THE MAN OF FORTY CROWNS.—If I were to listen to you, you would persuade me presently that I am happy with my hundred and twenty livres.
THE GEOMETRICIAN.—If you would but think yourself happy, you would then be so.
THE MAN OF FORTY CROWNS.—A man cannot imagine what actually is not, unless he be mad.
THE GEOMETRICIAN.—I have already told you, that in order to be more at your ease, and more happy than you are, you should take a wife; to which I tack, however, this clause, that she has, as well as you, one hundred and twenty livres a year; that is to say, four acres at ten crowns an acre. The ancient Romans had each but one. If your children are industrious, they can each earn as much by their working for others.
THE MAN OF FORTY CROWNS.—So that they may get money, without others losing it.
THE GEOMETRICIAN.—Such is the law of all nations: there is no living but on these terms.
THE MAN OF FORTY CROWNS.—And must my wife and I give each of us the half of our produce to the legislative and executive power, and the new ministers of state rob us of the price of our hard labor, and of the substance of our poor children, before they are able to get their livelihood? Pray, tell me, how much money will these new ministers of ours bring into the king's coffers, by this jure divino system?
THE GEOMETRICIAN.—You pay twenty crowns on four acres, which bring you in forty. A rich man, who possesses four hundred acres will, by the new tariff, pay two thousand crowns; and the whole fourscore millions of acres will yield to the king, twelve hundred millions of livres a year, or four hundred millions of crowns.
THE MAN OF FORTY CROWNS.—That appears to me impracticable and impossible.
THE GEOMETRICIAN.—And very much you are in the right to think so: and this impossibility is a geometrical demonstration that there is a fundamental defect in the calculation of our new ministers.