The Authorship of the Westminster Review Attack on Samuel Bailey and the Authorship of James Mill’s Elements

D. P. O’Brien and A. C. Darnell
Additional contact information
D. P. O’Brien: University of Durham
A. C. Darnell: University of Durham

Chapter 6 in Authorship Puzzles in the History of Economics, 1982, pp 108-128 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In 1825, Bailey published his famous Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measure and Causes of Value.1 In January 1826 the Westminster Review published an extremely sharp and critical review of Bailey’s book.2 McCulloch, who, if he knew the author of this attack, did not care to reveal it, referred to the Westminster Review piece as ‘a very captious article’3 and it seems fair to say that this was not an untypical reaction. The authorship of the review was not, however, made public and has remained a matter of speculation ever since. Both James and John Stuart Mill were known to be connected with the Westminster, which had been founded in 1824 as a review presenting the views of the utilitarians and radicals; and Fetter has written: ‘It was understood that James Mill, whose position at the India House made it inadvisable for him to appear as editor, would contribute on economics.’4 James Mill has undoubtedly been the prime suspect, and was believed to be the author by Henry Higgs, Viner, and Hayek, while both Edgeworth and Schumpeter believed that John Stuart Mill was the author of the attack. Rauner, who reviewed the matter extensively, concluded that James Mill was certainly the author.5

Keywords: Contingency Table; Human Mind; Word Usage; Final Statistical Analysis; Prime Suspect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1982
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-05697-2_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349056972

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-05697-2_6

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().