ABSTRACT
When we take a general survey of all the trends of economic science that have been expounded in the present work; ranging through the individualists from Quesnay to Ricardo, with their successors, including the champions of the doctrine of marginal utility; through the universalists from Adam Müller to the historical school, not forgetting the mercantilists; and, finally, through the socialists who are partly individualist and partly universalist in their outlook—we are led to the general conclusion that, from the historical standpoint, there is no unified body of economic doctrine, but that the trends must be classified as individualist and universalist, respectively, according as the attitude to the fundamental problem of individualism versus universalism may vary. Nay more, as our whole study of the subject has shown, a modern critic's own attitude towards the mercantilists, the physiocrats, the classical economists, Adam Müller, List, and Carey, will be modified according as he himself is an individualist or a universalist.
