Jean Baptiste, a French political economist, was born at Lyons on the 5th of January 1767, of an honourable commercial family of Protestant refugees. Say was originally designed for the family trade, but having always been of a meditative turn, he showed early a decided fondness for letters. In his youth he assisted Mirabeau and Claviere, and during the Reign of Terror he was one of the conductors of the Decade Philosophique, the sole scientific and literary monument of that bloody time. Being requested to take part in the affairs of the tribunate by Bonaparte, then first consul, he remained faithful to his political convictions; and when Napoleon was subsequently raised to the empire, Say voted against it, and withdrew in 1804. He was for a time director of taxes for the department of Allier, but afterwards resigned this post to popularize the science of Adam Smith and Quesnay. Say was not a discoverer in political economy, but was a very intelligent expounder of the principles of that science as originated by others. His distinguishing merit is that of a skilful exponent of truths and principles already known and fully established; and except in his inquiry relating to glut, he left the science of political economy exactly in the same state as he found it. He died at Paris on the 16th of November 1832. Say's principal works are—Traité d'Economie Politique, 2 vols., 1802; and 5 vols. in 1826, afterwards expanded into the Cours Complet d'Economie Politique Pratique, 6 vols., 1829; Catechisme d'Economie Politique, 1815, fifth edition, 1826. Another Scala Nova work, entitled *De l'Angleterre et des Anglais*, was written after a tour in that country.