Levasseur, Recherches historiques stir le système de Law , Paris, 1854, p. I.
Lavergne, Les economistes français du XVIII e siécle , Paris, 1870, p. 65.—Taine probably overstates the case when he estimates at six millions the deaths due to poverty and starvation alone between 1690 and 1715. L'Ancien Régime , vol. i. p. 430.
Quesnay, quoted by Lavergne, p. 79.
Those who vilify Law will find food for reflection in the fact that at the moment when he quitted France, ruined and disgraced, the Czar offered to place him at the head of the finances of Russia. Law declined the offer.—Lemontey, Histoire de la Régence , 1832, vol. i. p. 342.
Wealth of Nations , bk. v. ch. ii.
See P. Clement's Colbert, Lettres et Instructions , ii. 2, 787–796.
Taine, L'Ancien Régime , vol. i. pp. 429–441. He works out the average taxation of a small peasant proprietor (taille, etc., tithes, and feudal dues) at nearly 82 per cent of his total net produce, P. 543.
Detail de la France , 1697; Factum de la France, 1707.
He did not, however, desire free imports except when famine was to be feared.
See the researches on this subject of A. M. de Boislisle, De la proscription de la dime royale , Paris, 1875. The official papers there printed prove how much Vauban took to heart the arrêts against his book, and how rigorously they were carried out; while they disprove the allegation that the Abbe de Beaumont, as alleged by Voltaire and others, was its real author. The arrêt which proscribed the Dixme Royale was followed the same day, I4th March 1707, by another sup pressing Boisguillebert's Factum de la France as seditious.
Vatuban had made his personal acquaintance.
Hist, of Civilisation in England , vol. ii. p. 291, ed. 1868.
In the house of President Henault. A full account of the club was written by D'Argenson, Mémoires , 1825, pp. 247–269. The chatterbox Abbe de Pomponne was the cause of its suppression. Lavergne's history of its foundation is erroneous.
Sainte-Beuve devoted two of his Causeries du Lundi to D'Argenson (3rd and 10th Nov. 1853), vol xii. p. 93, edition of 1857. He tells us that the Considerations of 1764 were a very defective edition of the original manuscript, and that the edition of 1784, “which passes for better,” is still imperfect and inaccurate. The title designed by D'Argenson himself was Jusques où la démocratie peut être admise dans le gouvernemant.
A farmer-general, and grandfather of Georges Sand. His tract on the corn trade, separately printed under the title Mémoire sur les Bleds , 1748, is the first plea for free trade in corn by a French writer. It formed a chapter of his Oeconomiques , Carlsruhe, 1745, 3 vols., rigidly suppressed, and now extant in only three copies.
See the fascinating essay of Jevons on Cantillon in Contemporary Review , January 1881, “The Nationality of Political Economy.” The present writer has added some further information upon Cantillon's life and work in the Economic Journal , vol. i. No. 2, June 1891. Kautz points out that some of the ideas of the Physiocrats are to be found in Asgill, Several Assertions Proved in Order to Create Another Species of Money than Gold and Silver , 1696, and in Vanderlint, Money Answers all Things , 1734. It would be easy to multiply such references, but there is no evidence that the Physiocrats were acquainted with them.
On Barbon see the articles of Dr. Stephan Bauer, by whom his importance was first fully recognised, in Palgrave's Dict, of Pol. Econ. S.V., and in Conrad's Jahrbüuher fur Nationalökonomie und Statistik , xxi. Bd. N. F. pp. 561–590 (1890).
Cf. Higgs, “Cantillon's Place in Economics,” in Quarterly Journal of Economics (Harvard, U.S.A.), July 1892. An analysis of Cantillon's essay is given in Espinas, Histoire des doctrines Oeconomiques , Paris, 1891.
A fact first noticed by Mr. Edwin Cannan. See Economic Journal , March 1896, p. 165.
Cf. Leibnitz in Dutens, G. G. Leibnitii Opera omnia , Geneva, 1768, vol. v. p. 577.—Quesnay, art. “Grains” in Encyclopedic , 1757. This became a favourite figure with the Physiocrats, see e.g. Le Trosne, Del'ordre social , 1777.
According to Grand Jean de Fouchy, Éloge de Quesnay , 1774, and the Comte d'Albon's Éloge , 1775. Other accounts say his father was a peasant. The truth seems to be that his father left his wife and child at home on a small farm, and that, in effect, Quesnay's early childhood was that of a peasant's son. He was taught to read by a friendly gardener at the age of twelve.
Lavergne, p. 5.
See Note A, Appendix. The common assertion that this was a recognition of his economic studies is clearly unfounded. These had not yet seen the light.
This article was largely due to his study of Malebranche, Recherche de la Vérité , 1675; Traité de Morale , 1684. It is to be noted that the ordre de la nature of this article differs entirely from the beneficent ordre naturel of Quesnay's later economic writings, which was, in Professor Hasbach's opinion, borrowed from Cumberland, Disquisitio de legibus naturae philosophical , London, 1672, 4to, translated by Barbeyrac, Traité des loix naturelles , 1744.
Under the later influence of Turgot these terms came to mean, in a more general sense, high fanning (a liberal application of capital) as against low farming.
See p. 8, supra. A little later be adds the corvée to the list of abuses needing abolition.
He makes some trifling allowances for taxation, but his arithmetic is often inexact.
This is a noteworthy early use of an economic term whose origin is sometimes attributed to J. B. Say.
He refers here to Remarques sur les savantages et let désavantages de la France et de la Grande Bretagne par rapport au Commerce et aux autres sources de la Puissance des États. Traduit de l'Anglois du Chevalier John Nickolls , Leyden and Paris, 1754. This work, which owes something to Tucker's Brief Essay on Trade , 1750, was constantly present to Quesnay's mind in writing this article and was quoted in the course of it. The real author of the pretended translation was Plumart D'Angeul; and the book was done into English and published at London in 1754 after its appearance at Paris. Daire, by an extraordinary blunder, attributes it to Thomas Mun, and gives the date as 1700. Physiocrates , vol. i. pp. 264, 285.
Cf. a distinguished modern writer in 1882. “It seems certain that in twenty-five years' time, and probably before that date, the limitation of area in the United States will be felt”—Giffen in Statistical Journal , vol. xlv. p. 543.
By J. B. Naveau , Paris , 1757, 2 vols. 12mo.
Wealth of Nations , bk. iv. ch. ix.
The original, rather freely translated by Adam Smith, will be found in the Philosophie Rurale , 1763, vol. i. p. 19.
L'hamme aux quarante écus , p. I.
See post , p. 122, and Note B, Appendix.
The tradition that the king helped to print it must be dismissed as mythical. See Note A, Appendix.
Die allgemeinen philcsophischen Grundlagen , etc., 1890, pp. 59, 67.
A footnote refers to Malebranche, cf. supra , p. 27 n . French economists have shown great fondness for synoptic tables, from Vauban to Fourier.
E.g. Vérités gétmetriques , Amsterdam, 1773.
Wealth of Nations , bk. iv. ch. ix.
28th May 1752, before he commenced writing on economic subjects. Mr. Robert Harrison, assistant secretary of the Royal Society, informs me that his candidature was backed by Buffon, Walmesley, D'Alembert, La Condamine, Grand Jean de Fouchy, Sallier, Bernard de Jussieu, Lieutaud; and W. Watson, Samuel Sharp, N. Munckley.
A statue of Quesnay has, since the date of this lecture, been erected at Méré, where he was born. There are several portraits of Quesnay in existence. To one of these Dr. Hodgson owed his interest in economics. See his lectures on Turgot , London, 1870, p. 66.
La Mirabeau , vol. i. p. 335.
The Physiocrats pretended that Quesnay resembled Socrates in personal appearance. A lady-in-waiting to Mme. de Pompadour, Mme. da Hausset, whose Mémoires furnish some biographical details of the doctor, respected his probity and his learning (which she did not understand), but irreverently calls him a monkey-face!
The speech, which was printed in the Nouvelles Éphémérides , 1775, vol. i., may be read in Oncken's Quesnay , pp. 1 sqq. Another éloge of Quesnay was published in vol. v. the same year, by the Comte d'Albon.
He says of Quesnay, “I, like posterity, owe everything to him. He owes me nothing but his repute.” And de Lomenie justly adds, “In effect he did owe it to Mirabeau.”
Du Pont says by Quesnay, Éphémérides , 1768, vol. ii. p. 191. Daire says by Quesnay and Marivelt, Physiocrates , vol. ii, p. 340.
His father had lost 200,000 livres in the “system” of Law, and he always held financiers in abhorrence.
Quesnay's article “Grains” had put the number at 16,000,000; see p. 34 supra. Mirabeau probably here makes a concession to Messance, whose Recherches sur la population , 1766, was designed to refute L'Ami des Hommes , so far as it alleged depopulation.
See p. 20 supra.
She had little sympathy with Mirabeau himself, but was much attached to Quesnay, who had twice saved her life.
Du Pont de Nemours et l'École physiocratique , par G. Schelle, Paris, 1888, 8vo, p. 25.
See p. 45, supra.
According to Schelle. De Lomenie tells us it was due to Morellet.
But cf. post , p. 81, probably a more accurate account.
As a representative of Nemours. There was another Du Pont in the Assembly. This led to his being distinguished as Du Pont de Nemours. He acted for some time as President of the Assembly.
The title of this volume, designed to indicate “government in consonance with nature,” is accountable for the name Physiocrats which J. B. Say conferred upon the school, known to their contemporaries as Économistes. Du Pont has long been regarded as the inventor of the title, but there is more reason for the belief that it was due to Quesnay.
It was really an endeavour to present to the public at Diderot's suggestion a succinct account of Mercier de la Rivière's Ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés politiques , 1767, 1 vol. 4to, 3 vols. 12mo. M. Schelle imagines that Adam Smith may have mistaken it for the larger treatise, which he calls “a little book.” Adam Smith was, however, too well acquainted with the Physiocrats to make a mistake of this kind; and we know that he possessed the work of Mercier de la Rivière himself. See Economic Journal , vol. iv. p. 706 (Dec. 1894).
He translated Child and Culpeper into French. See supra , p. 15.
See Professor Oncken's Die Maximes Laissez-faire et Laissez-passer, ihr Ursprung, ihr Werden , Berne, 1886. The erudite professor of history, Lord Acton, in his introductory lecture at the University of Cambridge, refers to “the economic precept Laissez-faire , which the eighteenth century derived from Colbert” (The Study of History , 1895, p. 30), and quotes from the Comptes rendus de l'Institut , vol. xxxix. p. 93, in support of this statement; but, as stated above, the phrase was really a remonstrance against the settled policy of Colbert, which was, except for the aim at economic unification of the nation, directly opposed to this precept.
Mr. John Rae has misunderstood the significance of this statement in his Life of Adam Smith , p. 218.
Les Physiocrates , vol. ii. pp. 429, 430.
See p. 101, post.
See Schelle, p. 24, note.
See post , p. 117.
Levallois, /. J. J. Rousseau, ses amis et ses ennemis , Paris, 1865, vol. ii. p. 385.
Knies, Carl Friedrich von Baden brieflicher Verkehr mit Mirabeau und Du Pont , Heidelberg, 1892, vol. ii. p. 289.
Vol. i. p. 743, s.v. Éphémérides , London, 1894.
The Journal existed from 1751 to 1783.
The Comte d'Albon assisted Baudeau to edit this series.
Loc. cit.
See Éphémérides , 1776, vol. i.; Daire, vol. i. p. 649, note; and the authorities there cited. The butchers had to pay 6 per cent for a fortnight on their purchases of cattle, whether they borrowed the money or not. The sale of cattle at Paris was interdicted except at Sceaux and Poissy.—See Loménie, vol. ii. p. 249. Turgot abolished the caisse in 1776.
See the work referred to at p. 79 note, supra.
Wealth of Nations , bk. iv. ch. ix.
See the account given by Emminghaus in Hildebrand's Jahrbücher , 1872, vol. it. p. i. Also the Éphémérides , 1771, vols. iv. to vii.
Souvenirs de Berlin , vol. iii. pp. 167, 168, 2nd edition.
See Knies, Brieflicher Verkehr , vol. i. p. 74.
E.g. in a letter to Du Pont, “Les économistes sont trop confiants pour combattre un si adroit ferailleur,” as Galiani. Œuvres de Turgot , vol. it p. 800.
See supra , p. 62.
Œuvres , 1808, vol. vi. p. 158.
See pp. 29–35, supra.
Œuvres , vol. v. p. 332.
Introduction to the Study of Political Economy , 1893, p. 264.
The book was translated into German by Mauvill–1, who was converted by the task into an ardent Physiocrat. See p. 100, fast.
Loménie, vol. ii. p. 416.
Kautz, referring to J. J. Rousseau's article Économie politique in the Encyclopédie , strangely describes him as a follower of the Physiocrats. The truth is that this article was written before their “school” was founded, and Mirabean's efforts in later years to convert Rousseau, or even to capture his attention to their doctrines, proved fruitless.
See p. 86, supra.
See post , p. 122.
Abriss dtr Staats-Oekonomie , Berlin, 1808.
See A. von Miaskowski, Isaak Iselin , Basle, 1875.
Page 58, supra .
Pages 69, 79.
Mercier de la Rivière responded to this challenge by his book De l'instruction publique , 1775. See supra , p. 88.
It is curious that Mably does not see here, and especially in his later writings, that he exposed himself to the same line of criticism with regard to the different circumstances of different countries, in his unbounded praise of Sparta. Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. What China was to the Physiocrats, Sparta was to Mably. Moreover, Spartan society was based on slavery.
This chapter deals with international relations. See supra , p. 73.
It is discussed by A. Sudre, Histoire du Communisme , 1849.
See p. 69.
The ( écu of 3 livres: 40 écus= 120 livres was the sum which Mercier de la Rivière considered sufficient for the existence of each citizen in a pbyaocratic society.
Condorcet defended the Physiocrats against this sally in his edition of Voltaire. See also A. Batbie, L'homme aux quarante tcus et Us Physiocrates.
See L'épitre à un homme , written on Turgot's fall, his letters and memoirs addressed to Turgot, and especially his Diatribe à l'auteur des Éphémérides (Baudeau), Geneva and Paris, 1775, in which he describes Target as better informed than Sully, with as large views as Colbert, and with more true philosophy in his mind than either one or the other.
Il n a soufflé la. lèpre sur le genre humain. Loménie, vol. ii. p. 266.
See for a recent study of Galiani and the Physiocrats, Frank Blei in the Berner Beiträge zur Geschichte der Nationalökonomie , No. 6. Berne, 1895.
Œuvres , Paris, 1844, P 439. Du Pont also replied in his Lettre à Saint-Péravy, Éphémérides , 1768, tome ii.
See p. 76, supra.
s.v. Physiocrats , vol. ii. p. 361.
See the quotations in Note B, Appendix.
A reply to F. N. Vierordt's Von den Ursprung und Fortgang einer neuen Wisssenschaft , Carlsruhe, 1770, 8vo, a German translation of Du Pont's Origine et progrès d'une science nouvelle.
See p. 100.
Adam Smith has himself been described as “the great founder of the industrial system, as distinguished from the mercantile and agricultural systems.” Twiss, View of the Progress of Political Economy in Europe since the Sixteenth Century , 1847, p. 160.
“If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered.”
Wealth of Nations , bk. v. ch. ii.
(Œuvres de Quesnay , 1888, p. xix.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth, and into the means and causes of its increase , Edinburgh, 1804, pp. 133, 293, 134, 275.
Wealth of Nations , edition 1839, p. 305 note. M'Culloch should have added, to make his statement complete, the conditions that the soils cultivated are all equally advantageous, and that there is no monopoly of supply. This would have deprived his statement of all practical significance.
The impôt unique was never to exceed 6/20 or at most 1/3, of the produit net ,—in other words, was to be a tax of 6s. to 6s. 8d. in the £ on agricultural rent. The nature of the proposal is misunderstood not only by Voltaire, Proudhon, and Henry George, but also in another manner by Mr. Lecky, who describes it as “a single tax to be paid by every man in strict proportion to his income.” Hist. of England in 18th century , and ed. 1887, vol. v. p. 370.
He dedicates his Protection or free Trade ? (New York, 1891) “to the memory of those illustrious Frenchmen of a century ago, Quesnay, Turgot, Mirabeau, Condorcet, Dupont and their fellows, who in the night of despotism foresaw the glories of the coming day.”
Cf. e.g. “The great position of the Economists will always remain true, that the surplus produce of the cultivators is the great fund which ultimately pays all those who are not employed upon the land” (Essay on Population , edition 1803, p. 435).
Lectures on Political Economy , vol. i. p. 306. The whole discussion is well worth reading, pp. 253–308. These lectures, delivered at the beginning of the century, were edited by Sir W. Hamilton, and published at Edinburgh, 1877. 2 vols. 8vo.
The statement often made that he kept up an active correspondence with Turgot has now been disproved. See Economic Journal , March 1896, p. 166.
Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Japan , 1895.
n modern times M. Le Play has held up to the admiration ol “unstable” France the morality of China as a basis of material solidity and social permanence.
See Note C, Appendix.