these laws the chief seems to be that Providence has commended the welfare of every man chiefly to his own keeping, not to that of others; and has so ordered things that men, in pursuing their own welfare within the limits set by justice, are ordinarily contributing to the general welfare. Upon this doctrine of a natural harmony of interests, Smith based his theory of natural liberty, according to which every man, "as long as he does not violate the laws of justice," is naturally free to pursue his own welfare in his own way.
Smith projected, but never published, a treatise on jurisprudence and government, subjects which in his lectures had naturally followed ethics. His "Wealth of Nations," which was published in 1776, treated of political economy which in his lectures had followed the subject of government.
HIS CONCEPTION OF WEALTH AND OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
"The Wealth of Nations"[1] combines a firm grasp of principles with a remarkable knowledge of the facts of economic life, derived from reading and personal observation. Smith's generalizations are usually supported by an appeal to the facts of economic life, and in this manner he gives the work an air of reality that is lacking in many economic treatises. He does not deal extensively with definitions. Without defining wealth he plunges directly into the causes of national opulence, but in the last sentence of his "Introduction" states, parenthetically, that "real wealth" is "the annual produce of the land and labor of the society." Even here he merely indicates that he considers the annual income of a society as its real wealth: whereas most economists prior to his time had conceived wealth as the accumulated stock of durable goods which a society possesses. Again Smith commences the treatise without offering a definition of political economy, and the nearest approach to such a definition is found in the first sentence of the fourth book: "Political economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to supply a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or, more properly, to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for
- ↑ Harvard Classics, Vol. x.
