Carl Menger on Ludwig Felix’s Der Einfluss der Natur auf die Entwicklung des Eigenthums (1884)

Carl Menger’s 1884 review assesses the opening volume of Ludwig Felix’s projected history of property. Its central distinction is between the undertaking’s broad explanatory ambition and empirical richness, on the one hand, and its shortcomings in execution, on the other.

The volume examines nature’s influence on property; planned continuations would address customs, religion, state power, trade, and industry. Its argument proceeds from property and humanity’s natural condition through the natural endowments of earth and human beings to nature’s formative and destructive effects and humanity’s transformation of nature. Menger understands this programme as an attempt to trace property and its forms to underlying psychological and material factors.

He acknowledges the learning supporting that ambition:

In der Durchführung erweist sich der Autor als ein fleissiger, die Forschungen auf anthropologischem und ethnologischem Gebiete in nicht geringem Umfange berücksichtigender Schriftsteller.

English translation: In the execution the author proves himself a diligent writer who takes account, to no small extent, of the researches in the anthropological and ethnological fields.

This recognition establishes the work’s value as a source of information and intellectual stimulus, but not its success as an explanation. Menger finds the evidence incomplete, its arrangement sometimes accidental, and its presentation affected by misunderstandings. He also identifies a disciplinary limitation:

Auch der Mangel an juridischer Bildung des Verfassers, welcher ausschliesslich Anthropolog und Ethnolog ist, macht sich in dem Werke deutlich bemerkbar.

English translation: The author's lack of juridical training, he being exclusively an anthropologist and ethnologist, likewise makes itself clearly noticeable in the work.

For Menger, anthropological and ethnological knowledge therefore does not suffice to explain the development of property. Legal competence matters to the interpretation of the institution, just as the selection and organization of evidence matter to the larger historical argument.

The review nevertheless closes with a qualified endorsement:

Nichtsdestoweniger wird der Socialphilosoph und zumal der Volkswirth in dem vorliegenden Bande eine Fülle interessanten Materials vorfinden, das bei einiger kritischer Sichtung ihm vielfach von Nutzen sein wird.

English translation: Nevertheless the social philosopher, and especially the economist, will find in the present volume an abundance of interesting material which, with some critical sifting, will in many respects be of use to him.

The qualification is decisive: Felix’s material becomes useful through critical scrutiny. Menger thus distinguishes the promise of a historical programme, the utility of its collected evidence, and the adequacy of its explanation. His favorable expectation for the continuation preserves the first two without conceding the third.