"Had his own thought been more penetrating it would not be possible to find, in other passages, traces of a contrary view, to which we have previously referred" {63-64};that is to say, to which no "previous" reference has been made except that the "traces" are "imperfect". This is very characteristic of Herr Dühring's method -- to allude to something "previously" in a meaningless phrase, in order "subsequently" to make the reader believe that he has "previously"been made acquainted with the main point, which in fact the author in question has slid over both previously and subsequently.
In Adam Smith, however, we can find not only "traces" of "contrary views" on the concept of value, not only two but even three, and strictly speaking even four sharply contrary opinions on value, running quite comfortably side by side and intermingled. But what is quite natural in a writer who is laying the foundations of political economy and is necessarily feeling his way, experimenting and struggling with a chaos of ideas which are only just taking shape, may seem strange in a writer who is surveying and summarising more than a hundred and fifty years of investigation whose results have already passed in part from books into the consciousness of the generality.
And, to pass from great things to small: as we have seen, Herr Dühring himself gives us five different kinds of value to select from at will, and with them, an equal number of contrary views. Of course, "had his own thought been more penetrating", he would not have had to expend so much effort in trying to throw his readers back from Petty's perfectly clear conception of value into the uttermost confusion.
A smoothly finished work of Petty's which may be said to be cast in a single block, is his Quantulumcunque concerning Money , published in 1682, ten years after his Anatomy of Ireland (this "first" appeared in 1672, not 1691 as stated by Herr Dühring, who takes it second-hand from the "most current textbook compilations"). [94] In this book the last vestiges of mercantilist views, found in other writings by him, have completely disappeared. In content and form it is a little masterpiece, and for this very reason Herr Dühring does not even mention its title. It is quite in the order of things that in relation to the most brilliant and original of economic investigators, our vainglorious and pedantic mediocrity should only snarl his displeasure, and take offence at the fact that the flashes of theoretical thought do not proudly parade about in rank and file as ready-made "axioms" {D. Ph. 224}, but merely rise sporadically to the surface from the depths of "crude" {D. K. G. 57}
practical material, for example, of taxes.
Petty's foundations of Political Arithmetic {58}, vulgo statistics, are treated by Herr Dühring in the same way as that author's specifically economic works. He malevolently shrugs his shoulders at the odd methods used by Petty! Considering the grotesque methods still employed in this field a century later even by Lavoisier, [95] and in view of the great distance that separates even contemporary statistics from the goal which Petty assigned to them in broad outline, such self-satisfied superiority two centuries post festum stands out in all its undisguised stupidity.
Petty's most important ideas -- which received such scant attention in Herr Dühring's "enterprise" {9} -- are, in the latter's view, nothing but disconnected conceits, chance thoughts, incidental comments, to which only in our day a significance is given, by the use of excerpts torn from their context, which in themselves they have not got; which therefore also play no part in the real history of political economy, but only in modern books below the standard of Herr Dühring's deep-rooted criticism and "historical depiction in the grand style" {556}. In his "enterprise", he seems to have had in view a circle of readers who would have implicit faith and would never be bold enough to ask for proof of his assertions.
We shall return to this point soon (when dealing with Locke and North), but must first take a fleeting glance at Boisguillebert and Law.
In connection with the former, we must draw attention to the sole find made by Herr Dühring: he has discovered a connection between Boisguillebert and Law which had hitherto been missed. Boisguillebert asserts that the precious metals could be replaced, in the normal monetary functions which they fulfil in commodity circulation, by credit money ( un morceau de papier ). Law on the other hand imagines that any "increase" whatever in the number of these "pieces of paper" increases the wealth of a nation.
Herr Dühring draws from this the conclusion that Boisguillebert's "turn of thought already harboured a new turn in mercantilism" {83}
in other words, already included Law. This is made as clear as daylight in the following:
" All that was necessary was to assign to the '****** pieces of paper' the same role that the precious metals should have played, and a metamorphosis of mercantilism was thereby at once accomplished" {83}.
In the same way it is possible to accomplish at once the metamorphosis of an uncle into an aunt. It is true that Herr Dühring adds appealingly:
"Of course Boisguillebert had no such purpose in mind" {83}.
But how, in the devil's name, could he intend to replace his own rationalist conception of the monetary function of the precious metals by the superstitious conception of the mercantilists for the sole reason that, according to him, the precious metals can be replaced in this role by paper money?
Nevertheless, Herr Dühring continues in his serio-comic style, "nevertheless it may be conceded that here and there our author succeeded in ****** a really apt remark" (p. 83).
In reference to Law, Herr Dühring succeeded in ****** only this "really apt remark":
