J. B. Say plays a by no means negligible part in the history of doctrines. Foreign economists have not always recognised him. Dühring, who is usually perspicacious, is very unjust to him when he speaks of “the labour of dilution” to which Say devoted his energies.[284] His want of insight frequently caused him to glide over problems instead of attempting to fathom them, and his treatment of political economy occasionally appears very superficial. Certain difficulties are veiled with pure verbiage—a characteristic in which he is very frequently imitated by Bastiat. Despite Say’s greater lucidity, it is doubtful whether Smith’s obscurity of style is not, after all, more stimulating for the mind. Notwithstanding all this, he was faithful in his transmission of the ideas of the great Scotch economist into French. Happily his knowledge of Turgot and Condillac enabled him to rectify some of the more contestable opinions of his master, and in this way he avoided many of the errors of his successors. He has left his mark upon French political economy, and had the English economists adopted his conception of the _entrepreneur_ earlier, instead of waiting until the appearance of Jevons, they would have spared the science many useless discussions provoked by the work of a thinker who was certainly more profound but much less judicious than Say, namely, David Ricardo.[285] CHAPTER III: THE PESSIMISTS A new point of view is presented to us by the economists of whom we are now going to speak. Hitherto we have heard with admiration of the discovery of new facts and of their beneficent effects both upon nations and individuals. We are now to witness the enunciation of new doctrines which cast a deepening shadow across the radiant dawn of economics, giving it that strangely sinister aspect which led Carlyle to dub it “the dismal science.”