408 GOVERNMENT ix 



ling every branch of French industry and 

 starving the French people, necessarily welcomed 

 and adopted Locke's individualistic formula. 

 Their favourite maxim of " Laissez faire" was a 

 corollary of the application of that formula in the 

 sphere of economy ; and it was a great thing for 

 them to be able to add to the arguments based on 

 practical expediency, which could be properly 

 appreciated only by those who took pains to learn 

 something about the facts of the case, the 

 authority of a deduction from one of those & priori 

 truths, the just appreciation of which is supposed 

 to come by nature to all men. The axiom of 

 absolute ethics in question has been stated in 

 many ways. It is laid down that every man has a 

 right to do as he pleases, so long as he does no 

 harm to others ; or that he is free to do anything 

 he pleases, so long as he does not interfere with 

 the same freedom in others. Daire, in the intro- 

 duction to his " Physiocrates " (p. 16), goes so far 

 as to call the rule thus enunciated a " law < )i' 

 nature." 



La loi naturelle qui pennet a chacun de faire tout ce qui 

 lui cst avantageux sous la seule condition de ne pas nuire & 

 autrui. J 



1 The oldest recorded form of the rule, and that which has 

 the most positive character, is contained in the command of the 

 Jewish law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 

 (Leviticus xix. 18), (neighbour including " stranger that dwel- 

 leth with you," v. 34), which stands in the same relation to the 

 individualistic maxim as Fraternity to Equity. The strength of 

 Judaism as a social organisation has resided in its unflinching 



