THE END OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE

is “that every man should be left free to dis-pose of his own property, his own time, andstrength, and skill, in whatever way he himselfmay think fit, provided he does no wrong tohis neighbours.”

In short, the dogma had got hold of theeducational machine; it had become a copy-book maxim. The Political Philosophy , whichthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries hadforged in order to throw down Kings andPrelates , had been made milk for babes, andhad literally entered the nursery.

Finally, in the works of Bastiat we reach themost extravagant and rhapsodical expressionof the Political Economist ’s religion. In hisHarmonies Economiques, “I undertake,” hesays, “to demonstrate the Harmony of thoselaws of Providence which govern humansociety. What makes these laws harmoniousand not discordant is, that all principles, allmotives, all springs of action, all interests,co-operate towards a grand final result. . . .And that result is, the indefinite approximationof all classes towards a level, which is always24