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would have to pause at every chapter to point out erroneous assumptions and arguments, the fallacy of which has been. explained by his successors. But Smith's vast superiority to all who previously treated of the subject, and even in some respects to all who have treated of it since his day, is still unquestionable. He differs from his English predecessors by completing and correcting their detached remarks, and by mapping out, though not with complete accuracy, a vast field of enquiry, of which they had only examined a few detached fragments. He differs from the French economists, not merely by pointing out some of their fallacies, but, more conspicuously, by tracing out in detail the operation of the laws which they had summarily described in far too absolute a fashion. He differs from both in the vast variety and extent of the information which he brings to bear upon the problems discussed. Nothing is more remarkable in the book than the fertility of illustration and the immense stores of knowledge which it embodies. It was inevitable that he should sometimes commit the error, common to all economists, of laying too much stress upon the economical aspect of phenomena which cannot be adequately understood without calling in the aid of considerations of a higher order. We see that everything which he observes, from the Christian Church to a passing shoeblack, suggests to him some association with supply and demand. But his remarks upon the historical development of societies, upon the condition of contemporary European affairs, upon the industrial circumstances of the British Empire, and upon the minuter facts which had come within his own observation, show a mind of extraordinary width and ingenuity, well able to master a vast accumulation of materials, always dwelling upon them with a lively desire to discover their lessons, and able to expound those lessons in the most effective

manner.

31. Comparing Smith with the French economists, one might be inclined to say that his merit lay in substituting an inductive method for a priori theorising. The statement would be inaccurate; for, as is often remarked, the vast complexity of the phenomena under consideration prevents a direct application of simple induction. But Smith fully appreciates, and it is one of his chief merits, the part which

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should be assigned to actual experience in such enquiries. He invariably tests the general theories by their application to particular facts, and avoids many of the errors produced by a too great facility in admitting convenient assumptions. He never takes leave of the solid ground in his most daring flights. Every general maxim is stated in language applicable to cases of actual occurrence. And, therefore, in the hands of Adam Smith, Political Economy passed from the professor's study to the market-place and the exchange. Men who were indifferent to general demonstrations of the futility of commercial restrictions, and thought, with some justice, that the French speculations savoured of metaphysical refinement, were forced to listen respectfully to a man who had all available statistics at his fingers' ends, and was able to show to them in black and white the mode in which the English commercial system had generated certain definite and assignable evils. All Smith's critics have remarked upon the felicity of his illustrations. A man whose mind is always on the alert ends by finding the precise embodiment of a general principle which brings out the particular aspect desired. Other writers, the anonymous author, for example, Mandeville, and Turgot, had recently illustrated the advantages of division of labour. Smith's illustration of the pins struck the popular imagination, to use Burke's phrase, between wind and water.' His illustrations generally imply an argument. The often-quoted comparison, for example, of paper money to a 'waggon road through the air,'' not merely expresses his meaning with admirable neatness, but incidentally clears up a confusion which had imposed upon the acute understanding of Hume. The ingenuity with which his conclusions are brought out gives at times a pleasurable shock of surprise like that which we receive from a witticism. Facts which seemed to be anomalous fall suddenly into their right places. It is obvious enough, when it has once been explained, that the contempt to which certain employments are exposed is the cause of their being highly paid. But the first time that we read Adam Smith's statement, by which things are simply put in their right places, we seem to be dexterously unravelling a paradox. We follow him through the whole treatise under

A. Smith, p. 141.

the influence of a similar charm. We are under the guidance of a discoverer who has found the clue to a previously unexplored labyrinth, and leads us through its windings with unflagging interest, delighting and causing us to delight in the exercise of an ingenuity which finds at every fresh turn a fresh illustration of some simple general principle.

32. Adam Smith's popular fame is that of the first prophet of Free Trade-a doctrine which in the popular opinion is supposed to be the essence of all Political Economy. It would be nearer the truth to say that he was the first writer who succeeded in so presenting that doctrine as to convince statesmen that there was really a great mass of intelligible argument in its favour. It is indeed remarkable that some of Smith's reasoning upon the subject contains some of his worst Political Economy. He was, however, the mouthpiece through which the philosophy of his time succeeded in making itself audible to the world. The old industrial barriers, which had split Europe into unconnected fragments, were giving way along with many political and ecclesiastical barriers. Here, as in the political world, reformers regarded themselves as returning to a simple order of nature from the artificial complexity introduced by a selfish tyranny. Smith's preference of a minute analysis to a sweeping enunciation of general principles, prevents him from appealing to the natural rights of man so distinctly as his French contemporaries. But the theory, though seldom explicitly stated, is everywhere in the background of his arguments. He admits that considerations of general security should overrule in these cases a respect for abstract rights,' and is always anxious to corroborate the argument from justice by the argument from expediency. Yet his conclusions generally coincide with those of the abstract reasoner, though he ostensibly bases them upon imperial grounds. The doctrines of the 'Wealth of Nations' have thus a certain moral aspect which must be compared with the theories expounded in the moral sentiments. In his ethical treatise, it has been said by his warmest admirer, he confines himself to the consideration of the sympathetic emotions; in his economical treatise he regards man as an exclusively selfish animal. The last state

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ment is certainly true so far as it must be agreed that Smith preaches that gospel of individualism which was the natural product of the philosophy of the time. The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition' is, according to him, a principle powerful enough to make a society rich and prosperous, and restrictions upon it are therefore impolitic. He explains the moral standard, and the political creed,3 popular at a given time, by the working of this all-pervading principle, and the same theory generally accounts for the development of any specified institution.

33. The apparent inconsistency between this view and the view which resolves the moral sentiments into sympathy has been explained as a legitimate application of the analytical method. We may fairly isolate the action of any particular force, and trace its consequences, whilst admitting that, in any concrete example, the results thus obtained will be blended with those due to other forces. We may regard men first as selfish and then as sympathetic, and combine our results, as in mechanics we may investigate the nature of a centrifugal and centripetal force, and then determine the effect of their united action. But, in truth, the inconsistency is less than would appear from this mode of statement. The moral theory expounded in Smith's other treatise may be regarded as an answer to the question; given man as a predominantly selfish animal, how does he come to condemn actions which are prompted by his selfishness? The answer is substantially that morality is a kind of reflected selfishness. Owing to what may be almost called an illusion of the imagination, we cannot help seeing ourselves as others see us. And thus that reflex selfishness which we call morality exerts a regulative power which restrains purely mischievous actions; and we may admire the ingenious arrangement by which Providence has produced a certain compensating action from passions which would otherwise render us mutually destructive. But it by no means follows that the reflected motive is as strong as the original, or that a sympathy thus derivative in its nature can be an animating principle of life in the same sense as the feelings on which it is grounded. My sympathy with others may make me condemn myself as I should condemn my 2 Ib. p. 356. $ Ib. p. 280.

A. Smith, p. 241.

neighbour for cutting a throat or picking a pocket; but it will not make me attend to my neighbour's interests more energetically than to my own. The great impelling force which drives the wheels of life is a man's desire for his own comfort. The regulative, rather than the antagonistic, force, which keeps his energy within certain bounds, is sympathy with the same desire in others.

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34. The view implicitly adopted in the 'Wealth of Nations' is in perfect harmony with this. By the beneficent arrangements of Nature (Providence, I think, does not appear in the Wealth of Nations') the pursuit of the individual's own selfish interest is made to coincide with the pursuit of the greatest happiness of the race. In both treatises we are called upon to trace the workings of a kind of pre-established harmony. It is the fundamental proposition of the 'Moral Sentiments' that our natural sympathies impose upon us certain restraints. It is the fundamental proposition of the 'Wealth of Nations' that so long as those restraints are obeyed (for the existence of such virtues as honesty and peacefulness is as much assumed in one treatise as the other), the happiness of mankind will be promoted by allowing each man to obey his own instincts without authoritative interference. If I buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, I really contribute to the general comfort; for, in each case, I supply the strongest wants of my neighbours. So long as I do not steal or cheat, I in no way disobey the promptings of sympathy; unless sympathy could be pushed to the selfcontradictory excess of declaring that each man should give his own property to his neighbour. An altruism, which would be inconsistent with the general principle that each man should generally look after himself, was never contemplated by Smith. Smith's philosophy of life, which is thus tolerably consistent, is substantially a corollary from the principles which he shared with the French philosophers generally. Its main propositions may perhaps be thus stated. There is a certain natural order in society. The final cause of this order is the happiness of mankind. The main condition for securing its natural fruits is the liberty of each man to follow his natural instincts. So long as those instincts do not bring men into collision, the artificial interference of government is

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