They bear the same relation to each other that the arc of the circle does to the circle.
-- Then if prohibition is bad, restriction cannot be good.
-- No more than the arc can be straight if the circle is curved.
-- What is the common name for restriction and prohibition?
-- Protection.
-- What is the definite effect of protection?
-- To require from men _harder labor for the same result_.
-- Why are men so attached to the protective system?
-- Because, since liberty would accomplish the same result _with less labor_, this apparent diminution of labor frightens them.
-- Why do you say _apparent_?
-- Because all labor economized can be devoted to _something else_.
-- What?
-- That cannot and need not be determined.
-- Why?
-- Because, if the total of the comforts of France could be gained with a diminution of one-tenth on the total of its labor, no one could determine what comforts it would procure with the labor remaining at its disposal.

One person would prefer to be better clothed, another better fed, another better taught, and another more amused.
-- Explain the workings and effect of protection.
-- It is not an easy matter.

Before taking hold of a complicated instance, it must be studied in the simplest one.
-- Take the simplest you choose.
-- Do you recollect how Robinson Crusoe, having no saw, set to work to make a plank?
-- Yes.

He cut down a tree, and then with his ax hewed the trunk on both sides until he got it down to the thickness of a board.
-- And that gave him an abundance of work?
-- Fifteen full days.
-- What did he live on during this time?
-- His provisions.
-- What happened to the ax?
-- It was all blunted.
-- Very good; but there is one thing which, perhaps, you do not know.

At the moment that Robinson gave the first blow with his ax, he saw a plank which the waves had cast up on the shore.
-- Oh, the lucky accident! He ran to pick it up?
-- It was his first impulse; but he checked himself, reasoning thus: "If I go after this plank, it will cost me but the labor of carrying it and the time spent in going to and returning from the shore.
"But if I make a plank with my ax, I shall in the first place obtain work for fifteen days, then I shall wear out my ax, which will give me an opportunity of repairing it, and I shall consume my provisions, which will be a third source of labor, since they must be replaced.