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SENIOR, NASSAU WILLIAM (1790-1864)

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 645 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SENIOR, See also:NASSAU See also:WILLIAM (1790-1864) , See also:English economist, was See also:born at See also:Compton, Berks, on the 26th of See also:September 1790, the eldest son of the Rev. J. R. Senior, See also:vicar of Durnford, Wilts. He was educated at See also:Eton and Magdalen See also:College, See also:Oxford; at the university he was a private See also:pupil of See also:Richard See also:Vaal See also:ely, afterwards See also:archbishop of See also:Dublin, with whom he remained connected by ties of lifelong friendship. He took the degree of B. A. in 1811, was called to the See also:bar in 1819, and in 1836, during the chancellorship of See also:Lord See also:Cottenham, was appointed a See also:master in See also:chancery. On the See also:foundation of the professorship of See also:political See also:economy at Oxford in 1825 Senior was elected to fill the See also:chair, which he occupied till 183o, and again from 1847 to 1852. In 183o he was requested by Lord See also:Melbourne to inquire into the See also:state of combinations and strikes, to See also:report on the state of the See also:law and to suggest improvements in it. He was a member of the Poor Law Inquiry See also:Commission of 1832, and of the Handloom Weavers Commission of 1837; the report of the latter, published in 1841, wa s See also:drawn up by him, and he embodied in it the substance of the report he had prepared some years before on combinations and strikes. He was also one of the commissioners appointed in 1861 to inquire into popular See also:education in See also:England. In the later years of his See also:life, during his visits to See also:foreign countries, he studied with much care the political and social phenomena they exhibited.

Several volumes of his See also:

journals have been published, which contain much interesting See also:matter on these topics, though the author probably rated too highly the value of this sort of social study. Senior was for many years a frequent contributor to the See also:Edinburgh, Quarterly, See also:London and See also:North See also:British Reviews, dealing in their pages with See also:literary as well as with economic and political subjects. He died at See also:Kensington on the 4th of See also:June 1864. His writings on economic theory consisted of an See also:article in the See also:Encyclopaedia See also:Metropolitan, afterwards separately published as An Outline of the See also:Science of Political Economy (1836), and his lectures de-livered at Oxford. Of the latter the following were printed: An See also:Introductory Lecture (1827); Two Lectures on See also:Population, with a See also:correspondence between the author and See also:Malthus (1831); Three Lectures on the Transmission of the See also:Precious Metals from See also:Country to Country, and the See also:Mercantile Theory of See also:Wealth (1828) ; Three Lectures on the Cost of obtaining See also:Money and on some Effects of Private and See also:Government See also:Paper Money (183o) ; Three Lectures on See also:Wages and on the Effects of See also:Absenteeism, Machinery and See also:War, with a See also:Preface on the Causes and Remedies of the See also:Present Disturbances (183o, 2nd ed. 1831) ; A Lecture on the See also:Production of Wealth (1847) ; and Four Introductory Lectures on Political Economy (1852). Several of his lectures were translated into See also:French by M. Arrivabene under the See also:title of Principes Fondamentaux d'Economie Politique (1835). Senior also wrote on administrative and social questions—A See also:Letter to Lord Howick on a Legal See also:Provision for the Irish Poor, See also:Commutation of See also:Tithes and a Provision for the Irish See also:Roman See also:Catholic See also:Clergy (1831, 3rd ed., 1832, with a preface containing suggestions as to the See also:measures to be adopted in the " present emergency ") ; Statement of the See also:Pro-See also:vision for the Poor and of the See also:Condition of the Labouring Classes in a considerable portion of See also:America and See also:Europe, being the Preface to the Foreign Communications in the Appendix to the Poor Law Report (1835) ; On See also:National See also:Property, and on the Prospects of the Present See also:Administration and of their Successors (anon. ; 1835) ; Letters on the Factory See also:Act, as it affects the See also:Cotton Manufacture (1837) ; Suggestions on Popular Education (1861); See also:American See also:Slavery (in See also:part a reprint from the Edinburgh See also:Review, 1862); An Address on Education delivered to the Social Science Association (1863). His contributions to the reviews were collected in volumes entitled Essays on Fiction (1864); See also:Biographical Sketches (1865, chiefly of noted lawyers); and See also:Historical and Philosophical Essays (1865). In 1859 appeared his See also:Journal kept in See also:Turkey and See also:Greece in the Autumn of 1859 and the Beginning of 1858; and the following were edited after his See also:death by his daughter: Journals, Conversations and Essays See also:relating to See also:Ireland (1868); Journals kept in See also:France and See also:Italy from 1848 to 1852, with a See also:Sketch of the Revolution of 1848 (1871); Conversations with See also:Thiers, See also:Guizot and other Distinguished Persons during the Second See also:Empire (1878) ; Conversations with Distinguished Persons during the Second Empire, from 186o to 1863 (188o) ; Conversations and Journals in See also:Egypt and See also:Malta (1882); also in 1872 Correspondence and Conversations with See also:Alexis de See also:Tocqueville from 1834 to 1859.

Senior's literary criticisms do not seem to have ever won the favour of the public; they are, indeed, somewhat formal and See also:

academic in spirit. The author, while he had both See also:good sense and right feeling, appears to have wanted the deeper insight: the geniality and the catholic tastes which are necessary to make a critic of a high See also:order, especially in the See also:field he See also:chose—that, namely, of imaginative literature. His tracts on See also:practical politics, though the theses they sup-ported were sometimes questionable, were ably written and are still See also:worth See also:reading, but cannot be said to be of much permanent See also:interest. But his name continues to hold an See also:honourable, though secondary,See also:place in the See also:history of political economy. Senior regards political economy as a purely deductive science, all the truths of which are inferences from four elementary propositions. It is, in his See also:opinion, wrongly supposed by J. S. See also:Mill and others to be a hypothetic science —founded, that is to say, on postulates not corresponding with social realities. The premises from which it sets out are, according to him, not assumptions but facts. It concerns itself, however, with wealth only, and can therefore give no practical counsel as to political See also:action: it can only suggest considerations which the politician should keep in view as elements in the study of the questions with which he has to See also:deal. The conception of See also:economics as altogether deductive is certainly erroneous, and puts the science from the outset on a false path. But See also:deduction has a real, though limited, See also:sphere within it.

Hence, though the See also:

chief difficulties of the subject are not of a logical See also:kind, yet accurate nomenclature, strict See also:definition and rigorous reasoning are of See also:great importance. To these Senior gave See also:special See also:attention, and, notwithstanding occasional pedantries, with very useful results. In several instances he improved the forms in which accepted doctrines were habitually stated. He also did excellent service by pointing out the arbitrary novelties and frequent in-consistencies of terminology which deface See also:Ricardo's See also:principal See also:work—as, for example, his use of " value " in the sense of " cost of production," and of " high " and " See also:low " wages in the sense of a certain proportion of the product as distinguished from an See also:absolute amount, and his See also:peculiar employment of the epithets " fixed " and " circulating " as applied to See also:capital. He shows, too, that in numerous instances the premises assumed by Ricardo are false. Thus he cites the assertions that See also:rent depends on the difference of fertility of the different portions of See also:land in cultivation; that the labourer always receives precisely the necessaries, or what See also:custom leads him to consider the necessaries, of life; that, as wealth and population advance, agricultural labour becomes less and less proportionately productive; and that therefore the See also:share of the produce taken by the landlord and the labourer must constantly increase, whilst that taken by the capitalist must constantly diminish; and he denies the truth of all these propositions. Besides adopting some terms, such as that of " natural agents," from Say, Senior introduced the word " See also:abstinence "—which, though obviously not See also:free from objection, is for some purposes useful—to See also:express the conduct of the capitalist which is remunerated by interest ; but in defining " cost of production " as the sum of labour and abstinence necessary to production he does not seem to see that an amount of labour and an amount of abstinence are disparate, and do not admit of reduction to a See also:common quantitative See also:standard. He added some important considerations to what had been said by See also:Smith on the See also:division of labour. He distinguishes usefully between the See also:rate of wages and the See also:price of labour. But in seeking to determine the law of wages he falls into the See also:error of assuming a determinate wage-fund, and states as an economic truth what is only an identical proposition in See also:arithmetic. Whilst entertaining such an exaggerated estimate of the services of Malthus that he extravagantly pronounces him " as a benefactor of mankind on a level with See also:Adam Smith," he yet shows that he modified his opinions on population considerably in the course of his career, regards his statements of the See also:doctrine with which his name is associated as vague and ambiguous, and asserts that, " in the See also:absence of disturbing causes, subsistence may be expected to increase in a greater ratio than population." It is urged by H. X.

C. Perin, and must, we think, be admitted, that by his See also:

isolation of economics from morals, and his See also:assumption of the See also:desire of wealth as the See also:sole See also:motive-force in the economic domain, Senior, in common with most of the other followers of Smith, tended to set up See also:egoism as the legitimate ruler and See also:guide of practical life. It is no sufficient See also:answer to this See also:charge that he makes formal reserve in favour of higher ends. From the scientific See also:side Cliffe See also:Leslie has abundantly proved the unsubstantial nature of the See also:abstraction implied in the phrase " desire of wealth," and the in-adequacy of such a principle for the explanation of economic phenomena. (J. K.

End of Article: SENIOR, NASSAU WILLIAM (1790-1864)

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