[254] J. B. Say, Traité, 1st ed., introduction, p. xxxiii.

[255] He was born at Lyons on January 5, 1767. After a visit to England he entered the employment of an assurance company, and took part as a volunteer in the campaign of 1792. From 1794 to 1800 he edited a review entitled Décade philosophique, littéraire et politique, par une Société de Républicains. He was nominated a member of the Tribunate in 1799. After the publication of his Traité, the First Consul, having failed to obtain a promise that the financial proposals outlined in the first edition would be eliminated in the second, dismissed him from the Tribunate, offering him the post of director of the Droits réunis as compensation. Say, who disapproved of the new régime, refused, and set up a cotton factory at Auchy-les-Hesdins in the Pas-de-Calais. He realised his capital in 1813, returned to Paris, and in 1814 published a second edition of his treatise. In 1816 he delivered a course of lectures on political economy at the Athénée, probably the first course given in France. These lectures were published in 1817 in his Catéchisme d’Économie politique. In 1819 the Restoration Government appointed him to give a course on “Industrial Economy” (the term “Political Economy” was too terrible). In 1831 he was made Professor of Political Economy in the Collège de France. He died in 1832. His Cours complet d’Économie politique was published, in six volumes, in 1828-29.

[256] Cf. a letter to Louis Say in 1827 (Œuvres diverses, p. 545).

[257] Garnier’s translation of Adam Smith, 1802, vol. v, p. 283.

[258] Traité, 1803 ed., p. 39.

[259] Ibid., p. 21. Later on he employs the more comprehensive term “natural agents.”

[260] Traité, 1803 ed., Book I, chaps. 42 and 43. By “industry” Say understands every kind of labour. Cf. 6th ed., pp. 70 et seq.

[261] Malthus still appeared hostile to the doctrine of immaterial products, but Lauderdale, Tooke, McCulloch, and Senior accepted it, and it seemed definitely fixed when Stuart Mill confined the word “product” to material products only. For Tooke’s view see his letter to J. B. Say in the Œuvres diverses of the latter.

[262] Traité, Book I, chap. 2. Is it not strange that Say should have failed to apply this idea to commerce? He regards the latter as productive because it creates exchangeable values. Nevertheless he criticises Condillac for having said that mere exchange of goods increases wealth because it increases the utility of objects. This is because Say is perpetually mixing up utility and exchange value, a confusion that leads him into many serious mistakes.

[263] Traité, 6th ed., p. 6. The word “laws” does not appear in the first edition. Say merely speaks of general principles. It is found for the first time in the edition of 1814: “General facts or, if one wishes to call principles by that name, general laws” (p. xxix).

[264] Correspondence with Malthus, in Œuvres diverses, p. 466.

[265] Traité, Introd., 1st ed., p. ix; 6th ed., p. 13.

[266] Ibid., 1st ed., Book I, p. 404.

[267] There is no need for exaggeration, however, and no need to regard Say as totally indifferent to suffering and misery. He declares, e.g., that “for many homes both in town and country life is one long privation,” and that thrift in general “implies, not the curtailment of useless commodities, such as expediency and humanity would welcome, but a diminution of the real needs of life, which is a standing condemnation of the economic system of many Governments.” (Traité, 1st ed., vol. i, pp. 97-98; 6th ed., p. 116.)

[268] Traité, 6th ed., p. 403.

[269] Ibid., 1st ed., vol. i, p. 48.

[270] Ibid., 5th ed., vol. i, p. 67.

[271] Critical examination of McCulloch’s treatise (1825), in Œuvres diverses, pp. 274-275.

[272] Traité, 6th ed., p. 349.

[273] “Rent,” he says, “doubtless is partly interest on capital buried in the soil, for there are few properties which do not owe something to improvements made in them. But their total value is seldom due to this alone. It might be if the land were fertile but lacked the necessary facilities for cultivation. But this is never the case in civilised countries.” (Critical examination of McCulloch’s treatise (1825), in Œuvres diverses, p. 277.)

[274] Traité, 1st ed., p. 154.

[275] “The theory of heat and of weight and the study of the inclined plane have placed the whole of nature at the disposal of mankind. In the same way the theory of exchange and of markets will change the whole policy of the world.” (Ibid., 6th ed., p. 51.)

[276] Traité, 1st ed., vol. ii, p. 175.

[277] Ibid., p. 179.

[278] Ibid., p. 178.

[279] “One kind of product would seldom be more plentiful than another and goods would seldom be too many if everyone were given complete freedom.” Too much stress has possibly been laid on the phrase “Certain products are superabundant just because others are wanting,” and it has been taken as implying that even partial over-production is an impossibility. A note inserted on the next page helps to clear up the matter and to prevent misunderstanding. “The argument of the chapter,” says he, “is not that partial over-production is impossible, but merely that the production of one thing creates the demand for another.” He certainly seems unfaithful to his own position in the letters he wrote to Malthus, in which he tries to defend his own point of view by saying that “production implies producing goods that are demanded,” and that consequently if there is any excessive production it is not the fault of production as such and cannot be regarded as over-production. In greater conformity with his own views and much nearer the truth is his reply to an article by Sismondi published in 1824 in the Revue encyclopédique under the title Sur la Balance des Consommations avec les Productions (Œuvres diverses, p. 250). His statements vary from one edition to another, and anything more unstable than Say’s views on this question would be difficult to imagine. The formula “Products exchange for products” is so general that it includes everything, but means nothing at all; for what is money, after all, if it is not a product?

[280] Letters to Malthus (Œuvres diverses, p. 466).

[281] Malthus, Principles of Political Economy, Book II, chap. 1, sect. 9.

[282] Sur la Balance des Consommations avec les Productions, p. 252.

[283] Ibid., p. 251.

[284] Dühring, Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Sozialismus, 2nd ed., 1875, p. 165. For the other side of the question one may profitably peruse the interesting study of Say contributed by M. Allix to the Revue d’Économie politique, 1910 (pp. 303-341), and the Revue d’Histoire des Doctrines, 1911, p. 321.

[285] Stanley Jevons (Theory of Political Economy, 3rd ed., 1888) has recognised in too absolute a fashion, perhaps, the superiority of the French economists over Ricardo. “The true doctrine may be more or less clearly traced through the writings of a succession of great French economists, from Condillac, Baudeau, and Le Trosne, through J. B. Say, Destutt de Tracy, Storch, and others, down to Bastiat and Courcelle-Seneuil. The conclusion to which I am ever more clearly coming is that the only hope of attaining a true system of economics is to fling aside, once and for ever, the mazy and preposterous assumptions of the Ricardian School.” (Preface, p. xlix.)

[286] “The people must comprehend that they are themselves the cause of their own poverty.” (Malthus, p. 458.) Doubtless this is the reason why M. Halévy, among others, in his book Le Radicalisme philosophique, remarks that Ricardo, Malthus, and their disciples were regarded as the exponents of optimism and quietism. But in what sense were they optimists? Of course they believed that the existing economic order is the best possible, and that it would be impossible to change it for a better. That may be. But we prefer to think of them as “contented pessimists.”

[287] “Every reader of candour must acknowledge that the practical design uppermost in the mind of the writer, with whatever want of judgment it may have been executed, is to improve the condition and increase the happiness of the lower classes of society.” It is with this declaration that Malthus brings his book on population to a close.

[288] Miss Edgeworth, a contemporary of Ricardo, states in her letters that political economy was so much the fashion that distinguished ladies before engaging a governess for their children inquired about her competence to teach political economy.

[289] Conversations on Political Economy, by Mrs. Marcet (1816). Illustrations of Political Economy, by Miss Martineau (9 vols., containing thirty stories, 1832-34).

[290] Thomas Robert Malthus was born in 1766. His father, a country gentleman, was a man of learning and a friend of most of the philosophers of his time, especially Hume, and, it also seems, J. J. Rousseau. He was the youngest son of the family, and was intended for the Church and given an excellent education. After leaving Cambridge he took a living in the country, but in 1807 was appointed professor at a college founded by the East India Company at Haileybury, in Hertfordshire, where he remained until his death in 1834. He married when thirty-nine years of age, and had three sons and a daughter.

Malthus was a young unmarried clergyman living in a small country parish when, at the age of thirty-two, he in 1798 published anonymously his famous Essay on the Principle of Population as it affects the Future Improvement of Society. His critics were legion. In order to devote more study to the subject, he took a three years’ tour (1799-1802) on the Continent—avoiding France, because France at this period was anything but inviting to an Englishman. In 1803 he published—under his own name this time—a second edition, much modified and amplified, and with a slightly different title: An Essay on the Principle of Population, or a View of its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness. Four other editions were published during his lifetime.

We must not forget his other works, although they were all eclipsed by his earliest effort. These were: The Principles of Political Economy considered with a View to their Practical Application (1820); A Series of Short Studies dealing with the Corn Laws (1814-15); On Rent (1815); The Poor Law (1817); and finally his Definitions in Political Economy (1827).

[291] See Stangeland, Pre-Malthusian Doctrines (New York, 1904).

[292] Godwin, Political Justice, Book VIII, chap. 7 (reprinted, London, 1890).

[293] “Man doubtless will never become immortal, but it is possible that the span of human life may be indefinitely prolonged.”

[294] Chap. 8 is entitled “The Error of Thinking that the Danger resulting from Population is Remote.” “There are few States in which there is not a constant effort in the population to increase beyond the means of subsistence. This constant effort as constantly tends to subject the lower classes of society to distress, and to prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition.” (P. 10.)

[295] If two children were the normal issue of every marriage, population would evidently diminish, for all the children will not reach the marriageable age. Of those that do all will not become parents. Experience seems to show that with a birth-rate of less than three per family population does not increase, or if it does grow at all it is almost imperceptibly. This is the case in France, where on an average there are 2·70 births to every marriage.

To justify multiplying by two, Malthus regards a family of six as being a normal one. Of the six, two will die before attaining marriageable age, or will remain celibates, so that we are left with four, who will in turn become parents, and so we have the series 2, 4, etc.

[296] The statement that population doubles every twenty-five years might appear to be confirmed by the growth of population in the United States. It is curious to find that the population there during the nineteenth century conforms exactly to Malthus’s formula. In 1800 it was 5 millions. Doubling four times (4 periods of 25 years = 100) gives us a population of 80 millions, which is actually the figure for 1905, five years after the end of the century. But of course this is pure chance, the increase resulting from immigration rather than a rising birth-rate.

[297] It was in this connection that Malthus penned those famous words which have been so frequently brought up against him, although they were omitted from a later edition. “A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents on whom he has a just demand, and if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At Nature’s mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone.…” On the other hand, let us remember his services in reorganising public assistance in England in 1832.

[298] “The effect of anything like a promiscuous intercourse which prevents the birth of children is evidently to weaken the best affections of the heart and in a very marked manner to degrade the female character. And any other intercourse would, without improper arts, bring as many children into the society as marriage, with a much greater probability of their becoming a burden to it.” (P. 450.)

[299] “These considerations show that the nature of chastity is not, as some have supposed, a forced produce of artificial society; but that it has the most real and solid foundation in nature and reason; being apparently the only virtuous means of avoiding the vice and misery which result so often from the principle of population.” (P. 450.)

He also notes that this virtue has usually been especially commended to women, but that “there is no reason for supposing that the violation of the laws of chastity are not equally dishonourable for both sexes.” Malthus evidently believed in one moral law for both sexes.

Consequently whenever the reverend gentleman is reproached with encouraging blasphemy, a point upon which he is particularly sensitive—for example, when it is pointed out that God’s injunction to man was to increase and multiply—he has no difficulty in showing that if procreation is the will of Providence, chastity is dictated by Christianity, and that the glorious work of chastity is to aid Providence in keeping even the balance of life.

[300] “Of the other branch of the preventive check, which comes under the head of vice, though its effect appears to have been very considerable, yet upon the whole its operation seems to have been inferior to the positive checks.” (P. 140.)

“I have said what I conceive to be strictly true, that it is our duty to defer marriage till we can feed our children; and that it is also our duty not to indulge ourselves in vicious gratifications; but I have never said that I expected either, much less both, of these duties to be completely fulfilled. In this and a number of other cases, it may happen that the violation of one of two duties will enable a man to perform the other with greater facility.… The moralist is still bound to inculcate the practice of both duties, and each individual must be left to act as his conscience shall dictate.” (P. 560.)

[301] “I should be extremely sorry to say anything which could either directly or remotely be construed unfavourably to the cause of virtue; but I certainly cannot think that the vices which relate to the sex are the only vices which are to be considered in a moral question.” (P. 462.) Malthus omits to mention the particular vice which he has in mind. “I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that the prudential check [note the word—no longer “moral restraint”] to marriage is better than premature mortality.” (P. 560.) We are far removed from the first edition, where there is no mention of a third alternative between chastity and vice.

[302] “Abject poverty is a state the most unfavourable to chastity that can well be conceived.… There is a degree of squalid poverty in which if a girl was brought up I should say that her being really modest at twenty was an absolute miracle.” (P. 464.) And elsewhere he writes: “I maintain that the diminution of the vice which results from poverty would afford a sufficient compensation for any other evil that might follow.”

[303] These figures only give the values expressed in money by capitalising them at the market rate of interest, which gives a rather fictitious result. It does not warrant the belief that an American citizen of to-day, however much his consumption may have increased, is any better off than his ancestors.

[304] These differ, again, from the desire for marriage, which is influenced by other considerations. French people marry in order to have a home, but a desire for a home and a desire for love or for children are very different things.

[305] “By a son a man obtains victory over all people; by a son’s son he enjoys immortality; and afterwards by the son of that grandson he reaches the solar abode.” “The son delivers his father from hell.” “A son of a Brahmin if he performs virtuous acts redeems from sin his ten ancestors.” (P. 105.)

This is Manu’s law, which Malthus quotes in support of his contention. But he failed to see that as soon as one begins to doubt Manu’s teaching the argument is the other way. One of the reasons why sterility was considered a dishonour by Jewish women was that each of them secretly hoped that she might become the mother of the promised Messiah. But when the Jews ceased to hope for the Deliverer that was to come, then the incentive to childbirth was gone.

[306] Neo-Malthusianism dates from the publication of Dr. Drysdale’s book, Elements of Social Science, in 1854, but the Malthusian League came into existence only in 1877. During the last few years the movement seems to have taken hold everywhere, especially in France, where we would least have expected it.

[307] He categorically declares that “we must suppose the general prevalence of such prudential habits among the poor as would prevent them from marrying when the actual price of labour joined to what they might have saved in their single state would not give them the prospect of being able to support a wife and five or six children without assistance.” (P. 536.) Marriage seems prohibited to every worker whose wages are not enough to keep eight persons, which practically would mean that no workman could marry.

[308] “I have been accused of proposing a law to prohibit the poor from marrying. This is not true.… I am, indeed, most decidedly of opinion that any positive law to limit the age of marriage would be both unjust and immoral.” (P. 357.)

[309] It is worth while recalling the passage to which we have already incidentally drawn attention: “The poor are themselves the cause of their own poverty.” (P. 458.)

[310] His views concerning charity are exceedingly interesting, and are directly connected with his theory of population. This was the practical question about which he was most concerned, and his influence in this direction has been very considerable. He showed himself an uncompromising opponent of the English Poor Law as it then existed. Speaking of the famous 43rd of Elizabeth, he declares that one of its clauses is “as arrogant and as absurd as if it had enacted that two ears of wheat should in future grow where one only had grown before. Canute, when he commanded the waves not to wet his princely foot, did not in reality assume a greater power over the laws of nature.” Since public assistance cannot create wealth, it cannot either keep alive a single pauper. “It may at first appear strange, but I believe it is true, that I cannot by means of money raise the condition of a poor man … without proportionally depressing others in the same class.” But it may be pointed out that although charity cannot beget wealth it does transfer a certain portion of wealth from the pockets of the rich to fill the mouths of the hungry poor. The consumption of the one is increased just as much as the other’s is decreased.

Not only does he condemn charity in the way of almsgiving, but also the practice of giving work for charity’s sake. He admits an exception in the case of education, of which everybody can partake without making anyone else the poorer. Such arguments would seem to imply the prohibition of all charity, whether public or private, and as a matter of fact he demands the gradual abolition of the Poor Laws and of every kind of systematic assistance which offers to the poor any kind of help upon which they can always reckon. But he recognises the “good results of private charity, discriminately and occasionally exercised.” Though he failed to remove the Poor Laws, the effect of his teaching is clearly seen in the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.

Malthus’s doctrine is just the reverse of the social teaching on the question in France at the present time. There you have an attempt to substitute solidarity for Christian charity. That means that the poor should be able to demand assistance, not as a gift, but as a right, and that the place of individual or private charity should be taken by a public institution with a view to giving effect to this. His teaching concerning the preventive obstacle has been so thoroughly taken to heart that there is not much fear of legal assistance resulting in a growth of population.

[311] It is not proved, however, that such were Malthus’s views. Private property, at least peasant proprietorship, acts as a stimulus to population. And it is very curious to think that he should have taken his illustration from France, where the multiplication of small farms is considered one of the causes of the falling birth-rate. “At all times the number of small farmers and proprietors in France was great, and though such a state of things is by no means favourable to the clear surplus produce or disposable wealth of a nation, yet sometimes it is not unfavourable to the absolute produce, and it has always a strong tendency to encourage population.” And again: “Even in France, with all her advantages of situation and climate, the tendency of population is so great and the want of foresight among the lower classes so remarkable.…” Godwin and Young express similar opinions. The latter is quoted by Malthus: “The predominant evil of the kingdom is the having so great a population that she can neither employ nor feed it.” (P. 509.)

Marriage, Malthus thought, had a restraining influence upon population. He admits that the simplest and most natural obstacle is to oblige every father to rear his own children. He also admits that the shame which the mother of a bastard and her child have to endure is a matter of social necessity. He does not approve of forcing the man who has betrayed a woman to marry, but he declares that seduction ought to be seriously punished. This is the view commonly adopted to-day, but it was very novel then.

[312] There are some sociologists who, like Malthus, would seek an explanation both of depopulation and of over-population in biological causes. Fourier and Doubleday, for example, are among the number. Doubleday, who wrote forty years before Malthus, believed that fecundity varied inversely with subsistence, and that this acted as a kind of natural check upon the growth of population. There are others, again, who think that reproductive capacity varies inversely with intellectual activity. Both explanations seem to suggest a kind of opposition between the development of the individual and the progress of the race which is very suggestive. But their views have not gained many adherents. If they are ever proved, which is not very likely, the prospect is not an attractive one. It would mean that those nations and classes who have risen to a position of ease through their superior culture would disappear, while the poorer, uncultured masses would continue to increase.

[313] David Ricardo was descended from a Jewish family originally domiciled in Holland. He was born in 1772 in London, where his father had settled as a stockbroker. He entered business at an early age, and soon became thoroughly conversant with the intricacies of banking and exchange. On the occasion of his marriage he changed his religion, and thus incurred the displeasure of his family. Setting up as a broker on his own account, he was not long in amassing a huge fortune, estimated at about £2,000,000—an enormous sum for those days.

Naturally enough, his earliest interest in economics centred round banking questions. The French wars had caused a depreciation in the value of the bank-note, and this aroused the interest not only of the specialists, but also of the public. His first essay, published in 1810, when he was thirty-eight years of age, was entitled The High Price of Bullion a Proof of the Depreciation of Bank-notes. It was soon followed by other studies dealing with banks and with the credit system. But these short polemical efforts gave scarcely any indication of the great attention which he was bestowing upon the principles of the science. His interest was primarily personal, for it appears that he had no intention of publishing anything on the subject. In 1817, however, the results were seen in a volume entitled The Principles of Political Economy. Ricardo the business man could hardly have guessed that it would shake the capitalistic edifice to its very foundations.

In 1819 he was elected a member of the House of Commons, but he was as indifferent a speaker as he was a writer. He was always listened to, however, with the greatest respect. “I have twice attempted to speak,” he writes, “but I proceeded in the most embarrassed manner: and I have no hope of conquering the alarm with which I am assailed the moment I hear the sound of my own voice.” In 1821 he founded the Political Economy Club, the earliest of those numerous societies for the study of economic subjects which have since been established in every country. In 1822 he published a work on Protection to Agriculture. The following year he died, at the comparatively early age of fifty-one.

Since his death all his writings have been carefully collected, and his correspondence with the chief economists of his day, with Malthus, McCulloch, and Say, published. The correspondence is extremely important for an understanding of his doctrines.

[314] Letter to McCulloch, July 13, 1820, quoted by H. Denis, vol. ii, p. 171.

[315] In his correspondence with McCulloch, under date December 18, 1819, he writes: “I am not satisfied with the explanation which I have given of the principles which regulate value. I wish a more able pen would undertake it.”

In a letter to Malthus written on August 15, 1820, speaking of his own theory of value and of McCulloch’s, he despairingly adds: “Both of us have failed.” See Halévy, Le Radicalisme philosophique, and Hector Denis, op. cit.

[316] Smith had likened industry to a household with two children—wages and profits; agriculture to a household with three—wages, profits, and rent.

[317] An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent (1815).

[318] It is necessary to remember, however, that the old theory survived and appears here under the very name of Ricardo, for he was unsuccessful in freeing himself altogether from its influence. He defines rent as “that portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil.” He continually refers to these powers of the soil, which are described as “natural,” “primitive,” “indestructible,” i.e. as independent of all labour.

[319] “Nothing is more common than to hear of the advantages which the land possesses over every other source of useful produce on account of the surplus which it yields in the form of rent. Yet when land is most abundant, when most productive and most fertile, it yields no rent, and it is only when its powers decay … that rent appears.” (Principles, ed. Gonner, p. 52.)

[320] “The labour of Nature is paid, not because she does much, but because she does little. In proportion as she becomes niggardly in her gifts she exacts a greater price for her work.” (Ibid., p. 53, note.)

“The comparative scarcity of the most fertile lands is the cause of rent.” (Ibid., p. 395.)

Adam Smith had already offered this as an explanation in the case of the products of the mine, but he failed to see that arable land is really nothing but a sort of mine.

[321] To-day we simply say that it is determined by increased demand. But this is quite contrary to Ricardo’s views, for in his opinion it is labour and not demand that creates value.

[322] “The value of corn is regulated by the quantity of labour bestowed on its production on that quality of land [or with that portion of capital] which pays no rent.” (Principles, ed. Gonner, p. 51.)

[323] The illustration as given by Ricardo is somewhat more complicated.

[324] “When land of an inferior quality is taken into cultivation the exchangeable value of raw produce will rise because more labour is required to produce it.” (Ibid., p. 49.)

[325] See Cannan’s delightful volume The Theories of Production and Distribution, p. 150, where the average decennial price works out as follows:

[326] The number of Enclosure Acts which Parliament, acting with the sanction of public opinion, passed during the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries increased very rapidly. Between 1700 and 1845 no fewer than 3835 such Acts were passed, involving the enclosure of 7,622,664 acres, most of it common land. Not until 1845 do we find a change either in the attitude of public opinion or in the action of Parliament.

[327] It is not quite clear whether the high price of corn is due to the cultivation of new lands or whether this high price is the cause of the cultivation of new lands. The second interpretation appears to us to be the most natural, but it involves the abandonment of the Ricardian theory.

[328] Some critics, e.g. Fontenay, Bastiat’s disciple, suggested that land No. 4 might very well become No. 1, if, instead of being employed in the cultivation of corn, an intelligent husbandman were to put it to viticulture or rose-growing. But this is to beg the question. The law of rent implies products of the same kind, for it is this identity of quality that enables them to be sold at the same price. If bad corn-land could become good rose-growing ground, then of course it would take its place among rose-growing areas, yielding rent as soon as less fertile lands were employed for the same purpose.

[329] Turgot, Observations sur un Mémoire de M. de Saint-Péravy (Œuvres, vol. i, p. 420). “It can never be imagined that a doubling of expenditure would result in doubling the product.… It is more than probable that by gradually increasing the expenditure up to the point where nothing would be gained on the return, such items would successively become less fruitful. The earth’s fertility resembles a spring that is being pressed downwards by the addition of successive weights. If the weight is small and the spring not very flexible, the first attempts will leave no results. But when the weight is enough to overcome the first resistance then it will give to the pressure. After yielding a certain amount it will again begin to resist the extra force put upon it, and weights that formerly would have caused a depression of an inch or more will now scarcely move it by a hair’s breadth. And so the effect of additional weights will gradually diminish.

“The comparison is not very exact, but it is near enough to enable us to understand that when the earth is producing nearly all it can, a great deal of expense is necessary to obtain very little more produce.”

Turgot, with his usual perspicacity, has noted a fact which the Classical writers generally failed to perceive, namely, that at the beginning of the process of cultivation there may be a period when the return shows no signs of diminishing.