The favour with which the English public has received the First
Edition of this translation of Bastiat’s ‹Harmonies Économiques›,
published originally in separate parts, has induced me to have the
whole reprinted in a cheaper and more accessible form, in the hope of
giving the work a wider circulation, and rendering it more generally
useful.
The first ten chapters were all that appeared in the lifetime of the
gifted author, or that had the benefit of his finishing touch. It
was Bastiat’s intention, had he lived, to recast the work, and to
give it a wider and more comprehensive scope; embracing in his design
not only the principles of Political Economy, but their applications
to Social Philosophy. Prior to his departure for Italy, on what he
foresaw might be his last journey, he had communicated to his friends
MM. de Fontenay and Paillottet a list of the new chapters in the
order in which they will be found in the subjoined Notice of his
Life.[1] To the same friends, in his last moments, he entrusted the
manuscripts intended for the continuation of the work. The duty thus
committed to them they discharged very judiciously, by arranging the
new portions in the order pointed out, without altering the text,
and, except in a very few instances, without additions of their own,
contenting themselves with adding some explanatory notes, consisting
chiefly of references to the author’s other works. [p004]
Some of the chapters thus added are unfortunately mere fragments,
but most of the others indicate very clearly Bastiat’s opinions on
the subjects to which they relate, and several of them display a
breadth, a vigour, and an originality worthy of the best days of
their lamented author.
Many of the questions purely economical which are discussed in the
posthumous portions of the work,—such, for instance, as those of
Wages, Population, and the relations of Labour and Capital, etc.,—are
still deeply engaging public attention in England, as well as on the
other side of the Channel; and on subjects of such vast practical
importance it is surely desirable that the opinions of so profound
and fearless a thinker as Bastiat should be as widely disseminated as
possible.
In conclusion, I may perhaps be permitted to refer to the great
interest taken in this translation by the late Mr Cobden, who was the
correspondent and personal friend of Bastiat, and was, I need not
say, so eminently qualified to form and pronounce an opinion on the
merits of his last great work. A short time after the appearance of
the first ten chapters (26th March 1860), writing from Paris, where
he was then engaged in negotiating the Commercial Treaty, Mr Cobden
says, “My enthusiasm for Bastiat, founded as much on a love of his
personal qualities as on an admiration for his genius, dates back
nearly twenty years. I need not, therefore, express any astonishment
at the warmth with which you speak of his productions. They are doing
their work silently but effectually. M. Guillaumin [the eminent
publisher] tells me the sale of the last edition has been steady and
continuous, and a new one is now in hand. The works of Bastiat, which
are selling not only in France, but throughout Europe, are gradually
teaching those who, by their commanding talents, are capable of
becoming the teachers of others; for Bastiat speaks with the greatest
force to the highest order of intellects. At the same time, he is
almost the only political economist whose style is brilliant and
fascinating, whilst his irresistible logic is [p005] relieved by
sallies of wit and humour which make his ‹Sophismes› as amusing as
a novel. No critic who has read Bastiat will dare to apply again to
Political Economy the sarcastic epithet of the ‘dreary science.’ His
fame is so well established, that I think it would be presumptuous
to do anything to increase it by any other means than the silent but
certain dissemination of his works by the force of their own great
merits.”
A word as to my mode of rendering Bastiat. I have not aimed at
giving a literal translation. Indeed, the language often employed by
Bastiat hardly admits of literal translation. But the more important
object, I trust, has been attained of conveying fully, plainly, and
intelligibly the author’s precise meaning.
The materials of the following notice of the life and writings of
Bastiat have been borrowed partly from a short account of him in
the ‹Dictionnaire de l’Économie Politique›, partly from the Memoir
and Correspondence prefixed to the author’s ‹Œuvres Complètes›, and
partly from an able article in the ‹Revue des Deux Mondes› from the
pen of M. Louis Reybaud.