Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/145

Rh  Progress of Rent, and a Fellow of University College, Oxford, presented to the world, nearly at the same moment, the true doctrine of rent.' Later research has added to the names of Malthus and Sir Edward West, who was the anonymous 'Fellow of University College,' that of an earlier writer, Dr. Anderson, who stated the theory in 1777 in his Enquiry into the Nature of Corn Laws; and it has also shown that in some respects Malthus' exposition may be considered superior to that of Ricardo, as in others it is inferior. Mr. Bonar in his Malthus and his Work has urged that here, as on other points of general economics, Malthus anticipated some of the conclusions of later writers and their criticisms on Ricardo's doctrines. Both in his definition of rent and his enumeration of the causes of its increase he seems to have been more comprehensive, and later inquiry has tended to justify this largeness of view. But the connection of the theory with the name of Ricardo does not require any formal or laboured justification. His treatment of it has exercised a predominant influence, and his whole scheme of economic doctrine was founded upon it. He gave it the most prominent place in his preface; he discussed it in his second chapter, immediately after the question of value, and he connected with it his theories of wages and profits, and of the incidence of various forms of taxation.

This connection of Ricardo's name with the theory suggests of itself some important considerations respecting its application to practice. Ricardo's writing has been generally regarded as the type of an abstract, deductive method of inquiry; and the criticisms of economists of the historical and inductive school have been chiefly directed against his doctrines. If the theories of any one economist were to be selected as an illustration of divergence from fact, the choice of many persons would at once fall on Ricardo, and the opinion of Malthus that the 'main part of his structure would not stand' would be considered as being at least as successful as any prediction in hitting the mark. This criticism may be erroneous, or it may be unduly severe; and the recent publication of Ricardo's Letters to Malthus may perhaps tend to moderate the rigorous treatment, which he has sometimes received. But these letters also furnish an instructive commentary on the application of his theories to practice. We have in them a statement from his own lips of the purpose, which he had in view in writing his Principles, and a frank confession of deficiencies of composition.

We might have known, before Mr. Bonar edited these letters,