brilliant at first, by his appearance as the author of a comprehensive theory, but will ultimately be measured by what he shall be found to have actually contributed to the treasures of valuable knowledge.-HORNER, FRANCIS, 1800, Journal Dec. 1; Memoirs, ed. Horner, p. 126.

It is only a promiscuous assemblage of the soundest principles of political economy, supported by the clearest illustrations and ingenious statistical speculations, blended with instructive reflections; it is not a complete treatise on either science, but an ill-digested mass of enlightened views and accurate information.-SAY, JEAN-BAPTISTE, 1803-21, A Treatise on Political Economy, Introduction.

The writer in combating received opinions, has found it necessary to advert more particularly to those passages in the writings of Adam Smith from which he sees reason to differ; but he hopes it will not, on that account, be suspected that he does not, in common. with all those who acknowledge the importance of the science of Political Economy, participate in the admiration which the profound work of this celebrated author so justly excites. -RICARDO, DAVID, 1817, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Preface.

The fact that the distinct statement of several of the most important of these principles, and that traces of them all, may be found in the works of previous writers, does not detract in any, or but in a very inconsiderable degree, from the real merits of Dr. Smith. In adopting the discoveries of others, he has made them his own; he has demonstrated the truth of principles on which his predecessors had, in most cases, stumbled by chance; has separated them from the errors by which they were encumbered, traced their remote consequences, and pointed out their limitations; has shewn their practical importance and real value, their mutual dependence and relation; and has reduced. them into a consistent, harmonious, and beautiful system. -MCCULLOCH, JOHN RAMSAY, 1825-30, Principles of Political Economy, p. 58.

The great defect of Adam Smith, and of our economists in general, is the want of definitions.-WHATELY, RICHARD, 1826, Elements of Logic.

Dr. Franklin once told Dr. Logan that

the celebrated Adam Smith when writing his "Wealth of Nations" was in the habit of bringing chapter after chapter as he composed it to himself, Dr. Price, and others of the literati; then patiently hear their observations and profit by their discussions and criticisms, sometimes submitting to write whole chapters anew, and even to reverse some of his propositions.-WATSON, JOHN FANNING, 183068, Annals of Philadelphia, vol. 1.

The great name of Adam Smith rests upon the "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations;" perhaps the only book which produced an immediate, general, and irrevocable change in some of the most important parts of the legislation of all civilized states. The works of Grotius, of Locke, and of Montesquieu, which bear a resemblance to it in character and had no inconsiderable analogy to it in the extent of their popular influence, were productive only of a general amendment, -not so conspicuous in particular instances as discoverable, after a time, in the improved condition of human affairs. The work of Smith, as it touched those matters which may be numbered, and measured and weighed, bore more visible and palpable fruit. In a few years it began to alter laws and treaties; and has made its way through the convulsions of revolution and conquest to a due ascendant over the minds of men, with far less than the average of those obstructions of prejudice and clamour, which ordinarily choke the channel through which truth flows into practice. The most eminent of those who have since cultivated and improved the science will be the foremost to address their immortal master, Tenebris tantis tam clarum extollere lumen Qui primus potuisti, inlustrans commoda vitæ

Te sequor!

-MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1830, Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy.

It is not less agreeable in form than it is valuable in substance; and, instead of being as is supposed by some who have not read it-dry and repulsive, is undoubtedly, to every reader of mature taste and liberal accomplishments, one of the most interesting as well as instructive books which he can take up.-EVERETT, ALEXANDER H., 1831, Phillips's Manual of

Political Economy, North American Review, vol. 32, p. 216.

Far superior to Arthur Young-superior as the researches of a Newton are above, though supporting and supported by, the observations of an Astronomical Tablestands the name of Adam Smith.

To say of the "Wealth of Nations" that it has faults and errors is only to say, in other words, that it is the work of man. But not merely did Adam Smith found the science of Political Economy; we might almost say of him that he completed it, leaving, at least as some have thought, to his successors, not so much any new discoveries to make, or any further principles to prove, but far rather conjectures to hazard and consequences to pursue.STANHOPE, PHILIP HENRY (LORD MAHON), 1836-54, History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles, pp. 335, 336.

The great work of A. Smith is not an elementary book,-very far from it; and your best chance of understanding it is to read of each chapter as much as you can, then go to the next chapter, and so on; and when you have got to the end of the book, begin the book again; and you will at length comprehend the whole sufficiently for any general purpose. I have lately seen a treatise by Mr. Boileau, which I hoped I might recommend to you on this occasion; but I do not think that it will be found either more simple or more intelligible, than A. Smith's original work, from which it is avowedly borrowed.-SMYTH, WILLIAM, 1840, Lectures on Modern History, Lecture xxx.

In the sense of a comprehensive aggregate, gathering into the unity of one edifice the total architecture of Political Economy, there are even at this day but few systems besides the "Wealth of Nations,"-none which approaches it in philosophic beauty.-DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, 1842-90, Ricardo and Adam Smith, Works, ed. Masson, vol. IX, p. 116.

The "Wealth of Nations" combines both the sound and enlightened views which had distinguished the detached pieces of the French and Italian Economists, and above all, of Mr. Hume, with the great merit of embracing the whole subject, thus bringing the general scope of the principles into view, illustrating all

the parts of the inquiry by their combined relations, and confirming their soundness. in each instance by their application to the others. The copiousness of the illustrations keeps pace with the closeness of the reasoning; and wherever the received prejudices of lawgivers are to be overcome, or popular errors to be encountered, the arguments, and the facts, and the explanations are judiciously given with extraordinary fullness, the author wisely disregarding all imputations of prolixity or repetition, in pursuit of the great end of making himself understood and gaining the victory over error. The chapter on the Mercantile System is an example of this; but the errors of that widely-prevailing theory and its deeply rooted prejudices are also encountered occasionally in almost every other part of the work. It is a lesser, but a very important merit that the style of the writing is truly admirable. There is not a book. of better English to be anywhere found. The language is simple, clear, often homely like the illustrations, not seldom idiomatic, always perfectly adapted to the subject handled. Besides its other perfections, it is one of the most entertaining of books. There is no laying it down after you begin to read. You are drawn on from page to page by the strong current of the arguments, the manly sense of the remarks, the fullness and force of the illustrations, the thickly-strewed and happily-selected facts. Nor can it ever escape observation, that the facts, far from being a mere bede-roll of details unconnected with principle and with each other, derive all their interest from forming parts of a whole, and reflecting the general views which they are intended to exemplify or to support.-BROUGHAM, HENRY LORD, 1846-55, Lives of Philosophers of the Time of George III. p. 263.

Twenty years have elapsed since Macking these twenty years, the influence of intosh pronounced this opinion; and durAdam Smith's science of political economy has been even more conspicuous and direct than it was during the period of which he spoke. It has shaped the polity of nations; its principles are embodied on almost every page of commercial law; it has guided the most important applications of national industry; it has done more than all other causes united to put a stop to the

practice of international war. Though its doctrines have been somewhat modified, and large additions have been made to it, it is still, in the main, what we have called it, Adam Smith's science. His successors have built mainly upon the foundations which he laid, and the structure has risen in general conformity with the plan which he sketched out. Among all the moral sciences, there is no other which bears the name of its founder so distinctly engraven upon its front, or which retains so large a proportion of the doctrines that he first promulgated.-BOWEN, FRANCIS, 1851, Phillips on Protection and Free Trade, North American Review, vol. 72, p. 398.

Adam Smith is the distinguished man, by common consent, referred to as the Father of that School which has long claimed pre-eminence in Political Econ omy. Whatever ground there may be for ascribing to him this paternity, it is very safe to say, that were he to revisit the world, he would find it difficult to recognise his offspring. We prefer giving all the honor of this fatherhood to J. B. Say, who, though he may have taken his inspiration from Adam Smith, was certainly the first to give the doctrines of Political Economy a shape and degree of consistency sufficient to form the rallying points of a School. Regarded as a treatise upon industry, wealth, and trade, and the other subjects to which it refers, and considering the time at which it appeared, the "Wealth of Nations" must be admitted to be one of the most successful works of modern times. It has, beyond question, been the chief stimulus to the extraordinary discussions which have since ensued upon the subjects of which it treats. Its leading ideas made a great impression, and have since been the subjects of interminable discussion; but the "Wealth of Nations," though often referred to, is seldom studied.-COLWELL, STEPHEN, 1856, ed., List's National System of Political Economy, p. xxvii.

Looking at its ultimate results, is probably the most important book that has ever been written, and is certainly the most valuable contribution ever made by a single man towards establishing the principles on which government should be based. . . . Well may it be said of Adam Smith, and said too without fear of contradiction,

that this solitary Scotchman has, by the publication of one single work, contributed more toward the happiness of men, than has been effected by the united abilities of all the statesmen and legislators of whom history has preserved an authentic account. -BUCKLE, HENRY THOMAS, 1857, History of Civilisation in England, vol. I. ch. IV.

The great text-book in political economy, "The Wealth of Nations." In every page of that work its readers found themselves presented with the evidence of the superior advantages of commerce over trade; and of the absolute necessity of commerce at home if they would have it abroad. In every page of that great work they found evidence that if they would prosper they could do so on one condition only, -that condition which requires that the consumer and the producer take their places by each other's side, and thus approximate as nearly as possible the prices of raw materials and manufactured commodities. . . Dr.

Smith was not always right, but he was very generally so. Modern political economy, as has before been said, has very generally rejected him when he was right, or has so used him as to cause him to stand responsible for the correctness of views, that, had he been alive, he would indignantly have denounced as utterly erroneous.-CAREY, HENRY C., 1858, Principles of Social Science, vol. II, pp. 108, 109, 127, note.

When Adam Smith first stated the truth that one nation does not gain by the poverty of another, but that all are gainers by the prosperity of all, no one suspected that a sagacious despot of great power [Napoleon III.] would on this very year pronounce the great truth on his imperial throne to the assembled deputies of his nation.-LIEBER, FRANCIS, 1860, Speech on the Hayes Arctic Expedition, New York, March 22.

It is even at the present day important to direct careful attention to an erroneous conception of wealth, which was universal until the appearance of Adam Smith's great work, in 1775.-FAWCETT, HENRY, 1863-88, Manual of Political Economy, p. 8.

A glance at the index of the "Wealth of Nations" will suffice to show that its author possessed just that kind of knowledge of the American Colonies which

Franklin was of all men the best fitted to impart. The allusion to the Colonies may be counted by hundreds; illustrations from their condition and growth occur in nearly every chapter. We may go further and say that the American Colonies constitute the experimental evidence of the essential truth of the book, without which many of its leading positions had been little more than theory.--PARTON, JAMES, 1864, Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, vol. I, p. 537.

That which Adam Smith got from the French economists was the habit of analytical research, exercised upon economical phenomena. I do not say that political economy began with him, but I can assert that its method does. His teachHis teachers argued from à priori, or what they believed to be à priori, principles, and examined the facts by these principles. Smith applied an inductive method to his facts, and, as far as possible, verified his hypotheses by observation. Hence his work is full of illustrations, is copious in examples, whenever illustration or example could be obtained. And just as succeeding economists have used his method, and in so far as they have gone to history and statistics, so they have been able to correct Smith; for in his day, history was uncritical, statistics were imperfect and inexact. But in so far as they have departed from his method, and suffered themselves to evolve the science from their own theories, they have, even the ablest among them, fallen into notorious fallacies. ROGERS, JAMES E. THOROLD, 1869, Historical Gleanings, p. 119.

If books are to be measured by the effect which they have produced on the fortunes. of mankind, the "Wealth of Nations" must rank among the greatest of books. GREEN, JOHN RICHARD, 1874, A Short History of the English People, p. 755.

We may, however, admit that no more important book than the "Wealth of Nations" was published in Great Britain during the last half of the eighteenth century. Few writers have ever done for any study what Smith did for Political Economy. If he did not found a science, he brought a great body of theory into close relation with facts, and may be said to have first brought about a union between abstract reasoners and practical statesmen. To marry science to practice is the

great problem of politics; and from the appearance of the "Wealth of Nations" the main outlines and the chief methods of one important branch of political science were distinctly marked out. Much had been done, and much still remained to do; but Smith took the significant step and is rightly regarded as the intellectual ancestor of a race of theorists, whose influence, though not uniformly beneficial, has at least been of great importance towards constituting the still rudimentary science of sociology.-STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. II, p. 316.

It is just a hundred years since "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," appeared from the pen, not of a statesman, a banker, or a merchant, but of a Scottish professor of Ethics, of the somewhat ubiquitous name of Smith. It can hardly be said to have been an attractive subject; in all polite societies, its topics-labor, capital, wages, profits, rent and taxation-would have been voted dry, if mentioned at all; and even able editors of the day, who, of course, knew everything, save their own ignorance, must have despised its long disquisitions on real and nominal prices and the mercantile system. The prevalent conceptions of the wealth of nations at that day were of the resources of a prince, to raise armies, equip fleets, subsidize allies, pension poets, and build ostentatious monuments. As to useful labor as wealth, as to free labor as the chief glory of nations and the source of their power, it was a thing still undreamed. Yet the book which argued in this strain, soon made its way into men's minds: it penetrated the cabinets as well as the counting houses; it created a school; it grew in fame with the revolving seasons, until now, in this great land, which had then just sprung into distinct national existence, it is held in honor among our best centennial memories.-GODWIN, PARKE, 1876, The Adam Smith Centennial, Address.

It is interesting and pertinent to this year and to this occasion to call attention to the circumstance, not generally known, that months before the Declaration of American Independence, Adam Smith was led by his reasoning and investigations to advocate the peaceful abandonment, on