The Physiocrats
Henry Higgs
[The Preface to the book The Physiocrats, Six
Lectures on the French Economistes of the 18th Century, published by
Macmillan and Co. Limited, 1897. NOTE: This book is reproduced from a
scanned text made available online but not corrected for errors. I
have performed a limited amount of editing where the scanning errors
were evident. That portion of the text that is in French has been left
as it was originally scanned. Additionally, the numbering sequence of
notes in the original began anew with each page. The notes are here
numbered consecutively as they appear in each chapter]
PREFACE
THIS little volume consists of lectures delivered before the London
School of Economics in May and June of the present year. Impossible
though it was found to give a truly adequate account of the
Physiocrats in these six lectures, it has been thought that they may
perhaps furnish a useful introduction to a subject upon which no book
has yet been written in the English language, though its study has,
during the last seven years, been deemed worthy to engage the active
attention of many leading economists on the Continent of Europe. In
Switzerland, Professor Oncken of Berne, and Professor Stern of Zurich;
in Germany, Professor Knies of Heidelberg, and Professor Hasbach of
Kiel; in France, M. Schelle; in Austria, Dr. Bauer of Brunn, and Dr.
Feilbogen of Vienna, are the most noteworthy recent contributors to
our knowledge of this important chapter of economic theory. More
hesitation would have been felt in publishing these lectures if M. de
Lavergne's charming essays on the French economists of the eighteenth
century had been translated into English. But the materials brought to
light since 1870 by the researches of Professor Oncken, and the
brilliant discoveries of Dr. Bauer, would have made it necessary to
bring his work up to date, while it is evident that in choosing the
subjects for his cabinet of cameos Lavergne was influenced rather by
the fact that two of them (the Abbe" de St. Pierre and the
Marquis de Chastellux) were once, like himself, members of the French
Academy, than by their intrinsic importance as economists, while they
cannot, in any case, be ranked among the Physiocrats. The French
writer's example has been followed in the effort to make the lectures
interesting. To this end gleanings of research and minuter points of
difference among authorities have been deliberately sacrificed where
they appeared to be of secondary importance. For the same reason
critical and doctrinal comment has been restricted within the
narrowest limits. The reader who desires fuller information will turn
to the monographs mentioned in the lectures, and, above all, it is
hoped, to the original works of the Physiocrats themselves. HAMPSTEAD,
LONDON, 1896.
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