Hume, Smith, and Voltaire, are set down as shallow, mischievous coxcombs by the philosophers of the third generation after them; who are, to say the least, as much their inferiors in taste, liveliness, and practical ability, as they boast to be their superiors in profundity of thought. The Lucians and Montaignes of our days, see in all this only tokens of the incessant ebb and flow of the human mind;-ever active and agitated, and yet in each successive tide only reaching the point which it had already attained in some former movement. More hopeful speculators may believe that the more violent the oscillation, the more steady and certain the advance, although scarcely perceptible to ordinary observation.

We are not, however, called upon to enter into a formal defence of the great economist against such objections as mere prejudice or fashion may raise, whether directed against himself or against his science. Undoubtedly the general principles of his political philosophy are of a superficial character; nor can we quite agree with his editor, that in treating the most important points in the whole range of moral and political science,' he displayed all that comprehensive sagacity which formed the ⚫ distinguishing feature of his mind.' But this detracts in no degree from the value of his speculations, wherever that test of immediate utility, which he applied too indiscriminately, is the real touchstone of the value of institutions; and one reason, among others, for which we should wish to find his work more generally read than it is at the present day, is that his clear good sense and attractive style are likely to furnish better antidotes against the theories of such writers as Mr Sismondi, who would subject the progress of national wealth again to the fetters of the middle ages, than the abstract reasonings of later writers.

With respect to what Mr M'Culloch terms the perplexed ' and illogical arrangement' of the Wealth of Nations,' which is one of the most common objections urged against it by a different class of critics, (a defect rather remarkable in an author whose turn of mind and professional habits would have rather led him, it might be thought, into too strict an adherence to form and order,) we have already seen that Sir James Macintosh regarded it as having in some measure contributed to its great popularity. Undoubtedly there is truth in the remark; yet Smith, perhaps, abused the privilege of genius to be discursive. His wanderings are so very extensive, his involutions of digression within digression so very complex, that it is next to impossible to read his work in any other way than as a series of slightly connected essays on a variety of interesting topics. It must be

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remembered, however, when he is blamed for introducing so wide a range of subjects within his limits, that his purpose in the composition of his treatise was very different from that of constructing a mere system of abstract Political Economy. The work on the Wealth of Nations formed, in fact, a portion only of a very comprehensive course of lectures on moral philosophy. According to Professor Millar, this course was divided into four parts; the first embracing natural theology, the second ethics, the third jurisprudence; while in the last part he examined 'those political regulations which are founded, not upon the 'principle of justice, but that of expediency, and which are cal'culated to increase the riches, the power, and the prosperity of a state. Under this view he considered the political institutions relating to commerce, to finances, to ecclesiastical and 'military establishments. What he delivered on these subjects, 'contained the substance of the work he afterwards published ' under the title of an Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of 'the Wealth of Nations.' Thus it will be seen that his scope fairly included a much larger portion of the quicquid agunt homines, than if it had been wholly devoted to the strict science of catallactics. But it may be justly noticed as a defect in his method, that he nowhere lays down with any degree of distinctness the real province of that science; so as to distinguish it from political economy in that wider sense which he attaches to the word. Hence arises much of the confusion and want of order which distracts the attention of the reader throughout it. This objection, however, applies only to the work considered as a whole. Regarded with a view to its several parts, we agree with Sir James Macintosh, that the digressive mode in which it is written constitutes one of the principal charms of the composition. Smith's method of teaching was essentially analytical, and possesses all the attractions, together with the necessary imperfections, of that mode of instruction. He rarely states principles by way of themes for discussion and illustration; but generally lays before his readers a series of facts in commercial history, and proceeds to develop these in such a manner as to lead them, almost unconsciously, towards those general truths which it is his object to instil. No more agreeable mode of conveying information can be devised; but it may be doubted whether it is calculated to leave any very distinct impression on ordinary minds, which are apt to retain the examples without following the reasoning; nor is Smith himself always clear or consistent, where he endeavours to deduce similar principles from different serieses of facts. In the quick and powerful grasp with which he seizes on illustrations, and the ready manner in which he puts them for

ward at once, so as to insure the reader's attention at the outset, he resembles no writer so much as Paley; but he has nothing of that somewhat formal and pedantic mode of argument which characterises the latter. Thus, in his very first chapter on the division of labour, instead of commencing by a disquisition on that important principle, he begins by taking the reader with him to a pin manufactory; and when his attention has been sufficiently drawn to the subject, by observing the curious process carried on there, he next leads him, by analogy, to similar instances, and finally to the governing principle of the whole subject. But Paley had, what Smith had not, the genius of arrangement; hence, in the former, the illustration never occupies the place of argument, but serves only as an introduction to it. In the pages of the Wealth of Nations example often succeeds example, and thought calls up thought, until the point which it was intended at first to elucidate is lost sight of by the reader; and sometimes, it would seem, by the author himself. There is not a more entertaining nor more unsatisfactory chapter in the work than the well-known one on the rent of land; in which there is scarcely a trace of any thing like the development of a general law or principle. Instead of it, the reader is treated to a most amusing series of disquisitions on the price of corn and butcher's meat; the economy of Holland; the ancient state of Italy; Columella, and the extravagant notions of Roman gentlemen-farmers; kitchen-gardens, vineyards, sugar-colonies; the growth of tobacco, rice, and potatoes; and the effect of these last on the breed of Irish porters and town-ladies.

These peculiarities, however, need not, in any degree, impair the utility of the work as a text-book for students at the present day; because a few judicious notes, calling his attention at intervals to the fundamental truths which are exemplified in this rich profusion of illustrations, are all that is necessary for the purpose; and these are furnished in the edition before us. A more important and difficult duty imposed on the commentator is to supply the deficiencies, and correct the mistakes into which Smith has fallen, as to the theory of the science itself.

The principal defect of the Wealth of Nations,' says Mr M'Culloch, and the source from whence most of the errors that • infect it seem to have been derived, consists in the erroneous ⚫ doctrine advanced with respect to the circumstances which de*termine the value of commodities, and the rise and progress of Dr Smith has truly stated, that in the remote period * which preceded the accumulation of capital, and the establish'ment of a right of property in land, the quantities of labour re'quired to produce commodities, determined their exchangeable

⚫ rent.

• value or worth, as compared with one another. But he sup'posed that after capital had been accumulated, and workmen were employed for the benefit of others, and land had been ap'propriated, and rent began to be paid, the value of commodities no longer depended wholly on the labour required to produce them, and bring them to market; but that it partly depended on ' it, and partly, also, on the amount of profit, wages, and rent; and that, supposing one or other of these elements to remain 'constant, their value would fluctuate according to the variations in the others, rising when they rose, and falling when they fell.' Mr M'Culloch proceeds to refute this undoubtedly fallacious position, by arguments familiar to those who are acquainted with the works of Ricardo and his followers; and to show that the value of all commodities is determined by the quantity of labour required for their production. But he has not, perhaps, distinctly pointed out (although in other parts of this edition he has returned more fully to the subject) in what way these opinions followed from Dr Smith's original positions respecting the effect of competitions among capitalists. He thought that profits are 'lowered through the competition of capitalists; that when capital increases, the undertakers of different businesses begin to 'encroach upon one another; and that, in order to attain their object, they offer their produce at a lower price, and give higher wages to their workmen.' And at the same time that he ascribed this influence to competition in particular employments, he evidently did not always advert to the general truth, that the competition of capitalists in all employments must necessarily render the rate of profits in any species of productive industry nearly the same.

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It was this last error which influenced his views of the exchangeable value of commodities. If it were true, as he supposed, that capital employed in one species of industry was more productive than in another-that the grower of corn, for example, realized, in a natural state of things, a higher profit than the manufacturer-it is clear that corn, and manufactured articles, would not exchange against one another in the proportion of the quantities of labour respectively expended in the production of each. Corn would bear, relatively to labour, a higher value than manufactured articles. Arguing on the same assumption, he was perfectly consistent in supposing that a high rate of profits was injurious to the wealth of a community, inasmuch as it necessarily raised the price of commodities; in defending the usury laws, and in contending, by a doubly erroneous process of reasoning, first, that the profits of the colonial trade were permanently greater than those of the home trade; and secondly, that