OF SOCIETY. 541 



of mental and moral philosophy. There was no in- 

 tention to exhaust the philosophical problem as a whole, 

 nor even the social problem, by discussion of its purely 

 economic and industrial aspects. In common with the 

 whole of the Scottish school of philosophy Adam Smith 

 accepted the common-sense view, that there exists in 

 human affairs an over - ruling Providence and Divine 

 guidance. In this great scheme the individual or selfish 

 interest played an important part, and it was the aim 

 of the ' Wealth of Nations ' to investigate how this 

 desire for self - improvement would and should act if 

 liberated from the numerous fetters and restrictions to 

 which it had, in the course of modern history, been 

 artificially subjected. Some of Adam Smith's followers 

 in England isolated the economic problem still further, 

 and treated it as a special subject which could be dealt 

 with apart from any regard for its intricate connection 

 with other, notably the moral and religious, problems. 

 They lived in an age and country that had achieved 

 much in practical industry by the division of labour, 

 and in science by an exclusive use of the analysing 

 and dissecting, combined with the artificially synthe- 

 sising, methods of thought. Looking only at the great 

 successes which these methods had attained in physics 

 and chemistry and neglecting the opposite tendency, that 

 which Comte had significantly termed the esprit d' ensemble, 

 the consideration of things in their natural " together," 

 they furnished a good example of that " ignoble meta,- 

 physiqiie which pretends to study the general laws of 

 a material order by isolating it from every other order." 

 The two principal representatives of this school of 



