Have you ever had occasion to witness the fury of the honest burgess, Jacques Bonhomme, when his scapegrace son has broken a pane of glass? If you have, you cannot fail to have observed that all the bystanders, were there thirty of them, lay their heads together to offer the unfortunate proprietor this never-failing consolation,—“There is some good in every misfortune—such accidents give a fillip to trade. Everybody must live. If no windows were broken, what would become of the glaziers?” Now, this formula of condolence contains a theory, which it is proper to lay hold of, ‹flagrante delicto›, in this very simple case, because it is exactly the same theory which unfortunately governs the greater part of our economic institutions. Assuming that it becomes necessary to expend six francs in repairing the damage, if you mean to say that the accident brings in six francs to the glazier, and to that extent encourages his trade, I grant it fairly and frankly, and allow that you reason justly. The glazier arrives, does his work, pockets his money, rubs his hands, and blesses the scapegrace son. This is ‹what we see›. But if, by way of deduction, you come to conclude, as is too often done, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it makes money circulate, and that encouragement to trade in general is the result, I am obliged to cry halt! Your theory stops at ‹what we see›, and takes no account of ‹what we don’t see›. ‹We don’t see› that, since our burgess has been obliged to spend his six francs on one thing, he can no longer spend them on another—‹We don’t see› that, if he had not had this pane to replace, he would have replaced, for example, his shoes, which are down at the heels, or placed a new book on his shelf. In short, he would have employed his six francs in a way in which he cannot now employ them. Let us see, then, how the account stands with trade ‹in general›. The pane being broken, the glazier’s trade is benefited to the extent of six francs. This is ‹what we see›. If the pane had not been broken, the shoemaker’s (or some other) trade would have been encouraged to the extent of six francs. That is what ‹we don’t see›. And if we take into account what ‹we don’t see›, which is a negative fact, as well as what ‹we do see›, which is a positive fact, we shall discover that trade ‹in general›, or the aggregate of ‹national industry›, has no interest, one way or other, whether windows are broken or not. Let us see, again, how the account stands with Jacques Bonhomme. On the last hypothesis—that of the pane being broken—he spends six francs, and gets neither more nor less than he had before,—namely, the use and enjoyment of a pane of glass. On the other hypothesis,—namely, that the accident had not happened, he would have expended six francs on shoes, and would have had the use and enjoyment both of the shoes and of the pane of glass.