WEALTH OF NATIONS. 197 



effected. Mr. Burke, in a speech on conciliation with 

 America, adverted to such a plan and said, " A great 

 flood stops me in my course. Opposuit natura. I can- 

 not remove the eternal barriers of the creation/'* No 

 representative Government ever can be maintained, when 

 the delegate and his constituents live on the opposite 

 shores of the Atlantic. 



Having now finished the analytical view of this great 

 work, the opinion may, in conclusion, be expressed, 

 which all men are now agreed in entertaining of its pro- 

 digious merits. It may truly be said to have founded 

 the science of Political Economy, as it exists in its new 

 and greatly improved form. Many preceding authors 

 had treated different branches of the subject; 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 principles which he applied to 

 economical questions. Systematic treatises were not 

 wanting which professed to embrace the whole as a sci- 

 ence ; 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 distinguished 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 instance 

 by their application to the others. The copiousness of 



* Works, iii., 91. 



