Rechtslehre, Hanover, 1810; Welcker, Die letzten | proposition, "to investigate what the influence of Gründe von Recht, Staat und Strafe, Giessen, 1813; Fr. von Raumer, Geschichtliche Entwickelung der Begrifpe von Recht, Staat und Politik, Leipzig, 1826, 1832; Stahl, Rechtsphilosophie, Heidelberg, 1829, 1847; Warnkönig, Rechtsphilosophie, Freiburg, 1839, 1854; Schmitthenner, Zwölf Bücher vom Staat, Giessen, 1839; Rossbach, Die Perioden der Rechtsphilosophie, Regensburg, 1842; Die Grundrichtungen in der Geschichte der Staatswissenschaft, Erlangen, 1848; Lentz, Entwurf einer Geschichte der Rechtsphilosophie, Danzig, 1846; Ahrens, Philosophie des Rechts und Staats, 4th ed., Vienna, 1850, 1852; Hinrichs, Politische Vorlesungen, 1842, Geschichte der Rechts- und Staatsprincipien seit dem Zeitalter der Reformation, Leipzig, 1849, 1852; Bluntschli, Allgemeines Staatsrecht, geschichtlich begründet, 3d ed., Munich, 1863; Dahlmann, Die Politik auf den Grund und das Mass der gegebenen Verhältnisse zurückgeführt, 2d ed., Leipzig, 1847; Schilling, Lehrbuch des Naturrechts, oder die philosophische Rechtswissenschaft, Leipzig, 1858; Hildebrand, Geschichte und System der Rechts-und Staatswissenschaft, 1 vol., Das classische Alterthum, Leipzig, 1860; Röder, Grundzüge des Naturrechts, 2d ed., Leipzig, 1860; La Salle, Das System der erworbenen Rechte, Eine Versöhnung des positiven Rechts und der Rechtsphilosophie, Leipzig, 1860; Thilo, Die Theologisirende Rechts- und Staatslehre, Leipzig, 1851; Trendelenburg, Naturrecht auf dem Grunde der Ethik, Leipzig, 1860. Compare POLITICS, NATURE AND CHARACTER OF, and POLITICS, SCIENCE OF. FELIX DAHN. omists. PHYSIOCRATES. I. Physiocrates and EconThose French economists who rallied to the defense and advocacy of the doctrine of Quesnay, and who constituted one of the most brilliant groups of thinkers in the eighteenth century, are now called physiocrates, a word derived from physiocratie, the general title given, in 1768, to the first volume of Quesnay's collected works, published by his disciple, Dupont de Nemours. Quesnay and his friends understood by physiocracy (from pú615, nature, and иparεiv, to rule), the natural constitution, the natural order, of human society.-Dupont thought (correctly in some respects) that Quesnay had pointed out this nature of things, and he called the aggregate of his views physiocracy. The expression, however, was not generally adopted. The term physiocrates, derived from it, is of comparatively recent use. J. B. Say first employed it in his Cours Complet, published in 1829, and it appears to have been popularized by the illustrious Rossi, and the editors of the Collection des Principaux Economistes, who have grouped together the most remarkable writings published by this celebrated school in the second volume of their collection, under the title "Physiocrates." In 1847, one year later, the French "Academy of Moral Sciences" used the term in the programme for a prize essay, formulated as follows, in accordance with Rossi's | the school of physiocrates has been on the advance and development of economic science, as well as on the administration of states in the matter of finance, manufactures and commerce.". Until the expression physiocrates was adopted, the disciples of Quesnay were designated by periphrases, or by the term economists, which was always underlined in manuscript, or printed in italics, so as not to confound the economists, disciples of the doctor, with other writers or publicists occupied with economic questions; and we can not do better here than to reproduce a few lines from a production which we published in vol. xxxiii. of the | Journal des Economistes: "Smith said (in speaking of the disciples of Quesnay, book iv., chap. ix.), 'A few years ago they formed [Smith published his book in 1776] a considerable sect, distinguished in the republic of letters in France by the name economists.' J. B. Say continued to designate them the sect of economists' in the second edition of his Traité, published in 1814, which greatly displeased Dupont de Nemours, who, in a letter dated April 22, 1815, wrote him as follows: 'You do not speak of the economists without applying to them the odious name of sect, which supposes a mixture of stupidity, folly and stubbornness. This insult from a Grimm would not be offensive; but the expressions of a Say have a different weight.' In a preceding letter, full of animation and good nature, the aged disciple of Quesnay said to the continuer and future emulator of Adam Smith, 'You are an economist, my dear Say; I shall take good care not to excommunicate you. On your part,' etc." -J. B. Say, we thus see, although the author of a treatise on political economy, still at that period qualified the physiocrates as economists. The same observation may be made in reading the first work of Sismondi, who, in entitling his book, De la richesse commerciale, ou Nouveaux principes d'économie politique, underlined the word economists, and applied it only to the disciples of Quesnay. He said (vol. i., p. 5), “Dr. Quesnay and Turgot founded the sect of economists about 1760." (This is not altogether accurate, as we shall see.) This repulsion for the name, which Sismondi and J. B. Say exhibited in their first writings, was, till a comparatively recent date, the feeling of those who concerned themselves with political economy, for they called themselves political economists (see Say's Cours Complet), or they even avoided giving themselves a name, since, on the one hand, the qualification political annoyed them, by causing mistakes and inspiring distrust, and because they feared that the name economists alone would cause them to be confounded with the adherents of Quesnay. Nevertheless, the disciples of Fourier and Saint Simon popularized this expression by using it to designate the partisans of economic or liberal ideas, and Fourier had even invented the word economism, the better to express his contempt for this science of the civilized (civilisés)! On the other hand, the publication in France of the Journal des Economistes, and of the Collection des Principaux Economistes, and in England of the weekly journal "The Economist," have made the expression familiar, which is no longer the special designation of the adherents of the sect of Quesnay or the partisans of an exclusive system, but the general designation of all who concern themselves scientifically with economic questions. The fifth edition of the dictionary of the French academy, 1814, does not contain the word économiste. It is only the sixth edition, published in 1835, which gave it final sanction with its true meaning, saying: Economist, one specially occupied with political economy."-It is a remarkable fact that economists received this appellation before their science was named, and that this word was taken, not from political economy, but from the adjective economic, itself derived from economy, which often dropped from the pens of writers during the middle of the last century, in consequence of an intellectual movement which led men to philosophic questions of this order-a movement that called forth a large number of writings, and caused the establishment, in 1754, of a chair of mechanics and commerce at the university of Naples, for the celebrated abbé Genovesi, who was professor in that institution of what he soon called civil economy and a chair of cameralistic sciences at the Palatine school of Milan, where the no less illustrious Beccaria was professor of public economy. As early as the second quarter of the same century, from 1729 to 1747, Hutcheson, the father of Scotch philosophy, inserted in his course of moral philosophy some lectures on economics. These lectures," as Cousin observes, in his Cours de l'histoire de la philosophie moderne, were of no great value in themselves; but it is to this part of Hutcheson's course, perhaps, that Europe is indebted for Adam Smith, the greatest economist of the eighteenth century."-II. Composition of the School. Du pont de Nemours speaks as follows of the origin of this school, in a note to his edition of the works of Turgot. The French economists, who founded the modern science of political economy, had as forerunners the duke of Sully, who said, 'Tillage and pasturage are the breasts of the state'; the marquis d'Argenson, author of the excellent maxim, 'Do not govern too much'; and the elder Trudaine, who in practice opposed courageously the prejudices of ministers and the preconceived opinions of his colleagues, the other counselors of state, with that useful maxim. The English and the Dutch had a glimpse of a few truths, which were only faint glimmerings in a night of gloom. The spirit of monopoly arrested the advance of their enlightenment. In other countries, if we except the three notable men whom we have just named, no one had even imagined that governments should pay attention to agriculture in any way, or to commerce except to impose on it arbitrary regulations suggested by the moment, or to subject its operations to taxes, duties and tolls. The science of public administration, pertaining to these interesting labors, did not yet exist. It was | ་ not even suspected that they could be the object of a science. The great Montesquieu had looked at them so superficially that in his immortal work there is a chapter entitled: To what nations it is disadvantageous to engage in commerce.' Toward 1750 two men of genius, profound and acute observers, led on by the force of a long sustained attention and severe logic, animated by a noble love of country and humanity, Quesnay and de Gournay, labored persistently to ascertain whether the nature of things did not point to a | science of political economy, and what were the principles of this science; they approached it from different sides, arrived at the same results, and, meeting, congratulated each other, applauded each other, when they saw with what exactness their different but equally true principles led to consequences absolutely similar; a phenomenon always repeated when men are not in error; for there is but one nature which embraces all things, and no one truth can contradict another. While they lived they continued to be, and their disciples have never ceased to be, entirely at one as to the means of advancing agriculture, commerce and finances, of increasing the happiness, the population, the wealth, and the political importance of nations." - De Gournay, son of a merchant, many years a merchant himself, had recognized that manufactures and commerce can only flourish through freedom and competition, which destroy the taste for haphazard undertakings, and lead to reasonable speculation; which prevent monopolies, and limit the private gains of merchants to the good of commerce; which quicken industry, simplify machinery, decrease oppressive rates for transportation and storage, and which lower the rate of interest. From this he concludes that commerce should never be taxed or regulated. From this he drew the following axiom: Laissez faire, laissez passer. Quesnay, born on a farm, the son of a landowner who was a skillful agriculturist, and of a mother whose great intellectual powers aided her husband's administration to perfection, turned his attention more especially to agriculture; and seeking to find the source of the wealth of nations, he discovered that wealth is the offspring of those labors in which nature and the divine power second the efforts of man to bring forth or collect new products; so that we can expect the increase of this wealth only from agriculture, fisheries (he held the chase of small account in civilized societies), and the working of mines and quarries. The two aspects under which Quesnay and de Gournay had considered the principles of public administration, and from which they inferred precisely the same theory, formed, if we may say so, two schools, fraternal none the less, which have had for each other no feeling of jealousy, and which have reciprocally enlightened each other. From the school of de Gournay came de Malesherbes, the abbé Morellet, Herbert, Trudaine de Montigny, d'Invan, Cardinal de Boisgelin, de Cicé, archbishop of Aix, d'Angeul, Dr. Price, Dean Tucker, " and some others. The principal members of the | got, for Marmontel, with notes by Dupont, that school of Quesnay were Mirabeau, author of we know the ideas of de Gournay, and if what l'Ami des hommes, Abeille, de Fourqueux, Bertin, Turgot has said of them makes us think that there Dupont de Nemours, Count Chreptowicz, chan- might have been disagreements between the two cellor of Lithuania, the abbé Roubaud, Le Trosne, philosophers, still we are not authorized to declare, Saint-Péravy, de Vauvilliers; and, of a higher since the proofs are wanting, that de Gournay had rank, the margrave, afterward grand duke of a system of doctrines, that is to say, the elements, Baden, and the archduke Leopold, since emperor, the raw material, for a school. Still, Turgot, in who governed Tuscany so long and so success- delineating with some detail de Gournay's opinfully, le Mercier de La Rivière, and the abbé ions relative to the nature and production of Baudeau. The two latter constituted a separate value, says, "de Gournay thought that a workbranch of de Quesnay's school. Thinking that man who had manufactured a piece of cloth had it would be easier to persuade a prince than a added real wealth to the aggregate wealth of the nation, that freedom of trade and labor as well as state." Dupont adds, in a note: This is one of the true principles of taxation would be intro- the points in which the doctrine of de Gournay duced sooner by the authority of sovereigns than differed from that of Quesnay," and he gives the by the progress of reason, they perhaps favored reasons for this statement. Although Dupont absolute power too much. They thought that does not specify the other points in which de this power would be sufficiently regulated and Gournay differed from Quesnay, it follows from counterbalanced by general enlightenment. To this passage that the two philosophers did not this branch belonged the emperor Joseph II. Be- always agree. Another important remark is, that tween both of these schools, profiting from both, the analyses of modern economists have shown but avoiding carefully the appearance of adhering that de Gournay was right as to the phenomenon to either of them, there appeared certain eclectic of production. De Gournay had a clearer insight philosophers, at the head of whom we must place of the truth, and if he had demonstrated it and Turgot and the celebrated Adam Smith, and deduced the consequences which flow from it, he among whom are deserving of very honorable would, on certain fundamental points, have surely mention the French translator of Adam Smith, held a different doctrine from that of Quesnay, Germain Garnier; and in England, Lord Lans- and carried off the honor which later came to Adam downe; in Paris, Say; at Geneva, Simonde.". Smith, of rectifying the school of physiocrates; This extract from Dupont de Nemours makes but we all know that in a question of scientific some observations necessary. To begin with, as ideas there is a great difference between the corDupont wrote in 1808, in commencing the publi- rect feeling of the truth and the introduction of cation of the works of Turgot, it is plain that the this truth into the domain of a science or simply other celebrated economists of that century are a philosophic system. To judge from our personal not mentioned. J. B. Say was not yet a pro- impressions, it appears to us doubtful whether fessor; he had only published the first edition of de Gournay followed the celebrated doctor in his his Traité (1803), and his fame was not then great. exclusive theory of agriculture. But it is evident Sismondi, also, was only at the beginning of his that these two illustrious men met on the fundacareer and reputation; Malthus, Ricardo, Mill, mental question of the freedom of labor, and it etc., had not written, and the men who were to is probable that they had the same philosophic bear the greatest names in contemporary political point of departure. Be this as it may, Dupont is economy were still either in their childhood or not altogether exact or correctly informed when youth. It is also to be remarked that Dupont he seems to say that de Gournay was the first to does not assign his real place to Adam Smith, who, recognize the legitimateness and fruitfulness of whatever be the idea formed of the aid which the principle of competition and of the liberty he may have received from the school of the of commerce. Vauban and Boisguillebert, whose physiocrates, is assuredly something very different writings were published even before de Gournay from an eclectic writer utilizing the ideas of de was born, give proof of their remarkable efforts Gournay and Quesnay. As to the two schools in favor of this principle. It was from the pen of founded by these two eminent men, we must not Boisguillebert, as Eugene Daire rightly says, that take literally what Dupont de Nemours writes. the first pleas appeared in France for the free cirVincent de Gournay died early, about the middle culation of corn, and he even pointed out sciof 1759, at the age of 47, when Quesnay had entifically, previous to the physiocrates, the excelscarcely (about the end of 1758) published his doc- lence of agriculture, which is the pivot on which trines in a precise manner, in the celebrated Tab- Quesnay's ideas turn. He also wrote on the natleau Economique, printed in the castle of Ver- ure, production and distribution of wealth, as sailles under the very eyes of the king. Except well as upon the function of money, pages which the translation, with the assistance of Butel Du- permit us to think that the school of Quesnay has mont (1754) of the treatise of Josiah Child on made great use of his labors.-Dupont de Nemours commerce and the interest on money, he had writ- is too exclusive in not having mentioned other ten nothing but memoirs addressed to ministers, writers on economy, as having made contributions and which remained unpublished. It is only from to the edifice of the science, such as Josiah Child, a notice drawn up shortly after his death, by Tur- who in 1668 published his Brief Observations .. concerning Trade and the Interest of Money"; Locke, who in 1691 wrote some curious "Considerations on Money"; Dudley North, who proclaimed that same year the principle of free trade; Forbonnais, whose Eléments de Commerce dates as far back as 1734; Melon, whose Essai politique sur le commerce belongs to the same year; Dutot, whose Réflexions politiques sur le commerce et les finances was published in 1738, etc.; and other writers who labored to elucidate economic doctrines contemporaneously with physiocrates such as Hume, whose 'Essays" on various economic subjects appeared in 1752, earlier than the writings of Quesnay, and who knew how to free himself from the prejudices of the balance of trade; men like the no less celebrated Genovesi, who, beginning with 1754, delivered a scientific course on questions relative to wealth; Verri, who wrote on these matters in 1763; James Stewart, who published at London, in 1767, four volumes, with the remarkable title "An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy"; Beccaria, who began at Milan, in 1769, lectures on the same subject, entitled "Course of Commercial Sciences"; and other writers, Italian and German, whom it would be too tedious to mention; finally, Adam Smith, who, before publishing his book in 1776, had come to Paris in 1764 to have a discussion with philosophic economists, after he had lectured on moral philosophy for fourteen years in the university of Glasgow, part of his labors being devoted to the subjects developed in his "Essay on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations." On the other hand, we must say that not all the persons whom Dupont de Nemours enrolls under the banner of Quesnay followed the doctrine of the master in every point; some held themselves somewhat aloof from the school. Among these was Morellet. On this point we believe it useful to reproduce certain passages concerning the quarrel of the latter with Linguet, so noted for his literary eccentricities, and his declamations against bread, which he treated as poison. Linguet having advanced several monstrosities, such as the following: that despotic governments are the only ones which render nations happy; that society lives by the destruction of its liberties, as carnivorous animals live on the timid ones, etc.-Morellet answered him sharply, in a pamphlet, entitled Théorie du paradoxe. Linguet replied by Théorie du libelle, where we read the following details, connected with our subject: "This illustrious pander of science, this invincible champion of the net product, this venerable archimandrite of the order of brothers of the economic doctrine, has risen above all eulogy by forcing his heart to outrage a prostrate man, and raising his foot to give him the last kick. If it be asked what the order in question is, we may answer, in order to spare commentators in ages to come a disagreeable task, that it is a new order, founded about 1760, under the name of the Economists Brothers, by Father Ques..., who had a spiritual son, brother Mirab..., I who begat brother Baud..., who begat the A. M., which brought forth the Théorie des Paradoxes. The name Economists was given to them about the year 1770; they took the place of the Encyclopædists, who had succeeded the *, who 66 * * | had ousted the * * *, who had come after the Calvinists, and so on, going back farther and farther. *** This order, beginning with 1775, had already produced many great men, such as brother Dup.., brother Baud..., brother Roub..., brother Mor..., etc., all mighty in works and words. Hence, they have filled the universe with the noise of their names and their pamphlets or libels, which are synonymous in their language * Morellet answered: The author of the Théorie des Paradoxes is not an economist. Surely, if the A. M. had been begotten to political economy by the late M. Q., or by some one of the disciples of this estimable man, he would not have denied his origin. The economists are honorable citizens, whose intentions were always upright and their | zeal as pure as it was active; men who were the first to teach or render popular many useful truths. They have been reproached with a zeal which has sometimes carried them beyond their object; but it is much better, doubtless, to yield to this impulse, which, after all, can arise in them only from a love of the public good, than to continue in the cowardly indifference to the happiness of their fellow-men which is exhibited by so many persons, or to decry those who are interested in it; but be this as it may with the economists, the A. M. is obliged to confess that he never received any lessons from Dr. Q., nor from M. de M.; and that he busied himself with political economy before Dr. Q. had begotten anybody; that he was never present at any assembly of the disciples; and lastly, since it must be told, that he never understood the economic tableau, nor pretended to make anybody else understand it; a clear profession of faith, and one which puts the author of the Théorie des Paradoxes beyond the reach of all blows which L. aims at the economists, blows from which they can defend themselves, if they think it worth the while."-Later, the first consul, in conversation with Morellet, said to him: "You are an economist, are you not? You are in favor of the impôt unique, are you not? You are also in favor of the freedom of the corn trade, are you not?" 'I answered him," says Morellet (in his Mémoires, chap. xxvii.), that I was not among the purest of them; and that I added certain modifications to their doctrines." Morellet had, indeed, early fought for freedom of labor, and freedom of commerce; but he does not seem to have shared the enthusiasm of some authors for the agricultural theory of their master. — III. Economic Philosophy of the Physiocrates. The doctrine of the physiocrates may be considered in relation to philosophy, political economy and politics. The philosophic ideas of the school are scattered through the different works of the chief and his principal disciples; but they are to be found especially in the short treatise of Quesnay 66 on natural law, and summed up in his fragments | it was supposed, should be necessarily subjected published under the title of Maximes. In en- solely to the law of force and cunning. Religion deavoring to condense them into a few words, we did not understand the economy of society, because may imagine Quesnay as saying: The world is it concerned itself only with the future life; and governed by immutable physical and moral laws. politics did not understand it any better, because it It is for man, an intelligent and free being, to did not suspect the intimate connection of the discover them, and to obey them or to violate moral with the physical order of the world. Setthem, for his own good or evil. The end assigned ting out to govern men from the principle of the to the exercise of his intellectual and physical incompatibility of the useful with the just, it was powers, is the appropriation of matter for the sat- impossible for the ministers of the one or the isfaction of his wants, and the improvement of his other to avoid the most disastrous results even if condition. But he should accomplish this task they had never been guided by any but the purest. conformably to the idea of the just, which is the intentions. Struck with this fact, Quesnay becorrelative of the idea of the useful. Man forms came persuaded that the truth lay in the opposite an idea of justice and utility, both individual and principle, and interrogating the nature of man and social, through the notions of duty and right the nature of things, he discovered in them the which his nature reveals to him, and which teach proof that the three great classes of every civilized him that it is contrary to his good and the general society, that is to say, landed proprietors, capital. welfare to seek his own advantage in the damage ists and workmen, as well as the various nations done to others. These ideas enter the minds of into which the human race is divided, have only individuals and peoples in proportion to the in- to lose by violating justice, mutually oppressing: crease of enlightenment, and the advance of civil- and annoying one another. This was to establish ization: they naturally produce feelings of frater- social morality, the absence of which produces a nity among men, and peace among peoples. - The false notion of right and wrong in every mind, chief manifestations of justice are liberty and even in things touching individual relations. It property, that is to say, the right of each one to do was to free from the clouds of mysticism the that which in no way hurts the general interest, great principle of peace and fraternity among and to use at his pleasure the goods which he pos- men, and set it on the bases most fitted to insure its sesses, the acquirement of which is conformable triumph."-As Passy remarks in his report on to the nature of things and to the general utility, the memoir which we have just cited, these maxsince, without liberty and property, there would ims were not all equally new; and the most general have been no civilization, and a very much smaller of them were to be met with already in the works amount of goods at the disposition of men. Lib- of certain writers; the Gospel itself contained erty and property spring, then, from the nature of many of them. But up to that time they had man, and are rights so essential that laws or agree- never been presented in the form of a broad sysments among men should be limited to recogniz- tem, never had there been deduced from them ing them, to formulating them, to sanctioning so clearly consequences of social application; them. Governments have no mission but to which warrants us in saying, with Eugene Daire, guard these two rights, which, with a correct that Quesnay was really the first thinker of the understanding of things, embrace all the material eighteenth century who made the organization and moral wants of society. To say that liberty of society the subject of his meditations; the and property are essential rights, is to say that man who gave to the world the newest doctrine, they are in harmony with the general interest of and at the same time the fittest to exercise a the species; it is to say that with them the land is happy influence on the welfare of nations. Monmore fertile, the industry of man in all its mani- tesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau were great minds, festations more productive, and the development | beyond a doubt; but Quesnay served the human of all his moral, intellectual, scientific and artistic race most, in having shown that the happiness aptitudes swifter and surer, in the path of the of the majority depends much less on the mechgood, the beautiful, the just and the useful; it is anism of governmental forms than on the develto say, further, that man best gathers the fruit of opment of human industry, and that it is imposhis own efforts, and that he is not at least a vic- sible to discuss politics rationally without havtim of the arbitrary laws of his fellow-men.-"Be- ing previously acquired a knowledge of the econfore Quesnay," says Eugene Daire, "nothing was omy of society. "Of course wealth had not alvaguer than the idea of the just and the unjust; together escaped the attention of thinkers and and the determination of the natural and indefeas- governments previous to this philosophy," remarks ible rights of man had not been touched by any Eugene Daire again, "but there is this difference, philosopher. It was tacitly agreed that the ideas that, while among the first some only saw, so to of justice, applicable only to individual relations, speak, a necessary evil, it suggested to others. should remain foreign to civil, public, and espe- nothing beyond systems of artificial distribution, cially to international law. Morality, since the and to governments merely fiscal inventions to principles from which it must be deduced were plunder their subjects. Quesnay understood that only dimly perceived, seemed fit only to govern the whole science of social organization may be private relations, but not those of the state to its summed up in that of the regular production and members, or those of one people to another, which, distribution of the goods of this world, that is to |