WEALTH OF NATIONS. 263 



ject; some, as we have seen in the introduction to 

 this Life, had, before Dr. Smith's time, treated several 

 of those branches upon the sound and rational prin- 

 ciples which he applied to economical questions. 

 Systematic treatises were not wanting which professed 

 to embrace the whole as a science ; and of these the 

 most extensive and most valuable was Sir James 

 Stewart's. But the ' Wealth of Nations' combines both 

 the sound and enlightened views which had distin- 

 guished the detached pieces of the French and Italian 

 Economists, and above all, of Mr. Hume, with the 

 great merit of embracing the whole subject, thus bring- 

 ing the general scope of the principles into view, illus- 

 trating all the parts of the inquiry by their combined 

 relations, and confirming their soundness in each in- 

 stance by their application to the others. The copi- 

 ousness of the illustrations keeps pace with the close- 

 ness of the reasoning; and wherever the received 

 prejudices of lawgivers are to be overcome, or popular 

 errors to be encountered, the arguments, and the facts, 

 and the explanations are judiciously given with extra- 

 ordinary fulness, the author wisely disregarding all 

 imputations of prolixity or repetition, in pursuit of the 

 gre^ end of making himself understood, and gaining 

 the victory over error. The chapter on the Mercantile 

 System is an example of this ; but the errors of that 

 widely prevailing theory and its deeply-rooted preju- 

 dices are also encountered occasionally in almost every 

 other part of the work. 



It is a lesser, but a very important merit, that the 

 style of the writing is truly admirable. There is not 

 a book of better English to be any where found. The 

 language is simple, clear, often homely like the illus- 

 trations, not seldom idiomatic, always perfectly adapted 

 to the subject handled. Beside its other, perfections, 

 it is one of the most entertaining of books. There is no 

 laying it down after you begin to read. You are 

 drawn on from page to page by the strong current of 



