Turning to another antecedent of sociology, if we trace political economy no farther back than the Physiocrats in France, or Adam Smith in England, it antedates these beginnings of critical history. In effect, however, political' economy did not become an appreciable driving force in the thrust toward objectivity until the historians were well in the lead. At this point we are considering the development of political economy solely with reference tp the question, What relation did political economy have to the differentiation of sociology? The sub stantial fact in reply to that question is that the economists were the first type of scholars to undertake the task of carrying through a completely objective analysis of what takes place in a selected human group, and of finding out why it takes place. They did not do this in a completely objective way from the beginning. They tried to, nevertheless. In making the attempt they not only from time to time de vised improvements in their own methods of closing in on their aim, but they struck out suggestions of inquiry into what occurs in other kinds of groups than the economic. Both directly and indirectly they cleared the way for an enlargement of their field of operations in the directions presently followed by the sociol ogists. Just as the economists implicitly raised and tried to answer the question, What are the actual phenomena of cause and effect within the whole range of economic groupings? so a little later the sociologists began to feel the urge of the related questions, What are the actual phenomena of cause and effect through out the whole range of human groupings, in other words throughout the whole range of human society? In certain respects, as far as it affects sociology, the outcome of the British move toward objectivity associated with the names of Adam Smith, Ricardo and Malthus is more evident in the German than in the British succession. At the close of the 18th century German thinking about economic relations had reached a dead centre. German ideas had been temporarily stabilized by ((cameralism," a pecu liar and highly developed body of theory about every phase of action within the state. (Consult Small, The Cameralists)). This system of ideas and of practice had been developing since 1555. It did not correspond in its sub divisions with later academic definitions of the social sciences. It started not as general theory hut as formulation of administrative expediency. It set forth with the frank purpose of subor dinating everything within the control of the state to the state's problem of existence. The central question to which cameralism elaborated answers was: The ruler being all-powerful over his territories and his subjects, what policies, and what details of practice in pur suance of the policies must he adopt, in order to make his rule most secure at home, and in order to provide most abundant means of asserting himself against other rulers? It would require but little reflection to prepare against surprise at what happened. Under the circumstances of the time, this question neces sarily led to answers which amounted to pre scribed programs covering the entire outward life of the subjects of German rulers. It soon became evident to the advisers of those rulers, and to the administrators of their states, that their problem involved not merely physical factors, but that it was a question of training the whole population for all the different sorts of useful work of which human beings are capable. From generation to generation the men who developed cameralistic theory and practice saw more and more clearly that if the rulers of German states were to command abundant resources, they must rule over re sourceful people. This meant that the people must be trained physically, mentally, morally and technically. In the end, therefore, cameral istic theory covered everything in the lives of the citizens, from farm work to religious wor ship. The machinery for administering this theory grew more and more complex. In detail its organization differed in one state from that in another. Its main purpose was everywhere the same, viz., to make the people as amenable as possible to all the discipline necessary to insure maximum performance of all the phys ical, mental and moral processes tributary to the strength of the ruler.
It need not be pointed out that this program involved dealing, from this special point of view, with every sort of activity which has since come under the attention of political science and political economy in their latest forms. In so far as cameralism dealt with economic questions in the later sense, it treated them as matters primarily of the state, not of individuals. German economic theory, there fore, was collectivistic in the highest degree.
Only incidentally, and in a wholly subordinate degree, was it individualistic. It was a theory of, for and by the government.
This cameralistic system contained the germs of all subsequent German administrative theory, and suggestions of much that was later devel oped into fundamental economic doctrine. Its centre of attention may be said to have occupied its original prominence only to the time of Sonnenfels (1765). From that date until the third decade of the 19th century there was an interim of barrenness in German economic thinking. This was in spite of the fact that an occasional book of some merit was produced; for example, Busch, of Hamburg, on the cir culation of money (
The one point of departure from which it is possible to get a true view of the develop ment of economic theory in Germany is that the first half century of German political econ omy was essentially not German at all; it was English. This period falls roughly within the dates 1820-70. During all this time the German economists were unconsciously breaking with all the national precedents for their particular kinds of work, and were trying to do a radically un-German thing. They were first of all doing their best, in their own division of labor, to substitute objectivity for fragmentary knowl edge and premature conclusions, but they were trying to do it in an Enklish way. They were not merely trying to graft an English branch upon a German tree. They were trying to make English roots grow in German soil, and bear more abundant and useful fruits than native stocks. If they had succeeded, the English roots would have driven out German roots. German controlling economic ideas would have changed from collectivistic to individualistic.
This fact goes far toward resolving the con fusion of German economic theorizing between 1820 and 1870. During all this time the eco nomic group of German thinkers were in dead earnest in their drive after objectivity, but the pass-key to their procedure is that the prevailing spirits among them were all the while trying to naturalize strange gods. For the theoretical and practical state-collectivism which reached its culmination in the theory and practice of Fred erick the Great in Prussia and Maria Theresa in Austria, they tried to substitute the so-called theory of °economic liberalism," or "economic determinism." Whichever of these two variants of an identical underlying conception was most prominent in specific cases, it relegated the state very largely to a passive or negative role, and it made individual initiative para mount. In short, the economic theorizing which held the centre of the stage in Germany between 1820 and 1870 was violently un-German in its presuppositions. It was that unfortunate ex cerpt from Adam Smithism which passed by way of Ricardo into circulation as the science" of political economy; and in German hands its implications were worked out to a degree of refinement never surpassed and hardly equalled in England.
If space permitted, it would be illuminating to cite particulars in which the classical econo mists, both in England and in Germany, by what amounted to a trial and error process, tested every conceivable way of accommodat ing facts to the classical presuppositions. With each variation of the attempt they confirmed convictions which later transformed certain men into sociologists. (For example, List and the entire °Zollverein" movement, about 1840; the so-called "Historical School," Roscher, Knies, about 1850; Prince-Smith and the "Man chesterists° of the Volkswirthschaftlicher Kon gress, about 1860; the aAustrian School," Carl Menger, Bohm-Bawerk, about 1870; the profes sorial socialists, or the Ethical School, Schmol ler, Wagner, Verein fur Socialpolitik, about 1870; the ((Sociological School,)) to be men tioned later, about 1880). As each contending sub-hypothesis tinder the leading assumptions failed to vindicate itself as the one missing clue to the mystery of economic relations, the certainty was approaching that some one would see in these failures the fact that economic groups are not effects of single causes but of multiple causation; that economic groups do not exist in a vacuum; that they are affected by some of ths same influences which ork in other groups, some of which influences are transmitted from other groups to economic groups, and are sometimes more decisive for economic groups than so-called economic fac tors proper. It was a foregone conclusion that when these observations were made on the basis of the experience of economists, they would stimulate someone to experiment with a new apparatus of group-analysis. This prob ability was confirmed in the case of some of the sociologists.