In The Physiocrats, 1897, Henry Higgs writes (p. 7 in the Batoche Books 
Internet edition) 
 
"For the Physiocrats were the first scientific school of political economy. 
The Mercantilists, it is true, come first in order of time, but they are not 
in any proper sense of the term "a school" at all. There is no personal link 
between the different writers who, for more than a century, support what is 
called "the mercantile system"-an indiscriminate phrase covering proposals 
so different that their authors can only be said to have had a common 
tendency and not a common doctrine any more than a common acquaintance. But 
in the Physiocrats we see an alliance of persons, a community of ideas, an 
acknowledged authority, and a combination in purpose, which banded them into 
a society apart. To this personal tie, Turgot, the great lover of individual 
liberty in thought and deed, took grave objection. "It is the sectarian 
spirit," he says, "which arouses against useful truths enemies and 
persecutions. When an isolated person modestly proposes what he believes to 
be the truth, he is listened to if he is right, and forgotten if he is 
wrong. But when even learned men have once formed themselves into a body, 
and say we, and think they can impose laws upon public opinion, then public 
opinion revolts against them, and with justice, for it ought to receive laws 
from truth alone and not from any authority. Every society soon sees its 
badge worn by the stupid, the crack-brained, and the ignorant, proud in 
joining themselves to it to give themselves airs. These people are guilty of 
stupidities and absurdities, and then their excited opponents fail not to 
impute folly to all their colleagues." Turgot refused to wear their 
intellectual badge, but, as we shall see, he shared many of their ideas." 
 
Nicholas J. Theocarakis