Mercier himself was unsure what status to confer upon them: In Paris there are thus some totally honest men, economists or anti economists, who have a warm heart and hold dear the interest of the public at large, but who are nonetheless crackpots, ie are very short sighted, and understand neither the century that they inhabit nor the men they must deal with; they are harder to bear than fools, because with their money and their false knowledge they start from impossible principles, reasoning wrongly from there on.