Note 111 — Chapter I · : THE PHYSIOCRATS

Listen to Mercier de la Rivière: “We must admire the way in which one man becomes an instrument for the happiness of others, and the manner in which this happiness seems to communicate itself to the whole. Speaking literally, of course I do not know whether there will not be a few unhappy people even in this State, but their numbers will be so few and the happy ones will be so numerous that we need not be much concerned about helping them. All our interests and wills will be linked to the interest and will of the sovereign, forming for our common good a harmony which can only be regarded as the work of a kind Providence that wills that the land shall be full of happy men.” This enchanting picture only applies to future society, when the “natural order” will be established. The optimism of the Physiocrats is very much like the anarchists’.