A Treatise on Political Economy, to which is prefixed a supplement to a preceding work on the Understanding, or Elements of Ideology: with an analytical table, and an introduction on the faculty of the Will
Authors of source text
Antoine-Louis-Claude Destutt, comte de Tracy
Contributions
- Thomas Jefferson
- translator
- Joseph Milligan
- publisher
Related resources
- is translation of
- Éléments d'Idéologie has translation
- has paratext
- A Treatise on Political Economy, to which is prefixed a supplement to a preceding work on the Understanding, or Elements of Ideology: with an analytical table, and an introduction on the faculty of the Will paratext
Summary (extracted citations)
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Milligan (25 Oct 1818, Monticello) "Sir, I now return you, according to promise, the translation of M. Destutt Tracy’s 'Treatise on Political Economy', which I have carefully revised and corrected. The numerous corrections of sense in the translation, have necessarily destroyed uniformity of style, so that all I may say on that subject is that the sense of the author is everywhere now faithfully expressed. It would be difficult to do justice, in any translation, to the style of the original, in which no word is unnecessary, no word can be changed for the better, and severity of logic results in that brevity, to which we wish all science reduced. The merit of this work will, I hope, place it in the hands of every reader in our country. By diffusing sound principles of Political Economy, it will protect the public industry from the parasite institutions now consuming it, and lead us to that just and regular distribution of the public burthens from which we have sometimes strayed. It goes forth therefore with my hearty prayers, that while the Review of Montesquieu, by the same author, is made with us the elementary book of instruction in the principles of civil government, so the present work may be in the particular branch of Political Economy".
Notes
Partial translation of the 4-volume 'Eléments d'Idéologie' with a new preface by Jefferson. It had a major influence on Jefferson's thinking about representative democracy.
Unclear whether this was published before the French edition of this part.