In a monarchy, judicial offices must be for sale; because if they were not, intrigue would sell them, and the administration of justice would be sheer robbery.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (30 September 1714 – 3 August 1780) was a French philosopher and epistemologist, who studied in such areas as psychology and the philosophy of mind.
An office that [the sovereign] sells is, properly speaking, a loan for which he pays interest under the name of a salary.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[An] absurd exemption [...] is naturally explained among peoples of barbaric origin.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Offices were created solely to sell nobility. Thus the people found themselves more and more overburdened.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The public did not see that it was they who were contracting a debt when the sovereign borrowed.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
To tempt cupidity, it [the government] devised tontines.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is true that the debts were extinguished: but the taxes remained; and they were accumulated [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[The operation] filled the cities with idle and useless people, who nevertheless subsisted at the expense of the state.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
This paper money seemed to create great movement in circulation, and people believed themselves to be richer.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
One can conceive how much this new way of thinking dealt a blow to agriculture. Land prices fell.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is not the same for papers, which have only a fictitious value, as for gold and silver, which have a real value.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Wealth in paper was so convenient that people sought only to delude themselves; and [...] they received it with confidence once more.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Speculation will become the profession of many people who will be occupied only with spreading confidence and alarm in turn.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The bank itself, when it is sure of being able to restore its credit, will cause it to fall at intervals, in order to speculate on its own shares.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The only thing left for the government to do was to become the bank itself, and it did.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The arts multiply non-essential goods, they perfect them; and in proportion to their progress, they bring to trade a greater quantity of merchandise [...] of a higher price.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is up to manufactures [...] to produce a general circulation. The works that come out of them, made to be sought after everywhere, are sold everywhere; and the trade that results from them [...] brings value to everything.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The more the merchant provinces need sustenance, the more they demand from the agricultural provinces; and, consequently, they make agriculture flourish there.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Thus, as some lack what is abundant in others, they all contribute to their common advantage.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
One should not, in order to populate some provinces more and enrich them, turn others into deserts, or leave behind only a miserable people.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
If agriculture were to fall in the agricultural provinces [...], the merchant provinces that caused their ruin would ruin themselves in turn.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The lure of profit has multiplied them too much, and [businesses] harm each other through competition.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
There will be among all the provinces a continual balancing of wealth and population; a balance that will be maintained by industry and by competition.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
If a province believed it could enrich itself by focusing on ways to attract and retain the gold and silver of all others, it would be a mistake as fatal as it is coarse.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Gold and silver must therefore enter and leave freely. It is then that wealth will be balanced among all provinces: all will be in abundance through the exchange of their labor.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
If a province believes itself richer because it has more money, it is [...] under an illusion.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
All peoples will work following each other's example, because all will want to share in the same advantages.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Trade will be like a river, which would distribute itself into a multitude of channels, to successively water all the lands. This revolution will only end to begin again.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Liberty has [...] the advantage of [...] guaranteeing all [regions] from poverty, while at the same time halting [...] the progress of wealth when its excess [...] could be harmful.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Through freedom of trade, [the provinces] are all at the same time both agricultural and merchant. This is because, in each, all activities are pursued, and none knows exclusive preferences.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The idea by which one is most struck is the one that one is naturally inclined to state first.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
If we could trace all primitive nouns back to their source, we would find that there is no abstract noun that does not derive from some adjective or verb.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Men [...] relate their latest knowledge to some of that which they have already acquired. In this way, less familiar ideas are linked to those that are more so.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
[...] it is [...] certain that the most abstract terms derive from the first names that were given to sensible objects.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The origin of these signs was forgotten as soon as their use became familiar; and people fell into the error of believing that they were the most natural names for spiritual things.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
We are naturally inclined to believe that others have the same ideas as we do, because they use the same language.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
It is curious to note with what confidence one uses language at the very moment one abuses it the most.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Philosophers themselves have affected to be obscure. Each sect has had an interest in devising ambiguous or meaningless terms. It is by this means that they have sought to hide the weak points of so many systems.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
One is mistaken [...] only because one takes for more natural an order that is merely a habit that the character of our language has made us contract.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
[...] ideas are dispersed only so that the mind, obliged to bring them together itself, may feel their connection or contrast with more vivacity.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
[...] it is natural that we should become accustomed to linking our ideas in conformity with the genius of the language in which we are raised [...].
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Each language expresses the character of the people who speak it.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Languages are like the figures of geometers: they give new views, and extend the mind in proportion as they are more perfect.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The success of the best-organized geniuses depends entirely on the progress of language in the age in which they live.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
To be original, [the writer] is obliged to prepare the ruin of a language whose progress he would have hastened a century earlier.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Philosophers, to account for the phenomena of sight, have supposed that we form certain judgments of which we have no consciousness.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Joining to vision a judgment that we confuse with it, we form the idea of a convex figure, although in fact our eyes only represent a plane to us.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
As for me, when I look at a globe, I see something other than a flat circle: an experience on which it seems quite natural to me to rely.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
I see a bas-relief, I know without a doubt that it is painted on a flat surface [...] yet this knowledge [...] does not prevent me from seeing convex figures.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
A reason which alone would suffice to destroy this opinion [...], is that it is impossible to be made conscious of such judgments.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The object moves, I judge it to be a man, and from that moment this man appears to me of ordinary size.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
If the perception of sight is the effect of a judgment [...], this man ought to suddenly disappear from my eyes, or [...] I ought to continue to see him of the same size.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Hearing by itself is not meant to give us the idea of distance [...] the idea it provides is still the most imperfect of all.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
I open my window and perceive a man at the end of the street: I see that he is far from me, before I have yet formed any judgment.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
I see a light spread in all directions [...] which is not concentrated in a single point [...]. I find there, independently of any judgment, [...] the idea of extension with all its dimensions.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
From whichever senses extension comes to our knowledge, it cannot be represented in two different ways.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
[The man born blind] for a long time distinguished neither sizes, nor distances, nor situations, nor even figures. [...] All that he saw, at first seemed to be upon his eyes, and to touch them.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
[The man born blind] put his hand to it and was astonished not to find [...] those solid bodies [...]. He asked which was the deceiver, the sense of touch, or the sense of sight.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
It required several days of exercise to make springs so stiffened by time work together. This is why this young man fumbled for two months.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
I had to make it a law for myself to establish nothing that was not indisputable, and that everyone could not, with the slightest reflection, perceive in themselves.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
We only fall into more errors because we acquire more knowledge.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
Of all created beings, the one least made to be mistaken is the one with the smallest portion of intelligence.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
However, we have an instinct, since we have habits, and it is the most extensive of all.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
[...] we sometimes sense the truth before we have grasped its demonstration. We discern it by instinct.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
The very history of philosophy is often nothing but the fabric of errors into which [false premonitions] have thrown philosophers.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
Taste [...] was, in the beginning, nothing more than judging [the object] by comparison with others.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
Everyone is biased to think that their feeling is the measure of others'. They do not believe that one can take pleasure in a thing that gives them none.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
[...] if we knew that feeling is, in its origin, only a very slow judgment, we would recognize that what is only judgment for us may have become feeling for others.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
We believe we have a natural, innate taste, which makes us judges of everything, without having studied anything. This prejudice is general, and it was bound to be.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
Chance is but a word, and the need they have of it to build their systems proves how necessary it is to recognize a first principle.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
The first object of self-love is [...] to ward off any unpleasant feeling; and it is through this that it tends towards the conservation of the individual.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
To desire is therefore the most pressing of all our needs; [...] we no longer live except to desire and only as long as we desire.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
Men [...] teach each other how their strength grows, weakens, and is extinguished. Finally, those who die first say that they are no more, by ceasing to say that they exist.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
Habits that in some respects conspire together, harm each other in other respects. [...] they fight each other mutually, and this is the source of the contradictions we sometimes experience.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
Sensation, need, connection of ideas: this is the system to which all the operations of animals must be related.
1755
Source: Treatise on Animals
We cannot recall the ignorance in which we were born: it is a state that leaves no trace behind it.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
We only remember having been ignorant of that which we remember having learned [...].
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
[...] this is the origin of the inclination we have to believe [our first knowledge] is innate.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
To say that we have learned to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to touch, seems the strangest paradox.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
It seems that nature gave us the full use of our senses at the very instant it formed them [...].
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
[We must] consider our senses separately, [...] distinguish with precision the ideas we owe to each of them, and observe with what progress they instruct themselves.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
To fulfill this object, we imagined a Statue organized internally like us, and animated by a mind deprived of all kinds of ideas.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
The principle which determines the development of [the mind's] faculties is simple; Sensations themselves contain it.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
[...] all [sensations] being necessarily pleasant or unpleasant, [the being] is interested in enjoying the ones and avoiding the others.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
This interest is sufficient to give rise to the operations of the understanding and the will.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
Judgment, reflection, desires, passions, etc., are only Sensation itself which transforms differently.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
Nature gives us organs to warn us through pleasure of what we must seek, and through pain of what we must flee. But it stops there.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
[Nature] leaves to experience the task of making us form habits, and of completing the work it has begun.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
Can one not admire that it was only necessary to make man sensitive to pleasure and pain to give birth in him to ideas, desires, habits, and talents of all kinds?
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
The organ of touch is less perfect in [animals]; and consequently, it cannot be for them the occasional cause of all the operations that are observed in us.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
When one gets rich only slowly and through hard work, one can be frugal; but one squanders when money is easily reproduced [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[...] as consumption grew among citizens of all classes, prices rose in all markets.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
More fatal to people on fixed incomes or wages, it [the rise in prices] permanently took away a part of their subsistence [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
In that moment of prosperity, people said: mines are the power of a state. It is an abundant source that, so to speak, makes other sources of wealth overflow.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
This truth was only momentary, and one had to be quick to say it.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[...] when a greater quantity of money had further raised prices, people bought from abroad where everything cost less, what they previously bought within the kingdom.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Manufacturing, agriculture, commerce, everything collapsed; and among those who previously lived by their labor, some left the kingdom, while others stayed to beg.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The product of the mines was therefore, in the final analysis, depopulation and misery.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The money withdrawn from them crossed the provinces and passed on to foreign lands without leaving a trace.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Finally, the price increase reached the point where the mines had to be abandoned. The costs [...] became so great that there was no longer any profit in exploiting them.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Thus, a time comes when the exploitation of mines can no longer be profitable. It is not the same for the cultivation of produce, which is consumed in order to be reproduced.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[The cultivation of land] is a source that does not run dry. The more one draws from it, the more it grows. Such is the advantage of exploiting the land over exploiting mines.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
What would have happened if gold and silver had become as common as iron? These metals would have ceased to be the common measure of value [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[If precious metals became common,] no more cities, consequently, no more great fortunes. But also no more begging [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
How happy we would be, if we found mines rich enough to make all our gold and silver useless!
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
One could not trade in wheat without having obtained permission. [...] one still needed protection.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Protection was scarcely granted except to those who paid for it, or who gave up a share of their profit.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The right to monopolize grain was therefore sold, in a way, to the highest and last bidder.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
...when one had bought it, one still had to give money to prevent it from being sold to others.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It was not important for them to do a large volume of trade: it was only important for them to make a large profit.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[The monopolists] lay down the law to the farmers who can only sell to them.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
To confirm these rumors, they would make simulated sales among themselves, publicly in the markets [...] at the lowest price.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
So there is a shortage: it is not that the wheat is lacking, but it has been withdrawn from consumption.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
They must be able to take credit for the low prices they maintain in some provinces, to justify the high prices they set in others.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Sometimes one would see, in one province, the people condemned to eating bad roots, while in a neighboring province, the finest wheat was thrown to the cattle.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Solely responsible for redirecting grain wherever it was lacking, they did so slowly [...] and found, in their slowness, a great profit, because it made the high prices last.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
There were others who grew no less rich, and yet bought dear, and sold cheap.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[The commissioners] would buy grain, and the more expensively they bought it, the more, consequently, was their profit.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Unable to [...] sustain the competition without ruining themselves, [the merchants] gave up the grain trade one after another.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It was the government that made all the advances for the purchases, as well as all the losses in the sales.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Productions can only be multiplied in proportion to the quantity of land, its extent, and the care given to its cultivation.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Depending on the use of the land, the population will therefore be larger or smaller.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
There are never more inhabitants in a country than the number it can feed.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is a fact that humans multiply whenever fathers are assured of their children's subsistence.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Consumption, which multiplies with needs, changes the use of land.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The productions necessary for human subsistence decrease in proportion as others increase.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The more new consumption patterns multiply, the more activity there will be in commerce, which will embrace new objects every day.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Little by little, everyone, following each other's example, will consume more and more.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[A society] will not imagine that the population can decrease in a century where every citizen enjoys more abundance [...], and yet it is for this very reason that it decreases.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Every man wants to be able to support his family in the comfort that habit has made a necessity for all those of his station.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is not the largest population, considered in itself, that should be the judge of a State's prosperity.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[Prosperity is] the largest population that [...] is reconciled with the abundance to which all citizens have a right to claim.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
A large population proves nothing in favor of the government: it only proves that the lands are very fertile and [...] cultivated by men who have few needs.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Land will be valuable wherever agriculture enjoys complete freedom; and then the population [...] will be as large as it can be. That is the prosperity of the State.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Is it more advantageous for a kingdom that its inhabitants have as few needs as possible, or that they have many?
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[...] value, based on need, increases with scarcity and decreases with abundance.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
If there were no land-based wealth, there would be no movable wealth.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The forms that give utility to raw materials give them value.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
To produce, in effect, is to give new forms to matter [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The value of the form can only be the value of the labor that provides it. It is the wage due to the worker.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Strictly speaking, the farmer produces nothing; he merely prepares the land to produce.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The artisan, on the contrary, produces value, since there is value in the forms he gives to raw materials.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Movable wealth does more than replace itself; it accumulates.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[Movable wealth] multiplies like our artificial needs, which can multiply endlessly.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Land-based wealth is [...] first-order wealth, [...] without which there would be no other wealth.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The farmer produces more than he consumes. It is with his surplus that he sustains those who do not cultivate.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Land-based wealth [...] produced to be consumed, is only reproduced in proportion to consumption.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Movable wealth only multiplies with the help of land-based wealth.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Works of art have [...] more value when they are of a nature that can only be made by a small number of artisans, as they are then rarer.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The peoples in whom history shows virtues directed by laws are those who grow by degrees, and who, guided only by circumstances, learn from experience to govern themselves.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Ignorance of a multitude of superfluous needs [...] protects for a long time from a multitude of vices. Corruption only arrives after several centuries.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
[Souls], humane and generous [...] become ferocious within the city walls, and this ferocity is the effect of superfluous needs, the very needs that soften the morals of civilized peoples.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Superstition [...] became one more weapon, and from it new troubles were born.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
The experience of the past thus took away even the illusion of the future, and the people were as unhappy as they would have been if nature itself had condemned them to be so.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
It is that opinion alone governed them. [The people] respected in it [...] even the abuses it consecrates.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
The fewer obstacles prejudices find when they spread, the more one finds when one wants to destroy them.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
To attack [prejudices] successfully, one must have learned how to fight them, one must [...] find favorable dispositions in minds; they must be prepared long in advance.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
False knowledge, even more fatal than ignorance, had enslaved minds.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Reason develops effortlessly as long as we exercise it on uncomplicated objects; but powerless on its own to handle others, [...] it needs levers.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
It is not the same with taste; it develops on its own as soon as a people begins to be enlightened. It is properly the dawn of the day that is to break.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
We are not deceived about what we judge to be pleasant, as we can be deceived about what we judge to be true.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
To form our taste, it is not enough to study dead languages; we must also cultivate the one that has become natural to us, because it is in this language that we think.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
The limits we raise to circumscribe each science intercept the light and necessarily cast shadows. Let us remove the limits, and at once the shadows dissipate.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Happier than the Italians, because we came later, our language was perfected in more favorable circumstances.
1768
Source: Reception Speech to the French Academy by Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Ever since people have been writing about luxury, some have praised it, others have satirized it, and nothing is proven. This is because no one seeks to understand each other.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
We speak of luxury as if it were something of which we had an absolute idea, yet we only have a relative one.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
What is luxury for one people is not for another; and for the same people, what once was luxury may cease to be so.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Luxury, in the primary sense of the word, is the same thing as excess.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Men judge what all agree to call excess differently only because, not having the same needs, it is natural that what seems like excess to one does not seem so to another.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Luxury consists [...] in things that [...] are, by their nature, reserved for the few to the exclusion of the many.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
However sought-after things may have appeared in the beginning, they are not an excess when they are of a nature to become common use.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The rich, whose taste is proportional to the rarity of the dishes, would deem them excellent.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The price of labor transforms [...] the raw materials that our soil produces in the greatest abundance into luxury items.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[The condition of the luxury worker] will show [...] how much industry in the cities has advantages over country labor. The villages will therefore be deserted.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
To judge the disadvantages of luxury with regard to individuals, I distinguish three types: the luxury of magnificence, the luxury of comfort, and the luxury of frivolities.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The luxury of frivolities, subject to the whims of fashion, [...] throws one into expenses to which one can see no limit.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
What becomes of morality when the leading citizens [...] know only the need for money, when any means of making it is accepted among them, and none brings dishonor?
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is a matter of fact that only a simple life can make a people rich, powerful, and happy.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is in the opinion one has of quantities, rather than in the quantities themselves, that abundance, superabundance or scarcity are found.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
I call natural the needs that are a consequence of our conformation, and artificial the needs that we owe to habit.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
A time will come when artificial needs, by dint of straying from nature, will end up changing it completely and corrupting it.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
To say that a thing has value is to say that we esteem it to be good for some use. This esteem is what we call value.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The value of things is therefore founded on their utility, or, what amounts to the same thing, on the need we have for them.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Since a more deeply felt need gives things a greater value, [...] the value of things increases in scarcity, and decreases in abundance.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[Value] can, in abundance, diminish to the point of becoming null. A superabundant good will be without value, whenever no use can be made of it.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The greater or lesser value, utility being the same, would be founded solely on the degree of scarcity or abundance [...]. But this degree can never be known.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
A thing does not have a value because it costs, as is supposed; but it costs, because it has a value.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Value is less in the thing itself than in the esteem we have for it, and this esteem is relative to our need.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Although one gives no money to procure a thing, it costs, if it costs labor.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
To work, therefore, is to act in order to procure a thing that one needs.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The air has value: it costs everything I do to breathe it, to change it, to renew it. I open my window, I go out. Now each of these actions is a labor.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
We are inclined to regard value as an absolute quality, inherent in things independently of the judgments we make, and this confused notion is a source of bad reasoning.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Things would have no value for us if we did not judge that they have qualities suited to our uses. Their value lies therefore principally in the judgment we make of their utility.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
From generation to generation, lands [...] are divided among the children, [...] they will often be divided to the point that the different portions will no longer suffice for the subsistence of those to whom they have fallen.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Sometimes a negligent or wasteful [man] will be forced to sell his [assets] to a more careful or more thrifty one, who will continually make new acquisitions.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Merchants, enriched by trade and thrift, will likely appropriate little by little a portion of the lands.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[People] are more equitable than one thinks: they would be even more so if they were less vexed, and besides, competition forces them to be.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Experience teaches [...] the quantity and quality of products on which one can reasonably rely, [...] and one values them according to current market prices.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Property owners [...] gather around markets, where they are better able to provide for all their needs. This gathering attracts [...] artisans and merchants [...], and a city is formed.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
A revolution in the way of life then takes place.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
When [people], gathered in cities, mutually share the productions [...], it is natural that they all wish to enjoy all these productions.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[People] consequently create new needs for themselves, and they consume more than they did before.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The pleasures of this way of life will increase the influx into the cities. Consumption will grow in the same proportion.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[Producers], more assured of selling their harvests, will give more care to agriculture. [...] productions will multiply.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Their consumption, at once larger and more varied, will increasingly stimulate industry, and consequently agriculture, the arts and commerce will flourish.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Production and consumption will continuously balance each other; and, according to their proportion, they will alternately cause the price of everything to rise and fall.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The complete freedom enjoyed by commerce will soon proportion production to consumption, and will set everything at the price it ought to have.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Between a crude life and a soft life, I would like to distinguish a simple life, and to define its idea, if possible, with some precision.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
We pass from a crude life to a simple life, and from a simple life to a soft life through a series of things that habit makes necessary for us.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The arts must make some progress to pull us out of a crude life; and they must stop after some progress, to prevent us from falling into a soft life.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
As long as agriculture was regarded as the primary art, [...] men, far from being able to become soft, were necessarily sober and industrious.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is in times of corruption that laws multiply. They are made continuously, because the need for them is continuously felt, and it seems they are always made in vain.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
If it is important on one hand that every citizen can live from their work, it is certain on the other that we will not be able to provide occupation for all, unless the arts have made new progress.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[The pursuit of luxury is found] in the workmanship, when a more finished work is preferred, although it is neither more solid nor more useful.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is above all exclusive pleasures that make simplicity disappear.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
When one begins to believe one is better because one enjoys things that others do not, one no longer seeks to have worth except through these kinds of things.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
One ceases to be simple, not only because one is not like the others, but also because one wants to appear to be what one is not.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Competition, which distributes jobs, puts everyone in their place: all subsist, and the State is rich from the work of all.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Luxury [...] will raise the price of the most necessary things in life; and, for a small number of citizens who will live in opulence, the multitude will fall into misery.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is the things whose use makes their necessity felt that should be the rule for the employment of men [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Foreign trade, always hindered [...], will be all the less flourishing the more expensive it becomes.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Nations harm each other mutually [...] because they each deprive themselves of the advantages they provided one another through trade.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Every time they take up arms, [nations] destroy a stock of wealth that they would have put into circulation [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Production will consequently decrease, and with it, the population.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[...] that glory which the people, in their stupidity, attach to conquests, and which historians, even more stupid, love to celebrate [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is only by exterminating that [a nation] will ensure its domination over previously free peoples.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
War will cost provinces even to the nation that has made conquests.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
I consider as lost those provinces where the population and culture have been ruined or considerably deteriorated.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
An empire that becomes depopulated and falls into ruin would not be any greater for having extended its borders.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
But this balance [of power], can it ever be established? Never.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[...] anxiety will appear to be the sole driving force of powers: they will commit themselves [...] to the most ruinous projects, only to execute them in an even more ruinous manner.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[...] as war removes all freedom from commerce, the surplus will cease to pass from one nation to another.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
As soon as [the surplus] ceases to be consumed, it will cease to be reproduced.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
In these intervals of peace, not all the evils caused by war will be repaired; and yet new obstacles will be placed on commerce.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The need that citizens have for one another places them all in a state of mutual dependence.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Such is the general character of men: he on whom one depends wants to take advantage of it, and all would be despots if they could.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
When [...] dependence is mutual, all are forced to yield to one another, and no one can abuse the need one has for them.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Interests come together, they merge, and, although men all appear dependent, all, in fact, are independent.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Farmers, as the primary cause of production, seem [...] to hold all citizens in their dependence. It is their labor that sustains them.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[It is] the era when all citizens fall under the dependence of merchants, and when things begin to have a value assessed by a common measure.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Previously, consumption was regulated by production; then, production will be regulated by consumption.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
As soon as they [the producers] notice that [variations in taste] are possible, they will put all their industry into creating them.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
All the money that must circulate [...] and be the price of all marketable goods, originally belongs to the [landowners].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Commerce [...] will awaken industry [...] and everything will take on a new life. But this is only true on the assumption that commerce is perfectly free.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
If it [commerce] were not free, it would degenerate [...] into a state of convulsion, which, by causing prices to rise and fall without rule [...] would spread disorder in fortunes.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
A people [...] is truly rich, because its wealth belongs to it, and only to it. It is solely in its own possessions that it finds all its sources.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Consumption, being multiplied [...], must therefore multiply production as long as there is land left to cultivate [...].
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[Wealth] will always be increasing, and it will only have a limit in the final progress of agriculture.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Happy is the free people, who, rich in its own soil, would not be in a position to trade with others!
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
We only judge situations because we see objects in a place where they occupy a determined space; and we only judge movement because we see them change situation.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
Having only a confused and indeterminate idea of extension, deprived of any idea of figure, place, situation, and movement, [consciousness] only feels that it exists in many ways.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
The union of the senses increases the number of ways of being: the chain of ideas becomes more extensive and varied.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
The objects of one's attention, desires, and enjoyment multiply.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
It seems to her that she perceives within herself a multitude of entirely different beings. But she continues to see only herself, and nothing can yet tear her away from herself to carry her outside.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
She does not suspect, therefore, that she owes her ways of being to external causes.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
She sees, she smells, she tastes, she hears, without knowing that she has eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears: she does not know that she has a body.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
If we were to make smells, tastes, and sounds succeed one another in her, she would see herself as a color that is successively fragrant, savory, and sonorous.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
It is in the way of being, where she always finds herself, that she must feel this self, which appears to her as the subject of all the modifications of which she is susceptible.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
When we are inclined to regard extension as the subject of all sensible qualities, is it because it is indeed the subject, or only because this idea [...] is familiar to us?
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
When philosophers assert that there is only extension, [...] do they judge so only because this idea is familiar to them, and they find it everywhere?
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
[Consciousness] would have as much reason to believe that it is only a color, or a scent; and that this color, or this scent is its being, its substance.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
Thus, by instinct alone, these men asked for and lent each other aid. I say by instinct alone; for reflection could not yet have had any part in it.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The use of these signs gradually extended the exercise of the soul's operations; and, in turn, these operations, having more exercise, perfected the signs and made their use more familiar.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The language of action, then so natural, was a great obstacle to overcome. Could one abandon it for another whose advantages were not yet foreseen, and whose difficulty was so keenly felt?
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The flaw of the French is to limit the arts by dint of wanting to make them simple. By this, they sometimes deprive themselves of the best, only to keep the good.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
If [an ancient work] seems obscure to us, we should only blame our habit of judging the works of antiquity by our own.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Here is a very clear example of the errors into which one falls [...] when speaking of an art whose principles one does not know.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Rhythm is the soul of music.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The imagination is more vividly affected by a language that is all action.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
One easily understands a language one speaks.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The less we permit deviation in voice and gesture, the more finesse we demand in the performance.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Prejudice in favor of custom has, at all times, been an obstacle to the progress of the arts.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The more ignorant we are, the more we need guides, and the more we are inclined to believe that those who came before us did everything well, and that all that remains for us is to imitate them.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Much is said of beautiful nature; there is not even a civilized people that does not pride itself on imitating it: but each believes they find the model for it in their own way of feeling.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Style, in its origin, was poetic; since it began by painting ideas with the most perceivable images, and was moreover extremely measured.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Our language [...] rejects [implications] so strongly that one might sometimes say it distrusts our insight.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
[All] commodities have a value based on their utility; and this value increases or decreases in proportion as they are judged to be rarer or more abundant.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is not [...] solely by quantity that we judge the abundance or scarcity of a thing: it is by the quantity considered in relation to the uses we make of it.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The relative quantity [of a thing] decreases as we use it for a greater number of purposes, and increases as we use it for a smaller number.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[Things] are [...] rarer or more abundant, according to whether we use them for more or fewer purposes.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
One only buys things insofar as one wishes to use them.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The relative value of [things] is [...] determined in the markets.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[Value] cannot [...] be determined with exact precision. But ultimately, the markets alone make the rule, and the government is obliged to follow it.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
If [the] value must vary from time to time, the variations are never abrupt, because uses always change slowly.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Between neighboring peoples, trade tends to make the same things equally abundant [...] and consequently gives them the same value among all.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[Goods] circulate among several nations as they would within a single one; and they are sold in all markets as if they were sold in a single common market.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
If [goods] are allowed to circulate freely [...], they will be valued according to their relationship [...] among all nations taken together.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
When distant nations cannot have continuous trade with each other [...], value is assessed differently in each.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The markets make the law for the government.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[The government] would avoid all [...] losses if it conformed to the price of the common market.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Let us study well the operations of the soul; let us know their full extent, without hiding their weakness from ourselves; [...] let us apply them only to objects within our reach.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
There are three operations which it is proper to bring together to better feel their difference. They are instinct, madness, and reason.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Instinct is but an imagination [...] which, by its vivacity, contributes perfectly to the preservation of our being.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Madness admits [...] the exercise of all operations; but it is a disordered imagination that directs them.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Reason results from all the well-conducted operations of the soul.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
For lack of a good method for analyzing our ideas, we are often content to understand each other only approximately.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
One needs discernment in philosophical research, and judgment in the conduct of life.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Taste is such a happy way of feeling that one perceives the value of things without the help of reflection [...].
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
We do not properly create ideas; we only combine [...] those we receive through the senses. Invention consists in knowing how to make new combinations.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
A man of talent [...] is equaled and sometimes even surpassed. A man of genius has an original character, he is inimitable.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
One cannot analyze enthusiasm when one experiences it, since then one is not master of one's reflection.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
By the number and beauty of the ideas that abbreviated expressions awaken [...], they have the advantage of striking the soul in an admirable way; and are, for this reason, what is called sublime.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
To have wit, a man sometimes lacks nothing but passions. They are even absolutely necessary for certain talents.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
Common sense, wit, reason, and their opposites are all born from the same principle, which is the connection of ideas with one another.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
The influence of the passions is so great that often without them the understanding would have almost no exercise.
1746
Source: Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
It would be enough to increase or decrease the number of senses to make us pass judgments entirely different from those which are so natural to us today.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
Pleasure and pain are the sole principle which [...] must raise [us] by degrees to all the knowledge of which [we are] capable.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
If [a person] retained no memory of their modifications, each time they would believe they were feeling for the first time: entire years would be lost in each present moment.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
Memory is, therefore, only a way of feeling.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
To compare is nothing other than to give one's attention to two ideas at the same time.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
A judgment is, therefore, only the perception of a relationship between two ideas that one compares.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
It is always pleasure and pain that are the prime mover of [our] faculties.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
To feel the need for a thing, one must have some knowledge of it.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
Imagination is memory itself, having reached all the vividness of which it is capable.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
By will is meant an absolute desire, and such that we think a desired thing is in our power.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
To abstract is to separate one idea from another to which it appears naturally united.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
The notion of duration is [...] entirely relative: each person judges it only by the succession of their ideas.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
[Our] self is but the collection of the sensations [we] experience, and of those which memory recalls to us. [...] it is at once the consciousness of what [we are], and the memory of what [we have] been.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
Sensation encompasses all the faculties of the soul.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
We only have the ideas that we know how to notice in them. [...] we all see the same objects; but because we do not have the same pleasure, the same interest in observing them, we each have very different ideas of them.
1754
Source: Treatise on Sensations
When disorder has reached a certain point, a revolution, however wise it may be, is never completed without causing violent shocks.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
To succeed in any kind of trade, it is not enough to have the freedom to do it; one must [...] have acquired knowledge, and this knowledge can only be the fruit of experience.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Freedom, restored to commerce [...], was a benefit that could not be enjoyed as soon as it was granted. A word from the monarch had been able to annihilate this freedom; a word did not bring it back.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
People did not want to see that the monopoly could not fall with the first blows struck against it.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Merchants must have a wage: it is due to them. But it is neither for the sovereign nor for the people to regulate this wage: it is for competition, and competition alone.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The [good] will be [...] cheaper when merchants multiply with freedom, than when their number is reduced by regulations.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[Merchants] have as much need to sell as we have to buy.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[The people] believed that the sole business of government was to provide them with cheap bread. The regulations [...] in truth produced the opposite effect: but they did not know it.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
[These measures] accustomed the people to think that it was up to the government to provide them with cheap bread, whatever the cost, whether in money or in injustice.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
The people [...] regarded the merchants [...] as greedy men who took advantage of their needs. Once this opinion was established, one could no longer, if jealous of one's reputation, engage in this trade.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It was the government's conduct that had produced these prejudices.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Rights of humanity opposed to property rights! What jargon!
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Are you unaware, moreover, that cheapness is necessarily always followed by high prices; and that, consequently, it is a calamity for the people?
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
It is impossible to establish anything precise when one wants to set limits on the freedom of trade. Where, indeed, would one place these limits?
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other
Deaf to all talk, the [...] minister showed courage. He let people speak, write, and he persisted in his initial steps.
1776
Source: Commerce and Government Considered in Relation to Each Other