ABSTRACT
Boisguilbert’s thought develops within a specifically French framework, not so much on account of the themes considered as his particular treatment of them. For while the legacy is imposing, the heirs are numerous: Locke himself was interested enough in Nicole to translate several of his essays.1 Nicole’s thought and the Jansenist tradition it represents influenced Anglo-Saxon intellectual developments, through the works of Bernard de Mandeville.2 There is nothing extraordinary in the fact that Boisguilbert was inspired by them as well; what is far more exceptional is the transformation he introduced to their thought. On most of the points that we shall be considering, Mandeville, who is usually strongly emphasised, remains very much in the background.
