122 HISZORr of the SOCIETK 



SrsSh'' no French performance on the fubject, that could be of much 

 ufe to him in guiding his refearches *. In the year 1756, in- 

 deed, M. Turgot (who is faid to have imbibed his firft no- 

 tions concerning the unlimited freedom of commerce from an 

 old merchant, M. Gournay) publifhed in the Encyclopedic, an 

 article which fufficiently (hews how completely his mind was 

 emancipated from the old prejudices in favour of commercial 

 regulations : But that even then, thefe opinions were confined 

 to a few fpeculative men in France, appears from a pafTage in 

 the Memoir es fur la Vie et les Ouvrages de M. Turgot ; in which, 

 after a fhort quotation from the article juft mentioned, the au- 

 thor adds : " Thefe ideas were then confidered as paradoxical; 

 *' they are fince become common, and they will one day be 

 " adopted univerfally." 



The Political Difcourfes of Mr Hume were evidently of 

 greater ufe to Mr Smith, than any other book that had ap- 

 peared prior to his lectures. Even Mr Hume's theories, how- 

 ever, though always plaufible and ingenious, and in mod in- 

 ftances profound and juft, involve fome fundamental miftakes ; 

 and, when compared with Mr Smith's, afford a ftriking proof, 



, that, in considering a fubject fo extenfive and fo complicated, 



the mod penetrating fagacity, if directed only to particular 

 queftions, is apt to be led aftray by firft appearances ; and that 

 nothing can guard us effectually againft error, but a compre- 

 henfive furvey of the whole field of difcuflion, aflifted by an 

 accurate and patient analyfis of the ideas about which our 

 reafonings are employed. — It may be worth while to add, that 

 Mr Hume's EfTay " on the Jealoufy of Trade," with fome other 

 of his Political Difcourfes, received a very flattering proof of 



M. 



* In proof of this, it is fufficiertt for me to appeal to a fhort hiftory of the pro- 

 grefs of political ceconomy in France, publifhed in one of the volumes of Epbemeri~ 

 des du Citoyen. See the firft part of the volume for the year 1769. The paper is 

 entitled, Notice abregee des different* Ectits modernes, qui ont concouru en France a 

 former la fcience de I 'economie politique. 



