Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/15

x and this was copied by Daire in his edition of 1844. Not till 1889 were the Reflections accessible as originally written. M. Schelle and M. Robineau have both announced that in the Reflections, as printed by the latter in the Turgot volume of the Petite Bibliothèque Économique, the original text has been re-established. In every essential point this is doubtless the case; but a comparison of the Robineau text with that of the Éphémérides and with the English translation of 1793 about to be mentioned, raises a good many curious little questions as to Turgot's exact language which cannot at present be answered. A really critical edition of the Reflections would come with good grace from the inheritors of the Turgot tradition,—the group of Parisian economists associated with the Journal des Économistes and the house of Guillaumin. It must be observed, also, that unless the manuscript of Turgot's other writings published posthumously by Du Pont can be recovered, they must remain under some suspicion.

An anonymous English translation, made, as is clear from internal evidence, from the edition of 1788, appeared in London in 1793; and this was reprinted by J. R. McCulloch in 1859 in one of the Overstone volumes, (A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Economical Tracts). The original intention of the present editor was merely to reprint this translation; but upon examination this was quickly seen to be out of the question. The 1793 translation is fairly good for the first few paragraphs; but soon gross blunders begin to make their appearance, e.g. in § XXV, where the heading "Colonage partiaire" is translated "Partial Colonization"! As it proceeds it becomes worse, until in the second half there are many paragraphs which are absolutely unintelligible. It was evidently a piece