This little book was written in 1891, when I was fresh from my translations of Böhm-Bawerk and somewhat overborne, perhaps, by the ideas of his school. It has been out of print for many years, and, although often pressed to republish it, I refrained, for the reason that a busy life had prevented me returning to the later developments of that school. But I still feel, as I did when I wrote it, that my English-speaking colleagues have never given sufficient attention to that side of the one Theory of Value (for there is only one, however much individuals may emphasise the demand side or the supply side) which Jevons first laid stress on. Having now mortgaged my life to what seems to me the greater claim of writing the Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century, the most I can do is to reprint the edition of 1891, with a few verbal alterations, submitting it as no more than it originally professed to be—an Introduction to the theory which lies at the centre of Political Economy, and must occupy the mind of the young economist for many years of his apprenticeship. The few who may be interested to know what place I give, after many years of teaching, to doctrines which had so great a part in forming my economic views, will find it suggested, perhaps, in Appendix II., entitled “Theory of Value: the Demand Side.” It is a summary of lectures, which I put into the hands of my students to be studied along with Book III. of the classic which has moulded modern economic thought, Professor Marshall’s _Principles_. WILLIAM SMART. UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW, _November, 1910_. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION This book has few pretensions to originality. The theory is that enunciated by Menger and Jevons, and worked out by Wieser and Böhm-Bawerk. I have done little more than take it out of its German setting, and pass it through my own mind. As the translator of Böhm-Bawerk’s _Capital and Interest_ and _The Positive Theory of Capital_, I may claim to have more than a superficial acquaintance with the work of the Austrian school, and this must form my credentials for the present _Introduction_. At the same time I must emphasise that it claims to be no more than an introduction. I do not consider that the last word on Value has been said by the Austrian school, but that seems to me no reason why the principles of the new theory should remain any longer beyond the reach of the ordinary English student. And in case it be said that I have stopped short of the most interesting part of the _Natürlicher Werth_, the application of the Value theory to the theory of Distribution, I may explain that, in justice to Professor Wieser, I have preferred to put the translation of that most brilliant and suggestive book into the capable hands of one of my students. WILLIAM SMART. QUEEN MARGARET COLLEGE, GLASGOW. CONTENTS