He prophesied that "the main part of the structure would not stand.""The theory,"he says",takes a partial view of thesubject,like the system of the French economists;and,like that system,after having drawn into its vortex a great number ofvery clever men,it will be unable to support itself against the testimony of obvious facts,and the weight of those theorieswhich,though less ****** and captivating,are more just on account of their embracing more of the causes which are inactual operation in all economical results."We saw that the foundations of Smith's doctrine in general philosophy wereunsound,and the ethical character of his scheme in consequence injuriously affected;but his mode of treatment,consisting inthe habitual combination of induction and deduction,we found little open to objection.Mainly through the influence ofRicardo,economic method was perverted.The science was led into the mistaken course of turning its back on observation,and seeking to evolve the laws of phenomena out of a few hasty generalisations by a play of logic.The principal vices whichhave been in recent times not unjustly attributed to the members of the "orthodox "school were all encouraged by hisexample,namely,-(1)the viciously abstract character of the conceptions with which they deal,(2)the abusive preponderanceof deduction in their processes of research,and (3)the too absolute way in which their conclusions are conceived andenunciated.
The works of Ricardo have been collected in one volume,with a biographical notice,by J.R.M'Culloch (1846).(48)After Malthus and Ricardo,the first of whom had fixed pubiic attention irresistibly on certain aspects of society,and thesecond had led economic research into new,if questionable,paths,came a number of minor writers who were mainly theirexpositors and commentators,and whom,accordingly,the Germans,with allusion to Greek mythical history,designate asthe Epigoni.By them the doctrines of Smith and his earliest successors were thrown into more systematic shape,limited andguarded so as to be less open to criticism,couched in a more accurate terminology,modified in subordinate particulars,orapplied to the solution of the practical questions of their day.
James Mill's Elements (1821)deserves special notice,as exhibiting the system of Ricardo with thoroughgoing rigour,andwith a compactness of presentation,and a skill in the disposition of materials,which give to it in some degree the characterof a work of art.The a priori political economy is here reduced to its ******st expression.J.R.M'Culloch -(1779-1864),author of a number of laborious statistical and other compilations,criticised current economic legislation in the EdinburghReview from the point of view of the Ricardian doctrine,taking up substantially the same theoretic position as was occupiedat a somewhat later period by the Manchester school.He is altogether without originality,and never exhibits any philosophicelevation or breadth.His confident dogmatism is often repellent;he admitted in his later years that he had been too fond ofnovel opinions,and defended them with more heat and pertinacity than they deserved.It is noticeable that,though oftenspoken of in his own time both by those who agreed with his views,and those,like Sismondi,who differed from them,asone of the lights of the reigning school,his name is now tacitly dropped in the writings of the members of that school.
