J. S. Mill rejected the notion of a paradigmatic contrast between the British and French traditions represented by Ricardo and Say respectively. After receiving from Say a gift of the Cours complet he opined that definitional and organizational differences did not imply substantive doctrinal or methodological differences; he himself had profited even from Say’s ‘speculations’, which neither conflicted with those of the ‘abstract’ British writers to whom Say objected nor implied significant policy differences:

You will hardly be surprised that I should not quite concur in the whole of your strictures on those whom you call the ‘économistes politiques abstraits’; though I am forced to admit that they have frequently occupied public attention, to the great detriment of the science, with discussions of mere nomenclature and classification, of no consequence except as to the manner of expressing or of teaching the principles of the science; and that they have occasionally generalised too far, by not taking into account a number of the modifying circumstances, which are of importance in the various questions composing the details of the science. I have myself derived several most important corrections of my speculative views from your work, and from the reflections which it suggested. I am happy to find that there is much less in your principles, than I thought there was, which is positively at variance with the rigidly scientific economists of this country. I believe that their principles when duly modified, constitute a deeper and more searching analysis of the phenomena of wealth than yours, but that they are not materially different in their practical result.