Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/292

 270 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL or to retain. It was at their Tuesday meetings, helcl at Mirabeau's house, that Aclam Smith is allegecl to have made the acquaintance of the Economistes, ancl to have conceivecl a roundecl system of economic science; but he probably little clreamecl that those meet- ings might never have been helcl but for his compatriot, Cantilion. Whether it is dignified or even sensible to wrangle about the nationality of economics may well be cloubted--much as one may respect the motive of Eugene Daire, when he exhorts his country- men not .to abanclon to Englancl the application of a science bon on French soil. But the claims aclvancecl on Mirabeau's behalf by his latest eclitor,  that Mirabeau is the father of Political Economy in France, that L':ii des Homms is his masterpiece, ancl that he lost more than he gainecl in joining himself to the Physiocrates, require, as Mirabeau's own papers show, correction or interpretation to the credit of an English preclecessor. True, Mirabeau thought it necessary to renounce Cantilion before he chose Quesnay as his guicle. But the liking for opposites, though it lecl him to attach himself to one harcl thinker after another, clicl not enable him to fully unclerstancl either the first or the seconcl. II. According to a genealogical tree of the family of Cantilion, shown in Burke's Heraldic Illustratios, 1845, plate 51, Richard Cantilion was the son of Richard Cantilion of Ballyheigue, Co. Kerry, Ireland, to whom Charles I. had granted and confirmed by charter, dated 7 September, 1636, several lands in the Barony of Claremoris, as a reward for his services. But the economist can hardly have been born before 1680, and a generation must have slipped out of this account. A very full history of the family is given in the Revue Historiqe de la Noblesse, Paris, 1841, iii. 28, under the title 'Notice historique, gPnPalogique, et biographique de la Famille de Cantilion.' The article, sigmed O'S, getilhomme irlandais, was evidently inspired by the elder branch of the family of Cantilion, still resident in France. It shows an intimate knowledge of records concerning the family, but attributes the economic and financial reputation of Richard to a Philip who is shown as his brother. The founder of the family, Sir Henry de Canfelon, came from Normandy with the Conqueror; and some of his descendants crossed over to Ireland with Strongbow. The opinion of Jevons that Cantilion was of Spanish descent is, therefore, unfounded. That a Richard Cantilion was at Paris as early as 1705,  M. Rouxel, L'Ami des Itommes, Guillaumin, Paris, 1883.