ion,--as powerful
machinery, which adds to the strength of man; the exchange of produce,
which allows us to profit by the various natural agents distributed in
different degrees over the surface of our globe; the intellect which
discovers, experience which proves, and emulation which excites.

The second as logically inclines to every thing which can augment the
difficulty and diminish the product; as privileges, monopolies,
restrictions, prohibitions, suppression of machinery, sterility, etc.

It is well to remark here that the universal practice of men is always
guided by the principle of the first system. Every _workman_, whether
agriculturist, manufacturer, merchant, soldier, writer or philosopher,
devotes the strength of his intellect to do better, to do more quickly,
more economically,--in a word, _to do more with less_.

The opposite doctrine is in use with legislators, editors, statesmen,
men whose business is to make experiments upon society. And even of
these we may observe, that in what personally concerns _themselves_,
they act, like every body else, upon the principle of obtaining from
their labor the greatest possible quantity of useful results.

It may be supposed that I exaggerate, and that there are no true
_Sisyphists_.

I grant that in practice the principle is not pushed to its extremest
consequences. And this must always be the case when one starts upon a
wrong principle, because the absurd and injurious results to which it
leads, cannot but check it in its progress. For this reason, practical
industry never can admit of _Sisyphism_. The error is too quickly
followed by its punishment to remain concealed. But in the speculative
industry of theorists and statesmen, a false principle may be for a long
time followed up, before the complication of its consequences, only half
understood, can prove its falsity; and even when all is revealed, the
opposite principle is acted upon, self is contradicted, and
justification sought, in the incomparably absurd modern axiom, that in
political economy there is no principle universally true.

Let us see then, if the two opposite principles I have laid down do not
predominate, each in its turn;--the one in practical industry, the other
in industrial legislation.

I have already quoted some words of Mr. Bugeaud; but we must look on Mr.
Bugeaud in two separate characters, the agriculturist and the
legislator.

As agriculturist, Mr. Bugeaud makes every effort t