Note 1119 — Chapter I · : THE HEDONISTS

It must not be supposed that in applying the term “school” to these writers we wish to suggest that they have a common programme. All we mean is that they make use of the same method.

It is generally recognised to-day that the school dates from the appearance of Cournot’s Recherches sur les Principes mathématiques de la Théorie des Richesses (1838). Cournot, who was a school inspector, died in 1877, leaving behind him several philosophical works which are now considered to be of some importance. The story of his economic work affords an illustration of the kind of misfortune which awaits a person who is in advance of his age. For several years not a single copy of the book was sold. In 1863 the author tried to overcome the indifference of the public by recasting the work and omitting the algebraical formulæ. This time the book was called Principes de la Théorie des Richesses. In 1876 he published it again in a still more elementary form, and under the title of Revue sommaire des Doctrines économiques, but with the same result. It was only shortly before his death that attention was drawn to the merits of the work in a glowing tribute which was paid to him by Stanley Jevons.

Gossen’s book, Entwickelung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs, which appeared much later (1853), was equally unfortunate. The author remained an obscure civil servant all his life. His book, of which there is still a copy in the British Museum—the only one in existence possibly—was accidentally discovered by Professor Adamson, and Stanley Jevons was again the first to recognise its merits. A brief résumé of the work will be found in our chapter on Rent.

Stanley Jevons (died 1882) belongs both to the Mathematical and to the Final Utility school. His charming book, The Theory of Political Economy, dates from 1871.

Léon Walras, who is persistently spoken of as a Swiss economist just because he happened to spend the greater part of his life at the University of Lausanne, also known as the School of Lausanne, was in reality a Frenchman. His Éléments d’Économie politique pure, of which the first part appeared in 1874, contains a full exposition of Mathematical economics.

To-day the Mathematical method can claim representatives in every country: Marshall and Edgeworth in England, Launhardt, Auspitz, and Lieben in Germany, Vilfredo Pareto and Barone in Italy, Irving Fisher in the United States, and Bortkevitch in Russia. France, however, the country of Cournot and Walras, has no Mathematical economists, unless we mention Aupetit whose work, Théorie de la Monnaie, although dealing with a special subject, contains a general introduction.