Page:William Petty - Economic Writings (1899) vol 1.djvu/69

Rh and was of Hobbes's mind, that had he read much, as some men have, he had not known as much as he did. His writings then are not conscious elaborations of some economic system, more or less clearly conceived. Each of them, on the contrary, was prompted by some circumstance of the times, and addresses itself, in fact if not in form, to some question of the day. The "Treatise of Taxes" the most systematic of them all, grows out of the changes in the revenue which the Restoration occasioned. The "Verbum Sapienti" is due to the costliness of the first Dutch war, the "Quantulumcunque" is the recoinage projects of Halifax. The moral of the "Political Arithmetick," implicit but clearly implied, is that Charles II. may, if he will, make himself independent of the bribes of Louis XIV. "The doctrines of this essay offended France ." The "Essays in Political Arithmetick" instruct James, wavering on the verge of an independent policy, that London is more considerable than the two best cities of the French monarchy. The unedited "Treatise of Ireland" plainly avows its political purpose. Even the "Political Anatomy" though suggested by Chamberlayne's enclyclopaedic "State of England " is seen, upon briefest examination, to be crowded with such discussions of current questions as nowhere occur in its prototype. Nevertheless they are all marked, in part because of his method of investigation, by certain common and characteristic features.

The form of Petty's discussions is as directly traceable to his training as is the contents of them to his circumstances. Such a title as "Political Anatomy" is reminiscent of his early studies, but the education which vitally affected his writing was rather that of converse with his scientific friends than that afforded by the instruction of his formal teachers. I shall try, therefore, to account in part for Petty's economic writings by taking up first the intellectual influences which gave them their characteristic form, and afterwards the circumstances, within the limits prescribed by that form, which suggested their content.

Petty has been represented, not without reason, as the disciple of Hobbes. We have seen that he studied with Hobbes at Paris,