ee 
TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 1143 
few who rushed to the sweeping generalisations that the master had avoided. In 
England, in particular, the influence of the more abstract and purely deductive 
method of Ricardo tended in this direction. It was natural, again, that 
in the heat of a political movement absolute and unqualified statements of 
principle should come into yogue, since the ease and simplicity with which they 
ean be enunciated and apprehended makes them more effective instruments of 
popular agitation: hence it is not surprising to find the Anti-Corn-law petitions 
declaring the ‘inalienable right of every man freely to exchange the result of his 
labour for the productions of other people,’ to be ‘one of the principles of eternal 
justice.’ But under the more philosophic guidance of J. 8. Mill, English political 
economy shook off all connexion with these antiquated metaphysics, and during the 
last generation has been generally united with a view of political principles 
more balanced, qualified, and empirical, and therefore more in harmony with the 
general tendencies of modern scientific thought. 
If, indeed, laisser-faire were—as many suppose—the one main doctrine of mo- 
dern political economy, there can be no doubt that the decisive step forward that 
founded the science ought to be attributed not to Adam Smith, but to his French 
la predecessors the ‘Physiocrats.’ It is to them—to Quesnay, De Gournay, De 
Riviére, Turgot—that the credit, whatever it may be, is due of having first 
proclaimed to the world with the utmost generality and without qualification that 
what a statesman had to do was not to make laws for industry, but merely to 
ascertain and protect from encroachment the simple, eternal, and immutable laws 
of nature, under which the production of wealth would regulate itself in the best 
possible way if men would abstain from meddling, 
This doctrine formed one part of the impetuous movement of thought against 
the existing political order which characterised French speculation during 
the forty years that preceded the great Revolution. It was, we may say, the 
counterpart and complement of the doctrine of which Rousseau was the chief 
prophet. The sect of the Economistes and the disciples of Rousseau were agreed 
that the existing political system needed radical change; and in both there was a 
tendency to believe that an ideal political order could at once be constituted. At 
this point, however, their courses diverged: the school of Rousseau held that the 
essential thing was to alter the structure of government, and to keep legislation 
effectually in the hands of the sovereign people; the Economistes thought that the 
all-important point was to limit the functions of government, holding that the 
simple duty of maintaining the natural rights of the individual to liberty and 
property could be best performed by an absolute monarch. Both movements had 
much justification ; both have had effects on the political and social life of Europe 
of which it is difficult to measure the extent; but both doctrines—attained, as 
they were, by a fallacious method—involved a large element of exaggeration, suit- 
able to the ardent and sanguine period that brought them forth, but which 
gives them a curious air of absurdity when they are resuscitated and offered for 
the acceptance of our more sober, circumspect, and empirically-minded age. In 
the most civilised countries of Europe it is now a recognised and established safe- 
guard against oppressive laws that an effective control over legislation is vested in 
the people at large: but no serious thinker would now maintain with Rousseau 
that the predominance of the will of the sovereign people has a necessary tendency 
to produce just legislation. Similarly, the doctrine of the Physiocrats has prevailed, 
in the main, as regards the internal conditions of national industry in modern 
civilised societies. The old hampering privileges, restraints, and prohibitions have 
been almost entirely swept away, to the great advantage of the community ; but 
the absolute right of the individual to unlimited industrial freedom is now only 
maintained by a scanty and dwindling handful of doctrinaires, whom the progress 
of economic science has left stranded on the crude generalisations of an earlier 
period. 
‘ There will probably always be considerable disagreement in details among 
competent persons as to the propriety of Governmental interference in particular 
eases; but, apart from questions on which economic considerations must yield to 
political, moral, or social reasons of greater importance, it is an anachronism not 
