Excerpt from A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy: From 1776 to 1848 As no one any longer believes that political economy was invented by Adam Smith and perfected by John Stuart Mill, it has become necessary almost to apologise for taking the dates of the publication of the Wealth of Nations and Mill's Principles of Political Economy for the limits of a history of a portion of economic theory. I have chosen to begin with 1776 because what may be called the framework of the theories of Production and Distribution which have been taught in English economic works for the last hundred years, appears to owe its origin entirely to that peculiar combination of indigenous economics with the system of Quesnay which is to be found in the Wealth of Nations. I have ended with 1848 because it is yet too early to treat in an historical spirit the twenty-five years which have elapsed since 1868, and the period of stagnation which followed the publication of Mill's work is not a profitable subject of study except in connexion with the outburst of new ideas which ended it I have been able to obtain surprisingly little assistance from previous writers. Sir Travers Twiss' View of the Progress of Political Economy is forty-six years old. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.