We have seen that Jones had in his dogmatic teaching anticipated in some degree the attitude of the new school;importantworks had also been produced,notably by Thomas Tooke and William Newmarch (History of Prices,18381857),and byJames E.Thorold Rogers (History of Agriculture and Prices in England,186682),(14)on the course of English economichistory.But the first systematic statement by an English writer of the philosophic foundation of the historical method,as theappropriate organ of economic research,is to be found in an essay by T.E.Cliffe Leslie (printed in the Dublin Universityperiodical,Hermathena ,1876;since included in his Essays Moral and Political ,1879).This essay was the most importantpublication on the logical aspect of economic science which had appeared since Mill's essay in his Unsettled Questions ;though Cairnes had expanded and illustrated the views of Mill,he had really added little to their substance.Leslie takes up aposition directly opposed to theirs.He criticises with much force and verve the principles and practice of the "orthodox"school.Those who are acquainted with what has been written on this subject by Knies and other Germans will appreciate thefreshness and originality of Leslie's treatment.He points out the loose and vague character of the principle to which theclassical economists profess to trace back all the phenomena with which they dealnamely,the "desire of wealth."Thisphrase really stands for a variety of wants,desires,and sentiments,widely different in their nature and economic effects,andundergoing important changes (as,indeed,the component elements of wealth itself also do)in the several successive stagesof the social movement.The truth is that there are many "different economic motors,altruistic as well as egoistic;and theycannot all be lumped together by such a coarse generalisation.The a priori and purely deductive method cannot yield anexplanation of the causes which regulate either the nature or the amount of wealth,nor of the varieties of distribution indifferent social systems,as,for example,in those of France and England."The whole economy of every nation is the resultof a long evolution in which there has been both continuity and change,and of which the economical side is only a particularaspect.And the laws of which it is the result must be sought in history and the general laws of society and social evolution."The intellectual,moral,legal,political,and economic sides of social progress are indissolubly connected.Thus,juridical factsrelating to property,occupation,and trade,thrown up by the social movement,are also economic facts.And,moregenerally,"the economic condition of English"or any other "society at this day is the outcome of the entire movement whichhas evolved the political constitution,the structure of the family,the forms of religion,the learned professions,the arts andsciences,the state of agriculture,manufactures,and commerce."To understand existing economic relations we must tracetheir historical evolution;and "the philosophical method of political economy must be one which expounds that evolution."This essay was a distinct challenge addressed to the ideas of the old school on method,and,though its conclusions havebeen protested against,the arguments on which they are founded have never been answered.
With respect to the dogmatic generalisations of the "orthodox"economists,Leslie thought some of them were false,and allof them required careful limitation.Early in his career he had shown the hollowness of the wage-fund theory,though he wasnot the first to repudiate it.(15)The doctrine of an average rate of wages and an average rate of profits he rejected exceptunder the restrictions stated by Adam Smith,which imply a "simple and almost stationary condition"of the industrial world.
He thought the glib assumption of an average rate of wages,as well as of a wage-fund,had done much harm "by hiding thereal rates of wages,the real causes which govern them,and the real sources from which wages proceed."The facts,whichhe laboriously collected,he found to be everywhere against the theory.In every country there is really "a great number ofrates;and the real problem is,What are the causes which produce these different rates?"As to profits,he denies that thereare any means of knowing the gain;and prospects of all the investments of capital,and declares it to be a mere fiction thatany capitalist surveys the whole field.Bagehot,as we saw,gave up the doctrine of a national level of wages and profitsexcept in the peculiar case of an industrial society of the contemporary English type;Leslie denies it even for such a society.
