User:Dick Bos/sandbox3/Sir William Petty (Bevan 1894)

draft of: Sir William Petty: A Study in English Economic Literature

Sir William Petty: A Study in English Economic Literature was a text, first written by Wilson Lloyd Bevan as (part of) a dissertation and next published in 1894 as a volume of the Publications of the American Economic Association. It was one of the first attempts to write a monograph on William Petty (1623-1687).

Bibliographical information
In 1893 Bevan had already published an essay, as a part of his dissertation, when he was studying in Münich:

This was a small book of 32 pages, containing a biography of Sir William Petty. etc.

The 1894 publication was reviewed by Charles Henry Hull (two times, in 1895 and in 1896) and by Henry Higgs, in 1895.

Contents
The first chapter of Bevan's 1894 publication consists of "Materials for Petty's Biography: The Will, and Aubrey's Life of Petty." They hold copies of:
 * Petty's will, dated May 2, 1685, as printed in the so-called Tracts; chiefly relating to Ireland of 1769.
 * the 'Life of Petty' as printed in Letters of Eminent Persons (nowadays mostly called Brief Lives) by John Aubrey (London 1813, vol. II, pp. 481-491).

The next chapter holds notes on the texts in the preceding chapter. Some of the notes are extensive, for instance the note on Petty's whereabouts in Ireland and the note on Petty's activities after his retirement from public life.

Chapter III deals with "The Tractate on Education and the Bills of Mortality". With the "Tractate on Education" is meant The Advice of W(illiam) P(etty) to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the Advancement of some particular Parts of Learning, written by Petty and published in 1647. The first part of the chapter provides a summary of Petty's pamphlet. The largest part of the chapter is devoted to the question of the authorship of the Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality (by Bevan shortly titled as the "Bills of Mortality"). Although many authorities like McCulloch, Roscher, John, Cunningham and De Morgan assign the authorship of the book to John Graunt, Bevan thinks there are good reasons for assigning Petty as the author.

In Chapter IV an extract of some of the important elements of Petty's A Treatise of Taxes & Contributions is given, under the title 'Land-Labour-Value-Rent'. The comparison of England with Holland on one side and Ireland on the other has an important place. Holland is good situated at the mouth of three large rivers, has relatively little plowing or sowing of corn or breeding of cattle and has a large share in foreign trade. Ireland is undeveloped, because the Irish people has few necessities, and is not prepared for trade. In this chapter a very short summary of Petty's theoretical notions on value and rent is also given.

Chapter V is about 'Money and Taxation'.

Critical reception
In 1895 Bevan's publication was reviewed by Charles Henry Hull in Political Science Quarterly v.10 n.2 (1895)

In 1896 Hull wrote a review of Bevan's Sir William Petty in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The largest part of the review is devoted to the latter. Concerning Bevan Hull writes that his analysis of Petty's economic notions is "somewhat scrappy."

In 1895 Henry Higgs published a review of Sir William Petty in The Economic Journal.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2956227

He was not very enthousiastic about Bevan's essay. Bevan better would have put what he had to say "into a magazine article, or even a dictionary article" (p. 71).

Cunow (see: Life of Sir William)

External link

 * wikisource
 * text of Bevan's Sir William Petty in the Archive for the History of Economic Thought of McMaster University.