nearly always been more important than all others put together. Religious motives are more intense than economic; but their direct action seldom extends over so large a part of life. For the business by which a person earns his livelihood generally fills his thoughts during by far the greater part of those hours in which his mind is at its best; during them his character is being formed by the way in which he uses his faculties in his work, by the thoughts and feelings which it suggests, and by his relations to his associates in work, his employers or his employés."

4. Economic history is of great interest and importance.

This definition, which does not err in narrowness, may conveniently indicate the general character of the investigations of the economic historian. He is concerned, similarly, with the study of that part of history, which relates to "man's actions in the ordinary business of life," to the inquiry "how he gets his income, and how he uses it." The interest of this study will not be questioned by anyone, who pursues it with serious attention; its importance alike for statesmen and for philosophers must be acknowledged by all candid inquirers. For the conduct of the affairs, and the interpretation of the thoughts, of a commercial and industrial nation, like our own, an adequate knowledge of their economic history must be fraught with advantage; and ignorance of it is likely to lead to danger, or even disaster. To understand the present, and to guide the future aright, an acquaintance with the significant facts of the past is necessary; and economic facts are not the least significant for a commercial and industrial people.

5. But it is comparatively young. The historian has been inclined to neglect it.

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Yet economic history is comparatively young. It is recently that it has secured distinct recognition from historian and economist. The one has been disposed to neglect it, or to hold it in strict subordination; the other, retaining the memory of a bitter controversy, has found it hard to overcome a suspicion once excited. "Picturesque" historians have concerned themselves with the stirring incidents of history, with the pageantry and intrigues of courts, the perils and exploits of war, the rise and fall of dynasties, the ambitions and rivalries of politicians. Philosophic" and "scientific " historians, who have endeavoured to penetrate beneath the surface, and to disclose the underlying causes influencing the actions of men and of nations—the deepseated forces directing the movement of affairs—have turned their attention more often to political, religious, and ethical, than to strictly economic considerations. They have indeed occasionally considered the economic state of a country, its riches or its poverty, the numbers and efficiency of its population, its readiness or ability to contribute to revenue, or to furnish and maintain armies and fleets. The distribution of wealth between different classes of the community may sometimes have entered among the factors contributing to form a historical judgment. Some attention may have been devoted to the "condition of the people," to the details of their callings, to the development or decline of their agriculture or their manufactures, to the success or failure of their trade at home or abroad. But such topics, which are of the first importance for the economic historian, have generally been kept in the background.

Until lately it has been the exception rather than the rule to find any large space given to economic considerations in the pages of a general history.

6. It requires some economic training.

This result may be due to the influence of instinct or tradition; or it may be traced to a lack of special training. For an adequate treatment of economic history is scarcely possible without such training. The economic historian explores the history of the past; and he differs from the general historian in devoting special attention, as he travels over the ground, to economic facts and forces, which may indeed be connected with those interesting to the politician and the moralist, but form the special object of study of the economist. He should therefore possess, in addition to his historical training, a familiarity with the outlines of that economic science, which was defined above. He should know the nature of the reasonings pursued, and the conclusions reached, by those who, like the economist from whom we have quoted, have devoted themselves to the systematic investigation of "man's actions in the ordinary business of life," who have inquired "how he gets his income, and how he uses it," who have attempted to detect and to analyse, to trace to their origin, and to follow to their effects, the motives, which influence the conduct of men in the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of wealth.

7. But the economist has viewed it with suspicion. But if, in search of this information, the historian. betook himself to the economist, he might possibly return from his quest in bewildered despair. He might find that the economist looked with suspicion on economic history, and hesitated to engage in alliance on terms of

mutual aid and respect. The echoes of a controversy, which once raged with bitter obstinacy, are still occasionally heard, and the memory of claims and rebuffs remains as an obstacle to reconciliation. The controversy arose on the methods of study. One party urged that the method, mainly followed by a powerful school of English writers, was fundamentally wrong. They contended that those writers, of whom David Ricardo* was the most famous, had constructed from their imaginations convenient, but fictitious, conceptions, which did not correspond with fact. They had created the idea of an "economic man," constantly engaged in the pursuit of wealth, deaf to motives, and blind to considerations, which would not lead him by the most direct road to the goal of which he was in search. The whole of this elaborate construction, they urged, must be levelled to the ground, and the study commenced afresh. From a new starting-point the economist must issue forth, and be guided on his route by a new method. He must industriously gather together a mass of facts, he must slowly raise on their broad basis secure general truths, and if he attempted by reasoning to draw conclusions, he must compare his results constantly with actual facts, and reject without hesitation those with which the facts did not at once agree. Such was the criticism offered by these assailants of the dominant sect. Such, stated in its most extreme and uncompromising terms, was the profession of faith, which they put forward.

8. The historical method" was once a subject of controversy.

They were described as belonging to the "historical * He lived from 1772 to 1823. Cf. Chapter X.

school," and they advocated the use of the "historical method." The description was appropriate; for historical study laid stress on the importance of facts. But it might mislead, and it gave rise to prejudice. The defenders of the position, thus vigorously assailed, were prone to associate the method with its advocates, and to condemn alike the extravagant utterances of eager controversy and the employment of an useful instrument of inquiry. The assailing party were disposed to regard the study of economic history as necessarily connected with the repudiation of the whole scheme of doctrine held by their opponents, and to reject with scorn the possibility of deriving any benefit or aid from any portion of their teaching.

9. Reconciliation was possible.

The field of economic investigation has now grown so large that the advantage, or necessity, of dividing it into separate portions has become plain, and economic history occupies a distinct and important, but not exclusive, place among those divisions. The controversy between the "historical" and the "Ricardian" school, between the advocates of the "new" and the "old" method, as they are often distinguished, with some inaccuracy, is closed by a mutual admission that there is room for both in the wide region of economic inquiry. Either may make a more prominent use of the methods which they prefer, and find to be more appropriate to their studies; but they will retard, and not promote, advance by contempt or contradiction. A knowledge of the principles of economics, as expounded by Ricardo, and his more liberal and instructed successors, will improve the intellectual equipment of the economic historian; an acquaintance with the results of historical