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 state1 A. Smith, p. 143. • Ib. 236. 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. 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 unjust, because it disregards the natural rights of mankind, and impolitic because it hinders the natural development of the agencies by which men's wants are supplied. The sympathetic instincts are valuable as suppressing the tendency of each man to invade his neighbour's equal rights to life, liberty, and enjoyment. Where they are not sufficiently strong, there and there only, government may rightfully interfere.1 These doctrines do not often come to the surface in Smith's writings, because he aims everywhere at dealing rather with facts than with these primary principles. But they are so definitely implied that the 'Wealth of Nations' may be regarded as one continuous illustration of their value, as regulating principles in all the industrial relations of mankind.2 35. The merits and the shortcomings of Smith's theory may be indicated from these reflections. The tendency to regard government in general as a kind of artificial restriction imposed from without, and as mischievous because in some sense not natural,' was perhaps less defective in economical than in purely political speculation. The restrictions actually in existence were calculated to defeat their own object, and were merely a disguised method of plundering mankind for the benefit of a particular class or country. Denunciations of government interference might be perfectly right as applied to the actual system, though needing qualification as absolute universal propositions; and Smith, indeed, cannot be charged with falling into revolutionary extremes, for his treatmentalways tempered by respect for facts—leads him to err chiefly on the side of moderation. He permits the legislator, for example, to fix the rate of interest;3 an error which gave occasion to Bentham's crushing assault upon the usury laws. But though Smith dealt over-delicately with some existing 1 See, for example, an interesting passage in which the Marquis de Chastellux expresses the theory in a few words. Man, he says, is born for liberty; and si l'on agoute que cette liberté est indefinie par sa nature et qu'elle ne peut être limitée dans chaque individu que par celle d'un autre individu, c'est encore exprimer une vérité que trouvera peu des contradicteurs dans ce siècle éclairé.' Quoted in Lavergne (Economistes Français,' p. 287). 2 The French economists, indeed, differed from the revolutionary school by their absolutist tendencies; but, so far as trade was concerned, they were equally in favour of reducing government interference to a minimum. Smith's Wealth of Nations,' p. 204. restrictions, his conclusions could in such cases be refuted from his own principles. His view, when logically developed, implied the unreserved adoption of the let-alone doctrine. The exceptions which he admits are remnants of old prejudices rather than anticipations of any new principle. The sole remedy for the evils which he describes was the thorough demolition of restrictions which had long lost whatever justification they might have once possessed, and which were doomed to destruction by the force of events still more than by the force of his arguments. 36. Economists, indeed, are generally condemned for a different failing. That they should condemn the arbitrary regulations by which a statesman sought to hamper the free play of men's instinctive desire to attend to their own interests was right enough. It was better that sellers and buyers should be allowed to meet each other's wants without having to pay toll to the greediness of their rulers. The instinct of barter, which Smith rather oddly treats as possibly a primitive element of human nature, or that self-bettering instinct of which it is one manifestation, were at least respectable impulses; and, if duly restrained, all moralists who do not belong to the most ascetic type, would propose rather to regulate than suppress their development. But when economists proceed a step further and declare this self-regarding instinct to be the only force which governs, or ought to govern, human relations, a moralist of less exalted views may begin to be suspicious. Adam Smith, as I have already hinted, assigns to supply and demand a more extensive dominion over conduct than can be altogether admitted. He is a philosopher after the fashion of his day; and we can see that he had sate at the feet of Hume. The chapter, for example, upon Church establishments is curious and significant. He quotes the authority of Hume, 'by far the most illustrious philosopher and historian of the present age' for the opinion that rich endowments supplied the best means of keeping the clergy quiet. Smith appears to support the opinion that a number of small competing sects, without endowments or privileges, would be the ideal arrangement. But the end which he con 1 A. Smith, p. 354. |