The Question
Everyone seems to know the quote which dismisses the History of Economics as "wrong opinions of dead men", but nobody I've asked so far has an exact source. Is it just folklore or can you give a reference?
The Answer
The question was put to the HES email list. There were several responses, which provided the following information.
The phrase "wrong opinions of dead men" is quoted by Boulding in his famous "After Samuelson, Who Needs Adam Smith?" History of Political Economy, vol. 3 (1971), p. 229, but Boulding admits with regret that he could not track down the source.
One likely source is A.C. Pigou's famous remark: "These antiquarian researches have no great attraction for one who finds it difficult enough to read what is now thought on economic problems, without spending time in studying confessedly inadequate solutions that were offered centuries ago." Pigou's reportedly said this when asked to review Hannah Sewall's Theory of Value before Adam Smith. The quotation is provided on p. 1 of Mark Blaug's Economic Theory in Retrospect. But Don Moggridge provides another version of Pigou's remark, this time attributed to Pigou via J. Maynard Keynes -- Keynes refers to Pigou as dismissing "the wrong opinions of dead men" (D E Moggridge, Maynard Keynes: An Economist's Biography, 1992, xvi).
There were two other responses to the request, the first pointing to J.B. Say and the other to Frank H. Knight. While not directly answering the question, they do provide supplemental quotations in a similar vein.
Say, Cours Complet d'Economie Politique Pratique, 1828-9, quoted by T.W. Hutchison On Revolutions and Progress in Economic Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, 1978, p. 213: "What useful purpose can be served by the study of absurd opinions and doctrines that have long ago been exploded, and deserved to be? It is mere pedantry to attempt to revive them. The more perfect a science becomes the shorter becomes its history. ... Our duty with regard to errors is not to revive them, but simply to forget them."
Say, Traite, Introduction, in paragraph I.76: "The science [of political economy] must be stript of many false opinions; but this labour must be confined to such errors as are generally received, and to authors of acknowledged reputation. For what injury can an obscure writer or a discredited dogma effect?"
Say, Traite, Introduction, in paragraph I.82: "In support of antiquated errors, it has also been said, 'that there surely must be some foundations for opinions, so generally embraced by all mankind; and that we ourselves ought rather to call in question the observations and reasonings which overturn what has been hitherto so uniformly maintained and acquiesced in by so many individuals, distinguished alike by their wisdom and benevolence.' Such reasoning, it must be acknowledged, should make a profound impression on our minds, and even cast some doubts on the most incontrovertible positions, had we not alternately seen the falsest hypotheses now universally recognized as such, everywhere received and taught during a long succession of ages. It is yet but a very little time, since the rudest as well as the most refined nations, and all mankind, from the unlettered peasant to the enlightened philosopher, believed in the existence of but four material elements. No human being had even dreamt of disputing the doctrine, which is nevertheless false; insomuch that a tyro in natural philosophy, who should at present consider earth, air, fire, and water, as distinct elements, would be disgraced. How many other opinions, as universally prevailing and as much respected, will in like manner pass away. There is something epidemical in the opinions of mankind; they are subject to be attacked by moral maladies which infect the whole species. Periods at length arrive when, like the plague, the disease wears itself out and loses all its malignity; but it still has required time. The entrails of the victims were consulted at Rome three hundred years after Cicero had remarked, that the two augurs could no longer examine them without laughter."
Knight, "Ricardian Theory of Production and Distribution," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. 1, February 1935, p. 3: "On the assumption that the primary interest in the 'ancients' in such a field as economics is to learn from their mistakes, the principal theme of this discussion will be the contrast between the 'classical' system and 'correct' views. The system is taken in the sense indicated by the title, with little regard to other writers than Ricardo's own great master and the two successors most competent and closest to his own spirit, Senior and Mill. While our special interest is distribution theory, it is useful to have in the background clear views of essential doctrines or points of view in the authors' theory of value or price; for these are often closely connected with fallacies in the other field. It will be appropriate to give by way of introduction a kind of formal list of main deficiencies and sources of error in the system as a whole. At least seven such "aberrations" appear to have vital importance."
The full text of the messages can be obtained via the HES List archive for September 2001 under the thread "HET as wrong opinions": http://eh.net/lists/archives/hes/sep-2001/
Ross Emmett