We must renounce the singular idea,24 that thousands of years could pass away without leaving any trace of what enlightened men had thought and elaborated in the matter of Political Economy, among so many nations, and that people should never have thought of cultivating this rich intellectual domain, while in every other direction, it is easy for us to ascend by a road already cleared up to the most remote antiquity.

It has already been acknowledged, that the classic domain, fertilized by intellectual culture on a large scale and on a small one, was exceedingly rich in valuable indications, although they do not present themselves under the distinct form, which later affected the different branches of public life.

As to the pretended primitive simplicity of the middle ages, which it is claimed, prevailed during that period, a species of economic vegetation, those who maintain it forget the long series of communistic theories which, at near intervals, found expression in many a bloody struggle, and whose repression required the combined efforts of Church and State.

Doubtless, it is not in their modern forms that the elements of politico-economical science are to be found, in the past. But when we succeed in reuniting the scattered and broken parts; when we have made our way into the customs, decrees, ordinances, capitularies, laws and regulations of those times; when, so to speak, we come, unaware, upon the life of nations, in the most ingenuous and confidential documents which reflect it most faithfully because most simply, we may well be astonished at the results obtained. Where we expected, perhaps, to find only erudition, we reap a rich harvest of lessons which are all the more valuable for being disinterested.

Legislative and administrative acts frequently develop real economic doctrines. It is easy to discover in them the onward course of a theory which plunges directly into practical applications.

What results might we not expect from these efforts, if the [pg 025] genius of investigation and of divination, which has so elevated historical studies in our day, should have an observing and penetrating eye in this direction! How limited was the field on which GuÉrard erected the scientific monument which he has left us in his Polyptique d'Irminon; and how precious are the lessons he leaves us, since we have here to do, not with the history of professed doctrines or unlooked-for events, but with the historical development of economic society which shows us the living march of principles.