Page
Notice of the Life and Writings of Frédéric Bastiat, 9
To the Youth of France, 33
«Chapter I.» Natural and Artificial Organization, 47
II. Wants, Efforts, Satisfactions, 63
III. Wants of Man, 75
IV. Exchange, 97
V. Of Value, 131
VI. Wealth, 180
VII. Capital, 196
VIII. Property—Community, 218
IX. Landed Property, 249
X. Competition, 288
XI. Producer—Consumer, 323
XII. The Two Aphorisms, 339
XIII. Rent, 347
XIV. Wages, 352
XV. Saving, 393
XVI. Population, 397
XVII. Private and Public Services, 425
XVIII. Disturbing Causes, 446
XIX. War, 454
XX. Responsibility, 465
XXI. Solidarity, 488
XXII. Social Motive Force, 495
XXIII. Existence of Evil, 504
XXIV. Perfectibility, 508
XXV. Relations of Political Economy with Religion, 513
Index, 518
NOTICE OF THE
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF FRÉDÉRIC BASTIAT.
«Frédéric Bastiat», whose last and greatest, though, alas! unfinished
work—the ‹Harmonies Économiques›—I now venture to introduce to the
English public, was born at Bayonne, on the 19th of June 1801. His
father, an eminent merchant of Bayonne, died young, and his wife
having died before him, Frédéric, their only child, was left an
orphan at the early age of nine years.
The care of his education devolved on his paternal grandfather, who
was proprietor of a land estate near Mugron, in the arrondissement of
Saint-Sever. His aunt, Mademoiselle Justine Bastiat, acted towards
him the part of a mother, and her affection was warmly reciprocated
by Bastiat, who, to the day of his death, never ceased to regard her
with filial love and reverence.
Bastiat’s education was begun at Bayonne, continued at Saint-Sever,
and finished at the College of Sorèze. Here his course of study was
occasionally interrupted by indisposition; but, on his recovery,
his quick parts and steady application soon enabled him to overtake
and keep pace with his fellow-students. At Sorèze. Bastiat formed
a boyish friendship with M. Calmètes, to whom his earliest letters
are addressed. The attachment of the youths was so remarkable, that
the masters permitted them to prepare their exercises together, and
sign them with their joint names. In this way they gained a prize for
poetry. The prize was a gold medal, which, of course, could not be
divided. “Keep it,” said Bastiat to his friend: “I am an orphan; you
have both father and mother, and the medal of right falls to them.”
In 1818, Bastiat left College, and, in compliance with the wishes
of his family, entered his uncle’s counting-house at Bayonne. His
[p010] tastes, however, were for study rather than for business,
and while at Bayonne he devoted his leisure hours by turns to
French, English, and Italian literature. “I aim at nothing less,” he
said, “than to become acquainted with politics, history, geography,
mathematics, mechanics, natural history, botany, and four or five
languages.” He was fond of music, sang agreeably, and played well on
the violoncello.
In 1824, he began to study the works of the leading Economists of
France and England—Adam Smith, Jean Baptiste Say, and Destutt de
Tracy; and even at this early period he took an interest in the
English free-trade measures of Mr Huskisson. From this time he may be
said to have devoted his life to his favourite science.
On the death of his grandfather, in 1825, he gave up commerce as
a profession, and took up his residence on his paternal estate
at Mugron, in the cultivation of which he was at first induced
to engage, but without much success, and he soon relinquished
agriculture, as he had before abandoned trade. Business, in truth,
was not his vocation; he had no turn for details; he cared little
for money; his wants were few and simple; and he had no intention,
as he says in one of his letters, to undergo irksome labour for
three-fourths of his life to ensure for the remainder a useless
superfluity.
It was at this period, and at Mugron, that he formed his lifelong
friendship with M. Felix Coudroy, to whom so much of his
correspondence is addressed, and to whom, a short time before his
death, he had thought of committing the task of finishing the
second volume of the ‹Harmonies›. The two friends, whose tastes and
pursuits were the same, were constantly together,—reading, walking,
or conversing. If Bastiat, whose ardent nature was impatient of
plodding and systematic application, received a new book from Paris,
he immediately carried it to Coudroy, who examined it, and noted the
remarkable passages, which he read afterwards to his friend. Bastiat
would often content himself with such fragments; and it was only when
the book interested him deeply, that he would carry it off to read it
carefully by himself. On these days, says his biographer, music was
laid aside, and the violoncello was mute. It was thus, he continues,
that the two friends passed their lives together, lodging a few paces
from each other, seeing one another three times a-day, sometimes in
their chambers, sometimes in long walks, sauntering together, book
in hand. Works of philosophy, history, politics, religion, poetry,
travels, biography, political economy, socialist [p011] works of
the day,—all passed under the ordeal of this double intelligence. It
was in these conversations that the ideas of Bastiat were developed,
and his thoughts matured. When anything struck him particularly, he
would set to work of a morning and put it into shape without effort.
In this way he wrote his ‹Sophismes›, his article on the French
and English tariffs, etc. It was this literary friendship, which
lasted for more than twenty years, without being once clouded by the
slightest disagreement, which prepared the mind of Bastiat for the
gigantic efforts he was destined afterwards to make, and enabled him,
during the last five years of his life, amid disease and distraction,
to give to the world that mass of original and varied ideas which
compose the six volumes of his collected works.[2]
In the events to which the expulsion of the elder branch of the
Bourbons gave rise in 1830, Bastiat took an active interest. Bayonne
had pronounced in favour of the new order of things. The citadel
alone held out, and continued to display the white flag; and a
concentration of Spanish troops on the frontier was spoken of.
Bastiat did not hesitate. Quitting Mugron, he hurried to Bayonne to
take part in the movement. In conjunction with some of his friends,
he prepared a proclamation, formed an association of six hundred
determined young men, and did not despair of reducing the citadel by
a ‹coup de main›. Happily their martial ardour was not put to the
proof. Before the march of events all resistance gave way, and that
same day the citadel opened its gates. In place of a battle, there
was a feast;—punch, wine, and Béranger enlivened the evening;—and
the officers, like horses just let loose from the stable, were the
merriest of the party.[3] Such was the beginning and the end of
Bastiat’s military career.
In 1831, he became ‹Juge de Paix› of the Canton of Mugron, and, in
1832, a Member of the Council-General of the Landes. The confidence
and esteem of his neighbourhood would have invested him with a trust
still more important, by sending him as a representative to the
Chamber of Deputies; but in this, after three fruitless attempts,
his friends were defeated, and Bastiat did not succeed in becoming a
legislator until after the Revolution of February 1848.
He published, in 1834, ‹Réflexions sur les Pétitions de Bordeaux, le
Havre et Lyon, concernant les douanes›,—a brochure of great vigour,
and which contains the germ of the theory of Value developed fifteen
years afterwards in the ‹Harmonies›. [p012]
In 1840, Bastiat visited Spain and Portugal; and after a sojourn of
some months at Madrid, and afterwards at Lisbon, with great benefit
to his health, he sailed thence for England, and spent a few weeks
in London. On his return to Mugron, he wrote his pamphlet, ‹Le Fisc
et la Vigne›, in which he protests against certain new duties with
which the wine-trade of his native province was threatened. In this
brochure[4] he gives a characteristic anecdote of Napoleon. At the
outset, the duties imposed were so moderate that the receipts would
scarcely defray the cost of collection. The Minister of Finance
remonstrated, and represented that these imposts were making the
Government unpopular, without any benefit to the revenue. “You are a
noodle, Monsieur Maret,” said the Emperor; “since the nation grumbles
at some light burdens, what would have been the consequence had I
added heavy taxes? Accustom them, first of all, to the exercise; and
then we can reform the tariff.” The great captain, adds Bastiat, was
also a skilful financier. Begin by inserting the thin end of the
wedge—accustom them to the exercise—such is the history of all taxes.
In 1843, appeared another pamphlet, entitled ‹Mémoire sur la
question vinicole›; and in 1844, ‹Mémoire sur la répartition de
l’impôt foncier dans le Département des Landes›,—both productions of
extraordinary ability, but having reference principally to questions
of local interest and importance. The great subject of Free Trade, to
which he was afterwards to devote his vast powers, had then assumed
in his mind rather the form of a vague dream of what might perchance
be realized under favourable circumstances at some far distant day,
than of a thing in sober reality to be expected or hoped for. It was
an accidental circumstance which first directed his attention to what
was then passing in England under the auspices of the Anti-corn-law
League.
Among the circle which Bastiat frequented at Mugron there prevailed
a strong prejudice, or rather an inveterate hatred, against England;
and Bastiat, who had cultivated English literature, and imbibed
English ideas, had often to break a lance with his acquaintances on
the subject of this unfounded dislike. One of these ‹Anglophobes›,
accosting him one day, handed him a newspaper. “Read that,” said
he with bitterness, “and see how your friends are treating us!” It
was a translation of a speech of Sir Robert Peel in the House of
Commons, which concluded with the words—“If we adopt this course,
we shall fall, ‹like France›, to the lowest rank among nations.”
His country was insulted, and Bastiat had not a word to say. On
reflection, however, it did [p013] appear strange to him that the
Prime Minister of England should entertain such an opinion of France,
and still more so, that, entertaining it, he should express it openly
and offensively in his place in Parliament. To clear up the matter,
Bastiat wrote instantly to Paris, and became a subscriber to an
English newspaper, requesting that all the numbers for the preceding
month might be sent to him. In a few days the ‹Globe and Traveller›
made its appearance at Mugron, containing Sir Robert Peel’s speech,
when it was discovered that the words “like France,” maliciously
introduced into the French version of it, were ‹not› there, and, in
fact, had never been uttered.
Bastiat continued to read the ‹Globe›, and soon made the more
important discovery that a formidable agitation was at that time
going on in England to which the French newspapers never once
alluded. The Anti-corn-law League was shaking the basis of the
old commercial legislation of England. For two years Bastiat was
thus enabled to watch the progress of the movement, and at length
began to entertain the idea of making known to his countrymen—and,
perhaps, of inducing them to imitate—the important reform about to be
accomplished on the other side of the channel.
It was this feeling which prompted him to send to the ‹Journal des
Économistes› his first contribution, ‹Sur l’influence des tarifs
Anglais et Français›. This article, bearing a signature till then
unknown, and coming from the remote Department of the Landes, was at
once accepted, and created a profound impression. Like Lord Byron,
after the publication of ‹Childe Harold›, Bastiat “awoke one morning
and found himself famous.” Compliments and encouragements showered in
upon him from every side. Further contributions were solicited, and
were sent. The ice was broken, and he was fairly afloat as an author.
Whilst contributing various articles to the ‹Journal›—among others,
the first series of the ‹Sophismes Économiques›—Bastiat began to
write the history of the English Anti-corn-law League; and, in order
to obtain fuller information and more copious materials, he opened
a correspondence with Mr Cobden, with whom he continued to exchange
letters at frequent intervals during the remainder of his life.
It was in 1845 that Bastiat went to Paris to superintend the printing
of this work, which he entitled ‹Cobden et la Ligue, où l’agitation
Anglaise pour la liberté des Échanges›. A luminous and spirited
introduction, giving an account of the economical and political state
of England prior to the Anti-corn-law agitation, and describing the
origin, objects, and progress of the league, is [p014] followed by
extracts from the more prominent speeches of Cobden, Bright, Fox,
Thompson, and the other leaders. All this was new in France,—to the
popular mind of that country it might almost be called a revelation.
“I have distributed a hundred copies in Paris,” writes Bastiat to
Cobden, “and they have produced the best impression. Men who, by
their position and pursuits, ought to know what is going on in
England have been surprised on reading it. They could not believe
their eyes. . . . . . If I had combated directly their prejudices,
I should not have succeeded; but, by allowing the free-traders to
speak and act for themselves—in a word, by simply ‹translating›
you—I hope to have given these prejudices a blow which they cannot
recover—if the book be read.” In a subsequent letter, he says,—“Since
my last letter an unexpected movement has manifested itself in the
French press. All the Parisian, and many of the provincial journals,
in reviewing my book, have given an account of the Anti-corn-law
agitation. They do not, it is true, perceive all its bearings, but
public opinion is awakened, which is the essential point.”
To this work, and the service which it rendered to the cause of Free
Trade, and of sound economic ideas, Bastiat some months afterwards
owed his nomination as a Corresponding Member of the Institute. “I
believe this nomination to be in itself of little importance,” he
writes to M. Calmètes, “and I fear many mediocrities have boasted
of the title; but the peculiar circumstances which preceded my
nomination do not permit me to reject your friendly felicitations. I
have published only one book, and of that book the preface alone is
my work. Having returned to seclusion, that preface has worked for
me, and unknown to me; for the same letter which apprized me of my
candidature announced my election. I had never in my life dreamt of
this honour. The book is entitled ‹Cobden et la Ligue›. I now send it
to you, which will save my saying more about it. In 1842 and 1843 I
endeavoured to attract attention to the subject of which it treats.
I addressed articles to the ‹Presse›, to the ‹Mémorial Bordelais›,
and other journals. They were rejected. I saw that my cause was
about to break down under this ‹conspiracy of silence›, and I had no
resource but to write a book. You see, then, why I have become an
author. And now, engaged in that career, I regret it extremely; for
although always fond of Political Economy, I am reluctant to devote
my attention exclusively to that science, and would rather wander
freely over the whole field of human knowledge. Yet in this science
a single question—freedom of international relations—fascinates and
is about to absorb me,—for, perhaps, you may [p015] have seen that
I have been assigned a place in the association which has just been
formed at Bordeaux. Such is the age; you can take no part in public
life without being garrotted in a speciality.”
At Paris, Bastiat had been introduced to all the leading
Economists, and he was delighted with his reception. “Not one of
these gentlemen,” he says to M. Coudroy, “but had read, re-read,
and perfectly understood my three articles. I might have written
a thousand years in the ‹Chalosse›, the ‹Sentinelle›, and the
‹Mémorial›, without finding a single true reader but yourself. Here
one is read, studied, and understood.” By the whole circle Bastiat
was welcomed and feasted. A desire was expressed that he should
become conductor of the ‹Journal des Économistes›, and there was a
proposal to find him a chair of Political Economy.
From Paris he passed over to England, where, in July 1845, he met
with Mr Cobden, Mr Bright, and the other chiefs of the Anti-corn-law
League. In a letter to his friend Coudroy, he thus describes his
reception in London:—“Having installed myself at the hotel (at 10s.
a-day), I sat down to write six letters, to Cobden, Bright, Fox,
Thompson, Wilson, and the Secretary of the League. Then I wrote six
inscriptions on as many copies of my book, and went to bed. This
morning I carried my six volumes to the apartments of the League,
desiring that they might be sent to the parties for whom they were
intended. I was told that Mr Cobden was in town, and was to leave
London to-day for Manchester, and that I should find him in the
midst of preparations for his journey. (An Englishman’s preparations
consist in swallowing a beef-steak, and stuffing a couple of shirts
into a carpet-bag.) I hastened to Cobden’s residence, where I met
him, and had two hours’ talk. He knows French very well, speaks it a
little, and, moreover, I understood his English. I explained to him
the state of opinion in France, the effects I expected from my work,
etc. He was sorry to leave London, and was on the point of giving up
his intended journey. Then he remarked, ‘The League is free-masonry,
except that everything is public. We have a house here, which we have
hired to accommodate our friends during the bazaar; it is empty at
present, and we must instal you there.’ I made some difficulty about
this; and he rejoined, ‘This arrangement may not be agreeable to you,
but it will be of use to the cause, for Messrs Bright, Moore, and
other members of the League pass their evenings there, and we must
have you always in the midst of them.’ However, as I am to join him
at Manchester the day after to-morrow, I thought it [p016] hardly
worth while to shift my quarters for a couple of days. He took me
afterwards to the Reform Club, a magnificent establishment, and left
me in the library while he took a bath. He afterwards wrote letters
to Bright and Moore, and I accompanied him to the railway. In the
evening I called on Mr Bright. . . . . . Obliged to speak slowly,
in order to make myself understood, and upon subjects which were
familiar to me, and with men who had all our ideas, I found myself
placed in the most favourable circumstances. He took me afterwards to
the Parliament,” etc.
On his return from England, Bastiat again took refuge in his retreat
at Mugron, where he had his time entirely at his own disposal; but
he was not long suffered to enjoy his literary leisure. In February
1846, he assisted in organizing a Free-Trade Association at Bordeaux,
and afterwards went to Paris with a similar object. In this he was
destined to experience innumerable difficulties, not the least of
which arose from his supposed attachment to English opinions. He
imagined the reform of the English tariff might be the means of
furthering a similar reform in France, but in this he soon found that
he was greatly mistaken.
“Of all the prejudices which reign among us,” says M. Louis Reybaud,
in his admirable notice of Bastiat in the ‹Revue des Deux Mondes›,[5]
“there is none more deeply rooted than distrust of England. It is
enough that England leans to one side to induce us to incline to the
other. Everything which England proposes is suspected by us, and we
not unwillingly detect an ambush in all her measures. In matters of
trade this disposition is especially manifested. In vain we imagine
that England in her reforms has only her own interest in view,—her
true object is only to mislead and ruin us by her seductions! If we
give way we shall be fools or dupes. Such is the language of national
opinion; and although enlightened men resist it, that opinion does
not the less prevail and exhibit itself on all occasions. Better
informed in regard to this bias of public opinion, Bastiat would have
seen that the moment was not opportune, and that in the face of the
English agitation he would have done better to delay, than to hasten,
any agitation in France which might seem to be inspired by the spirit
or example of England.”
In fact, it was upon this rock mainly that Bastiat’s Free-trade
enterprise ultimately foundered, and he soon became convinced of the
intensity of the prejudice against which he had to struggle. In a
letter to Mr Cobden, written in December 1846, he says,—“This cry
against England stifles us, and gives rise to formidable [p017]
obstacles. If this hatred to ‹perfidious Albion› were only the
fashion of the day, I should wait patiently until it passed away.
But it has deep root in men’s hearts. It is universal, and I believe
I told you that my friends dare no longer talk of me in my own
village, but ‹en famille›. This blind passion, moreover, is found so
convenient by protected interests and political parties, that they
avail themselves of it in the most shameless manner.”
Other circumstances contributed to discourage Bastiat: “I suffer from
my poverty,” he tells Mr Cobden. “If, instead of running from one to
another on foot, splashed and bespattered to the back, in order to
meet only one or two people a-day, and obtain evasive and dilatory
answers, I could assemble them at my table in a rich ‹salon›, how
many difficulties would be removed! I want neither head nor heart,
but I feel that this superb Babylon is not the place for me, and I
must hasten back to my solitude.” His heart was constantly reverting
to the happy and peaceful days he had passed at Mugron. “I suffer,”
he says in a letter to Coudroy, “from leaving Mugron, and my old
habits, my desultory labours, and our nice little chats. It is a
frightful ‹déchirement›; but can I recede?” “Paris and I are not made
for each other.” “Often I think of Mugron, its philosophic calm, and
its fruitful leisure. Here life is wasted in doing nothing, or at
least in producing nothing.”
Bastiat’s appearance in Paris at this epoch is thus described by one
of his friends. “He had not had time to call in the assistance of a
Parisian hatter and tailor,” says M. de Molinari; “and with his long
hair, his tiny hat, his ample frock-coat, and his family umbrella,
you would have been apt to mistake him for an honest peasant, who had
come to town for the first time to see the wonders of the metropolis.
But the physiognomy of this apparent clown was arch and spiritual;
his large black eye was luminous, and his square well-proportioned
forehead bore the impress of thought.”
“I remember, as if it were yesterday,” says M. Louis Reybaud, “the
impression which he produced. It was impossible to see a more
characteristic specimen of a provincial scholar, simple in his
manner, and plain in his attire. But, under that homely garb, and
that air of ‹bonhomie›, there were flashes of intelligence, and a
native dignity of deportment; and you were not long in discovering an
honest heart and a generous soul. The eye, above all, was lighted up
with singular brightness and fire. His emaciated features and livid
complexion betrayed already the ravages of that disease which, in
a few years, was destined to carry him off. His [p018] voice was
hollow, and formed a contrast with the vivacity of his ideas and
the briskness of his gestures. When the conversation was animated,
his voice became feebler, and his lungs performed their office with
difficulty. Better taken care of, his constitution, feeble as it was,
might have lasted a long time. But Bastiat took counsel only of his
energy. He never thought of how many days he had to live, but how he
might employ them well.”[6]
“I accept resolutely the hard life on which I am about to enter,” he
says in one of his letters. “What gives me courage is not the ‹non
omnis moriar› of Horace, but the thought that, perhaps, my life may
not have been useless to mankind.”[7]
During the eighteen months that the Free-trade Association lasted,
Bastiat’s life was one of feverish activity and incessant unremitting
toil. Before the doors of the Association could be opened to the
public, a Government ‹autorisation› had to be obtained; and it was
obtained at length with much difficulty and after long delay. On
Bastiat, as secretary, the care of all the arrangements devolved.
He had to communicate with journalists, wait upon ministers, issue
manifestoes, organize committees, obtain subscriptions, correspond
with branch associations, undertake journeys to Lyons, to Marseilles,
to Havre, attend meetings, make speeches, besides conducting a
weekly newspaper, called the ‹Libre-Échange›—the organ of the
Association—and contributing numerous articles to other newspapers,
and to the ‹Journal des Économistes›. “If at daybreak he observed a
Protectionist sophism appear in a newspaper of any reputation,” says
M. de Molinari, “he would immediately seize his pen, demolish the
sophism before breakfast, and our language counted one ‹chef-d’œuvre›
the more.”
It is to the marvellous exertions of this period that we owe the
‹Sophismes Économiques›,—a work which arose out of the circumstances
in which Bastiat found himself placed; and which, although written
from day to day, amid the distractions we have described, exhibits
his genius in its most brilliant light. “As examples of dialectical
skill in reducing an opponent to absurdity,” says Professor Cairnes,
“of simple and felicitous illustration, of delicate and polished
raillery, attaining occasionally the pitch of a refined irony,
the ‹Sophismes Économiques› may almost claim a place beside the
‹Provincial Letters›.” Sprightly, lucid, and conclusive, full of
fire and irony, playfulness and wit, these two little volumes afford
the most unanswerable reply ever given to the [p019] fallacies of
the Protectionist school; and, had Bastiat written nothing else,
they would have conferred on him a just title to be regarded as the
most distinguished economist of his day. The ‹Sophismes› have been
translated into four languages, and are the best known, if not the
most original, of all the works of their lamented author.
The success of the work was instant and complete. Bastiat at first
complained that “three or four pleasantries had made the fortune of
the book, while the serious parts were neglected;” but he afterwards
confessed that “parables and pleasantries had more success, and
effected more good, than the best treatises.” Of these pleasantries,
‹The Candlemakers’ Petition›, in the first series of the ‹Sophismes›,
is perhaps the happiest, and I cannot forbear presenting the reader
with a translation of this choice morsel:—
«Petition» of the Manufacturers of Candles, Wax-Lights, Lamps,
Candlesticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, Extinguishers, and of the
Producers of Oil, Tallow, Rosin, Alcohol, and, generally, of
everything connected with Lighting,
«To Messieurs the Members of the Chamber of Deputies.»
«Gentlemen»,—You are on the right road. You reject abstract
theories, and have little consideration for cheapness and plenty.
Your chief care is the interest of the producer. You desire to
emancipate him from external competition, and reserve the ‹national
market› for ‹national industry›.
We are about to offer you an admirable opportunity of applying
your—what shall we call it? your theory? No; nothing is more
deceptive than theory; your doctrine? your system? your
principle?—but you dislike doctrines, you abhor systems, and as for
principles, you deny that there are any in Social Economy: we shall
say, then, your practice, your practice without theory and without
principle.
We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign
rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to ours
for the production of light, that he absolutely ‹inundates› our
‹national market› with it at a price fabulously reduced. The moment
he shows himself, our trade leaves us—all consumers apply to him;
and a branch of native industry, having countless ramifications,
is all at once rendered completely stagnant. This rival, who is
no other than the Sun, wages war to the knife against us, and we
suspect he has been raised up by ‹perfidious Albion› (good policy
as times go); inasmuch as he displays towards that haughty island a
circumspection with which he dispenses in our case.
What we pray for is, that it may please you to pass a law ordering
the shutting up of all Windows, Sky-lights, Dormer-windows, Outside
and Inside Shutters, Curtains, Blinds, Bull’s-eyes; in a word, of
all Openings, Holes, Chinks, Clefts, and Fissures, by or through
which the light of the Sun has been allowed to enter houses, to the
prejudice of the meritorious manufactures with which we flatter
ourselves we have accommodated our country,—a country which, in
gratitude, ought not to abandon us now to a strife so unequal.
We trust, Gentlemen, that you will not regard this our request as a
satire, or refuse it without at least previously hearing the reasons
which we have to urge in its support.
And, first, if you shut up as much as possible all access to natural
light, and create a demand for artificial light, which of our French
manufactures will not be encouraged by it?
If more tallow is consumed, then there must be more oxen and sheep;
and, consequently, we shall behold the increase of artificial
meadows, meat, wool, hides, and, above all, manure, which is the
basis and foundation of all agricultural wealth.
If more oil is consumed, then we shall have an extended cultivation
of the poppy, of the olive, and of rape. These rich and exhausting
plants will come at the right [p020] time to enable us to avail
ourselves of the increased fertility which the rearing of additional
cattle will impart to our lands.
Our heaths will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of
bees will, on the mountains, gather perfumed treasures, now wasting
their fragrance on the desert air, like the flowers from which
they are derived. No branch of agriculture but will then exhibit a
cheering development.
The same remark applies to navigation. Thousands of vessels will
proceed to the whale fishery; and, in a short time, we shall possess
a navy capable of maintaining the honour of France, and gratifying
the patriotic aspirations of your petitioners, the undersigned
Candlemakers and others.
But what shall we say of the manufacture of ‹articles de Paris›?
Henceforth you will behold gildings, bronzes, crystals, in
candlesticks, in lamps, in lustres, in candelabra, shining forth, in
spacious warerooms, compared with which those of the present day can
be regarded but as mere shops.
No poor ‹Resinier› from his heights on the sea-coast, no Coal-miner
from the depth of his sable gallery, but will rejoice in higher
wages and increased prosperity.
Only have the goodness to reflect, Gentlemen, and you will be
convinced that there is, perhaps, no Frenchman, from the wealthy
coal-master to the humblest vender of lucifer matches, whose lot
will not be ameliorated by the success of this our Petition.
We foresee your objections, Gentlemen, but we know that you can
oppose to us none but such as you have picked up from the effete
works of the partisans of Free Trade. We defy you to utter a single
word against us which will not instantly rebound against yourselves
and your entire policy.
You will tell us that, if we gain by the protection which we seek,
the country will lose by it, because the consumer must bear the loss.
We answer:
You have ceased to have any right to invoke the interest of the
consumer; for, whenever his interest is found opposed to that of the
producer, you sacrifice the former. You have done so for the purpose
of ‹encouraging labour› and ‹increasing employment›. For the same
reason, you should do so again.
You have yourselves obviated this objection. When you are told
that the consumer is interested in the free importation of iron,
coal, corn, textile fabrics,—yes, you reply, but the producer is
interested in their exclusion. Well, be it so;—if consumers are
interested in the free admission of natural light, the producers of
artificial light are equally interested in its prohibition.
But, again, you may say that the producer and consumer are
identical. If the manufacturer gain by protection, he will make the
agriculturist also a gainer; and, if agriculture prospers, it will
open a vent to manufactures. Very well; if you confer upon us the
monopoly of furnishing light during the day,—first of all, we shall
purchase quantities of tallow, coals, oils, resinous substances,
wax, alcohol,—besides silver, iron, bronze, crystal—to carry on
our manufactures; and then we and those who furnish us with such
commodities, having become rich, will consume a great deal, and
impart prosperity to all the other branches of our national industry.
If you urge that the light of the Sun is a gratuitous gift of
nature, and that to reject such gifts is to reject wealth itself
under pretence of encouraging the means of acquiring it, we would
caution you against giving a death-blow to your own policy. Remember
that hitherto you have always repelled foreign products, ‹because›
they approximate more nearly than home products to the character of
gratuitous gifts. To comply with the exactions of other monopolists,
you have only ‹half a motive›; and to repulse us simply because
we stand on a stronger vantage ground than others, would be to
adopt the equation, + × + = -; in other words, it would be to heap
‹absurdity› upon ‹absurdity›.
Nature and human labour co-operate in various proportions (depending
on countries and climates) in the production of commodities. The
part which nature executes is always gratuitous; it is the part
executed by human labour which constitutes value, and is paid for.
If a Lisbon orange sells for half the price of a Paris orange, it is
because natural, and consequently gratuitous heat, does for the one,
what artificial, and therefore expensive heat, must do for the other.
When an orange comes to us from Portugal, we may conclude that
it is furnished in part gratuitously, in part for an onerous
consideration; in other words, it comes to us at ‹half-price› as
compared with those of Paris.
Now, it is precisely the ‹gratuitous half› (pardon the word) which
we contend should be excluded. You say, how can national labour
sustain competition with foreign labour, when the former has all the
work to do, and the latter only does one-half,—the Sun supplying
the remainder? But if this ‹half›, being ‹gratuitous›, determines
[p021] you to exclude competition, how should the ‹whole›,
being ‹gratuitous›, induce you to admit competition? If you were
consistent, you would, while excluding as hurtful to native industry
what is half gratuitous, exclude, ‹a fortiori› and with double zeal,
that which is altogether gratuitous.
Once more, when products, such as coal, iron, corn, or textile
fabrics, are sent us from abroad, and we can acquire them with less
labour than if we made them ourselves, the difference is a free
gift conferred upon us. The gift is more or less considerable in
proportion as the difference is more or less great. It amounts to a
quarter, a half, or three-quarters of the value of the product, when
the foreigner only asks us for three-fourths, a half, or a quarter
of the price we should otherwise pay. It is as perfect and complete
as it can be, when the donor (like the Sun in furnishing us with
light) asks us for nothing. The question, and we ask it formally,
is this, Do you desire for our country the benefit of gratuitous
consumption, or the pretended advantages of onerous production? Make
your choice, but be logical; for as long as you exclude as you do,
coal, iron, corn, foreign fabrics, ‹in proportion› as their price
approximates to ‹zero›, what inconsistency would it be to admit the
light of the Sun, the price of which is already at ‹zero› during the
entire day!
In addition to his other engrossing avocations in Paris, Bastiat,
in the end of 1847 and beginning of 1848, delivered a course of
lectures to young men on the principles of Political Economy and
the Harmony of the Social Laws. He had no opportunity of committing
these lectures to writing, as he wished, but we have doubtless
the substance of them in his published works, especially in the
‹Harmonies Économiques›. “Something tells me,” he says in one of his
letters to M. Coudroy, “that this course addressed to the young, who
have logic in their heads, and warmth and fervour in their hearts,
will not be useless.” “My auditors,” he says elsewhere, “are not very
numerous; but they attend assiduously, and take notes. The seed falls
into good ground.”
It was in the midst of these harassing occupations and herculean
exertions that the Revolution of February came to surprise
Bastiat,—to put an end to the Free-trade Association,—and to bring
a far more formidable set of agitators—namely, the Socialists and
Communists—to the surface of society. Bastiat doubted if his country
was ripe for a Republic; but when it came, he gave in his adhesion
to it, and was returned by his native Department of the Landes as
a Deputy to the Constituent, and afterwards to the Legislative
Assembly. He took his seat on the left, says his accomplished
friend and biographer M. de Fontenay, in an attitude of moderation
and firmness; and, whilst remaining somewhat isolated, he was
surrounded with the respect of all parties. A Member of the Committee
of Finance, of which he was named Vice-President eight times in
succession, he exercised a very marked influence on that department,
although quietly and within doors. The increasing feebleness of his
lungs prevented his often ascending the tribune or addressing the
Assembly, although it was often a hard trial for him to be thus,
as it were, nailed to his seat.[8] It is to this he alludes in the
second chapter [p022] of the ‹Harmonies›:—“If, when the much-loved
vessel of the State is beaten by the tempest, I sometimes appear to
absent myself from my post in order to collect my scattered thoughts,
it is because I feel my feeble hands unfitted for the work. Is it,
besides, to betray my mission to reflect upon the causes of the
tempest itself, and endeavour to act upon these causes? And then,
what I find I cannot do to-day, who knows but it may be given me to
accomplish to-morrow?”
In a letter to M. Coudroy, in June 1848, Bastiat thus describes his
daily occupations:—“I rise at six o’clock, dress, shave, breakfast,
and read the newspapers; this occupies me till seven, or half-past
seven. About nine, I am obliged to go out, for at ten commences the
sitting of the Committee of Finance, of which I am a member. It
continues till one, and then the public sitting begins, and continues
till seven. I return to dinner, and it very rarely happens that there
are not after-dinner meetings of Sub-Committees charged with special
questions. The only hour at my disposal is from eight to nine in the
morning, and it is at that hour that I receive visitors. . . . . I am
profoundly disgusted with this kind of life.”
But the grand work of Bastiat in 1848 and 1849—a work to which he
devoted the best energies of his mind and genius—was the open and
incessant war which he waged with the Socialist and Communist writers
and agitators whom the Revolution had let loose on French society,
and who were then shaking the social and political fabric to its
centre. Bastiat, like the porcupine, had a quill pointed against
every assailant. To each error he opposed a pamphlet. With Louis
Blanc and the national workshops, he did battle in the brochure
entitled ‹Propriété et Loi›, in which he exposes the illusions
with which the public mind had been stuffed by the Socialists.
The doctrine of Concidérant he attacked in another little volume,
bearing the title, ‹Propriété et Spoliation›. In another, ‹Justice
et Fraternité›, he demolished the absurdities of Pierre Leroux’s
democratic and social constitution. Proudhon’s doctrine he disposed
of in ‹Capital et Rente›, where he refutes the foolish notions in
vogue in 1848 on the subject of gratuitous loans—a subject which he
again discussed in 1850, in the larger volume entitled ‹Gratuité du
Credit›. In ‹Protectionisme et Communisme›, Bastiat demonstrated that
what is called ‹protection› is nothing else than practical communism
or spoliation. ‹Paix et Liberté, ou le Budget Républicain›, another
brochure from his prolific pen, is a brilliant and vigorous onslaught
on the excessive taxation of that day, and the overgrown military and
naval armaments which gave [p023] rise to it. Many passages of this
admirable production, full of force and practical good sense, might
be read with benefit at the present day, as applicable not only to
France as it was, but to France as it is, and not to France alone,
but to the other nations of Europe.
In the tract entitled ‹L’État›, Bastiat maintains his favourite
doctrine that all which a Government owes to its subjects is
security; that, as it acts necessarily through the intervention of
force, it can equitably enforce nothing save Justice; and that its
duty consists in holding the balance equal among various interests,
by guarding the liberty of all, by protecting person and property,
by enforcing covenants, and thereby upholding credit, but leaving
Demand and Supply in all cases to perform their appropriate functions
without restraint and without encouragement. He exposes the absurdity
of men expecting everything from Government, and trusting to public
employments rather than to individual exertion. He shows that, since
the State is only an aggregate of individuals, it can give nothing
to the people but what it has previously taken from them. ‹Tout le
monde›, as he says elsewhere, ‹veut vivre aux dépens de l’état, et on
oublie que l’état vit aux dépens de tout le monde›.
To this tract another is appended, to which he gives the quaint
title of ‹Maudit Argent!› in which he exposes the popular errors
which arise from confounding capital with money, and money with
inconvertible paper. In this little work, Bastiat of course could
not treat the subject systematically and in detail, as M. Michel
Chevalier has since done in his philosophical treatise ‹Sur la
Monnaie›;[9] but Bastiat’s tract contains many excellent passages.
The effect of an enlargement of the volume of currency on the value
of money, for instance, is thus happily illustrated:—
Ten men sat down to play a game, in which they agreed to stake
1000 francs. Each man was provided with ten counters—each counter
representing ten francs. When the game was finished, each received
as many times ten francs as he happened to have counters. One of the
party, who was more of an arithmetician than a logician, remarked
that he always found at the end of the game that he was richer in
proportion as he had a greater number of counters, and asked the
others if they had observed the same thing. What holds in my case,
said he, must hold in yours, for what is true of each must be true
of all. He proposed, therefore, that each should have double the
former number of counters. No sooner said than done. Double the
number of counters were distributed; but, when the party finally
rose from play they found themselves no richer than before. The
stake had not been increased, and fell to be proportionally divided.
Each man, no doubt, had double the number of counters, but each
counter, instead of being worth ten francs, was found to be worth
only five; and it was at length discovered that what is true of each
is ‹not› always true of all.
The pamphlets, ‹Baccalauréat et Socialisme›, and ‹Ce qu’on voit
et ce qu’on ne voit pas›, belong to the following year, 1850,
the last [p024] of the author’s life. In the first of these,
Bastiat complains of the monopoly of university degrees, and
the too exclusive addiction of his countrymen to classical
learning—especially Greek and Roman history—to which he attributes
much of that democratic and revolutionary fervour which was ever and
anon breaking out in France.
The second, ‹Ce qu’on voit et ce qu’on ne voit pas›, is a masterpiece
worthy of the author of the ‹Sophismes›, and well deserves its second
title of “Political Economy in One Lesson.” The following extract
from the first chapter of this admirable little work will give the
reader some idea of the argument, and of Bastiat’s lively manner of
treating a subject in itself so dry and uninviting:—
«The Broken Pane.»
Have you ever had occasion to witness the fury of the honest
burgess, Jacques Bonhomme, when his scapegrace son has broken a
pane of glass? If you have, you cannot fail to have observed that
all the bystanders, were there thirty of them, lay their heads
together to offer the unfortunate proprietor this never-failing
consolation,—“There is some good in every misfortune—such accidents
give a fillip to trade. Everybody must live. If no windows were
broken, what would become of the glaziers?”
Now, this formula of condolence contains a theory, which it is
proper to lay hold of, ‹flagrante delicto›, in this very simple
case, because it is exactly the same theory which unfortunately
governs the greater part of our economic institutions.
Assuming that it becomes necessary to expend six francs in repairing
the damage, if you mean to say that the accident brings in six
francs to the glazier, and to that extent encourages his trade, I
grant it fairly and frankly, and allow that you reason justly. The
glazier arrives, does his work, pockets his money, rubs his hands,
and blesses the scapegrace son. This is ‹what we see›.
But if, by way of deduction, you come to conclude, as is too often
done, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it makes money
circulate, and that encouragement to trade in general is the result,
I am obliged to cry halt! Your theory stops at ‹what we see›, and
takes no account of ‹what we don’t see›.
‹We don’t see› that, since our burgess has been obliged to spend his
six francs on one thing, he can no longer spend them on another—‹We
don’t see› that, if he had not had this pane to replace, he would
have replaced, for example, his shoes, which are down at the heels,
or placed a new book on his shelf. In short, he would have employed
his six francs in a way in which he cannot now employ them.
Let us see, then, how the account stands with trade ‹in general›.
The pane being broken, the glazier’s trade is benefited to the
extent of six francs. This is ‹what we see›.
If the pane had not been broken, the shoemaker’s (or some other)
trade would have been encouraged to the extent of six francs. That
is what ‹we don’t see›.
And if we take into account what ‹we don’t see›, which is a
negative fact, as well as what ‹we do see›, which is a positive
fact, we shall discover that trade ‹in general›, or the aggregate
of ‹national industry›, has no interest, one way or other, whether
windows are broken or not.
Let us see, again, how the account stands with Jacques Bonhomme.
On the last hypothesis—that of the pane being broken—he spends six
francs, and gets neither more nor less than he had before,—namely,
the use and enjoyment of a pane of glass.
On the other hypothesis,—namely, that the accident had not happened,
he would have expended six francs on shoes, and would have had the
use and enjoyment both of the shoes and of the pane of glass.
Now, as the good burgess, Jacques Bonhomme constitutes a fraction of
society at large, we are forced to conclude that society, taken in
the aggregate, and after all accounts of labour and enjoyment have
been squared, has lost the value of the pane which has been broken.
Whence, on generalizing, we arrive at this unexpected conclusion,
that “Society loses the value of things uselessly destroyed;” and
we arrive also at this aphorism, which will make the hair of the
prohibitionists stand on end, that “to smash, break, [p025] and
dissipate is not to encourage national industry;” or, more briefly,
that “there is no profit in destruction.”
The reader will take notice that there are not two persons only, but
three, in the little drama to which we have called his attention.
One of them—namely, Jacques Bonhomme—represents the consumer,
reduced by destruction to one enjoyment in place of two. The glazier
represents the producer, whose trade is encouraged by the accident.
The third is the shoemaker (or some other tradesman), whose trade is
discouraged to the same extent by the same cause. It is this third
personage who is always kept in the shade, and who, as representing
‹what we don’t see›, is a necessary element in the problem. It is he
who enables us to discover how absurd it is to try to find profit
in destruction. It is he who will soon teach us that it is not less
absurd to try to discover profit in restriction, which is, after
all, only partial destruction. Go to the bottom of all the arguments
which are urged in favour of restriction, and you will find only a
paraphrase of the vulgar saying,—“‹If no windows were broken, what
would the glaziers do?›”
The distinction thus established between immediate effects and
ultimate consequences, between surface appearances and substantial
realities, between ‹what we see and what we don’t see›, the author
proceeds, in the same happy vein, to apply to taxation, the proceeds
of which are said to come back to the labour-market like refreshing
showers,—to overgrown and unnecessary armaments, and extravagant
public works, which are defended as affording employment to the
working-classes,—to industrial and commercial restrictions, which
are justified on the same ground,—to the questions of machinery, of
credit, of colonization, of luxury and unproductive consumption, etc.
The entire work does not extend to eighty pages, and in every one of
its twelve short chapters Bastiat demolishes a specious fallacy or a
pernicious error.
But Bastiat had been for some time meditating a greater, more
elaborate, and more systematic work than any of those of which
we have hitherto spoken; and it is curious to trace in his
correspondence the progress of the ideas which were at length
developed in the ‹Harmonies Économiques›. Writing to M. Coudroy
in June 1845, he says—“If my little treatise of the ‹Sophismes
Économiques› is successful, we may follow it up by another entitled
‹Harmonies Sociales›. It would be of the greatest utility; for it
would meet the desires of an age in search of artificial harmonies
and organizations, by demonstrating the beauty, order, and
progressive principle of the natural and providential harmonies.” In
June 1846, he writes to Mr Cobden, “I must bring out a second edition
of my ‹Sophismes›, and I should wish much to write a little book to
be entitled ‹Harmonies Économiques›. It will be the counterpart of
the other—the first pulls down, the second will build up.” In another
letter, written the year after, he exclaims—“Oh, that the Divine
Goodness would give me yet one year of strength, and permit me to
explain to my young fellow-citizens what I regard as the true social
theory, under the twelve following heads:—‹Wants›, ‹production›,
‹property›, ‹competition›, ‹population›, ‹liberty›, [p026]
‹equality›, ‹responsibility›, ‹solidarity›, ‹fraternity›, ‹unity›,
‹province of public opinion›. I should then without regret, with joy,
resign my life into His hands!”
On the eve of being elected a Deputy to the National Assembly in
1848, he writes from Mugron, “Here I am in my solitude. Would that
I could bury myself here for ever, and work out peacefully this
Economic synthesis which I have in my head, and which will never
leave it! For, unless there occur some sudden change in public
opinion, I am about to be sent to Paris charged with the terrible
mandate of a Representative of the People. If I had health and
strength, I should accept this mission with enthusiasm. But what can
my feeble voice, my sickly and nervous organization, accomplish in
the midst of revolutionary tempests? How much wiser it had been to
devote my last days to working out in silence the great problem of
the social destinies, for something tells me I should have arrived
at a solution! Poor village, humble home of my fathers, I am about
to bid you an eternal adieu; and I quit you with the presentiment
that my name and my life, lost amidst storms, will not have even that
modest utility for which you had prepared me!” . . . .
In his letters to M. Coudroy at this period, we discover the same
idea working and fermenting in the mind of Bastiat, and struggling
for vent and utterance. Amid the anxieties and distractions in which
his duties as a Deputy involved him, he writes—“I am still convinced
that the practice of affairs excludes the possibility of producing
a work truly scientific, and yet I cannot conceal from you that I
always retain that old chimera of my ‹Social Harmonies›; and I cannot
divest myself of the thought that, if I had remained with you, I
should have succeeded in imparting to the world a useful idea. I long
much to make my retreat.” In another letter to the same friend, after
describing his feebleness, and intimating his intention to leave
Paris to try what effect a change to his native air might produce,
he adds—“I must renounce public life, and all my ambition now is to
have three or four months of tranquillity to write my poor ‹Harmonies
Économiques›. They are in my head, but I fear they will never leave
it.” “The crystal,” he says elsewhere, “is formed drop by drop in
silence and obscurity; but retirement, quiet, time, freedom from
care—all are wanting to me.”
In April 1849, he writes again to M. Coudroy, “I have my theory to
work out, and powerful encouragements have reached me opportunely.
I read those words yesterday in an English Review,—‘In Political
Economy, the French school has had [p027] three phases, expressed by
the three names, Quesnay, Say, Bastiat.’ They assign me this rank and
this part prematurely; but it is certain that I have in my head a new
and suggestive idea, which I believe to be true. This idea I have
never developed methodically. It runs accidentally through some of my
articles, and as that has been enough to attract the attention of the
‹savants›, and as it has already had the honour conferred on it of
being considered as forming an ‹epoch› in the science, I am certain
now that, when I give that theory in its complete state to the world,
it will at least be examined. Is not that all I could desire? With
what ardour I am about to turn to account my retirement in order
to elaborate that doctrine, certain as I am to have judges who can
understand it, and who are waiting for it!”
The three months of leisure, so long and so anxiously wished for,
came at last; and in the beginning of 1850 the ‹Harmonies› (or rather
the portions which the author had intended should form the first
volume of that work) made their appearance. The reception of the work
was not at first what might have been expected; and Bastiat, again
in Paris, writes to his friend M. Coudroy, “The ‹Harmonies› pass
unnoticed here, unless by some dozen connoisseurs. I expected this—it
could not be otherwise. I have not even in my favour the wonted zeal
of our own little circle, who accuse me of heterodoxy; but in spite
of this, I am confident that the book will make its way by degrees.
In Germany it has been very differently received. . . . . I pray
Heaven to vouchsafe me a year to write the second volume; after which
I shall sing, ‹Nunc dimittis›.”
To Mr Cobden, in August 1850, he writes—“I went to my native country
to try to cure these unfortunate lungs, which are to me very
capricious servants. I have returned a little better, but afflicted
with a disease of the larynx, accompanied with a complete extinction
of voice. The doctor enjoins absolute silence; and, in consequence, I
am about to pass two months in the country, near Paris. There I shall
try to write the second volume of the ‹Harmonies Économiques›. The
first has been nearly unnoticed by the learned world. I should not be
an ‹author› if I gave in to that judgment. I appeal to the future,
for I am conscious that that book contains an important idea, ‹une
idée mère›, and time will come to my assistance.”
This great work, the child of Bastiat’s anxious hopes, the subject
of his dying thoughts, although at first but coldly received, is
perhaps the most important and the most original contribution which
the science of Political Economy has received since the days [p028]
of Adam Smith. On that most abstruse and difficult subject, the first
principles of Value, it opens up entirely new views; while on almost
every other branch of the subject, it either propounds a new theory,
or corrects and improves the nomenclature of the science. Throughout,
it treats Political Economy (and it is perhaps the only work which
does so, at least systematically) in connexion with final causes, and
demonstrates the Wisdom and Goodness of God in the economy of civil
society. On some questions we may venture to differ from Bastiat. On
the question of Rent, for instance, he would seem to have followed
too implicitly the theory of Mr Carey, the able American Economist;
but Bastiat’s work, as a whole, has a freshness, a vigour, and an
originality which all must admire. He writes like a man thoroughly
in earnest,—a devout believer in the doctrines which he teaches, and
he seldom fails to carry conviction to the mind of his readers. The
leading idea of the work—the harmony of the social laws—is admirable,
and is admirably worked out. The motto of the book, in fact, might
have been the well-known lines of Dryden,—
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason ending full in Man.
Bastiat undertakes to demonstrate the harmony of the Economic
laws,—that is to say, their tendency towards a common design,
which is the progressive improvement of the human race. He proves
convincingly that individual interests, taken in the aggregate, far
from being antagonistic, aid each other mutually; and that, so far is
it from being true that the gain of one is necessarily the loss of
another, each individual, each family, each country has an interest
in the prosperity of all others. He shows that, between agriculturist
and manufacturer, capitalist and labourer, producer and consumer,
native and foreigner, there is in reality no antagonism, but, on
the contrary, a community of interest; and that, in order that the
natural Economic laws should act constantly so as to produce this
result, one thing alone is necessary—namely, respect for Liberty and
Property. His design is best explained in his own words: “I undertake
in this work,” he says, “to demonstrate the Harmony of those laws
of Providence which govern human society. What makes these laws
harmonious and not discordant is, that all principles, all motives,
all springs of action, all interests, co-operate towards a grand
final result, which humanity will never reach by reason of its native
‹imperfection›, [p029] but to which it will always approximate more
and more by reason of its unlimited ‹capability of improvement›. And
that result is, the indefinite approximation of all classes towards a
level, which is always rising; in other words, the ‹equalization› of
individuals in the general ‹amelioration›.”
Bastiat was not one of those pessimists who persist in looking at the
existing fabric of Society as if it were some ill-made, ill-going
clock, requiring constantly to be wound up, and to have its springs
adjusted, its wheels lubricated, and its hands altered and set right.
Far from this, he regarded Society as a self-acting, self-regulating
mechanism, bearing the stamp of the Divine hand by which it was
constructed, and subject to laws and checks not less wise, not less
immutable, not less trustworthy, than the laws which govern the
inanimate and material world.
“God made the country, but man made the towns,” was the exclamation
of an amiable but a morbid poet. He might as well have said—God made
the blossom, but bees make the comb. Reason asks, who then made the
bees? Who made man, with all his noble instincts, and admirable
inventive reasoning and reflective faculties?
A manlier, because a juster, philosophy enabled Bastiat rather to say
with Edmund Burke, “Art is man’s nature.” Looking at the existing
fabric and mechanism of Society, and the beautiful harmony of the
Economic laws which regulate it, he could see nothing to warrant
constant legislative tampering with the affairs of trade. He had
faith in moral and material progress under the empire of Freedom.
Sweeping away all Socialist Utopias and artificial systems of social
organization, he pointed to Society as it exists, and exclaimed,
‹Digitus Dei est hic›. Unlike the sickly poet, he believed that the
same Good and Wise Being who created both town and country, upholds
and sustains them both; and that the laws of Value and Exchange, left
to their own free and beneficent action, are as much His ordinance,
as the laws of motion, attraction, or chemical affinity.[10]
Engaged upon the second volume of the ‹Harmonies›, Bastiat found
his subject growing upon him, and discovered, as he thought, when
too late, that he had not in the first instance perceived all its
bearings. He felt, as he said, crushed by the mass [p030] of
harmonies which presented themselves to him on every side; and
a posthumous note, found among his papers, informs us that this
expansion of his subject under his hand had led him to think of
recasting the entire work. “I had thought at first,” he says, “to
begin with the exposition of ‹Economic Harmonies›, and, consequently,
to treat only of subjects purely economical—‹Value›, ‹Property›,
‹Wealth›, ‹Competition›, ‹Wages›, ‹Population›, ‹Money›, ‹Credit›,
etc. Afterwards, if I had had time and strength, I should have
directed the attention of the reader to the larger subject of
‹Social Harmonies›, and treated of the ‹Human Constitution›, ‹Social
Motives›, ‹Responsibility›, ‹Solidarity›, etc. The work thus
conceived[11] had been begun, when I saw that it was better to mingle
together than to separate these two classes of considerations. But
then logic required that the study of Man should precede the Economic
investigations; and—there was no longer time.”
Alas! the hours of Bastiat were numbered. He ran a desperate
steeple-chase with death, to use the expression of his biographer,
and he lost the day. His mind, his genius, shone as brightly, worked
as intensely, as ever; but the material frame-work was shattered
and in ruins. By the advice of his physicians, after resorting to
the waters of the Pyrenees without benefit, he repaired to Italy
in the autumn of 1850, and took up his residence at Pisa. Scarcely
had he arrived there, when he read in the newspapers a premature
announcement of his own death, and common-place expressions of regret
for the loss of the “great Economist” and “illustrious author.” He
wrote immediately to a friend to contradict the report. “Thank God,”
he says, “I am not dead, or even much [p031] worse. And yet if the
news were true, I must just accept it and submit. I wish all my
friends could acquire in this respect the philosophy I have myself
acquired. I assure you I should breathe my last without pain, and
almost with joy, if I were certain of leaving to the friends who
love me, not poignant regrets, but a gentle, affectionate, somewhat
melancholy remembrance of me.”
After lingering some time at Pisa without improvement, he went on to
Rome. From Rome he writes to M. Coudroy—“Here I am in the Eternal
City, but not much disposed to visit its marvels. I am infinitely
better that I was at Pisa, surrounded as I am with excellent
friends. . . . . I should desire only one thing, to be relieved of
the acute pain which the disease of the windpipe occasions. This
continuity of suffering torments me. Every meal is a punishment.
To eat, drink, speak, cough, are all painful operations. Walking
fatigues me—carriage airings irritate the throat—I can no longer
work, or even read, seriously. You see to what I am reduced. I shall
soon be little better than a dead body, retaining only the faculty
of suffering.” . . . . Even in this state of extreme debility he was
thinking of his favourite but unfinished work. He adds, “If health
is restored to me, and I am enabled to complete the second volume of
the ‹Harmonies›, I shall dedicate it to you. If not, I shall prefix a
short dedication to the second edition of the first volume. On this
last hypothesis, which implies the end of my career, I can explain my
plan, and bequeath to you the task of fulfilling it.”
Bastiat’s career was in reality fast drawing to a close. His
end was calm and serene. He seemed himself to regard it as an
indifferent spectator, conversing with his friends on his favourite
topics,—Political Economy, Philosophy, and Religion. He desired to
die as a Christian. To his cousin the Abbé Monclar, and his friend M.
Paillottet, who stood by, he said—“On looking around me, I observe
that the most enlightened nations of the world have been of the
Christian faith, and I am very happy to find myself in communion
with that portion of the human race.” “His eye,” says M. Paillottet,
“sparkled with that peculiar expression which I had frequently
noticed in our conversations, and which intimated the solution of
a problem.” He beckoned his friends to come near him, as if he had
something to say to them—he murmured twice the words ‹La verité›—and
passed away.
His death took place at Rome, on the 24th of December 1850, in the
fiftieth year of his age. His obsequies were celebrated in the church
of Saint Louis des Français. It was in the year 1845 that he took up
his residence in Paris, so that his career as an [p032] Economist
had extended over little more than five years. He died a martyr to
his favourite science, and we may well apply to him the beautiful
lines of Lord Byron,—
Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,
When Science’ self destroy’d her favourite son!
Yes, she too much indulged his fond pursuit,
She sow’d the seeds, but death has reap’d the fruit.
’Twas his own genius gave the final blow,
And help’d to plant the wound that laid him low:
So the struck eagle, stretch’d upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View’d his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing’d the shaft that quiver’d in his heart;
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel
He nursed the pinion which impell’d the steel;
While the same plumage that had warm’d his nest
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.