Wilhelm Roscher - Principles of Political Economy

TO
WILLIAM H. GAYLORD, Esq .,
COUNSELLOR AT LAW ,
OF CLEVELAND, OHIO,
TO WHOSE BROTHERLY CARE IT IS LARGELY DUE THAT I LIVED TO
TRANSLATE THEM,
THESE VOLUMES
ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

Our literature is rich enough in works on the principles of Political Economy. So far as the translator is informed, however, it possesses none in which the science is treated in accordance with the historical method. We may therefore venture to express the hope that this translation will fill a place hitherto unoccupied in the literatures of England and America, and fill it all the more efficiently and acceptably, as Professor Roscher is the founder and still the leader of the historical school of Political Economy. Were this the only recommendation of our undertaking, it would not be a useless one. But a glance at Professor Roscher's book will convince even the most hasty reader that its pages fascinate by their interest and are rich in treasures of erudition which should not remain inaccessible to the English student from being locked up in a foreign tongue.

The present translation has received, throughout, the revision of the author, and should any imperfections remain in the rendering of his thought into English, the blame is certainly not his, for his revision has been most minute.

The three appendices have been supplied by Professor Roscher expressly for this edition. As they are intended to form a part of the work on the Political Economy of Industry and Commerce, on which he is now engaged, he authorizes [pg vi] their publication in English, only by the publishers of this edition of his principles; and only for the purpose of being added to the present translation. He desires especially that their appearance in their present shape should not in any way interfere with any of his rights in his forthcoming volume, and that they should not be translated into any language nor translated back into German.

The essay of Mr. Wolowski , on the historical method in Political Economy constitutes no part of Professor Roscher's book, and neither he nor its author, but only the translator, is responsible for its appearance here. In it the reader will find a short sketch of the life of Professor Roscher , brought down to the date at which the essay was written. The translator has little to add to that sketch, all the information he possesses in addition to what it contains being embraced in the following lines from a letter received by him from the author in answer to a request that he would supply the biographical data not to be found in Wolowski's essay: You might perhaps say ... that I have repeatedly declined calls to the Universities of Munich, Vienna and Berlin, but that I have never regretted remaining in Leipzig.

The acknowledgments of the translator are due, in the first place, to the eminent author himself, for the revision of the plate-proof of the entire work, and then to Professor William F. Allen , of the University of Wisconsin, for his interest in the progress of the enterprise, and for many valuable suggestions; also to Professor W. G. Sumner , of Yale College, for some excellent hints as to the best translation of certain words in the Appendix on Paper Money.

My System der Volkswirthschaft shall, Deo volente , be completed in four parts. The second shall contain the national economy of agriculture and the related branches of natural production; the third, the national economy of industry and commerce; the fourth, of the economy of the state and of the commune ( Gemeindehaushalt ). While the entire work shall constitute one systematic whole, each part shall have its own appropriate title, constitute an independent treatise, and be sold separately.

Of the peculiar method which I have followed in this work, and which will produce still better fruits in the succeeding volumes, I have given a sufficient explanation in independently discovered certain facts, when I afterwards found that some old and long-forgotten writer had made similar observations. Thus, this work may serve both as a handbook and as a history of the literature of Political Economy. Students of the science know how little has thus far been done by writers in this direction. And hence I shall be very grateful to those who labor in the same field, if they will, either by writing to me personally, or through the medium of the press, inform me when I have erred in ascribing a truth, or a scientifically important error, to its earliest author.

I have already said in the title that this work is intended not for the learned only, but for all educated men, for men of a serious turn of mind, who desire truth and science for their own sake. Like that ancient historian, whom I honor above all others as my teacher, I desire that my work should be useful to those, . ( Thucydides I, 22.)

University of Leipzig ,
End of May, 1854.

The preface to the second edition is dated October, 1856; that to the third, April, 1858; that to the fourth, April, 1861; that to the fifth, November, 1863; that to the sixth, November, 1865; that to the seventh, November, 1868; that to the eighth, August, 1869; that to the ninth, March, 1871; that to the tenth, May, 1873; that to the eleventh (unaltered), December, 1873. Each successive edition, nearly, has been announced as an improved and enlarged one; and the tenth edition contains one hundred and fifty-six pages more than the first, although in places, a large number of abbreviations had been made from previous editions. There are many things in some of the previous editions which criticism induced me, long since, to change. I have considered it my duty to the public, who gave my work so warm and friendly a reception, to take into consideration, in each successive edition, not only my own new investigations, but those also of all others with which I became acquainted, and, whenever possible, to correct statistical illustrations from the latest sources. I have especially, in each following edition, enriched a number of paragraphs with here and there historical, ethnographic and statistical features. Plutarch is certainly right, spite of the fact that pedants may abuse him for it, when he says, that trifling acts, a word and even a jest, are often more important, as characterizing the life of a people or an age, than great battles which cost the lives of tens of thousands of men.

I have changed the titles Ricardo's Law of Rent, and The Malthusian Law of the Increase of Population, which [pg x]