Extracts from the Private Journal and Letters of M. De Sismondi.

Edinburgh, August 7th, 1826.—We dined with the Homers, and met Macculloch, who has something hard in his countenance and manners, and who for a long time measured me with his eye, as if I was an adversary whom he ought to combat. I led the conversation to political economy: he attacked me on the facts which I gave from the reports of Chaptal, and some others. There was something in his ironical smile which hurt me, so I fought him on his own ground, laying hold on all the errors in facts, which were certainly numerous, as the increase of mendicity in France, the custom in France of borrowing only for life. I think I had constantly the advantage of him, but I fear I was sometimes rude, and that he will retain some resentment against me.

August 13th.—Returning from Edinburgh to London I had for a travelling companion a Mr. Graban, a member of the senate of Lubeck, probably a corn merchant, who told me that he could charge 17s. or 18s. at Lubeck for corn of prime quality, which would be worth here 56s. a quarter, so that he could well bear a tax on importation of 15s. He was struok, like me, with the absence of peasants, who are rich in his country.

January 2ND, 1826.—I think that the true definition of capital is, the accumulation of the time and the trouble which have created useful things, and immaterial capital is a mortgage on the time and labour which will create them in future.

26th September, 1826.—I had this morning a visit from Say, who said to me that his friendship for M. Ricardo, and his school, has very often cramped him, but that in truth he finds that they have injured the science by the abstractions into which they have thrown it, and that he shall be obliged, in the new edition he is preparing, absolutely to oppose them.

5th September, 1828.—I have had a letter from M. Say, who announces to me a second volume of his book, with some concessions to my principles on the limits of production.

September, 1833.—You have exactly answered my question respecting the peasants of Austria; you have confirmed what I knew already, but you have added facts, both new and well chosen. I call upon your well-ordered mind for still more research into, for more reflection on, political economy. It is a fine science, and a science which is suitable for women, for it is the theory of universal beneficence; but we must not take it from books, we must distrust modern writings, where principles are given as axioms which experience falsifies every day. A noble result of this experience is that which we have gained in regard to the class of cultivating proprietors in Austria, who are in such easy circumstances that they give to their daughters portions which the gentry of England do not give to theirs, who are never displaced by the great proprietors, but who keep up almost always the same number. If all this is contrary to the principles of political economy, those principles are wrong, not because the science is not a valuable one, not that it is not our duty to seek for the greatest good for all, but because we are too eager to reckon an error among the principles in that science, because, in particular, we have for some time imagined that universal competition, that the effort of each one to get every thing for himself, to displace every one else, was the normal State of society; whilst, looking at the past, we often find that the tendency of that legislation which has diffused much happiness was directly opposed to it, that it guaranteed the positions which had been obtained, that it repressed that effervescence of personal interests, that struggle of each against all, which forces all upon the greatest possible efforts with the smallest results. In that old petrified state of society in Austria, which, repelling every change with all the apathy of Germany and all the distrust of the government, has preserved many parts of the organization of the middle ages, there are many things to study, much as to the effects of institutions every where else condemned, and to which people will not believe that any advantages can be attached; this is true even in politics. In that science, also, there are many false maxims which have been elevated into principles during the last half century. If I were to say that to the French, they would think I was abandoning principles to which I have devoted my life. If I were to say it to the Austrians, they would think that I am adopting their system, that these are things which must not be spoken of. Both would deceive themselves; more certainly still they would think me in my dotage if they knew that these reflections were addressed to a young and pretty woman.

19th September, 1834.—This morning I had a letter from Fix (Editor of the old Revue Encyclopédique), who tells me that my article on the workpeople has made a great impression at Paris, even so far as to have shaken the convictions of Bionqui (an economist who opposed his Nouveaux Principes).

I read that article in the National of the 12th October, which Mr.——had recommended to me. He attacks with violence, and even some hauteur, what he calls the English political economy; but I do not see that he has any very clear ideas as to what he would substitute for it; on the contrary, he appears also to lean towards unlimited production.

I read in the Westminster Review a striking article on civilization, in which the author points out many of the bad effects of the present system, which hitherto I have been almost the only one to remark, There is much ability in this article, but it inspires one with a melancholy feeling, because the evils are so serious, and one does not see the remedies; the too much of every thing is the evil of the day. It may be remarked even in literature, —the impossibility of fixing attention, the certainty that no book will be read a second time, the necessity of making one's-self remarked, making one's-self of consequence; in commerce and in every thing else, the universal idleness and effeminacy, the cessation of all distinction, the growing avidity for money, &c.

November 18th.—I have a letter from Mr. Tancred, who asks if he may translate my Etudes Sociales. I answered him to say how desirous of it I was, and offering him my proofs.

November 27th.—A letter from Mr. Tancred to say that he had given up the idea of translating the Etudes, because a Mr. Taillot, a bookseller at Oxford, had begun to translate them. (The work never has been translated.) I worked this morning at my chapter on Different Conditions, and it interests me, though I have much sadness at the bottom of my heart. I see at the same time the increasing sufferings of society, and the impossibility of persuading any one of it. I do not think my last volume has been read; that which is just going to appear is not likely to be more so, therefore I have little encouragement to publish the third.

4th March, 1835.—I had a visit to-day from Frederick de Chateauvieux, who came on foot. We had a long conversation on Politics and political economy. From his experience, as director of the manufacture of plate glass, no one has yet described to me more strongly the cruel and dependent condition of the manufacturers, the tyranny and hard-heartedness of the masters. He related to me how, at the moment of the revolution of 1830, they had dismissed all their workmen, reducing at the same time all their families to despair, although they made them a small allowance. They made it a condition that they should not engage in the cotton manufactories, because then they would become a degraded population, beasts rather than men. How they had made use of their workshops for the manufacture of a chemical production, ruining at one blow all those in the north of France; from all which he concluded that the social organlzatiom which he called Mosaic,, and which restricted the number of trades, of families, and of households, was preferable to that of universal competition.

March 14th, 1835.—I ran over ten chapters of the book of M. de Villemain, a Christian political economist. The principal idea, of mixing charity with political economy, is as beautiful as true. Many developments appeared to me very just, and the work, full of facts, is at the same time curious and interesting; but it is exclusive, confounding religion with Catholicism, and that with the sacerdotal spirit. He would put all public charity into the hands of the priesthood, and at the same time would give them all political power.