Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/460

 gentleman… by Philip Cantillon,’ is another instance of the mystification surrounding this work.

The French ‘Essai’ is in three parts, the first being a general introduction to political economy, the second is a complete treatise on currency, and the third is devoted to foreign commerce and exchange. ‘It is a systematic and connected treatise,’ says Professor Stanley Jevons, ‘going over in a concise manner nearly the whole field of economics, with the exception of taxation. It is thus, more than any other book I know, the first treatise on economics’ (ut supra, p. 67). The first chapter opens with this weighty sentence, which is the keynote of the whole book: ‘La terre est la source ou la matière d'où l'on tire la richesse; le travail de l'homme est la forme qui la produit; et la richesse, en elle-même, n'est autre chose que la nourriture, les commodités et les agrémens de la vie.’ Jevons finds in Cantillon ‘an almost complete anticipation of the Malthusian theory of population’ (ib. p. 71), condensed into twenty-seven pages, and the very theory afterwards developed by Professor Cairnes (see his Essays in Political Economy, 1873), explaining the successive effects of a discovery of gold and silver mines on the rates of wages and prices of commodities. To quote Jevons once more, ‘it is not too much to say that the subject of the foreign exchanges has never, not even in Mr. Goschen's well-known book, been treated with more perspicuity and scientific accuracy than in Cantillon's essay’ (p. 72). There are references here and there in the ‘Essai’ (see pp. 35, 48, 93, &c.) to a statistical supplement which does not appear to have been printed.

‘Les délices du Brabant et de ses campagnes par Mr. de Cantillon,’ Amsterdam, 1757, 4 vols. 8vo, usually attributed to Richard or Philip Cantillon, was certainly by neither, nor was the ‘Histoire de Stanislas, 1er roi de Pologne, par M. D. C.,’ Londres, 1741, 2 vols. 12mo, which Barbier ascribes to the same source. The latter work was written by J. G. de Chevrières.



CANTON, JOHN (1718–1772), electrician, was born at Stroud on 31 July 1718. In his youth he manifested considerable aptitude for scientific studies. He was apprenticed to a broad-cloth weaver, and afterwards, in 1737, sent to London. Canton articled himself for five years to a school-master in Spital Square, London, with whom he subsequently entered into partnership. He appears to have contributed some new experiments for Priestley's ‘Histories of Electrical and Optical Discoveries,’ and he soon became so celebrated that Dr. Thomson speaks of Canton as ‘one of the most successful experimenters in the golden age of electricity.’ He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 22 March 1749, and was chosen a member of the council in 1751.

Canton verified Dr. Franklin's hypotheses as to the identity of lightning and electricity, and was the first Englishman to successfully repeat his experiments. He discovered that vitreous substances do not always afford positive electricity by friction, and that either kind, negative or positive, might be developed at will in the same glass tube. He was the first electrician to demonstrate that air is capable of receiving electricity by communication. In a paper read at the Royal Society on 6 Dec. 1753 he announced that the common air of a room might be electrified to a considerable extent, so as not to part with its electricity for some time. With Canton originated also those remarkable experiments on induction which led Wilke and Œpinus to the method of charging a plate of air. His inquiries led Canton to various discoveries and inventions, such as his electroscope and electrometer, and his amalgam of tin and mercury for increasing the action of the rubber of the electrical machine.

On 17 Jan. 1750 Canton read a paper before the Royal Society with the title ‘Method of making Artificial Magnets without the use of Natural ones,’ which was published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ vol. xlvi. At the anniversary in 1751 the Copley medal was awarded to Canton by the Royal Society. In 1747, some years before he published his ‘Method,’ Canton had turned his attention to the production of magnets by an artificial manipulation. His son (William) informs us that the paper would have been communicated earlier to the Royal Society but for fear of injuring Dr. Gowin Knight, who made money by touching needles for compasses. In 1750 the Rev. J. Michell pub-