Note 84 — Chapter I · : THE PHYSIOCRATS
R. (Robert) Richards translation
“The personal despotism will only be the legal despotism of an obvious and essential order. In legal despotism the obviousness of a law demands obedience before the monarch enjoins it. Euclid is a veritable despot, and the geometrical truths that he enunciates are really despotic laws. The legal and personal despotism of the legislator are one and the same. Together they are irresistible.” (Mercier de la Rivière, pp. 460-471.) This despotism is really not unlike that of Comte, who remarks that there is no question of liberty of conscience in geometry.