ADAM SMITH. 173 



matured his speculations so as to publish any treatise 

 on pdlitical subjects ; and though he was eighteen 

 years older than M. de Gournay, the latter had been 

 several years at the head of the commercial adminis- 

 tration before the Doctor's first work appeared his 

 excellent papers on the Corn Trade in the Encyclo- 

 paedia.* His celebrated ' Tableau EconomiqueJ in 

 which the accumulation and distribution of wealth is 

 stated with great ingenuity and originality, though in 

 a somewhat abstruse form, appeared in 1758 ; and his 

 greatest work, the ' PhysiocratieJ ten years later. His 

 doctrine was, that the cultivation of the soil alone adds 

 to the wealth of any state ; that they alone who till 

 the ground are entitled to be called productive la- 

 bourers ; that their industry alone yields a net or 



de Pompadour. It contains some anecdotes of Dr. Quesnay extremely 

 curious and characteristic, and shows on what an intimately familiar foot- 

 ing the great philosopher lived with the royal voluptuary, who had the 

 sense to relish his conversation, and used to call him " his thinker," (mon 

 penseur.) Mr. Crawford gives an accurate sketch of his character ; and 

 after mentioning that, his followers always termed him " Le Maitre," and 

 decided their disputes by " Le Maitre 1'a dit," like the disciples of Plato, 

 he tells us that, at his death, a funeral oration was pronounced by M. de 

 Mirabeau, before the assembled sect, all in deep mourning. ^ He adds, 

 what may easily be believed, that this discourse was a " chef-d'oeuvre de 

 ridicule et d'absurdite." A great discussion, as it seems to me on a ques- 

 tion very unimportant, has been raised by political economists, not much 

 to the credit of their philosophical feelings, whether Quesnay's family were 

 of as-low a station as some represent them, and whether it be really true 

 that they could not afford to have him taught to read in his boyhood. 

 Surely the Memoirs of the Academy must be reckoned a decisive authority 

 on this question. In the historical part of the volume for 1774, it is dis- 

 tinctly stated, as a matter well known, (p. 122,) that his father was an 

 Avocat au Parlement de Montfort, and an intimate friend of the Procur- 

 eur du Eoi. Grimm mentions Quesnay in a very different manner from 

 most others. He thus speaks of the economists and the great founder of 

 their sect : " Depuis que 1'oeconomie politique est devenue en France la 

 science a la mode, il est forme une secte qui a voulu dominer dans cette 

 partie. M. Quesnay s'est fait chef de cette secte." " Le vieux Quesnay 

 est un cynique decide. M. de Fobernais n'est pas tendre; ainsi cette 

 querelle ne se passera pas sans quelques faits d'armes." (Corr.~) He re- 

 peatedly gives him the same epithet of cynique ; probably the light con- 

 versation of Grimm had not attracted his notice, or gained his respect. 



* The article 'Fermier' appeared in 1756; 'Grains' in 1757; M. 

 Turgot's able articles appeared in 1756. 



