1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Courcelle-Seneuil, Jean Gustave

COURCELLE-SENEUIL, JEAN GUSTAVE (1813–1892), French economist, was born at Seneuil (Dordogne) on the 22nd of December 1813. Seneuil was an additional name adopted from his native place. Devoting himself at first to the study of the law, he was called to the French bar in 1835. Soon after, however, he returned to Dordogne and settled down as a manager of ironworks. He found leisure to study economic and political questions, and was a frequent contributor to the republican papers. On the establishment of the second republic in 1848 he became director of the public domains. After the coup d’état of Napoleon III. in 1851 he went to South America, and held the professorship of political economy at the National Institute of Santiago, in Chile, from 1853 to 1863, when he returned to France. In 1879 he was made a councillor of state, and in 1882 was elected a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. He died at Paris on the 29th of June 1892. Courcelle-Seneuil, as an economist, was strongly inclined towards the liberal school, and was equally partial to the historical and experimental methods; but his best energies were directed to applied economy and social questions. His principal work is Traité théorique et pratique d’économie politique (2 vols., 1858); among his others may be mentioned Traité théorique et pratique des opérations de banque (1853); Études sur la science sociale (1862); La Banque libre (1867); Liberté et socialisme (1868); Protection et libre échange (1879); he also translated into French John Stuart Mill’s Principles.