Pat I must say I did not read the passage from Lionel Robbins [http://eh.net/pipermail/hes/2005-June/003087.html ] the same way as you seem to have. To me Robbins seemed to be saying that there is utility for economists in studying the early economists because of what they can teach us about how to deal with contemporary issues. That is what I take from his statement that "I do not think that our knowledge is so far advanced as to justify us in writing off as superseded the proposition of all but our immediate contemporaries." The notion that the history of economics is no more than a history of error is a statement I do not accept nor does Robbins. We can either think of all past economics as a litany of superseded error or it is something else. Is all that we as economists know that thin patina of contemporary theory or is there a stock of bygone doctrine that can be mined and would be useful for economists to have available when some problem they are dealing with triggers a responsive chord of recognition. Those who believe that HET is the history of error believe there is nothing worth looking for in terms of dealing with existing economic problems. Past theories are just a bunch of worthless old relics, antique ideas whose only interest is in their quaintness. Reading such theory is then like looking at a Model "T". It is interesting as a museum piece but there is nothing there from which to learn. Me, I think different. Schumpeter reports in his History of Economic Analysis (p 835) that in regard to his own work Marshall had said that "it's all in Adam Smith." Well, it's not really all in Adam Smith, but there are some things in the Wealth of Nations you will not find in any modern text and these things are lost if you don't know enough to look. A good economist steeped in modern thought will be able to separate the dross from the gold. But without some grounding in HET, that modern economist will not know enough even to look for what might actually be found. Steve Kates