Even this explanation seems to us insufficient. Dupont, in the words which we have quoted in the footnote below, seems to imply that the laws of the beehive and the ant-hill are imposed by common consent and for mutual benefit. Animal society, so it seemed to him, was founded upon social contract. But such a conception of “law” is very far removed from the one usually adopted by the natural sciences, by physicians and biologists, say. And, as a matter of fact, the Physiocrats were anything but determinists. They neither believed that the “natural order” imposed itself like gravitation nor imagined that it could ever be realised in human society as it is in the hive or the ant-hill. They saw that the latter were well-ordered communities, while human society at its present stage is disordered, because man is free whereas the animal is not. What are we to make of this “natural order” then? The “natural order,” so the Physiocrats maintained, is the order which God has ordained for the happiness of mankind. It is the providential order.[16] To understand it is our first duty—to bring our lives into conformity with it is our next. But can a knowledge of the “order” ever be acquired by men? To this they reply that the distinctive mark of this “order” is its obviousness. This word occurs on almost every page they wrote.[17] Still, the self-evident must in some way be apprehended. The most brilliant light can be seen only by the eye. By what organ can this be sensed? By instinct, by conscience, or by reason? Will a divine voice by means of a supernatural revelation show us the way of truth, or will it be Nature’s hand that shall lead us in the blessed path? The Physiocrats seem to have ignored this question, for every one of them indifferently gives his own answer, regardless of the fact that it may contradict another’s. Mercier de la Rivière recalls the saying of St. John concerning the “Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” This may be taken to be an internal light set by God in the heart of every man to enable him to choose his path. Quesnay, so Dupont affirms, “must have seen that man had only to examine himself to find within him an inarticulate conception of these laws. In other words, introspection clearly shows that men are unwittingly guided by an “inherent” knowledge of Physiocracy.”[18] But, after all, it seems that this intuitive perception is insufficient to reveal the full glory of the order. For Quesnay declared that a knowledge of its laws must be enforced upon men, and this afforded a _raison d’être_ for an educational system which was to be under the direct control of the Government.