THE SOCIALISTS OF THE CHAIR. 
279 
which is a sort of programme, published in reply to the attacks 
of Deputy Professor Treitschke ; also an outline of the course 
of lectures of Professor Adolf Held, so prematurely and in so 
tragic a manner lost to science ; and finally, the great work of 
Professor Adolf Wagner, Lehrbuch der politischen Œkonomie, of 
which a single octavo volume of 775 pages, devoted to the 
exposition of principles {Grundlegung), has appeared. The 
three concluding chapters treat economic problems from the 
juridical side. The titles they bear indicate their importance : 
“ Economic Organization,” “ The State and its Economic In 
fluence,” “ Law considered in so far as it regulates Economic 
Relations.” 
Wagner considers, in the first place, man seeking to satisfy 
his wants by means of labour. But man lives in society, and 
society cannot exist unless the State preserves order therein, 
and establishes a juridical basis for the mutual relations of 
men. This juridical basis is the civil law, from which results 
the economic organization of society. The old Economists 
strongly protest against all artificial organizations. They 
seem to forget that the law which rules us is the result of a 
reasoned elaboration of the primitive Roman law, developed 
during a thousand years, by successive generations of juris 
consults. The so-called natural order of which they are always 
speaking, so far from being the effect of nature, is the result 
of human, and consequently artificial, laws. 
According to Professor Wagner, the economic development 
of a people depends in part on the progress of the technical 
processes of the different industries, and in part on the state of 
the laws which serve as the basis and measure of the economic 
activity of individuals. The great juridical institutions, the 
influence of which in political economy it is necessary to study, 
are, says the learned professor of Berlin, individual liberty, 
property, and the right of contract, hereditary succession, and 
the consideration due to vested rights. The principles accord 
ing to which these institutions are regulated are not immutable ; 
they have given way to transformations and historical develop 
ments. Changes in technical processes lead almost always to 
a change in juridical institutions; thus the development of