well, necessarily well, and in which the
interests of all are so perfectly and intimately consolidated that all
are happy, from the ruler to the least of his subjects.

But in what does this happiness consist? His answer is that "humanly
speaking, the greatest happiness possible for us consists in the
greatest possible abundance of objects suitable to our enjoyment and in
the greatest liberty to profit by them." And liberty is necessary not
only to enjoy them but also to produce them in the greatest abundance,
since liberty stimulates human efforts. Another condition of abundance
is the multiplication of the race; in fact, the happiness of men and
their numbers are closely bound up together in the system of nature.
From these axioms may be deduced the Natural Order of a human society,
the reciprocal duties and rights whose enforcement is required for the
greatest possible multiplication of products, in order to procure to the
race the greatest sum of happiness with the maximum population.

Now, individual property is the indispensable condition for full
enjoyment of the products of human labour; "property is the measure
of liberty, and liberty is the measure of property." Hence, to realise
general happiness it is only necessary to maintain property and
consequently liberty in all their natural extent. The fatal error which
has made history what it is has been the failure to recognise this
simple fact; for aggression and conquest, the causes of human miseries,
violate the law of property which is the foundation of happiness.

The practical inference was that the chief function of government was
to protect property and that complete freedom should be left to private
enterprise to exploit the resources of the earth. All would be well if
trade and industry were allowed to follow their natural tendencies. This
is what was meant by Physiocracy, the supremacy of the Natural Order. If
rulers observed the limits of their true functions, Mercier thought that
the moral effect would be immense. "The public system of government
is the true education of moral man. Regis ad exemplum totus componitur
orbis." [Footnote: The particulars of the Physiocratic doctrine as to
the relative values of agriculture and commerce which Adam Smith was
soon to criticise do not concern us; nor is it necessary to repeat the
obvious criticisms on a theory which virtually reduced the science of
society to a science of production and distribution.]

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