Frédéric Bastiat：Economic Sophisms, Excerpt 154

At the end of some centuries, knowledge having in the interim made great progress, the common sense of Puera enabled her to see that such reciprocal obstacles could only be reciprocally hurtful. She therefore sent a diplomatist to Stulta, who, laying aside official phraseology, spoke to this effect: "We have made a highway, and now we throw obstacles in the way of using it. This is absurd. It would have been better to have left things as they were. We should not, in that case, have had to pay for making the road in the first place, nor afterwards have incurred the expense of maintaining _obstructives_. In the name of Puera, I come to propose to you, not to give up opposing each other all at once--that would be to act upon a principle, and we despise principles as much as you do--but to lessen somewhat the present obstacles, taking care to estimate equitably the respective _sacrifices_ we make for this purpose." So spoke the diplomatist. Stulta asked for time to consider the proposal, and proceeded to consult, in succession, her manufacturers and agriculturists. At length, after the lapse of some years, she declared that the negotiations were broken off.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44145
Locator：Excerpt 154 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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