PETTY BAG, Parva Baga, was a division of the chancery records which was concerned with writs and returns in cases more nearly affecting the interests of the crown than those of the

subject. These records date from the Tudor period, and include writs and returns of Certiorari, Ad quod Dampnum, Depopulations and Seire Facias, etc. These might be classed as the political records of the chancery, that is, in so far as they refer to questions of state or public policy. The division, however, is very loosely made, and is not consistently observed.

For economic purposes these records are interesting as containing valuable and instructive returns of "Depopulations" under Elizabeth and James I.

A. L.

PETTY, SIR WILLIAM (1623-1687), political economist and statistician, born at Romsey in Hampshire, was educated to be a doctor, and graduated, 1649, in physic at the University of Oxford, subsequently at the College of Physicians in London. His active life may be divided into two periods. During the first, after a short tenure of the professorship of surgery at Oxford, he held several public appointments in Ireland, in connection with the survey of that kingdom and the subsequent distribution of the confiscated lands amongst the successful soldiery, after the conquest of the island by the Commonwealth. Petty enjoyed the confidence of the Cromwell family in a singular degree, and remained devoted to their memory to the last. In the second part of his career, after the overthrow of the Protectorate by the Republicans, and of the Republic by the Restoration, he devoted himself to the study of vital statistics and questions of trade and commerce, to which he gave the name of "political arithmetick (see ARITHMETIC, POLITICAL). He enjoyed the goodwill and protection of the king personally, though he was the object of dislike of the extreme court party, as he had been of that of the extreme republicans.

"By political arithmetick," says DAVENANT, "we mean the art of reasoning by figures upon things relating to government. . . . The art itself is undoubtedly very ancient; but the application of it to the particular objects of trade and revenue is what Sir William Petty first began. . . . He first gave it that name, and brought it into rules and methods" (Davenant, Political Arithmetick, Works, 1, 128, 129). In this sense Sir William Petty has, and not without reason, been called the founder of political economy.

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Putting aside the works relating to the history of the Down survey, which are of exclusively historical interest, the first publication with which the name of Petty is connected is The Observations upon the Bills of Mortality of the city of London, published in 1662; a small book of about 100 pages, but bearing on the title-page the name, not of Petty, but of GRAUNT (q.v.). Whether Petty or Graunt was the real author has been the subject of much controversy. It is to be noticed that in a list of his writings-though not of his published works - found at Wycombe in his own handwriting, some "observations on the bills of mortality" are mentioned under the date of 1660, i.e. two years before the appearance of Graunt's pamphlet (Life of Petty, p. 318). It is not, however, stated that these observations were then published. On the other hand, in one of the two series of detached essays on "political arithmetic," published at various times between 1671 and 1687, Petty speaks distinctly of the earlier work as "Grant's book"; and in another he refers to his own essay the " "Observations upon the Dublin bills" as the "snuffers' to make the candle of the new light to the world given by the earlier book burn clearer."

Taking this list of facts into connection with the publication by Petty, in 1674, two years after Graunt's death, of a new and enlarged edition of the book, with the numerous parallelisms between the Observations and the Treatise on Taxes, published by Petty in 1662, with the general belief at the time, as evidenced by EVELYN and Burnet, that Petty was the author, and with the intimacy over a long period of Petty with Graunt, it can hardly be doubted that Petty had, to say the least, a large share in the work, and that the case is one of joint authorship1 (Life of Petty, p. 180).

Of Sir William Petty's economic works, five have achieved a permanent reputation-the Treatise on Taxes and Contributions, published 1662; the Discourse on Political Arithmetick, written in 1671, but not published till 1691, after his death; and a tract entitled Quantulumcunque concerning Money, dealing with questions of currency, written in 1682; a tract entitled Verbum Sapienti, written in the last year of the first Dutch war, in 1665; and the Political Survey or Anatomy of Ireland, published anonymously in 1672. To these may be added the two series of detached Essays on Political Arithmetick, already alluded to, written at various times between 1671 and 1687. It has been well observed that all these treatises-none of which is of any considerable length-" are less akin to elaborate treatises than to essays throwing out hints and thoughts" (Edinburgh Review, No. 373, July 1895). The author shows a marked tendency to keep in view the practical aspect of

1 See on this subject Graunt or Petty, by Professor C. H. Hull, Boston, 1896; and a Dissertation on Sir William Petty, by Mr. W. L. Bevan, Canterbury, 1893: Life of Sir William Petty, ch. vii.

questions, and to found his reasoning on observation and on facts gained through his own experience, rather than on those methods of deductive reasoning which were pursued by the economists of a later school. In this respect Petty's methods are far more suggestive of Adam SMITH than of RICARDO; and they bring him into touch with the economists of the present day, such as Thorold ROGERS and Marshall. "An opinion of what is possible to be done" is the heading of one of his papers, and the tendency to prefer the practical to the abstract is one of the strongest characteristics of his mind. It originated, no doubt, in his own early experience of the difficulties of the art of government in Ireland, and in his protracted and only partially successful struggles for reformed methods of administration, which brought him into collision with nearly all the different parties successively which governed the country under the Commonwealth and during the reign of Charles II., and no doubt impressed on his mind the necessity of compromise. If, however, his method was to collect facts and statistics, and to try to found general propositions upon them, he was perfectly aware of the deficient character of the statistics

he had to use. Proposals for improving the public and official sources of information in this respect, in other words, for establishing a proper statistical department as part of the machinery of government, constantly recur in his pages, and the evils arising from the absence of a proper machinery for readily obtaining this class of information are powerfully enforced. It would not, however, be| correct to say that no instances of the deductive method of reasoning are to be found in Petty's works. Thus in the Treatise on Taxes and Contributions, a speculation on "a par of land and labour" or universal standard of value, is to be found, which belongs to this order of ideas. Such instances are, however, the exception.

Petty's speculations are most original in the sphere of trade and commerce. The age was still one of prohibition and restriction, though the absolute prohibitions of the medieval governments, which regarded trade with a foreign country as a matter of at least very doubtful benefit, were making place for the "mercantile " system, which admitted trade to be desirable, but only in so far as it could be shown to increase the amount of the precious metals in the country, as they were considered to be the only true sources of wealth. Petty saw clearly that the whole system of attempting, with this object, to force trade into artificial channels was a mistake. The sources of wealth, he clearly pointed out, were not gold and silver, but "land and labour," and money he saw was simply a measure of value, owing to certain intrinsic excellences of the precious metals as a standard. "If a man," he pointed out, "can bring to London an ounce of silver out of the earth in Peru in the same time that he can produce a bushel of corn, then one is the natural price of the other. Now if by reason of new and more easy mines a man can get two ounces of silver as formerly he did one, then corn will be as cheap at ten shillings the bushel as it was before at five shillings ceteris paribus" (Treatise on Taxes, ch. v. p. 38).

should we forbid the use of any foreign commodity which our own hands and country cannot produce, when we can employ our spare hands and lands upon such exportable commodities as will purchase the same and more?" (Treatise on Taxes, ch. vi. p. 48; Political Anatomy, ch. xi. p. 356). Successful trade, and the wealth which trade produces, he saw was a matter of exchange; and that by increasing the amount of both the imports and the exports of the country, the wealth of the country could be increased, and not by trying artificially either to foster the one or the other, or to increase the import of the precious metals (Treatise on Taxes, ch. vi.).

He was not, however, always entirely consistent in his views (Life of Petty, p. 199). He seems to have believed that there might after all be some inherent superiority in the precious metals over other sources of wealth; and his silence on the Navigation acts is remarkable, especially considering how violently he had opposed them as a member of the parliament of Ireland in their application to the trade of that country (Political Arithmetick, ch. i. p. 224; Life of Petty, pp. 141205).

This silence may perhaps be put down to fear of the established powers of the state, whom he was probably afraid of offending by a too open expression of his views. A passage in DAVENANT'S works supports this explanation (Works, i. p. 129), which also probably accounts for so many of his writings being anonymous, as it undoubtedly does for the last portion of the Political Arithmetick having been kept back till after his death, when it was published by his son, Lord Shelburne (Life of Petty, p. 205).

Petty saw clearly that import duties should not be levied on raw materials, as the price was thereby raised to the consumer in a degree altogether beyond the revenue brought in to the state. Не also desired to levy the inland revenue as much as possible on articles of which the home producer had a practical monopoly, as on them taxation could most easily be imposed without raising prices excessively (Treatise on Taxes, ch. vi. pp. 44-49). Nevertheless he admits "that all things ready and ripe for consumption may be made somewhat dearer than the same things made at home, only trade is not to be destroyed, or seriously hampered" (ib. p. 42).

In the Quantulumcunque concerning Money he states correctly the reasons which make the precious metals fit to be standards of value. There is an expression of opinion in the Political Anatomy of Ireland, ch. x., in favour of a single standard, presumably silver, considering the circumstances of the time. His works also contain a clear statement of the evils arising from confusion of coins and debasing the coinage; and from the laws

against usury. In this connection he correctly states the character of "interest which he calls "

use money "-and "exchange," which he calls "local interest." The former, he says, is "a reward for forbearing the use of your own money for a term of time agreed upon, whatsoever need yourself may have of it meanwhile." The latter is "a reward given for having your money at such a place where you most need the use of it" (Quantulumcunque, Queries 28 and 29). In connection with these questions he advocates a decimal coinage (Quantulumcunque, Query 31), the convenience of which he points

out.

He understood that the quantity of money in a country which is necessary ought to depend on the number of transactions. "Money," he said in the Verbum Sapienti, in a happy comparison, "is but the fat of the body politick, whereof too much doth as often hinder its agility as too little makes it sick." It is in this connection that, in the Quantulumcunque concerning Money, he hits at the master fallacy of the mercantile system by boldly stating that superfluous coin, like any other superfluous commodity, can with advantage be exported (Queries 23-27). In order to keep the supply of money on a level with the requirements of the country from time to time he advocates the establishment of a sound hanking system on the example of the banking system of Holland (Life of Petty, 228).

In the treatise on taxes a discussion occurs in the early part of the work on the origin of "rent," which he considers mysterious, but though he comes near to stating correctly the origin of rent, it cannot be claimed for him that he anticipated Ricardo, for he regarded rent simply as the profit of the capital invested in the land, though he saw that some lands more favourably situated than others, such as that near towns, would command a higher profit, though he does not state clearly why (Treatise on Taxes, ch. v.).

He was strongly impressed with the desirability of increasing the population. An increase of the people he considered was the surest sign of advancing prosperity; but he recognised — and bere we see the influence of his knowledge of Ireland-that for an increase to be beneficial, it must be accompanied with a corresponding increase in the efficiency of labour. In connection with his study of the question, he made a remarkable forecast of the growth of the city of London westward (Treatise on Taxes, iv. 28). He had fully realised the importance of the division of labour in augmenting production. Cloth, he says, must be made cheaper when one cards, another spins, another weaves, another draws, another dresses, another presses and packs, than when all the operations above mentioned are clumsily performed by the same hand (Political Arithmetick, i. 224). He understood that price was founded on supply and demand, and he illustrates this by some observations on the causes of the value of diamonds at different times and in different places (Sloane MS. 2903, British Museum, Life of Petty, p. 223).

His economic views largely strengthened his political convictions on certain subjects. He was one of the earliest advocates of a genuine religious

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liberty, but he drives home the argument in favour of it by pointing out that maiming, burning, and persecuting people on account of opinion injures the state and diminishes the revenue; and that, as a rule, the heterodox are the most thinking, and therefore one of the most productive classes of the community; a proposition which he illustrates by the example of the Dutch (Political Arithmetic, ch. i. p. 227; Life of Petty, p. 224).

The influence of HOBBES, with whom Petty was brought into contact as a young man when studying in Paris, may be traced in the strong view taken by him of the necessity of a well-organised government, and of increasing the powers of the state; and in his hatred of the notion of any shape of imperium in imperio, whether lay or ecclesiastical, which would stand in the way of the legitimate development of the state (Life of Petty, pp. 16, 186-188). On the other hand, in his application of the test of utility to most questions, and his clear perception of the vices of the existing electoral system, he is in touch with Locke and the Whigs of the following century.

Prob

Petty, owing to several interesting experiments in ship-building connected with the "doublebottom" so often mentioned by Pepys and Evelyn, obtained the good-will of the Duke of York, and unfortunately reciprocated his confidence. ably owing to his dislike of the extreme Protestants and Exclusion party, whom he regarded as the successors of the republicans who, in 1658, had upset the protectorate on the death of Cromwell, he was induced to trust to the assurances of the duke, when he had become king as James II., that he wished, as Charles II. had wished, to grant a general religious toleration, and would maintain the Irish settlement, in which Petty was largely interested. When, therefore, the Roman Catholic movement in Ireland-which, to say the least, was connived at by the king-showed unmistakable signs of entirely sweeping away the Protestant landowners, the disaster came as a moral as well as a material blow. He died of a gangrene in the foot on the 16th of December 1687, and was buried in the Abbey Church at Romsey.

Petty was an able mathematician, and applied his knowledge to practical ship-building. He was one of the original members of the Royal Society, and towards the end of the reign of Charles II. was appointed a Commissioner of the navy and Judge of the court of Admiralty in Ireland. He sat in the parliament of Charles II. as member for West Looe, and afterwards in the restored parliament of Ireland as member for Inistiogue.

A careful study on Petty by the German economist RoSCHER appeared in 1857 in the Transactions of the Royal Scientific Society of Saxony (Leipzig); and a dissertation on his works was recently presented to the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Munich by Mr. W. L. Bevan (Canterbury, 1893). The question of the authorship of the Observations on the Dublin Bills of Mortality is fully discussed in Graunt or Petty, Boston, 1896, by Professor C. H. Hull, who is preparing a complete edition of Petty's works for the Cambridge University Press. A full biography has been published by Lord Fitzmaurice (John Murray, 1895),

PFEIFFER, J. F. VON (1718-1787), a German cameralist of the 18th century, born in Berlin, was the son of a Swiss inhabitant of that town, took part as a young officer in the first campaign of Frederick the Great, and afterwards entered the king's service as an official. Falsely accused of fraud, he left the Prussian state service, though pronounced innocent, and was for many years employed by other princes of the empire. After several more important economic journeys, he returned to Hanau, that he might devote himself to literary work.

Between 1770 and 1778 his principal work appeared, Lehrbegriff sämmtlicher ökonomischer und Cameralwissenschaften, 4 vols. In quick succession there followed-Grundriss der wahren und falschen Staatskunst, 2 vols., 1778.-Natürliche aus dem Endzweck der Gesellschaft entstehende allgemeine Polizeiwissenschaft, 2 vols. 1779.Antiphysiocrat, 1780.-Grundriss der Finanzwissenschaft, 1781.-Berichtigungen berühmter Staatsund ökonomischen Schriften dieses Jahrhunderts, 6 vols., 1781-84. In 1782, though a Protestant, he received an appointment in the Roman Catholic university of Mainz. Four years after his death there (1787) J. Moser published from materials he had left the Grundsätze und Regeln der Staatswirthschaft, 1791.

Inama Sternegg describes Pfeiffer as one of the most important and perhaps the most characteristic representative of CAMERALISTIC SCIENCE (q.v.). His peculiar position in the history of economics is due to his fierce opposition to the physiocratic system (see GERMAN SCHOOL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY; PHYSIOCRATS). This feeling permeates all his writings, appearing chiefly in his Polizeiwissenschaft, the Antiphysiokrat, and in the Finanzwissenschaft. In this the dogmas of the mercantilists are contrasted with those of the physiocrats.

Pfeiffer, whose knowledge of the physiocratic system was exclusively derived from the writings of SCHLETTWEIN, reproached the physiocrats with two errors: (1) that their system advocated an extreme cosmopolitanism, and (2) that it recommended one universal method for all conditions and climates, regardless of the peculiar features and the gradual historical development of the countries concerned. Social economy must be regulated not according to the natural condition but according to the aims of the state. The absolute freedom of nature might suit the savage state-in city-life it is a phantom. Nations ought in economic matters to be as carefully provided with a ruler as a ship is with an experienced helmsman. Trade needs, not uncontrolled, but rational freedom. Finance and administration should be associated to "the great advantage of the state." Pfeiffer compares the statesman with the agriculturist who ploughs the field, manures, and sows, while the financier concerns himself with the harvest,

and supplies the necessary resources. Far from having an exclusive fiscal aim, the taxation which supplies the income of the state should be almost a secondary object to the financier. "Manufactures and trade determine themselves what course they will follow." Therefore only moderate duties should be imposed on the raw materials for home manufactures, and as far as possible they should be untaxed. The " 'pole star" of state policy, the object which the statesman should ever keep in view, is the rendering of home-production in The dogma of the dependent of foreign countries. physiocrats, that money in itself is not the true wealth of a country, is correct. Money is not actual, but only "potential wealth.” ARISTOTLE (q.v.) rightly made merry at those who mistook thus the possession of wealth for riches. The fate of Spain and Portugal in modern times clearly shows that a country may have too much of the precious metals. This hinders the true sources of wealth, for, by a superfluity of gold tokens, wages are raised relatively to other countries, influencing thus home production unfavourably. The balance of trade could be arranged without the precious metals, for instance, by paper representatives of value. On this subject Pfeiffer had said in his Lehrbegriff, "money, or coined gold, silver, and copper, is not really wealth, but only an accepted token of wealth and an arbitrarily selected means for arranging an easy mode of buying and selling necessaries," Population and Fertile Soil alone are true and Permanent Possessions (vol. ii. pt. ii. 111). The "art of making gold" is of use so far only as it promotes the "great art of providing bread for the people" (Grundriss, preface).

In the last of his important works :-Berichtigungen berühmter Staats- und ökonomischer Schriften, Pfeiffer comments in detail on the works of the following writers:-SECKENDORFF; JUSTI; BIELFELD; SONNENFELS; SCHLETTWEIN GENOVESI; VERRI; Victor de MIRABEAU; LetROSNE; NECKER; James STEUART, and Adam. SMITH. He approved generally Smith's criticism of the physiocrats, yet considered that he failed to appreciate the taxation system of that school.

von

[G. A. Will, Versuch über die Physiokraten deren Geschichte, Litteratur, Inhalt und Werth, 1782.Inama Sternegg, Article "J. F. Pfeiffer" in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie. -Wilhelm Roscher, Geschichte der Nationalökonomik in Deutschland, 1874.] PFENNIG (German). A small copper coin of the nominal value of one hundredth part of a German MARK (q.v.).

A. O.

F. E. A.

PHILIPS, ERASMUS (d. 1743), was author of The State of the Nation in respect to her Commerce, Debts, and Money, London, 1725, 8vo, 2nd ed., 1726, a work highly praised by M'Culloch, Literature of Political Economy, p. 351, as anticipating A. SMITH and RICARDO. "A trading nation," Philips writes, "should be an open warehouse, where the merchant may either buy what he pleases or sell what he can." In an Appeal to Common Sense, however, 2nd part, London, 1721, 8vo, he had declared himself in favour of bounties on certain exports, and of severe restrictions on the importation