ADVERTISEMENT

By the American Editor.

No work upon Political Economy has appeared in Europe, since the publication of Dr. Adam Smith's profound and original Inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of Na tions, that has attracted more general attention, and received more distinguished marks of approbation from competent judges, than the "Traite D'Economie Politique" of M. Say. The first edition of this treatise was printed in Paris in the year 1803; and, subsequently, it has passed through four large editions, that have received various corrections and improvements from the author. Translations of it have, also, been made into the German, Spanish, Italian, and other languages; and it has been adopted as a text-book in all the universities of the continent of Europe in which this new but essential branch of liberal education is now taught. The two former American editions of the following translation have also been introduced into several of the most respectable of our own seminaries of learning.

It is unquestionably the most methodical, comprehensive, and best digested treatise on the elements of Political Economy, that has yet been presented to the world. It contains a clear and systematical view of all the solid and important doctrines of this very extensive and difficult science, unfolded in their proper order and connexion. The reasonings employed by the author in defence of his principles are, with but a few exceptions, logical and accurate, delivered with distinctness and perspicuity, and supported by the fullest and most satisfactory illustrations. By a rigid adherence to the inductive method of investigation, in the prosecution of almost every part of his inquiry, M. Say has effected a nearly complete analysis of the numerous and complicated phenomena of Wealth,

and has thus been enabled to lay down and establish, with all the evidence of demonstration, the simple and general laws on which its production, distribution, and consumption depend. The few slight and inconsiderable errors into which the author has fallen in the course of his investigation do not, in the opinion of the editor, impair the general soundness and consistency of his text, although, it is true, they are blemishes that disfigure it. But these are of rare occurrence, and the false conclusions involved in them may be easily detected and refuted, by recurrence to the leading fundamental principles of the work, with which they are manifestly at variance and contradict.

The foundation of the science of Political Economy had been laid, and the only successful method of prosecuting our researches in it, pointed out and exemplified, by the illustrious author of the Wealth of Nations; and many of its theoretical doctrines had been developed and explained by various other eminent writers on the same subject, who both preceded and followed him. But, neither the scientific genius and penetrating sagacity of the former, nor the brilliant talents and persevering industry of many of the latter, were sufficient to effect an entire and perfect solution of the most difficult and abstruse problems which form the basis of this important study. Aided, however, by their valuable labours, and the materials they had collected and arranged, and proceeding in the same path, M. Say, with a closeness and minuteness of attention due to its importance, has succeeded in examining, under all their aspects, the particular phenomena which the ground-work of this science presents, and by rejecting and excluding all accidental circumstances has traced up their ultimate laws or principles.

Accordingly, the author of this treatise, by pursuing the inductive method of investigation has, in the most strict and philosophical manner, demonstrated the true nature of Value, deduced its origin, and presented a clear and accurate explanation of its theory. His definition of Wealth is, therefore, more precise and correct than that of any of his predecessors in this inquiry. The operation of human industry, which Dr. Adam Smith, not with the strictest propriety, denominates labour, the important agency of natural powers, the functions of capital, and the relative services of these three instruments, as well as the

modes in which they all concur in the business of production, were first distinctly and fully pointed out and illustrated by our author. In this way he successfully unfolded the manner in which production takes place, and imparts value to products, in Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce. In distinguishing re-productive from un-productive consumption, M. Say has exhibited the exact nature of capital and its agency in production, and thence has shown why economy is a source of national wealth. Such are this author's peculiar and original speculations, the fruits of deep and patient meditation on the phenomena observed. The elementary principles derived from them, with others previously ascertained, he has combined into one harmonious, consistent, and beautiful system. But some of these solid and well established positions have been criticised and objected to, as inconclusive and inadmissible, by Mr. Ricardo and by Mr. Malthus, two of the ablest and most celebrated political economists among our author's contemporaries. Other doctrines in relation to the nature and origin of Value have been advanced by them, and with so much plausibility too, that some of the most acute reasoners of the present day have not been sufficiently on their guard against them. The mathematical cast given to their reasonings by these writers, has captivated and led astray the understandings of their most intelligent and sagacious readers, and induced them to adopt as scientific truths, what, when properly investigated and analysed, are found to be merely specious hypotheses. Hence it is, that a theory of Value, purely gratuitous, has been extolled in one of the principal literary journals of Great Britain as being "no less logical and conclusive than it was profound and important." Our author, therefore, deemed it necessary to examine the arguments brought forward in support of these views of his opponents, in order to test their soundness and accuracy, and to submit his own principles to a further review, that he might become satisfied, that the conclusions he had deduced from them had not been in any manner invalidated.

In the notes appended by M. Say to the French translation of Mr. Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, the reader will find what the editor deems a masterly and conclusive refutation of the theoretical errors of this author. M. Say's strictures upon the twentieth chapter of the work,

entitled, "Value and Riches, their Distinctive Properties," are in his opinion decisive and unanswerable. The fallacies contained in Mr. Ricardo's theory of Value, which, the editor thinks, may be traced to an anxiety to give consistency to the loose and inaccurate assertion of Dr. Adam Smith, that exchangeable value is entirely derived from human labour, are there fully exposed, and his whole train of reasoning shown to rest upon an unwarrantable assumption. It must however be conceded that Mr. Ricardo was an intrepid and uncompromising reasoner, who always proceeded in the most direct and fearless manner from his premises to the conclusion. But not uniting, with the strongest powers of reasoning, a capacity for analytical subtilty, he sometimes did not perceive verbal ambiguities in the formation of his premises, and transitions in the signification of his terms in the conduct of his argument, which, in these instances, vitiated his conclusions. The fundamental errors into which he has fallen, accordingly, do not arise from any want of strictness in his deductions, but from undue generalizations and perversions of language. In M. Say's Letters to Mr. Malthus, which have been translated into English by Mr. Richter, the points at issue between these two eminent political economists are discussed in the most luminous, impartial and satisfactory manner; and by all candid and unprejudiced critics must be considered as bringing the controversy to a close.

It is not his intention, nor would it be proper on this occasion, for the editor further to enter into the merits of the controversial writings of our author. Any dispassionate inquirer, who will take the pains carefully to review the whole ground in dispute, will, he thinks, find, that these writings contain a triumphant vindication of such of the author's general principles as had been assailed by his ingenious opponents. Whenever the study of the science of Political Economy shall be more generally cultivated as an essential branch of early education, most of the abstruse questions involved in the controversies which now divide the writers on this subject will be brought to a conclusion; the accession of useful knowledge it will occasion will more effectually eradicate the prejudices which have given birth to these disputes and misconceptions, than any direct argumentative refutation.

The great merits of M. Say's treatise on Political Economy are now well known and highly estimated in Great Britain, by that class of speculative readers who take a deep interest in the progress of a science, which " aims at the improvement of society," as DUGALD STEWART so truly remarks, "not by delineating plans of new constitutions, but by enlightening the policy of actual legislators;" a science, therefore, with the right understanding of whose principles the welfare and happiness of mankind are intimately connected.

In alluding to this excellent work of M. Say, Mr. Ricardo remarks, "that its author not only was the first, or among the first, of continental writers, who justly appreciated and applied the principles of Smith, and who has done more than all other continental writers taken together, to recommend the principles of that enlightened and beneficial system to the nations of Europe; but who has succeeded in placing the science in a more logical, and more instructive order; and has enriched it by several discussions, original, accurate, and profound."

The English public has for some time been in possession of the present excellent translation of this treatise by Mr. Prinsep; the first edition of which was published in London in the spring of 1821. It is executed with spirit, elegance and general fidelity, and is a performance, in every respect, worthy of the original. It is here given to the American reader without any alteration.

The translator wasted much ingenuity, in various notes which he thought proper to subjoin to the text, by endeavouring to overthrow some of the author's elementary principles, which, notwithstanding, are as fixed and immutable as the facts which constitute their basis. Had Mr. Prinsep more thoroughly studied M. Say's profound theoretical views on the subject of Value, and had he, also, made himself acquainted, which it no where appears that he has done, with the powerful and successful defence of these doctrines, contained in the notes on Mr. Ricardo's work, and in the letters to Mr. Malthus, already referred to, he perhaps might have discovered, that they are the ultimate generalizations of facts, which, agreeably to the most ligitimate rules of philosophising, the author was entitled to lay down as general laws or principles. At all events, Mr. Prinsep should not have ventured upon an