Arnold Toynbee (18521883),who left behind him a beautiful memory,filled as he was with the love of truth and an ardentand active zeal for the public good,was author of some fragmentary or unfinished pieces,which yet well deserve attentionboth for their intrinsic merit and as indicating the present drift of all the highest natures,especially amongst our youngermen,in the treatment of economic questions.(18)He had a belief in the organizing power of democracy which it is not easy toshare,and some strange ideas due to youthful enthusiasm,such as,for example,that Mazzini is "the true teacher of ourage;"and he fluctuates considerably in his opinion of the Ricardian political economy,in one place declaring it to be adetected "intellectual imposture,"whilst elsewhere,apparently under the influence of Bagehot,he speaks of it as having beenin recent times "only corrected,re-stated,and put into the proper relation to the science of life,"meaning apparently,by thislast,general sociology.He saw,however,that our great help in the future must come,as much had already come,from thehistorical method,to which in his own researches he gave preponderant weight.Its true character,too,he understood betterthan many even of those who have commended it;for he perceived that it not merely explains the action of special local ortemporary conditions or economic phenomena,but seeks,by comparing the stages of social development in differentcountries and times,to "discover laws of universal application."If,as we are told,there exists at Oxford a rising group ofmen who occupy a position in regard to economic thought substantially identical with that of Toynbee,the fact is one ofgood omen for the future of the science.
AMERICA
For a long time,as we have already observed,little was done by America in the field of Economics.The most obviousexplanation of this fact,which holds with respect to philosophical studies generally,is the absorption of the energies of thenation in practical pursuits.Further reasons are suggested in two instructive Essaysone by Professor Charles F.Dunbar inthe North American Review ,1876,the other by Cliffe Leslie in the Fortnightly Review for October 1880.
We have already referred to the Report on Manufactures by Alexander Hamilton;and the memorial drawn up by AlbertGallatin (1832),and presented to Congress from the Philadelphia Convention in favour of Tariff reform,deserves to bementioned as an able statement of the arguments against protection.Three editions of the Wealth of Nations appeared inAmerica,in 1789,1811,and 1818,and Ricardo's principal work was reprinted there in 1819.The treatises of DanielRaymond (1820),Thomas Cooper (1826),Willard Phillips (1828),Francis Wayland (1837),and Henry Vethake (1838)made known the principles arrived at by Adam Smith and some of his successors.Rae,a Scotchman settled in Canada,published (1834)a book entitled New Principles of Political Economy ,which has been highly praised by J.S.Mill (bk.i.
chap.ii),especially for its treatment of the causes which determine the accumulation of capital.The principal works whichafterwards appeared down to the time of the Civil War were Francis Bowen's Principles of Political Economy ,1856,afterwards entitled American Political Economy ,1870;John Bascom's Political Economy ,1859;and Stephen Colwell's Ways and Means of Payment ,1859.In the period including and following the war appeared Amasa Walker's Science ofWealth ,1866;i8th ed.,1883,and A.L.Perry's Elements of Political Economy ,1866.A.Walker and Perry are free-traders;Perry is a disciple of Bastiat.Of Carey we have already spoken at some length ;his American followers are E.Peshine Smith(A Manual of Political Economy ,1853),William Elder (Questions of the Day ,1871),and Robert E.Thompson (SocialScience ,1875).The name of no American economist stands higher than that of General Francis A Walker (son of AmasaWalker),author of special works on the Wages Question (1876)and on Money (1878),as well as of an excellent generaltreatise on Political Economy (1883;2d ed.1887).Early works on American economic history are those of A.S.Bolles,entitled Industrial History of the United States (1878),and Financial History of the United States ,17741885,published in1879and later years.
