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• Principles of Political Economy: Book III: Exchange
• Chapter I: Of Value
• Chapter II: Aofa Demand and Supply, In Their Relation to Value
• Chapter III: Of Cost of Production, In Its Relation to Value
• Chapter IV: Ultimate Analysis of Cost of Production
• Chapter V: Of Rent, In Its Relation to Value
• Chapter VI: Summary of the Theory of Value
• Chapter VII: Of Money
• Chapter VIII: Of the Value of Money, As Dependent On Demand and Supply
• Chapter IX: Of the Value of Money, As Dependent On Cost of Production
• Chapter X: Of a Double Standard, and Subsidiary Coins
• Chapter XI: Of Credit, As a Substitute For Money
• Chapter XII: Influence of Credit On Prices
• Chapter XIII: Of an Inconvertible Paper Currency
• Chapter XIV: Of Excess of Supply
• Chapter XV: Of a Measure of Value
• Chapter XVI: Of Some Peculiar Cases of Value
• Chapter XVII: Of International Trade
• Chapter XVIII: Of International Values
• Chapter XIX: Of Money, Considered As an Imported Commodity
• Chapter XX: Of the Foreign Exchanges
• Chapter XXI: Of the Distribution of the Precious Metals Through the Commercial World
• Chapter XXII: Influence of the Currency On Athea Exchanges and On Foreign Trade
• Chapter XXIII: Of the Rate of Interest
• Chapter XXIV: Of the Regulation of a Convertible Paper Currency
• Chapter XXV: Of the Competition of Different Countries In the Same Market
• Chapter XXVI: Of Distribution, As Affected By Exchange
• Book IV: Influence of the Progress of Society On Production and Distribution
• Chapter I: General Characteristics of a Progressive State of Wealth
• Chapter II: Influence of the Progress of Industry and Population On Values and Prices
• Chapter III: Influence of the Progress of Industry and Population, On Rents, Profits, and Wages
• Chapter IV: Of the Tendency of Profits to a Minimum
• Chapter V: Consequences of the Tendency of Profits to a Minimum
• Chapter VI: Of the Stationary State
• Chapter VII: On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes
• Book V: On the Influence of Government
• Chapter I: Of the Functions of Government In General
• Chapter II: Aona the General Principles of Taxation
• Chapter III: Of Direct Taxes
• Chapter IV: Of Taxes On Commodities
• Chapter V: Of Some Other Taxes
• Chapter VI: Comparison Between Direct and Indirect Taxation
• Chapter VII: Of a National Debt
• Chapter VIII: Of the Ordinary Functions of Government, Considered As to Their Economical Effects
• Chapter IX: The Same Subject Continued
• Chapter X: Of Interferences of Government Grounded On Erroneous Theories
• Chapter XI: Of the Grounds and Limits of the Laisser-faire Or Non-interference Principle
• Appendices
• Appendix a
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D
• Appendix E
• Appendix F: the Ms of the Principles
• Appendix G: John Stuart Mill—harriet Taylor Mill Correspondence
• Appendix H: John Stuart Mill—john E. Cairnes Correspondence and Notes
• Appendix I: Bibliographic Index of Persons and Works Cited In the Principles, With Variants and Notes

Appendix F

The MS of the Principles

the only known ms of the Principles is that in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.^* It is the press-copy MS of Vol. I of the 1st edition, bound in three volumes, half-green morocco, the MS volumes containing, respectively, Book I; Book II; and Chapters i-vi of Book III, with the Appendix to Vol. I. The folios of MS Vols. I and II are watermarked 1846; those of Vol. III are watermarked 1829 and 1833, but were undoubtedly prepared at the same time as those of the other volumes. The binding paper, however, is watermarked 1878 (five years after Mill’s death), and the original folios may not have been cut to their present size (circa 24c. × 18.5c.) until that time.

The text is written on recto, with the verso sheets reserved for notes and revisions. (This is one of the two methods usually employed by Mill, the other being to write on the right-hand side of both recto and verso, reserving the left-hand side for notes and revisions.) The sheets are gathered usually into groups of twenty which are lettered sequentially in Mill’s hand from A to Bb (L, which would occur on the first folio of Vol. II, does not appear, as the folio is missing). The first volume is numbered 1-66, 66x, 67-187, and 1-40. Neither the Table of Contents nor the Preface is here, and the “Preliminary Remarks” of the printed editions appear as Chapter i, so the chapter numbers differ. The second volume is numbered 2-139, 1-60, and 1-58, the first folio, as noted above, being missing; also ff135 and 136 have been misbound between ff129 and 130. The third volume is numbered 1-60, and 1-16, the last 16ff being the Appendix to Vol. I of the printed text, consisting here of pasted-up columns from the Morning Chronicle, linked and altered in ink by Mill. Printers’ marks and signatures are found throughout.

As indicated in the Textual Introduction, the MS is heavily revised, almost every folio containing cancellations and interlineations. Most of the cancellations are trivial (many are false starts); many are virtually indecipherable. In the following illustrative examples the early readings are sometimes tentative.

The longest revision evidently took place in Book I, Chapter ix, §2 (on joint-stock management), which appears in the MS on slightly smaller sheets in a different pen. The earlier version must have been rejected in full, as the beginning of this first version of §2 is cancelled on the last full-sized folio, and the beginning of §3 is found on the last of the smaller folios, where the last line does not reach the margin. (These folios are watermarked like those in MS Vol. III.)

Trivial changes are very frequent; I.97.35, “considerable”, will serve as example. The final MS reading is “material”, but Mill wrote and then cancelled “great” and “large”, interlined and cancelled “considerable”, and finally interlined “material”. There are other places where Mill restored cancelled readings (evidently) in proof; for example at I.135.31, where the cancelled “advantages” replaces the MS “recommendations” in the printed version. In a few places proof corrections were necessary to clear up tangles created by the MS revisions. For example at I.187.34-5, in altering by cancellation and interlineation “the improvements which in the arts of production” to “the improvements which facilitate production”, Mill forgot to cancel “of” in the MS, but it was caught in proof. A similar change which was not caught in proof, and so is recorded as a variant,] may be seen at I.188^i-i, where Mill cancelled “properties of the soil” and interlined “niggardliness of nature” without altering the verb “are” to the singular. A printer’s error which led to a revision is seen at I.110^k-k, where Mill wrote “the direst waste of wealth”, which the typesetter read as “the direct waste of wealth”; in looking over the passage in 1852 (and probably puzzling over his apparent choice of words), Mill must have seen “direct” used again six lines lower in the next sentence, and so changed the reading to the final “the most obvious part of the waste of wealth”.

One typical example of the extent of revision will illustrate Mill’s habits. At I.67, a paragraph ends: “I conceive this to be one of the many errors arising in political economy, from the practice of not beginning with the examination of simple cases, but rushing at once into the complexity of concrete phenomena.” The earliest MS version read, after “rushing”, “at once into the complication of concrete phenomena, without having obtained a clue to disentangle them, & hence seeing only a part of the facts which are relevant to the point in consideration.” A first revision altered “point in consideration” to “matter”; a second resulted in the reading, “into the complexity of concrete phenomena, without first obtaining a clue to disentangle it”; and the final reading was reached in proof. (Such passages were often altered again in later editions.)

The most interesting cancellations are, of course, the longer ones. In the 1st edition is found the following passage (an interesting anticipation of On Liberty), which was altered in the 3rd edition:

In the MS (II.f9v) that sentence is added to replace the following cancelled one:

An example of a cancelled passage not replaced will seem, to those who know Mill’s habits, even more typical. At I.368.20, between the sentences ending with “discussed” and beginning with “People,” the following sentences were cancelled in the MS:

A longer example, tentatively reproducing all the stages of revision (ignoring only a few false starts), shows Mill in difficulty over one of his key notions, the distinction between Production and Distribution. Towards the end of his “Preliminary Remarks,” he first wrote the following sentences:

The words “in their power” were altered to “in the power of either”, and then altered again to produce, with other revisions, the reading:

Immediately after this revision, Mill carried the beginning of the sentence starting “Mankind can” over to the verso of f26, writing:

Mankind can produce wealth, only by conforming to the natural laws of its production, while the manner in which they will distribute it,

Then, apparently going through the passage yet again, he cancelled all between “strict science” and “to the laws of Production”, and then decided to cancel the middle part of the account totally by drawing vertical lines through it; he then rewrote the final sentence, producing the last MS version, which is reproduced in the 1st edition with only one change (“, & as independent of human control,” being omitted from the last clause). Here is the 1848 version, with subsequent changes indicated in square brackets:

The beginning of Book I, Chapter iv, from the MS in the Pierpont Morgan Library

One final example will show the difficulty of reconstructing the heavily revised passages. The passage below, which is reproduced on the opposite page, is an attempt at reconstruction: the final reading is given in bold-face; the first two readings are given in italic, with square brackets to indicate the cancellations which led (with the italic interlineation) to the second reading; further revisions are given in ordinary roman type. (It should be realized that none of the readings but the last may have existed in complete form.)

Butthis seems to me adecidedmisunderstandingis intended to any ofof the matter in dispute.no [one intends any] disparagement [to] these classes of words, if not of things.Productionnot beingis notthe sole end of human existence, & the termof persons by refusing to their labour the name of productive, nor areunproductive,therefore,does not necessarily imply any stigma;norIt is not inwas nevertheir respective functions in the economy of society at all in questionintended to do so in the present case. The question is one of mere language & classification.here. [I.45.20–4; MS I.56]

The assumption is that the first reading was:

The second reading was:

The third reading was:

(Here a false start in the penultimate sentence is ignored: Mill wrote “It is not in” and then cancelled “is not in”.) Finally he reached the ultimate MS reading:

The complexity and uncertainty of this reconstruction should illustrate the inutility of any attempt to reproduce in full the MS cancellations.

[* ]It was bought in 1919 for £225 from Bernard Quaritch Limited, who had obtained it from Sotheby’s sale (6 May, 1919) of Alfred Morrison’s autograph collection.