Opposition and dissent

In the previous pages, the multifaceted history of the rise of quantification and for­malisation in political economy - as one branch of the moral sciences - has been outlined, from the second half of the seventeenth century to the Revolution.

history, the Academie royale des sciences, with its network of correspondents, and the Institut national des sciences et des arts played an active part, especially as regards probabilities. At the Institut, moreover, a “Classe des sciences morales et politiques” was created - which did not exist in the former Academie des sciences - where politi­cal economy could be discussed. In the preceding pages, it has also been important to distinguish carefully between quantification and formalisation and, in the latter, between the use of probability theory and that of calculus, even if these different trends necessarily interacted with each other. The idea that the new mathematics and the emerging probability theory - which were still not totally accepted - could be of some help in the field, just as they had been in a spectacular way in other sciences like astronomy or physics, gradually made its way. Yet, apart from some technical achievements, this history was still in its early initial stages at that time and made a decisive new start some decades later only with the development and spread of a general reasoning about functions and the work of Antoine-Augustin Cournot (1801­1877). To conclude this chapter briefly, an important aspect of this history must still be mentioned: a theme topical in France during the nineteenth century - in Jean­Baptiste Say (1767-1832) and his disciples, for example (see vol. 2, Chapter 3) - and still alive today, namely, the rejection of the use of mathematics in economic theory.^[182]

Not surprisingly, during our period, there was reluctance to accept the extension of calculus and probability theory to the “moral sciences” from some quarters, even amongst the scientists of the Academie royale des sciences.

No science (except geometry) is amenable to this mathematical metaphysics, which can only be applied to lifeless and unchanging things. Mathematicians are obliged to suppose a triangle, a square, in an abstract way because the forms given by nature are still too irregular to be the object of calculation. And one would like to apply political calculus to the large association of men, the com­ponents of which are so different because of so many different circumstances!

(Stael-Holstein [1795] 1820, 150)

Pierre-Louis Rrnderer, who was critical of Canard’s memoir, wrote along the same lines and opposed the view that mathematics reflects the operations of the human mind. In the late 1190s or early 1800s, in a short text, “Sur l’esprit mathematicien et l’esprit logicien”, he denounced a fatal preconception: that the study of math­ematics is the best way to learn logic, that mathematics is a reliable and safe guide for the mind in any kind of research towards any kind of truth.

This is a big mistake, and a little bit of thought is enough to convince that moral and political truths and mathematical truths do not have anything in common, and that the devices which lead to the ones cannot lead to the oth­ers. Mathematical truths are proved through operations: one does not discuss in mathematics. Moral and political truths can only emerge from discussion: one does not carry out any operation in moral and political sciences.

(in Rrnderer 1851, 313)

Mathematical operations and formulas are of no help in these discussions: “they can help to give some precision to a consequence but they are never able to deduce it. In a moral or political discussion, one must always bear in mind both the starting point and the point of arrival” (1851, 313). Outside mathematics, mathematicians are lost and unable to deal with the many complex elements and ideas which exist in the world. “Newton, outside mathematics, commented the Apocalypse” (1851, 314).

Finally, another prominent figure of the Enlightenment was of the same opinion: Andre Morellet (1121-1819), a friend of Turgot, whose argument was fairly akin to that of Dupont. His negative opinion was expressed in an unpublished draft where he criticised Canard’s Principes (in Crepel 1995a, 239-45). The language of math­ematics, he wrote, could be a useful tool but it “corrupts... the hand which uses it and makes it unable to use other tools” (1995a, 239).

It is surely possible to obtain the solution to a mathematical problem when it is put in equations; but to put a problem of political economy in a state of being solved with an algebraic formula... is often impossible; and, when it is possible, the purely metaphysical work that was necessary to reach this goal must have already supplied the solution to the question and does not leave anything to do for algebra and its calculations.

(1995a, 240)

Morellet’s critique is also directed at Condorcet and his 1185 Essai sur l'application de l'analyse. Condorcet himself, he wrote, stated that almost everywhere in the Essai one would find results which comply with what the simplest reason would dictate. So why should we resort to mathematics where the use of reason is suf­ficient? Condorcet’s main argument, according to Morellet, was that mathematics helps to fight sophisms and illusions. But, Morellet insisted, Condorcet forgot “the previous work he was obliged to do before using his mathematical tool”. If this work is done, the question is already solved; and whenever this step is neglected, one would be “as grossly mistaken as [are] the wrong-minded man and the most awkward sophist”: and this is precisely what “happens too often to the most skilful mathematicians” when they go out of their sphere of competence (1995a, 240).