ile they advocated a thorough reform of the principles which ruled the
fiscal policy of governments, the Economists were not idealists, like
the Encyclopaedic philosophers; they sowed no seeds of revolution. Their
starting-point was that which is, not that which ought to be. And, apart
from their narrower point of view, they differed from the philosophers
in two very important points. They did not believe that society was of
human institution, and therefore they did not believe that there could
be any deductive science of society based simply on man's nature.
Moreover, they held that inequality of condition was one of its
immutable features, immutable because it is a consequence of the
inequality of physical powers.

But they believed in the future progress of society towards a state of
happiness through the increase of opulence which would itself depend on
the growth of justice and "liberty"; and they insisted on the importance
of the increase and diffusion of knowledge. Their influence in promoting
a belief in Progress is vouched for by Condorcet, the friend and
biographer of Turgot. As Turgot stands apart from the Physiocrats
(with whom indeed he did not identify himself) by his wider views on
civilisation, it might be suspected that it is of him that Condorcet was
chiefly thinking. Yet we need not limit the scope of his statement
when we remember that as a sect the Economists assumed as their first
principle the eudaemonic value of civilisation, declared that temporal
happiness is attainable, and threw all their weight into the scales
against the doctrine of Regress which had found a powerful advocate in
Rousseau.

7.

By liberty the Economists meant economic liberty. Neither they nor the
philosophers nor Rousseau, the father of modern democracy, had any just
conception of what political liberty means. They contributed much to its
realisation, but their own ideas of it were narrow and imperfect. They
never challenged the principle of a despotic government, they only
contended that the despotism must be enlightened. The paternal rule of
a Joseph or a Catherine, acting under the advice of philosophers, seemed
to them the ideal solution of the problem of government; and when the
progressive and disinterested Turgot, whom they might regard as one of
themselves, was appointed financial minister on the accession of Louis
XVI., it seemed that their ideal was about to be realised. His speedy
fall dispelled their hopes, b