without giving some attention to the physiocrats, nor the physiocrats
without looking at the mercantilists: so the beginnings of mercantile
theory are hardly intelligible without a knowledge of the canonist
doctrine towards which that theory stands in the relation partly of a
continuation, partly of a protest.'[1]

[Footnote 1: _Op. cit._, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 381.]

But we venture to assert that the study of canonist economics, far
from being useful simply as an introduction to later theories, is of
great value in furnishing us with assistance in the solution of the
economic and social problems of the present day. The last fifty years
have witnessed a reaction against the scientific abstractions of the
classical economists, and modern thinkers are growing more and more
dissatisfied with an economic science which leaves ethics out of
account.[1] Professor Sidgwick, in his _Principles_ _of Political
Economy_, published in 1883, devotes a separate section to 'The Art
of Political Economy,' in which he remarks that 'The principles of
Political Economy are still most commonly understood even in England,
and in spite of many protests to the contrary, to be practical
principles--rules of conduct, public or private.'[2] The many
indications in recent literature and practice that the regulation of
prices should be controlled by principles of 'fairness' would take too
long to recite. It is sufficient to refer to the conclusion of Devas
on this point: 'The notion of just price, worked out in detail by the
theologians, and in later days rejected as absurd by the classical
economists, has been rightly revived by modern economists.'[3] Not
alone in the sphere of price, but in that of every other department
of economics, the impossibility of treating the subject as an abstract
science without regard to ethics is being rapidly abandoned. 'The best