The Physiocrats
Henry Higgs
[Appendix]
NOTE A
Louis XV., who himself chose Quesnay's arms and gave him three
pansies (pensees) with the motto propter cogitationem mentis, was
accustomed to refer familiarly to him as mon penseur. But, to say
nothing of the dates, these facts do not justify us in assuming that
the roi faineant took any interest in Quesnay's economic studies. The
phrase mon penseur appears to the present writer to be a mere royal
pun upon his pensive physician. The French verb panser to give medical
(and especially surgical) assistance, lent itself to a play upon
penser. On one occasion the king turned to a young seigneur who had
returned from England with an affectation of British phlegm, and
playfully asked, "Eh bien! qiiest-ce que vous avez appris en
Angle terre?" "Sire" was the pompous reply, "fy ai
appris a penser." "Des chevaux sans doute? added the king a
parallel jest. This form of wit was very common at the Court of Louis
XV. A blood-letting barber was styled le seigneur (saigneur) barbier.
NOTE B
The Reponse aux Docteurs modernes, ou apologie pour r Auteur de la
Theorie des Loix, et des Lettres sur cette Thcorie. Avec la refutation
du systeme des Philosophes economistes. Par Simon-Nicolas-Henri
Linguet. MDCCLXXI, i2mo, vol. i. 300 pp., vol. ii. 259 pp., is so rare
that some further reference to it may be found useful. A copy of the
book will be found in the Bibliothcque Nationale at Paris, press mark
R. 21096-7.
Linguet takes for his motto an extract from the Ephemerides of his
adversaries, 1769, vol. Hi., Avertissement, p. 16 : "II faut
faire la guerre aux foux meme quand ils deviennent furieux, et la leur
faire bonne et vive, jusqu'a ce qu'on les ait mis dans 1'impuissance
de nuire."
He says: "Les economistes, c'est-a-dire des abbes, des
gentilhommes, des horlogers [a hit at Du Pont, the son of a
watchmaker], des juges de provinces etc. sont venus apprendre tout
d'un coup aux meuniers qu'ils ne savoient pas meudre [a reference to
the moulins economiques], au peuple qu'il avoit trop d'appetit, aux
bourgeois qu'ils laissoient trop de gruau dans leur son; et Ton a
battu des mains.
"De leur boulangerie, ils ont passe a la jurisprudence et aux
loix. D'une main toute blanche encore de leur pate et de leur mouture,
ils se sont avises de vouloir repaitrir notre legislature; de derriere
des meules bien ou mal repiquees, on a etc fort surpris de voir sortir
des Solons enfarines, qui ont pretendu reformer toute la machine
politique; et Ton a encore battu des mains" (p. 9). As for
himself, who has studied jurisprudence, he will expose this imperious
sect which has spoken so much of destroying prejudices, and has
created so many. The encyclopaedic yeast of thirty years ago stirred
the nation with a certain Anglican effervescence. When the great
dictionary appeared began the epoch of fanaticism. And when the
Government suppressed the Encyclopedic, then the buzzing insect since
called Economics took its place, but, unlike the caterpillar turned
butterfly, it was a butterfly turned caterpillar, losing its
metaphysic wings and grovelling on the earth, crawling on the bread it
gnaws (p. 13). Better old errors which left us alive, than new ones
like these which are murderous (p. 14). The Physiocrats are a
dangerous sect, powerful, popular, and much read, unlike himself who
has not had the precaution to form a sect or dress up his writings
with an ecstatic and philosophic varnish. In vain does Du Pont protest
they are not a sect. Linguet says: Not a sect? Evidence shows it: your
mysterious words, physiocratie, produit net; your mystic jargon,
ordre, science, le maitre your titles of honour showered on your
patriarchs; your wreaths scattered through the provinces on obscure if
excellent persons the "celebrated" Le Trosne, the "admirable"
Saint-Peravy, the "excellent" Treilhard, etc. (p. 120). Not
a sect? You have a rallying cry, banners, a march, a trumpeter [Du
Pont], a uniform for your books, and a sign like freemasons (p. 121).
Not a sect? One cannot touch one of you but all rush to his aid. You
all laud and glorify each other, and attack and intimidate your
opponents in un- measured terms. You affect an inspired tone and
seriously discuss on what particular day the symbol of your faith, the
masterpiece, the Tableau Oeconomique was born, a symbol so mysterious
that huge volumes cannot explain it. It is like the Koran of Mohamet.
You burn to lay down your lives for your principles, and talk of your
apostleship (p. 1 2 5). You attack Galiani and me because we have no
reverence for that ridiculous hieroglyphic which is your holy Gospel.
Confucius drew up a table, the Y-Kin^ of sixty-four terms, also
connected by lines, to show the evolution of the elements, and your
Tableau Oeconomique is justly enough compared to it, but it comes
three hundred years too late.
Both alike are equally unintelligible. The Tableau is an insult to
common sense, to reason, and philosophy, with its columns of figures
of reproduction nette terminating always in a zero, striking symbol of
the fruit of the researches of any one simple enough to try in vain to
understand it.
The Physiocrats are the anabaptists of philosophy, who propose to
kill men to make them happy. Starvation is their best protection.
Everything comes from the land. Therefore, the political ideal is the
cultivation of corn. But to farm with the greatest advantage requires
large capitals. Therefore favour opulence. Opulence will result from
high prices, which will come from rarity. Therefore export corn, and
thus starve the people.
Linguet prints side by side the Tableau Oeconomique and the Y-King.
It is hardly necessary to point out that he fails to understand the
economic doctrines he satirises.
Dr. Bauer has quoted some of Linguet's invectives from the Annales
Politiques, 1778, in his article on Quesnay's Tableau Oeconomique,
Economic Journal, vol. v. p. 19, March 1895.
NOTE C
Since these lectures were delivered, "Adam Smith's Lectures on
Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms, delivered in the University of
Glasgow by Adam Smith, reported by a student in 1763, and edited with
an introduction and notes by Edwin Cannan, Oxford, 1896," have
been published by the Clarendon Press. The editor thinks these
lectures "dispose finally of the Turgot myth " (that Adam
Smith was indebted to Turgot's Reflexions), and that they enable us "to
distinguish positively between what the original genius of its author
created out of British materials on the one hand, and French materials
on the other." Mr. Cannan says: "It is plain that Smith
acquired the idea of the necessity of a scheme of distribution from
the Physiocrats, and that he tacked his own scheme (very different
from theirs) on to his already existing theory of prices" (p.
xxxi.).
The present writer has briefly discussed the bearing of this volume
upon the relations between Adam Smith and the Physiocrats in the
Economic Journal, December 1896.
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