VIII NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS .341 



they agree to conventions which shall allow to 

 each his natural right to things enjoyable ; or, in 

 other words, his freedom to profit by the advan- 

 tages which he is competent to obtain from the 

 order of nature. 1 



There seems to me to be a wonderful admixture 

 of wholesome truth and of very unwholesome 

 fiction in these propositions; and, as is not un- 

 common, the fiction has become popular while the 

 truth is neglected. Indeed, Quesnay himself saw 

 deeper than his disciple, and writes thus in the 

 opening chapter of the treatise I have cited 

 (Daire, p. 41) : 



He who has said that the natural right of man is a nullity 

 has spoken truly. 



He who has said that the natural right of man is the right 

 which nature teaches to all animals has spoken truly. 3 



He who has said that the natural right of man is the right 

 which his strength and his intelligence assure him has spokeu 

 truly. 



He who has said that natural right is limited to the private 

 interest of each man has spoken truly. 



1 Daire, Physiocrates, Partie premiere, pp. 19, 20. 



2 In a note Quesnay says : " This is the definition of 

 Justinian." It would be more accurate, I imagine, to say that 

 it is derived from Ulpian : "Jus naturale est, quod nature 

 omnia animalia docuit : nam jus istud non human! generis 

 proprium sed omnium animalium." It is to the same Roman 

 jurist that we owe the maxim that all men, according to the 

 law of Nature, are equal and free : "Quod ad jus naturale attinet, 

 omnes homines sequales sunt." "Quum jure natural! omnes 

 liber! nascerentur." See the exhaustive work of Voigt : Das 

 jus naturale ccquum et bonum und jus gentium dcr Utimer, Bd. 

 1, 56, whence these citations are taken. 



