he general welfare, and especially the
welfare of the agricultural class, the wealth-producers of the
community. To violate economic laws, Boisguillebert declared, is to
violate nature; let governments restrain their meddling, and permit
natural forces to operate with freedom.

Such was the doctrine of the physiocratic school, of which FRANCOIS
QUESNAY (1694-1774) was the chief. Let human institutions conform
to nature; enlarge the bounds of freedom; give play to the spirit
of individualism; diminish the interference of government--"laissez
faire, laissez passer."[2] Agriculture is productive, let its
burdens be alleviated; manufactures are useful but "sterile": honour,
therefore, above all, to the tiller of the fields, who hugs nature
close, and who enriches humankind! The elder Mirabeau--"ami des
hommes"--who had anticipated Quesnay in some of his views, and himself
had learnt from Cantillon, met Quesnay in 1757, and thenceforth
subordinated his own fiery spirit, as far as that was possible, to
the spirit of the master. From the physiocrats--Gournay and
Quesnay--the noble-minded and illustrious TURGOT (1727-81) derived
many of those ideas of reform which he endeavoured to put into action
when intendant of Limoges, and later, when Minister of Finance. By
his _Reflexions sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses_,
Turgot prepared the way for Adam Smith.

[Footnote 2: This phrase had been used by Boisguillebert and by the
Marquis d'Argenson before Gournay made it a power. On D'Argenson
(1694-1757), whose _Considerations sur le Gouvernement de la France_
were not published until 1764, see the study by Mr. Arthur Ogle
(1893).]

In 1770 the Abbe Galiani, as alert of brain as he was diminutive of
stature, attacked the physiocratic doctrines in his _Dialogues sur
le Commerce des Bles_, which Plato and Moliere--so Voltaire
pronounced--had combined to write. The refutation of the _Dialogues_
by Morellet was the result of no such brilliant collaboration, and
Galiani, proposed that his own unstatuesque person should be honoured
by a statue above an inscription, declaring that he had wiped out
the economists, who were sending the nation to sleep. The fame of
his _Dialogues_ was perhaps in large measure due to the party-spirit
of the Encyclopaedists, animated by a vivacious attack upon the
physiocrats. The book was applauded, but reached no second edition.

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