BTW Quesnay's reading of Confucius was, shall we say, curious - and Confucius is ill-understood if one thinks of him in "rationalist" terms. Confucius' prime concern was that of creating a stable society, and his influence succeeded in "freezing" Chinese society into place for some hundreds of years - e.g. is it "rational" to advocate and believe in unquestioning loyalty to the State, as Confucius did? The deification of rationality in Quesnay's time needs to be seen in the light of the "need" of the elite of that time to escape the stifling influence of the Roman Catholic Church and its symbiotic relationship with European royalty/nobility/aristocracy. Was it not Diderot who said, "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"? Probably intended or released as hyperbole, the sentiment became reality during the French Revolution - which surely stands as a constant reminder of the limitations and dangers of mere Englightenment rationalism. Prabhu Guptara