24, 25.] 6.
The reformers of the Encyclopaedia group were not alone in disseminating the idea of Progress.

Another group of thinkers, who widely differed in their principles, though some of them had contributed articles to the Encyclopaedia, [Footnote: Quesnay and Turgot, who, though not professedly a Physiocrat, held the same views as the sect.] also did much to make it a power.

The rise of the special study of Economics was one of the most significant facts in the general trend of thought towards the analysis of civilisation.

Economical students found that in seeking to discover a true theory of the production, distribution, and employment of wealth, they could not avoid the consideration of the constitution and purpose of society.

The problems of production and distribution could not be divorced from political theory: production raises the question of the functions of government and the limits of its intervention in trade and industry; distribution involve questions of property, justice, and equality.