Economics. This was the work of Quesnay and his associates; and, notwithstanding certain errors and shortcomings mentioned below, they are unquestionably entitled to be acknowledged as the founders of Economics and Free Trade.

Outline of the Doctrine of the Economists.

We may now give a brief abstract of the doctrine of the Economists, by which they vindicated the principle of liberty, and the right of property.

The Creator has placed man upon the earth with the evident intention that the race should prosper; and there are certain physical and moral laws which conduce, in the highest degree, to ensure his preservation, increase, well-being, and improvement. The correlation between these physical and moral laws is so close, that if either be misunderstood, through ignorance or passion, the others are also. Physical nature, or matter, bears to mankind very much the relation which the body does to the mind. Hence the perpetual relation of physical and moral good and evil to each other.

Natural justice is the conformity of human laws and actions to natural order; and this collection of physical and moral laws existed before any positive institutions among men. And while their observance produces the highest degree of prosperity and well-being among men, the non-observance or transgression of them is the cause of the extensive physical evils which afflict mankind.

If such a natural order exists, our intelligence is capable of understanding it; for if not, it would be useless, and the sagacity of the Creator would be at fault. As, therefore, these laws are instituted by the Supreme Being, all men and all States ought to be governed by them. They are immutable and irrefragable, and the best possible laws; they are necessarily the basis of the most perfect government, and the fundamental rule of all positive laws, which are only for the purpose of upholding that natural order, which is evidently the most advantageous for the human race.

The evident object of the Creator being the preservation, the increase, the well-being, and the improvement of the race, man necessarily received from his origin, not only intelligence, but instincts conformable to that end. Every one feels himself endowed with the triple instincts of well-being, sociability, and justice. He understands that the isolation of the brute is not suitable to his double nature, and that his physical and moral wants urge him to live in the society of his equals in a state of peace, goodwill, and concord.

He also recognizes that other men, having the same wants as himself, cannot have less rights than himself, and, therefore, he is bound to respect their rights, so that other men may observe a similar obligation towards him.

These three ideas the necessity of work, the necessity of society, and the necessity of justice-imply three others-liberty, property, and authority--which are the three essential terms of all social order. How could man understand the necessity of labour, or obey the irresistible instinct of self-preservation, without perceiving, at the same time, that the instruments of labour, the physical and intellectual qualities with which he is endowed by Nature, belong exclusively to himself, that he is master, and the absolute proprietor of his own person, that he is born, and should remain, free?

But the idea of liberty cannot spring up in the mind without associating with it that of Property, in the absence of which the first would only represent an illusory right without an object. The freedom the individual has of acquiring useful things by labour includes necessarily the right of preserving them, of enjoying them, and of disposing of them without reserve, and also of bequeathing them to his family, who prolong his existence indefinitely. Thus liberty conceived in this manner involves, and is dependent on, the idea of property, which may be conceived in two aspects, as it regards movable goods, and as it regards the earth, which is the source from which labour ought to draw them.

At first property was principally movable, but when the cultivation of the earth was necessary for the preservation, increase, and improvement of the race, individual appropriation of the soil became necessary, because no other system is so proper to draw forth from the earth all the mass of utilities it can produce; and, secondly, because collective property would have produced many inconveniences as to the sharing of the fruits, which would not arise from the division of the land, by which the rights of each are fixed in a clear and definite manner. Property in land is, therefore, the necessary and legitimate consequence of the principle of personal and movable property. Every man has, therefore, centred in him by the laws of Providence certain Rights and Duties-the right of enjoying himself to the utmost of his capacity, and the duty of respecting similar rights in others. This perfect protection of reciprocal rights and duties conduces to production in the highest degree, as well as to the greatest amount of physical enjoyments.

Thus the Economists established freedom and property as the

fundamental right of mankind-Freedom of Person, Freedom of Opinion, and the Freedom of Commerce or Exchanges; and the violation of these they maintained to be contrary to the laws of Providence, and therefore the cause of all evil to men.

Doctrine of the Economists regarding Commerce or Exchanges.

Having now explained how the Economists cleared the way for the consideration of the positive Science, by sweeping away all obstructions to the freedom of Commerce or Exchanges, we must now see how they endeavoured to construct the positive Science of Commerce or Exchanges.

While they expressly declared that Exchanges, or Commerce, was one department of Economical Philosophy-and it is to this department of it that the name of Economics is now restricted --they unfortunately devised another and an alternative name for it which, being misinterpreted by a very distinguished French Economist, has been the cause of all the mischief and confusion in the Science, and of the lamentable state into which it has fallen at present.

They termed the department of Economical Philosophy relating to Commerce, or Exchanges, the "Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth."

It might not be very apparent to the general reader how the two expressions "Commerce" or "Exchanges" is identical with that of the "Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth;" and we must now explain the meaning of this latter expression given to it by its authors.

They defined the word "Wealth" to be the material products of the earth which are brought into Commerce and Exchanged, and those only. The products of the earth which were consumed by their owners, and without being exchanged, they termed Biens, but not Richesse.

Thus Quesnay says, "We must distinguish between goods (Biens) which have value in use and not value in exchange, and Wealth (Richesse) which has both value in use and value in exchange. For instance, the savages in Louisiana enjoy many Biens, such as wood, game, the fruits of the earth, &c., which are not Richesse, because they have no value in exchange. But since some kinds of commerce have been established between them and the French, the English, the Spaniards, &c., part of these Biens have acquired a value in exchange, and are become Richesse."

So Baudeau says, "Useful and agreeable objects proper for our enjoyment are called Biens, because they conduce to the preservation, the propagation, and the well-being of men on the earth.

"But sometimes these Biens are not Richesse, because they cannot be exchanged for other goods, or be used to procure other enjoyments. The products of Nature or the works of Art, the most necessary or the most agreeable, cease to be Richesse when you lose the power of exchanging them and of procuring other enjoyments by means of this Exchange. One hundred thousand feet of the most beautiful oak in the world would not be Richesse to you in the interior of North America, where you could not divest yourself of its possession by means of an Exchange.

"The title Richesse, therefore, supposes two things: First, useful qualities, which render them Biens; secondly, the possibility of exchanging them, which enables these Biens to procure you others, which constitutes them Richesse."

So also Le Trosne says, "Man is surrounded by wants which are renewed every day. . . . Whatever they are, it is only from the earth that he can draw the means of supplying them. This physical truth, that the earth is the source of all Biens, is so self-evident that no one can doubt it. . . . But it is not sufficient to estimate products by their useful qualities: we must consider the property they have of being exchanged against each other. . . . Products acquire, therefore, in a state of society, a new Quality, which springs from the communication of men with each other. This Quality is Value, which makes the products become Richesse ; and so there is nothing superfluous, because the excess becomes the means to obtain what one wants.

"Value consists in the Relation of Exchange which exists between such and such products. . . . In a word, the Quality of Richesse supposes not only a useful property, but also the possibility of Exchange; because Value is nothing but the Relation of Exchange. The earth in truth only gives products which have the physical qualities to satisfy our wants: it is Exchange which gives them Value-a quality relative and accidental. But as it is the products themselves which are the sole matter of exchange, it follows that we can say, with truth, that the earth produces not only all Biens, but all Richesse.”

Thus, the definition of Wealth by the Economists was perfectly clear and intelligible: it was the material products of the earth which are brought into Commerce and Exchanged, and these only. The Economists steadfastly adhered to this doctrine (Wealth).

In the first place, they declared that Economics has nothing to do with Value in use or Utility, but only with Value in exchange; jand, secondly, they restricted the term Wealth to the material products of the earth only. They steadfastly refused to admit that Labour and Credit, i.e. Rights of Action, Credits or Debts, and other Rights, are Wealth, because they alleged that to admit that Labour and Credit are Wealth would be to maintain that Wealth can be created out of nothing. They constantly maintained that man can create nothing, and that ex nihilo nihil fit.

Meaning of "Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth."

By Production the Economists meant obtaining the rude produce from the earth, and bringing it into Commerce (Production).

But this rude produce is scarcely ever fit for human use. It has to be fashioned and manufactured in a multitude of ways, and to be transported from place to place, and perhaps sold and resold more than once, before it is ultimately purchased for use and enjoyment.

All these intermediate operations of manufacture, transport, and sale between the original Producer and the ultimate purchaser, the Economists termed traffic, or Distribution (Distribution), and all the persons engaged in them they termed Distributors.

Consommation, or Consumption in the language of the Economists, and all French writers before them, and also Adam Smith, meant simply Purchase or Demand; it involved no idea of destruction.

Great confusion has been caused by the two French words, Consommation and Consomption, being represented by only one English word, Consumption. Now Consommation comes from consommer, which comes from the Latin consummare, to complete ; and Consomption comes from consumer, the Latin consumere, to destroy. Consommation is the Latin consummatio, consummation, or completion (Consumption).

The final purchaser who bought the product for his own use and enjoyment, and so took it out of commerce, the Economists termed the Acheteur-consommateur, because he consummated or completed the transaction.

The Consommateur, or Consumer, was the person for whose benefit all the preceding operations took place. Production was only for the sake of Consumption, or Demand; and Consumption, or Demand, was the measure of reproduction, because products