SAY (Jean-Baptiste).
Letters to Mr. Malthus, on Various Subjects of Political Economy; Particularly on the Causes of the General Stagnation of Commerce. Translated for the Pamphleteer exclusively.
The first English translation of this collection of five letters written by Jean-Baptiste Say and addressed to Thomas Robert Malthus, an offprint from The Pamphleteer proceeding the first book edition published in the same year by Sherwood, Neely, and Jones.
Say’s Letters respond to the publication of Malthus’s Principles of Political Economy published earlier in the same year. The letters particularly pertain to the ‘general glut’ controversy prompted by the elaboration of Say’s Law in his Traité d’économie politique (1803), which Malthus had severely criticised in his Principles.
Say’s correspondence with Malthus is the source of his oft-quoted, scathing remark: ‘It is better to stick to facts and their consequences than to syllogisms’ (quoted in New Palgrave).
