 | The collected works of Dugald Stewart |  |
Footnotes
I shall have occasion afterwards to vindicate Mr Smith's
claims to originality in the former of these works, against the
pretensions of some foreign writers. As I do not mean, however,
to recur again to his alleged plagiarisms from the ancients. I
shall introduce here, though somewhat out of place, two short
quotations; from which it will appear, that the germ of his
speculations concerning national wealth, as well as concerning
the principles of ethics, is (according to Dr Gillies) to found
in the Greek philosophers.
'By adopting Aristotle's principles on the subjects of
exchangeable value, and of national wealth, Dr Smith has rescued
the science of political economy from many false subtilties and
many gross errors.' Vol. I. p. 377, 2d edit.
'The subject of money is treated above, Vol. I. p. 374, et seq.
In that passage, compared with another in the Magna Moralia, we
find the fundamental principles of the modern economists.' Vol.
II. p. 43.
In reply to these observations, I have only to request my readers
to compare them with the well-known passage in the first book of
Aristotle's Politics, with respect to the lawfulness of usury.
When we consider how much the interest of money enters as an
element into all our modern disquisitions concerning commercial
policy, is it possible to imagine, that there should be any thing
more than the most general and fortuitous coincidence between the
reasonings of such writers as Smith, or Hume, or Turgot; and
those of an author whose experience of the nature and effects of
commerce was so limited, as to impress his mind with a
conviction, that to receive a premium for the use of money was
inconsistent with the rules of morality? Compare the subsequent
edition of Gillies's Ethics and Politics of Aristotle.
Probably William Ward, A.M. master of the Grammar School of Beverley, Yorkshire, who, among other grammatical works, published An Essay on Grammar as it may be applied to the English Language, in two Treatises, etc., 4to, 1765, which is perhaps the most philosophical Essay on the English language extant.
In regard to Adam Smith's originality on various points of Political Economy, I may refer in general, to Vols. VIII and IX, in which Mr Stewart's Lectures on this science are contained.
That the writers of this Island should have had the start of those in the greater part of Europe, in adopting enlightened ideas concerning commerce, will not appear surprising, when we consider that 'according to the Common Law of England, the freedom of trade is the birthright of the subject.' For the opinions of Lord Coke and of Lord Chief-Justice Fortescue, on this point, see a pamphlet by Lord Lauderdale, entitled, 'Hints to the Manufacturers of Great Britain,' etc.; where also may be found a list of statutes containing recognitions and declarations of the above principle.
According to the statement of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the
following doctrine was delivered in the English House of Commons
by Sir Thomas More (then speaker), almost three centuries ago. "I
say confidently, you need not fear this penury or scarceness of
money; the intercourse of things being so establish'd throughout
the whole world, that there is a perpetual derivation of all that
can be necessary to mankind. Thus, your commodities will ever
find out money; while, not to go far, I shall produce our own
merchants only, who, (let me assure you) will be always as glad
of your corn and cattel as you can be of any thing they bring
you." -- The Life and Reign of King Henry the Eighth, London,
1672, p. 135.
It is not a little discouraging to reflect, that the
mercantile prejudice here combated by this great man, has not yet
yielded entirely to all the philosophical lights of the 18th
century.
Lord Lauderdale has traced some hints of what are commonly
considered as the peculiarities of the economical system, in
various British publications now almost forgotten. The following
extract, from a Treatise published by Mr Asgill, in 1696,
breathes the very spirit of Quesnay's philosophy.
'What we call commodities is nothing but land severed from
the soil. Man deals in nothing but earth. The merchants are the
factors of the world, to exchange one part of the earth for
another. The king himself is fed by the labour of the ox: and the
clothing of the army, and victualling of the navy, must all be
paid for to the owner of the soil as the ultimate receiver. All
things in the world are originally the produce of the ground, and
there must all things be raised.' -- (Inquiry into the Nature and
Origin of Public Wealth. p. 113)
The title of Asgill's Treatise is, 'Several assertions
proved, in order to create another species of Money than Gold.'
Its object was to support Dr Chamberlayne's proposition for a
Land Bank, which he laid before the British House of Commons in
1693, and before the Scottish Parliament in 1703.
It is but justice to the Economists to add, that they have laid more stress than any other class of writers whatsoever, on the principles of political economy, considered in their connection with the intellectual and moral character of a people.
Some of these liberal principles found their way into France
before the end of the 17th century. -- See a very curious book
entitled, Le D tail de la France sous le Rogne Present. The first
edition (which I have never met with), appeared in 1698 or 1699;
the second was printed in 1707. Both editions are anonymous; but
the author is well known to have been M. de Bois-Guilbert; to
whom Voltaire has also (erroneously) ascribed the Projet d'une
dixme Royale, published in the name of the Mar chal de Vauban.
(See the Eph m rides du Citoyen for the year 1769. Tome IX. pp.
12, 13.)
The fortunate expression laissez nous faire, which an old
merchant (Le Gendre) is said to have used in a conversation with
Colbert; and the still more significant maxim of the Marquis
d'Argenson, pas trop gouverner, are indebted chiefly for that
proverbial celebrity which they have now acquired, to the
accidental lustre reflected upon them by the discussion of more
modern times. They must, at the same time, be allowed to evince
in their authors, a clear perception of the importance of a
problem, which Mr Burke has somewhat pronounced to be 'one of the
finest in legislation; -- to ascertain, what the state ought to
take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom; and what it
ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to
individual discretion.' The solution of this problem, in some of
its most interesting cases, may be regarded as one of the
principal objects of Mr Smith's Inquiry; and among the many happy
changes which that work has gradually produced in prevailing
opinions, none is, perhaps, of greater consequence, than its
powerful effect in discrediting that empirical spirit of
tampering Regulation, which the multitude is so apt to mistake
for the provident sagacity of political experience.
I have endeavoured, in a former work, to vindicate, upon the very same principle, some of Mr Smith's political speculation against the charge of being founded rather on theory than on actual experience. I was not aware, till very lately, that this view of the subject had been sanctioned by such high authorities as M. de Gournay and M. Turgot. -- See Philosophy of the Human Mind, pp. 254, 255, 256, 3d edit.
Ceci est, avec la libert du commerce et du travail, un des principaux points sur lesquels M. de Gournay et M. Quesnay on t complettement d'accord.
I have already quoted, from Vanderlint, his opinion about the
freedom of trade. His ideas with respect to taxation I shall also
state in his own words: "I can't dismiss this head without
shewing, that if all the taxes were taken off goods, and levied
on lands and houses only, the gentlemen would have more nett rent
left out of their estates, than they have now when the taxes are
almost wholly levied out of goods." For his argument in proof of
this proposition, see his Essay on Money, p. 109 et seq. See also
Locke's Considerations on the lowering of interest and raising
the Value of Money; published in 1691.
As to the discovery (as it has been called) of the luminous
distinction between the 'produit total' and the 'produit net de
la culture', [See the Eph m rides du Citoyen for the year 1769,
T. I pp. 13, 25 and 26, and T. IX, p. 9.] it is not worth while
to dispute about its author. Whatever merit this theory of
taxation may possess, the whole credit of it evidently belongs to
those who first proposed the doctrine stated in the foregoing
paragraph. The calculations of M. Quesnay, however interesting
and useful they may have appeared in a country where so great a
proportion of the territory was cultivated by Mtayers or Coloni
Partiarii, cannot surely be considered as throwing any new light
on the general principles of Political Economy.
In an Essay read before a literary society in Glasgow, some years before the publication of the Wealth of Nations, Dr Reid disputed the expediency of legal restrictions on the rate of interest; founding his opinion on some of the same considerations which were afterwards so forcibly stated by Mr Bentham. His attention had probably been attracted to this question by a very weak defence of these restrictions in Sir James Steuart's Political Economy; a book which had then been recently published, and which (though he differed widely from many of its doctrines), he was accustomed, in his academical lectures, to recommend warmly to his students. It was indeed the only systematical work on the subject that had appeared in our language, previous to Mr Smith Inquiry.
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