Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1835 edition. Excerpt: ... An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations Adam Smith iii PREFACE TO THIS EDITION. "The book," says a masterly writer*, " which has changed the face of a science, even when not superseded in its doctrines, is seldom suitable to didactic purposes. It is adapted to the state of mind, not of those who are ignorant of every doctrine, but of those who are instructed in an erroneous doctrine. So far as it is taken up directly in combating the errors which prevailed before it was written, the more completely it has done its work, the more certain it is of becoming superfluous, not to say unintelligible, without a commentary." These remarks are not less applicable to Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, than to Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. In political economy, the former work is the book which has changed the face of a science; and no small portion of it is taken up * London Review, art. State of Philosophy in England.--A. r. in directly combating the errors which prevailed before it was written. At this time, an argument, however powerful and complete, against the Mercantile and Agricultural Systems of the last century, would be wholly superfluous; and for this reason: that those Theories have been demolished by Adam Smith's Inquiry. So completely has that book done its work, that the controversy in which the author engaged, has lost all interest, and is nearly forgotten. Who now cares to be told, that money is not wealth; that land is not the only source of wealth; or that the cause and measure of national wealth is not the excess of exports over imports? When doctrines become obsolete, the controversial matter of the book which has refuted them