An Inquiry Into The Nature and Causes of The Wealth Of Nations [antikvár]

introductory.*Of the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,An historical view of the different forms under which human aflfairs have appeared in different ages and nations, naturally suggests the question. Whether the experience of former times may not now furnish some general principles to enlighten and direct the policy of future legislators ? The discussion, however, to which this question leads, is of singular difficulty ; as it requires an accurate analysis of by far the most complicated class of phenomena that can possibly engage our attention, those which result from the intricate and often the imperceptible mechanism of political society ;a subject of observation which seems, at first view, so little commensurate to our faculties, that it has been generallj regarded with the same passive emotions of wonder and submission with which, in the material world, we survey the effects produced by the mysterious and uncontrollable operation of physical causes. It is fortunate that upon this, as upon many other occasions, the difficulties which had long baffled the efforts of solitary genius begin to appear less formidable to the united exertions of the race; and that in proportion as the experience and the reasonings of different individuals are brought to bear upon the same objects, and are combined in such a manner as to illustrate and to limit each other, the science of politics assumes more and more that systematical form which encourages and aids the labours of future inquirers.In prosecuting the science of politics on this plan, little assistance is to be derived from the speculations of ancient philosophers, the greater part of whom, in their political inquiries, confined their attention to a comparison of the different forms of government, and to an examination of the provisions they made for perpetuating their own existence, and for extending the glory of the state. It was reserved for modern times to investigate those universal principles of justice and of expediency, which ought, under every form of government, to regulate the social order; and of which the object is to make as equitable a distribution as possible, among all the different members of a community, of the advantages arising from the political union.The invention of printing was perhaps necessary to prepare the way foi these researches. In those departments of literature and of science, where genius finds within itself the materials of its labours ; in poetry, in pure geometry, and in some branches of moral philosophy; the ancients have not only laid the foundations on which we are to build, but have left great and finished models for our imitation. But in physics, where our progress depends on an immense collection of facts, and on a combination of the accidental lights daily struck out in the innumerable walks of observation and experiment \ and in politics, where the materials of our theories are equally scattered, and are collected and arranged with still greater difficulty, the means of communication afforded by the press have, in the course of two centuries, accelei ited the progiess of the human mind far beyond what the most sanguine hopes of our predecessors could have imagined.^ From Memoir by Dugald Stuart on the works of Adam Smith, LL.D.