Ludwig von Mises on Edgeworth’s Papers relating to Political Economy

Ludwig von Mises’s book review assesses Edgeworth’s collected writings through a distinction between scientific influence and lasting analytical achievement. Edgeworth’s importance rests on his teaching at Oxford, his editorship of the Economic Journal, and his sustained practice of criticism. Mises welcomes the collection as making accessible a contribution whose significance exceeds its dispersed publication form.

The review briefly maps the three volumes: catallactics—value and distribution, monopoly, and money—in the first; international trade, taxation, and mathematical economics in the second; book reviews in the third. This outline prepares Mises’s central methodological judgment. Although Edgeworth employed mathematics extensively, he regarded it as a useful supplement rather than an indispensable foundation of economics. Mises endorses that restraint but questions the returns on Edgeworth’s own mathematical labours:

Es ist schade, daß Edgeworth soviel Zeit und Mühe diesen Arbeiten gewidmet hat, von denen er schließlich selbst gestehen muß, daß sie unserer Wissenschaft keinen großen Gewinn zu bringen vermögen.

English translation: It is regrettable that Edgeworth devoted so much time and effort to these works, of which he must finally himself admit that they cannot bring any great gain to our science.

The objection concerns intellectual productivity: translating economic reasoning into mathematical language need not add explanatory value. Mises then applies a similarly discriminating standard to the collection’s historical standing. Much of its monetary analysis, and some other work in catallactics, has been superseded. Yet obsolescence does not erase an argument’s original contribution:

Die Gerechtigkeit verlangt jedoch die Feststellung, daß auch die heute veralteten Abhandlungen bei ihrem Erscheinen Neues brachten.

English translation: Justice nevertheless requires acknowledging that even the essays now outdated brought something new when they appeared.

Mises distinguishes the historian’s task of recovering those innovations from the economist’s search for help with unresolved problems. Both readers can profit from Edgeworth, but his continuing analytical value lies especially in exposing weaknesses and framing questions:

Denn Edgeworth ist in erster Linie ein kritischer Kopf; es ist ihm mehr gegeben, an den Arbeiten anderer das Unbefriedigende herauszufinden und die Probleme zu formulieren, als selbst Lösungsversuche zu bringen, die der Kritik standzuhalten vermochten.

English translation: For Edgeworth is above all a critical mind; he is more gifted at identifying what is unsatisfactory in the work of others and formulating problems than at offering attempted solutions himself that could withstand criticism.

The review closes by praising Edgeworth’s 1891 Oxford inaugural lecture as a small masterpiece. Mises selects its comparison between productive investment and intellectual effort: economists must allocate limited energy between deductive theory and historical experience, with the appropriate balance varying by individual. This conclusion broadens the review’s methodological relevance. Its qualified admiration joins skepticism about the gains from mathematical reformulation to respect for criticism, historical achievement, and a division of intellectual labour that discourages disparagement between different scholarly pursuits.