RARE EARLY CRITIQUE OF THE PHYSIOCRATIC SCHOOL

[LEGROS, CHARLES FRANCOIS] [JEAN-CHARLES-FRANÇOIS LE GROS]

Analyse et Examen du Systeme des Philosophes Économistes.

Geneve, Barde & Compagnie, 1787. 8vo. In a fine contemporary half calf binding with five raised bands, red leather title label with gilt lettering and gilt ornamentations to spine. Boards recently repaired An extraordinarily fine copy. VI, 294 pp.

The rare first printing of abbé Legros's fierce critique of physiocratic doctrines.

The physiocratic school and the dawning liberalism dictated that the economic order should espouse as closely as possible the concatenation of causes which make up the order of Nature and that everything is interconnected in the human world as it is in nature.

In his own early critique of this physiocratic political economy, the traditionalist Legros developed attacks which can equally well apply to Quesnay, Spinoza, Diderot or d'Holbach:
"if this grand order, this concatenation [cet enchaînement], this general law of movement are eternal [...] if they are necessary, then they exist by themselves, by the necessity of their nature; they therefore replace the Divinity, they take its place; if the grand order is one and the only one, then there no longer is any moral order, any metaphysical order, any supernatural order." (From the present work: Pp 142-3).

Legros (1739-1790) studied theology and functioned as a priest in St.-Aebeul. He always published under the name "d'un Solitaire".

Einaudi 3300; INED 2773; Masui P. 406.

Order-nr.: 49558