Chapter II.
The Metaphysics of Political Economy.
Section i.—The Method
Now we are quite in Germany! We have now to talk metaphysics while speaking of political economy. And, in this again, we only follow the "contradictions" of M. Proudhon. Just now he compelled us to speak English, to become even passably English ourselves. Now the scene changes. M. Proudhon transports us to our dear native land and compels us in spite of ourselves to once more assume our quality of German.
If the Englishman transforms men into hats, the German transforms hats into ideas. The Englishman is Ricardo, a rich banker and distinguished economist; the German is Hegel, a simple professor of philosophy at the Berlin University.
Louis XV., the last absolute monarch and who represented the decadence of French royalty, had attached to his person a physician who was, himself, the first economist of France. This physician, this economist, represented the imminent and certain triumph of the French bourgeoisie. Doctor Quesnay has made of political economy a science; he has summarised it in his famous "Tableau Economique." Besides the thousand and one commentaries which have appeared on this
