[31] Le Trosne, p. 945.
[32] “It seems necessary as well as simple and natural to distinguish the men who pay others and draw their wealth directly from nature, from the paid men, who can only obtain it as a reward for useful and agreeable services which they have rendered to the former class.” (Dupont, vol. i, p. 142.)
[33] It is rather strange that Turgot should have added this qualification, because he was more favourable to industry and less devoted to agriculture than the rest of the Physiocrats.
[34] “I must have a man to make my clothes, just as I must have a doctor whose advice I may ask concerning my health, or a lawyer concerning my affairs, or a servant to work instead of me.” (Le Trosne, p. 949.)
[35] On this point see M. Pervinquière, Contribution à l’Étude de la Productivité dans la Physiocratie. The indifference of the Physiocrats to mines shows a want of scientific spirit, for even from their own point of view the question was one of prime importance. No commodity could be produced without raw material, and wealth is simply a collection of commodities. Raw material is furnished by the mine as well as by the soil. In the history of mankind iron has played as important a part as corn. Agriculture itself is an extractive industry, where the miner—the agriculturist—uses plants instead of drills, and in both cases the product is exhaustible.
[36] Le Trosne, p. 942.
“Land owes its fertility to the might of the Creator, and out of His blessing flow its inexhaustible riches. This power is already there, and man simply makes use of it.” (Le Trosne, Intérêt social, chap. 1, § 2.)
[37] Quesnay, p. 325.
[38] Geschichte der National Oekonomie, Part I, Die Zeit vor Adam Smith.
M. Méline’s book, Le Retour à la Terre, though Protectionist in tone, is wholly imbued with the Physiocratic spirit.