ADAM SMITH.

WITH AN ANALYSIS OF HIS GREAT WORK.

In the last years of the seventeenth century were born two men, who laid the foundation of ethical science as we now have it, greatly advanced and improved beyond the state in which the ancient moralists had left it, and as the modern inquirers took it up after the revival of letters, Bishop Butler and Dr. Hutchinson. The former, bred a Presbyterian, and exercised in the metaphysical subtleties of the Calvinistic school, had early turned his acute and capacious mind to the more difficult questions of morals, and having conformed to the Established Church, he delivered, as preacher at the Rolls Chapel, to which office he was promoted by Sir Joseph Jekyll, at the suggestion of Dr. Samuel Clarke, a series of discourses, in which the foundations of our moral sentiments and our social as well as prudential duties were examined with unrivalled sagacity. Dr. Hutchinson having published his speculations upon the moral sense, and the analogy of our ideas of beauty and virtue, while a young teacher among the Presbyterians in the north of Ireland, was afterwards for many years Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, and there delivered his Lectures, which, by their copious illustrations, their amiable tone of feeling, their enlightened views of liberty and human improvement, and their persuasive eloquence, made a deeper impression than the more severe and dry compositions of Butler could ever create, and laid the foundation in Scotland of the modern ethical school.

In this he restored and revised, rather than created a taste for moral and intellectual science, which had prevailed in the fifteenth and early in the sixteenth centuries, but which the prevalence of religious zeal and of political faction had for above two hundred years extinguished. He restored it, too, in a new, a purer, and a more rational form, adopting, as Butler did nearly at the same time, though certainly without any communication, or even knowledge of each other's speculations, the sound and consistent doctrine which rejects as a paradox, and indeed a very vulgar fallacy, the doctrine that all the motives of human conduct are directly resolvable into a regard for self-interest.* Nothing more deserving of the character of a demonstration can be cited than the argument in a single sentence, by which he overthrows the position, that we seek other men's happiness, because by so doing we gratify our own feelings. This presupposes, says he, that there is a pleasure to ourselves in seeking their happiness, else the motive, by the supposition, wholly fails. Therefore there is a pleasure as independent of selfish gratification, as the thing pursued is necessarily something different from the being that pursues it.

These two great philosophers, then, may be reckoned the founders of the received and sound ethical system, to which Tucker, by his profound and original speculations, added much. Hartley and Bonnet, who were a few years later, only introduced a mixture of gross

* Hutchinson had taught his doctrines in Dublin some years before Butler's 'Sermons' were published in 1726, and had even published his 'Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue,' for the second edition of that work appeared in the same year. The 'Sermons' had indeed been preached at the Rolls, where he began to officiate as early as 1718; but nothing can be more unlikely than that any private intimation of their substance should have been conveyed to the young Presbyterian minister in Ireland. Indeed, his book was written soon after he settled at the academy, in 1716, which he taught near Dublin; for the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Molesworth, who was appointed in that year, revised the manuscript of it. Butler and Hutchinson were contemporaries; one born 1692, the other 1694. Dr. Smith was born considerably later, in 1723; Mr. Hume in 1711.

error in their preposterous attempts to explain the inscrutable union of the soul and the body, and to account for the phenomena of mind by the nature or affection of the nerves; while at a somewhat earlier date, Berkeley, an inquirer of a much higher order, had applied himself to psychological, and not to ethical studies.

As ethics in its extended sense comprehends both the duties and capacities, and the moral and intellectual qualities of individuals, and their relations to each other in society, so may it also extend to the interests and the regulation of society, that is, to the polity of states in both its branches, both the structure and the functions of government, with a view to securing the happiness of the people. Hence it may include everything that concerns the rights, as well as the duties of citizens, all that regards their good government, all the branches of jurisprudence, all the principles that govern the production and distribution of wealth, the employment and protection of labour, the progress of population, the defence of the state, the education of its inhabitants; in a word, political science, including, as one of its main branches, political economy. When, therefore, ethical speculations had made so great progress, it was natural that this important subject should also engage the attention of scientific men; and we find, accordingly, that in the early part of the eighteenth century the attention of the learned and, in some but in a moderate degree, of statesmen also, was directed to these inquiries. Some able works had touched in the preceding century upon the subjects of money and trade. Sound and useful ideas upon these were to be found scattered through the writings of Mr. Locke. But at a much earlier period, Mr. Min, both in 1621 and 1664, had combatted successfully, as far as reasoning went, without any success in making converts, the old and mischievous, but natural fallacy, that the cious metals are the constituents of wealth. Soon after

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Min's second work, 'The Increase of Foreign Trade,' Sir Wm. Petty still further illustrated the error of those who are afraid of an unfavourable balance of trade, and exposed the evil policy of regulating the rate of interest by law. A few years before Sir Wm. Petty's most celebrated work, his 'Anatomy of Ireland,' appeared Sir Josiah Child's Discourse of Trade,' 1668, in which, with some errors on the subject of interest, he laid down many sound views of trade, the principle of population, and the absurdity of laws against forestalling and regrating. In 1681 he published his 'Philopatris,' which shows the injurious effects of monopolies of every kind, and explains clearly the nature of money. But Sir Dudley North's 'Discourse,' published in 1691, took as clear and even as full a view of the true doctrines of commerce and exchange as any modern treatise; building its deductions upon the fundamental principle which lies at the root of all these doctrines, that, as to trade, the whole world is one country, of which the natives of each state severally are citizens or subjects; that no laws can regulate prices; and that whatever injures any one member of the great community injures the whole.

It must be observed that beside the treatises thus early published on œconomical science, we find occasionally very sound doctrines unfolded, and very just maxims of policy laid down, by well known writers, who incidentally touch upon economical subjects in works written with other views. Thus Fenelon, in his celebrated romance of Telemachus,' has scattered various reflexions of the truest and purest philosophy, upon the theory of commercial legislation, as well as upon many other departments of administration. It is due to the memory of a Romish prelate, and a royal preceptor in an absolute monarchy, to add that all his writings breathe a spirit of genuine religious tolerance, and of just regard to the civil rights and liberties of mankind.

In the eighteenth century, the writers of Italy appear to have taken the lead in these inquiries. The active and lively genius of the people, the division of the country into small states, the access to the ears of the Government which this naturally gives to learned men, the interest in the improvement of his country which the citizen of a narrow community is apt to feel, gave rise to such a multitude of writers on subjects of political economy, that when the Government of the Italian Republic, with a princely liberality, directed Custodi to publish a collection of their works at the public expense, in 1803, they were found to fill no less than fifty octavo volumes.

The earliest of these writings, which lay down sound principles to guide commercial legislation, is the Memoir

Discorso Economico') of Antonio Bandini of Siena, addressed in 1737 to the Grand Duke of Tuscany upon the improvement of the great Maremma district. The author recommended free trade in corn; advised the granting of leases to tenants, that they might have an interest in the soil; and proposed the repeal of all vexatious imposts, and a substitution in their stead of one equal tax upon all real property, without excepting either the lands of the nobles or of the church. This able and enlightened work, in which the germs of the French economical doctrines are plainly unfolded, was only published in 1775; but when Leopold succeeded his brother in 1765, he showed his accustomed wisdom and virtue in the government of Tuscany, by adopting many of Bandini's suggestions for improving the Maremma. Other writers followed in the same course. Fernando Galiani, of Naples, published in 1750 his treatise, 'Della Moneta,' explaining on sound principles that the precious metals are only to be regarded as merchandise, and showing clearly the connexion between value and labour. The discourse, Sopra i Bilanci delle Nazione, by Carli, of Capo d'Istria, in 1771, laid down the true doctrine respecting the balance of trade.