameralistic science into the doctrine of the public demesne and regal rights (cameralistic science in the narrower sense), and the doctrine of taxation and police.

150 Thus, for instance, all that concerns domestic economy, book-keeping and private financial administration.

151 John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (1848), I, p. 25, draws a distinction between the physical conditions which influence the economic situation of a people, and the moral and psychological conditions; which last have their origin in social institutions or in the fundamental principles of human nature. Only the latter belong to the domain of Political Economy. According to J. B. Say, Traité, Introd., this science embraces at once agriculture, manufactures and commerce, but only in their relation to the increase or diminution of wealth, and does not concern itself with the means employed to reach the desired end. As a rule, says Arndt (Naturgemässe Volkswirthschaft, 1851, p. 16), it takes into consideration not so much things themselves as their exchange value. Lotz (Handbuch, I, p. 6 seq.), in like manner, defines Political Economy—the science of the one activity which constitutes the basis of all industries etc. F. G. Schulze (Ueber volkswirthschaftliche Begründung der Gewerbswissenschaften, 1826), characterizes Political Economy as the science of the fundamental conditions of the well-being of a people, in so far as they lie in human nature.

When Adam Smith (book IV, c. II) says that the government in respect to matters of economy is inferior to the first best person engaged in industrial pursuits, he is right only from a technic point of view. And when Stewart, on the other hand, vindicates for the state the office of a pater-familias (book II, ch. 13), he evidently means only in national economical matters.

152 See also Rau (Ueber die Cameralwissenschaft, Entwickelung ihres Wesens und ihrer Theile, 1825); Baumstark (Cameralistische Enclycopädie, 1835).

153 Xenoph. Œconom. I, 8 ff. Cyrop. VIII; 2, 23. He saw with equal clearness the moral light and shade of wealth. (Œcon. XI. 9. Conviv. 4. Memor. I, 6. Cyrop. VIII, 3, 35 ff. Hiero 4.)

154 Thomas Aquinas values earthly goods according to the end they are made to serve; when used for a good purpose, they have a mediately true value. Hence it was an error of the stoics to despise them under all circumstances. (Summa Theol. II, 2. Qu., 50, 3. 58, 2. 59, 3. 125, 4.)

155 Whateley considers the savage much beneath the materialist, instead of superior to him. The latter possesses, although he frequently abuses it, the faculty of self-control and forethought, which is entirely wanting in the former. (Lectures, No. 6.) Dunoyer, De la Liberté du Traväil, liv. IV, ch. I, 8, an apology for the moral wholesomeness of civilization, since promotive of military prowess, favorable to the development of the sciences, and even poetical. Baudrillart, Manual d’Œkonomie politique, 1857, 24. See Fallati, Ueber die sogennannte materiellen Tendenz der Gegenwart, 1842.

156 See the inscription on the tomb of Sardanapalus: ταῦτ᾽ ἔχω, ὄσσ᾽ ἔφαγον καὶ ἐφύβρισα καί μετ᾽ ἔδωτος τέδπν ἔπαθον. (Strabo, XIV, 672.) Isaiah, 122, 13, 56, 12, and the book of wisdom (2) characterizes the view of the fallen Jewish people. In Greece, the Cynic and Epicurean schools were only different phases of the same degeneration. “Thirst, for money, and nothing else, will be the ruin of Sparta!” (Cicero, De Offic, II, 22, 77.) See the magnificent description by Demosthenes, in which he shows the over-estimation of material things to be the principal cause of the decline of Athens, and in which he lays great stress on the fact, that Athens, on its decay, had a larger population, more wealth, ships, and evidences of external power, than in its golden age. (Phil., III, 120 seq.) Also Phil., IV, 144, cautions us against the Manchester criterion of national prosperity. See Plato, De Rep., VIII. In Rome, the principle ommia venalia esse was a chief element in the total decline and fall of the republic. (Sallust, Cat., 10 ff., Jug., 8 ff.) In an age when people think they can do everything with money, the ruin of all things is the last end of mercantile, financial and political speculation. (Condillac, Le Commerce et le Gouverment, 1776, II, 18.)

157 Under Pericles, the Athenian treasury of the state contained at most 9,700 talents. (Thucyd. II, 13.) On the other hand, Alexander the Great had a treasure of 180,000 talents accumulated in the citadel of Ecbatana. (Strabo, XV, 731); Ptolomy II. left after him 740,000 talents. (Appian. præf. 10, Droysen, Geschichte des Hellenismus II, 44 ff.) In Nero’s time there was many a freedman’s daughter who owned a looking glass worth a greater sum than the senate had appropriated as a dowry to the daughter of the great Scipio. (Seneca, Quæst. Natur. I, 17. Compare Cons, ad Helviam, 12.) McCulloch says that an intelligent despotism can enrich a nation as well as freedom. (In his Discourse on the Rise, etc. of Polit. Econ., 1825, 77 seq.)

158 Bacon (Sermones, 56) says that youthful states distinguish themselves specially by their warlike instincts; mature states in literature; old and decaying ones in industry and commerce. Davenant very happily remarks, that the development of commerce among a people has an ambiguous value. It, indeed, increases wealth, but, at the same time, it may introduce luxury, covetousness and fraud, destroy virtue, do away with simplicity of manners and customs, and then it inevitably ends in internal or external slavery. (Works II, 275.) The simplicity of the patriarchal state, however, cannot last always, if for no other reason, because of the emulation of foreign nations. (1, 348, ff.) The impoverishment of even the wealthiest nation is certainly inevitable when its morality declines. It is especially true, that the public economy of a people can be prosperous only where political liberty obtains, and this, independent of the fact that wealth without freedom has no value. (II, 336 ff., 380, ff., 285.) According to Ferguson, private wealth, honestly acquired, used rightly and with moderation, managed with a sense of independence, may be to those who possess it, an element of self-confidence and of liberty, provided they loosen their purse strings not through vanity or for their personal gratification, but for commendable party purposes. But in periods of decay, even a greater amount of wealth is very far from producing these results. (History of Civil Society, VI, 5.) Whately, on the contrary, maintains that only personal wealth—never national wealth—has a disastrous influence on morals. Lectures, No. 2.

159 “The method of a science is of much greater importance than any individual discovery, however wonderful.” (Cuvier.)

160 Thus, for instance, G. Biel (ob. 1495), the “last of the schoolmen,” gives us his doctrine of Political Economy, in a work on Dogmatic Theology, in the chapter on Penance, his starting point being the inquiry, how the economic damage caused by the sinner may be repaired. Roscher, Geschichte der Nationalökonomik in Deutchland, 1074, I, 23. The Melittotheologia, Arachnotheologia of later times! A recent attempt in this direction has been made by Ad. Müller, Nothwendigkeit einer theologischen Grundage der gesammten Staatswissenschaften und der Staatswirthschaft insbesondere (1819), i.e., “necessity of a theological basis for all political science, and especially for Political Economy.” He divides political science into two parts: the science of law, and the science of wisdom, embracing under the latter denomination, politics, Political Economy, etc. Law emanates from God, as supreme judge; the science of wisdom from God, as our Supreme Father.

161 Abstraction is indulged in on a large scale, when a number of elements which are always found combined in life, are here separated and examined apart. It is precisely thus that anatomy proceeds, dissecting each member of the human frame, separating the bones, ligaments and muscles from one another, thus becoming the necessary preparatory school to physiology.

162 Thus, for instance, Canard, Principes d’Economie politique (1801). Also Kröncke, in several of his works, and Count Buquoy, in his Theorie der Nationalwirthschaft (1816), p. 333 ff.; Lang, Grundlinien einer politischen Arithmetik, Charkow, 1811, and more especially v. Thünen, Der isolirte Staat, vol. I (1842), vol. II, 1850. See my criticism of his method in Birnbaum’s Georgika, 1869, 77 ff. Voa Thünen’s first volume is an essay towards a geometrical exposition of the science. See also Rau, Lehrbuch I, § 154, appendix; von Mangoldt, Grundriss der Volkswirthschaftslehre (1862); Cazaux, Elements d’Economie privée et Principes mathématiques de la Théorie des Richesses (1838); F. Fuoco, Saggi economici (1827) II, 61 ff. Walras, Eléments d’Econ. politique pure (1874). Jevons has recently endeavored to give Political Economy a mathematical basis by reducing the objects of which it treats to the calculable feelings of pleasure (+) and pain (-). The duration of a feeling is treated as an abscissa, its intensity as the ordinate of a curve, and its quantity as the area. Future feelings are reduced to present ones, by allowing for their distance, and the uncertainty of their occurrence. All this, however, is rather curious than scientifically useful.

163 Herbart, Ueber die Möglichkeit und Nothwendigkeit, Mathematik auf Psychologie anzuwenden; Kleinere Schriften, II, 417.

164 How detrimental it is to ignore the psychological nature of Political Economy is evident from the errors of Karl Marx, who personifies things in a manner almost mythological. Thus, according to him, modesty should be ascribed to a coat which exchanges for a piece of linen, and purpose to the linen, etc. (Das Kapital, 1867, I, 19, 22, seq.) The greatest fault of this intelligent but not very acute man, his inability to reduce complicated phenomena to their constituent elements, is greatly increased by his way of thus looking at things.

165 Compare J. B. Say, Traité I, introd. Thus, it would be certainly possible to describe every individual’s physiognomy by means of a very complicated mathematical formula, and yet there is no one who would not prefer the usual mode of taking pictures. The simple motions of the heavenly bodies, on the contrary, are always treated mathematically. (Lotze, Allgemeine Physiologie, 322 ff.)

166 When Fawcett says that all “principles of Political Economy are describing tendencies instead of actual results” (Manual of Political Economy, 1863, p. 90), our method, the historical, would give also the theory of the latter.

167 This was lost sight of by most writers during the second half of the eighteenth century, because they looked upon that equality as the really oldest condition, and its restoration the ideal to be striven for. How much of this still clings to the present free-trade school; see in Roscher, Gesch. der N. Œk. in Deutschland, 10, 17 ff.

168 Thus, for instance, Ricardo examines, almost exclusively, the actual condition of things, while the socialists confine themselves, still more exclusively, to the investigation of how things should be. It has been very usual in Germany since Rau wrote, to draw a distinction between theoretical and practical Political Economy. There are many who think that a good manual of practical Political Economy, dropping the introduction, demonstrations etc., would be also a good code of law, of universal application. Mercier de la Rivière has said that he wished to propose an organization which should be necessarily productive of all the happiness which can be enjoyed on earth. (Ordre essentiel et naturel (1767), Disc. prélim.) Compare, also, Sismondi, N. Principes, I, ch. 2.

169 The word method is used in an essentially different sense, when the inquiry is, whether the inductive or deductive method is followed in Political Economy. J. S. Mill calls Political Economy, and, indeed, all “sociology,” a concrete deductive science, whose a priori conclusions, based on the laws of human nature, must be tested by experience, either by comparing them with the concrete phenomena themselves, or with their emperical laws. It, in this, resembles astronomy and physics. (System of Logic VI, ch. 9. Essays on some unsettled questions of Political E., No. 5.) According to this, an economic fact can be said to have received a scientific explanation only when its deductive and inductive explanations have met and agreed. “Only those principles which, after they have been obtained by the one, are confirmed by the other method, can be said to have a scientific basis.” (von Mangoldt, Grundriss, 8.) While I agree to this view, it seems necessary to me to mention points wherein caution is necessary: A. Even the deductive explanation of economic facts is based on observation, namely, on the self-observation of the person accounting for them, who, consciously or unconsciously, must always inquire: If I had experienced or accomplished the same fact, what should I have thought, willed and felt? The man who cannot translate himself into the souls of others, will give a wrong explanation of most economic facts. In the question, for instance, of the determination of the price of an article, the person who can look into the mind of one of the contracting parties only, will give a one-sided explanation of the facts. B. Moreover, every explanation, that is, satisfactory connection of the fact seeking explanation with other facts which are already clear, can be only provisional. The wider our horizon grows, the deeper should our solution of all questions become. A hundred years hence, should science increase in the mean time, the solutions which are satisfactory to us will be looked down upon by our posterity, as the speculations of our fathers antecedent to Adam Smith’s time are looked down upon by us.

170 Tanquam e vinculis sermocinantur, says Bacon (De Dignit. et Augm. Scient., III, 3), of those who have written in a not non-practical way on the laws. Hugo, also (Naturrecht, 1819, p. 9), calls attention to the resemblance of the so-called laws of nature, to the positive law in force at the time. As to political idealism, see Roscher: De historicæ doctrinæ apud sophistas majores vestigiis (Gött. 1838, 26 ff.). The only exceptions to this rule are the eclectics, who form their own system from the blossoms of all foreign ones, a system, indeed, without root, and which therefore must soon wither.

171 In this place, naturally, such an assertion can be made only as a programme to be carried out, the proof whereof is to be sought in the rest of the work. By “the people,” we do not mean the governed, to the exclusion of the governing classes, but both classes together. We attach to the expression the most extensive meaning possible. We do not limit it to the present generation, but intend it to cover all the generations from the beginning of a people’s history to its end.

172 The custom, which has become general, of calling all democratic movements, and them only, revolutions (thus Stahl: Was ist Revolution? 1852, and many other writers of an entirely opposite tendency, especially in France), is not warranted. It is true that democratic (and imperial) revolutions are more frequent than others in our times, just as aristocratic revolutions were in the middle ages, and monarchical at the beginning of modern history. The essence of revolution, however, is in the operation of change contrary to positive law, acknowledged as such by the consciousness of the people.

173 Compare, especially, the first pages of Sir J. Stewart, Principles of Polit. Economy.

174 See Colton, Public Economy of the United States, p. 28, who, indeed, unwarrantedly, refers to the whole of Political Economy, what properly belongs to its precepts.

175 Je n’impose rien, je ne propose même rien: j’expose. (Ch. Dunoyer). Cherbuliez, Précis de la Science économique, 1862, p. 7 ff., has exaggerated this idea in a strangely non-practical manner. That the historical method does not differ essentially from the statistical as recently recommended, see Roscher, Gesch. der Nat. Œk., 1035 seq.

176 Storch, Handbuch, II, 222.

177 Ad. Müller, an essentially mediæval mind, is guilty of this same braggadocio in an opposite direction, when he calls the “present with its political disorders simply an intermediate state,—the transmission of the natural or unconscious wisdom of the fathers, through the inquisitiveness of their children to the rational acknowledgment of that wisdom by their grandsons.” (Theorie des Geldes, 1816, pref.)

178 Thus, for instance, it can not be said that a model university is better than a model public school; and yet the former is higher, because the age to which it is adapted is doubtless intellectually higher.

179 Knies (Polit. Œk., 256 seq.) remarks, that it would be a great mistake, and it is the mistake of the majority, to consider what has been achieved or striven for in the present, as the absolute non plus ultra, and thus to look upon all future generations as called upon to play the parts of apes and ruminators; a remark worthy to be taken to heart.

180 I have, myself, no doubt, that up to the present time, mankind, as a whole, has, from the beginning of historical knowledge, always advanced. In individual cases, their movement has been interrupted by so many pauses, and even by so many occasional retrogressions, that great care must be taken not to infer superior excellence from mere subsequency.

181 Buckle writes of people whose knowledge is about limited to that which they see going on under their eyes, and who are called practical, only because of their ignorance; and he adds that, although they assume to despise theory, they are in fact slaves of theory, of others’ theories.

182 Compare this whole chapter with Roscher, Leben Werk und Zeitalter des Thukydides, 1842, pp. 25, 239-275; Roscher, Grundries zu Vorlesungen über die Staatswirthschaft nach geschichtlicher Methode, 1843, preface; Roscher Geschichte der Nat. Œk. in Deutchland (1874), 882 f., 1017 seq., and D. Vierteljahrsschrift, ff. See also J. Kautz’s learned and accurate Theorie und Geschichte der N. Œkonomik, vol. I, 1858, II, 1860. I find no real contradiction between the views here expressed and those of Kautz, when he (I, pp. 313 ff.) introduces history and ethico-practical reason with their ideals as sources of Political Economy, to the end that the science may be something more than simply a picture, namely, a model of economic life. Apart from the fact that it is only the ethico-practical reason that can understand history at all, the ideals of a period constitute one of the most important elements of its history. The aspirations of an age find in them their best expression. The historical political, economist as such, is certainly not disinclined to form plans of reform, nor can it be said that he is not adapted to the performance of such a task. Only, he will scarcely recommend his reforms as absolutely better than what they are intended to supplant. He will confine himself to showing that there is a want which may, probably, be best satisfied by what he proposes. See Sartorius, Einladungsblätter zu Vorlesungen über die Politik, 1793.

183 “There is a book which youth may use to grow old, and the old to remain young—History.” (K. S. Zaccharia).

184 Especially when natural science begins to be “a practical science.” (L. Stein).

185 The difference between the broader and narrower sense of production, corresponds essentially with that of gross and net income (§ 145). Compare also §§ 206, 211 ff.

186 Von Mangoldt distinguishes the coming into existence of free values of the production undertaken for an economic purpose. (Grundriss, 9.)

187 Gioja, Nuovo Prospetto delle Scienze economiche (1815), I, 49 ff. Besides positive production, there is a latent production, which prevents the decay of goods. It is not possible to make as exact an estimate of the latter as of the former; and much more depends in the latter case than in the former on continuity and proper extension. Hence, latent production is especially a state concern. (Knies, Telegraph als Verkehrsmittel, 1857, 232.)

188 See Schäffle, in the Tübinger Univ. Programm, September 27, 1862, on the disastrous effect on the community of idleness. The leading of a happy life the Greeks called very appropriately, εὐπράττειν (Garve).

189 We use the expression “external nature” through the whole of this work in contradistinction not only to the soul, but also to man’s body, designating his entire physico-intellectual activity by the term “labor-force” (Arbeits kraft).

190 By the expression “natural forces,” we designate the economically useful changes of matter, changes of place as well as of composition, which are made without man’s cooperation; for instance, the gigantic machinery which supplies the greater part of mankind with water to drink, for domestic and other purposes—the evaporation of the sea, the formation of clouds, rain, springs, rivers etc. See Bastiat, Harmonies, 277. Thus the sun’s rays are indirectly the cause, not only of vegetation, but also of all wind and steam forces.

191 Spite of this “freedom,” it may well happen that these gifts of nature can be utilized, in many cases, only on condition of some expenditure. The photographer can compel the sunlight to work for him only by means of a camera obscura, and the smithy the atmosphere, only by means of a bellows. But neither will ever successfully make an item, in their accounts with their customers, of the services of the sun or air.

192 The most important ocean currents may be explained by two causes: the flowing of the water from the polar seas to the equator (polar current), and the revolution of the earth about its axis (equinoctial current); besides which, there are the reflex currents produced by the horizontal form of the coast-lands. Thanks to these natural ocean highways, England is nearer to almost all the important mercantile coasts of the world by 300 geographical miles than the Eastern States of the American Union. The only exception is the Atlantic coast of America north of the Equator. North Americans to pass the line, or to double one of the two great capes, are obliged first to traverse the ocean as far as the Azores. On the other hand, the western coast of South America is very widely separated from Mexico, for instance, by its ocean currents. The colonization of America by Europe, instead of by China, is a consequence of the direction of ocean currents, as is also the fact that America has now the fairest prospect of influencing the civilization of China and Japan. What an influence the warm gulf stream has on the mild climate of north-western Europe!

193 While the Mississippi has no ebb or flow whatever, the influence of the ocean is felt in the Hudson, which is 60 geographical miles long, a distance of 29 miles from its mouth.

194 Thus, A. Young, Travels in France I, 293 ff., has defined, with approximate accuracy, the limits within which the vine, maize and the olive grow. And so von Cancrin, Dorpater Jahrbuch IV, 1, distinguishes the ice zone, the reindeer-moss (a lichen on which the reindeer live in winter) zone, the forest zone, the zone within the limits of which cattle are raised; that in which the culture of rye begins, that in which it becomes permanent; the wheat, fruit-tree, vine, maize, olive, sugar cane and silk-worm zones. The United States are divided into cattle-raising, wheat-raising, cotton-raising, rice-raising and sugar-raising zones. Even in Europe, beyond the 60th parallel of north latitude, wheat can scarcely be cultivated; the polar limits of rye raising extend, at most, six or seven degrees farther. Towards the north, barley extends sometimes as far as the 70th degree. Here agriculture almost ceases, and the inhabitants are compelled to confine themselves to animal substances for food. On the other hand, these three cereals are not adapted to a tropical climate, while the bread-fruit tree, for instance, does not thrive at more than 22 degrees from the Equator, nor the banana at more than 35. Compare Grisebach, Die Vegetation der Erde nach ihrer klimatischen Anordnung. II, 1871.

195 Thus rye and wheat thrive in many parts of Siberia (Iakutzk) at an annual temperature of - 7.50, while in Iceland no cereals ripen at an annual temperature of + 4°. But in the former place the summer heat is + 16.2°; the winter cold, - 39.2°; in Iceland, + 12° and - 1.6°. In England, the myrtle, laurel, camelia and fuchsia stand the winter well; while the vine no where ripens. On the other hand, Astrakan and Hungary are vine growing countries, although the former is as cold in winter as North Cape, and although the cold is more intense in Hungary than in the Faroe Islands, where neither the oak nor the beech grow any longer. No good wine is produced on the western coast of France, north of 47° 20’ north latitude; in Champagne, north of 49°, or in the Rheingau, north of 51°. In Norway, the average heat is greater on the coast than in the heart of the country where, however, grain ripens, while it does not on the coast; for the mildness of the winter, no matter how great, can make no compensation for the want of heat. On the other hand, the cattle on the coast can remain much longer out of doors, and the sea seldom freezes in such a way as to interfere with the fisheries. Blom, Norwegen I, 39. Boussingnault (Economie rurale considérée dans ses Rapports avec la Chimie, II) has made some interesting attempts to calculate by a mathematical process the amount of heat necessary to vegetable, during the period of vegetation. Thus, for instance, wheat requires about 12° (Réaumur) of heat during 140 days; that is, nearly 140 x 12° = 1680° Réaumur. In Venezuela, the sugar cane requires a longer time to grow in a higher and therefore cooler position than in a lower and warmer, and the length of time required is in proportion to the height.

196 Hence it is that the isothermal lines are not parallel with the equator or with one another. The greater number of these have two northern and two southern summits; the former on the western coasts of Europe and America, and the latter in eastern North America, and in the interior of Asia.

197 The quantity of rain which falls every year is, at St. Petersburg and Pesth, from 16 to 17 inches; at Berlin 19, Mannheim 21, Tübingen 26: in the interior of France 16-24; on the French coast 25, on the eastern coast of England 24, on the western coast 35, in Milan 36, Genoa 44, on the coast of most tropical lands 70-120. On the political-economical influences of most climates, see Gobbi, Ueber die Abhängikeit der Populationskräfte von den einfachen Grundfstoffen, 1842.

198 The snow limit at Mageröe in Norway is 2,200, in Iceland 2,900, in the northern Ural 4,500, in the Alps 8,200, in the Caucasus 10,400, and Quito 14,850 feet high. Hence it is that mountainous countries which produce nothing in the north, make magnificent vineyards in warmer countries.

199 In central Germany, even a second crop can be produced after the corn harvest. In Arabia, the same seed produces three harvests, because the grain which falls at the time of harvesting to the ground, germinates immediately and suffices for new seed. (Niebuhr, Beschreibung, 154.)

200 Thus in the northern states of the American union, wheat yields a return of only from four to five times the amount sown; in France, 5-6 times (Lavoisier): in Chili, 12 times; in northern Mexico, 17 times; in Peru, 18 and 20 times; in southern Mexico, 25 and even 35 times; in Germany, maize seed yields at best one hundred fold, while in the torrid zone there is a return of from three hundred to four hundred fold, generally.

201 Andalusian corn produces in the mill only one-half as much bran-waste as Baltic wheat produces. Bourgoing, Tableau de l’Espagne, II, 155. Baltic wheat contains 6-7 per cent, of azote, and Algerian, 20-25 Per cent. (Kabsch, Pflanzenleben der Erde, 1865.)

202 In Europe the blossoming season is retarded four days for each degree of northern latitude. (Schübler.) As we advance towards the north, the difference becomes less noticeable, but more so as we go towards the south. In mountainous countries a similar difference is observable, produced by a like climatic influence. It is from about 10 to 12 days, for a height of from 500 to 600 feet. (Wolff, Naturgesetzliche Grundlagen des Ackerbaues I, p. 332 ff.) In the cantons, in which the Swiss confederation had its origin, the pasturage of the Alps lasts generally thirteen weeks, but in the higher Alps it lasts only from six to seven weeks. (Businger, C. Unterwalden., p. 52.)

203 In central Italy, winter wheat may be sown in October, November or December; summer wheat, in February or March. (Sismondi, Tableau de l’Agriculture Toscane, p. 35.) In Judæa, it was possible to harvest figs ten months in the year. (Joseph, Bell. Jud., Ill, p. 10.) On the other hand, there is Jemtland, where the peasant in many places surrounds the northern portion of his cornfield with fagots, and lights them in August when the north wind blows, to protect his land from the frost; and where the expression “green years” is used to designate those in which the harvest has to be reaped before it is ripe. (Forsell, Statistik von Schweden, 24.) In the valuation made of the lands of the kingdom of Saxony, for assessment purposes, the cost of supporting a yoke of oxen in the lowest country is estimated at only three-fourths of what it is in the highest localities, because in the former, 200 work days can be calculated upon in the year, in the latter only 159. In central Russia, the greater part of the labor of agriculture, sowing and harvesting, has to be finished within the space of four months. In central Germany, they are spread over seven months. Other things being equal, seven horses and ploughmen are needed in Russia where only four are called for in central Germany, (von Haxthausen, Studien I, 174.) On the impediments put in the way of agriculture by the climate of eastern Prussia, see Meitzen, Boden und landwirthsch. Verhältnisse des preussichen Staats, 1868, I, Abschn., 6.

204 “In both hemispheres, the zone in which the temperature decreases most rapidly lies between the 40th and 50th degrees of north latitude. This circumstance must have a happy influence on the culture and industry of the nation inhabiting the neighborhood of that zone. Here is the point where the regions of the vine touch upon those of the olive. Nowhere in the world, do the products of the vegetable kingdom, and the most varied wonders of agriculture, follow with such rapidity on one another. The great variety of products enlivens the commerce and increases the industrial activity of agricultural nations.” (Humboldt.) It is true, however, that tropical countries possess, also, in their mountainous parts, the tierra fria, templada and caliente, superimposed the one on the other.

205 The aggregate coal supply of Great Britain (1869) was 2,180 millions cwt.; of Belgium (1862), 207 millions; of France (1868) 256 millions; of Prussia (1870), 600 millions, of Austria (1870), including brown lignite coal, 158 millions; of Russia (1868), only a little over 9 millions. The great English coal field, in the counties of Durham and Northumberland, embraces 732 English square miles; that of South Wales, 1,200, with a depth of 95 feet, so that the geographical square mile contains here 679 millions of tons, each of twenty cwt. To obtain the same quantity of combustible material as was furnished to Prussia, in 1865, by its coal, it would be necessary to use up 6,331 square miles of forest, (von Dèchen, in Engel’s Zeitschrift, 1867, 258.) The supply of coal is, of course, exhaustible while, for instance, turf-fields replace themselves by slow degrees. Compare Griesbach, über die Bildung des Torfs, in the Göttinger Studien, 1845, vol. I. The importance of the coal-fields of the United States, which are twenty-two times as large as those of Great Britain, in the distant future, cannot be over-estimated.

206 I need only call attention to the earth-fire (Erdbrand) for the purpose of forcing the growth of garden plants in the neighborhood of Zwickau, which is said to have existed since 1505.

207 Thus, in Watt’s steam engines of the larger kind, an hourly consumption of ten pounds of coal is needed to produce a force equivalent to that of one horse, while in the smallest machines of only one horse power, twenty-two pounds are needed. See Prechtl, Technolo. Encyklopädie, III, 669.

208 It is easy to see that it is the most important substances needed in industry which are mentioned in this section. Many political economists have considered the principal difference between agriculture and the industries and economies of towns to lie in the contrast here referred to. Thus, A. Sena, Sulle Cause che possono far abbondare li Regni d’oro e d’argento, dove non sono miniere, 1613, I, 3. See the description of the difference between land and machines in Malthus, Principles, III, 5; Senior, Outlines, 86. But it is nothing more than a difference of gradation. Even in the most active of businesses there is a limit which the accumulation of means of production cannot pass without a relative diminution of the income. This boundary is imposed by the limited nature of those organic beings which must contribute to production either actively or passively. Thus, for instance, a manufacturing establishment or commercial business can be enlarged with advantage only so long as it is still possible for one superintendent to conduct it. And so, when cattle are furnished with very abundant and substantial food, a pound of meat costs the producer a much higher price than when they are more moderately supplied: sometimes in the ratio of 1.95:0.98. Boussingault, Economie rurale, II. Where there is absolute over-feeding, the producer must suffer loss. But, even inorganic nature imposes its own limits here; as, for instance, when ships, machines etc., on account of the insufficient strength of the materials of which they are made, cannot be constructed beyond a certain size. But all these limits are much narrower than those imposed by the quality of immovability.

209 Senior, Outlines, 26, 81 ff. See Stewart, Principles, II, ch. 11; Ortes, E. N., I, 18, II, 18 ff. This most important principle in Political Economy is thus illustrated by John Stuart Mill, Principles, book I, ch. 12. “The limitation to production from the properties of the soil is not like the obstacle opposed by a wall, which stands immovable in one particular spot, and offers no hindrance to motion short of stopping it entirely. We may rather compare it to a highly elastic and extendible band, which is hardly ever so violently stretched, that it could not possibly be stretched any more, yet the pressure of which is felt long before the final limit is reached, and felt more severely the nearer that limit is approached.” This is, if possible, more obvious in building than in agriculture, both as to the construction of new stories and the excavation of deeper cellars.

210 Ad. Mayer, Das Düngerkapital und der Raubbau (Heidelberg, 1869), sees the only conditions of production which man cannot increase at will exclusively in the sun’s rays, the employment of which also depends on the quantity of land. Thus would he explain Senior’s law.

211 See the tables of increase in Cotta, Anweisung zum Waldbau, p. 228. Count Buquoy, Theorie der N. Wirthschaft, p. 54, ridicules the absurd procedure of a great many farmers, as if by forcing the ploughshare deeper into the soil, they could compel it to produce a double return, and asks: if one should dig a square foot of land to the center of the earth and manure it, who would take it off his hands? As to the effect of manure, Kuhlmann’s investigations have shown that 300 kilogrammes of guano produced in three years an increase per hectare in the yield, of 2,469 kilogrammes of hay; while 600 kilogrammes produced an increase of only 2,870 kilogrammes. Schübler, found that where salt had been used for manuring purposes, 40 kilogrammes produced a maximum of fertility from which point forward every increase in the amount of salt was attended by diminished returns, and finally led to complete barrenness. See Wolff, Naturgesetzliche Grundlagen, I, 408, 412, 502. Constantly increased irrigation would convert the land into a swamp instead of indefinitely adding to its fertility. Nor can abundant sowing be of any use when it reaches such a point that the plants stand so closely together as to interfere with their proper development.

212 These differences correspond with the differences in the kinds of deterioration to which land is liable from rivers, floods, lava, etc., soil-exhaustion, and the growing wild of the land.

213 From a technic point of view, it would, perhaps, be practicable, in most instances, to obtain the phosphoric acid immediately from the land and transfer it to other land; but the relation of the cost to the result makes it impossible from an economical point of view.

214 It most certainly is always an uncommon advantage that certain kinds of soil, rich in kali and decayed vegetable matter, yield a long series of harvests without the addition of manure, provided, always, that a short interval is allowed to the process of decay to replace the exhausted plant-food. Thus in many volcanic regions. Compare on similar districts in the Deccan: Rilter, Erdkunde, V, 714.

215 According to Schübler, the absorption of water by 100 parts of earth is, in the case of quartz-sand, 25 per cent. of its weight; for clay, 70 per cent.; for calcareous earth, 85 per cent.; humus, 190 per cent.; and for 100 parts of their value, respectively, 37.9, 66.2, and 69.2 per cent. The consistency of the four kinds of earth, in a dry state, is in the proportion of 0.100, 5, 8.7; their adhesion in a moist state, to iron agricultural implements, is in that of 0.17, 1.12, 0.65, 0.40. Of 100 parts of water mixed with these kinds of earth, the evaporation in four hours, at a temperature of 18° 75’ (centigrade) is 88.4, 31.3, 28 and 20.5 per cent, respectively. The diminution of volume when the moist earth dries, under the same degree of temperature, is, 0, 18.3, 5 and 20. Their relative absorption of atmospheric moisture for 48 hours is as 0, 24, 17.5 and 55; their absorption of oxygen in 30 days is respectively 1.6, 15.3, 10.8 and 2.03 per cent.; and, lastly, their heat-holding power is in the ratio of 95.6, 66.7, 61.8, 49.

216 In Austria, below the Enns, only 3.8 per cent. of the soil is barren; in the Tyrol, 29 per cent.; in Dalmatia, 48.1 per cent. (Springer). In the French Pyrenees, 43 per cent. is considered incapable of cultivation; in the Alps, in Landes and Morbihan, 42 per cent.; in the departments of Nord and Somme, 1.3 per cent. (Schnitzler). Franscini considers 36 per cent. of Switzerland unfit for tillage. The idea “barren” is a very vague one, and hence a comparison of different countries on this point should not be made without great caution.

217 Wolff, loc. cit., 353 ff. As to the manner in which soil and climate mutually improve or injure one another, see Schwerz, Prackt. Ackerbau I, 12.

218 In this respect, also, the fundamental difference between agriculture and industry is very important, inasmuch as the products of the former, equal in value to those of the latter, require a very large supporting or bearing surface; those of industry, a very small one. If Nobbe’s “water-cultivation” should ever come to assume any great practical importance, agriculture would approach to industry in this respect.

219 Wolkoff has called special attention to mere emplacement: Lectures d’Economie polítique rationelle (1861), pp. 90 seq., 157 seq. Bastiat’s rather broad and enthusiastic assertion, that no mere product of nature possesses value (in contradistinction to utility), an exaggeration of his very honorable contest with the socialists (1848!), is refuted by daily experience, as when, for instance, discoveries are made accidentally of metallic veins, coal-fields etc., which immediately acquire great exchange value.

220 Aristotle distinguishes between ἀπολαυστικὰ and κάρπιμα. (Rhet., I, 5.)

221 Humboldt, Essai politique, súr la N. Espagne, IV, 9, in which he estimates the relation of the culture of the banana to that of wheat, in respect of mere quantity, to be as 4,000 to 30,—“probably the best gift of nature to awakening man, and the object of the most ancient cultivation.”

222 It was said that in Easter Island, three days’ labor sufficed for a man’s maintenance through the whole year. A similar gift of nature to tropical lands is the date tree. It is turned to so many different uses that the Arabs of the coast of the Persian Gulf say that it is possible to construct a ship, rig it, supply and freight it, from date trees. Houses are built of palm wood, covered with palm leaves, furnished with palm mats, lighted with palm chips, and heated with palm coals. The whole architecture of these countries is fashioned by the date tree. Date wine is the favorite intoxicating beverage. There is a proverb current there that a good housewife can vary the preparation of the date for her guests every day in the month. Even the pulp is eaten. Each tree yields an average of 50-250 lbs. of dates; and a tree may last over 200 years. An acre may contain more than 200 trees. The labor of cultivation is very slight, although it demands more care than the banana. Compare Ritter, Erdkunde, XII, 763. An acre planted with the sago-palm yields as much nourishment as 163 acres of wheat land. (Reise der Frigatte Novara, II, 113.)

223 See D. Hume, Discourses No. I (On Commerce). While in hot countries “the sun does more work for man, it diminishes human strength itself.” (M. Wirth.) That, however, such people, to their surplus of the natural means of enjoyment and the consequent laziness and absence of care, add the bright side of a joyous disposition, is well shown by Goethe, Werke (16 mo., 1840), XXIII, 246.

224 Noticed even by Thucyd., I, 2. See also Euripides’ comparison of Sparta and Messina, in Strabo, VIII, 366.

225 We find, in a great many countries, that their northern portions are endowed more sparingly by nature with means of enjoyment (Genussmitteln) than southern portions, but more abundantly with means of acquisition. (Erwerbsmitteln.) Hence, the former are latest to develop; but once developed, they assume a much higher place in civilization than the latter. This is true of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and the United States, and of North America in general, as compared with South America. Something similar may be seen in the contrast between Austria and Prussia. The latter is colder and less fertile, but far superior to the former in extent of coast, in rivers, and fossilized combustible matter.

226 The rule is not without its exceptions. Thus, for instance, Borneo and New Guinea are physically very like each other, but zoölogically two different worlds; the former belonging to India and the latter to Australia.

227 Even language, which is the most general and most accurate expression of the intellectual genius of a people, presents a strikingly analogous contrast in mountainous and coast countries. Thus, compare the Ionic, Latin, Low German, Danish and Portuguese, with the Doric, Oscan, High German, Swedish and Spanish.

228 See Strabo, II, 126. seq.

229 The most striking instance, illustrative of the manner in which the nature of a country influences the character of a people is afforded by the difference in the development of the Aryans in India and Persia, especially when their sojourn in the territory of the Indus before that near the Ganges is looked upon as an intermediate stage.

230 French writers, especially, have exaggerated the influence of nature over man. Thus, Bodin. de Repub. (1584), V, I; Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, XVII, 6. XVIII, 1, 18. Cabanis, Rapport du Physique et du Moral de l’Homme (1805), IX, Mémoire, Influence des Climats. Comte, also, Traité de Législation (1827), is of opinion that “the degree of civilization which a people may attain does not depend on the degree of development of which they are capable by nature, but on that which their geographical situation permits them to attain.” See, also, Herodot., III, 106; Hippocr., De Ære etc., 71; Euripid., Medea, 820 ff.; Plutarch, De Exilio, 13. The proper mean has been found by E.M. Arndt, in his Anleitung zu historischen Characterschilderungen (1810), and by Ritter, and his school. See, also, K.S. Zachariæ, Idee einer volkswirthschaftlichen Geographic als Grundlage der praktischen N. Œkonomie fur jedes einzelne Volk: Vierzig Bücher v. Staate, II, 79. See, also, Turgot, Géographie politique, 1750, Œuvres (ed. Daire, II, 611 ff.); Lueder, Nationalindustrie und Staatswirthschaft, III, 1800 ff.

231 Malte Brun, Précis. de la Geographie universelle, VI. pr.

232 Strabo, IV, 178. On the climate of ancient Germany, see Tacit, Germ, 2.

233 Fraser, Travels in Koordistan and Mesopotamia, II, 5. See, also, the description of ancient Susiana in Strabo XV, 731, with that of the new one by M’Kinneir, Geogr. Memoir of Persia, 92.

234 Thus, Galenus, De Usu Partium Corporis humani, L. I. The animal nearest to man mentally, the elephant, is also possessed of a member more like the human hand than any other animal. Its trunk was called manus by the Romans. Hence the Indians call the elephant, the animal gifted with a hand. Buffon’s view is exaggerated by Helvetius in the interests of materialism. Aristotle, (De partt. anim. IV, 10), opposes the saying of Anaxagoras: διὰ τὸ χεῖρας ἔχειν φρονιμώτατον εἶναι τῶν ζώων ἄνθρωπον. Compare Bell, On the human Hand, 1836.

235 As to the imperfection of the ordinary division into agricultural, industrial and commercial labor, see John Stuart Mill, I, ch. 2, 9. The division of all labor into mental and physical, is not more satisfactory; for even the basest labor is not wholly physical. See Buckle, History of Civilization, vol. II.

236 Dioscorides and Galen were acquainted with, at most, 600 plants; Linnæus, with 8,000. About 1812, about 30,000 had been described; in 1837, about 60,000; in 1849, about 100,000. Buckle, History of Civilization etc., II, p. 359.

237 Industrie extractives, according to Dunoyer. When nature’s spontaneous gifts are exhausted, this occupation readily becomes production.

238 Industrie voituriére, according to Dunoyer; industria traslocatrice in opposition to trasformatrice, according to Scialoja. Ortes distinguishes only four classes: agricoltori, artefici, dispensatori and administratori, or raccoglitori, manifattori, and difensori di bene (E. N. I, 2; III, 14). A. Walker, Science of Wealth (1867), p. 34, knows only three classes: transmutation, transformation, transportation.

239 This is not to be understood in the sense, that there ever was a period in which these sciences were unknown. We need only mention the position occupied by the priest and knight in the middle ages. But, looked upon as economic labor, intended only for purposes of free commerce, they have become very important only within a relatively recent period of time. Thus, for instance, there was in Lower Austria, in 1866, one lawyer or notary to every 6,569 inhabitants; in Bohemia, to every 14,860; in Galicia, to every 22,361; in the whole of Cis-Leithanian Austria, 12,259. In 1865, there was in Prussia, one to every 11,149; in Bavaria, to every 7,350; in Hanover, to every 4,946; in 1862, in Baden, one to every 4,992; in 1867, in Saxony, one to every 3,048. Hildebrand’s Tagebuch, 1868, I, 234. There was in Prussia, in 1871, one doctor to every 3,230 inhabitants; in Berlin, to every 1,100; in Heldesheim, to 1,803; in Cologne, to 2,120, in Marienwerder, to 7,240; in Gumbinnen, to 10,047. Engel, Preuss. Statis. Zeitschrift, 1872, 376. The verb “to plow” is, according to comparative philologists, of more recent origin than “to weave.” (Lassen, Indische Alterth. I, 814 ff.) And yet agriculture, in the sense above indicated, undoubtedly precedes industry.

240 Observed by Geiler v. Kaisersberg. Compare Schmoller in the Tübinger Zeitschr., 1860, 483. Hour wages occupy a middle place between day wages and piece wages.

241 Thus the introduction of piece wages into lower Silesia has increased the daily earnings of workmen by one-third, one-half, and even more. Engel’s Stastist. Zeitschr. (1868), p. 327. The investigations of the German agricultural congress on the condition of agricultural laborers in the German empire (report of v. d. Goltz, 1875) show that in all Germany on an average, the daily earnings of a contract workman (Accordlöhner) is to the daily summer wages of a day laborer as 15:10 (1420). On the other hand, Brassey, in the construction of a railway, found that the same workmen engaged in grading, digging, etc., cost 18 pence per yard when paid by the day, and 7 pence when paid by the piece. (Work and Wages, 266.) Swiss experience is, that production became 20 per cent. cheaper under the piece wages system. (Böhmert, Beitr., 109.)

242 According to v. d. Goltz’s Enquête, the earnings of workmen by the piece, compared with the wages paid workmen by the day in summer, is especially high in middle Franconia (16.5:10); in the Leipzig circle of the German empire (16.6), in the Braunschweig plain (16.8), within the jurisdiction of Hildesheim (18.1), of the Bavarian Palatinate (18.6), in Rhenish Hesse (23.2), especially low in Stettin (13.2:10), in Stralsund (12.4), in Schleswig Holstein (12), in Osnabrück, (11.7.)

243 According to v. Flotow, Anleitung zur Fertigung der Ertragsanschlage, I, 80, four days of serf labor are equivalent to only three of a free day laborer. According to v. Jacob, Ueber die Arbeit Leibeigener und freier Bauern (1815), 21, two day laborers are equal to three serfs, and one farm horse is equal to two employed by serfs. It is as impossible to obtain accurate general estimates here, as in the case of slave labor. As a rule, hope is not only a more humane but a sharper spur to action. But if force is employed at all, there is no doubt that the greater it is, the more effectual it is. Wherever the right of corporal punishment has been taken from the masters, the technic value of serfdom has uniformly decreased. In the English West Indies, formerly, philanthropic masters who treated their negroes with unwonted gentleness, obtained from them, as a rule, very poor economic results. While each of the slaves expressed the greatest indignation at the idleness of the others when they had “so good a master,” they were all equally and excessively lazy. The weekly production of a plantation sank rapidly under this system from thirty-three hogsheads to twenty-three, and finally to thirteen. Math. Levis, Journal of a West India Proprietor, 1834; Edinburg Review, XLV, 410. For the same reason, the negroes in the Spanish colonies, who were treated much more gently than those owned by other European nationalities produced much worse work. See, however, Columella, De Re rust., I, 8.

244 According to Howlett, The Insufficiency of the Causes to which the Increase of our Poor Rate have been ascribed (1788), piece wages had become usual “a few years ago.” Very recently the trades unions have again restricted the system of piece wages (§ 176).

245 This system is inapplicable in the case of domestic servants (Gesinde) who are a part of the household, and who afford to their masters, besides their services, the advantage of having a person at their disposal always about them, and whose wages are therefore in great part their board and lodging. Still less can it apply to the case of the family physician, whose services consist not simply in writing prescriptions, but who is also the professional family friend. The same may be said of the state official, clergyman etc., from whom it is demanded that he should sacrifice his entire life to the service of the public. Against adopting piece wages in the case of state officials, it may be further urged that no case at law, no act of public life is precisely similar to any other. It cannot be applied to that of soldiers, because they are called upon for action only after a long term of peace, during all of which they must keep themselves in readiness for war. (Schäffle, N. Œk., II, 388.) It has also been the practice of courts, until recently, on account of their dignity, to pay their mechanics not by the piece, wherever that was practicable, but by a fixed salary. An able professor in a university is of use to it not only by his lectures, but by his reputation and example etc.; hence, here, a combination of piece wages and of a regular salary is preferred. As to services, the permanency of which constitutes their essential character, remuneration is also wont to be permanent or hereditary, as in the case of very many public officers, while civilization is as yet unadvanced. Later, in proportion as the progress of civilization makes itself felt, this hereditariness is wont to be confined to the sovereign. For an opposite view, see Boxhorn, Institutt. politt. (1663), 41.

246 Thus, the Chinese, who, by a ridiculous exaggeration bordering on caricature of many of our recent tendencies, may afford us a warning reflection of ourselves in our present state of civilization, rarely labor efficiently when not watched. Only by means of piece wages or the share-system can they be induced to do good work. R. M. Micking; Recollections of Manilla and the Phillippine Islands, 1851.

247 Day laborers, for instance, must be watched over during the harvest, to prevent their idling away their time, and piece-workers to prevent their continuing to work in spite of wet weather, binding sheaves, for instance, which causes the sheaves to rot. In England, it is considered almost an impossibility to induce laborers to cut wheat close enough to the soil. (Sinclair, Code of Agriculture, 102.) The haste of piece-workers, in the harvest of the rape, occasions great loss, by the fall of the seed. In Russia the removing of the hide from animals is paid for by the piece, and the laborers injure a very large number of skins in their haste. Steinhaus, Russlands industrielle und commercielle Verhältnisse, 425. Piece-wages are to be entirely discountenanced in the reeling of silk. See Bernouilli, Technologie, II, 215. A yearly salary is to be recommended in the tending of cattle, because here a certain connection (Anschluss) with individuals is desirable. In building trades, contractors in England prefer a regular salary; but they employ model workmen, the so-called “bell horses,” to whom they pay a large salary, and who keep the others on the strain by their example, and who on that account are very much hated by their colleagues.

248 Adam Smith, W. of Nations, I, ch. 8. Howlett, also, l. c., thinks that piece-wages increase the earnings of workmen, but at the expense of their capacity for constant labor. Count Görtz, in his Reise, 328, relates with what fatal effect piece-work in Demarara tells on white laborers and their horses. After the February Revolution, Parisian workmen demanded the abolition of piece-wages, and obtained it in several manufactories. Revue des deux Mondes, March 15, 1848.

249 In several Swiss factories, understrappers receive a salary, while monteurs work by groupe-contract. (Böhmert, Arbeiterverältnisse und Fabrikeinrichtungen der Schw., II, 70.) Sub-contracting, where the contract is generally made with only one person, for the most part of more than average capacity, and this latter contracts with other workmen on his own account entirely, is considered by philanthropic employers of labor as one of the worst kinds of remuneration. The more democratic system of gang-contract is much better, although even here, it is very easy for the weaker members of a good gang to overwork themselves. (Edinburg Review, October, 1873, 365.)

250 Especially important in chemical factories. The expense of greasing on the Rhenish railways fell, through premiums offered as rewards for saving, from 27,000 thalers to 5,000, in spite of an increase in the amount of traffic. (v. Mangoldt, Volkswirthschaftslehre, 349.) This was, besides, the most effectual way of controlling the theft of material.

251 In the cachelot fishery, the captain receives one-sixteenth, the master, one twenty-fifth, the second master, one thirty-fifth, the boatswain, one-sixtieth, each sailor, one eighty-fifth of the profit. (Humboldt, N. Espagne, IV, 10.) This system is very common in North America. See Carey in J. S. Mill’s Principles, V, ch. 9, 7. In heathen Iceland, mariners were always paid a certain quota of the profits. Leo, in Raumer’s historischem Taschenbuch, 1835, 524. The same was often the case in China. McCulloch, Comm. Diction. v. Canton. In England, its employment was rendered very difficult by the laws of partnership, which made each individual, except in great chartered societies, responsible for all kinds of debts contracted by the rest of the firm. J. S. Mill, B. IV, ch. 7, 5.

252 The house painter Leclaire, in Paris, obtained very high results in this respect. Leclaire, Répartition des Bénéfices du Travail, 1842. He retained for his own services as contractor the sum of 6,000 francs, and paid each workman the salary he had hitherto received. What remained was, at the end of the year, equally divided among all. Leclaire assures us that he was always satisfied with the system. The paying of a proportion of the general profits to laborers is advisable only in case their ability of surveying the whole is not much inferior to that of their employers. Where a special proportion is paid, in special branches of business, it is sufficient if their supervision extends over that particular branch. But a sharing in the profits of business always supposes a corresponding supervision of the business itself, and also the keeping of accounts.

253 A very good remedy against indigence among the lower classes. (Umpfenbach, National Œkonomie, 1867, 214.) But whether it will ever be possible to make the remuneration of the navvy or that of a type-setter depend on the final success of his work, qnœre.

254 Tournefort, speaking of the fatalism of the Turks, says that they always and everywhere leave the world as they found it. According to their own proverb, no grass grows again where the Osman has set foot.

255 The experiments made with the dynamometer in 1800 ff. show that the average force manuelle of an inhabitant of Van Dieman’s Land is to that of an inhabitant of New Holland, of Timor, of a French marine, and of an English colonist in Australia, in the ratio of 50, 51, 58, 69, 71 kilogrammes. Péron, Voyage de Découverte aux Terres australes, 2d ed., II, 417. It was found more recently in the American army, that the average lifting-power of white soldiers was 314 to 343 -lbs.; of white marines, 307; students, 308; negroes, 323; mulattos, 348; and Indians, 419. Gould, Investigations in the Military and Anthropolog. Statistics of American Soldiers, 1869, 458, seq. According to English manufacturers, an English laborer accomplishes almost as much again as a French one(?), and the latter in turn more than an Irishman. An English contractor, who had worked in French manufactories, expressed his opinion concerning the French to this effect: “It cannot be called work they do; it is only looking at it and wishing it done.” Senior, Outlines, 149. Thus, for instance, a good English spinner with a machine of 800 spindles could produce 66 lbs. of yarn, No. 40, while a Frenchman could produce only 48 lbs. (M. Mohl, Reise durch Frankreich, 535; compare Dingler, Polyt. Journal, I, 63 seq.) That the Americans also are inferior to the English in strength and dexterity is attested by the American Hewitt. See Brentano, Arbeitergilden, II, 231. A Berlin wood-sawyer accomplished as much in ten days as a West Prussian from Labiau in twenty-seven days. J. G. Hoffmann. English farmers on the Hellespont prefer to pay Greek laborers £10 per year “besides their keep,” rather than £3 to Turkish laborers. (Lord Carlisle, Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters, 1854, p. 77 seq.) In Paulo-pinang, the Malayan agricultural laborer receives $2-½ per month, the Malabar, $4, the Chinese, $6; for which compensation they work respectively 26, 28 and 30 days. Ritter, Erdkunde, v, 54.

256 Little light can be thrown on this subject by a comparison of different countries. Thus, in France, there are 614 persons in every 1,000 examined fit for military service; in Bavaria, 705; in Denmark, 523; in Austria, 498; in Prussia, 284; in Saxony, 259; in England, where the conscription is from among the lowest classes, 665; and in Württemberg, 490. (Wappäus, Allg. Bevölkerungsstatistik, II, 71, 140.) Massy, Remarks on the Examination of Recruits, 1854. (Memminger, Würt. Jahrb., 1843, 103.) The comparison of different parts of the same state is much more instructive. Thus, in Saxony, cities afford only 197, and the flat country only 265 per 1,000 (Sächs. statist. Ztschr., 1856, No. 4 ff.); and in France there are among those of illegitimate birth a very large number unfit for military service. (Journ. des Econ., 1850, XXV, 69.) According to the Austrian Annual of military statistics, there were in 1870, on an average, throughout the entire monarchy, 211 per 1,000 of those liable to enter the ranks of the military, fit for service; in the Innsbruck command, 325; in Lemberg, 179.

257 M. Chevalier, Cours, I, 115. Adam Smith, B. I, ch. 8, noticed the great industry of well paid workmen. Among the uneducated, labor must almost necessarily be repulsive in proportion as it is illy remunerated.

258 Thus A. Young remarked that wages in Ireland are wretchedly low, while labor is far from being cheap. In his “Evidence in Respect to the Occupation of Land in Ireland,” II, 135, he says that a Scotch day laborer at 1s. per day is cheaper than an Irish day laborer at ½s. According to McCulloch, “Statis. Account of the British Empire,” I, 666, industrial labor in Germany and France is dearer than in England, because in the former countries there are, ceteris paribus, twice as many laborers employed in most manufactures. See Senior, Lectures on Wages, 1830, 11, and the reports of the committees of parliament, passim on French manufactures (1825). The same has been experienced in the agricultural history of Schleswig-Holstein. See Hanssen, Archiv. der Politisch. Œk. IV, 421. La main d’œuvre est chère en Russie dès qu’il s’agit d’une certaine capacité et d’un certain degré d’instruction professionelle, tandis que celle de l’ouvrier ordinaire n’est nulle part aussi bas. (Tégoborsky.)

259 Thus even Columella, R. R. I, 9. J. S. Mill, Principles, I, ch. 7, 5.

260 Thus, for instance, the Lex Visigoth., VIII, 4, 16, graduates the fine to be paid by the murderer according to the age of his victim. It increases up to the 20th year in the case of males, and diminishes after the 50th. In the case of females, the maximum is attained between the ages of 15 and 40. Similarly even Moses, Book III, 27.

261 As to what concerns the two sexes, the force rénale of adult males is twice that of females in the human species. The difference between them in youth is not so great. The force manuelle of the two sexes at the age of 30 is as 9:5. (Quételet, Sur l’Homme II, p. 73 ff.) The numerical ratio of one sex to the other varies but little among those nations which have attained a certain degree of civilization. See infra, § 245.

262 It is of great importance to calculate here the number of days in the year in which the laborer is compelled to be idle on account of sickness. Fenger, (Quid faciant ætas annique tempus ad frequentiam et diuturnitatem morborum, Hafniæ 1840), finds the following result:

Between 15 and 19 years, 7.2 days. Between 35 and 39 years, 7.8 days. Between 20 and 24 years, 10.3 days. Between 40 and 44 years, 8.3 days. Between 25 and 29 years, 9.5 days. Between 45 and 49 years, 11.6 days. Between 30 and 34 years, 7.6 days. Between 50 and 59 years, 14.1 days.

According to Villermé, in the Annales d’Hygiène, II,

At 60 years, 16 days. At 67 years, 42 days. At 65 years, 31 days. At 70 years, 75 days.

The latter table is the result of a comparison made of the tables of seventy Scotch mutual aid societies. Compare Digler, Polyt. Journal, XXIV, 168.

263 Tacit., Germ., 14. Leo, in Raumer’s Taschenbuch, 1835, 418. Maxime sua esse credebant, quæ: ex hostibus cepissent. (Gajus IV, 16.) Roman auction sub hasta! Similar views obtained among the Thracians. See Herodot., V, 6. In Sparta, even in the time of Agesilaus, economic labor was considered unworthy of a free man, (Plutarch, Ages, 26); while the Athenians, from the time of Solon, punished idleness, and from that of Pericles “knew no other festival but attending to their business.” Thucyd., I. 70. For some happy observations on this subject, see Riehl, Die deutsche Arbeit, 1861.

264 Compare Erasmus Colloq. (ed. Stallb.), 21 ff., 213 ff., 392 ff.

265 Temple learned from the Dutch of his own age that the time of industrious men is the greatest home commodity of a country. (Works I, 129.) “A trader’s time is his bread.” (Sir M. Decker, Essay on the Decline etc., 1744, 24.) Walpole, in his Testament politique II, 385, speaks of the inferiority of the Roman Church in this respect. I would allude to the medieaval prohibition “to sell time” as one of the chief grounds of the prohibition of usury. (See Roscher, Gesch. der N. Œk. in Deutschland, 7.) Economia di tempo equivale a prolungamento di esistenza. (Soialeja.)

266 Douville, Voyage au Congo I, 239. See v. Haxthausen, Studien, II, 439; W. Jacob, Production and Consumption of the precious Metals, II, 209. The division of the day into hours dates from the time of the sun dials of Alexandria. It was not known in Rome until after the year of the city 491. (Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, I. 301.)

267 Pinckard, Notes on the West Indies, 1806, II, 107. In Spain it looks as if no one in the streets was in a hurry. What a contrast between the sans souci gait of persons at bathing places and the resorts of pilgrims and the precipitate haste in commercial centres!

268 Meyendorff, Voyage à Boukhara, 246.

269 The history of this idea affords a remarkable example of the confusion produced by the employment of scientific terminology in daily life. Until within a short time every possible meaning of the word capital was to be found in the dictionary of the French Academy, its scientific politico-economical meaning alone excepted. During the middle ages, the Latin capitale was used to signify both loaned money and cattle. (Ducange, s.v.) When culture was at its highest in Greece, Demosthenes entertained very good ideas of the nature of capital which he sometimes calls ἀφορμὴ, sometimes ἔρανος, the meaning of which he extends also to the incorporeal capital of a good reputation. (Adv. Mid., 574; pro Phorm, 947.) The same may be said of the Roman in conception of peculium. See Hildebrand’s Jahrbb., 1866, I. 338. On the beginnings of the present idea of capital among the later schoolmen, see Funck, Tübinger Ztschr., 1869, 149. The diary of Lucas Rems, 1491-1541 (ed. Greiff, 1861), calls commercial capital, in most instances, the chief good (Hauptgut) p. 37; also Cavedal. The words money and capital, interest and the price of money are now confounded in daily life, as they were formerly by most writers. In the 17th century, Child and Locke may be mentioned as instances. Hobbes had some faint notion of the productive power of capital. See Roscher, Zur Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre, 49, 60, 102. Thus, also, in the 18th century, Law, Sur l’Usage des Monnaies, 697; Trade and money (1705) 117; Mélon, Essai politique sur le Commerce, 1734, ch. 22; Galiani, Della Moneta, IV, 1, 3; Blackstone, Commentaries, 1764, II, 456; Genovesi, Economia civile, II, 2, 18, 13; Stewart, Principles, IV, 1, ch. IV; Verri, Meditazioni, XIV; Büsch, Geldumlauf, V. 14; A. Young, Political Arithmetics (1774), 1, ch. 7. Hume, on the other hand, Discourses (1752), No. 4 (on interest), shows, that the rate of interest is dependent, not as Locke supposed, on the abundance or scarcity of money, but on the state of profit and on the relation between the demand and supply of capital. Similarly, J. Massie, An Essay on the governing Causes of the Rate of Interest (1750). Quesnay, Dialogue sur le Commerce, 173 (ed. Daire), shows that he had a very clear conception of the operation, and of the principal component parts of capital. Turgot, Sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses, § 14, 54-79, came very near the truth, and yet missed it. He recognized the necessity of advances which, as a rule, are the result of saving, in every case of production. He also distinguishes in the product of the soil, besides the produit net and the subsistance du laboureur, the profit of the latter. He likewise points out a great number of differences between the “price of money” considered in its relation to trade, and in its relation to loans. He explains the interest on capital, as Schröder, in his Schatz-und Rentkammer, 231, and Benjamin Franklin, in his Inquiry into the Nature of a Paper Currency (1729) had done before, by the fact that the owner of capital can purchase a piece of land with his capital, and thus draw an income without working. Money, he said, was indeed not productive, but neither was any other thing that could be loaned or leased, with the exception of land and cattle. Adam Smith deserves the greatest credit for his analysis of the idea of capital, although he opposes “capital” to what the Germans call capital-in-use, the “stock for immediate consumption.” When Canard, Principes d’Economie politique (1801) and J. B. Say, Cours pratique, 1828, I, 285, included man’s power of labor in capital, they took a retrograde step. “Labour is Capital, primary and fundamental.” Colton, 275. Every grown-up individual, says McCulloch, Principles, 1825, II, ch. 2, may be looked upon as a machine which has cost several years of continued care and a considerable sum for its construction. It is only another side of this same perversity, when McCulloch seeks to force the results produced by animals and machines into the definition of labor. Schlozer, Anfangsgründe (1805), I, 21, goes so far as to call the soul, raw material, which receives productive power from the labor of the teacher! For a calculation of the money value of man in the different ages of life, see Statis. Journ. XVI, 43 ff. See, on the other hand, Malthus, Definitions, ch. 7; and Rossi, in the Journal des Economistes, VI, 113. Nor does the view of Ganilh, Systèmes d’Economie politique (1809), I, 243; of Ad. Müller, Concordia, 93 ff., 211; of Hermann, “Staatswirth” Untersuchungen, No. 3; of Dunoyer, Liberté du Travail, L. VI; of Bastiat, Carey and others, who include pieces of land in themselves under the head of capital, seem to be better founded. Hermann defines capital the durable basis of every utility possessed of value in exchange. Schäffle reckons land as nature offers it to us, among free goods. From the moment that labor and capital are spent upon it, it becomes immovable capital, but he concedes that it still preserves many essential points which distinguish it from other capital. (N. Œk. Theorie der ausschliessenden Absatzverhältnisse, 1867, 65 ff., 89 ff.) These differences appear to me to be still more important than that which land and capital have in common; especially as the historic development of their relations proceeds for the most part in opposite directions. Thus, for instance, as civilization advances, land is wont to become dearer and capital cheaper. How difficult would it be to introduce clearness into the ideas of intensive and extensive agriculture, if land were accounted capital! And it is not only always theoretically, but also very often, in practice, possible to separate the value of a given piece of land from the most durable capital-improvements (Kapitalmeliorationen) made on it. It is only necessary to call to mind the area of buildings.

270 Marx makes a very arbitrary assertion when he says that only the capital operating in trade, and even only that operating in trade where money is used as the instrument of exchange, can properly be called capital; and that, therefore, the modern biography of capital dates only from the 16th century, (Das Kapital I, 106 ff.)

271 See, on the other hand, Wolkoff, Lectures d’Economie politique rationelle, 167.

272 Hermann (II ed., 238 ff.) distinguishes especially preparatory contrivances auxiliary to labor, such as stationary structures etc., vessels, tools, machines and instruments for measuring etc.

273 Thus, for instance, the plow and the gun are machines, the spade and the blow-pipe are tools. A hammer may be considered as a hard, insensible fist; the bellows as a pair of very strong and durable lungs. Tongs take the place of fingers, just as a spoon does of the empty hand, and the knife the place of the teeth. A great number of machines, on the other hand, may be compared to a complete workman. Thus, the action of the mill which grinds grain has very little resemblance to the blowing of the wind or the running of the water, whereas the rising and falling of the pestle in the small mortar for throwing grenades corresponds to the motion of the arm. (Rau, Lehrbuch I, § 125.) The infinite number of functions of which our members are capable is related to their inability to attain alone the greater number of their ends. Hence animals which require no tools can undertake to achieve very few things. “Man is a tool-making animal.” (B. Franklin.)

274 This is seen most clearly in the history of the grinding of corn. In the time of Moses, and even of Homer, there were only hand-mills, and originally only mortars. Later, mills set in motion by horse-power were employed. Shortly after Cicero’s time, mills driven by water-power came into use. Brunck, Analecta, II, 119, Ep. 39. Mills built on pontoons do not date farther back than the time of Belisarius. Wind-mills have been known since the ninth century; Dutch wind-mills, only since the middle of the 16th century. See Beckman, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Erfindungen II, I ff.

275 Compare Plato, Polit., 280.

276 Thus, Ganilh, Théorie de l’Economie politique I, 133, calls the knowledge, talents and probity of merchants, as well as their reputation, valuable parts of their capital in trade. See, also, Möser, Patriot. Ph. II, 26. See some happy observations on the intellectual capital of nations, as consisting of “known and unknown preparatory labor through their history,” in Lotze, Mikrokosomos II, 353 seq.

277 Compare Dietzel, System der Staatsanleihen (1856), 71 ff. And, earlier yet, Ad. Müller had looked upon taxes not in the light of an insurance premium, but as “the interest of the invisible and yet absolutely necessary intellectual capital of the nation.” (Elemente, III, 75.) Of course, the State is much more than a species of capital; just as a Gothic cathedral is something more than a piece of masonry, but does not on that account cease to be a piece of masonry.

278 J. B. Say, Traité d’Economie Politique I, ch. 10. Only think of what is known in physiology as the change or transformation of matter (Stoffwechsel!).

279 Productive capital has been rendered into German by the word Erwerbstamm, by the author of “Staatswirthschaft nach Naturgesetzen,” 1819. Malthus, Definitions, ch. 10, and Rau, Lehrbuch, I, § 51, call productive capital alone, capital. According to M. Chevalier, goods lose their quality of capital as soon as they come into the hands of a consumer. Schäffle, N. Œk., II, aufl., 59, calls capital in use Genussvermögen (resources intended for enjoyment) and productive capital, Kapitalvermögen (capital-resources). On the other hand, J. B. Say, Traité, I, 13; McCulloch, Principles, II, 2, 3, Hermann, Staatswirthschaft. Untersuchungen, p. 60 ff., and v. Mangoldt, Volkswirthschaftslehre, 122, divide capital into capital in use and productive capital, according as it provides the possessor with that which he may turn to account directly or indirectly by becoming the owner of goods through its means. Aristotle distinguishes between ὄργανα and κτήματα, the former relating to ποίησις; for instance, a shuttle; the latter to πράξις, as, for instance, bedding and articles of dress. (Polit., I, 2, 5.)

280 Thus, for instance, class A embraces parks and forests; B, theaters, churches, manufactories, arsenals, granaries, public walks and roads. Walks can, besides, be used for the cultivation of fruit, and roads for pleasure trips.

281 Translated “capital de consommation” by Wolowski, p. 96 of his Roscher’s Principles.—Translator’s note.

282 Dead, or better, dormant capital is such productive capital as, for the time being, remains unused, and which, therefore, does not yield even personal enjoyment. The sum total of this kind of capital is very much diminished by the agency of savings banks. Loaned capital which has been employed unproductively evidently constitutes no longer a part of the wealth of a people. See infra, § 189.

283 Wolkoff is so far right, when in his Lectures, p. 142, he calls the return of capital in use not revenu, but déstruction graduelle. Schäffle is right, too, and entirely so, when he says that only such an increase of the property, intended for enjoyment simply, is anti-economic, as does not make the personal capacities of labor (Arbeitsvermögen) as much more productive than they would otherwise be. N. Œk., II, aufl., 224.

284 Humboldt, N. Espange, II, ch. 17; v. Schlözer, Anfangsgründe, II, 109. Ausland, 140, No. 313. On the extraordinary wealth of even Russian peasant women in pearls, see v. Haxthausen, Studien, 87, 309.

285 Townsend, Journey in Spain, I, 115, 310. In the patriarchal age of the Jews, there was a relatively very large quantity of ornamental objects in gold and silver: Michælis, De Pretiis Rerum apud Hebræos, in the Comm. Soc. Götting., III, 151 ff., 160. Conservative Sparta, in the middle age of its history, was certainly not rich, and yet it had more gold and silver than any other Grecian state: Plato, Alcib., I, 123. According to St. John, The Hellenes, III, 142, the ancients had relatively much more of the precious metals in the form of objects for ornament than the moderns. The Romans, with their usual good sense, did not make use of silver as an article of luxury until they had attained great wealth. See Cato, R. R., ch. 23, and Seneca, De Vita beata, ch. 21. Then the Carthaginian ambassadors railed at their hosts because they found the same pieces of table silver in all the houses to which they were invited. The younger Scipio, even, did not possess more relatively than 32 pounds of silver ware. Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, II, 383. The relatively great importance of the stores for domestic use, nevertheless, runs through the whole of Roman history. The title de penu legato, in the Pandects (Digest, XXIII, 9), points to this, during the reign of the emperors, and in earlier times, the derivation of penates from penu. See Rodbertus, in Hildebrand’s Jahrbuch, 1870, I, 365. Immense importance of the ring in the old north countries: Weinhold, Altnord. Leben, 184 ff. The age of chivalry was very rich in silver plate, cups, basins, etc. Büsching, Ritterzeit und Ritterwesen, II, 137. Anderson, Origin of Commerce, a. 1386. Lord Burleigh, in the age of queen Elizabeth, left after him between fourteen and fifteen thousand pounds sterling in silver ware; that is almost as much as the rest of his whole estate; and, it would seem, that for a man of his rank, even this was not considered a great deal. Collins’ Life of B., 44. According to Giustiniani, cardinal Wolsey owned articles of silver to the value of 1,500,000 ducats, and the greater number of the lords of the time were equally well provided with them.

286 The Bedouins are fond of decorating their wives and children with all the jewels that they possess, both on holidays and other days, so that they sometimes have four or six bracelets on each arm and fifteen ear-rings in each ear. Burckhardt, Bemerkungen, 188. Wellsted (Roederer’s translation), I, 224. In Asia Minor, girls wear their whole dowry in the shape of personal ornaments. Belgiojoso, Revue des deux Mondes, Feb. 1, 1855. In East India even the most wretched towns have their silver workers. The emirs of Scinde, with an annual income of £300,000, had a treasure worth £20,000,000, nearly £7,000,000 of which were in jewels. Ritter, Erdkunde VII, p. 185. On the upper Ganges more jewels and other ornaments are worn than on the lower, where the wealthy prefer to spend their capital on landed estates. Ritter, VI, 1143.

287 The first beginnings of this division are to be found in Quesnay (Analyse du Tableau économique, 1758), in which he develops the difference between avances primitives and avances annuelles. See also Adam Smith, W. of N., II, ch. 1, who, however, reduces the difference between them mainly to the relations of possession, and hence includes grain and seed in fixed capital. Hermann, Staatsw. Untersuch., 269 ff.; Ricardo, Principles, ch. 1, sec. 2; Schmitt-henner, Staatswissenschaften, I, 387, divides capital into I, infungible, that is, 1, fixed in the strict sense of the word; 2, transportation-capital; II, fungible, 1, transformable capital; a, material (raw material, auxiliary material etc.), b, formed products; 2, circulating capital; a, wares; b, money. A. Walker, S. of W., 57, calls circulating capital that which may be easily transferred from one branch of production to another; fixed, that which can be used with advantage only for the purpose for which it was originally intended.

288 Old wood-work is burned; old iron utensils sold; also houses when pulled down. Emminghaus, Allg. Gewerbelehre, 1868, 175.

289 If the Mongols, for instance, should despoil China of all its moveable property with the exception of its buried money, its immovable property would become productive only from the time that that money would be used to secure other moveable articles. In any case, the production would be proportioned only to the borrowed seed, cattle, etc. (Sismondi, Richesses commerciale, 1803, I, p. 61.)

290 That the Athenians left everything in the lurch to oppose Xerxes, much more readily than under Pericles, even, the flat country of Attica. Büchsenschütz (Besitz und Erwerb im griech. Alterthum, 589) explains by the fact that in the interval between the two periods, fixed capital increased largely. In rude ages under the appellation of a community or nation was understood a number of men; and the state, while its members remained, was accounted entire. With polished and mercantile states, the case is sometimes reverted. The nation is a territory cultivated and improved by its owners; destroy the possession even while the master remains, the state is undone. Ferguson, Hist. of civil Society, V, 4; v. Mangoldt, Volkswirthschaftslehre, 159. Fixed capital is not so sure of being completely used up as circulating. On this point see Schäffle, N. Œk., 53.

291 If the aggregate productive activity of man be designated by the word labor (just as everything produced on a piece of land is inaccurately called its product), then all capital may be considered as the unconsumed result of labor. The recent socialistic theory that considers capital as the wages which have been earned but not paid, is a gross misconception of this truth. This is the origin only of the capital of oppressors and deceivers, and of theirs only in part. See infra, § 189.

292 “While we are clothed in our winter garments, the spring stuffs are already in the shops of retail dealers; the light material of next summer’s wear is already manufacturing, and the wool for our next winter’s clothing spun.” Think of the study in advance which the physician must have gone through, whom we summon to us at a moment’s notice! Menger, Grundsätze, I, § 33. seq.

293 Thus in dangerous callings, as for instance, among soldiers and sailors, there is very little saving. The same may be said of times of plague. See J. Rae, New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy, 1834.

294 That we keep our property under lock and key, while it was customary in Plato’s time to seal it up, is in itself a great advance. See Becker, Charicles, I, 202 seq. Earlier yet, artificial knots were used. Homer, Odyss. VII, 443.

295 Compare Hearne, Reise, nach Prinzwalesfort, 43, 58, 119. Barrow von Sprengel, 282. Humboldt, Relation historique, II, 245. Ausland, 1844, No. 359; 1845, No. 84. Stein-Wappüus, Handbuch der Geographie, I, 310. For proof that the clergy by preaching self denial contributed largely to the creation of capital in the earlier part of medieval history, see Guórard, Polyptiques d’Irminon Préf., 13.

296 On the inevitableness of slavery, where capital is needed, and no one cares to save, see de Metz Noblet, Phénomènes économiques, I, 306.

297 The origination of capital by “social connexions” (gesellschaftliche Zusammenhänge) Lassalle (Bastiat-Schultze, 92, 98) exaggerates into the absurdity that no capital was ever saved. This is in part related to his confounding land with capital (103 seq.). On the other hand, P. L. (v. Lilienfeld), Gedanken über die Staatswissenschaft der Zukunft (1873), distinguishes between the external and internal creation of capital in human society; the latter based on the condition of every organic being, by virtue of which the present is generated by the past, and generates the future. The intercellular substance of plants, the honey-comb of bees, and the blood in the animal body, correspond to the capital of a nation.

298 Hermann, St. Untersuchungen, 289 ff.; List, System der politischen Œkonomie, I, 325 ff. Thus, for instance, capitalization among a race of hunters may be continued longest by the creation of herds; that of a race of shepherds by the building of houses, and by land-improvements; that of an agricultural people by the establishment of trades, artificial roads, etc. As to how, in general the accumulation of goods to any great extent, supposes exchange, and as to how, first of all, with exchange through the existence of a superabundance wealth may originate, see Hermann, loc. cit., II, Aufl., 25 ff.

299 The annual increase of the capital of France during the later years of Louis Philippe’s reign, was estimated at from 200 to 300 million of francs; during the best years of Napoleon III’s reign, at 600 million. Journal des Econ., Nov., 1861, 170. The capital of the British empire, judging from the statistics of the income tax, increased from 1843 to 1853, in Great Britain alone, at least £42,000,000 yearly; from 1854 to 1860, in the whole empire, at least £114,000,000; and in 1863 alone by £130,000,000. London Statis. Journal, 1864, 118 ff. A war carried on on English soil would doubtless be more destructive of capital than one waged in Russia; but Russia would recover from one like that of 1854-55 with much greater difficulty because of the small tendency of its people to amass capital. In countries in which the middle classes preponderate, the influence of the amassing of capital on foreign politics is one that favors peace. In despotic or democratic countries, it may as readily favor war.

300 The “absolute formation” of capital above described is, of course, the only one in the general economy of mankind. In the economy of individuals, we frequently meet with another which is only “relative,” as when the increase of one’s resources is attended by as great or even greater decrease of another’s. This is the case, for instance, where privileges or monopolies are granted. The same phenomenon is found also in the intercourse of economies of different nations. Supra, § 64.

301 Thus Cicero, De Off., II, 3, 4. Nature may indeed produce mere value in use without the coöperation of labor, in the narrow sense of the word; as, for instance, a forest which protects a district from avalanches etc. But “everything which has been transformed into goods tends constantly to return to its natural state, and to withdraw itself from the life of goods.” Stein, Lehrbuch.

302 Compare List, System der Polit. Œkon. But see also the very fine discussion of J. S. Mill, Principles, IV, ch. VI, 2, on the dreariness of nature, when taken exclusive possession of by man; “with every rood of land brought into cultivation which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture plowed up; all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man’s use, exterminated as his rivals for food; every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow, without being eradicated as a weed, in the name of improved agriculture.”

303 In Paris, in 1820, the necessary tools of a rag-gatherer cost 6-¼ francs. Garnier, Elements d’Econ.-polit., 43.

304 It is not to be overlooked that all labor expended for a distant end also falls under the head of capital. See Droz, Economie politique, 1829, I, 6.

305 For a good exposition as to how England has need of more agricultural products, the East Indies of more capital, and the West Indies of more labor, see Fawcett, Manual of P. E., 110.

306 It is a very significant fact, that, at present, in certain European countries, in Germany for instance, the laborer is called a taker, and the capitalist a giver of work. The expressions employed by Canard, Say and Hermann, teach a similar lesson.

307 Schäffle, Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 124 seq.

308 It is evident, that, absolutely considered, the predominating factor of an earlier period may continue to increase during the following: and, as a rule, it does continue to increase.

309 I need cite only the instance of the slaves, who called out the hours, thus performing the functions of a clock: Martial, VIII. 67; Juvenal, X. 216; Petron. 26; of the turning of water wheels, in Egypt and Babylon, by human hands. Strabo, XVI. 738, XVII., 807. Among the ancients, it required one shepherd, and shepherd boys besides, to take care of twenty sheep. (Geopon. XVIII, 1.) In highly cultivated regions, the number ran up to fifty. (Demosth., adv. Euerg. et Mnes., 1155.) It seldom passed eighty (Varro, De re rust., II. 10, 10. 2, 20), or one hundred (Cato, R.R. c. 10); while, recently, five men are sufficient to take care of eighteen hundred sheep. See Roscher’s discourse on the relation of Political Economy to classical antiquity, in the reports of the Royal Saxon Science Association, May, 1849. Also D. Hume, Discourses, No. 10.

310 The productive power of each of the factors of production has been over-estimated by some schools. After Gratian (c. i, C. XIII. qu. i), had clearly recognized the necessary coöperation of the three elements, there was in the one-sidedness with which the Reformers emphasized God’s blessing as the only source of wealth, a great over-estimation of the factor nature. The Mercantile System over-estimated the factor capital, in one of its most obvious component parts, money. In later times again: “La terre est la source ou la matière d’où l’on tire la ichesse; le travail de l’homme est la forme qui la produit. Tous les hommes d’un état subsistent et s’enrichissent aux dépens des propriétaires des terres.” (Cantillon, Sur la Nature du Commerce, 1755, I. 33, 55.) La terre est l’unique source des richesses. (Quesnay, Maximes générales de Gouvernement, 1758, ch. 3.) In another place, indeed, the same writer says: les revenus sont le produit des terres et des hommes (Grains, p. 276, Daire), and Mirabeau frequently laid stress on the necessary coöperation of labor and capital. (Landwirthschaftsphilosophie, translation by Wichmann, I, 5.) Turgot, Sur la Formation et Distribution des Richesses, § 7. For an excellent refutation of this “Physiocratic” one-sidedness, which, if all men are endowed by nature with equal rights, leads to socialism, see Canard, Principes, 6. According to Gioja, N. Prospetto, I. 35, the part played by labor, in the production of Parmesan cheese, is a thousand times as great as that played by the soil; and in the production of a Dutch tulip, a hundred thousand times as great. The English are wont, similarly, to over-estimate the relative power of labor. (Ponocratie, after Ancillon, Essais philosophiques, 1817, II. 327.) “Commerce and trade first spring from the labour of men.” (North, Discourses upon Trade, 112.) Thus, Locke (1690), Of Civil Government, II, 5, 40 ff., is of opinion, that, at least 9/10 of the value of the products of the soil, useful to man, are to be ascribed to labor, and, in the case of most, even 99/100. And so, Berkeley (1735), Querist, No. 38 seq. This view is advocated in its boldest form,—a thing unusual in the case of the independent disciples of a great master—by McCulloch, Principles, II, ch. i, that it is to labor, and to labor alone, that man owes everything that possesses any value in exchange. Similarly, J. Mill, Elements (1824), III, 2. The consequences which socialism might draw from these premises are self-evident. Karl Marx’s whole system, for instance, rests, without any attempt at demonstration, on the assumption that the Ricardo school is right. Much more moderate views are met with earlier. Thus, Hobbes, De Cive, XIII, 14, and Leviath., 24 (1642 and 1651), calls labor et parsimonia necessary sources of wealth; proventus terræ et aquæ useful ones; and Petty, On Taxes (1679), 47, says: “Labour is the father and active principle of wealth, as lands are the mother. Land and labour together are the sources of all wealth; without a competency of lands there would be no subsistence, and but a very poor one without labour.” Harris, Upon Money and Coins, 1757, P.I. Adam Smith, also, in spite of the well known passage at the beginning of his work, very frequently lays stress on “the annual produce of land and labour.” (See the passages collected in Leser, Begriff des Reichthums bei A.S., 97.) According to Leibniz, regionis potentia consistit in terra, rebus, hominibus. (ed. Dutens, IV. 2, 531.) Ricardo’s school is wont to bring capital under the head of labor, as saved-up labor. This is about as correct as to say, that all that a grown man does, his parents had done. (Umpfenbach, Nat. Œk., 64.) There is only one way in which labor, and even then the expression is not exactly correct, can be looked upon as the only factor in production; and that is to presuppose the forces of nature as matters of course (als sich von selbst verstehend), and to call the aggregate use made of them by the human mind, labor. Or we might say with old Epicharmos, that the gods sell all goods for labor. (Xenoph., Memor. II. 1.) Moreover, even in purely intellectual productions, in poetical productions for instance, nature, labor and experience, the culture inherited from former ages (a kind of intellectual capital) uniformly coöperate. But how almost completely valueless in literature are all entirely pure (empty!) productions of the fancy!

311 Before the predominance of the Mercantile System, Montchrétien very cleverly called all trades: parcelles et fragments de cette sagesse divine que Dieu nous communique par le moyen de la raisen. By means of the three estates; labourers, artisans, merchands, tout état est nourri; par eux tout profit se fait. L’utilité règle les rangs des arts. (Traité, 12, 45, 66.) The teaching of P. Gregorius Tolosanos (ob. 1597) on the different classes of society and the different callings of men, is still more in keeping with the present doctrine of production; only, in the moralizing tone of the time, he speaks rather of their dignity than of their influence in creating wealth: De Rep. I, 195. See, also, the earlier views of Franc. Patricius (ob. 1494), De Rep. I, 4, 7, 8.

312 Compare A. Serra, Breve Trattato delle Cause che possono far abbondare i Regni d’Oro d’Argento, 1613. Th. Mun, England’s Treasure by foreign Trade, 1664. Ch. King, British Merchant or Commerce Preserved, 1721. But, particularly, A.C. Leib, Von Verbesserung Land und Leuten etc. (1708), who, from the point of view of the Mercantile System, draws a very clear distinction between the productive and unproductive classes. See, also, infra, § 116. First thoroughly refuted by W. Petty, Political Anatomy of Ireland, 67, 82. Quantulumcunque concerning Money (1682). D. North, Discourses upon trade (1691). See Roscher’s Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre, 77, 88, 138. And later, especially, Ad. Smith, W. of N. IV., ch. 1 ff. Adam Smith’s doctrine of productive and unproductive labor is to be found already, in this period, in Petty, Several Essays, 127 ff. Political Anatomy, 185 ff; also, in the anonymous work, A Discourse of Trade, Coyn and Paper Credit, London (1697), 44, 159.

313 Quesnay, Dialogue sur les Travaux des Artisans, 210 ff.; 289 éd. Daire; Turgot, Sur la Formation etc., § 8; Dupont, Correspondence avec J.B. Say, 400, éd. Daire. B. Franklin, Letter to Dr. Evans (1768), and Positions Concerning National Wealth (1769), Works ed. Sparks, VII and II. Similarly even Aristotle, Oec., I, 2, says, that commerce, wage-labor and war win from men, with or without their will; but that only agriculture obtains booty from nature. And so Cicero says of merchants: nihil proficiunt, nisi admodum mentiantur. De Off., I, 42. The same view seems to have prevailed during the middle ages. See Thom. Aquin., De Rebus publicis, II, 3, 5 seq. Luther entertained a like notion (Vom Kaufhandel und Wucher, 1524). He prefers agriculture to the trades. See the Irmischer edition of his works, XXII, 284; XXXVI, 172; LXI, 352. Calvin considered commerce both useful and honorable; so that ex ipsius mercatoris diligentia atque industria, its profit may be greater than that of agriculture. (Opp. ed. Amstelod, 1664, IX, 223.) Asgill, Several Assertions proved in order to create another Species of Money than Gold (1691): “what we call commodities is nothing but land severed from the soil; man deals in nothing but earth.” Concerning Cantillon, compare § 47, note 4. How violent an innovation the Physiocratic theory was in its time may be inferred from what Zincke writes in the Leipzig Sammlungen, X, 551 ff. (1753), p. 20, XIII, 861.

314 Quesnay, l. c., 189, does not ignore that many workmen earn more than the cost of their necessary subsistence; but he claimed that this was a result of a natural or legal monopoly of the same. The dearer labor was, the more productive it seemed. Per contra, see Dohm on the Physiocratic system, in the Deutsch. Museum, 1778, II, 313 ff.

315 Gournay (compare Turgot, Eloge de G., in Guillaumin’s edition, I, 266, 271 ff.), as well as Raynal, Histoire des Indes, vol. X, Livre 19, spite of the similarity of their and Quesnay’s views, acknowledged on this account, the productiveness of industry. For some remarkable examples illustrative of how it may increase the value in exchange of raw material, see the anonymous work, Paying Old Debts without New Taxes, London, 1723. See also Algarotti (ob. 1794), 318, in Custodi, Economisti classici italiani, Parte moderna, I. Thus a cwt. of coarse cast iron is converted, in a Berlin manufactory, into 88,440 shirt buttons worth 6-⅔ silver groschens each. Hence the value is raised from 1-2 thalers to 19,653 thalers. The increase of the value in use by industrial labor is self-evident.

316 Quesnay, Dialogue sur le Commerce.

317 Recognized very early by Ad. Contzen, Politicorum, Lib. VIII, C. 10 (1629).

318 This did not escape the notice of Frederick II. Von Raumer, Hohenstaufen, III, 535.

319 Condillac acknowledges the productive power both of industry and of commerce; and that the service rendered by the state is at least economically indispensable. (Le Commerce et le Gouvernment, 1776, I, 6, 7, 10.) Beccaria, Economia pubblica (1769 ff.), IV, 4, 24. Boisguillebert (ob. 1714), Sur la Nature des Richesses, illustrated the utility of commerce by the picture of a number of men bound to pillars, one hundred steps apart, one with a superabundance of food but naked, a second with a superabundance of fuel, a third with a superabundance of clothing etc.; all of whom perish, because unable to exchange their respective surpluses with one another. According to Lotz, Revision, I, 217, “buying dear,” apart from real fraud, means only a decrease of possible gain.

320 Verri, Meditazioni, XXIV, instead of calling the merchant productive, calls him a mediator between producers and consumers. It would be just as reasonable to call the shoemaker a mediator between the production and consumption of leather; or the cloth merchant, who cuts the material from the piece, an assistant preparatory to the tailor. The labor of commerce is especially like that of the fisherman or the turf digger, because they produce only in so far as they transfer goods from inaccessible to accessible places. See, however, Rau, Lehrbuch, I, § 103. See the demonstration of the productive power of commerce in general, as well as of what is, by way of preference, called industry, in Ad. Smith, W. of N., IV, ch. 9. A much more fundamental refutation of the Physiocratic Principle is to be found in Jacob, N. Œk., 204 ff.

321 In 1843, about 55,000 tons of ice were shipped from Boston. Less than 25 cents per ton was paid for the ice in the first instance. When packed on board ship, it was worth $2.55 per ton. The ultimate sale brought $3,575,000. Ausland, 1844, No. 278. The ancients were acquainted with a similar production of ice, the value in exchange of which might be almost entirely reduced to the labor of commerce. See Xenoph., Memor., II, I, 30; Athen. III 97: Proverbs of Solomon, 25, 13.

322 W. of N., ch. 3. See, however, Garnier’s French translation of Ad. Smith, Préf. p. IX and V, note 20. Similarly, Malthus, Principles, ch. 1, Lect. 21. Definitions, ch. 7, 10.

323 Bacon had already said of the nobility, clergy and literateurs: sorti reipublicæ nihil addunt (Serm., 15, 29); in opposition to which, Hobbes justly remarks, that even human labor may, like other things, be exchanged against goods of all sorts. (Leviathan, 24.) In the work, Discourse of Trade, Coyn and Credit, p. 44 ff., and p. 156, the absolute necessity of “head-work” as well as bodily labor, is conceded; but it is insisted that physicians, clergymen and jurists can never enrich a country, and that a relatively large number of them would even conduce to national poverty. (See Roscher, Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre, 138.) David Hume considers merchants as productive, but says that a doctor or lawyer can grow rich only at the expense of some one else. (Discourses, No. 4, On Interest.) Ferguson very cleverly compares such a valuation of national wealth to that of a miser. Hist. of Civil Society, VI, I.

324 Similarly Lauderdale, Inquiry, 355; Lotz, Handbuch der Staätswirthschaft, I, § 39, and Rau, Lehrbuch I, § 195, concede only indirect productiveness to commerce. It may be shown, in a great many instances, that such productiveness exists side by side with direct productiveness, on account of the thousand ways in which all economic threads are interwoven with one another. Thus Paley remarks in his work on the Principles of Morals and Politics, that a tobacco manufacturer even may contribute indirectly to the cultivation of grain; an actor, to industry etc.

325 Thus Sismondi, Nouveaux Principes, II, ch. 1, and, earlier, Mengotti Colbertismo, 317. (Cust.) See, on the other hand, Hermann, Staatsw. Untersuchungen, 34 ff. Even J.B. Say does no manner of justice, in this respect, to personal services. He speaks of produits qui ne s’attachent à rien qui s’évanouissent à mésure qu’ils naissent, qu’il est impossible d’accumuler, qui n’ajoutent rein à la richesse nationale. Compare Catéchisme (3d ed.) 52 ff., 174 ff. On the other hand Dunoyer, Libertê du Travail, L.V., remarks that here labor and its result are made to change places; the former like all labor is very perishable, the latter as lasting as in the case of other kinds of labor. In the one case the utility is fixed in things, in the other in persons. Ad. Müller, Elemente der Staatskunst passim, calls special attention to how the kinds of labor, called unproductive by Adam Smith, preserve the state, and in that way, all individual exchangeable goods. Similarly, Storch, Handbuch, I, 347; Steinlein, Handbuch, I, 460. Lauderdale (443), however, is correct when he says, that the continued duration of the product of labor depends, usually, more on the caprice of consumers than on the nature of the labor.

326 Garnier calls attention to the fact, that there is a great quantity of material products, such as laces, perfumes etc., that can scarcely be ever used in further production, and, generally speaking, one’s resources for the most part are not kept in lasting goods, but are preserved by the change of technic forms in production. Hermann, I, Aufl., 115.

327 When Schön, Nat. Œkonomie, 33, ridicules the idea of the productiveness of personal services, by citing the instance of prostitution carried on as a trade, he forgets that many material goods also may conduce to the moral damage of the purchaser of them. It is said that there are in France 3,500 retailers and colporteurs of immoral writings and pictures, who sell yearly nine million numbers or pieces, at a cost of six million francs! (Moniteur, 9 Avril, 1853.)

328 Compare Schäffle, Theorie der ausschliessenden Absatzverhältnise, 1867, 135. seq.

329 Many of the socialists take a retrograde step in this respect, in as much as they consider only manual labor productive. Fourier’s school particularly, declaim passionately against the unproductiveness of commerce and of most personal services. Compare V. Considérant, Destinée sociale, 1851, I, 44.

330 Besides the above, see Gioja, N. Prospetto, I, 246 ff.; Scialoja, 42; J. B. Say, Traité, I, ch. 2; Hufeland, N. Grundlegung, I, 42, 54; Gr. Soden, Nat. Œkonomie, I, 142 ff. Hermann, St. Untersuchungen, 20 ff., distinguishes three politico-economical points of view; that of the producer, that of the consumer, and that of the whole nation’s economy. The producer calls his labor productive, in case he receives back his outlay of capital with the rate of profit usual in the trade of the country. To this point of view, therefore, every service which is paid for, according to wish, seems productive. On the other hand, the consumer ascribes productiveness to all those kinds of labor the achievements of which he may use, and which he can obtain at a convenient price. Whenever, therefore, he pays for a service voluntarily, he acknowledges its productiveness. Lastly, from a national-economical point of view, all labor is considered productive which increases the quantity of goods exposed for sale in the market; and this, personal services do. The technic productiveness, which depends on the execution of the technic ideas floating before the mind of the workman, must be distinguished from this economic productiveness. It is possible that, technically labor may be very productive, and yet cause economic loss; for instance, the fine arts and the so-called master pieces of the trades! See Seneca, De Benef., II, 33. H. (33) furnishes a very good refutation of the doctrine that a great deal depends on whether the labor has been paid from capital or from income. Eiselen, Volkswirthschaft (1843), 27 ff., remarks, that the laborer, for instance, who grows corn, must besides look after his health and the preservation of his house; this is a part of his necessary aggregate labor. Why, then, should it be called unproductive when such secondary labor is performed by particular persons? Otherwise the farmer would have no time whatever for his principal business! Edinburgh Review, 1804, IV, 343 ff.; Wakefield, An Essay upon Political Economy, 1804, who is concerned mainly with the theory of the productiveness of labor. L. Lauderdale says, that when the nation’s wealth is estimated according to its value in use, all useful labor is productive; and that when estimated according to its value in exchange, all labor that is paid is productive. (Inquiry, ch. 3.) Stein (Lehrbuch, 68; Tüb. Zeitschr., 1868, 230) conditions the notion of productiveness by the presence of a superfluity of values. But, it may be asked, does a family, which does no more than support itself, labor unproductively? (Compare, however, § 30.) J. S. Mill took a surprisingly retrograde step in the doctrine on this point, in his Principles, I, ch. 3. Compare his Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy, No. 3. A still more surprising exaggeration in de Augustinis Instituzzioni di Economia sociale (Napoli 1837), who goes so far as to call a person guilty of arson a productive person because he has produced for himself “the pleasure of destruction”! More recently, von Mangoldt distinguishes between economic labor and the labor of culture: the latter is incorporated into the man himself, the former one employed on the external world, in order to transform it in a way corresponding to human wants. Viewed from the stand-point of Political Economy, the latter only is productive. (Volkswirthschaftslehre, 1865, 26 ff.)

331 We might, indeed, compare original production, that which preceded all other, to eating; the trades, to digestion; commerce, to the movements of the several members of the body; personal services to inspiration, and yet all are equally necessary to the life of the body! Thus, Gamilh compares agriculture to the root of a tree of which the service rendered by the state is the top. The growth of the latter contributes, as well as that of the former, to the nutrition of the whole, and is far removed from exhausting the tree. Théorie de l’ E.P., II, 46 ff. “Natural production” would, indeed, accomplish very little without the legal protection guaranteed by the state, or without the tools furnished by industry etc. But it is, besides, in most instances, a distortion of the truth to speak of productive and unproductive men or classes of men. These expressions are proper only when applied to individual kinds of labor. See Murhard, Ideen über Nat. Œk., 88 ff. Persons seriously ill are temporarily unproductive, and children who die early, are unproductive for their whole life.

332 Not, however, in the case in which the loser estimates the pleasure of the play higher than the loss.

333 J. B. Say, Traité, I. ch. 1.

334 v. Cancrin, Œkonomie der menschlichen Gesellschaften, 1845, 10, speaks, in this case, of privative production. Among the Socialists, Bazard’s expression l’exploitation de l’homme par l’homme, has found loud echo; instead of which only l’exploitation du globe par l’homme should be allowed to obtain. (Exposition de la Doctrine de St. Simon, 24.) But von Schröder had already warned the world of “imagined food” which led only to idleness. (F. Schatz- und Rentkammer, 191, 363.)

335 Therefore, there should not be too many nor too highly salaried offices. See Storch, Nationaleinkommen, 33 ff.

336 See v. Mangoldt, Volkswirthschaftslehre, 29 ff.

337 Remained, and not become, poor, as is generally supposed; for the enormous wealth of Spain, under Ferdinand and Isabella, as well as during the early period of Charles V. is only a fable convenue. Charles V. said: France has a superabundance of everything, and Spain is in want of everything. See also the embassy report of Navagero (1526), Viaggio fatto in Spagna e in Francia (Venet., 1563), and Ranke, Fürsten und Volker, I, 393 ff.

338 The prize was won by Arreta de Monteseguro. The author of the history of Portuguese Asia, translated by Stevens, is of opinion (III, ch. 6), that commerce is not a proper subject for serious history to treat.

339 There is a very fine description of this spirit in Clenard, Epist. I. ad Latomum (1535 ff.) Compare Juvellanos, in Laborde, Itinéraire déscriptif, IV, 176. Townsend, Journey through Spain, II, 207, 117. Buckle, History of Civilization, II, ch. I. The census of 1788 gave the number of priests and monks, soldiers, mariners, nobles, lawyers, tax-gatherers, authors, students and domestics, at 1,221,000, in a total of 3,800,000 men; from which number there was a multitude of beggars, vagrants etc. to be deducted. Laborde, Itinéraire, II, 32 ff. The seventeen universities and the numberless small Latin schools, with their gratuitous instruction, and their many scholarships, misled a disproportionately large number to engage in study. At the beginning of this century, there were at least 200,000 priests, nuns (Geistliche), etc., in a population of from three to three and a half millions only. (Ebeling, Erdbeschreibung von Portugal, 66.) Senior shows that the poverty of the Osman is caused by too many state employees, tax-farmers and retail merchants. (Journal kept in Turkey and Greece, 1857-58.) Thus, also, J. Tucker, Four Tracts, 1774, 18, contrasts men engaged in industry with rich idlers, whose increase, possibly by immigration, would make the people a nation of “gentlemen and ladies, footmen, grooms, laundresses etc.” Schmitthener, N. Œk., 656, calls a condition such as that of Spain, “national-economical phthisis.”

340 Tucker, Progress of the U.S., 137. The following data also will serve for a comparison: In Belgium, in 1856, it was estimated that, leaving persons sans profession out of consideration, 45.6 per cent. were agriculturists, 37.2 industrials, 6.7 in commerce, 2.8 in the liberal professions, 1.5 force publique, 2.1 propriétaires, rentiers, pensionnés, 3.7 domesticité. In Prussia, in 1871, of the entire male population, 28.6 per cent. were engaged in agriculture, forest-culture, hunting and fishing: 32.3 per cent. in mining, industry, building, and in founderies: 8.56 in trade and commerce; 20.3 in personal services and handiwork not belonging to any of the groups above mentioned; 2.3 in the army and navy; 3.7 in other callings; 2.7 were renters, pensioners, and persons who lived by selling or renting houses, reserving lodgings for themselves therein, and persons who gave no account of their calling. (Preuss. statisc. Zeitschr., 1875, 32. ff.) It is, however, surprising that Engel’s Amtl. Jahrbuch, III, 1867, gives only 48 per cent. as belonging to the first category, and 25 to the second. In the kingdom of Saxony in 1861, 25.1 per cent. of the population were agriculturists and foresters; 56.1 were engaged in industry; 7.7 in trade and commerce; 6.8 in art, science, the service of the state and of private persons; while 4.1 per cent were without any particular calling, or returned none. Bavaria, in 1852, had 67.9 per cent. of its population engaged in agriculture; 22.7 in the trades and in manufactures; 5.5 per cent., persons living on the interest of their money, and by performing the higher class of personal services; 1.9 in the army; and 2 per cent. of listed poor. In Hermann, Beiträge zur Statistik des Königreichs Bayern. In France, according to the official reports, there were:

Agriculteurs 61.46 per cent. in 1851, 51.49 per cent. in 1866; Industriels et commerçants 25.95 per cent. in 1851, 32.78 per cent. in 1866; Professions libérales 9.73 per cent. in 1851, 9.48 per cent. in 1866.

To which it must be added, that, in 1851, there were 2.86 sans profession ou dont les professions n’ont pu être constatées; and that, in 1866, on the other hand, there were 2.87 per cent. in professions se rattachant à l’agriculture, industrie et commerce. (Legoyt.) In England and Wales, leaving the domestic class out of consideration (women without an independent means of employment, school children, servant girls etc.), and also the “indefinite class,” there were, in 1861, 25.3 per cent. of the population engaged in agricultural pursuits; 60.7 in industrial; 7.8 in commercial; and 6.06 in professional pursuits. In Italy, omitting housewives, children and infirm persons, there were, in 1862, 57.4 per cent. of the population engaged in agriculture; 22.9 in industrial pursuits; 4 in commerce; and 3.9 per cent. in the army and in the liberal professions. (Annali univ. di Statistica, Febbr., 1866.) On Holland, in the middle of the 17th century, see J. de Wit, Mémoires, 34 seq.

341 Csaplovics, Gemälde von Ungarn II, 1. Torrens, The Budget: On commercial and colonial Policy, 106 ff.

342 Precisely as there are more people ruined by spirituous liquors than by bread. Time thieving is also more frequent among servants. There is scarcely anything in agriculture analogous to the lazzaroni who wait all day to help a gondola to land, to unload a coach, etc. There is more in the chase, in the fisheries, or in the cattle raising.

343 Compare Bastiat, Harmonies économiques, ch. 17. Hence Sismondi accounts it one of the chief merits of the constitutional state, that in it, the population gardienne does not regulate its own remuneration. (N.P., I, 144.) Saint Simon, indeed, says that the French members of the Chambre, in his time, drew a revenue from the state, three times as large as from their own resources, and were, therefore, deeply interested in increasing the budget. (Vues sur la Propriété et la Législation, 1818.) I would call attention also to the national over-estimation and over-crowding of learned callings from which Germany suffered, even as far back as the time of Louis XIV. (v. Schröder, Fürstl. Schatz-und Rentkammer, 302 ff.); to the disproportionate number of keepers of public houses, which is related to the system of popular assemblies, and is a regular attendant upon Democracy (Bronner, Der C. Aargau, I, 451.) Taxation-legislation may here become a good means of popular education.

344 This was recognized very early by Gregor. Tolsan, l.c. Ad. Müller, Elemente, II, 255. Storch, Handbuch, II, 229 ff. (Schleiermacher, Christ. Sitte, 668.) A. Smith, W. of N., II, ch. 5, ascribed greater productiveness to agricultural than to industrial labor; in the former case, not only human labor was put in operation, but the forces of nature were compelled to coöperate with them. Similarly, Malthus, Additions (1817) to the Essay on the Principle of Population, B. III, ch. 8-12. Principles of P. E., 217 ff. Both thus explain the rent of land, and so far as products, which have only value in exchange are concerned, they are right. Hence it is all the more surprising that Carey, the zealous advocate of a protective tariff and opponent of rent, comes back in this to Adam Smith. Principles of Social Science, 1858, II, 35, and passim. Compare also J. B. Say, Traité, II, ch. 8; Sismondi, N. P., II, ch. 5. For the best refutation of this view, see Ricardo, Principles, ch. 2, 3. Does not all labor put the force of nature in operation? Ad opera nihil aliud potest homo, quam ut corpora naturalia admoveat, reliqua natura intus transigit. (Bacon.) Similarly, Verri, Meditazioni, III, 1. An expression escapes even Ricardo himself (ch. 7), to the effect, that capitalists are the producing class.

345 Relying on very superficial statistics of England and France, Ganilh advocates a theory of the productive forces of the several branches of economy the very reverse of Adam Smith’s. He places foreign trade first; then follow wholesale trade, industry and agriculture. (Théorie, I, 240 seq.)

346 Ausland, 1846, No. 54. Expressions still used in Europe, such as Spindelmagen (spindle-relation), Kunkellehen (apron-string-hold) etc., for instance, suggest this most ancient and purely family division of labor. The lower classes of the population, even in the most civilized countries, are wont to preserve some of the peculiar customs of very primitive times. Hence it is that among proletarians, the division of labor between males and females is still very small. The employments usual at different stages of life among men, and the costumes worn by them are much more uniform than among the higher classes. See Riehl, Die Familie, 1855, passim.

347 As Dankwardt shows, the jus civile of the earliest Roman time is based on the condition of isolated labor, the later jus gentium, on the division of labor. N. Œk. und Jurisprudenz, 1857, Heft. I.

348 Saxo Gramm., Hist. Dan. V, 101. Turner, Hist. of the A. Saxons B. VII, ch. 11. Nibel., 351 ff. There is a French proverb: du temps que la reine Berthe filait. Queen Bertha was a mythic daughter of Charlemagne. It may be that the character meant is the old German spinning goddess Berchta. Concerning the daughter of Otto the Great, see Dithmar, Merseb. II. Homer, Od. V, 31 ff.; X, 106; XXIII, 189 ff. Herodot., VIII, 137. Livy, I. 57.

349 Eden, State of the Poor I, 558 ff. In the interior of Peru, the priest is also usually a shop-keeper (Pöppig, Reise, II, 365); in Canada, as in many of the villages of the Alps which are not often visited, a hotel keeper. In countries with an unadvanced civilization, the little division of labor that exists is also very awkwardly regulated. Thus in Russia, weak children are very frequently put to work on farms, while powerful men are found in the city offering all kinds of eatables and the pictures of saints for sale. (Storch, Gemälde des russischen Reichs II, 364. v. Haxthausen, Studien I, 335.)

350 Babbage, Economy of Machinery, 1833, 201. L. Faucher, Angleterre II, Ch. “la Ville des Serruriers.” The industrial statistics of Paris, furnished by H. Say in 1847 and 1848, show that in that city alone there are 325 different branches of industry, 17 of which are concerned with the production of food; 21 with building; 32 with the manufacture of furniture; 21 with that of clothing; 36 with that of thread and tissues; 7 with skins and leathers; 14 with vehicles, saddlery, and military equipment; 33 with chemicals and pottery; 33 with working in metal, glass etc.; 35 in that of the precious metals and jewels; 27 with printing, engraving and paper; 15 with that of wooden-ware and wicker-ware; 34 with articles de Paris. Journal des Economistes, Janv., 1853, 107. According to the industrial almanac of Birmingham, there are in that city manufacturers of buttons in gold, silver, metal, mother-of-pearl etc.; manufacturers of hammers, ink-stands, coffin-nails, dog-collars, tooth-picks, stirrups, fish-hooks, spurs, pack-needles etc.

351 And so with the subdivisions. Flannel is manufactured almost exclusively in Halifax, woolen blankets between Leeds and Huddersfield etc.

352 The same division of labor was developed among the Dutch in the 17th century, and excited then the wonder of the English. See Sir W. Temple, Observations upon the U. Provinces, 1672, ch. 3. Works, I, 128, 143. In 1615, Montchrêtien held up the Flemish as a model to the French, in this respect.

353 On the bees, see Virgil, Georg. IV, 158.

354 The principle of the division of labor was known to the ancients: Xenophon, Cyri Discipl., VIII, 2, 5. Plato, de Rep., II, 369, III, 394, IV, 443; Isocrat., Busir., 8. Aristot., Polit., II, 8, 8. Among the more modern writers, compare Thomas Aquin., De Reg. pr., I, 1, II, 3. Luther (Works by Walch, I, 388), in his Commentary on Genesis, 3, 19. Petty, Several Essays, 1682, p. 113. Considerations upon the East India Trade, London, 1701. Roscher, Geschichte der englischen Volkswirthschaftslehre, 118. Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, enlarged edition of 1723, p. 411. Berkeley, Querist, 1735, No. 415, 430, 520 ff., 586: “What is everybody’s business is nobody’s.” Harris, on Money and Coins (1757), I, 16. J. J. Rousseau, Emile (1762), L. III. Turgot, Sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses, § 3, p. 50, 62, 66. Diderot, Encyclopédie de l’Art, s. v. Art. J. Tucker, Four Tracts (1774), p. 25 ff. Boccaria, Economia pubblica, I, 1, 9. But the author to whom we owe most on this score is undoubtedly Adam Smith. To him we are indebted almost entirely for our knowledge of the natural laws developed in § 59 seq.

355 According to Adam Smith, a nailer can make 2,300 nails (Rau says 3,000 shoemaker’s tacks in the Odenwalde) per day; a smith who is only occasionally employed in the manufacture, from 800 to 1,000; and smiths who never made nails before, from 200 to 300. A clever filer makes 200 strokes in a minute; a skilled comb-maker can make in a day from 60 to 70 combs of such fineness that there are from 40 to 48 teeth to the inch in them; eight Liege brick-makers, working together, produce 4,800 bricks per day; children employed in a needle manufactory, in making the eyes of needles, grow so skillful at it that they can make a small hole in the finest hair and draw another hair through it. Rau, Lehrbuch I, § 115. The old proverb, “practice makes perfect,” is followed even by thieves in their great division of labor. See Thiele, Die jüdischen Gauner I, 87. Fregier, Des Classes Dangéreuses.

356 Children, with their thinner fingers, can point twice as many needles in the same time as a grown person.

357 The manufacture of English needles demands, on the part of workmen, degrees of skill so different that their pay varies from 6 pence to 20 shillings per day. If the most skillful workman were to manufacture whole needles alone, he would partly be obliged to be satisfied with one-fortieth of what he might otherwise receive. Babbage, loc. cit.

358 In the case of machines and in the chemical branches of industry, the labor increases in a much smaller ratio than the material used in production.

359 In opposition to monopolies, and to practical constraint which has its source in ignorance etc.

360 Hence Torrens calls foreign trade the “territorial division of labour.” (Essay on the Production of Wealth (1821), 155 ff.)

361 See Bastiat, Harmonies, ch. 1, for a very beautiful exposition of the doctrine that each man receives much more from society than he accomplishes on his part, for it.

362 The working together of a great number of persons is often carried on to the detriment of agriculture, for each then waits for all the others to work, throws all the blame on them etc. (Columella, I, 9.) As many a housekeeper must have observed, two seamstresses or ironers accomplish, in a day, less than one, in two days. Of course, this rule does not apply in the case of work which cannot be performed by one man, under any circumstances, or the magnitude of which would easily discourage him, and in which mutual aid is easily obtained; as in the raising of heavy loads, the construction of roads, dikes etc.

363 Ad. Smith, B., II, Introd. Hufeland, Neue Grundlegung, I, 215. In many instances, a division of labor, of course, favors the saving of capital. If every workman needed all the tools necessary to the work in which he participates, three-fourths of them would have to lie idle at present. J. Rae, New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy, 164.

364 This necessity is observable, although in a peculiar form, even where what has been called the “despotic organization of labor” prevails, instead of freedom.

365 In the highlands of Scotland, in Adam Smith’s time, there were no smiths who manufactured nails only; for the reason that no smith had a market for more than 1,000 nails a year, that is not for so many as might be manufactured in a single day.

366 It is of course very different when there is question of a foreign market, even if it be only indirectly. Thus, for instance, there are in the Hartz mountains, persons who are simply post-makers, trough-makers, chess-wood-makers, block-hewers, shingle-makers etc.

367 Too much should not be inferred from the existence among the Egyptians of physicians, specialists for the several members of the body. Herodot., II, 84. Something analogous is to be found even among barbarous nations; but it is accounted for entirely by the superstition of the people. See Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, I, 266.

368 In the whole of Hesse, there were under Philip the Magnanimous, only two apothecaries, one at Cassel and one at Marburg. Rommel, Gesch. v. Hessen, IV, p. 419, note. And there were no bakers among the Romans before the time of the war with Perseus. All the bread needed by the family was baked by the wife or by female domestics. Plin., H. N. XVIII, 28. The common oven in new towns marks the period of transition. Even yet, in the central part of France, there are localities where each family bakes its own bread for a whole month in advance; and, in the Alpine departments for even a year in advance. M. Chevalier, Cours II, 366.

369 It is obvious from the foregoing that, in decaying nations, in which the market contracts and capital decreases, the division of labor also must grow less.

370 According to Arago, a horse uses the same amount of force to draw 20 cwt. along an ordinary road that he does to draw 200 over a railroad track, or 1,200 on a canal. He could carry scarcely 2 or 3 on his back! Moniteur, 1838, No. 116. It is, however, certain that the introduction of our railroads has somewhat detracted from the advantages of coasts.

371 Compare Humboldt, Essai politique sur l’Ile de Cuba, II, 205.

372 Strabo, II, 121 ff. In Europe, there is one mile of coast to every 31 square miles in the interior; in North America, to 56; in South America, 91; in Asia, 100; in Africa, 142. (Humboldt.)

373 If the original connection of the Caspian sea and the sea of Aral with the Frozen Ocean were still in existence, it is probable that an Asiatic Scandinavia would have been formed in consequence.

374 What is true of the sea in this respect may be claimed, also, though in a less degree, for the streams that carry the civilizing fruits of the coasts far into the interior. Nearly all large cities not situated on the harbors of coasts derive their importance from rivers; especially when they have been built on spots adapted by nature to the transhipment of merchandise. That Venice finally eclipsed Genoa is to be ascribed, in greatest part, to its control of an important stream, the Po. The economic importance of Holland, of Hamburg and Bremen will, in the long run, bear the same relation to one another as the geographical importance of the valleys of the Rhine, Elbe and Weser. As nothing is more disastrous to a nation than the loss of its coast (we need only cite the efforts of the Lybian kings and, later, of Philip of Macedon to conquer the Greek colonies on their coasts; and in more recent times, of Russia before Peter the Great, or of the Zollverein without the shores of the German sea), so, also, the economic and political influence of a stream increases as one approaches its mouth. Hence the justification of the great interest taken by Germany and Austria in the question of the Danubian principalities. The United States recognized this fact when they purchased Louisiana for 80,000,000 francs. Bignon, Hist. de France III, 111 seq. Readers of history are familiar with the important part played by the three Asiatic Mesopotamias: that between the Euphrates and the Tigris; that between the Ganges and the Brahmapootra; that between the Hoang-Ho and the Yang-tse-Kiang, to which finally the Punjab might be added. This relation is recognized by popular consciousness, in the case of the Ganges, by the belief in the sacredness of the stream. No river has had so much influence on civilization as the Nile: its periodical risings have made the labor of agriculture extraordinarily easy; their extent and regularity favored the progress of astronomy; the flooding over of the land led to geodesy; the hydraulic labors necessitated by the rising of the waters produced a school of architecture to which the river furnished an excellent means of transportation for the enormous masses to be moved. K. Ritter, Erdkunde, I, p. 880 seq; VI, p. 1,168 seq. In this matter, also, America and Europe have the advantage over Asia and Africa. While the Danube is, in places, scarcely three German miles from the Rhine—which, however, flows in an almost opposite direction—in Asia, the eastern streams are separated from the western, and the northern from the southern, by a strip of land difficult to be traveled, and about 300 German miles in extent. Besides, the principal streams of northern Asia have their exit into the Frozen Ocean, a fact which diminishes their importance greatly. The source of the Missouri is only about one mile distant from the Columbia river, although the two flow towards opposite seas.

375 The law governing the march of civilization from the mountain to the plain and to coast lands was observed even by Strabo, XIII, 592, and partly by Plato, De Leg., 677 ff.

376 Thus, for instance, that all the customers of a shoemaker together form a shoe-association etc. Dunoyer, Liberté du Travail, L. IV, ch. 10.

377 Storch, Handbuch, III, 188 ff. The Dutch traveler, Usselinx, speaks in a similar way of the imitativeness and many-sidedness of the Swedes (Argonautica Gustavica, 20). Chilian servants (peones) are a good combination of the cook, the muleteer, builder, courier etc. Once they have passed over a road, they never forget it. A knife stands them in stead of most tools, and pieces of leather in stead of nails. Pöppig, Reise, I, 171 ff.

378 von Haxthausen, Studien, I, 63, 113. In 1827, a Russian hatter got 12 rubles for a hat, a German one 35 (Schön, N. Œkonomie, 78).

379 See the report of a large manufacturer in Kohl, England und Wales, p. 332 seq.

380 Raynal, Histoire des Indes (1780), L. XV. And so Rousseau, Discours sur l’Inegalité (1754), who also declaims against all kinds of capital; were there no ladders, men would climb better; and throw a stone better if they had no slings. There is certainly a misunderstood truth in this saying. It is assuredly very salutary, in the actual state of society, in which every one’s business is transacted for him by some one else, that a time should occasionally come when no one can take our place, and a man can only call upon himself. And herein lies the immense value which just war, when not much prolonged, but which is brought to a happy termination, sometimes has upon the life of a people.

381 The American savages are, on an average, weaker than the whites. In a fist-fight the Kentuckians and Virginians showed themselves far superior to the Indians. See Lawrence, Lectures, 403, supra, § 40.

382 For a very unprejudiced estimate of the dark and bright sides of the division of labor, even before Adam Smith’s time, see Ferguson, History of of Civil Society (1767), IV, I, V, 3 ff. Also Garve, Versuche, III, 41. Adam Smith was not blind to the dark side of the division of labor, which, in part, he would remove by popular instruction at the expense of the state, and by a species of compulsory education. W. of N., V, ch. 1, 3, art. 2. One of the chief peculiarities of J. Möser’s Political Economy is his great opposition to all highly developed division of labor. Patr. Ph., I, 2, 21, III, 32, 34.

383 von Ledebur, Reise in Altai, I, 384. The working together of wife and child, introduced recently by manufacturers, cannot be considered as a higher grade of the division of labor, but only as a very unfavorable change in the kind of it; inasmuch as it were better to employ the women in their domestic avocations and to leave children to their studies and their sports. Among the higher classes, it should be made the part of female education, to counterbalance, in the family, the effects of the ever increasing division of labor among the male portion, by the development of that which is universally human—art, sociability, house-keeping etc.

384 Schleiermacher, Christliche Sitte, 465 ff., 676 ff., 154 ff. From a similar feeling, although much exaggerated, the Greeks of the classic age proper considered all callings followed for gain dishonorable, not excepting even those of the physician and of the teacher. Plato, de Rep., I, 347 ff. Aristot., Rhet., I, 9, 27: μηδεμίαν ἐργάζεσθαι βὰναυσον τέχνην, ἐλευθέρον γάρ τὸ μὴ πρὸς ἄλλον ζην.

385 As, for instance, the superintendent of a manufactory must have a better general training, but can get along with less of a special, than his workmen.

386 Thucydides says of the contemporaries of Pericles: “The same men devote themselves, among us, in part to domestic and political business; in part, others who busy themselves with agriculture and industry have no mean knowledge of the affairs of state. We call those who take no part in the former not people loving their ease, but useless men.” (II, 40.) During the succeeding period, Athens was destroyed mainly by the ever increasing division of labor between citizens and soldiers. For, “to separate the arts which form the citizen and the statesman, the arts of policy and war, is an attempt to dismember the human character, and to destroy those very arts we mean to improve.” (Ferguson.) We know from Valerius Maximus, that the Roman soldiers from the time of Marius had, doubtless, a better technic training than their ancestors who who defeated Hannibal; but was it in a military or political sense that they were thus better trained? The beautiful definition of Cato intimates something of the same nature; the good orator was vir bonus dicendi peritus. (Quintilian, XII, I.) And so Garve, Versuche, IV, 51 ff., expects from the political elevation of citizenship, of those possessed of the right of citizens, not only usefulness in a particular direction but the development of the whole man, a thing hitherto expected only of the nobility.

387 As one’s peculiar calling does not take up all his life, we must draw a clear distinction between the one-sidedness of labor and the one-sidedness of life, (von Mangoldt, Volkswirthschaftslehre, 227.) Only the last is to be avoided at all hazards; and we find it in the middle ages, with its limited divisions of labor, perhaps more frequently than where civilization has attained a higher stage. During the middle ages, it was not unusual to make feelings which every one should cultivate at times, if only temporarily, the lasting calling of some. Thus one prayed his whole life long, or was engaged in contemplation, and relieved others of the necessity of performing these duties. The consequence was, that the latter sank as deeply in worldliness and want of the interior spirit as the former were plunged in idleness and hypocrisy. But, on the other hand, when, in our day, the printer relieves the writer of a portion of the labor which might be his, the personal development of neither suffers.

388 L’uomo è un’ tal potenza, che unita all’ altra non fa un eguale alla somma, ma al quadrato della somma. (Genovesi.) As to how the action of every individual man is a species of division and union of different kinds of labor, see Stein, Lehrbuch, 24.

389 Compare Ad. Müller, Elemente der Staatskunst, III, 1809. Fr. List, System der polit. Œkonomie, 222 ff., 409 ff. Wakefield, in his edition of Adam Smith, distinguishes two degrees of coöperation, simple and complex. In the case of simple labor, the same sort of work is performed at the same time and place by several individuals, as, for instance, by a lot of hod-carriers in building. In the other case, there are different kinds of work performed at different times and places, but all intended for the one greater end. Agriculture affords room for the first especially, and it is known also to a great number of animal species.

390 Flemish weavers in England, French refugees in Protestant countries; German miners in Spain, Scandinavia, Hungary and America.

391 This, so very largely developed in Egypt and India, where the principle of caste obtains, is very little developed in the despotisms of Asia. The great princes, in the latter countries, build largely from vanity only. Hence their successors seldom complete their works, and scarcely repair them. Nowhere else are there so many half completed and yet decaying buildings. Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, VIII, 86. Riedel, N. Œkonomie I, 259, very correctly remarks that such kinds of coöperation as contribute most to the propagation of skill, both in commerce and manual labor, have less real division of labor, and vice versa.

392 Compare Leplay, La Réforme sociale en France (1864).

393 Concerning association in general, see M. Chevalier, Cours, III, Leçon, 24, 25. On this subject so much talked of in our day, see, more in detail, concerning its application to agriculture, my work, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, 4, § 39, 47 ff.; 68, 133 ff.; on its application to industry, especially where there is question of the relation of handiwork and manufactures to large factories; see Roscher, Ansichten der Volkswirthschaft, II, Aufl., 1861, Abhandlung, IV, V.

394 Adam Smith remarked that the laws of the division of labor obtain also in intellectual works; and indeed, among all nations in a very low grade of civilization, the germs of all art and science are found connected with theology; and later, the germs of all poetry and history with the epic. The expression: non defuit homini, sed scientiæ, quod nescivit Salmasius, is a clear proof of the insignificance of the science of the time. Think of the increase during the last hundred years of the branches of study in our German universities. There are now thirty-four regular professors in the Leipzig philosophical faculty, where then there were only nine. But here also the principle proves true, that an excessive division of labor, where the broader connection and the deeper foundation of all sciences disappear from the consciousness, undermines intellectual health and freedom. And the injury here is greater and more irreparable than in the domain of mere physical labor. See Hufeland, N. Grundlegung, I, 207 ff. If we have just become Alexandrians, we have, however, no Aristotle to hope for. Jurisprudentia est divinarum atque humanarum rerum notitia, justi atque injusti scientia (Ulpian). It is remarkable that nations who possess no real national literature of their own, when they once get beyond the bounds of utter barbarism, learn foreign languages etc., most easily.

395 The socialistic utopia of Ch. Fourier (Théorie des quatre Mouvements, 1808. Théorie de l’Unité universelle, 1822. Le nouveau Monde industriel et sociétaire, 1829) are based upon the following fundamental ideas. A. The present civilization is that of a topsy-turvy world, especially in so far as it ascribes a “moral” (a word always used by him in an ironical sense) self-government to man. In Fourier’s world, on the other hand, every man is supposed, at all times, to give free rein to every passion; and the play of these gratifications constitutes the harmonie, in which the poorest find more enjoyment than do kings at the present time. (See § 207 of this work.) B. The main thing to further this is a radical reform in the division and cooperation of labor as they exist at present. Instead of the present villages and cities, we should have only phalansteries, each with 2,000 inhabitants, and situated in the center of the land cultivated by them. Instead of the present nations and states, we should have a universal confederate republic, hierarchically graded, with French as the universal language. According to the demands of the passion papillonne, each one should carry on the most different kinds of business side by side, and each one of them at most two hours per day; i.e., every one should be a dilettante, no one a master, and everything should be done as badly as possible. Proudhon, Contradictions économiques, ch. 3, objects to this, that a workman must, in some way, be held responsible for his work. Fourier himself calculates that, in his harmonie all pleasures are productive labor; and that by this constant change, one might be satisfied with from 4-½ to 5-½ hours of sleep, and that even children 2-½ years old might take part in the work. Thus, there would be a great rivalry between apple-growers and pear-growers, so great “that more intrigues in attack and defense [passion cabaliste] would arise there than in all the cabinets of Europe,” in the settling of which the growers of quinces would act as intermediaries. There are, in addition to all this, wonderful aids; a fructifying crown of light rises over the north pole; oranges bloom in Siberia; the sea becomes as delicious as lemonade; dangerous animals die, and in their stead anti-lions and anti-whales come into being, animals useful to man, which draw his ships for him during calms. These ideas are by no means retracted in Fourier’s later works, See Nouveau Monde (Oeuvres) IV, 447. The propositions of Robert Owen, A new View of Society (1812), have much similarity with those of Fourier. They differ only in the absence of the French barrack-like character of the phalanxes, and the fantastic character of the presentation of the doctrine. He would have all the land divided into districts of 1,000 acres each; each district to have a four-cornered town with 1,000 inhabitants, following a system of production and consumption in common, but not with full equality; carrying on both agriculture and other business. A principal feature here is an entirely new system of education. The author says that man has hitherto been the slave of an execrable trinity: positive religion, personal property and indissoluble wedlock. (Declaration of mental independence.)

396 Compare Tacitus, Histor., II, 44.

397 See Iselin, Geschichte der Menschheit (1764), III, 7. Bazard, Exposition de la Doctrine de Saint Simon, 1831, 153. Among negro nations deprivation of freedom is one of the most usual punishments for crime; but the criminal has the option of substituting his wife or child for himself. L.A. de Oliveira Mendez, in the Memor. econom. of the Royal Academy of Lisbon, vol. IV, I, 1812. As to slavery on account of crime among the Germans, see Grimm, D. Rechtsalterth., 328 seq.

398 Loss at play was a frequent cause of slavery among the ancient Germans. Tacit., Germ., 24. For the principal causes of slavery among the Israelites, see the books of Moses, II, 22, 3; III, 25, 39; IV, 21, 26 seq.; among the Indians, Laws of Menu, VIII, 415. The first serfs of Russia were prisoners of war and their children. The laws of Jaroslaws recognize, besides, the following causes: insolvency, contracting marriage with a slave, the illegal breach of a contract for service, flight, unconditional contract for service. Karamsin, Russ. Gesch., II, 37.

399 At least seed and the means of subsistence until harvest time.

400 Cases of voluntary slavery to escape famine. Papencordt, Geschichte der Vandalen, 186; Victor, Chron., V, 17; Tur., VII, 45; Lex Bajuv, VI, 3; L. Fris, XI, I. According to the Edictum Pistense (a., 864), c., 34, one could free himself again by paying back the purchase money and 20 per cent. in addition. It frequently happened that people spontaneously accepted the condition of a vassal in order to enjoy the protection of a powerful personage. See Stüve, Lasten des Grundeigenthums, p. 74. In 1812, a young Himalayan offered himself to the traveler Moorcroft as a slave in order to obtain food during the famine. K. Ritter, Erdkunde, III, p. 999. The same fact occurred, but in greater proportions under Joseph in Egypt. Moses, I, 47, 18 seq.

401 Cæsar, B.G., VI, 13.

402 Solon was the first to prohibit this commerce in Athens. Kindlinger, in his Geschichte der deutschen Hörigkeit, p. 621, speaks of a child promised as a slave before its birth, by its parents, as a species of farm-rent. (See the Edictum Pistense, in Baluz, II, 192.) In Chili, the poorest country people who were not entirely white, sold their children in the towns, where they grew up with the families of their masters, and were then kept as servants in a state of semi-serfdom. There is, it is true, no law governing this condition of things. (Pöppig, Reise, I, 201 ff.)

403 Ritter, XIII, 727. For instance, men in South America used for the purpose of riding. M. Chevalier, Cours, I, 251; Lœwenstern, Le Mexique, Souvenirs d’un Voyageur (1843); and Stephens, Travels in Yucatan (1841), show how, even yet, in Central America, although the Indians are legally free, yet, by their senseless way of running into debt, a number of legal relations, amounting virtually to glebæ adscriptio, arise. But compare, however, Humboldt, Neuspanien, IV, 263. This condition of things has been produced in Peru, also, by the payment of one or two years’ wages in advance. (Pöppig, Reise, II, 225.)

404 Thus Forbonnais, Eléments du Commerce (1854) I, 364, says of trade with savages: il fait naître dans ces nations le goût du superflu et des commodités, qui multiplie le, échanges et leur donne le goût du travail.

405 In very uncivilized nations, among whom serfdom is not known, we generally find the slavery of woman and the temporary bondage of the son-in-law in order to secure the daughter in marriage. This is still the case among the Laplanders. Klemm, Kulturgeschichte III, p. 54. Slavery was unknown among the Greeks in the very earliest times. Herod., VI, 263. F. A. Wolf, Darstell. der Afterthumswissenschaft, III, doubts whether any great advance in the higher development of the mind would have been possible without slavery.

406 In Russia, where free peasants and serfs lived side by side, it has been remarked that the latter were never so rich and never so poor as the former. (Kohl, Reise durch Russland II, 8, 300.) The Livonian peasants have become poorer since their emancipation. (Cancrin, Œkonomie der menschlichen Gesellschaften, 41). Many of the serfs refused to accept emancipation. (Büsch, Geldumlauf, Einleitung, § 6.) And so Martius, Reise in Brasilien II, 552 ff., assures us that the negro slaves in Brazil are as a rule a very merry set. He is also of the opinion that they are better clothed, lodged, fed and employed than in their own country. For the remarkable official defense of North American slavery directed by Calhoun, to Lord Aberdeen, see the Allg. Zeitung, 1844, No. 145. In this document, we find a comparison instituted between the free negroes of the north and the slaves of the south. In the north, there was one deaf-mute, a case of blindness and of insanity in every 96; in the south, in every 672; a pauper, invalid and prisoner in every 6 at the north, in every 54 at the south. In Maine, 1/12th of the negroes were afflicted by disease; in Florida, 1/1105th(?). The fact that the slave population of the United States increased, between 1840 and 1860, from 2,873,698 to 4,441,830, while the free negro population of Jamaica, between 1833 and 1843, underwent a frightful decrease, is to the same purport. However, too much must not be inferred from all this, as the negroes in America are very far from being the children of the soil.

407 The servants in the Odyssey who cared for hogs and cattle etc. were certainly in a better condition in many respects than the peasants of Attica, who were free, but buried in debt until the time of Solon. Concerning the mildness of the treatment of slaves in very early Roman times, see Plutarch, Coriol., 24, and Cato, I, 3, 20 ff.; Cato, de Re rust, 5, 56 ff.; Macrob., Stat. I, 10 ff. On the state of the serfs among the Germans, see Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 339 ff.; among the ancient Scandinavians etc., Dahlman, Geschichte von Dänemark, I, 163. See Tacit., Germ., 25.

408 Compare Landnamabok, I, 6.

409 The opinions of the ancients for and against slavery are found in Arist. Polit. I, 2. See especially the beautiful passages in Philemon: Meineke, Comicorum jr., 364, 410. Aristotle even thinks that there are cases in which master and slave might be brought together by a mutual want, each of the other. The former wants hands to execute the work of his brain; the latter a guiding brain for his hands. Where the degree of dependence corresponds exactly to the difference of ability, Aristotle, leaving its abuses out of the question, declares slavery to be just. See, also, Eth. Nicom., VIII, 11. Similarly the Pythagorean Bryson in Stobœus, Florid. LXXXV, 15. But Aristotle would hold up emancipation to all slaves as a reward they might have in prospect. Polit VII, 9, 9; Œcon. I, 5. It is characteristic of the many testaments of philosophers, found in Diogenes Laertius, that they contain declarations giving slaves their freedom. The Essenes and Therapeutics condemned slavery under all circumstances. Philo., Opp. II, pp. 458, 482, Opp. I. See Seneca, De Benef. III, 20. The jus naturale of the age of the Cæsars recognized the freedom and equality of man. Digest, XII, 664., L. 17, 32. The New Testament does not reject it absolutely, but would sanctify it as well as all other relations in life. Compare Luke, 17, 7; Eph. 6 5 ff.; Coloss. 3, 22; Tit. 2, 9. More especially, I Timothy, VI, 1 ff. It was not until the ninth century that the opinion that slavery was anti-Christian because men were all made in the image of God, arose. Planck, Geschichte der kirchlichen Gesellschaftsverfassung, II, 350. Sachsenspiegel, III, 42. A writer as recent as Pufendorf explains slavery as arising from a free contract; faciam, ut des. Jus naturæ (1672) VI, 3. More recently Linguet, Théorie des Lois civiles (1767), V, ch. 30, and Hugo, Naturrecht, § 186 ff. have endeavored to prove that slaves are in a condition preferable to that of poor free men. And so Möser Patriot Phantasien, II,. p. 154, seq. Those who with Thaer separate the element of production, “labor” from that of “intelligence,” justify slavery on the same principle that Aristotle did, without knowing it. Per contra, see F. G. Schultze, N. Œkonomie (1856), 418.

410 Turgot, Sur la Formation etc., § 21. The universal empire of the Romans demonstrated this. Then it was, for instance, that during the wars of Lucullus, a slave cost only four drachmas. (Appian., Bell. Mithr., 78.) Sardi venales: on account of the glutting of the market with Sardinian slaves, made through the victory of Tib. Gracchus, 177, before Christ. Many of the lesser wars of the Romans can be looked upon only as slave-hunts. But the great wars also were followed by uprisings of slaves on account of the many new slaves which they made. Thus 198 in Latium, 196 in Etruria. (Bücher, Aufstände der unfreien Arbeiter von, 143-129, v. Chr., 1874.) During the relatively peaceful periods which preceded many of the Roman revolutions, pirates delivered over great masses of slaves. It frequently happened that several thousand slaves were led to Delos and sold in a single day. (Strabo, XIV, 668.) As emancipation was a measure which people could not make up their minds to adopt, these pirates satisfied a “want” for a time, and this partly explains the otherwise incomprehensible forbearance of the state towards them.

411 Gregor. Turon., III, 15.

412 Grimm, D. Rechtsalterthümer, 323. It is a strange fact that prisoners of war were in several remarkable instances sold as slaves in Italy during the fifteenth century. (Sismondi, Hist. des Républiques italiennes, IX, p. 312 seq.; XI, p. 138 seq.) And even in the sixteenth century, the pope allowed those of states opposed to him to be treated in this way. Sismondi, supra, XI, 251; XIII, 485. Raynold, Ann. eccl. 1506, § 25 ff.

413 This graduation of slave, serf and workman, has been carried out especially by Saint Simon, Oeuvres, 328 ff. Even Proudhon admits that the condition of the lower classes is better now than formerly. (Contradictions économiques, ch. X, 2.) Compare M. Chevalier, Cours, I. Leçons 1 and 2, where he shows that our productive power has increased during the last four or five centuries in the production of iron in the proportion of 1 to from 25 to 30; in the preparation of flour since the time of Homer in the proportion of 1:144; in the production of cotton during the last 70 years in the proportion of 1:320. Aristotle predicted, long ago, that “when the shuttle would move of itself, and plectra of themselves strike the lyre, we should need no more slaves.” Polit., 2, 5. Every step of true progress brings us nearer the fulfillment of the prophecy.

414 The North American planters employed coarse tools rather than fine ones, mules rather than horses, because their slaves took so little care of them.

415 It can never obtain as much labor from the slave, as the fear of losing his situation and of not being able to obtain another, will from the free workman. (Hume.) Marlo, Weltœkonomie, 1848, I, 2, 38, grants this to be true only where all the forces of nature are appropriated by occupation, and the number of workmen is greater than the want of workmen.

416 Even in Brazil, only free men are, as a rule, employed as sugar refiners, distillers, teamsters etc. (Koster, Travels in Brazil, 1816, 362.) Storch, Russland unter Alexander I, Heft, 23, p. 255, cites the opinion of an eminent Russian manufacturer, that it would first be necessary to liberate the serf factory-hands. Masters have generally given up employing their own serfs in manufactures, allowed them to seek work for themselves, and only required them to pay them a species of tax. When this plan was adopted, it was found that they worked much better, (v. Haxthausen, Studien I, 61, 116.) It was a consequence of slavery that, in antiquity, the very wealthy purchased so little: omnia domi nascuntur! (Petron., 38.)

417 Thus Homer, Od. XVII, 322, in whose time even there were day laborers, θῆτες or ἔριθοι. (Od. IV, 644; X, 85; XI, 490; XIV, 102. Hesiod, Opera, 602.) And Varro, De Re rust. I, 17, advises that difficult labor should be performed rather by day laborers. Coli rura ab ergastulis pessimum est et quidquid agitur a desperantibus. Plin., H. N. XVIII, 7. Omne genus agri tolerabilius sub liberis colonis, quam sub villicis. (Columetta, De Re rust I, 7.) It has been estimated, that, in the West Indies, a negro slave performed only one-third of the work performed by an Englishman in his own country. (B. Edwards, History of the British West Indies, II, 131.) During the one afternoon, in every week, in which the negroes were allowed to work on their own account, they accomplished as much as on other entire days. Edinburgh R. IV, 842. Compare Bentham, Traité de Législation I, 319. Ch. Comte, Traité de Législation, 1827, Livre V.; Cairnes, The Slave-Power, its Character, Career and probable Designs, 1862; Olmsted, Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom, 1861.

418 While the older tyrants had prohibited idleness, Draco and Solon even under pain of degradation (see places in Büchsenschütz, Besitz und Erwerb, 260). Socrates called the ἅργια the sister of Freedom (Aelian, V.H.X, 14), and the σκολή the most beautiful of all professions.

419 B. Franklin, Observations concerning the Peopling of New Countries etc., 1751.

420 Monument erected to Bernstorff by his peasants, 8, 15. The Zàmoiski estates yielded, 17 years after emancipation, three times as much as they did when serfdom prevailed. Coxe, Travels in Poland, I, 22. The transformation of the serfs into hereditary farmers cost Count Bernstorff 100,000 thalers; but the revenue derived from his lands increased in consequence, in twenty-four years, from 3,000 to 27,000 thalers. An English mower can mow a field two and three times as great as a Russian mower in a given time. If the former receives daily wages equivalent to seventy pounds of wheat, and the latter to only twelve, the Englishman’s labor is still the cheaper; for he turns out 100 pounds of hay while the latter turns out only eight. Jacob, 43 seq. But the hiring out of serfs in the large cities of Russia yielded less to their masters than in the interior. Storch, Handbuch, II, 286.

421 Tucker, Progress of the United States, 1843, pp. 111 ff. We need not call attention to the inaccuracy of these figures, nor remark how little serviceable for our present purpose an average obtained from the density of population in different parts of Russia, where such densities are themselves so very different, would be.

422 The Spartans seemed to have counted on an adult free man for twice as much coarse food as a bondsman. (Thucyd., VI, 16.)

423 Stewart, Principles, I, 7, in accordance with historical data, says, that the peasantry in our days work for other people, because they have wants which can be satisfied only in this way; because “they are slaves of their own wants.” The unquestionable superiority of free to slave labor, in point of economy, has been dwelt upon especially by Turgot, Sur la Formation et la Distribution, § 28, and by Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, 8, III, 2. But see J. B. Say, Traité, I, ch. 19, and Storch, Handbuch, II, 184. When Hume, Discourses, No. 11, Populousness of ancient Nations, demonstrates the greater cost of slavery from the fact that the master of slaves must either breed or buy them, he forgets that in the case of free workmen he is obliged to provide also for the support of the workman’s children. Only, the slaveholder has, indeed, to advance the whole at once.

424 Humboldt, Cuba, I, 177. Ashworth, Tour in the U.S. Cuba and Canada, 1861. The slaves in Louisiana were so overworked that they lived, on an average, scarcely seven years. Edinburg Rev., LXXXIII, 73. Even the Stoics were not agreed, whether it was right, in case of shipwreck, to sacrifice a cheap slave in order to save a valuable horse. (Cicero, de Off. III, 23.) Whether the self-interest of masters is an inducement to the mild treatment of their slaves depends on the price for which fresh slaves may be obtained. This is a strong reason why a high degree of civilization, where there are not counteracting influences, must make slavery less endurable. The more valuable slaves are, the worse is their condition. In the unfertile Bahamas, the price was £21; in Demarara, £86. In the former place they were required to do little work and were well fed and well clothed. Hence their numbers have increased there, while in Demarara they have decreased. (Edinburgh Rev., XLVI, 496, 180.)

425 Proverb: quot servi totidem hostes. (Macrob., Sat. I, 11, 13.)

426 Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 212. The chastity of both parties especially suffers. The leno of ancient comedy was a slave trader! Compare L. 27, Digest, V, 3. In the English negro colonies, it was not unusual for the guests of the planters, even in the best families, on retiring, to ask the accompanying servant for a girl, with as little concern as they would in England for a light. (Negro Slavery, or a Creed of ... that state of Society as it exists in the United States and in the Colonies of the West Indies, London, 1823, 53.)

427 Even the law of Upland forbade the sale of Christians. The children of a slave and of a free person were born free. Emancipation was considered a Christian act, to be performed for “the salvation of one’s soul.” Voluntary slavery was prohibited in 1266, and Magnus Erichson forbade slavery generally from the year 1335. See Geijer, Geschichte von Schweden, pp. 157, 185, 273. Estrup, in Falcks N. Staatsburg Magazin, 1837, 179, ff.

428 L. Alam, 137, 1. L. Fris., 17, 5. Decree of 960 concerning the abolition of the trade in Christian slaves between Germany, Italy and the Byzantine Empire. Tafel und Thomas, Urkunden der Staats-und Handelsgeschichte von Venedig, I, 18 ff.

429 Tacit. Germ. 25. In the Legg. Walliæ 206 (Wolton) we read: “Hero eadem potestas in servum suum ac in jumentum.”

430 The council of London in 1102 forbade men to be sold like beasts. (Concil., ed. Venet. 1730, XII, 1100, No. 27.) Guérard, Polyptiques d’Irminon, Prolegg., 220, describes a pedagogical model emancipation by the Church of its own serfs. On the whole, the church contributed more towards the emancipation of the serfs of others than of its own. See ch. 39, C. XII, qu. 2; c. 3,4; De Rebus eccl.

431 In Flanders since the end of the twelfth century. Warnkönig, Flandrische Staats und Rechtsgeschichte (I, 244).

432 In what relates to Germany, compare Sugenheim, Geschichte der Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft in Europa, 1861, p. 350 ff. The destruction of the old manorial system (Hofwesen) in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was often unfavorable to bondmen and favorable to serfs. Maurer, Gesch. der Frohnhöfe, II, 92. In Poland, where all were originally equal land-owners, many sank gradually through poverty to the condition of the so-called kinetes, who, although personally free, were not very far removed from slaves. Beginning with the thirteenth century, a great number of immunities, after the model of those accorded in Germany, were granted, by means of which they lost, for the most part, their direct subjection to the emperor and the empire alone. This was soon followed as a consequence by their personal oppression. (Röpell, Geschichte von Polen, I, p. 308 seq., and p. 570 seq.) In Bohemia, the old form of serfdom had so far disappeared in the fourteenth century, that it might be said it was known only to history. But during the reign of the weak king, Ladislaus II, a new species of serfdom came into vogue, the result of the preponderance of the aristocratic element. Palacky, Gesch. von Böhmen, II, p. 33 seq.; III, 31 seq. Aristocratic Denmark, before the peasant war of 1255-1258, subjected the free peasantry who had been leaseholders for a term of years to unlimited socage duty. Waldemar III, reduced to the same kind of service the land-owning peasantry, which especially from the date of Margaret’s reign, developed into a species of glebæ adscriptio. From the sixteenth century, when the royal power almost disappeared, these public privileges were abandoned to the nobility to such an extent that, in 1650, there were scarcely 5,000 free peasants. Dahlmann, III, p. 73 seq. However the severity of traeldom made way in the fourteenth century for the vornedskap (modified bondage), a milder species of vassalage. See Kolderup Rosenvinge, Grundriss der dänischen Rechtsgeschichte, § 94.

433 The French expression mainmorte comes originally from the deprivation of the right of inheritance. In Beaumanoir’s time, 1283, it was customary, after a number of serfs had lived together for a year and a day, for their chattels movable to become the common property of the community. (Warnkönig, Französische Rechtsgeschichte, II, 157.)

434 In France, Louis X. made it a fiscal speculation to sell serfs their liberty in whole districts, even against their will. His edict, Ordonnances, I, 583, recognizes that all men are by nature free, and that France is not without reason called the land of the Franks etc. Even in 1298, Philip IV. had exchanged the serfdom to the crown of several provinces for a land duty. The last ruler of Dauphiny gave all the serfs of the crown their liberty gratis, in 1394. (Sugenheim, p. 130.) When the so-called coutumes were written, there were only nine provincees in which by local law serfdom was permitted. The defeat of the jacquerie injured the cause of emancipation in France in the same way that the suppression of the war of the peasants did in Germany. About 1779, mainmorte was abolished in all lands of the crown, and its proof made almost impossible in all others. (Warnkönig, II, 151 seq.) Yet it is said that there were 150,000 serfs de corps in France in 1789. (Cassagnac, Causes de la Revolution, III, 11.) Koloman, who died in 1114, forbade the slave trade in Hungary, and labored to raise all Christian slaves to conditionarii (renters). But the right of migration was abolished in 1351. King Sigismund, and still more, Matthias Corvinus, restored it, after the suppression of the war of the peasants, but in 1514 it was again lost until 1586. Further progress was arrested until the Urbarium of Maria Theresa.

435 In Italy, Frederick II. liberated all the serfs of the crown. (Constitutt. Regni Sicil., 164.) A model instance of emancipation at Bologna in 1256. The serfs of the state were simply set at liberty; the freedom of those of private persons was purchased with the money of the state, and a small corn-tithe laid on the emancipated as a compensation for the expense incurred in their behalf. In the future, there was not to be a bondman on Bologna territory. The motives which led to this measure are a strange admixture of Christianity and Democracy. (Muzzi, Annali di Bologna, 1840, I, 479.) Italy, at the end of the fourteenth century, was entirely free from Christian serfdom. (Muratori, Antt. Ital., I, 798.) In the canton of Berne, Switzerland, slavery was gradually abolished, the process commencing about the beginning of the fifteenth century. It continued, however, in the case of ordinary masters until 1798. Sugenheim, p. 530 seq. In England, Alfred the Great’s efforts towards the gradual abolition of slavery (Wilkins, Leges, 29) remained without result. The steps taken by William I, towards a much narrower end, however, seem to have been more successful. (Leges Will. Conq., 225, 229; Turner, Hist. of England, I, 135.) From the time of the Norman conquest, prisoners of war ceased to recruit the ranks of slavery. Under Henry III and Edward I, socage tenants became more and more frequent; but, before long, their duties became less onerous, and might be discharged by others hired for the purpose, instead of by themselves. The first remarkable vestige of a class working for wages is met with in the law of 1351, which may be considered an effort made by the nobility to oppose the tendencies in favor of emancipation, which were a consequence of the development of cities. (Eden, State of the Poor, I, 7, 12, 30, 41,) Infra, § 175. Although the peasant war under Wat Tyler and Straw, who wished to abolish servitude at a blow, failed of its object, we find that there were a great many instances of emancipation by individuals in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when death or sickness overtook them, in which they declared the moral unfitness of slavery. (Wycliffe: “When Adam dalve and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?”) Elizabeth liberated the last serfs of the crown. Compare 12 Charles II, ch. 24, 1660. Emancipation in the lowlands of Scotland was completed in 1574. (Tytler, Hist. of Scotland, II, 260.)

436 Modern Emancipation Laws: in Prussia, 1719, 1807, 1819; Lausitz; 1820, Westphalia; in Austria, 1781 (Bohemia and Moravia), 1782 (other German countries and Galicia); 1785 (Hungaria); Schleswig-Holstein, 1804, after many of the landed gentry had voluntarily emancipated their own serfs; in Bavaria, in 1808; in the kingdom of Westphalia, in 1808; in Hessen-Darmstadt, in 1811; in Württemberg, in 1817; in Baden, in 1783, 1820 in newly acquired countries; in Mecklenburg, in 1820; in the kingdom of Saxony, in 1832; in Hanover, in 1833. The law of 1702, abolishing serfdom in Denmark, was evaded until 1788, and in part, even until 1800 by the Schollband (clod-bond) introduced in its stead. The only Christian people in Europe, who, until recently, kept serfs, was the Russian. The serfs of Russia, in 1834, numbered 22,000,000, i.e., about 40 per cent. of the entire population. In the meantime, the law of February 19, 1861, passed after four years of preparation, fixed the date of emancipation at the beginning of the year 1863. Slavery has been abolished in the United States since January 1, 1863; first of all in all portions of the country engaged in rebellion.

437 There is a very interesting discussion in the Journ. des Economistes for June 1863, of the question whether the owners of serfs are entitled to compensation on their emancipation, by Laboulaye, Wolowski, Lavergne, Garnier, Simon and others. In the United States it would have required $2,000,000,000 to fully compensate the slave-holders for depriving them of their slaves. (Quart. R., Jan., 1874, 142.) Compare my view, Roscher, Nationalökonomi des Ackerbaues, § 124.

438 Leave a new-born child to its “natural freedom” for twenty-four hours, and it will in all probability be dead at the end of the time!

439 Compare Edinburgh Review, LXXXIII, 64 ff., April, 1851, 333. Klein’s Annalen XXV, 70, ff. Even in the fifth book of Moses, 15, 13, ff., we see that experience had taken into consideration that a freed serf without capital or landed property might very readily be in a worse condition than he was before. In the United States, the anticipation that the emancipated negroes might diminish in numbers has not been realized. The census of 1870 showed a negro population of 4,880,000, nearly ten per cent. more than in 1860. The increase of the number of churches, schools and savings banks also bears testimony to the prosperity of the negro. (R. Somers, The Southern States since the War, 1871.)

440 J. S. Mill, Principles, 10, ch. 7.

441 As to the Jews, see Ewald, Geschichte von Israel, I 2, p. 198. In general, see H. Wallon, Hist, de l’Esclavage dans l’Antiquité, II, 1847.

442 Thucyd. IV, 27; Xenoph. De Re. rep. Art. I, 10 ff., Aristoph. Nubes, 6; Antiph. De Caede Herod, 727. In the “Frogs” of Aristophanes, the relation between the slave Xanthias and his master is eloquent testimony to the good treatment he received. Slaves enjoyed great freedom of speech. (Demosth. Phil. III, iii.) Concerning masters accused of cruelty, see Demosth. Mid. 529, 7. Athen. VI, 266. The slave who had been ill-treated might seek refuge in a temple, after which his master was compelled to sell him. (Schol. Aristoph. Equitt. 1309. Plutarch, Thes. 36.)

443 Slaves might purchase their own freedom with their peculium. See Petit. Legg., Art. II, 179. There were many who lived entirely on their own account, paying a certain duty or tax to their masters, and who were well able to make savings. R. F. Hermann, Privatalterthümer, § 13, 9, 58, 11 ff. See the instance in Plato, De Rep. VI, 495, where a slave who had grown wealthy asks the daughter of his former master in marriage. Moreover, there was a general indisposition to hold Greeks as slaves. (Philostr. Apoll. VIII, 7, 12.) The case cited in Demosth. adv. Nicostr. 1249 ff., is all the stronger on this account.

444 Under Cleomenes, many purchased their freedom with their own means. Plutarch, Cleom. 23. At an earlier period, men like Lysandros, Gylippos, Kallikratidos had belonged to a class composed of the children of slaves brought up as citizens.

445 Cicero, pro Muræna, IX, 22.

446 Think of the subterranean ergastula, the fettered door-keepers and the gladiatorial exhibitions.

447 Even from the time of Plautus, the servi honestiores were wont to keep vicarios, or subordinate slaves. Plaut. Asin. I, 4, Seneca De Tranq. Anim. 8. Compare Cicero, Parad. V, 2. Of the slaves of the state, the public scribes were sometimes found in excellent circumstances.

448 The peculium was fully developed in the time of Plautus and Terence. Compare Terent., Phorm. I, 1. It was customary to promise slaves their freedom as soon as they had acquired a certain peculium. (Dionys. Hal., Antt. Rom., IV, 24. Tac., Ann., XIV, 42.) Humane masters permitted their slaves to dispose freely of their peculium by will. (Plin., Ep., VIII, 16.) There were many of the Romans who gave their slaves a fixed salary, from which they could make savings. (Senec., Epist., 80, 7.) Shepherds raised some sheep for themselves alone. (Plaut., Asin., III, 1, 36; Varro, R. R., I, 17, 7.) Premiums were offered for certain products (Athen., VI, 274 d), and there were cases even in which businesses were farmed out to slaves. (Corp. Inscr. Gr., No. 4,713 f.) The servi publici had the right to dispose of the half of what they owned, by will. (Ulpian, XX, 16.) Contracts of loan were sometimes made between master and slave. (Plut., Cato, I, 21, L., 49, § 2, Digest, XV, 1.)

449 Compare Tacit., Ann., XIII, 26 seq. During the time from 356 to 211 A.C., it seems that there were, on an average, 1,380 slaves emancipated yearly. (Dureau de la Malle, Economie polit. des Romains, I, 290 ff.)

450 Concerning the highly educated slaves of Atticus, of the like of whom the Greeks had formerly few examples, see Drumann, Geschichte Roms., V, 66. The high prices, 100,000, and even 200,000 sesterces, paid for slaves, suppose a very high degree of education. (Martial, I, 59; III, 62; XI, 70; Seneca, Ep., 27.) But even Cicero was ashamed of his affliction over the death of an exceptionally clever slave. (Ad. Att., I, 12.)

451 At an earlier period, even the censor had punished cruel masters. But most of what was done to prevent the arbitrary condemnation to death of slaves, their castration etc., and to give them rights against their masters for libidinous acts towards them, for cruelty and insufficient support, or the furnishing them with bad food, was done after the time of Hadrian. (Compare Seneca, de Benef., III, 22; de Ira, III, 40, Sueton., Claud, 25, Dom., 7; Spartian., Hadr., 18; Gaius, I, 53; L., 1, § 2, Digest, I, 6; L., 1, § 8, D., I, 12; L., 1, § 2, D., XLVII, 8; L., 1; Cod., IX, 14; Contra, see Dio Cass, I, V, 17.) However, the vitæ necisque potestas existed in the time of Justinian. (Zimmern, Geschichte des röm., Privatrechts, I, 2, 661 ff.)

452 Salvian, De Gubern. Dei, V, 8. Theod., Cad. V, 4. Eumenis, Paneg Coast. 8, 9. Trebell, Poll. Claud., 9. Justin. Cad., XI, 26, 47. Compare v. Savigny, Ueber den romischen Colonat. Berliner Akad., 1822-23.

453 The figures given in Athen., VI, 103, concerning the number of bondmen in Greece are almost incredible. For Attica alone, the estimates vary between 110,000 (Letronne, in the Mem. de I’Académie des Inscr., 1822, 192, ff.) and 400,000 (Athen. 1. c.), while the free men are estimated at from 130,000 to 150,000. In Rome, during the time from the expulsion of the kings until the destruction of Carthage, the number of the slaves remained about the same. (Blair, State of Slavery among the Romans, 1833, 10, 15.) On the other hand, Dureau de la Malle is of opinion, that in 576 B.C., the number of slaves was to the number of free men as 1 to 25, and in 225 B.C. (including the metics), as 22 to 27. (Economie polit. des Romains I 270 ff., 296.) Compare Cato, de Re. rust. I, 3, IV, X, 1 XI; 1, XVII, XVIII, 1. In Germany, the number of bondmen, from the eighth to the tenth century, was estimated to be at least as great as that of free men. (Grimm, D. Rechtsaltherthümer, 334.) Among the Anglo Saxons, before the Norman conquest, it was much higher, even three-fourths of the entire population. (Turner, Hist. of the A. S., VIII, 9.) Compare on the subject of this whole chapter my paper in the Archiv. der polit Œkonomie, N. F., IV, 30 ff.

454 Klöntrupp, Abhandlung der Lehre vom Zwangsdienste, 1801. Frequently, the lord had only a right of preference in case the children of the tenant desired to abandon the parental roof and take service elsewhere.

455 In Adam Smith’s time, in England, the presumption was that a servant had been hired for a year. (I, 2, 15 ed., Bas.) Frederick the Great’s ordinance of 1769, on this subject, forbade any one to enter into service for a shorter time than this (II, § 1 ff.), while the Saxon ordinance of 1835, on the same matter, allowed engagements by the month, in cities. Darjes, Erste Gründe der Cameralwissenschaften, 2d ed. (1768), p. 432, demands that servants should always hire themselves for at least four or five years, and that their masters should have, during the whole of this time, the right to enforce the contract. In North America, however, service by the month has become customary and general, and no notice of the dissolution of the contract is, as a rule, required. (Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, 1853, II, 191.) In Switzerland, contracts for service by the week are frequently made even by country servants. (Böhmert, Arbeiterverhh., II, 157.)

456 In the south of England, farm hands were used to change service only at Michaelmas. The choice of such a date made farmers very dependent on them, as it fell in harvest time. (Marshall, Rural Economy of the Southern Countries, II, 233.) A similar complaint in Cleves. (Schwerz, Rheinischwestphälische Landw., 21 ff.) In Jülich, a half year’s notice was required, during which time the servant who had received it, performed his work with disgust, and stirred up his fellow servants against their master. (Schwerz, II, 87.)

457 The families of day laborers, to whom the owner of the land gives the use of a house, small garden, a cow etc., constitute such a transition; and also, workmen who are fed. In Brandenburg, in 1644, only married persons or widowers with children were permitted to work as day laborers. (Mylius, C. C. March., V, 1, 3, 11.)

458 Wakefield, Swing Unmasked, or the Causes of rural Incendiarism, 1831.

459 By means of the former, the number of independent small householders was much increased in the country. Masters feel indisposed to hire young men liable to be subjected to military duty, because they may be called away at the moment their services are most needed. The returning soldier, as a rule, feels above doing menial service. (Schwerz, passim, I, 191 ff., 236.) On this account, servants’ wages in Cleves rose much higher than those of day laborers. (194.) In Belgium, a farm hand cost, on an average, 400 francs a year; a day laborer, counting 300 working days to the year, only 339 francs. (Horn, Statist. Gemälde, 175.) In the Palatinate, day laborers who receive nothing but their wages cost their masters less than those who receive only their food; and servants are the dearest of all. (Hanssen, Archiv der Politischen Œkonomie, N. F. X, 243.) If servants were relatively more poorly paid in 1813 than day laborers (Lotz, Revision, III, 147), it was because of the at least temporary retrogression of civilization which every great war causes.

460 Engel, Preuss. Statist. Jahrb., II, 261. Services which contribute to personal convenience are naturally committed much less frequently to independent day laborers than those which aid in production proper. Hence it is, that, as civilization advances, house-servants, especially of the female sex, constitute an ever-increasing portion of the total number of servants. In Prussia, in 1816, the number of servants who ministered to personal comfort was only 4.19 per cent. of the total number of servants engaged in industry; of female servants, it was 13.4 per cent. In 1861, on the other hand, the percentages were 8.4 and 37.2. In Great Britain, of the total number of servants over 20 years of age, only 2 per cent. were engaged in personal services. In 1841, they were 3-½ per cent. (Meidinger.) In France, in 1851, 2.5 per cent. of the whole population were in domesticité. (Stat. off.)

461 In England, now more especially, out of farm-hand day laborers: Edinburgh Rev., April, 1862.

462 A chief element in the earlier “organization of labor.” So, also, in the Magdeburg Gesindeordnung (service-regulation) of 1789.

463 Saxon Landesordnungen of 1482 and 1543. Cod. August. I, 3, 23. The Gesindeordnung (service regulation) of Frederick the Great, threatened with the house of correction the receivers, and under certain circumstances also the givers of wages higher than the fixed rate of wages; but as a “matter of course,” the payment of wages less than this was permitted. (V, § 7) Great care was taken that wages greater than the law allowed should not be evaded by the payment of arrha or payment in produce. The same law forbade the deprivation of the servant of his right to determine the service by making of loans to him on long time (II, § 7.) Even v. Berg, Handbuch des deutschen Polizeirechts, calls it a duty of the public authorities charged with the protection of property and of the public security, to see to it that there be no lack of good servants, and that the public (as if those who sell their services were not a part of it) should not be made the victims of exorbitant demands in the matter of servants’ wages. Jung, more humane, demands that the authorities shall protect, especially, the weaker party. (Grundlehre der Staatswirthschaft, 1792, 700.) In Prussian legislation, the Silesian rescript of March 13, 1809, is the beginning of the new order of things. (Rabe, Samml. preuss. Gesetze, X, 59 ff.) The Obertribunal, or high court, decided, in 1874, that the bringing back of absconding servants by the police, which the law concerning servants of 1810 provided for, should not be allowed to occur any more.

464 Ordinance of the elector of Saxony of 1766, prohibiting the inhabitants of cities to take an apprentice from among the peasantry, unless he had served at least four years as a farm hand, beginning with his fourteenth year. Similarly, in Prussia in 1781.

465 In Berlin, even before the “populationistischen” period: Fidicin, Histor. diplom. Beiträge zur Gesch. der Stadt Berlin, I, 101. (From the year 1397.)

466 I Peter, 2, 18 ff.; I Timoth., 6, 12; Ephes., 6, 5; Philem., 15 ff.

467 In the German colonies of Mennonites in Russia, every youth serves a few years in the family of some other peasant. This is considered a sort of school. Wages are of course very large, and the treatment very mild. v. Haxthausen, Studien, II, 185. Southwestern Germany where small landed proprietors are many, something very analogous to this continues. (v. d. Goltz, loc. cit., 452.)

468 For a masterly exposition of the doctrine that the right of prescription or limitation is related to the politico-economical necessity of property, see John Stuart Mill, Principles, 3, II, ch. 2, sec. 2.

469 Locke, On Civil Government, II, §25-51; and so L. Mendelssohn, Jerusalem (1783), 32; Thiers, Du Droit de la Propriété (1849).

470 Modern writers, in their attempt to find a philosophical basis for the right of property, have taken two principal directions, the first a juridical, the second a political one. The axiom, res nullius cedit primo occupanti (compare L. 3, Digest, XLI, 1), explains only the smallest part of the relations of property, and that only because of a very fortuitous circumstance. According to Hobbes (Leviathan, 24), property has its origin in the recognition of it by the power of the state, by the autorité publique, the gouvernement (Bossuet, Politique tirée de l’Ecriture, Sainte, L. 3, 4), or as Montesquieu (Esprit des Lois XXVI., 15) more mildly expresses it, in the laws. The application of this principle would, on account of the extreme changeableness of the laws of every state, lead to most extreme insecurity, and to a steady oscillation from one Utopia to another, from one revolution to another, if it were not, at the same time, recognized that each one had a just title to the acquisitions he had made, not because the law, for the time being existing, acknowledged the right, but because they were the product of his labor and saving. The theory which bases the right of property on contract cannot be objected to with as much reason. Thus, Hugo Grotius, Jus Belli et Pacis, II, 2, who even justifies the occupation of things without an owner, on the supposition of the existence of an implied contract. It is very characteristic of the English, that in their political language, the words “liberty” and “property” are so frequently found in each other’s company. In one of his classic speeches made by Fox in 1784, he gives a definition of liberty which begins with the words, “It consists in the safe and sacred possession of a man’s property” etc. The recent doctrine, not unfrequently to be met with, that every man has a right to an amount of property corresponding to his wants, may be used to sanction all kinds of socialistic inferences. An entirely bewildered and bewildering description is to be found in Proudhon’s Qu’est ce que la Propriété, 1848, as the precursor of which Brissot’s Recherches philosophiques sur le Droit de Propriété et le Vol, may be considered. In medieval times, there are always a multitude of other titles to property besides production and saving. The title which is held in highest esteem for the time being is always because of this very extreme vis-a-vis of all other titles, strengthened and made general.

471 The word socialism brought into use by L. Reybaud is as ambiguous as the word communism is simple and intelligible. But most socialists agree that actual “society” (which is indeed to be distinguished from the state) is, together with its foundations, the existing relations of property and the family, entirely wrong. A radical reconstruction, they say, is needed to remove forever the chief evil of this system, viz.: the glaring difference between the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated. The difference between the doctrines of the socialists and of Political Economy does not, by any means, consist in this, that the former concerns itself more with the welfare of the lower classes, or even that it gives wider scope to economy in common. But socialism is, indeed, a living or housekeeping in common (Gemeinwirthschaft), which goes far beyond the feeling for the common interest (Gemeinsinn). Such economy in common is always opposed to freedom, and, at its first introduction, contrary to law. It can guarantee no compensation to those who have suffered from violence or force, because it leads to a thoughtless and wasteful exhaustion of the nation’s resources, inasmuch as it weakens the incentive to industry and frugality. Political Economy, on the other hand, recommends an expropriation when the incentives to industry and frugality are thereby strengthened; and the increased resources thus obtained serve it, as full compensation to those whose property has been expropriated.

472 See Roscher, Betrachtungen über Socialismus und Communismus, Berliner Zeitschrift für Geschichtwissenschaft, 1845, III, 422 ff.

473 Vivre en travaillant ou mourir en combattant—the device on the flags of the mutinous silk-weavers at Lyons, in 1832.

474 We are so assured by Vauban (Dime Royale, 34 seq), of the later years of the reign of Louis XIV, that nearly 1/10 of the French people begged, that 5/10 could give no alms, because they were themselves on the very brink of indigence; 3/10 were fort malaisés, embarassés de dettes et de procès; scarcely one per cent. could be said to be fort à leur aise. How much better off is the present Parisian workman! And yet, at that time, there was not the least spread of communistic doctrines. It is indeed seldom that completely down-trodden men react against their wretchedness with great energy.

475 “If my caprice be the source of law, then my enjoyment may be the source of the division of the nation’s resources.” Stahl, Rechtsphilosophie, II, 2, 72.

476 That the socialism of Plato, De Repub., V, was no mere fancy, is proved by the polemic which Aristophanes directs against it in his Ecclesiazuses. See also Aristot., Polit., II, 2, Schn. In the contemporary practice of the Greeks, with the increasing democratization of the state, it became more and more usual for it to bear the expense of the outlay for the means of subsistence of the great crowd. (See Plutarch, Cimo, 10.) Every act of public life was paid for. Citizens were paid for attending popular meetings three oboli per day, while the pay of the soldiers was six, and that of the sailors three. (Thucyd., III, 17; VII, 27; VIII, 45.) The pay of the commonest day laborer was from three to four oboli per day. Aristophan., Eccl., 310, and Pollux, VII, 29. The number of magistrates was very large, in order that as many as possible might participate in this species of remuneration. Thus, in Athens, when it had only about 20,000 inhabitants, there were 6,000 judges. In addition to all this, there were numberless feasts, plays, banquets etc., which were offered to the people gratis. The wealthy who were compelled to meet all the expense thus incurred, lived in such a state of terror of the populace, that they considered their own impoverishment as a species of deliverance. (Xenoph., Conviv., 4, and Lysias, pro Bonis.) Isocrates called it much more dangerous to be rich than to commit a crime, since in the latter case one might obtain a pardon or a mild punishment. (De Permut., p. 160.) (Lysias, De Invalido, de sacra Olea, seq.) There is little difference between this state of things and a semi-community of goods. Only that, indeed, the great mass of the slaves were excluded from enjoying them. The contrast which somewhat later distinguished the Cynics from the Cyreno-Epicureans affords a striking analogy to that which, in our own times, exists between the pure socialists and the worshipers of mammon after the fashion of Doctor Ure. Concerning the Utopia of Iambulos, see Diodor., II, 55 ff.

477 Our sources of information concerning the division of the Roman republic into a moneyed oligarchy, and the proletariat are very numerous. Compare infra, § 205. The speeches of the Gracchi (e.g. Plut., T. Gracchus, 9), and still more the violent discourses of Catiline’s conspiracy (Sallust, Cat., 20, 23, 37-39), remind us very forcibly of the shibboleths of modern socialism. We very frequently meet with the expression of a longing desire to return to the most uncivilized and hoary past, when there was no money and no wealth—an aspiration which lies at the very foundation of communism. Thus Virgil, Geo., I, 125, ff., Tibull. I, 3, 35, ff. Propert. II, 13, III, 5, 11; Seneca, Epist., 90; Senec., Oct. II, Hippol., II, 2; Plin., H. N. XXXII, 3. On the other hand, the practice of supporting the populace at the expense of great candidates or of the state, was developed to a very great extent. The masses lived very largely by the sale of their right of suffrage to the highest bidder. At the election of consuls in the year 54, 500,000 thalers were offered to the century called on to vote first. (Cicero, ad Quintum II, 15; ad. A.H. IV, 15.) Even Cato had a part in such bribery. (Sueton., Caes., 19.) In the social reform of the younger Gracchus, besides the limitation of large land-ownership, the principal points were the following: the sale of wheat under the market price, but only to the inhabitants of Rome itself; the construction of great highways in Italy; colonization at the expense of the state, and the increase of soldiers’ pay. (Ritsch, Gracchen, 392 ff.) The socialistic plans of Rullus went much further. Were his agrarian laws put in execution, he would have confiscated very nearly the entire country in the interest of the poor, and of their demagogues! (Cicero, De Lege agrar.) Rome twice experienced a social revolution of the most frightful character, one by which a great portion of all private goods fell into the hands of the propertyless (soldiers), who knew nothing of how to turn it to account or to invest it—under Sulla, and then under the later Triumviri. (Compare Appian, Bell, civil., V, 5, 22.) Complaints concerning the latter, in Horat., Epist., I, 2, 49; Virgil, Buc., IX, 28; Tibull. I, 1, 19, IV, 1, 182; Propert., IV, 1, 129. The elder Gracchus had promised compensation to the last possessors. Tabulæ novæ of Cinna, Catiline, Cælius, Dolebella. Clodius introduced the distribution of wheat, which according to Cicero pro Sext., 25, ate up almost one-fifth of the public revenues. About 320,000 persons were, in this way, supported for a long period of time (Sueton., Caes, 41, Dio C., XLIII, 21; L. LV, 10), but only in such a manner as to keep them from starvation. (Sallust, 268 ed. Bip.) To all this was soon added distributions of salt, meal and oil, also free baths, numberless public plays, colossal banqueting, payment of one year’s rent etc. Panem et circenses! (Juvenal, X, 80 seq.) The mere distribution of money under Augustus, in which from 200,000 to 320,000 men participated, cost each time from 2,500,000 to 6,000,000 thalers. (Monum Ancyr., 372 Wolf.) Extraordinary assistance was, by way of preference, accorded to colonies of the poor. (Sueton., Caes, 42.) Concerning this entire policy, see Plin., Paneg., 26 ff. Even in Constantinople, at the time of its foundation, large distributions of bread were made at the expense of Egypt, although there could scarcely be any real pauperism in that new and flourishing city. (Theod., Cod., XIII, 4, XIV 16; Socrat., II, 13.) I can only allude to the plan proposed by the emperor Gallien by the neo-platonist Plotin, to found a city in which the ideas of Plato’s republic should be carried out. (Porphyr., V, Plotin., 8.)

478 During the two centuries of which the Reformation constituted the middle point, the transition from the peasant system of agriculture to the large farming system of modern times bore very heavily on the inferior classes. Such, too, was the operation of the fall in price of the precious metals. (§ 140.) The suppression of the many monasteries caused an increase in the wretchedness of the poor; and the numerous poor-laws enacted in England, Spain etc., were not sufficient to supply a remedy. The feeling of the people during this period of tribulation found expression in the War of the Peasants, in the sect of Anabaptists, in the many reformations and counter-reformations, in the revolt of the Netherlands, in the conflicts for the crown in France and England etc. In Italy, the contrast existing between the moneyed oligarchy and the proletariat had been developed several centuries, but from the middle of the sixteenth century, it had become much more oppressive by reason of the universal impoverishment of the country. For an account of the pantheistic “Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit,” with their community of goods and of women, see Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation, II, 18 ff. They were very numerous from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century in Italy and France, as well as in Germany, and lead us to the Adamites in the Hussite war. (Aschbach, Geschichte K. Sigismunds, III, 109.) Earlier yet, we have the sect of the Giovannali, who had their property and women in common, and who, in 1355, had won the third of Corsica, but who were afterwards suppressed by Genoa and the Church. (Lebret, Geschichte von Italien, VI, 208 ff.) The coarse socialist, John Balle, bears about the same relation to Wycliffe, that Münzer and Bockholt did to Luther. (Walsingham, Hist. Angliæ in Camden, Scriptt., 275.) Hans Böheim of Würzburg, 1476, seems to be the direct precursor of Münzer. (Ullmann, I, 421 ff.) It was almost as usual in Luther’s time, as in 1848, or in our day, to hear of the deep demoralization of trade—the Fuggerei of the Germany of the time—and of the universal system of fraud that prevailed. See the citations in Hagen, Deutschland’s Verhältnisse im Reform-Zeitalter, II, 313 ff. Münzer’s fundamental principle: Omnia simul communia! Sebastian Frank, Chronica, Zeytbuch und Geschychtbibel etc., 1551, fol. VI, 16, 27, 116, 194, 414, 433. John Bockholt’s life presents us with a striking contrast. While they were bringing his perfumed women, sparkling with jewels, to his rose-covered bed, hung with curtains of gold cloth, on which he was reclining, his subjects were a prey to the horrors of famine, to such an extent that they were compelled to salt the bodies of children who had died of starvation. How frightful the end of this communistic benefactor of mankind! Libertine community of goods and women. (Calvin, Instructio adv. Libertinos, cap. 21.) English communists in the age of the reformation. (J. Story, Comment. on the Constitution of the U.S., I, 36.) Even under Cromwell, there were many Englishmen who believed that farmers were no longer obliged to pay rent to land-owners. On the sect of Levellers, see Walker, History of the Independency, II, 152. Even in Erasmus, we find some sympathy with communism. (Enchirid. milit. Christ, 80.) Contra, see Melanchthon, Prolegg. in Cic. de Off., Corp. Reform, XVI, 549 ff. The most remarkable systematic works of this period are Thomas More’s, Utopia, 1516, and Campanella’s Civitas, solis, 1620. Thomas More bluntly says that all existing governments are in fact only permanent conspiracies of the rich to further their own interests under the mask of the common good, and to despoil labor. The abolition of money, which should be continued in use only to carry on foreign war, would, he contends, remove all misery. There was no really private property in his Utopia. There should be a rigid superintendence of all work by the public authorities, whose duty it should be to see to it, that no one should abandon agricultural pursuits. All should eat at a common table and dress after the same fashion. Internal commerce should give way to a mutual exchange of gifts under the supervision of the state. Campanella, besides a community of goods, recommends continually varying occupation, to last not more than four hours daily; education in common, especially by means of pictures, popular encyclopedias etc., all under the supreme guidance of a despotism to be composed of the wise, some secular and some spiritual, operating through the confessional. Socialists nearly always succeed better in the critical part of their works than in the positive. Compare R. Mohl, Geschichte und Literatur der Staatswissenschaften, § 1, 165 ff.

479 Considering the aversion exhibited against private property by J. J. Rousseau, and the unlimited power which he accords to the majority for the time being in the state (Contrat Social, 1761, II, ch. 4), it cannot be denied that his freedom and equality contain, to say the least, germs of communism by no means insignificant. But, he would, in the present state of civil society, have a feeling of respect for the rights of property implanted in the mind of the child very early, and even before the feeling of liberty is developed. (Emile, 1762, Livre II.) About the same time Morelly published his Basiliade ou Naufrage des Iles flottantes, 1753, a political romance in the interest of communism. See the same author’s Code de la Nature, 1755. Mably, in his two works, Doutes proposés aux Economistes, 1768, and La Législation ou Principes des Lois, 1776, recommended the abolition of all inequality and a real community of goods. The introduction of property seems to him, une faute qu’il était presque impossible de faire. Even Beccaria calls property a dreadful but perhaps a necessary right which has left to the unfortunate nothing but a naked existence. (Dei Delitti e delle Pene, 1765, cap. 22.) The French Reign of Terror came pretty near carrying these ideas into effect. We need only refer to the abolition of the census, the payments made to the workingmen who attended the section meetings, two francs per diem, the enormous extension of confiscation, requisitions and forced loans, the revolution effected in the fortunes of individuals by the system of issuing assignats, the maximum affixed to the price of all the necessaries of life, the abolition of indirect taxes, and of what remained of the economic institutions handed down from the middle ages. According to St. Just: l’opulence est une infamie; il ne faut ni riches ni pauvres. The Cahier des Pauvres demands, first of all, that salaries “should no longer be estimated in accordance with the murderous principles of unbridled luxury.” See Forster’s letter dated November 15, 1793. (Sämmtl. Schriften, IX, 125.) On the conspiracy of Baboeuf, who was executed in 1796, and who wanted to see the completest equality and community of labor, of enjoyment and education, the abolition of large cities etc., see Buonarotti, La Conjuration de B., 1821. This book contributed powerfully towards the revival of communistic ideas after the July revolution. Among modern communists who are to be distinguished from the more ancient, especially by the industrial coloring given to their theories, Cabet, Voyage en Icarie, 1840, II, holds a very prominent place. He declares the abolition of religion, of the family and of the state, to be open questions, and desires to bring the practice of a community of goods to a successful issue only through the peaceful channel of conviction.

Compare Reybaud, Etudes sur les Réformateurs contemporains ou Socialistes modernes, 1840. L. Stein, Der Socialismus und Communismus des heutigen Frankreich. See, also, the learned history of socialistic systems in Marlo’s Weltökonomie, I, 2, 435 ff.; and in what concerns the most recent time, R. Meyer, Der Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes, II, 1874, seq.; a book which, in spite of its many defects, both doctrinal and journalistic, is as rich in thought, and in the knowledge of the subject it treats of, as it is permeated by a love of truth regardless of consequences. Among the opponents of socialism and communism, Malthus, On Population, B. III, ch. 3, and B. Hildebrand, Die Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft, vol. I, 1848, hold a very distinguished place. J. S. Mill, Principles, II, ch. 1, 3, calls attention to the fact that hitherto the principle of free property has never been consistently carried out. The first social arrangement of modern society was almost everywhere the result of conquest and violence, large traces of which yet remain. Things have always been made property which ought not to be property. Governments have endeavored to intensify the darkness of the dark side of property, and favored the concentration instead of the diffusion of wealth etc. Hence, no one can claim that the social wrongs, so-called, had their origin in property as such. Schäffle, Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 1870, has made a very note-worthy effort to recognize whatever of truth there is in socialism, and to combat its errors.

480 Saint Simon’s reproach to the liberals, that their fundamental principle was: ôte-toi de là, que je m’y mette, is well known.

481 Compare Malthus, Additions to the Essay on Population, 1817, IV, ch. 7.

482 The travailleurs égalitaires wished to murder not only the king, the court, and the ministry, but also the Liberals and all owners of property.

483 As soon, indeed, as this true love disappears in the married state, the community of goods even there degenerates only too easily into a spoliation of the better party by the worse.

484 The community of goods of the first Christians at Jerusalem, so frequently cited and extolled (James, I, 1), was only a community of use, not of ownership (Acts IV, 32), and, throughout, a voluntary act of love, not a duty (V. 4), least of all, a right which the poorer might assert. Spite of all this, that community of goods produced a chronic state of poverty in the church of Jerusalem. Hence, Paul had collections taken up for them on all sides, without, however, anywhere establishing a similar institution. (Romans, 15, 26; I. Corinth., 16, 1.) Compare Mosheim, De vera Natura Communionis Bonorum in Ecclesia Hierosol., in his Dissertatt. ad Histor. Eccles. pertinentes, II, 1 ff. As to whether Barnabas (Epist., 19) desired to say anything more, compare Epist. ad Diognetum, 5. For a real recommendation of a community of goods, on economic grounds, see Joh. Chrysostom., in Acta Apost., Hom. XI. Also Clemens Rom. c. 2 C. 12, qu. 1. Community of goods among the Essenes: Philo. Opp. II. 457 ff. Joseph. Bell, Jud., II. 8. Bellermann, Geschichtliche Nachrichten über die Essener. (1821.) In many monasteries, there has been and is a species of community of goods. There was once a singular contest on this subject, carried on between the Minorites and the Pope, in the time of Louis of Bavaria. The Minorites claimed that property was a thing, so much to be condemned, that even food, at the moment of eating it, did not belong to the person using it. The Pope taught on the other hand, that even Christ and the Apostles possessed property, part personal and part in common. (Raynaldi, Ann. eccl., XV, 241, 285 ff.) Community of goods of the Homiliates, later of the Brothers of Common Life, after the manner of the monks, but of a much higher kind. (Ullmann, Reformatoren v.d. Reform, II, 62 ff.) The first settlers of New Haven, Connecticut, held their property in common. Land was divided among families in proportion to the number of persons in them, and of the number of cattle they had brought with them; and all sales and purchases were made on account of the whole community. And so in Massachusetts during the first seven years of the colony’s existence. (Ebeling, Geschichte und Erdbeschreib. der Vereinigten Staaten, II, 391, I, 557.) Herrnhut community of goods in Pennsylvania, from 1742 to 1762, but which was done away with when the number of colonists became too great. (Ebeling, IV, 717.) Community of goods of the Shakers and Lutheran Rappers. (Buckingham, Eastern States, II, 214, 427. Prinz Neuwied, Reise in Nord Amerika, I, 136, ff.) Russian sects with community of goods. (v. Haxthausen, I, 366, 407.) Harless, christliche Ethik § 501, distinguishes very well between the “anti-christian” and “pseudo christian” stand point, from which it is sought to establish the doctrine of a community of goods. The Christian view of this subject (compare Ephes., 4, 28, I; Thess., 4, 11, II, 3, 12; Matth., 6, 24; Pet. 4, 10; Matth., 26, 7-11) is accused of hypocrisy by many socialists. It is very easy, they say, when one is himself in comfortable circumstances, to represent to the poor that their poverty is a school for heaven, and to preach a contempt for riches etc. They entirely forget, that the first promulgation of the Gospel was made at a time when the worst kind of pauperism prevailed; and that even the Master Himself, and the greater number of His Apostles belonged to the lowest stratum of society. Luke, 9, 58. Many of the Fathers of the Church, however, in their exhortations to benevolence, used language in which modern Socialists have found a rich mine which they have sedulously worked. (Compare Villegardelle, Histoire des Idées sociales, 1846, 61 ff.)

485 Even Aristotle says that what is common to many is a matter of little concern to any one. (Polit., II, 1.) Bastiat remarks: “We compete to-day to see who works most and best. Under another regime, we should emulate one another to see who should work least and worst.” (Harmonies Econ., ch. VIII.) When the first settlers of Virginia, in 1611, gave up the system of common labor and of joint-stock companies, as much work was performed in a day as formerly in a week, or as much by three workmen as formerly by thirty. (Purchas, Pilgrims, iv, 1866. Bancroft, History of the United States, I, 161.) Even in New England, therefore among men both steady and accustomed to labor, who for conscience sake had sacrificed so much, a community of goods was accompanied uninterruptedly by famine. A change for the better took place, for the first time in 1623 with the introduction of the institution of private property which was followed in 1624 by the right of inheritance. (Bancroft, I, 340.) The military colonies of Algeria, also, in which husbandry in common was carried on, begged, at the end of a year, that the system should be abandoned, for the reason that it was good for nothing but to generate idlers; and yet, these colonists were all powerful men of about the same age, and accustomed to order and service in common. They were, moreover, assisted by the nation with pay and food. Compare Bugeaud’s account: Revue des deux Mondes, June 1, 1848. “The French associations (after 1848), whose object was labor in common, have nearly all died out.” M. Chevalier in the Journal des Débats, Feb. 3, 1851. In the United States, sixteen phalansteries of Fourierites, founded between 1840 and 1846, had all collapsed in 1855. (D. Vierteljahrsschrift, October, 1855, 205 ff.)

486 Even in New Harmony, the members considered the task which they had to perform to obtain food, clothing and shelter, as villeinage in the worst sense of the term. (H. Bernhard v. Weimar, Nordamerikan. Reise, V, 134 ff.; 151, 310, ff.) It is very inconsistent in socialists to continue the proprietorship and heirship of the state. To be consistent they should give both these rights only to mankind as a whole. Compare Kiraly, Ueber Socialismus und Comm., 1868, 35.

487 It would not be entirely fair to take a partisan view of the ateliers nationaux of 1848, and claim them as a practical refutation of socialistic utopias, since no serious experiment was made with them. Compare E. Thomas, Histoire des Ateliers nationaux considérés sous le double Point de Vue politique et social, 1848.

488 Socialists generally overlook the fact, that the greater number of enjoyments from which the poorer classes are excluded, by the right of property, would not exist at all were it not for that very right. (Spittler, Politik, 356 ff.) This remark may also be made of Hugo’s ingenious objections. (Naturrecht, § 208 ff.) One of the most effective pieces of socialistic declamation is that the lower classes have a much shorter average of life than the upper. Hence the institution of private property is charged with being a species of spoliation of the poor of so many years of life, and the entire “present society” condemned on that account. Here again it is not borne in mind, that a few centuries ago the general average of life was probably still smaller; and that it was precisely the growth and development of “present society” that lengthened the days of the poorer classes even, although it may have lengthened those of the rich in a still greater proportion. See § 246.

489 But a community of goods would not, by a great deal, accomplish as much as is generally supposed. In Prussia, for instance, in 1867, only about three per cent. of the entire number of families in the community had a yearly income of 1,000 thalers; only nine per cent. had 500 thalers or more, and only 6,465 returned an income of more than 4,000 thalers, while only 590 returned one of 16,000 thalers. (Preuss. statist. Ztschr, 1868, 83. Held, Die Einkommensteuer, 197 ff) How little, therefore, could the poor here gain by the spoliation of the rich! Besides, the purely personal consumption of the rich is, after all, not so great; and if all luxury were abandoned, an innumerable number of men would lose their gains. (Compare Ad. Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 11, 2.) It would be to kill the hen that had hitherto laid the golden egg in order to divide its flesh a little more equally.

490 Babeuf declared all arts and sciences to be evils. He would have no one learn anything but Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and a little of the Geography of France; and have the strictest censorship enforced to keep every one within these limits. Compare the able criticism of Proudhon, Contradictions, ch. 12.

491 According to Umpfenbach, Nationalökonomie, 201, where a community of goods obtains, there can be but the alternative, viz.: whether each person or each family shall receive just the same amount. (The former would be more in harmony with principle, but what an over-population would be the consequence!) Precisely so, too, if each person were to come and take his own portion (anarchy!), or if it were parcelled out to each by a board of distributors (despotism!).

492 This expression came into vogue, principally, through L. Blanc, Organization du Travail (1841), the leading ideas in which work are the following: The suppression of competition by the establishment of state industries; equality of remuneration for labor; equality and legislative determination of the rate of interest; the choice of superintendents by the workmen. With many modern socialists, the shibboleth is not so much liberté as solidarité. Besides, Fichte’s Naturrecht (1796), and his geschlossener Handelsstaat, are, without doubt, among the most remarkable works favoring an “organization of labor.” They aim at the destruction of the present social system, which, at most, needs only to be reformed and rejuvenated; and to galvanize the dead body into a new and different life (Medea’s magic cauldron!). Compare Corvaja, Bancocrazia o il gran Libro sociale, 1840.

493 Cabet’s Icarian colony in America numbered 298 adults and only 107 children. Yet spite of this condition, so favorable to production, it did but a very sorry business. Its government was very similar to that of a house of correction or a penitentiary. Even in religious matters, spite of all pretended toleration, those members who did not agree with Cabet were described in the official weekly paper as des infames ou des aveugles. (D. Vierteljahrsschrift, 1855, October, 205 ff.)

494 An eastern sage says, that land possesses the ideal of legal security through which a beautiful woman, decked with pearls, might travel without danger. What would such a sage say of a European country, in which even orphan children have their property not only preserved to them, but find it increased from having been placed at interest, as soon as they reach their majority? (Barrow.)

495 “The equality of communism is the worst species of inequality, because it guarantees to one for two hours of poor labor as much as it does to an other for four hours of good work.” (Bastiat, Harmonies économiques, ch. 8.)

496 Proudhon, Qu’est-ce que la Propriété, 283, says, very justly, that “a community of goods is the spoliation of the strong by the weak.”

497 Called a negative community of goods, by Zacchariä, Vierzig Bücher vom Staate, IV, 146, in contradistinction to the positive and universal community of gain, as desired by the communists.

498 Community of goods and of women among the Ichthyophages on the Red Sea, who lived in caves, went naked for the most part, plundered all shipwrecked people, and never reached an advanced age. Diodor., III, 15 ff. Peripl., Maris Erythr., 12. Concerning the Scythians, see Strabo, VII, 300; the Spaniards, Plutarch, Marius, 6; the Rhetians, Dio Cass. LIV, 22; the Triballi, Isocr., Panath., § 237; the Kilici, Sext., Empir. Pyrrh. Hypot. III, 24. Community of goods among the Caribs who performed all their work in common, and had, at least in the case of males, a common table and common stores with supplies. (Petr. Martyr, Dec. VII, 1. Rochefort, II, c. 16. B. Edwards, History of the West Indies, I, 43 ff.) Among the Kuskowimers of Russian America, all the able-bodied men of the tribe live together. (v. Wrangell, Nachrichten, 129.) Among the inhabitants of the Aleutian islands, at least in times of scarcity of food, the produce of the fisheries is divided according to their need. (V. Wrangell, 185.) The organization of labor is rigidly enforced among the Otomacs, on the banks of the Orinoco, and they are, nevertheless, more civilized than their neighbors. (Depons, Voyage, I, 295.) A community of goods must, however, be considered an advance, in the case of an isolated people; and it is an error to look upon it as the most primitive condition, as does, for instance, Ambrosius, De off. Minist. I, 28, and Frederick II, in the preface to his general code. (Allgemein. Gesetzbuche, 1231.) The hospitality of the inhabitants of the Friendly Islands borders on a community of goods. (Mariner, Freundschaftsinseln, 75, 81. Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, IV, 398.) Concerning the beginnings of property among the Esquimaux, See Klemm, II, 294.

499 Οὐκ ἄδοξον ἧν παρὰ τοῖς παλαιοῖς ληστεύειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔνδξον. (Didym., ad Odyss. II, 73, IX, 252.)

500 In Mexico, the Spaniards found land ownership among the most distinguished of the natives, but only a species of possession in common and common store houses among the peasantry. (Robertson, History of America, § VII.) Hence, the agriculture of the country was so unimportant that the little army of the conquistadores frequently produced a famine by their marches.

501 The Tcherkesses considered robbery honorable provided the robber was not caught in flagrante. Compare Koch, Reise in den kaukasischen Isthmus, I, 370 ff. Bell, Journal of a Residence in Circassia, I, 181, II, 201. The organized robber bands of ancient Egypt, when it was so highly civilized (Diodor., I, 80) may, on the other hand, be accounted for by similar conditions actually existing in the large cities of our own day.

502 What a frightful organization of labor we find in Sparta, combined with a community of goods! Let us recall the exposing of children authorized by law, the mode of education which must have cost the life of all whose constitution was weak, the cryptia, the stern hierarchy of age etc. Plut., Inst. Lac. 2, appreciates the bad taste of the black broth at its true value. The Cretan community of goods was based chiefly on the unnatural relation created by the authorities known as paiderastia; and which was a very efficient means to prevent over-population. (Plat., De Legg, I, 636. Arist., Polit. II, 8.)

503 Remarkable reasons therefor in Cæsar, Bell. Gall., VI, 22.

504 There are, especially in Russia, a multitude of such institutions among the inhabitants of the country still. See Roscher, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, § 71 ff.

505 In the Corpus Juris Canonici, that crown of medieval theology, politics and jurisprudence, the ideal of a community of goods occupies a place almost as prominent as in the works of modern socialists. The only difference is, that in the former the opposition to private property arises from a one-sided religiousness and contempt of the world, while, in the latter, it arises generally from irreligiousness and over-estimation of worldly goods.

506 This does not include the cost of the schools, churches and benevolent institutions.

507 According to Lassalle, System der erworbenen Rechte, 1861, § 259, history shows that law, as civilization advances, curtails more and more the proprietary sphere of private individuals, inasmuch as it tends more and more to place a greater number of objects outside the circle of individual ownership.

508 Saint Simonism is a warning example of this tendency. Saint Simon never lost an opportunity to give vent to his utter contempt for the liberals, and for constitutional government—ce bátard du régime féodal et du régime industriel; and to counsel the crown, after the example of Louis XI. to place itself at the head of the working class, and in opposition to the middle class. (Oeuvres de Saint Simon, éd. 1841, 44, 148, 209.) Bazard, Exposition, 76, demanded that all antagonism between the temporal and spiritual powers, all opposition for the sake of freedom, méfiance organisée of parliaments, and all competition, should cease. Even education he would have bestowed according to capacité, which he would have determined by the chefs légitimes de la société (280). To the criminal court should be referred all cases of delicts, that is, all inopportune acts, even in the scientific and artistic departments. They should be tried after the manner of the “courts of trade;” that is, in a summary way, without appeal, and by experts (317 ff). All the relations of property should be determined by the décision arbitrale des chefs d’industrie (326). Bazard everywhere insists that the reign of genius and of self-sacrifice on the one hand, and on the other of confidence and obedience, is the only true policy (330). Saint Simonism was nearly related to Bonapartism.

509 Schäffle, Nat. Œk., III, Aufl., I, 61.

510 If we remove in thought, all injurious elements from a community of goods, and add to it all the incentives and restraints necessary to be added, we shall have a state of things entirely similar to that in a nation whose public and private affairs are carried on in accordance with the principles of a healthy system of Political Economy as understood to-day. (Edinburgh Review, January, 1851.)

511 How true freedom is accompanied by what Bastiat calls “true Saint Simonism and true communism,” see infra, § 210.

512 The experiments of a community of goods, which have proved successful in practice, were all based on the more or less complete celibacy of the members of the societies. Compare Hermann, Staatsw. Unters., II, Aufl., 45.

513 Thus Proudhon (Contradictions, ch. 5) says that the many socialists, who would construct their societies after the type of the family, as the molscule organique, are all wrong. The family has a “monarchical, patriarchal” character. In it, the principle of authority is formed and preserved. On it, ancient and feudal society was based; and “precisely against this old patriarchal constitution, modern democracy protests and revolts.” Fourier calls marriage, un groupe essentiellement faux: faux par le nombre borné à deux, par l’absence de liberté et par les dissidences du goṅt, qui éclatent dès le premier jour. (Nouveau Monde, 57.)

514 On the Indians of North America, see Schoolraft, Information respecting the Indian Tribes of the United States, II, 194; on the South American d’Orbigny, Voyage, IV, 220, and passim, on the South Sea Islanders, the Novara-Reise, II, 418; on the ancient Albanians, Strabo, XI, 503.

515 The hereditary transmission of property to posterity has an obvious tendency to make a man a good citizen. It ranges his passions on the side of duty, and induces him to make himself profit the common good, and it assures him that his reward shall not die with himself, but that it shall be handed down to those to whom he is joined by the dearest and most tender feelings. (See Blackstone’s Commentaries, II, 11.) Without the right of inheritance, credit is scarcely possible, since with the death of the debtor the only stay of the creditor would cease.

516 Testamentary freedom (which obtained in places there about the beginning of the eighteenth century) prevails completely in England at present, contrary to the principle of the Roman law requiring an obligatory portion (la légitime) to be left to the heirs, which is still binding in France, but in a very much developed form. The consequence is that last testaments are as frequent in England as they are rare in France. There were, in Paris, in 1825, 7,649 judicial, and only 1,081 testamentary partitions of property. (Monnier.) In Great Britain, in 1838, the number of testamentary alienations of property taxed stood to those in which there was no will, in the proportion of 8:3; and the values of the alienated property as 10:1. (Porter.) Among a people noted for their high moral tone, testamentary freedom is a powerful means of strengthening paternal authority on the one hand, and of keeping alive, in the minds of parents, on the other, a sense of responsibility for the future of their children. Compare Helferich, Tübinger Zeitschr., 1854, 143, ff.

517 Polyb., XX, 6. Hence it was, that all (?) the wealth of Thebes, when it was destroyed by Alexander the Great, was only 440 talents. (Athen., IV, 148.) Drumann, Gesch. Roms. etc., VI, 333 ff. Cicero, Phil., II, 16. Hoeck, Röm. Gesch., I, 2, 118. Sueton., Octav., 66. An especially scandalous instance in Petron., 140. For a masterly theory of legacy-hunting, see Horat., Sat., II, 5. Compare Lucian, Dialogues of the Dead, 5-9. Petronius speaks of a turba hæredipetarum. (124.)

518 Even the revolutionary shibboleth, paternité, really means nothing more than the equal right of inheritance of all, i.e., the abolition of the right of inheritance! (R. Meyer.) The strongest attack, from a scientific point of view, made on the right of inheritance in more recent times, comes from Saint Simonism. The founder himself, after a life rich in experience but poor in action, spent in the search of much but in the finding of little, succeeded only in arraying the industrial and proprietary classes against each other, in declaring the poorest class to be the most important of all, and in basing the new religion of love on the emancipation of labor. His disciples went further. In order to abolish all the privileges of birth, Bazard, Exposition de la Doctrine de Saint Simon, 1831, p. 172, ff., taught that it was not enough to distribute public employments according to merit, and in the interest of the people generally, but that the distribution of property should be made in accordance with the same principle. The inequality of ownership should correspond with the inequality of merit. Every one may, during his life, keep what he had acquired himself, but give it to the state at death. Thus would a reconciliation be effected between the general interest and private interest; and the public revenue, supplied in this way, might easily be employed in place of the revenue raised by such taxation as weighs most heavily on the inferior classes. F. Huet, also, Le Regne social du Christianisme, 1853, III, 5, would have all private property, after the death of the owner, fall également à tous les jeunes travailleurs. The practical consequences of this system may now be seen in Turkey. There, the principal military fiefs are held in this way. Hence it is, that the Turkish owner of such a fief builds as little as possible. When one of his walls threatens to fall, it is kept standing by means of props. If it falls in fact, the only consequence is that there are fewer rooms in the house, and the owner settles beside the ruins. (Denon, I, p. 193.) In the Butan, there exists a species of practical Saint Simonism. Robinson, Descriptive Account of Assan, 1841.

519 It was chiefly fear of the consequences of the declamations of the socialists and their declamation against “monopoly” that induced Bastiat to reduce all the value of landed property to that of the capital employed in its manuring, improvement etc. (Harmonies, ch. 9.) We may, however, unreservedly grant him that, as a rule, until the time of its original possession by man, land had no valeur whatever (278).

520 Kant thinks the very contrary: Metaph. Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre, (Werke, IX, 72 ff). Contra, Grotius, J. B. et P., II, 2. Graswinkel, in his Schriften für die Freiheit des Meeres, 1652 ff., in Laspeyres, Geschichte der niederländischen N. Œk., 12. Hufeland, Neue Grundlegung, I, 307.

521 “A district of Tartary of ten square miles, in which several hordes pasture their flocks, may contain between 400 and 500 shepherds, who find employment in this mode of production.” In Brie, in France, on the same area, 50,000 peasants who own no land, live and draw their sole income from their labors in the fields (J. B. Say).

522 Schubert, Reise durch Frankreich und Italien, I, 188.

523 “Without labor, the earth bestows nothing on man but a stopping place. Hence, the reasons for private property do not extend so far as to prove that the great land and water highways should not be reserved as common property, and as a home to every man.” (Zachariä, vom Staate, VII, 43.)

524 This is the practice in Taway. Ritter, Erdkunde, V, 130. And so in ancient Germany. J. Grimm, Rechtsalterthümer, 92. Right of the “dead fire” in Spain and Portugal during the middle ages. S. Rosa de Viterbo: Elucidario das Palavras etc., I, 470. In many parts of Persia, the land belongs to anyone who has provided it with water by canals or wells. (Fraser, Journey in Chorasan, ch. 7.) Especially after the Mongolian devastation about the beginning of the fourteenth century, it was decreed that land which had remained uncultivated for a long time should belong to the person who made it productive. (d’Ohsson, Hist. des Mongols, IV, 418.) Similarly, in the time of the ancient Persians (Polyb., X, 28, 3), the harvest for the first five years belonged to the person who first irrigated the land. On the upper Euphrates, likewise, the land is very often neither sold nor leased. Anyone who will till it and pay one-tenth of the produce to the bey may have it for nothing. (Ritter, X, 669; compare VIII, 468; IX, 900.) So, too, among the Fulah and Mandingo negroes, and even among the Tscherkessans. (Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, III, 337 ff.) As the latest stages of development so often present instances of a reversion to the earliest, we find that Theodosius and Valentinian decreed that the agri deserti should, after two years’ cultivation, belong to the possessor. L. 8, Cod. Just., XI, 58.

525 Thus anyone may burn his own coat or throw it in the water; but no one may set fire to his own house or drown his land by the destruction of a dam. Even the non-user of a large area, in a thickly populated region, would scarcely be permitted. The taking of property by the state, at the present day in times of peace, is confined almost exclusively to land.

526 Thus P. v. Arnim, in a work entitled “Ideen zu einer vollständigen landwirthschaftlichen,” Buchführung, 1805, a treatise on “agricultural book-keeping,” considers the farmer as a state official who should cultivate whatever he believed in conscience, or what the state declared to be, most necessary. He suggests that the state should subject all new purchasers of land to an examination to ascertain whether they are rich and noble enough to act in this way.

527 Thus, for instance, Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, 1851, 114 ff., and to some extent Spinoza, Tract. polit., VI, 2. There are now in England several Land-Tenure-Reform-Associations, some of which would “expropriate” all land and vest the title in the state. The programme of the others embraces not only opposition to the right of primogeniture, to family fidei commissa and the assertion of the right of freedom of trade in land, and of a more democratic use of common lands, but also the appropriation by the state of the increase in the rent of land which is caused by no labor of the landlord, but solely by the increase of population and of the wealth of the community or of the nation. Newmarch, on the other hand, very correctly remarks, that since it is impossible to draw a line of demarkation showing the increase of the value of land growing out of the increase of population etc., the owner of land in making improvements would never know whether he made them for himself or for the state. (Statist. Journal, 1871, 488 ff.) Compare Wolkoff, Sur la Rente foncière, 1854, and H. H. Gossen, Entwickelung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs (1854).

528 In Congo and on the gold coast of Guinea the land, in whole villages, is tilled in common and the harvest distributed among the families per capita. Wherever absolutism reigns, the prince is also the owner of all the land. (Klemm, III, 337.) In China, where the original tenure in common of the land by all was broken through in the third century before Christ, all the land of the country now belongs, strictly speaking, to the state; and the possessor of land who permits it to go untilled is punished. (Plath. in the phil.-hist. Sitzungsberichten der Münchener Akad., 1873, 793 ff.) In Corea, private property in land is unknown; arable land is divided by the state according to the number in a family. (Ritter, IV, 633.) The example, on the largest scale, of a country without private property in land is the British East Indies. Compare the paper by Ch. Campbell, in the Essays published by the Cobden Club; System of Land Tenure in various Countries, 1870.

529 The legal and economic difference between property in land and property in capital is well defined by J. S. Mill, Principles, II, ch. 2, 6. “The reasons which form the justification, in an economical point of view, of property in land, are only valid in so far as the proprietor of the land is its improver. In no sound theory of private property was it ever contemplated that the proprietor of land should be merely a sinecurist quartered on it.” He here alludes specially to Ireland. The Fourierist, Considérant, distinguishes accurately between the capital produced by labor and saving, and the increase of the value of land caused by capital and labor, and its original value. Only the first two elements can justly be made property. But as, for prudential reasons, it is necessary to grant individuals the right of private property in land, those who are not such proprietors must, as a compensation for the common property which they have lost, be guaranteed the right to labor. (Théorie du Droit de Propriété et du Droit au Travail.) In England, the opinion that the compulsory support of the poor was introduced in compensation to them for the establishment of private property in land has met with considerable favor. Bishop Woodward, On the Expediency of a Regular Plan for the Maintenance of the Poor in Ireland, 1775. Compare Eden, State of the Poor, I, 413. However, the poor rates, in a country like England, are much more than an equivalent of what its soil could produce without the assistance of capital.

530 The principal classical work on this subject is Nebenius, Der öffentliche Credit, 1820, 2d ed., 1829. Previously, Salmasius, De Modo Usurarum, 1639; and even Demosthenes, adv. Dionysiod, 1283. Compare further Schäffle, in the Deutsch. Vierteljahrsschrift, No. 106, II, 289 ff.

531 Compulsory loans by the state, for instance, occupy an intermediate position between taxes and credit-operations, properly so called.

532 Besides loans proper, all payments in advance, or delays made in the payments of earnest-money, all leases and lettings, which Courcelle-Seneuil calls un médiocre degré de crédit, insurances and even all contracts for wages where the payment is delayed for a long period of time, are species of credit. For a nice distinction between leasing (Pacht) and letting (Miethe), see Knies, Tübinger Ztschr., 1860, 180 ff., and the Freiburger Univ. Programm., 9. September, 1862. D. Wakefield, Essay upon Political Economy, 1804, 35, distinguishes between “loan-credit” which is given to a poor man in the hope of his paying it by means of his labor, and “exchange-credit,” or credit between property owners. Cieszkowski’s definition: le crédit c’est la métamorphose des capitaux stables et engagés en capitaux circulants et dégagés. (Du Crédit et de la Circulation, 2d ed., 1847.) According to Knies, Tübinger Ztschr., 1859, 568, every credit-operation is an exchange or sale of services, one of which is to be performed in the present, and the counter-service of the other party in the future. According to Macleod, it is “a sale of debts.”

533 Personal credit, of course, preponderates in commerce. Hence it is, that in mercantile life, information concerning the personal status, reputation etc. of his colleagues, plays so important a part with the merchant. This information was made more accessible in England by the Lloyd institution. On similar North American institutions, see Tellkampf, Beiträge, I, 51. Credit given on security is a modification, sometimes of personal and sometimes of real credit. Compare, infra, the theory on bankers, brokers etc.

534 In despotisms, credit is almost entirely personal. Montesquieu Esprit des Lois, L.V., 15. In New York, says M. Chevalier, a merchant with resources worth 200,000 francs, can do a business of from 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 francs. In Paris, under similar circumstances, the same man would find it difficult to be credited to the extent of 500,000 francs. In Holland, two hundred years ago, a person who hypothecated his property was obliged to pay a higher rate of interest than in business (Becher, Polit. Discurs, 1763, 699), while the stationary period, one hundred years ago, made personal credit extremely difficult. In Zurich, it was encouraged by the prohibition of loaning money out of the country. (Büsch, Geldumlauf, III, 40.)

535 Schäffle, Nat. Œk., II, Aufl., 112.

536 Schäffle, according to the purpose which it is intended to subserve, divides credit into production-credit (investment of loans in immoveable property and in moveable property engaged in industrial operations), consumption-credit and clearing-credit, or loans made to pay respited purchase and earnest money, inheritances etc. (Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 552.)

537 Pinto, Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit, 1771, considers loans bearing interest as new portions of the resources of a country (p. 161), and that government loans not made in excess of its powers are une alchymie réalisée dont souvent eux mêmes qui l’ opèrent n’ entendent pas tout le mystère, (p. 338.) Similarly and earlier, v. Schröder, F. Schatz-und Rentkammer, 238 ff; Mélon, Essai politique sur le Commerce, 1734, ch. 6; next, Hamilton, Report to the House of Representatives on the subject of Manufactures, Dec. 5, 1791; Von Struensee, Abhandlungen, 1800, I, 259. See infra, § 210. More recently, St. Chamans, Nouvel Essai sur la Richesses des Nations, 1824, 83 ff. To some extent, even Dietzel, System der Staatsanleihen, 1855, 200. This is a dangerous error, since to every credit there is a set-off in the nature of a debit of an equal amount; and the evidences of debt are nothing but claims on the future revenue of the state. This was fully recognized by Cantillon, 291 ff. One of the principal advocates of that view among writers on Political Economy is the vivacious, acute and practically not unskillful, but sophistically superficial Macleod. (Elements of Political Economy, 1858, ch. 3, Dictionary, 1862, v. Credit.) The creditor’s assignable right of demand, he considers immaterial capital. While bills of lading, warehouse receipts, dock yard receipts etc., only represent goods, the bank note is new goods. Even metallic money has only a credit-value, inasmuch as it can be used only to effect exchanges. To the - of the creditor may correspond a + of the debtor; but the latter is negative only in the sense that we speak of negative electricity, a negative thermometrical degree. When an estate is leased, the owner has, in his demand for rent, a vendible plus; but the lessee no corresponding minus. (Not so. To the same extent that the proprietor has his future payments on the lease discounted, the present sale-value of his estate is diminished; or if it is not sold, the last party obtaining the discount has made his available capital as much less by the advance as that of the lessor has been increased.) The “discounting of the future,” that is, the apparent capitalization of hopes, so much in vogue at the present time, may be a great spur to production as it may also be to baseless extravagance.

538 Many theoreticians ascribe a direct creation of new capital to credit, in so far as the capacity of the evidences of debt to circulate as a medium of exchange effects a real saving, and permits the former very costly and intrinsically valuable instruments of exchange to be used in some other way. (§ 123.) Compare Ricardo, Proposals for a secure and economical Currency (1817). J. S. Mill, Principles, II, 174 and 36. McCulloch, Commercial Dictionary, art. Credit. And so it was in the first four editions of this book of mine. But here, too, there is, immediately, only a transfer of already existing capital. The person, for instance, who accepts a bank note for payment, loans a part of his capital to the bank; and the advantage to the whole community of such credit-operations consists chiefly in this: that so large a quantity of cash-capital which lay idle in banks etc., may be used more productively.

539 When Roesler says that credit is capital, the product of saving, and very serviceable in further production (Grands., 300), he confounds credit itself with the foundations of credit, which are, indeed, in large part material or moral capital.

540 Compare Discourse on Trade, Coyn and Paper-Credit, London, 1697, 72 ff.

541 Compare Buron, Guerre au Crédit, 1868. Schäffle, Tüb. Ztsch., 1869, 296 ff. With a thorough understanding of its politico-economical bearing, O. Michaelis, (Berliner V. Jahrsschr. 1863, IV, 121,) says: The capital-value of my credit is not equal to the nominal value of my evidences of indebtedness [notes etc.], but to the capitalized amount of the extra surplus which I have obtained in my business by means of credit, after deduction is made of the costs and of the risk-premium.

542 We shall, in the books to follow this, inquire with great care, what are the means best calculated to remedy this dangerous tendency. We need only remark here, that it is to be found in a judicious association of small capitalists, and also in the capitalization, so to speak, of personal qualities. A well organized society of work-men, without capital, may indeed obtain credit, as for instance, the Schultze-Delitsch societies, the Russian artel-schnicks (market-aid societies) etc. prove. (Frühauf, Die russ. Artels in Faucher’s Vierteljahrsschrift, 1868, I, 106 ff.) We may also mention the greater credit accorded to a land-owner the moment he becomes a member of a land-loan association as compared with what he could obtain before he had joined it. The popular belief of the ancient Egyptians afforded them a very great instrument of credit in the pledging of the remains of their ancestors. (Herodot., II, 136.)

543 B. Hildebrand is of opinion that the Political Economy of the future may be characterized as credit-economy, in the same way as the Economy of the present may be called money-economy, and that of the past as barter-economy of barter. (National Œkonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft, I, 276 ff.) Hildebrand’s view is correct in so far as that, with every advance in civilization, credit comes to have absolutely and relatively an ever increasing importance, although in the middle ages, especially under feudal forms (Lehensformen), there were numberless operations in credit. Otherwise, however, Hildebrand’s three kinds of economy are, by no means, coördinated. While barter and purchase through the instrumentality of money, in every instance, entirely exclude each other, it is impossible to imagine a credit-transaction of which the promise of a barter-performance or of a money-performance does not constitute the base. During a “money-economical (geldwirthschaftlichen) period” [i.e., one during which money is the medium of exchange, and not notes; and when barter does not obtain.—Translator.] the service rendered by money as a medium of exchange may, for the most part, be supplanted by credit. Money, as a measure of value, still remains the substratum of credit itself. (See Knies in the Tübinger Ztschr., 1860, 154 ff.; and in the Freiburger Programm, 9 Sept., 1862, 19.) Earlier yet, A. Wagner, Beitr. zur Lehre von den Banken, 1857 ff. Among the most practical propositions of Saint Simonism is that of a système genéral des banques, intended to administer all the goods of the nation, and to loan them to individuals engaged, in production. (Bazard, 205 ff.)

544 It is destructive of credit to allow the debtor to await several decrees or judgments before his liability is established; to allow him, on easy terms, delays, reversals of judgment, the costs of the case etc. The term within which a creditor might bring in his claim before the meeting of creditors in the Amsterdam Boedel-chamber was formerly thirty-three and a third years. (Büsch, Darst. der Handlung, Zusatz, 82.) In the presidency of Bengal there were, in 1819, 81,000 cases in arrears, and in 1829, 140,000. Westminister Review, XIX, 142.

545 And yet Melon is of opinion that the state should favor the debtor as much as possible. (Essai politique sur le Commerce, ch. 12, 18.) This was the view entertained on this subject by the older practitioners. In Bengal, the dhura, a species of “judgment of God,” in which the party who could hold out longest against hunger was declared the victor, was the only means to compel a debtor to pay his debt. As a consequence, the Bengal peasant could not borrow money at less than 60 per cent. per annum. Edinburgh Review, XXII, 67. On the damages attending the credit-laws and credit-courts of Russia, by which all foreign goods are rendered exceedingly dear, see v. Sternberg, Bemerkungen über R., 100 ff. In a country in which a great many powerful personages are above the laws, an incorporated loaning bank may be an indispensable necessity. (Storch, Handbuch, II, p. 23 ff.) In Naples, even as recently as 1804, no debtor could be arrested during the last six months of the queen’s pregnancy. At a previous period, one might fail in business there and escape all punishment by exposing the hindermost part of himself in a nude state publicly before a column of the Vicaria. (Rehfues, Gemälde von Neapel, I, p. 203 seq., 222.) In Schwytz, the rate of interest is so high, because the law allows the debtor to pay his creditor, whether the latter will or not, in articles of household furniture, clothes etc., estimated at a very high value. (Hermann, Staatsw. Untersuchungen, 202.) It has now become quite usual in the United States, on account of the many delays granted to the debtor by “democratic” laws introduced there, instead of mere mortgage, to give full warranty deeds when capital is loaned. By this means, the creditor is in danger, when misfortune overtakes him, to see himself compelled to let his property go at one-fourth of its value.

546 See the Heliast oath in Demosth., adv. Timocr., 746. The Roman system of credits in the time of Polybius was much better than the Carthaginian. Polyb., VI, 56, XXXII, 13.

547 Sachsenspiegel, III, 39. J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, 612 ff. Dahlmann, Dänische Gesch., II, 245, 339. Hermann, Russ. Gesch., III, 357. On slavery for debt among the Malays, see Ausland, 1845, No. 157.

548 Beaujour, Tableau du Commere en Grèce, II, 176.

549 C. 2 X. De Pignor. An appropriate provision in a priestly government. Diodor., I, 79.

550 Staying in a place by the debtor until the creditor is satisfied, and other degrading stipulations, which, however, were prohibited by the police regulations of the Empire in 1548, art. 17.

551 Marten’s Ursprung des Wechselrechts, 1797. Statuta Mediol., 1480, fol. 238 ff. The municipal law of Florence unconditionally imprisoned the father or grandfather for the debt of the son, when the latter engaged in industrial pursuits with their consent. (Stat. Flor., I, 201.) In Bologna, the brothers of a bankrupt who had constituted one household with him were held responsible for his debts. (Statuti dell’ Università de Mercantati della Città di B., 1550, fol. 110.) The law of Geneva excluded from all positions of honor the son who had left his father’s debts unpaid. Montesquieu, E. des Lois, XX, 16. The consequence was, that among the higher classes not a creditor lost anything for centuries. (K. L. v. Haller, Restauration der Staatswissenschaften, VI, 519.) Compare the “Nurenberger Reformation” of 1479, fol. 61 and 68 of the edition of 1564.

552 Compare the R. P. O. of 1548, art. 22. And so, by the Code de Commerce, III, 4, I, even the simple bankrupt in contradistinction to the fraudulent bankrupt is punished, and every person unable to pay his debts is declared a simple bankrupt, who, among other things, has made excessive household expenses, or lost considerable sums by play etc. Compare Sully, Mémoires, Livre XXVI, who declares it to be his most wholesome law, that fraudulent bankrupts should, like thieves, be punished with death, and that all their fraudulent assignments, gifts, etc., should be declared void. Further, Ordonn. de Louis XIV., sur les Failletes, art. 11; J. de Wit, Mémoires, 77 ff; v. den Heuvel, Sur le Commerce de la Hollande, 110 ff. Frederick William I., in 1715, threatened with the galleys all light-headed bankrupts, and, in 1723, all those who, knowing their insolvent condition, should effect further loans. Mylius, Corp. Const. March. II, 2, 31, 40. For China, see Davis, The Chinese, I, 247 ff. Gr. Soden, Nat. Oek., III, 231, demands that, in case of doubt, the guilt of the bankrupt should always be presumed.

553 In England only one-tenth of the number of bankrupts are considered innocent. Elliot, Credit the Life of Commerce, 1845, 50 ff.

554 The contrainte par corps of debtors was abolished in France in 1792, but restored in 1797. Even Turgot remarked that since slavery had ceased there was no further fear (?) that the poor would be oppressed by imprisonment for debt. (Sur le Prêt d’ argent, § 31.) According to Droz, the question is not one of weighing “freedom” against “miserable money,” but the deprivation of a few of that freedom and the non-fulfillment of obligations entered into, that is against the destruction of public confidence.

555 A similar development among the Greeks:

A. Rigorous slavery for debt, which Kypselos moderated at Corinth. (Pausan., V. 17, 2), and Solon abolished in Athens. (Plutarch, Sol., 15. Demosth., de fals. Legat., 412.)

B. The reckless creation of debts as seen in Aristophanes; while outside of Athens slavery for debt lasted yet a long time. (Hermann, Griech. Privatalterth., § 57, 20.) In the time of Demosthenes, the merchant in arrears in the payment of his debts was cast into prison, and the bottomry-debtor who deprived his creditor of his security might be punished with death, (Demosth. adv. Pharm., 922, 958), and this although the cessio honorum was introduced. Hermann, § 70, 3. Compare Xenoph., Vectigg., 3, Demosth. adv. Apat., 892; adv. Lacrit., and adv. Dionys. In Corinth, the state superintended expenses made by parties. This was part of its credit-policy. (Athænæus, VI, 227.) For a remarkable Rhodian law relating to debts, see Sext. Emp., Hypot. I, 149.

In Rome:

A. The chief characteristic of the ancient law in this matter was the eventual sale of the person of the debtor on the getting of the loan (nexum); the power of the creditor to put the addictus to death or to sell him in foreign parts; finally, the in partes secanto, in the concourse of creditors. Without these rigorous provisions, the borrower might easily have evaded his debts, by the emancipation of his son and turning over his property to him. (Niebuhr, Rom. Gesch., II, 770 ff; Savigny in the Abb. der Berliner Acad., 1833. Zimmern, Gesch. des röm. Privatrechts, III, 131 ff.)

B. Later, we find nothing of the execution of the debtor, or of the sale of his person; but he might be compelled to do slave labor for his creditor without any protection against ill-treatment. Slavery for debt was restricted by the Lex Poetelia. (Niebuhr, III, p. 178; Mommsen, III, 494.) The Prætorian law introduced the custom of putting the creditor in possession of the goods of the debtor, with power of sale, which proceeding rendered the debtor infamous. See several passages in Walter., Röm Rechtsgesch, 763 ff; Tertull., Apol., 4; Tab. Herac. I, 115 ff. Later, Cæsar’s Lex Julia permitted the honest debtor to escape imprisonment by the assignment of his goods.

C. The moneyed oligarchy which prevailed in Rome caused the adoption of exceedingly severe measures against delinquent debtors. (Plut., Lucull., 20. Cic., ad. Att. V. 21, VI.), although its members themselves incurred debts in the most reckless manner. Cæsar, in the year A.C. 62, excluding his active (activen), owed debts to the amount of 25,000,000 sesterces; M. Antonius, in the year 24, 6,000,000; in the year 38, 40,000,000; Curio, 60,000,000; Milon, 70,000,000. (Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, III, 486.) Compare Gellius, XX, 1, XV, 14.

556 Whenever a new shop-keeper, who sells goods on monthly credits, settles in a district, the number of poor persons invariably increases. (McCulloch, Commercial Dictionary.) The ruinous credit given by the Jews to the Westphalian peasants begins with an account for the goods which they have succeeded in pressing upon them, after five or six years have elapsed. The Jew seldom sues accounts at law; but he besieges the debtor and discovers where his last head of cattle and his last little supply of provisions are to be found. As he is willing to accept everything that has any value, sometimes in payment of arrears, and sometimes in payment for some new piece of trash, he is sure to obtain his dues in the end, but not until his victim, who is sunk deeper and deeper in the abyss of debt by every “accommodation,” is entirely ruined. (Schmerz, Rheinish-Westphäl. L.W., 396 ff.)

557 In the lower and middle stages of civilization, we find a multitude of laws by which minors, students etc., but especially land-owners are limited to a minimum of credit, which, however, varies very much with the person, and is subjected to a number of embarrassing forms, the consent of a third person, for instance etc. (Compare Bayerische L.O. von 1553, fol. 83.) Such laws, however, give as much room to the play of dishonesty as they take away from that of want of reflection.

558 On the municipal regulations (Städteordnungen) of the 14th and 15th centuries, which compelled Jewish creditors especially to have their evidences of indebtedness redeemed within from every two to five years, see Stobbe, Juden im Mittelalter, 129. Compare further the Würtemberg L. O. of 1515, Statut. Ferrar, ed. 1650, lib. II, rub. 37, 289. According to the other provisions of the laws in North America, some book accounts were required to be sued on within six and others within seventeen years. (Ebeling, Gerchichte und Erdberschreibung der v. Staaten, II, 247, 298.) The Prussian law of March 31, 1838, provides a period of limitation of three years for all ordinary commercial debts. A similar law was passed in the Kingdom of Saxony, in 1846. In London, there has been found a great number of hatters, tailors, boot and shoe dealers etc., whose books showed credits of more than £4,000, most of them not to exceed over £10. How much of all this must be lost entirely, and how that loss must increase the sums paid for boots, shoes and hats by the prompt payer! (McCulloch, v. Credit.) We find, even in Athens, that the period of limitation was shortened in the interest of credit, and that in the case of minors, it did not exceed five years. (Demosth. adv. Nausim., 989.) Security for a debtor not over one year. (Demosth., adv. Apatur., 901.) The prohibition of Zaleukos to issue any evidences of debt whatever goes much farther. (Zenob., Proverb. V, 4.)

559 Compare the report of the Dresden Handelskammer, 1864, 11.

560 A. Mayer, in Faucher’s Vierteljahrsschrift, 1865, IV, 65.

561 We learn from the debates in the English parliament of February 9, 1827, that, in two years and a half, there were, in London and its environs, 70,000 cases of imprisonment for debt, the costs of which were from £150,000 to £200,000. In 1831, there were in one debtors’ prison 1,120 prisoners, who owed on an average £2 3s. 2d. (McCulloch, l. c.) There was, in 1792, a case of a woman who, for a debt of £19, remained in prison 45 years, and others like it. (See Archenholtz, Annalen, IX, 87 ff; X, 169 ff, XIII, 125.) In England in 1844, arrest for sums less than £19 was prohibited. Johnson had already proposed a similar provision. (Idler, 1758, Nos. 22 and 38.) Imprisonment for debt was abolished in France, England and Austria in 1867; in the North German Confederation, on the 29th of May, 1868, but arrest for security’s sake was retained. Sismondi finds fault with nearly all laws in the premises, because they attack the person of the debtor rather than his personal property, and his personal, rather than his immovable, property. He would have all this just the contrary of what it is. The first interferes with the very source of wealth, the productive power of labor; the second causes goods to be sold much below their value. Neither of these evils attends the last. (N. Principes, I, 250.)

562 A law of the North German Confederation allows the pledging of future wages, only in the case of public officers, and those holding permanent places in the service of private parties, whose salaries are over 400 thalers per annum. The original draft had excepted only the things necessary to workmen and those directly depending on them; while the law as passed makes the prohibition general. This was undoubtedly done for the convenience of employers as well as of courts; as for instance in the circuit of Dortmund, there were, in one year, 10,000 cases in which wages were garnisheed. (Annalen des N.D. Bundes und Zollvereins, 1869, 1071 ff.) But the recklessness of those workmen whose wages are below the average, might have been just as well guarded against without dragging those whose wages are above the average down to their level, if a distinction had been made between production-credit and consumption-credit, and the latter had been limited by providing that no suit should be instituted for supplies made to public houses, taverns etc.

563 In the second book of Moses, 22, 25 ff., and the fifth, 24, 6. A very old Norman law provides that in actions for debt, execution should not issue against effects of the debtor which are indispensably necessary to him to maintain his position, such as the horses of a count or the armor of a knight. (Dialog. de Scaccario.) Magna Charta extended this provision so as to include the agricultural implements and cattle of the peasantry. The moment these laws, in consequence of a false principle of humanity, except anything but what is absolutely necessary, they injure credit. Thus, for instance, in Brazil, a law of 1758, providing that nothing immediately employed in or directly necessary to the production of sugar should be seized on execution, caused great injury to the production of sugar. (Koster, Travels in B., 1816, 356 ff.)

564 § 2, Cod. De Prec. Imper. Off., I, 19. The diets of the Empire had granted such letters in the fourteenth century. (Wachsmuth, Europ. Sittengesch., IV, 690.) They were granted, as a rule, only with the previous knowledge of the Emperor, by the police ordinances of the Empire of 1548, art. 22.

565 So in Austria, Saxony, Brunswick, the electorates of Hesse and Baden. In Prussia, they could be granted only after a juridical decree to that effect; and an appeal to a superior court was allowed to reverse or affirm it. Compare Mittermaier in the Archiv. für civilist. Praxis, XVI, and also P. de la Court, Aanwysing der politike Gronden en Maximen van Holland etc., 1669, I, ch. 25. Nürnberg obtained as a privilege, in 1495, that no moratorium should be valid as against its citizens. (Roth, Geschichte des Nürnb. Handels, I, 86.)

566 Compare the discussions in the French National Assembly, in the month of August, 1848. It is much less disadvantageous in times of great commotion, when all business is brought to a stand still, to extend the time in which bills of exchange etc. are payable. Such a measure prevents a number of bankruptcies which the real balance of debts due to one and owing by him does not render necessary.

567 In the persecution of the Jews in the middle ages, the so-called Brief-todten (letter-killing), or the destruction of titles, was very common. In 1188, the French government released all crusaders from the payment of interest on their debts, and granted them an extension of three years’ time to pay off the principal. (Sismondi, Hist. des Français, VI, 82.) Similar compulsory measures were provided against the Jews and usurers in 1223 (Ibid, VI, 539 ff.); and in 1299 (Ordonnances, I, 1331), on the formal request of the nobility. (Ordonnances, II, 59.) Again, in 1594, there was a release of one-third of the interest on all national and private debts. (Sismondi, XXI, 318.) The general moratorium of the Milanese for a term of eight years, introduced in 1251, after their war with France, was of an essentially different character. (Sismondi, Geschichte der italienischen Republiken, III, 155.) The same is true of the general indult granted by Philip II. in Belgium. (Boxhorn, Disquisitt. politicæ, 241 ff.)

568 The abolition or release of debts, so frequent in ancient revolutionary times, reminds us, in many ways, of the crises precipitated in modern times by paper money and produced by the state. The ancestors of Alcibiades and Hipponikos laid the foundation of an immense fortune, in Solon’s time, by purchasing land in large quantities with money borrowed from several citizens, a short time before the abolition of debts. (Plutarch, Sol., 15.)

569 Enormous consumption of wax in the churches of the middle ages. In the cathedral of Wittenberg alone, a short time before the Reformation, more than 35,000 pounds of wax candles etc. were burned yearly. At the same time, honey was generally used instead of sugar. How much more important, therefore, at that time must bee-culture have been, considered from the point of view of circulation as compared with what it is to-day. And so in Catholic countries, a difference in the external manifestation of religion causes the relative importance of the consumption of fish to increase and decrease. In 1803 there was little demand in France for ivory crucifixes, rosaries etc. In 1844, the demand for them and for prie-Dieu for the bed-room etc. was increased. (Mohl, Gewerbwissenschafliche Reise, 101.) To engage successfully in the sale of sugar in Persia, it is necessary to know that in that country it is liked only in little hat-shaped lumps, which are used only as semi-voluntary gifts; and that, in such case, custom fixes the number of lumps. (Steinhaus, Russlands commercielle etc. Verhh., 151.) In the Levant, workmen prefer bars of iron which are small and of varied form because they find it difficult to manipulate the large ones. The English bear this in mind much better than the Russians. (Steinhaus.) A merchant sending wood to Southern France must be acquainted with the form of the staves used in the manufacture of barrels there. Compare Büsch, Geldumlauf, VI, 2, 2.

570 The circulation of goods compared to the circulation of the blood: by Mirabeau, Philosophie Rurale, ch. 3. Turgot, Sur la Formation etc. § 69. Canard., Principes, ch. 6.

571 Eiselen, Volkswirthschaftslehre, 98 ff. If in ancient times commerce played a much less important part than it does among the moderns, it was, as Montesquieu says, because the whole commercial world was then more uniform in climate and the character of its products than it is now. (Esprit des Lois, XXI, 4.)

572 Of the successive steps, sheaves, corn, flour, bread,—flour has the greatest capacity for circulation. And, indeed, the last operation of labor on a great many goods, because of their consequent more narrowly specialized utility, is accompanied by a decrease in their capacity for circulation. As an illustration, we may mention ready-made clothing as compared with cloth. The capacity for circulation of a commodity is very much advanced when the demand is wont to increase with the supply, as is the case with gold and silver, but not with learned books, optical instruments etc. Many commodities have but little circulating capacity, because no one desires to purchase them but at first hand. See Menger, Grundsätze, I, 245 ff.

573 Knies., Die Eisenbahnen und ihre Wirkungen, 1853, 79.

574 Compare Schmitthenner, I, who calls attention and with reason to the importance of loans on chattel mortgages. But Berkeley, Querist, No. 265, remarks that a squire with a yearly income of £1000 can, “upon an emergency,” do less good or evil than a merchant with £20,000 ready money.

575 A very important difference between Russia and England.

576 Storch, Handbuch, I, 273 ff. There is also a useless circulation which is not calculated to promote the division of labor, but to employ idle time or idle capital, as in the case of games of hazard, speculation in stocks, wheat etc. Even impoverishing consumption may produce rapidity of circulation, as in Germany during the war years 1812 and 1813. (F. G. Schulze, N. Œkonomie, 1856, 667.) Relying on this fact, Hume (1752) on Public Credit, Discourses, No. 8, argues in favor of the old opinion, that all circulation is wholesome and to be encouraged. Boisguillebert, Traité des Grains, I, 6, went so far as to laud war because it accelerated the circulation of wealth. On the necessity of a circulation sans repos, see ibid., II, 10. In a similar way Law, Trade and Money, 1705, and Dutos, Réflexions Politiques sur le Commerce, over-valued the circulation of wealth as such. Concerning the Mercantile System, see § 116. Darjes, Erste Gründe der Cameralwissenschaft, 1768, 531. And even Büsch, Geldumlauf, I, 29, 32 ff., III, 96, who in other places nearly always overlooks real production and sees only the circulation of money caused thereby. Thus he calls the poor when they are helped in money, and spend it, useful members of society! (IV, 32, 39. Similarly, v. Struensee, Abhandlungen, 1800, I, 282 ff., 400 ff.)

577 As, for instance, happened in France in 1577, when all commerce, and in 1585 all industry, were declared to be de droit domanial. Louis XIV. was of opinion that the king was absolute master of all private property of priests and people. (Mémoires histor. de Louis XIV., II, 121.) Compare Duclos, Mémoires, I, 14 ff.

578 Compare Theod. Cod., V, 9, 1; Just. Cod., X, 19, 8; XI, 47, 21, 23; XI, 50, 51, 52, 55, 58. How full the really classic period of the Roman jurists was of the idea of freedom of competition, we see in Paullus: L. 22, § 3, Dig. XIX, 2. The provisions concerning lœsio enormis appear first in the time of Diocletian. (Just. Cod., IV, 44, 2.)

579 Benjamin Franklin says that the freer the form of government is, the more the people show themselves in their true aspect. Ancient Rome, with the early development of its rational disposition, soon learned to favor freedom of commercial intercourse. Compare Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, I, passim. This was, certainly, an element of its greatness, but also of the proletarian evils developed in it an early date, and which were weighed down only by the absolute growth of the state and the development of its economic interests during centuries.

580 Nor must it be forgotten that competition raises prices as well as lowers them. The expressions higher price and lower price denote only different sides of the same relation. M. Chevalier is of opinion that our present breathless competition is characteristic only of a period of transition prolific in new inventions, a competition soon to be followed by peace. (Cours, II, 450 ff.)

581 Ἀγαθὴ ἔρις: Hesiod., Opp., 10 ff.

582 “Whoever speaks of competition suppresses the existence of a common aim,” says Proudhon, although he adds, after Bileam’s way, that to cure the evils of competition by competition, is as absurd as to lead men to liberty by liberty, or to cultivate the mind by cultivation of the mind.

583 Compare Bastiat, Harmonies économiques, ch. 10.

584 If all classes were protected against competition, no class would derive any advantage from it, since a “universal privilege” is an absurdity. If only certain classes or individuals are protected, it is done at the cost of all others.

585 The question should not be formulated thus: “Caprice or rule?” but “Rule of morals, or rule of law?” Schmoller against v. Treitschke in Hildebrand’s Jahrbb.

586 Concerning the arguments by which the commercial restrictions of the middle ages were defended, see below. They were, for the most part, well founded for the age in which they were advanced. A judicious education will often be compelled to provide limitations, but always with the intention, by this means, of making possible a really greater independence. Thus the current of commerce may be too weak in a poor and thinly settled country in order that supply and demand should always and everywhere meet and be satisfied. Under such circumstances, their artificial concentration at certain points is among the most efficient means of promoting the economy of the whole people. The policy of freedom of commerce was recommended even in the seventeenth century by J. Child, by North and Davenant. W. Roscher, Zur Geschichte der englisch. Volkswirthschaftslehre, 65 ff., 85 ff., 113 ff., 142 ff. And earlier yet, in Holland, by Salmasius, De Usurus, 1638, 583 and de la Court. Compare Tübinger Ztschr., 330 ff. Thus Boisguillebert says: Il n’y avait qu’à laisser faire la nature et la libertê, qui est le commissionaire de cette même nature. (Factum de la France, 1707, ch. 5.) See, also, Dissertation sur la Nature des Richesses, ch. VI; Détail de la France, 1697, II, ch. 13; Tr. des Grains, II, 8. For the most part dictated by a reaction against Colbertism.

See further, Mélon, Essai Politique sur le Commerce, 1734, ch. 2. M. Decker, Essay on the Causes of the Decline of Foreign Trade, 1744, 31 ff, 106 ff. J. Tucker, Essay on the advantages and disadvantages which respectively attend France and Great Britain with regard to Trade, 1750. Forbonnais, Elémens du Commerce, 1754, I, 63. Genovesi, c. I, 17, 3, is of opinion that at least in case of doubt, commerce stood more in need of freedom than of protection. Verri, in his Meditazioni, goes still farther. The Physiocrates, with their laissez aller and laissez faire recommend competition as the best means to increase the net income of a people. According to Dupont, 147 ff, éd. Daire, the province of legislation is confined to declaring the laws of nature. His motto is: liberté and propriété. Adam Smith asks that the state should do only three things: insure protection against foreign states, the administration of justice at home, the establishment and maintenance of certain institutions of advantage to the whole community, but which private interest could not establish for want of means to cover the expenses attending them. (Wealth of Nations, V, ch. I, 2.) Hence he demands (III, ch. 2) the abolition of all kinds of fidei commissa, of royalty in mines (I, ch. 11, 2), of all corporate and exclusive privileges, of all protective duties etc. (IV, ch. I ff), but especially of the colonial policy hitherto in vogue. (IV, ch. 8.)

The attacks of the Socialists on freedom of competition were begun by Fichte, Geschlossener Handelsstaat, 126, in which it is called a robber-system or system of spoliation. He would have the state have more solicitude for human industry than if men were so many swallows. See further, Sismondi, N. Principes, passim, who everywhere demands the protection of the government for the weaker. Fourier, N. Monde industriel, 396, who thinks that le monopole général is always a preservatif contre le commerce. Bastiat, Harmonies économiques, ch. 10, has a very valuable refutation of these follies. Recently, Rodbertus, Hildebrand’s Jahrbücher, 1865, II, 272, is of opinion that “social individualism” has ever had in history the task of dissolving decaying societies, as, for instance, under the Cæsars.

587 Whoever would sell to others must purchase of them. (Child., Discourse of Trade, 358.) Similarly Temple, Works III, 19, and Becher, Polit. Discurs, 1547. This view seems to have become the national one first in Holland. Compare also Quesnay, 71 and Mirabeau, Philosophie rurale, 1763, ch. 2.

588 We often hear it said: “nothing sells because there is no money.” But the real cause here is, in most instances, not a want of money, but a want of other goods which might serve as a counter-value. In bad times, for instance, there is many a weaver who would consider himself fortunate, even if he could get no money for his cloth, to obtain instead, meat, bread, wood, raw material etc. If money only were wanting, that might easily be as favorable a symptom in commerce, as when there are not enough shops, steamers etc., to carry on the business of the country. Compare North., Discourses upon Trade, 1691, 11 seq., but especially J. B. Say’s celebrated theory of Markets, traité I, ch. XV.

589 See Humboldt’s observations as to how, in Spanish America, agriculture in the vicinity of the mines increases and decreases with the wealth of the latter. (N. Espagne, III, 11 ff.) See also Harrington (ob. 1677), On the Prerogative of a Popular Government, I, ch. 11; Cantillon, Nature du Commerce, 16. And so Stein., Lehrbuch, 122 seq., points out how great enterprises produce especially for the consumption of the small householder without capital, and how, therefore, the flourishing condition of the one determines that of the other.

590 Those indeed who live by the spoliation of others, as robbers, deceivers etc. are interested in the economic prosperity of the latter only so long as their spoliation of them is not endangered. Only to this extent can it be claimed with Fr. List that the nobility of the Middle Ages, in obeying the selfish calculation which led to the oppression of the peasantry, engaged in as bad a speculation as a manufacturer of our day would who should feed his steam-engine with nothing but saw-dust or scraps of old paper. The cities of the middle ages had a much more undoubted economic interest in the emancipation of the peasantry as a class than the nobles or the clergy.

591 Such exceptions there certainly are, even if it were not true “that the most godly cannot rest in peace unless he is acceptable to his ungodly neighbor.” Nations that furnish the same products as we do may, indeed, “spoil our market,” just as at home the selfish shoemaker may desire the prosperity of all wearers of shoes, that is of all other industries, but not that of all other producers of shoes. The view that long prevailed, that one man’s gain was always some other man’s loss (Th. Morus, Utopia 79, ed. Colon. 1555; Baco., Sermones fideles, cap. 15; quid-quid alicubi adiicitur, alibi detrahitur; M. Montaigne, Essais I, 21: les prouficit de l’un est le dommage de l’autre) prevailed much longer in international affairs where observation is much more difficult than in national affairs; although even here, P. de la Court, Maximes politiques, 1658, contrasts the economic interest of Holland with that of the rest of the Netherlands and prefers it to theirs. Even Voltaire says: “The desire of the greatness of the Fatherland includes the desire of evil to our neighbor. Evidently no country can gain except what another loses.” (Dict. philosophique, v. Patrie.) Compare, however, the peut-être in his Histoire de la Russie, I, 1, on the occasion of the English-Russian treaty of commerce. Similarly, Galiani, Della Moneta, I, 1, IV, 1; Verri, Opuscoli, 335, and recently v. Cancrin who says that “in every-day life, property is acquired only at some other person’s expense.” (Weltreichthum, 1821, 119. Oekonomie der menschl. Gesellschaft, 1845, 23.) The cosmopolitan view (Xenoph., Cyrop., III, 2, 17. Hier., 10) which prevails in Adam Smith’s school was introduced by Hume, Essays, 1752, On the Jealousy of Trade. Quesnay, Encyclopédie, v. Grains, 294, ed. Daire; A. Smith, Theory of moral Sentiments, 1759, p. 6, sec. 2, ch. 2. Pinto, Lettre sur la Jalousie de Commerce, 1771, and J. Tucker, Four Tracts on commercial and political Subjects, 1776, 34 ff and 42 ff. “The system of states exercises no influence whatever on the world’s commerce.” (Lotz, Handbuch I, 11.) More recently, R. Cobden, in his Russia, Edinb., 1836, among others argued, that the conquest of Turkey by the Russians would be useful to England, because then more (?) English products would probably be sold there. Russia would become no stronger thereby, as conquests always injure the conqueror more than they benefit him. The idea of European equilibrium is therefore a chimera, because no state can be prevented from having an internal growth, as great as may be. Thus, in the summer of 1853, we heard the London Times sometimes preach that every cannon-shot fired by the English at the Russians might kill an English debtor or an English customer. The Venetians entertained a similar view at the beginning of the fifteenth century. Compare M. Sanudo in Muratori, Scriptores, XXII, 950 ff. See above, § 12.

Moreover, Malthus had recognized that there were natural rivalries between nations which produced exceptions to Tucker’s laws. (Principles, Preface.) Similarly Garve, in Cicero’s Pflichten (1783), III, 146 ff.

592 B. Franklin, Works, vol. III, 49. Sismondi claims for all civilized nations the right of interfering with the governments of other nations with whom they have or might have commercial relations, and of insisting that they shall have a good government under which commerce may freely develop. (N. P. VII, ch. 4.)

593 As for instance when the ami des hommes says that he felt towards an Englishman or a German as he did towards a Frenchman with whom he was not acquainted. Mirabeau, Philosophie rurale, ch. 6.

594 Thus, for instance, the Stoic, Zeno: Plutarch. De Alex, fort, 1, 6.

595 Compare even Lauderdale, Inquiry, 274 ff.

596 How well, for instance, the English sustained Napoleon’s continental blockade, the evils produced by which were intensified by several bad harvests. Its worst time did not, indeed, coincide with that of the struggle with the United States. The ancient Athenians, during their contest with Philip of Macedon, considered the question of the supplies from the Bosphorus etc. as one of life and death. But this can be looked upon only as a cogent proof of the small development which their commercial talents had received at the time. How easily might they not, according to our ideas, have obtained corn from Sicily or Egypt.

597 According to the acute analysis of language made by F. J. Neumann, Tübinger Ztschr., 1872, 317 ff., the word “price” has reference to an actual purchase or sale, while the expression “value in exchange,” generally called simply value, is based upon a valuation, or intimates in a general way that an object possesses value; value in exchange is, so to speak, the average of several price-determinations. Price, according to Schäffle, is the external consequence of value in exchange, a means of representing the latter. (N. Œk., III, Aufl., I, 218.) Only through the difference between value in exchange (universal possibility) and price (special reality) is the laesio enormis of the jurists possible. (Schmitthenner, Staatswissenschen, I, 416.)

598 By market price, prix courant, is meant the money-price of commodities, determined by competition.

599 A problem very similar to that of the motion of bodies in space.

600 Lotz, Handbuch, 50 ff., calls those commodities costly which are obtained only at a high cost of production, and dear, those whose price is above the cost of production.

601 Compare Canard, Principes d’Economie politique, ch. 3. Almost simultaneously, H. Thornton, 1802, Paper-Credit of Great Britain.

602 See Jackson’s Account of Morocco, 284, for cases in which, in the Sahara, when the burning winds of the desert had dried up the water in the leathern bottles of the caravan, a drink of water cost from $10 to $500.

603 The North American aborigines very frequently consent, in their exchanges, to take any offer made to them by their equals, however insufficient it may be, because they fear revenge. Schoolcraft, Information etc., II, 178. As to the effects of cunning, the Tungusi, when they get a glass of brandy from the Russians, grow almost idiotic, and give away their goods at mock-prices in drink. (v. Wrangell, Nachrichten, I, 233.) In the higher stages of civilization, on the other hand, very distinguished people are, by no means, privileged because of their position, in the struggle for prices. In modern times, claims (reclamen) have taken the place of greater physical or political power. Compare E. Hermann, Leitfaden der Wirthschaftslehre 1870, 91 ff.

604 Thus Galiani says, that before one of the two parties has expressed his want to buy or to sell, the pans of the scales are in equilibrium. The first that speaks breathes on one of them, and it drops. (Dialogue sur le Commerce des Bleds, 1770, No. 6.) This has been verified in a striking manner in California, where the most valuable commodities were often purchased at auction at the lowest prices, while when purchased from merchants and even the most wretched shopkeepers, they were sold enormously dear. (Gerstäcker, in the Allg. Zeitg., May, 1850.) Thus there were harvested in France, in 1817, 48,000,000 hectolitres of wheat, valued at 2,046,000,000 francs, in 1820, 44,500,000 hectolitres valued at 895,000,000 francs. (Cordier.) This vast difference in price existed, because in 1817, the whole world was still trembling under the impression made by the failure of the crops in 1816, while in 1820, the feeling of comfort and security caused by the rich year 1819, still prevailed. Low prices at forced sales under decree etc. See below, § 5. That travelers are so frequently taken advantage of in effecting changes of money is explainable partly by their urgent wants, which are well known to the opposite party, and partly by their supposed ignorance in the matter. And so, at auction sales, out-bidding one another has something very seductive in it for ignorant or hot-headed purchasers.

605 It was considered immoral by his contemporaries, when William the Conqueror introduced the custom of farm-letting to the highest bidder. (A. Thierry, Conquête de l’Angleterre, II, 116, éd. Bruxelles.) It is repugnant to poetic and delicate minds to think that everything has a price exactly fixed. (§ 2.) I need only refer to the picture of Helen which Zeuxis exhibited for money, which act of his was characterized, by his cotemporaries, as a species of prostitution. Val. Mac, III, 7. Ælian, V, 4, IV, 12. Socrates judgment on the payment of the sophists. Xenoph., Memor., I, 6, 13.

606 Competition has only a negative influence on prices, inasmuch as it modifies the extreme operation of the other grounds of their determination. Thornton, Paper Credit. Lotz, Revision, 1811, I, 74 ff, 241 ff.

607 The expression, “intensity of demand,” in Malthus, Principles, ch. 2, sec. 2. As early a writer as Sir J. Stewart calls attention to the difference between large and high and small and low demand. A high demand will always raise the price, as when, for instance, two wealthy virtuosi compete at an auction. Paucorum furore pretiosa, as Seneca says. An English penny of the time of Henry VII, once sold, on such an occasion, for £600. In 1868, at the Lafitte auction, seven bottles of wine sold to Rothschild at 235 francs a piece after the Maison dorée had offered 233. (N. freie Presse, Dec. 17, 1868.) A great demand has frequently no result but to increase the supply, and the price rises only in so far as the demand is too sudden to permit a parallel growth of the supply. (Principles, Book II, ch. 2, 10.) The present price of tea could not remain unaffected, if ten different private merchants, competing one with another, or the agent of a privileged commercial society, should send orders to China for an equal quantity of tea. (Verri, Meditazioni, IV, 8 ff.)

608 Immense weight laid on the æqualitas permutationis (after Aristot., Eth. Nicom., V. 7,) in the ethics and economics of the scholastic middle ages, and in the time of the Reformation. Compare Melancthon, in Corp. Ref., XVI, 495 ff, XXII, 230.

609 A very barbarous theory of price in Xenoph., De Vectigg., 4. The ancients made little progress in this respect, although there are not wanting ingenious observations on certain phenomena of prices. (See Aristot., (?) Oecon. II; Cicero, De Off. III, 12 ff.) Mariana, De Rege et Regis Institutione, 1598, III, explains price as the relation of value to quantity. According to Locke, the price of a thing is determined by the relation between “quantity” and “vent”: the increase or diminution of its useful qualities influences it only so far as it alters that relation. (Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest etc, 1691, Works II, 20 ff.) Law, on the contrary, says that the “vent” can never be greater than the “quantity,” but that the “demand” may be. Wherefore, he proposes the formula: quantity in proportion to the demand. (Trade and Commerce considered, 1705, ch. 1.) In chap. 6, Law distinguishes three elements in price: quality, quantity and demand. The expression “quantity” is, certainly, very unsatisfactory. How many examples does not Tooke (Thoughts and Details, on the high and low Prices of the last thirty Years, 1823,