Section CXLI.

Effect Of An Enhancement Of The Price Of The Precious Metals.

A great enhancement of the precious metals would naturally and necessarily produce a revolution in prices in a direction(888) opposite to the one just described, and one which would be much more injurious to a nation's economy. Such a revolution would weigh most heavily on the most sensitive, and the momentarily most productive classes of the people, inasmuch as the price of the ready product as compared with advances made for the purposes of production would be a declining one; and it would benefit those classes who live in leisure on the fruits of previous labor. There would, at the same time, be a perceptible growth of consumption in certain departments, useful, no doubt, in themselves, but apt to degenerate into excess, and which are, therefore, most easily cared for. ( 212, seq.) To this extent, the gold discoveries of the nineteenth century, without which an enhancement of the price of money would undoubtedly have taken place, have warded off a great economic malady from the nations. Moreover, this inverted revolution in prices may be moderated by governmental measures, such as a diminution of taxes, emissions of paper money etc.(889)



Section CXLII.

The Price Of Gold As Compared With That Of Silver.

The price of gold as compared with that of silver does not, by any means, depend entirely on the ratio of the quantities of the two to each other. Rather is it, in the long run, determined by the average cost of production necessary at those gold and silver mines which exist under the most disadvantageous conditions, but which it is still necessary to work in order to satisfy the aggregate requirement of these metals. On the whole, with an advance of economic civilization, the dearness of gold as compared with that of silver has been enhanced. The former, in the middle ages, was worth from ten to twelve times as much as the latter,(890) while now it is worth from fifteen to almost sixteen times as much.(891) In the same period of time, also, gold in highly civilized countries is wont to be comparatively dearer.(892)

These facts are explained as well by the demand as by the supply. As the production of gold requires so little skill or capital, and that of silver so much of both, the former may be considered a natural product to a greater extent than the latter, and therefore, the rule laid down in 130 is applicable to it. (Senior.) Besides, in the higher stages of civilization, especially when the precious metals are cheap, larger payments are usual, to the making of which, gold is certainly best adapted; just as in every day trade merchants are wont to accept a gold piece in payment, even at something of a premium, while the peasantry hesitate to do so.(893)

It is very much of a question whether gold or silver is, on the whole, subject to greater variations in price. The fact that gold is more strictly a natural product would of itself constitute a powerful element of variation. ( 112). But, on the other hand, its greater durability and the greater care bestowed on its preservation, have for effect to make the existing quantity preponderate in importance over its annual increase. The demand for gold varies more suddenly than the demand for silver. In case of war or sedition, the former is more easily carried away or hidden. It is also more desirable for the state for its military fund. On the other hand, on account of its greater capacity for transportation, it may follow such claims when made on it, more easily, from country to country. On the whole, I am inclined to think that, for short periods of time, silver maintains its value better, and gold for longer ones.(894)



Section CXLIII.

The Price Of Gold As Compared With That Of Silver. (Continued.)

If the gold-production of California should be attended(895) by a notable depression of the value of that metal, it becomes a question whether or not silver would be necessarily depreciated with it. Senior claims that it would not, for the reason that the two precious metals do not, for most purposes, act as substitutes each of the other. If a country needed 1,000 pounds of gold and 15,000 pounds of silver as money,(896) and these two sums of metal were equal in value, an increase of gold by one-half, which would depreciate its price in relation to silver to 10:1, would not overflow the channels of circulation. The 1,500 pounds of gold are now also equal to only 15,000 pounds of silver, and vice versa.

I would put very important limitations to this assertion. Even a moderate depreciation of gold would drive out the silver from all those countries which had a mixed coinage made up of the two metals; and hence the supply of silver would be increased in the other countries. And so it is quite possible, up to a certain point, that the larger silver coin should be replaced by small gold ones, ten and five franc pieces etc. Rau is certainly right in his surmise that a general rise in the price of commodities as compared with coin, the result of a great increase of gold, would go farthest in countries in which the gold is the medium of circulation, begin later in those which had a mixed circulation, and continue for the the shortest time in those countries which, by force of law, had a silver circulation only.(897)(898)



Appendix I.

Paper Money.



Section I.

Paper Money And Money-Paper.

Paper money must be distinguished from other value-paper or money-paper,(899) which may also run to the possessor or holder, and not unfrequently serve as a medium of payment. In the case of these bonds or obligations,(900) their circulating capacity is a secondary matter, and the principal thing the authentication of an economic legal relation; whereas paper money is intended principally, if not exclusively, to act as money.(901) Money-paper appears in a great many different forms, but it nearly always bears interest. Its value depends in great part on the rate and certainty of its interest. On the other hand, the endeavor to insure a more favorable reception for paper money by the promise of interest has been exceedingly seldom successful.(902) And in reality, good prospects as to interest (Zinsaussichten) and ease of transfer from one hand to another are two qualities which lie in very different directions.(903)

The many recent writers who claim for paper money the marks of irredeemableness and forced circulation, confound the unfortunately too frequent degeneration of an institution with its real nature. They contradict, too, usage of speech, which, in countries where silver is the standard, unhesitatingly calls gold coins money, although they cannot be forced on any one.(904) The paper money issued by the state deserves, indeed, the appellation in the fullest measure; but starting from this point we find a number of grades in a downward direction, which may still be called money;(905) and we shall see especially that the differences between state paper money and bank notes so widely asserted are, in great measure, differences not of kind but of degree.

The idea of replacing the precious metals as a medium of circulation by a less costly material, even the ancients were acquainted with; but with the exception of the Carthaginians, they scarcely ever made any use of it except in cases of need and transitorily.(906)

Similarly, the middle ages in Europe; as in general all greater development of the credit-system—and all paper money is credit-money—has a natural growth only in the higher stages of civilization.(907)(908)



Section II.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Paper Money.

Where it is at all possible to give paper money the same purchasing power as metallic money possesses, it is unquestionable that the former must have many advantages over the latter. True, paper money is very inconvenient for small amounts;(909) but all the more convenient for large amounts, as well for purposes of counting as for purposes of the storing up of values and for transmission from place to place; a matter of greater importance in proportion to the badness of a country's means of transportation, and to the cheapness of the metal of its currency hitherto.(910) It seems a still more important matter to most people that paper money dispenses with the use of a great quantity of the precious metals for purposes of circulation, which can now either be turned into utensils, etc. in the country itself or used in foreign countries to make investments of capital there, or in the purchase of commodities.(911) In national economies whose commerce is a growing one, the same advantage finds a negative expression in this, that they are not compelled to satisfy the increasing demand for money by procuring costly metals.(912) Of the individual members of the nation, all these advantages of convenience will be experienced by those who employ the paper money. The economical or saving advantages of paper money are appropriated by the issuers to themselves, in the form of a non-interest bearing loan, which they make to those owners of money or to those who are entitled to a money-claim and to whom the paper money is acceptable instead of cash money.(913) A diminution for instance of the number of bank notes or of state paper money does not diminish the available capital of the people. Its only effect is that a smaller portion of it is at the disposal of the bank or of the government.

But in contrast with these advantages are the great disadvantages, since paper money is wanting in most of those properties which originally made the precious metals the best instruments of exchange and the best measures of value. In addition to this, paper money may be increased at pleasure, and at almost no cost; and an occasional surplus of it cannot flow either into other branches of employment (as a surplus of metallic money may into utensils, ornamentation, etc.) nor into other countries. And thus the constancy of value of paper money, that is, one of the chief requisites of all good money, is imperiled in the highest degree. True, the payment-power, or "legal tender" character given such money by the state may certainly supplement in some way its matter and form-value. But this supplement or addition constitutes, in the case of large amounts(914) a small quota; or else the quantity of money as compared with the amount of money needed for commerce would have to be fixed very accurately; a thing of peculiar difficulty in the case of paper money, which is almost costless.(915)



Section III.

Kinds Of Redemption.

While precious metal money carries, so to speak, by far the greater portion of its value in itself, and this to such an extent that it appears on the inscription found on its face, the inscription found on paper money is almost the only reason of its value.(916) (Credit-value.) The issuer promises in one form or another, expressly or tacitly, that he intends to redeem the note, almost valueless in itself, in real goods; and the value of this promise depends on the probability of its fulfillment.(917) The only fully satisfactory kind of redemption consists in this, that every holder of the paper money may, immediately on demand, obtain its nominal value in good current metallic money. This only can, in the long run, keep paper money up to its full nominal value. But experience teaches that even with less perfect modes of redemption, paper money may maintain a part of its nominal value, and a part greater in proportion as the following conditions are approximated to: freedom from personal considerations, the immediateness of the redemption, and currency of the goods by means of which redemption is effected. Thus, for instance, the acceptance of paper money for all debts due the state, in countries where taxation is heavy, where there are large state industries etc.; where the lands of the state are farmed out etc., has a great influence on its course of exchange. Redemption in parcels of land is a very imperfect one, not only on account of the great differences in the value of pieces of land according to quality, situation, the times etc., but also because only a very small number of men, especially where money is the usual medium of exchange, are in a condition to accept parcels of land.(918) It is a question whether the threat of punishing the refusal to accept paper money, or to accept it at its full nominal value, can be called a negative mode of redemption. Certain it is, however, that it is the most barbarous and in the long run the least efficient mode, one in which the issuer calculates only on the fear of those who accept it; and, what is most demoralizing, on the hope they entertain that they in turn shall be able to dispose of it to others as timid.(919)(920)



Section IV.

Compulsory Circulation.

When paper money which is not completely redeemable—and it is scarcely possible that in the long run it should be thus redeemable—has sunk below its nominal value, the result in the case of all private paper money is the bankruptcy (Vermoegensbruch) of the individual issuing it; in the case of state paper money, the legal provision that it shall have a compulsory circulation (Zwangcourse; cours force).(921) To what extent the real rate of exchange of paper money shall fall in any case depends not only on the amount issued as compared with the wants of trade, but also and still more on the degree of confidence which the state of public affairs inspires.(922) The first consequence attending a depreciated currency is, that the good precious metal money is withdrawn from circulation and even from the country; for the reason that it cannot maintain its true value side by side with the paper money; the usual effect in all untenable mixed standards or currencies.(923) A second, and worse consequence is the unrightful revolution produced in so many income and property relations, based on old contracts, to the advantage of the debtor, to the disadvantage of the creditor, and of those who receive nominally fixed salaries.(924) These consequences are in kind similar to those produced by the clipping of the coin; but in degree they are much more dangerous.(925) Besides, the depreciation of paper produces, by no means, an equal rise in the prices of all commodities. The prices of those commodities, the sellers of which are most favorably situated in the struggle for prices, rise earliest and highest. This is true especially of foreign commodities, also of those inland commodities which can be easily exported, and most particularly of those commodities which have the greatest capacity for circulation, for instance, gold and silver.(926) Hence, it would be a great mistake in countries where there is an irredeemable paper currency with compulsory circulation, to measure its purchasing power at a special discount as compared with the precious metals. Therefore, a depreciated paper currency has transitorily an effect on industry similar to that of a protective tariff, and even as the payment of export premiums; inasmuch as it enables manufacturers to permit a part of their cost of production, viz.: that which they have to pay their workmen, their older creditors, and in part, also, their furnishers of raw material, to rise in a less degree than the paper money has declined in value.(927) This is indeed a very inequitable advantage accorded to private individuals in the face of the universal distress of the country.(928)(929) And these bad consequences are aggravated by the downward-path principle which a depreciated paper money always involves. The state whose financial distress introduced the evil, sees a great portion of its revenues melt away before its eyes;(930) while in what concerns its outlay, nothing is more calculated to mislead it than such an imagined creation out of nothing. And a thing which greatly contributes to this its the frightful sensitiveness of a depreciated paper currency in the presence of complications of foreign politics, a quality which may cause the government as many inconveniences from without as the issue of its paper money produced conveniences to it at home.(931) Hence recourse is had to additional issues of paper, which are easily increased in the same measure as the rate of exchange (Cours) has declined.(932) Great private interests operate in the same direction. Between the increase of the volume of the paper currency in circulation and its consequent depreciation, some time always elapses; and in the mean time, either the purchasing power of the money-owner or his loaning capital is really greater than before. The former increases the demand for commodities, the latter facilitates their coming into existence. However, the flight of speculation with which the increase of paper money is wont to be accompanied(933) in the beginning depends on an error shared by many men as to its true value. Hence it does not last long, and the critical shriveling up of the inflated bubbles is greater in proportion to what the previous dimensions of these bubbles were. And now many believe that the nation's business or economy might be kept on its course by new emissions of paper money; and the wise ones hope, at least, to be able thereby to postpone the catastrophe long enough to enable themselves to get their property into a safe condition. And in fact, the restoration of a depreciated currency is accompanied by crises entirely similar to those which followed its first decline; only they are in an opposite direction.(934) And hence conscientious statesmen are frequently deterred from seeking to effect such a restoration. Yet the darkest side of a paper currency severed of due connection with precious metal-money consists in the frequent and violent fluctuations of value to which it is subject.(935) The consequence of these fluctuations is, that every commercial transaction, every credit-transaction, and even every act of saving, in which money plays any part, is made to bear the impress of a game of chance;(936) a consequence of far and deep reaching influence, especially in the higher stages of civilization, where the importance of commerce, of the credit-system, and of money-economy as contradistinguished from barter-economy is so great; producing there a state of uncertainty which is otherwise peculiar only to barbarous medieval times.(937) All this discourages the best business men and the best husbandmen more than it does any other class of people, and demoralizes the whole economy of a nation; and demoralizes it the more in proportion as it is easier for the state to influence the value of paper money as compared with specie, and as its influence is more irresistible.(938) The compulsory circulation of paper money is a much more powerful and yet a much more simple screw by means of which to practice extortion than is the most burdensome taxation or forced loan, and at the same time the most comprehensive power which a government can possess to carry out both these measures. (Ad. Wagner.)

All the horrors of the later Roman republic, the draining of the provinces by robber-governors with their publicans and sinners, the building up of monstrous fortunes without any production proper, but through usury and rapine alone: all this is made to revive again through the instrumentality of the national-economic disease called a paper crisis, in a less violent form, indeed, but in one which is much more insidious and scarcely less pernicious.



Section V.

Resumption Of Specie Payments.

The healing of such a paper-money disease as we have described, it has been endeavored to effect in three ways more particularly.

A. By the reduction or bringing back of the depreciated paper money to its full nominal value. And this is best done by gradually drawing paper money into the state treasury by means of taxation or by loans, and refusing to allow such paper money to be again issued. The consequent rise in the rate at which the outstanding paper money notes exchange against specie is produced not only by the diminution of the quantity of paper in circulation, but also by the increasing confidence in the future which such a governmental measure inspires.(939) While this mode of procedure has in the abstract most in its favor, yet it is not to be recommended in practice except where the depreciation of paper money has either not gone very far or where it has existed only a short time.(940) Otherwise the revolution in all property-relations and the disturbance of all rightful speculation—always dangerous and easily abused—produced by the depreciation would be repeated by the restoration of values, with this difference only that the disturbance would be produced the second time in an opposite direction. And that those who were previously injured should now be compensated for the damage sustained in the first instance is impossible in proportion as the depreciation has been of longer duration. Many of the sufferers from the effects of depreciation are now compelled, even as tax-payers, to contribute to the enrichment of the speculators who have accumulated the depreciated paper into their own hands.

B. The extreme opposite of such a course would consist in this, that the depreciated paper should be allowed to go on sinking lower and lower until it was practically worthless, whereupon a new currency, whether of metal or paper, would have to appear like a new world after the waters of a deluge had been abated. Hence, therefore, one of two things: universal bankruptcy entered into with the clearest purpose, or the resignation of despair!(941)

C. The middle course between these two has, therefore, been most frequently pursued, viz.: the legal reduction of the value of the coin (gesetzliche Devalvirung), which consists in reducing the nominal value of paper money to its current value at the moment the law goes into force, and by redeeming it either in specie or in other paper to be issued in smaller quantities.(942) Although this has been not seldom based on the false principle that the value of every separate amount of money is inversely as the aggregate amount of all the money in circulation; yet it cannot be questioned that it is only the open declaration of the state bankruptcy which the whole measure involves, and which in most instances has already happened beyond repair. Here there is no new and dangerous disturbance of the nation's economy whatever; and the fluctuations of value in the future which are inseparable from the gradual contraction of the volume of paper, continued until it has reached its nominal value, are avoided: this last, of course, only on the supposition that either the pure metallic or the redeemable paper currency is rigidly adhered to.(943) But the problem, how to protect both parties(944) to contracts entered into at a rate of the currency different from that under which they are to be performed, from all damage, is one which will never be perfectly solved. Hence, of the different measures to economically preserve a state in cases of extraordinary need, the emission of paper money with compulsory circulation is much more universally disastrous to the people than the effecting of loans at the very highest rate of interest, and even than being in arrears in the matter of paying the officials and creditors of the state.(945)



Section VI.

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 Liberte du Travail.

7 Cicero, De Leg., I.

8 Discours Preliminaire du Code Civil.

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

10 Revue de Legisl. 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 quae in terra, quae in mare nascuntur, avium quoque commune est. Hinc descendit maris atque feminae conjunctio, quam nos matrimonium appellamus, hinc liberorum procreatio, hinc educatio; videmus etenim caetera 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, brutae 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 fuer 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 Legisl. 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 OEkonomie vom Standpunkte der geschichtlichen Methode, Braunschweig, 1853.

25 Cours Complet d' Economie politique, II, 540, ed. Guillaumin.

26 Cousin.

27 We here append an extract from Heinrich Contzen's Geschichte, Literatur, und Bedeutung der Nationaloekonomie, 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 ueber die Staatswirthschaft nach geschichtlichen Methode.

31 Berliner Zeitschrift fuer allgem Geschichte.

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

33 Untersuchungen ueber das Kolonialwesen.

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

35 Ueber das Verhaeltniss der Nationaloekonomie 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 nationaloekonom. 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 Nationaloekonomik an der Grenzscheide des sechszehnten und siebenzehnten Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1862; Gruendungsgeschichte des Zollvereins, Berlin, 1870; Betrachtungen ueber die geographische Lage der grossen Staedte, Leipzig, 1871; Bertrachtungen ueber die Waehrungsfrage der deutschen Muenzreform, Berlin, 1872; Geschichte der Nationaloekonomik in Deutschland, Munich, 1874; Nationaloekonomik des Ackerbaues, 8th ed., Stuttgart, 1875.—Translator's note.

39 Die politische OEkonomie vom Standpunkte der geschichtlichen Methode.

40 Die National OEkonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft.

41 Recherches sur les Finances de France.

42 Frederic Passy, de la Contrainte et de la Liberte.

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

44 Cours d' Econ. polit., 2e., Lecon I, p. 33.

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

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

47 Ibid., 274.

48 Frederic Passy: De la Contrainte et de la Liberte.

49 Schaeffle, Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift (1861), emphasizes this. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776), very characteristically, begins with the yearly labor of the nation; J. B. Say (Traite 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) Traite des Grains, I., c. 4, the wants necessaire, commode, delicat, 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 (Gueter 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 fuer 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, Grundsaetze der Nationaloekonomie, 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 archaeologist.

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, Schaeffle 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 Buesch, 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 economiques, 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? Schaeffle 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. (Tuebinger 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, Grundsaetze 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." (Schaeffle, National OEkonomie, 1860, 28.) In this respect, prostitution is a remnant of slavery. Schaeffle 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 encyclopaedia 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 OEkonomie, 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. OEkonomie (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 Considerations sur la Nature du Revenu National.

68 Ad. Mueller 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. fuer Statistik und N. OEkon. 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 Schaeffle, Theorie der ausschliessendnen Verhaeltnisse, 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. OEkonomie, 62.)

73 Schaeffle, N. OEkonomie, 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 Schaeffle, 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 Friedlaender 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 Friedlaender, 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 Schaeffle, System, II, aufl., 55. See also his Kapitalismus und Socialismus, 1870, 31, 35, 43.

79 Thus Kleinwaechter (Hildebrand's Jahrbuecher fuer N. Oek. und Statistik, 1867, II, 318), defines value in exchange=value in use + costliness. According to Schaeffle, 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 OEkonomie, 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. Mueller 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 venale, on which, according to Dupont, Physiocratie, CXVIII, the difference between biens and richesses is based. La valeur d'un septicr de ble, considere comme richesse ne consiste que dans son prix. (Quesnay, ed. Daire, 300.) Turgot distinguishes between "valeur estimative" and "echangeable or appreciative;" 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., ed. 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, Tuebing. Zeitschr. 1855; Bastiat's declaration (Harmonies, p. 171 ff.): that "valeur" (by which Bastiat means only value in exchange), = le raport de deux services echanges, 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, Systeme des Contradictions economiques, 1846, ch. 2.

86 In France, according to Cordier (Memoire sur l'Agriculture de la Flandre Francaise), 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. OEkonomie 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, Grundsaetze, 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, (Tuebinger 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 (Vermoegen) 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" (Volksvermoegen).

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

93 Moreau de Jonnes, Le Commerce au 19. Siecle (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 cherte 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. (Traite 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. OEconom. 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 (Muentzbelangende 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 Muentz, 1530. Schroeder, Fuerstliche 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: potissimae divitiae ac opes terrae fructus sunt, nec ditiores in regnis fodinae, 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). Montchretien, Traite d'Economie 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 Felicita.) 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. Buesch, 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 a 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 utilite, the latter on valeur. (Harmonies, ch. 6.)

99 The national wealth of Athens, at the time of the hundredth Olympiad, is estimated by Boeckh (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. (Athenaeum 5 March, 1853.) Wolowski estimated that of France at, at least, 116 milliards of francs, with an annual increase of 1-1/2 milliards, (L'or et l'Argent, 1870. Enquete, 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 Wuertemberg=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 Schoen, Neue Untersuchungen der N. OEkonomie, (1835), 4.

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

106 Knies, in his Polit. OEkonomie 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: Tuebinger Zeitschrift fuer 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 Mueller 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. Mueller 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 interet, an expression inappropriate, because merely negative, although in perfect harmony with the ascetic religiousness of the middle ages. (De la Richesse dans les Societies chretiennes, 1861, II vol., passim) Compare Roscher in Gelzer's Protestant. Monatsblaettern, 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 Schoen'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, Helvetius, 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 Naturae 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 cooerdinate nor exhaustive opposites. Compare the beautiful contrast drawn by Goethe (Pocket edition of 1833, vol. 46, 97), between "Pietaet" 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 Schaeffle, N. OEkonomie, 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 Nationaloekonomie 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, Traite 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 interets individuels sont les seuls interets reels (Traite de Legislation, 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 Mueller 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, Mueller directs his polemics against Adam Smith's premise of a merely mercantile world-market. (II, 290). Similarly, the protective tariff theoreticians, Ganieh, Theorie 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 koerperlichen 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 (Jahrbuecher der N. OEek. 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 Gesetzmaessigkeit in den scheinbar willkuerlichen 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.