David Ricardo. An Intellectual Biography

5 Ricardo’s encounter with philosophers and political economists

DOI: 10.4324/9781003162100-5

When he was in his mid-thirties, Ricardo decided that ‘the powers of his mind’ ought to be ‘almost wholly devoted to the elucidation of questions connected with political economy, a study which was at once best suited to the peculiar quality of his mind and most in unison with his daily pursuits in business’ (Penny Cyclopaedia 1841, p. 507). Previous chapters have reconstructed how Ricardo’s family network included more than semi-literate merchants, how a relative encouraged him to pursue a scientific education, and how Quaker relations introduced him to an environment of devotees of the new science. The present chapter reconstructs how, from about ...