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