Higgs writes  in _The Physiocrats_ (1897) that Quesnay  
  
was the victim of much hyperbolical periphrase for which Mirabeau was   
usually responsible. He was in turn "the greatest genius of our age," "the   
Confucius of Europe," "the Socrates of our day," "the Moses of modern   
 times." Well might Adam Smith say of the Physiocrats, "The admiration of   
this whole sect for their master, who was himself a man of the greatest   
modesty and simplicity, is not inferior to that of the ancient philosophers   
for the founders of their respective systems."  
  
Nicholas J. Theocarakis