s, and that we confess we have not as yet refuted you as fully as
we might.

But we do not cede to you the domain of facts, for you have on your
side only exceptional and contracted facts, while we have universal
ones to oppose to them; the free and voluntary acts of all men.

What do you say, and what say we?

We say:

"It is better to buy from others anything which would cost more to
make ourselves."

And on your part you say:

"It is better to make things ourselves, even though it would cost less
to purchase them from others."

Now, gentlemen, laying aside theory, demonstration, argument,
everything which appears to afflict you with nausea, which of these
assertions has in its favor the sanction of _universal practice_?

Visit the fields, work-rooms, manufactories, shops; look above,
beneath, and around you; investigate what is going on in your own
establishment; observe your own conduct at all times, and then say
which is the principle that directs these labors, these workmen, these
inventors, these merchants; say, too, which is your own individual
practice.

Does the farmer make his clothes? Does the tailor raise the wheat
which he consumes? Does not your housekeeper cease making bread at
home so soon as she finds it more economical to buy it from the baker?
Do you give up the pen for the brush in order to avoid paying tribute
to the shoe-black? Does not the whole economy of society depend on the
separation of occupations, on the division of labor; in one word, on
_exchange_? And is exchange anything else than the calculation which
leads us to discontinue, as far as we can, direct production, when
indirect acquisition spares us time and trouble?

You are not, then, men of _practice_, since you cannot show a single
man on the surface of the globe who acts in accordance with your
principle.

"But," you will say, "we have never heard our principle made the rule
of individual relations. We comprehend perfectly that this would break
the social bond, and force men to live, like snails, each one in his
own shell. We limit ourselves to asserting that it governs _in fact_
the relations which are established among the agglomerations of the
human family."

But still, this assertion is erroneous. The family, the village, the
town, the county, the state, are so many agglomerations, which all,
without any exception, _practically_ reject your principle, and have
never even thought of it. All of them procure, by m