History of Economic Analysis part 45 ppt

the emphasis upon the original document was quite general. It constitutes the main scholarly merit of Michelet. We find it also in writers whom we do not value primarily as scholars, for example, Thiers, the politician. We find it even in the creators of the realistic novel, for example, the brothers Goncourt. In the second place, historians developed a bent for sociological analysis that benefited from its proximity to facts. Niebuhr’s attention to institutions and to the question of the effects of policies and reforms and Thierry’s attention to racial factors may serve as examples. This hardly ever amounted to explicit theorizing, but it very often implied sociological theories though, needless to say, they were none the better for not being properly articulated. Moreover, much more than before, we observe interest in economic phenomena per se. This interest manifested itself even where we should least expect it, in the field of ancient history, 14 on the one hand, and in the ‘pictorial’ history of the period, on the other. Lord Macaulay’s History of England (1848–61) illustrates to perfection what I mean by pictorial history—history that concentrates on the picturesque military or political events and narrates them with an eye to stirring effect. But Macaulay has chapters descriptive of economic and social conditions that are indeed effective pictures but entirely different ones. An analogous statement holds for L.A.Thiers’ History of the French Revolution (1st French ed., 1823–7; English trans. 1838). In the third place, there was a literature, important by virtue of achievement but still more important as the basis of later developments, that may be described as the product of the purely scientific wing of the historical school of jurisprudence or as the product of the institutionalist wing of the historians. I shall illustrate this by the names of four eminent men whose lines of research, widely though they differed from one another, all come within the category envisaged. Maurer 15 was the leading though not unchallenged authority on the social organization of medieval Germany, and his theories exerted influence far and wide throughout the nineteenth century—even after they had become obsolete. Fustel de Coulanges’ famous book, which penetrated into the general reading of the educated (but not, so far as I can see, into that of economists), arranged the fruits of scholarly work around a theory to the effect that religion is the most important factor in shaping the legal and political institutions of a society, a theory that, owing to the close correlation between the various departments of national life, will never be contradicted by facts, even though it should be wrong or inadequate. 16 Sir Henry Maine’s (1822–88) leadership belongs to the next period, but the work that spread his fame belongs to this. It 14 Examples are, Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener, a study of Athenian finance by August Böckh (1817) and, still more significant, the Ideen über die Politik, den Verkehr, und den Handel der vornehmsten Völker der alten Welt (1793–1812, English trans. 1833–4) by A.H.L.Heeren. The influence of this great scholar and teacher extended over a wide domain that also included political geography. 15 G.L.von Maurer (1790–1872), Geschichte der Markenverfassung in Deutschland (1856); Geschichte der…Hofverfassung in Deutschland (1862–3); Geschichte der Dorfverfassung in Deutschland (1865–6); Geschichte der Städteverfassung in Deutschland (1869–71). 16 N.D.Fustel de Coulanges (1830–89), La Cité antique (mainly the Greek city state or polis), 1864; English trans. 1874. History of economic analysis 402 presents a most instructive piece of a historian’s theorizing. 17 Finally, the historico- ethnological work of J.J.Bachofen 18 must be mentioned, though its influence also belongs in the next period. Finally, in the fourth place, Kulturgeschichte, 19 though not of course a new phenomenon, established itself as a recognized specialty. Its bearings upon our subject are obvious. It may paint murals or it may paint miniatures. The footnote below mentions the outstanding masters of the two forms, Burckhardt and Riehl. 20 3. SOCIOLOGY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE: ENVIRONMENTALISM We know that sociology dates from the scholastics and even from the Greeks. But the status of a recognized field of research it did not acquire before the next period (see Part IV, ch. 3). In the period under discussion sociology was indeed, as we have put it above, baptized by Comte, but no great importance should be attributed to this fact. It is true that there was plenty of important sociological work. But it remained unco-ordinated and unsystematized. Most of it we have noticed already. We may speak of a philosopher’s sociology, a lawyer’s sociology, a historian’s sociology. Each of them took many forms that differ widely from, and stand in the most varied relations to, one another. It is 17 Sir Henry Maine, Ancient Law (1861). Students of economics should know more about Maine’s work than the slogan ‘from status to contract.’ 18 That is, the one work of Bachofen’s that I shall mention: Mutterrecht (1861), the fountainhead of a whole literature on matriarchy. 19 Another word that is refractory to translation except by the un-English phrase, history of culture. History of civilization is not quite right. History of civil society would be still more misleading. 20 Of Jakob Burckhardt’s (1818–97) imposing works, it will suffice, for our purpose, to mention Die Kultur der Renaissance (1860; English trans. 1878). The nature of the performance, which I trust is familiar to every reader, is difficult to define in general terms. Perhaps this phrase will come as near to defining it as it is within my power: a vision of an epoch’s life in terms of art and politics (both taken in the widest possible sense). The essential point that differentiates such a structure from the history of any of the things that furnish the material for it—from the history of art and literature per se, or science per se, or economic, social, or any other politics per se—is that these things do not stand in the structure for their own sake, but for the sake of expressing, functionally, some larger and deeper reality. Jakob Burckhardt’s place in the history of thought transcends this performance, and the influences (Ranke’s among them) that helped to form him and the influences that emanated from him would be interesting to analyze. But the popularity of the work I mentioned must not deceive us concerning his influence as a social philosopher or political thinker, He was too far removed from the liberal slogans of his time and then again too far removed from any prophetic wrath about them to wield much influence. W.H.Riehl (1823–97) might have been included in the next section’s report. For his work is still more definitely relevant to professional sociology than is Burckhardt’s. But the elements of his sociology (some of them anything but bombproof) would have to be picked out from what, fortunately, always remained historical work. I do not think that his influence went much beyond Germany’s frontiers. But perusal of his Kulturstudien aus drei Jahrhunderten (1859) would do a lot of good to students of economics. This book might be an excellent substitute for some of the items on our current reading lists. The Intellectual scenery 403 dangerous to force these forms into large categories. But, for the purpose of a summary review, they may be divided into an ‘abstract’ and a ‘historical’ compound. In practical importance, Benthamite utilitarianism stands first among the former, 1 historical jurisprudence first among the latter. In this section we shall adopt, as far as possible, this schema. In addition an attempt will be made to supplement our sociological harvest by whatever we can glean from the period’s literature on government and politics, for which the phrase Political Science then came increasingly into use, and by a brief glance at a line of thought that should interest economists particularly, Environmentalism. (a) The Natural-Law Sociology of Government and Politics. Let us recall three results that have been established previously at various turns of our way. First, the historical origin of all social science is in the concept of Natural Law, which was from very early stages associated with more or less definite concepts of ‘community’ or ‘society.’ The Greeks may have confused the latter with the concept of government. It would have been natural for them to do so under the conditions of the polis. But the scholastic doctors were proof against this analytic mistake, because the practical problems of their age and their own position in the social organism could not fail to make it clear to them that the State or the Government—or the ‘Prince’—is a distinct agent with interests of its own that do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the people or the community (the Common Good). That ‘society’ was a discovery of the philosophers of natural law, of the romanticists, or of still later groups is one of the legends of the history of sociology. 2 Second, we have seen that utilitarianism was a natural-law system. Like all natural-law systems, it was all-embracing in principle and very nearly so in actual practice. It was conceived as a unitary social science that was both normative and analytic and, among other things, included ethics, government, and legal institutions down to all the details of judicial procedure and criminological practice—in both of which Bentham himself was at least as intensely interested as he was in any economic question. Third, we know that this unitary social science of utilitarianism was individualist, empiricist, and ‘rationalist,’ the last term meaning here simply that the system, both in its analytic and in its normative aspects, strictly excluded everything that would not pass the test of utilitarian or hedonist rationality. The reader will save himself much trouble and greatly improve his understanding of doctrinal history if he gives due consideration to two vital facts. First, individualism does not necessarily 1 Other types of sociologies, or fragments of sociologies, that were abstract in the sense that they proceeded from a few ‘first principles,’ are to be found chiefly in the writings of speculative philosophers. Thus, Kant presented what he described as Metaphysical Elements (Anfangsgründe) of the Theory of Law (Werke IX, pp. 72 et seq.). This theory was ‘abstract’ and nonhistorical enough. But it was, of course, anything but utilitarian. 2 If there is a writer who actually can be accused of confusing the State with Society, that writer is the romanticist A.Müller, for he called the state the ‘totality of human affairs’ (Elemente, vol. I, p. 60). History of economic analysis 404 Involve empiricism or rationalism in this sense; 3 empiricism does not necessarily involve individualism and rationalism in this sense; and rationalism in this sense does not necessarily involve individualism and empiricism. But, second, so powerful a synthesis as Bentham’s was bound to create, in the minds of foes as well as friends, an association between all the elements that enter into it which gave the impression of logical connection even where none existed. 4 Now, by virtue of its very nature, this system is incapable of taking account of the facts of political life and of the way in which states, governments, parties, and bureaucracies actually work. We have seen that its fundamental preconceptions do little harm in fields such as that part of economics where its ‘logic of stable and barn’ may be considered as a tolerable expression of actual tendencies. But its application to political fact spells unempirical and unscientific disregard of the essence—the very logic—of political structures and mechanisms, and cannot produce anything but wishful daydreams and not very inspiring ones at that. The freely voting rational citizen, conscious of his (long-run) interests, and the representative who acts in obedience to them, the government that expresses these volitions—is this not the perfect example of a nursery tale? Accordingly, we shall expect no contributions to a serviceable sociology of politics from this source. And this expectation is almost pathetically verified. Strong common sense redeems, to some extent, Bentham’s philosophy of government as presented in the Fragment on Government (1776) and, of course, very many of his practical recommendations on judicial procedure and the like. But James Mill’s ‘Essay on Government’ 5 can be described only as unrelieved nonsense though, so it seems, also ineradicable nonsense. Moreover, its purely speculative character—so unlike the character of the same author’s no doubt abstract argument in his book on economic theory 6 —is 3 This sense of the term rationalism has, of course, nothing to do with the sense which we attributed to it in another place (II, ch. 1, sec. 6). But all along, these two and other meanings have been confused by many writers—a fertile source of mutual misunderstandings and of pointless antagonisms and controversies. 4 Actually, the situation was and is further complicated by the fact that, of the terms mentioned, only ‘empiricist’ (in the sense of antimetaphysical) has a fairly stable meaning. The preceding footnote shows that this is not so in the case of ‘rational’ or ‘rationalistic.’ The case of the term ‘individualism’ is still worse. 5 Encyclopaedia Britannica (suppl., 1823). 6 After all that has been said above, the difference should be obvious. But the point is important both for our immediate object, which is to show why general objections against utilitarian premisses do not necessarily constitute objections in the particular case of economic theory, and for our wider aim, which is to understand why general objections against any philosophy do not in themselves dispose of any particular theory that, actually or apparently, links up with that philosophy. Therefore, let me restate the argument in still a different form: any theory involves abstractions and therefore will never fit reality exactly, hence economic theory is inevitably unrealistic in this sense; but its premisses are induced from realistic observation of the profit- seeking and calculating businessman; the premisses of political theory (style James Mill) are not induced from observations of the agent of politics, the politician, but postulated from a completely imaginary agent, the rational voter; therefore these premisses, hence results that are derived from them, are not merely abstract but also unrealistic in a different sense. The Intellectual scenery 405 obvious. This was realized at the time by many non-utilitarians such as Macaulay. But much more important is it that J.S.Mill (without mentioning his father’s name) applied to the political theory of the Benthamite school the unflinching epithet ‘unscientific’ (Logic, VI, ch. 8, 3) and that in addition, his sentences vibrating with suppressed impatience, he said practically everything else that needs to be said about it. In this, as in so many respects, he rose above his early Benthamism. But he never shook off its shackles entirely: though his essays On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government are no doubt redeemed, in part, by wider horizons and deeper insight, they are still ‘philosophical radicalism.’ It will thus remain forever a matter of the historian’s personal equation whether J.S.Mill’s theory spells abandonment or improvement of that of his father. 7 Non-utilitarian and anti-utilitarian philosophers also continued to produce systems of natural law—and corresponding philosophies of the state—but of much more restricted scope, most of which reflect the influence of the romantic mood or else the influence of Kant or Hegel. 8 The harvest to be gathered for our purposes from this field is small indeed. Lawyers, too, continued to produce natural-law speculations. The most valuable ones were, however, in special fields, such as constitutional or criminal law. 9 More comprehensive enterprise of this type was being rapidly discouraged by the rising prestige of the historical school. 10 An extremely influential performance of this kind, Stahl’s, must however be noticed. 11 For the rest, lecturers 7 Exactly as in the case of the theory of value, as we shall see more fully later on; in all parts of his wide domain, J.S.Mill’s intellectual situation and character asserted themselves in precisely the same way. 8 A fairly long list, chiefly of German performances—for England, T.H.Green’s would have to be mentioned—could be compiled. We merely recall one of the earliest and most influential that has been mentioned already, Fichte’s Grundlage des Naturrechts (1796–7). Hegel’s glorification of the state as the embodiment of Absolute Reason is mentioned as a curiosum only. No wonder he was popular with the Prussian bureaucracy. 9 As an example, I mention P.J.A.von Feuerbach’s (not to be confused with the philosopher L.A.Feuerbach) criminology: Kritik des natürlichen Rechts (1796). 10 But let the reader keep this in mind: the historical school fought abstract speculation of either the Benthamite ‘empiricist’ or the German ‘idealistic’ types, because these were the types with which natural law had become identified; they fought natural law as such. From out standpoint, however, there is no point in doing this, and any generalization produced by jurists of the historical school should also be included in the corpus of natural law, just as the historical economist’s generalizations are still economics and may even enter the concept of economic theory (e.g. in the case of ‘theories’ of the origins of markets). 11 F.J.Stahl (Philosophie des Rechts nach geschichtlicher Ansicht, vol. I, 1850; vol. II, 1837) was a sort of Lutheran Filmer and rose to be a power in the intellectual life of Prussia in the era of Frederick William IV. The title of that work is justified in the case of vol. I by its attack upon utilitarian natural-law rationalism (and, incidentally to this, by sympathy with the standpoint of the historical school of jurisprudence) but is a misnomer for vol. II, where Stahl, having found his bearings, attacked the historical school of jurisprudence and based himself squarely upon Lutheran theology. Informed readers will miss the name of K.Frantz (Naturlehre des Staates, 1870), as they will many others, e.g. that of Joseph de Maistre, and the whole contiguous literature on Church and State. In defense, I can only point to the particular purposes of this fragmentary sketch. History of economic analysis 406 displayed a significant tendency to turn their lectures on philosophy of law into lectures on the history of the philosophy of law. 12 (b) The Historians’ Sociology of Government and Politics. Writers who were professional historians or at least had an eye for historical reality were bound to do better than utilitarian or other theorists as far as politics is concerned, for it is more difficult for historians to neglect facts that stare them in the face. Edmund Burke, for example, was a man who saw the concrete situation with passionate energy—whether indulging in bursts of wrath or proffer-ing sober advice—and knew how to distill generalizations from them that have established the reputation of his writings as a storehouse of political wisdom even with people who bore no love to his politics: it might be said that he taught politics by the case method and, as everyone knows, very effectively. 13 Again, nobody has ever commended Lord Macaulay for profundity of thought. But as regards insight into the nature of political processes, he was immeasurably superior to James Mill, and his criticism of the latter’s presentation of the political theory of utilitarianism in the Edinburgh Review (1829) was perfectly adequate as far as it went although it did not go very far. Politics was still a ‘science’ to him (not the object of a science) though an ‘experimental’ 14 one—by which he simply meant that 12 It is with reluctance that I leave a topic that was a close neighbor of economics on the continent of Europe and in whose province the explanation may be found of many a peculiarity of continental economics, among other things, of the proficiency of German economists on the institutionalist side of their science: links that had to be fought for elsewhere, especially in the United States at the time of the institutionalist controversy, were a matter of course for the products of many, if not most, continental universities. The continental student of economics absorbed a sociology of legal institutions—that meant much for his intellectual equipment—in many cases before he had had a word of technical economics. I shall therefore mention the names of two eminent men, who were no doubt jurists first and last but who nevertheless helped to form many an economist. Their influence belongs in the next period rather than in the one under discussion, but both published their most characteristic work before 1870. Rudolph von Gneist (1816–95) was a typically Anglophile German liberal, an authority in many fields but especially in constitutional and administrative law. See Das heutige englische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsrecht (1857–63). Rudolph von Jhering (1818–92), Geist des römischen Rechts (1852–65). Neither has been translated so far as I know, although later works of both of them were (e.g. Gneist’s Englische Verfassungsgeschichte, 1882, English trans. 1889; Jhering’s Zweck im Recht, 1877–83, English trans. 1913). 13 Edmund Burke’s (1729–97) name—no particulars are necessary—cannot be omitted from any survey, however sketchy, of the intellectual scenery of the period, though chronologically his most characteristic performances belong to the preceding one. Students of economics should peruse his writings carefully to learn not only how people should reason on political questions but also how people do reason in these matters. As the reader sees, I find it difficult to join the general chorus of admiration for Burke as a thinker. In fact, the man who defined a political party as a group of people who co-operate in order to further the public interest on some principles on which they are all agreed was certainly no profound analyst; moreover, he was clearly infected by the tendency of his time to take rationalizations for analytic explanation. The reader can easily satisfy himself of the lack of realism in Burke’s definition by trying to apply it, e.g., to the two great American parties. 14 It is amusing to observe this use of the term ‘experimental.’ The utilitarians, being empiricist philosophers and believers in the application of the methods of physics, specifically claimed that The Intellectual scenery 407 their procedure was ‘experimental.’ These attempts by both ‘theorists’ and ‘antitheorists’ to appropriate a term that, through the successes of physical experimentation, had acquired a eulogistic connotation also runs through the whole history of economics from the seventeenth century as will be noted again and again. Actually the term as applied to social phenomena is next to meaningless; what the writers who use it mean to convey must be ascertained separately in each case. the utilitarian principles of politics were out of contact with political reality and that generalizations could be arrived at only by observations of political reality. He did not try to formulate such generalizations explicitly. Had he done so, they would, we may be sure, have turned out to be idealized Whig politics. This was the case also with those historians who did try their hands at political generalization. 15 Finally, let us recall what I believe to be the finest flower of the period’s literature of political analysis: de Tocqueville’s De la Démocratie en Amérique (1835–40). 16 What is the nature of the performance that produced one of the ‘great books’ of the period? It conveyed no discovery of fact or principle; it did not use any elaborate technique; it did nothing to court the public (especially the American public). An extremely intelligent mind, nurtured on the fruits of an old civilization, took infinite trouble as to observations and brilliantly subdued them to serve an analytic purpose. This was all. But it is much. And I know of no other book that would train us better in the art of succeeding in this particular kind of political analysis. But the period’s great performance in the field of political sociology stands in the name of Karl Marx. We are not yet in possession of the facts that are necessary to establish this. They will be supplied in the next section (4b). Here I wish merely to say by way of anticipation that Marx’s theories of history, of social classes, and of the state (government) 17 constitute, on the one hand, the first serious attempts to bring the state 15 The subject being very important for us, I shall mention a few examples: the Grundzüge der Politik (1862) by the historian Georg Waitz is by far the most creditable one I know, though not free from intellectualist fallacies; the Politik auf den Grund und das Maass der gegebenen Zustände zurückgeführt (1835) by the strongly partisan (liberal) historian F.C.Dahlmann is an able piece of analysis; the Lehrbuch des Vernunftrechts und der Staatswissenschaften (1829–35) by the still more partisan (radical) historian K.W.R.von Rotteck is an illustration of the truth that, given sufficiently close-fitting blinkers, a man may completely lose that sense for historical reality which is the main practical advantage to be derived from historical study. Finally, it is convenient to mention in this place a book that belongs chronologically in the next period but is an excellent example of the Political Science of the best historians of the period under discussion: J.R.Seeley’s Introduction to Political Science (first edited by H.Sidgwick in 1896—the gleanings from Seeley’s ‘conversation classes’ on the subject that were so interesting a deviation from the current practice of formal lectures). 16 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) needs no introduction, for his name and work have penetrated into secondary schools—a success only the more difficult to explain because it was so thoroughly deserved. Attention is invited to the rest of his writings. See Oeuvres completes (ed. Beaumont, 1860–65). 17 Marx’s truly sociological, i.e. nonspeculative, theory of the state is contained, in a nutshell, in the Communist Manifesto and is there summed up in the pithy sentence that a government is a committee for the management of the common interests of the bourgeoisie. There is, therefore, no such thing as a socialist state—the state as such dies in the transition to socialism, a proposition that has been taken over and much emphasized by Lenin (!). It is impossible to say here all that should be said about this theory of the state and of politics. That central sentence is, of course, a half-truth History of economic analysis 408 at best. But it suggests indirectly something that is much more important than is that half-truth, viz. the idea that the state (government, politicians, and bureaucrats) is not something to philosophize on or to adore but something to be analyzed as realistically as we analyze, e.g., any industry. down from the clouds and, on the other hand, the best criticism, by implication, of the Benthamite construct. Unfortunately, this scientific theory of the state, like so much else in Marxist thought, is all but spoiled by the particularly narrow ideology of its author. What a pity, but at the same time, what a lesson and what a challenge! Two examples will illustrate another type of political analysis that, from negligible beginnings in the eighteenth century, made some advance during that period, though it did not get very far. As soon as political analysis becomes alive to the claims of scientific methods, it is bound to run up against problems of criticism—in the logical, not in the political sense: criticism of political concepts and of political reasoning—and of mechanisms. The book of a man who was himself an eminent politician, Sir George Cornewall Lewis (1802–63) illustrates that awakening to critical consciousness. 18 The later book of another man who also was something of a politician, though primarily an academic leader, Franz von Holtzendorff (1829–89), illustrates a growing sense of the necessity of analyzing the mechanism of public opinion. 19 (c) Environmentalism. A Zeitgeist that contains a component of mechanist—or what amounts almost to the same thing, sensationalist—materialism will, in exact proportion to the relative strength of this component, favor sociological theories that emphasize the explanatory value of environmental factors. Accordingly, we find a streak of environmentalist thought that may be described as a vulgarized form of Montesquieu’s. 20 Two examples will suffice. Feuerbach, the philosopher (not the lawyer), made man a product of his physical environment. If we add those qualifications that are necessary in order to raise this proposition to the level at which it becomes possible to discuss it at all, we have here a theory that has, explicitly and implicitly, come to the fore again in our own time. His 18 Treatise on the Method of Observation and Reasoning in Politics (1852)—a forgotten book by a half-forgotten man. Yet both deserve to survive. The former is strongly recommended to the reader because economists greatly need instruction of the kind it imparts. The latter we have had occasion to mention in passing (above, ch. 2). 19 Wesen und Wert der öffentlichen Meinung (1879). Von Holtzendorff also wrote Principien der Politik (1869), which does not seem to me to amount to much. None of the other works of this prolific writer (though some of the fruits of his editorial activities) are known to me. 20 Montesquieu does not seem to me to have overrated the explanatory value of environmental factors. How far environmentalist arguments that occur fairly frequently in the sociological literature of the second half of the eighteenth century—e.g. in Herder’s writings—should be traced to his influence, I do not feel able to say. The Esprit des lois was one of the most famous and most extensively read books of that century. On the other hand, there were so many other sources from which a man might have drawn environmentalist inspirations that it is difficult to make positive assertions even in cases where Montesquieu was quoted. The Intellectual scenery 409 emphasis, within environmental factors, upon food 21 is also in evidence in our second example, Buckle. 22 If space allowed us to do so, we should have to consider his work under three aspects which, as it is, can only be indicated. First, there is an idea: to reduce history to a science by arriving, through ‘induction’ from observed facts, at ‘laws’ of the same kind as what Buckle conceived the ‘laws’ of physics to be. In intention, Buckle’s interpretation of history, and not Marx’s, is the truly ‘materialistic’ one—which is, of course, all to the credit of Marx. Nothing is more obvious, however, as soon as one delves into Buckle’s work, than the fact that this idea is purely ideological in nature: it is what he wished to carry into effect, whereas he was actually swayed by pure speculation that from first to last forced facts into a preconceived schema. Second, there is the conceptual implementation of the idea, consisting of three types of ‘laws’ that determine social states and their changes—physical, moral (i.e., propositions on human behavior), and intellectual. The latter (mainly growth of technological control over physical environments) supply the motive power of ‘progress,’ a principle that links up with what we shall presently describe as Condorcet-Comte evolutionism. As far as these aspects are concerned, namely, the analytic ones, even the little we have said about the book is too much: its importance consists wholly in providing a case study in analytic miscarriage, which may teach us to look out for speculative propensities behind a nonspeculative program and for dilettantism behind an apparently large scientific apparatus. But there is, third, the almost unbelievable success this book has had with all types of people, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, English and foreign. It is this success only that raises the book to significance: it was one of the items of the layman’s reading, one of the educators of that period’s public mind. As such its teaching is an important element in the intellectual scenery we are trying to visualize. Like other ‘theories,’ environmentalism can easily be carried to a point where it becomes obvious nonsense. But within its sphere, it is an indispensable helper of the analyst of social phenomena—as it proved to be, for example, for Michelet. The case may be illustrated by the (in this respect) similar case of ‘racialism.’ It is a melancholy but very important observation to make that in the social sciences factors are always at work that will drive such theories to the point of nonsense and—what is very much the same thing—turn them into bones of contention for ideological and political parties. Both environmentalism and racialism suit so many books that neither is allowed to make its 21 L.A.Feuerbach (Sämmtliche Werke, 1903–11, vol. X, p. 22) coined the phrase: ‘Der Mensch ist was er isst.’ The pun loses in translation: ‘Man is what he eats’—one of those phrases that express a whole mental world. Feuerbach’s writings were part of a literary current that popularized what Marx and Engels so well described as ‘vulgar materialism.’ Let us notice in passing this very significant fact: many if not all ideas of Feuerbach should have appealed to Marx for they agreed well with one aspect of Marx’s work. Nevertheless, Marx fought them in season and out of season (see e.g. Marx-Engels Archiv, I, 1926, and Engels’ Ludwig Feuerbach…, 1888; English trans. by A.A.Lewis, 1903), often with arguments that, coming from him, were not very convincing. The explanation is simple, however: whatever else he was, Marx was a highly civilized man; it was beyond him to swallow that sort of thing. 22 H.T.Buckle, History of Civilization in England (2 vols., 1857–61). The work is a torso; in fact it is not more than an introduction to what was conceived as a huge enterprise. There is a considerable Buckle literature. History of economic analysis 410 contribution to our understanding of social processes—their friends and their foes alike join forces to prevent this consummation. Let us notice again a work of the period which, with remarkable freedom from bias, succeeded in balancing the environmentalist and racial element in a way that was quite satisfactory as far as it went: F.T. (not Georg) Waitz’s Anthropologie der Naturvölker (1859–64)—especially the first volume. 4. EVOLUTIONISM Social phenomena constitute a unique process in historic time, and incessant and irreversible change is their most obvious characteristic. If by Evolutionism we mean not more than recognition of this fact, then all reasoning about social phenomena must be either evolutionary in itself or else bear upon evolution. Here, however, evolutionism is to mean more than this. One may recognize the fact without making it the pivot of one’s thought and the guiding principle of one’s method. The utilitarian system may serve to illustrate this. James Mill would have smiled at a questioner who asked him whether he was aware of the occurrence of social changes, and he would have, in addition, conceived a poor opinion of the questioner’s intelligence. Yet his various systems—in economic, political, and psychological theory—were not evolutionary in the sense that his thought in any of those fields turned upon evolution. And it is this that shall be the criterion of evolutionism for us, both as regards philosophy—comprising also purely metaphysical speculation—and as regards any ‘scientific’ field. Evolutionism in this sense asserted itself in the course of the eighteenth century but reached and passed its high-water mark in the nineteenth. Attention is drawn to the presence of a disturbing factor, the influence of which will be felt in many ways and not only in this section. In itself, the concept of evolution is perfectly free from any valuation except within well-defined standards. 1 As far as this goes, we merely recognize that people will describe a change as progress if they like it, and as retrogression or degeneration if they dislike it. But in the eighteenth century evolution was naïvely identified with progress—toward the rule of la raison—that is to say, it carried a value judgment by definition. And this naïve association of ideas persisted throughout the nineteenth century, though signs of its gradual dissolution appeared in serious research work as time went on. The bourgeois whose business and class position prospered had any amount of confidence in ‘progress’ of certain types, and he and the literary exponent of the bourgeois mind displayed a lamentable tendency to link this confidence in a certain set of desired changes with some ineluctible forces that move civilizations or even the universe. But we must try to keep clear of such infantilisms, however important they are as features of the Zeitgeist. 1 Thus, within the range of the accepted standards of the dental profession, it is a meaningful proposition to aver that at the present time teeth are being extracted ‘more efficiently’ than a century ago and even that dentist A extracts teeth ‘more efficiently’ than does dentist B. An analogous statement applies to technical economic theory. But obviously this is no longer so when it comes to comparisons of social structures or civilizations and outside of the range of specified standards in general. The Intellectual scenery 411 . neighbor of economics on the continent of Europe and in whose province the explanation may be found of many a peculiarity of continental economics, among other things, of the proficiency of German. the particular purposes of this fragmentary sketch. History of economic analysis 406 displayed a significant tendency to turn their lectures on philosophy of law into lectures on the history. interests of the people or the community (the Common Good). That ‘society’ was a discovery of the philosophers of natural law, of the romanticists, or of still later groups is one of the legends of