ADAM SMITH. 93 



and the employment of labour. He was so often and so 

 powerfully thwarted, that his reforms were anything but 

 complete. All he attempted was in the right direction ; 

 and M. Turgot, his disciple, who afterwards, in his own 

 administration of the higher department of finance, 

 carried the same views farther, has given us a luminous 

 abstract of those sound principles which De Gournay 

 laid down. The duty of government, according to him, 

 was to give all branches of industry that freedom of 

 which the monopolizing spirit of different classes had so 

 long deprived them ; to protect men in making whatever 

 use they please of their capital, their skill, their industry ; 

 to open among the makers and sellers of all goods the 

 greatest competition, for the benefit of the buyers in the 

 low price and good quality of the things sold, and among 

 buyers the greatest competition, that the producer or the 

 importer may have the due stimulus to his exertions ; 

 and to trust the natural operations of men's interests for 

 the increase of national wealth and the general improve- 

 ment of society, when all fetters are removed, and all 

 absurd and pernicious encouragements by the State with- 

 held. 



It was not for some years after these enlightened and 

 rational principles had been adopted, promulgated, and 

 acted upon by M. de Gournay, that Dr. Quesnay, who 

 had, from his youth upwards, attended to agricultural 

 questions, and even somewhat to farming pursuits, but 

 had been always immersed in the studies of his profes- 

 sion, began to cultivate economical science. He had 

 published several works of the greatest ability and learn- 

 ing on medical and surgical subjects, had acquired exten- 

 sive practice, and risen to the rank of the King's first 



