and social economy through the writings of Adam Smith, J.B.  Say, Comte, and others; and having inherited considerable landed property at Mugron on the death of his grandfather in 1827, he undertook the personal charge of it, at the same time continuing his economic studies.  His experiment in farming did not prove successful; but he rapidly developed clear ideas upon economical problems, being much assisted in their consideration by frequent conferences with his neighbor, M. Felix Coudroy.  These two worked much together, and cherished a close sympathy in thought and heart.

The bourgeois revolution of 1830 was welcomed enthusiastically by Bastiat.  It was a revolution of prosperous and well-instructed men, willing to make sacrifices to attain an orderly and systematic method of government.  To him the form of the administration did not greatly matter:  the right to vote taxes was the right which governed the governors.  “There is always a tendency on the part of governments to extend their powers,” he said; “the administration therefore must be under constant surveillance.”  His motto was “Foi systematiqtie a la libre activite de I’individu; defiance systematique vis-a-vis de l’Etat concu abstraitement,—­c’est-a-dire, defiance parfaitement pure de toute hostilite de parti.” [Systematic faith in the free activity of the individual; systematic distrust of the State conceived abstractly,—­that is, a distrust entirely free from prejudice.]

His work with his pen seems to have been begun about 1830, and from the first was concerned with matters of economy and government.  A year later he was chosen to local office, and every opportunity which offered was seized upon to bring before the common people the true milk of the economic word, as he conceived it.  The germ of his theory of values appeared in a pamphlet of 1834, and the line of his development was a steady one; his leading principles being the importance of restricting the functions of government to the maintenance of order, and of removing all shackles from the freedom of production and exchange.  Through subscription to an English periodical he became familiar with Cobden and the Anti-Corn-Law League, and his subsequent intimacy with Cobden contributed much to broaden his horizon.  In 1844-5 appeared his brilliant ‘Sophismes economiques’, which in their kind have never been equaled; and his reputation rapidly expanded.  He enthusiastically espoused the cause of Free Trade, and issued a work entitled ’Cobden et la Ligue, ou l’Agitation anglaise pour la liberte des echanges’ (Cobden and the League, or the English Agitation for Liberty of Exchange), which attracted great attention, and won for its author the title of corresponding member of the Institute.  A movement for organization in favor of tariff reform was begun, of which he naturally became a leader; and feeling that Paris was the centre from which influence should flow, to Paris he removed.  M. de Molinari gives an account of his debut:—­“We