[General Economics: Pure Theory]1

To Senior belongs the signal honor of having been the first to make the attempt to state, consciously and explicitly, the postulates that are necessary and sufficient in order to build up—it is misleading to say to ‘deduce’—that little analytic apparatus commonly known as economic theory, or, to put it differently, to provide for it an axiomatic basis. The merit of the attempt is but little decreased by the fact that his list of postulates was incomplete and otherwise defective and by the further fact that he invited attack by defining that apparatus so narrowly or else by equating this theory to ‘political economy.’ It is increased by the fact that the attempt occurs in the course of a general theoretical house cleaning and is part of a wider attempt at rigorous conceptualization. First he polished Wealth and (exchange) Value; then he stated his four Elementary Propositions—the postulates; finally he presented, under the inadequate heading of Distribution (Exchange or Value and Distribution would be more adequate), a set of additional concepts and of relations that together with the immediate development of the postulates, which settle most matters usually dealt with under the heading Production, are supposed to make up the theoretical organon. As a venture in pure theory, his performance is clearly superior to that of Ricardo. We shall now consider the postulates, using in doing so every opportunity that may arise of looking further afield.