Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/445

Rh show themselves openly and boldly in singularly favourable circumstances. Louis Blanc, Victor Considerant, Pierre Leroux, J. P. Proudkon, and other representatives of these theories laboured zealously and effectively to gain to them the needy and uneducated masses of their countrymen, and to discredit as utterly evil the existing order of society. In this grave crisis Bastiat nobly performed his duty. Although exhausted by the far too heavy labours in which he had been engaged, although robbed of his voice by the malady which was preying upon him, so that he could do but little to defend the truth from the tribune of the Con stituent Assembly, he could still suggest wise counsels in the Committee of Finance of which he was vice-president, and he could still use his pen with a vigour and dexterity which made him capable of combating single-handed many opponents. He wrote in rapid succession a series of brilliant and effective pamphlets and essays, showing how socialism was connected with protection, and exposing the delusions on which it rested. Thus within the space of two years there appeared Propriety et Loi, Justice et Fraternitc, Propriete et Spoliation, L JBtat, Baccalanriet et Socialisms, Protec- tionisme et Communisme, Capital et Rente, Maudit Argent, Spoliation et Loi, Gratuite du Credit, and Ce qu on voit et ce qu on ne voit pas. While thus occupied he was meditating the composition of a great constructive work, meant to renovate economical science by basing it on the principle that &quot; interests, left to themselves, tend to harmonious combinations, and to the progressive preponderance of the general good.&quot; The first volume of this work Les Harmonies Economises was published in the beginning of 1850. In the autumn of that year, when working on the second volume, the increase of his malady compelled him to repair to Italy. After lingering at Pisa and Florence he reached Rome, but only to die there on the 24th of December 1850, in the fiftieth year of his age. An affecting account of the last days of this illustrious martyr to the cause of economical science and political justice was published by his friend, M. Paillottet. The life-work of Bastiat, in order to be fairly appreciated, requires to be considered in three aspects. (1.) He was the advocate of free trade, the opponent of protection. The general theory of free trade had, of course, been clearly stated and solidly established before he was born, and his desire to see its principles acted on in France was quickened and confirmed by the agitation of the Anti-Corn-Law League for their realization in England, but as no one denies it to have been a great merit in Cobden to have seen so distinctly and comprehensively the bearing of economical truths which he did not discover, no one should deny it to have been also a great merit in Bastiat. He did far more than merely restate the already familiar truths of free trade. He showed as no one before him had done how they were applicable in the various spheres of French agriculture, trade, and commerce. Now, the abstract theory of free trade is of comparatively little value ; its elaboration so as to cover details, its concrete application, and its varied illustration are equally essential. And in these respects it owes more, perhaps, tojBastiat than to any other economist. In the Sophismes Economiques we have the completest and most effective, the wisest and the wittiest exposure of protectionism in its principles, reason ings, and consequences which exists in any language. (2). He was the opponent of socialism. In this respect also he had no equal among the economists of France. He alone fought socialism hand to hand, body to body, as it were, not caricaturing it, not denouncing it, not criticizing under its name some merely abstract theory, but taking it as actually presented by its most popular representatives, considering patiently their proposals and arguments, and proving conclusively that they proceeded on false principles, reasoned badly, and sought to realize generous aims by foolish and harmful means. Nowhere will reason find a richer armoury of weapons available against socialism than in the pamphlets published by Bastiat between 1848 and 1850. These pamphlets will live, it is to be hoped, at least as long as the errors which they expose. (3). He attempted to expound in an original and independent manner political economy as a science. In combating, first, the Protec tionists, and, afterwards, the Socialists, there gradually rose on his mind a conception which seemed to him to shed a flood of light over the whole of economical doctrine, and, indeed, over the whole theory of society, viz., the harmony of the essential tendencies of human nature. The radical error, he became always more convinced, both of protec tionism and socialism, was the assumption that human interests, if left to themselves, would inevitably prove antagonistic and anti-social, capital robbing labour, manu factures ruining agriculture, the foreigner injuring the native, the consumer the producer, &c.; and the chief weakness of the various schools of political economy, he believed he had discovered in their imperfect apprehension of the truth that human interests, when left to themselves, when not arbitrarily and forcibly interfered with, tend to harmonious combination, to the general good. Such was the point of view from which Bastiat sought to expound the whole of economical science. The sphere of that science he limited to exchange, and he drew a sharp distinc tion between utility and value. Political economy he defined as the theory of value, and value as &quot; the relation of two services exchanged.&quot; The latter definition he deemed of supreme importance. It appeared to him to correct what was defective or erroneous in the conflicting definitions of value given by Adam Smith, Say, Ricardo, Senior, Storch, &c., to preserve and combine what was true in them, and to afford a basis for a more consistent and developed economical theory than had previously been presented. It has, however, found little acceptance, and Roscher, Cairnes, and others seem to have shown it to be ambiguous and misleading. &quot; A consequence of it on which he laid great stress was that the gratuitous gifts of nature, whatever be their utility, are incapable of acquiring value, what is gratuitous for man in an isolated state remaining gratuitous for him in a social condition. Thus, land, according to Bastiat, is as gratuitous to men at the present day as to their first parents, the rent which is paid for it its so- called value being merely the return for the labour and capital which have been expended on its improvement. In the general opinion of economists he has failed to establish this doctrine, failed to show that the properties and forces of nature cannot be so appropriated as to acquire value. His theory of rent is nearly the same as Mr Carey s, i.e., decidedly anti-Ricardian. His views on the growth of capital and interest, on landed property, competition, con sumption, wages, and population, are independent, and, if not unqualifiedly true, at least richly suggestive. His CEuires Completes are in 7 vols. The first contains an interesting Memoir by M. Paillottet. The following articles on Bastiat may be specified, Reybaud s in the Revue dcs Deux Mondes, Sept. 1, 1858; Macleod s in his Dictionary of Political Economy ; and that of Cairnes in the Fortnightly Review, Oct. 1, 1870. There is a good state ment of his distinctive views in Kautz, Geschichte der National-Otkonomik, ii. 578-584. His Harmonies have been well translated by Dr P. J. Stirling.  BASTILLE (from bastir, now bâtir, to build), in the earlier use of the word, was any fortified building form ing part of a system of defence or attack ; and the name was especially applied to several of the principal points in the ancient fortifications of Paris. In the reign of king John, or even earlier, the gate of Saint Antoine was flanked 