Page:Sir William Petty - A Study in English Economic Literature - 1894.djvu/85

86 in the founding of the Royal Society, which was devoted to the study of natural science and to the extension of the experimental method of research. What evidence do we find in his works of the influence of the Baconian philosophy? In the preface to the "Anatomy of Ireland," he cites "the judicious parallel" of Sir Francis Bacon "between the body natural and the body politick," and calls his own work the first essay of political anatomy. In his early work on education we find him stating that "the only true method is the method of observation and experiment." A good illustration of the method he here commends is to be found in the "Quantulumcunque." In arguing against the wisdom of forbidding the export of money, he says: Countries which forbid the export have no money; countries which place no restriction on the export are rich. Careful observation and analysis are characteristic of his writings. Petty was familiar with two continental Countries—Holland and France. In both of these countries he had been an intelligent observer. In Ireland his long residence had made him acquainted with a state of culture different from any that he had met elsewhere. His powers of observation are trained enough to discriminate between what is essential and what is not essential in whatever he is investigating. Petty believed that scientific experiment ought to play a greater role than it did at his time as a guide to industrial progress. He did not confine its sphere solely to the arts. We have seen his proposals for its application to agriculture. To