I20 History of the English Landed htteresi. 



So far our author has proved the necessity and use of three 

 distinct factors in a nation's wealth, and therefore of three 

 distinct classes in every community. The rents, wages, and 

 profits of public riches must be distributed among the three 

 ranks of landlord, labourer, and merchant ; but the power by 

 which those public riches are created is labour, and they are 

 diminished or increased in proportion as labour is diminished 

 or increased. The true object, therefore, of the political econo- 

 mist at length appears in view. It is to increase the national 

 labour, \ij perfecting its productive powers, and by augmenting 

 the number of those employed in proportion to the increasing 

 number of the consumers. When Adam Smith had explained 

 the nature of the three great agencies — viz., division of labour, 

 invention of machinery, accumulation of capital — for effecting 

 these two modes of increasing the national labour, the object 

 of his life was accomplished, and he had earned that universal 

 fame which his countrymen have long since admitted was not 

 more than his due. 



But the great economist had not produced a faultless 

 work. It has been remarked of that potent mistress to 

 whom he always appealed when in want of advice, '■^ Natura 

 lion facit saUum ;^^ and it would indeed have been a mighty 

 leap from the errors of the Quesnai school had nature pro- 

 duced from the brain of Adam Smith an absolutely imma- 

 culate system. His notions of what was natural were still 

 tainted with the teaching of the physiocrats, and he often 

 mistook what was unnatural for what his peculiar bent of 

 mind imagined not to be so.^ More perhaps by omission than 

 in specific words, he implies that what might be most advan- 

 tageous for the unit of society need not necessarily be most 

 advantageous for society at large. ^ Though he admitted that 

 agriculture was not the only productive industrj?-, he believed 

 it to be the most productive. Though he contended that 

 whenever the State, even though prompted by the most dis- 

 interested motives, interfered with any industry, it did more 



^ Principles of Economics^ c\i.iv. Marshall. 



^ According to Professor Nicliolson this implication of Smith's is 

 proper. 



