economic science, and its relation to other social sciences, his views have been largely modified. He had hardly grasped the distinction between a science and an art; he had certainly not grasped the distinction between the laws of the production and those of the distribution of wealth, a distinction which Mill justly conceived to be his own principal contribution to Political Economy. The curious description of many measures brought under the notice of Parliament as "contrary to the fundamental laws of Political Economy," is a survival of Smith's confusion; and the prevailing idea that Political Economy commands people to be selfish may be traced to the absence in Smith of a sharp line of demarcation between economic and ethical science. Descending to particulars, and looking only to English writers, the theory of Production is much better treated by Professor Hearn; the general theory of Distribution and the limits of Government interference, by J. S. Mill; the theory of Value and Money, by Jevons; the Foreign Exchanges, by Mr. Goschen; the Wages Question, by Mr. Marshall and Professor Walker; Banking, by Bagehot; and it would be easy to extend the list. Speaking generally, there is hardly a chapter in the "Wealth of Nations" which has not been subjected to criticism and amendment.

Nor can it be maintained that the work of subsequent writers has been a mere filling in of detail. For example, Adam Smith writes: "The profits of stock, it may perhaps be thought, are only a different name for the wages of a particular sort of labour-the labour of inspection and direction. They are, however, altogether different, are regulated by quite different principles, and bear no proportion to the quantity, the hardship, or the ingenuity of the supposed labour of inspection and direction." It is this doctrine, developed by Ricardo into the dogma that the natural rate of wages is what is necessary to keep the labourer alive or in working order, the surplus being profits, which forms the key-note of German Socialism; and the reconciliation between capital and labour as effected in Mr. Marshall's work consists in the assertion of the very principles which Adam Smith denies-namely, that the wages for inspection and direction follow the same law as wages in other industrial groups. Again: some economic problems which have attracted considerable attention since Adam Smith

wrote are almost unnoticed in the "Wealth of Nations."

It is

true that he discusses the economic effects of the Laws of Settlement; but he never really attacks the problem of Poor Relief, and he nowhere attempts to formulate the laws of the growth of population. The industrial revolution at the end of last century, the effects of which are not yet matured, has rendered some of the reasoning of the "Wealth of Nations" inapplicable to the present day. Adam Smith was naturally under the impression that the importation of corn could never appreciably affect home production; and he had no means of anticipating the periodic cycles of inflations and depressions of trade which constitute the most striking feature of the existing economic system. On the other hand, subjects are treated in the "Wealth of Nations” which are now generally considered beyond the sphere of Political Economy. Such, for example, are the discussions on the advantages and disadvantages of an established church and on the different systems of education. But at the same time it must be allowed that some of the topics of the "Wealth of Nations" have, without sufficient cause, dropped out of the systematic treatment of Economics. Modern writers have written much on the necessity for a theory of the consumption of wealth, but they have done very little towards the development of Smith's teaching on expenditure, which seems the form that a theory of consumption should naturally assume. At the present time the "expense of defence," and the cost directly and indirectly to a nation of standing armies and of compulsory military service, give rise to difficult and important economic questions; and if attention were turned to the "expense of the administration of justice," and if the portion of the national wealth directly and indirectly expended on law were carefully calculated, and the causes and principles of the expenditure ascertained, valuable chapters in Adam Smith would receive their necessary modern supplement. If, then, it is a mistake to assume that the "Wealth of Nations" has no omissions and no errors of primary importance, and if harm has been done by the addition of ipse dixit to Adam Smith's opinions, at the same time it must be allowed that, on the other hand, there are portions of his great work to which sufficient attention has not been paid by recent writers.

Most of the commentators on Adam Smith have complained of the diffuseness of his style; but when his work appeared such diffuseness was probably necessary, and at any rate the writer consciously laid himself open to the charge. In the prefatory remarks to the chapters on Value and Prices he writes: "I am always willing to run some hazard of being tedious, in order to be sure that I am perspicuous; and after taking the utmost pains that I can to be perspicuous, some obscurity may still appear to remain upon a subject in its own nature extremely abstracted." A doctrine that is generally accepted, and has assumed its natural scientific form, does not require many words for its expression; but it is otherwise when it is first introduced to the world of thought. New ideas, like new men, must submit to much tedious ceremonial. The " tediousness" of the argument, however, is often relieved by quiet touches of humour and occasionally by good-natured satire. Of these traits the chapters on the Education of Youth and on the Instruction of People of all Ages afford, perhaps, the best illustration. Take, for example, the passage describing the expedients to which a lecturer, "if he happens to be a man of sense and averse to ridicule," may resort, in order, with a minimum of trouble, "to lecture without exposing himself to contempt or derision, or saying anything that is really foolish, absurd, or ridiculous;" or the combination of truth and irony in the remarks on the clergy of an established church: "But though this order of men can scarce ever be forced, they may be managed as easily as any other; and the security of the sovereign, as well as the public tranquillity, seems to depend very much on the means which he has of managing them; and these seem to consist altogether in the preferment which he has to bestow upon them." Again: whilst advocating natural liberty in religion, the asceticism to which "little sects" are liable is very happily portrayed: "In little religious sects the morals of the common people have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly, generally much more so than in the established church. The morals of these little sects, indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably rigorous and unsocial." Another striking quality of Adam Smith is found in the abundance and variety of his illustrations, which are drawn from all ages and societies, and which contrast favourably with the unreal hypotheses

t

of Ricardo and his followers. To illustrate the distinction between "necessaries" and "luxuries," and the importance of considering the custom of the country in determining the former, Adam Smith writes: "Custom has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable person of either sex would be ashamed to appear in public without them. In Scotland, custom has rendered them a necessary of life to the lowest order of men, but not to the same order of women, who may without any discredit walk about barefooted. In France they are necessaries neither to men nor to women, the lowest rank of both sexes appearing there publicly without any discredit sometimes in

wooden shoes and sometimes barefooted."

The "Wealth of Nations" being one of those books which are much talked of and little read, it is natural that some strange misconceptions should be current regarding the doctrines it contains and, above all, the tone and spirit in which it is written. The author of the "Theory of Moral Sentiments," the keystone of which is sympathy, the man who at his death left a much smaller fortune than was anticipated owing to his constant expenditure in deeds of unostentatious charity, the man who was especially distinguished amongst his contemporaries by his geniality and kindness, is popularly supposed to be the father of the dismal dogmas which amongst the vulgar (if the term may be still used in its older signification) pass current for Political Economy. The most cursory perusal of the "Wealth of Nations," however, will convince the reader that the spirit in which it is written is essentially human, and the most careful scrutiny will bring to light no passage in which the doctrine of "selfishness" is inculcated. The "economic man," the supposed incarnation of selfishness, is no creation of Adam Smith; all the characters of the "Wealth of Nations" are real-Englishmen, Dutchmen, Chinese. The "economic man" of ultra-Ricardians is no more to be found in Adam Smith than is the "socialistic man," the incarnation of unselfishness, the man who loves all men more than himself on the arithmetical ground that all are more than one. Adam Smith was unacquainted with any society composed mainly of either species. Of the "socialistic man" he writes: "I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation

indeed not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.” But the most severe passages in Smith's work are those in which he condemns the various "mean and malignant expedients" of the mercantile system, and satirizes the "economic " merchants who, actuated only by the "passionate confidence of interested falsehood," in order to promote "the little interest of one little order of men in one country hurt the interest of all other orders of men in that country, and of all other men in all other countries." Adam Smith treats of actual societies, and considers the normal conduct of average individuals. He insists on the obvious fact that the majority of mankind wish to better their condition. "With regard to profusion, the principle which prompts to expense is the passion for present enjoyment, which, though sometimes violent and very difficult to be restrained, is in general only momentary and occasional. But the principle which prompts to save is the desire of bettering our condition, a desire which, though generally calm and dispassionate, comes with us from the womb and never leaves us till we go into the grave. In the whole interval which separates those two moments there is scarcely perhaps a single instant in which any man is so perfectly and completely satisfied with his situation as to be without any wish of alteration or improvement of any kind. An augmentation of fortune is the means by which the greater part of men propose and wish to better their condition. It is the means the most vulgar and most obvious; and the most likely way of augmenting their fortune is to save and accumulate some part of what they acquire, either regularly and annually or upon some extraordinary occasions. Though the principle of expense, therefore, prevails in almost all men upon some occasions, and in some men upon almost all occasions, yet in the greater part of men, taking the whole course of their life at an average, the principle of frugality seems not only to predominate, but predominate very greatly."

A still more serious misconception prevails as to the teaching of Adam Smith on natural liberty in general and free trade in particular. The leading idea of his system is that in any civilized community, if men are left at liberty to pursue their own interests in the way they consider best, they will, as a rule, although unin