consequently no science of political economy; that it is only an art, and has only an empirical foundation, and that it varies with national circumstances to such a degree as to be controlled by nothing higher than traditional policy or dogmatic assertion. Great comfort is found for this position in the assertion that German economists have discovered or adopted its truth. How utterly unjust and untrue this is as a matter of fact, those who have read the works of the German economists must know. It is untrue, in the first place, that they are unanimously of the school of socialistes en chaire, and, in the second place, it is untrue that the socialistes en chaire are clear and unanimous in their position. They occupy every variety of position, from extreme willingness to entrust the state with judgment in the application of economical prescriptions, to the greatest conservatism in that regard. Finally, it is not true that any of them are protectionists."

Now let us look at a few of these statements. Who is it that have retreated from the position that there are universal laws of wealth, which it is the business of the economist to investigate? Is it Mr. H. C. Carey, or E. Peshine Smith, or Francis Bowen, or any recognized leader of the Protectionists, either in this or any other country? If they have, we have never heard of it. They have repeatedly pointed out the unscientific method of the English school, and their words have found ample confirmation in the revolt of a large body of that very school, and their adoption of the position farthest removed from its own. But Mr. Sumner gives us an intimation as to who is meant. It is those who have been talking about "National Economy" and "the national principle." The present writer is one of those who have done so. But he never knew of anybody who was absurd enough to assert that there is a nationalist principle in economic science, and then to deny that there is any principle at all.

But this talk about "National Economy" means an attempt to maintain the cause on new ground, after the old has been abandoned. Who has retreated? Who has abandoned the old ground? Neither Mr. Carey nor any of his older scholars have even adopted this term Nationalist. A very few of the younger ones-perhaps it would not take two hats to cover them all-have preferred to revive that term, as it seemed to them the best possible expression for what the school had at all times been fighting for. But that is merely their private opinion, and in no way

The older men stand just

implicates any oneexcept themselves. where they always did; and when Mr. Sumner has taken the scalps of those who prefer the term he dislikes, he has to settle with Mr. Carey's doctrines of local centres, societary circulation, etc., just as if the others had never written. But as to the history of the word, it is a revival, not an invention. It was used by List and other Germans before even Mr. Carey began to write. It was virtually, though not formally, contained in the title of Adam Smith's classic work. And it has not been revived to affirm that economics rest on a purely empirical basis, but to assert the deepest and broadest possible basis in principle for the science.

In the next place, who is it that does the injustice of supposing that the Kathedersocialisten adopt the Nationalist principle? Nobody that we ever heard of. The present writer has been at some pains to repudiate, as a protectionist, all notion of agreement or sympathy with them, and to show that their position, that economics are a mere matter of convention, leaves no room for a nationalist principle or any other. He has even defended those fundamental principles of the orthodox school which they have assailed, and emphasized the fact that not they, but the orthodox economists of Germany, adopted a protectionist resolution at their annual assemblage in 1875. Equally absurd, therefore, is the implication that the protectionists in general regard all German economists as belonging to the Kathedersocialisten. We presume of course that somebody has been talking the nonsense which calls for these contradictions; but is it fair to speak as if such absurdities were talked by protectionists in general, and especially by those of them who adopt the name of nationalists? And in view of the broad and unqualified character of Mr. Sumner's statements, might we not suggest that the words "unjust and untrue" have a much more accurate, nearer and more personal application than he has given them?

And we are obliged to say that this first paragraph is not exceptional. We do not mean that the author is consciously and intentionally unfair. We mean that he pursues the old controversial method of the theologians, which because it was utterly unsympathetic, and because those who followed it were fully satisfied that there was nothing worth understanding in those who differed from them, could not but lead to endless misunderstandings. That temper of mind is not consistent, even, with a thorough and per

sistent attention to accuracy of statement; it is too great a strain for human nature, to be always taking care to be just to people for whom you do not care. It would be altogether unfair to speak as if this book were an exception in this defect. There has been too much of this on all hands, and on both sides. But nowhere have we seen the method and the spirit so abundantly and profusely illustrated as in the present instance.

It may seem hypercritical to take exception to the title of the book as a History, as the word is very loosely used among us. History is the narrative of what has been, with the reason for its having been thus, and not otherwise. Mr. Sumner writes rather objections or exceptions to history, than history itself. He gives us an argument why these things ought not to have been, a propos of a collection of historical notices and illustrations. But his work lacks that fundamental bond which makes such notices and solitary facts one in historical unity. Mr. Young's work on the same theme cannot be compared with Mr. Sumner's as a piece of literature; but in reading it we seem to come far closer to historical reality. The latter reminds us greatly of some of those recent histories of the Reformation, in which we are overwhelmed with reasons why Erasmus, More, Pirstinger, Contarini, Vicelius and the other moderates, ought to have had the control and direction of affairs, instead of this rough-tongued, loud-voiced Luther, whose manners are so offensive to our theorists. But we feel that the business of the historian is to tell us why it was that Luther and not Erasmus led Europe, and to show us that neither violence, nor ignorance, nor greed, nor folly, nor stupidity, are moving forces in history. If Mr. Sumner is right, the latter have been moving forces throughout a large part of the history of the United States.

One of the most complicated problems in the financial world, is the one presented by the fluctuations of the London money and merchandise markets. England's extensive commerce has made her everybody's next-door neighbor, and not an event of importance occurs in any quarter of the globe, without its being registered on the commercial barometer in Threadneedle Street. It has been carefully studied by many in the new school of financiers, who, under Mr. Bagehot's lead, have definitely given up Political Economy as an abstract science. Mr. Arthur Ellis seems to be

6 THE RATIONALE OF MARKET FLUCTUATIONS. By Arthur Ellis. Pp. ix., 186. 12mo. London, Effingham Wilson.

one of these writers; his study of the market history of recent years is based upon very wide and careful observations, and in places he has a slap at the theorists, whose "must be," and it "will naturally follow," very often come into sharp collision with the corners of hard fact. He gives a sort of chronological view of the recent events in the business world, and of their influence. We do not always agree with him, as in his assumption of a uniform value of gold throughout the world and throughout different decades in the same century. We do not think the recent approximation of our currency and our gold standard are due simply to the appreciation of our paper money; and that to the increased demand for it by the expansion of our trade. But we think that both economists and practical men will find, in his little book, much that is suggestive and useful.

The two text books of Prof. Perry' and President Sturtevant remind us of what the Academy reviewer said of the former of the two: "Political economy is still in its youth in America, and English economists, who are chiefly engaged in limiting and qualifying its early generalizations and assumptions, must envy the freshness and confidence with which transatlantic professors of the science sometimes propound them. Mr. Perry states in his preface that he has endeavored so to lay the foundations of political economy in their whole circuit that they will never need to be disturbed afterward by persons resorting to it, however long and however far these persons may pursue their studies in this science. There was a time when the trumpet of an Oxford or Cambridge professor of political economy might give forth no less certain a sound, but few such notes are now heard from English chairs. Nor since the publication of Mr. Mill's treatise would many English readers be satisfied with the conception of the whole circuit' of political economy involved in Mr. Perry's definition of it as the science of exchange or of value; which omits the department of production," etc.

AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY. By Arthur Latham Perry, LL.D., Orrin Sage Professor of History and Political Economy in Williams College, author of "Elements of Political Economy." Pp. 348, 12mo. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

8 ECONOMICS, OR THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH. By Julian M. Sturtevant, Professor of Political Economy in Illinois College, and ex-President of the same. Pp. xvii. 343. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

But what would the reviewer say of Prof. Sturtevant's book, which assumes all the old principles, especially the omnipotence of competition, with all the equanimity of a McCulloch. The passion for theoretic simplicity was never more honestly and thoroughly indulged. We seem to be reading a mathematical treatise, and to be living in the mathematician's world of ascertained premises. In some points our author is superior to Prof. Perry: he defines his "Economics" as the science of wealth, not of exchange; and he decides that "Wealth is anything that can be owned and exchanged for an equivalent," while Prof. Perry thinks that Political Economy "has to do with processes simply as they are related to sales.” But it follows that national skill and intelligence are no part of a nation's wealth; that communities are to be thought wealthy only because of what they have done, and not because of what they are capable of doing. But the French economists— especially Say and.........-have shown that Adam Smith was altogether wrong in his limitation of wealth to material possessions.

We must give Prof. Sturtevant the palm for thorough-going consistency. This indeed gives his book its chief value, that it says in black and white what other people half think and less than half say. Take for instance his denial of the national character of wealth in § 23.

Professor Perry's book is not an abridgment of his Elements, but an independent work designed for a less advanced class of readers -the pupils in higher schools, and even in those colleges where there is no place in the curriculum for a longer course of study. It represents no change of views since the preparation of his larger work. Its chief interest, therefore, lies in the attempt to bring the study within the comprehension of another class of students. In our opinion it is better suited to that end than any other work of Professor Perry's school. He writes with a love of the subject and of his own conclusions which make his writing vigorous. He does not always divest himself of a controversial attitude, but we have noticed no instance of unfairness. But we are convinced that if the same literary power had been combined with a better method and a broader conception, Mr. Perry's book would have been both more interesting and more useful.

ROBT. ELLIS THOMPSON.