Julius Friedrich Gans von Ludassy · 1894
Julius Friedrich Gans von Ludassy’s 1894 review of Siegmund Feilbogen’s Smith und Turgot (1892) treats Adam Smith’s originality as a problem of scientific method. Beginning with Luigi Cossa’s call for an impartial comparison of Smith and his predecessors, Ludassy asks whether the recovery of intellectual antecedents has obscured Smith’s distinctive achievement.
Der Zug unserer Zeit nach Blosslegung historischer Entwicklungen hat wohl auch auf dem Gebiete der Literaturgeschichte zu Uebertreibungen geführt.
English translation: The tendency of our age toward laying bare historical developments has doubtless led to exaggerations in the field of literary history as well.
The objection concerns treating earlier formulations as a sufficient measure of later works. Feilbogen’s alternative, which Ludassy substantially endorses, locates originality in the organization and explanatory force of ideas. Smith must be compared with what an individual predecessor accomplished, not with an aggregate of propositions retrospectively collected from numerous writers.
Turgot supplies the crucial comparison because intellectual proximity coexists with a striking disparity of influence.
Ueber das Verhältnis dieser beiden hervorragenden Männer ist soviel sicher, dass sie einander persönlich nicht ganz ferne und sachlich überaus nahe standen.
English translation: Concerning the relation of these two eminent men this much is certain: that personally they did not stand altogether remote from one another, and in substance stood exceedingly close.
Proximity, however, does not establish dependence. Ludassy stresses the weakness of the evidence concerning their relationship:
Ueber ihre Beziehungen findet sich gleichwohl in ihren eigenen wissenschaftlichen Werken nicht die leiseste Andeutung; was wir überhaupt darüber zu wissen glauben, beruht auf ziemlich unbestimmt gehaltenen Mitteilungen von zweifelhafter Verlässlichkeit.
English translation: Nevertheless, not the faintest allusion to their relations is to be found in their own scientific works; whatever we believe ourselves to know about it at all rests upon rather vaguely worded reports of doubtful reliability.
The review thus shifts attention from uncertain personal transmission to the works themselves. If Smith did not substantially surpass Turgot, his far greater scientific impact requires explanation. Unequal reception becomes a problem for comparative analysis, rather than something settled by cataloguing shared doctrines.
Ludassy follows Feilbogen’s five-part argument. Its methodological opening proposes a psychological analysis, associated with Menger’s theoretical school, of the intrinsic intellectual power of works. Ludassy nevertheless identifies a vulnerability: the comparison depends on selecting an appropriate predecessor. The second section supports the choice of Turgot through the thinkers’ parallel movement from division of labour to exchange, money, commerce, and capital. Their shared individualism sharpens the comparison. Turgot’s defence of property, independence, and free trade appears even more uncompromising than Smith’s, weakening the identification of individualism as Smith’s peculiar contribution.
The third section explains their difference through Feilbogen’s concept of Scheinwissenschaft. Experience does not immediately become empirical science: partial observations can first be elevated into supposedly general explanations. Rival schools arise around neglected experiences and competing principles. Scientific progress requires criticism of these partial explanations and their synthesis under a more comprehensive principle. In this account, Turgot’s humanitarian and reforming commitments helped direct his theoretical choices, while his compressed, dogmatic exposition limited its persuasive reach. The criticism concerns the relationship between political purpose and inquiry, not the moral worth of reform.
The fourth section establishes Smith’s formal superiority through his treatment of division of labour. Caution, quantitative precision, and the reduction of complex processes to simpler phenomena give his exposition explanatory strength. The fifth identifies labour as Smith’s organizing principle, distinguishing his system from physiocracy’s conjunction of individual liberty and agricultural primacy. Ludassy’s reservation concerns arrangement: the demonstration of labour’s centrality would have been stronger had its dispersed elements been brought together.
The concluding discussion of social policy gives this interpretation contemporary significance. Smith’s commitment to labour and general prosperity qualifies the priority of individual freedom. His support for high wages and workers’ combination, alongside exceptions to liberty for defence, education, worker protection, and public purposes, complicates an atomistic reading of his economics. His hostility to intervention is contextualized by the anti-worker policies of his time; taxation enters the discussion through progression and protection of workers’ necessities.
Ludassy’s favourable judgment rests on this conjunction of scientific synthesis and practical orientation. Feilbogen replaces disputes over isolated anticipations with an inquiry into why related intellectual materials achieved greater coherence, explanatory power, and influence in Smith’s work.
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