was a wise, just man, or at least one who knew well what wisdom and justice meant. And his style in treating of these things is excellent. He is never heavy, even when

he is as diffuse as often happens with him. It has already been remarked that had he devoted his powers as a moralist to essay writing, instead of to the composition of a systematic treatise, he might have attained high distinction among British men of letters. But it was not to be so, and the blame lies with the author if the public have persistently declined to look for one kind of merit in regions where the only promise held out to them is that of something quite different.

It will be convenient to take this opportunity of adverting to the literary productions of the author of the 66 'Theory of Moral Sentiments," other than the "Wealth of Nations." Besides these two works, there are extant several essays of considerable length written by Smith at various periods in his career. One of these, the "Considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages," while of no general interest, exhibits the subtlety of Smith's imagination in its illustrations of the proposition that language becomes more simple in its rudiments and principles, just in proportion as it grows more complex in its composition. The author likens the gradual improvement of language to the gradual improvement of machinery, in that, instead of a particular principle being applied for the production of each single movement, a single principle is in an increasing degree so applied as to produce more than one movement. But he lays stress on the qualification of the analogy by the circumstance that, in the case of languages, the simpli

fications, instead of rendering the means more perfect for the fulfilment of its end, really renders it less perfect.

The essay on the "Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Enquiries as illustrated by the History of Astronomy," was left by its author in an incomplete condition. What is finished of it relates mainly to method, and to the tendencies of the mind in observation. The essays on the " Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Enquiries, illustrated by the History of the Ancient Physics," and by the "History of the Ancient Logic and Metaphysics" respectively, are of little general interest. The first mentioned of these three essays is divided into four chapters; the first dealing with the "Effects of Unexpectedness or Surprise"; the second investigating "Wonder, or the Effects of Novelty"; the third relating to the "Origin of Philosophy"; and the fourth treating of the "History of Astronomy.”

There is also an essay on the "Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called the Imitative Arts." There is much matter here of a kind which recalls the style of the "Theory of Moral Sentiments." But as a whole, the essay is decidedly below the level of Smith's general writing. There is a characteristic comment by the bosom friend of Hume upon Hume's most aggressive enemy (Rousseau): "Painting,' says an author more capable of feeling strongly than of analysing accurately, 'Painting, which presents its imitations not to the imagination, but to the senses, can represent nothing besides the objects of sight."" Smith goes on to contrast music with painting, and both music and painting with dancing and poetry.

The brief treatise on the external senses is of no philosophical value. When Adam Smith says in it that the four qualities, or attributes, of extension, divisibility, figure, and mobility, or the capacity of motion or rest, seem necessarily involved in the idea or conception of a solid substance, one feels instinctively that he had never taken kindly either to his Berkeley or to his Hume, There is in this essay, among other things, a repetition of the even then somewhat hackneyed psychological tale of Cheselden's observations upon the growth of vision in the young gentleman whom he couched for cataract.

The only other production by Smith which remains to us, is a brief fragment upon the affinity between certain English and Italian Verses. What was in the mind of the author of the treatises, some complete, and some fragmentary upon all these subjects, is not difficult to divine. He probably contemplated a series of great works upon the various phases of intellectual life which were embraced in his course of lectures at Glasgow University. What he completed embraced the theories of Ethics and of Political Economy. What he failed to complete would have covered the field of those general subjects which lay between these theories, including a systematic view of the science of Jurisprudence.

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CHAPTER IV.

N February 17, 1792, two years after Adam Smith's death, a famous debate took place in the House of Commons. The Commons having resolved themselves into a committee of the whole House, the Earl of Morn ington in the chair, to consider so much of his Majesty's speech in the opening of the Session as related to the public income and expenditure, Mr. Pitt rose and addressed the committee. After explaining the severa measures which he proposed to introduce for the relief of the British taxpayer, he proceeded to discuss the causes of the rapid increase which at that time was taking place in the manufacturing industries of the country. Among these he placed one which may best be described in his own words :

"But there is still another cause, even more satisfactory than these, because it is of a still more extensive and permanent nature; that constant accumulation of capital, that continual tendency to increase, the operation of which is universally seen in a greater or less proportion, whenever it is not obstructed by some public calamity, or by some mistaken or mis

chievous policy, but which must be conspicuous and rapid indeed in any country which has once arrived at an advanced state of commercial prosperity. Simple and obvious as this principle is, and felt and observed as it must have been in a greater or less degree, even from the earliest periods, I doubt whether it has ever been fully developed and sufficiently explained, but in the writings of an author of our times, now, unfortunately, no more (I mean the author of a celebrated treatise on the wealth of nations), whose extensive knowledge of detail and philosophical research will, I believe, furnish the best solution to every question connected with the history of commerce or with the systems of political economy."

No words express better than this language of Pitt the completeness of the recognition of the change which Adam Smith had effected in public opinion by his new view of the problem which he set himself to investigate. That problem was not abstract, but concrete. The question was the great one of the nature of the production and accumulation of wealth in a community containing men and institutions of a certain and definite kind—just such a kind as would rise up in image before the minds of an assemblage of the Commons of England, sitting in the later part of the eighteenth century. One of the secrets of the great popularity of "The Wealth of Nations" was this concrete quality. Its author united in himself two powers which do not often go together, the power of abstract thinking, and that of being able to grasp facts with a keen interest in them merely as facts. This it is.