(1742-1799), the author of an excellent work Sulla Riforma degli istituti Pii (1787,) containing wise and prudent maxims on the organisation of public poor-relief. Even now it may be profitably consulted. The same question had been discussed at Modena, half a century before, but only incidentally and from the ecclesiastical point of view, by the illustrious Antonio Muratori (Della Carità cristiana, 1723, 4to). Perhaps Ricci might also be recognised as a distinguished financial writer, if his work Dei Tributi (3 vols. folio, 1783) were published. It is at present quite unknown to economic historians. Thus we see that during the last half of the eighteenth century, Italy was rich in industrious and worthy economists, full of zeal for the public good, and working together for the principles of civil reform. Doubtless France and England stood first in economic science, but Italy could claim an honourable position among cultured and enlightened nations.

CHAPTER V.

ADAM SMITH AND HIS IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS.

ADAM SMITH was not the founder of the economic science, nor even the framer of a doctrine resting on fixed foundations, and complete in all its applications. But he was undoubtedly the greatest economist the world has ever seen. He gathered together and coordinated all existing materials relating to individual theories. He corrected the exaggerations of the physiocratic school, while retaining whatever was good in its system. He enriched the science with several theories hardly approached before his time, and gave a better form to many others. Again, the method which he pursued was especially well adapted to economic investigations. Finally he deduced from the principles of the science the most important applications which could be made from them to the economic and financial government of States; uniting with a genuinely liberal and independent spirit that moderation and maturity of mind which distinguishes men of genius from those who are blinded by party spirit, and by the tyranny of prejudices and exclusive ideas. It has been excellently observed by Roscher that Adam Smith stands in the centre of economic history; and that whatever was

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written before and has been written since may be considered respectively as the preparation for, and the complement of, his doctrine. It is surprising that there has been as yet no complete monograph on this eminent author,-biographical, bibliographical and criticalwhich might impartially determine his scientific value, in relation to the later progress of the science.

The essays of Blanqui (1843), Cousin (1850), and Monjean, are by no means adequate to these demandsnor those, more recent and more accurate in parts, by Lavergne (1859), by Laspeyres (1865), by Du Puynode (1865), by Oncken (1874), by Chevalier (1875), by Inama, by Luzzati, by Bagehot (1876), and by Helfnich (1877).

The longest and most accurate biography is one by Dugald Stewart, Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. iii. Part I. (1793), p. 55-537. It has been reprinted several times, and is contained, with some additions, in the second volume of the works of Stewart, edited by Sir William Hamilton (London, 1858).

McCulloch enriched the biography of Adam Smith with some fresh particulars, which are given in the Introduction to his edition of the Wealth of Nations (London, 1828, 4 vols. 8vo), and again in his Treatises and Essays (2nd ed., London, 1858, 8vo).

J. F. B. Baert, Adam Smith en zyn onderzoek naar den rykdom der Volken. Leyden, 1858. (This is a very accurate work, and full of information, but wanting in acuteness of criticism.)

G. Ricca-Salerno, L'economia politica di Adamo Smith. In the Archivio Giuridico, Vol. xvii., Bologna, 1876, p. 301-320. (The best Italian essay on the subject. )

Aug. Oncken, Adam Smith und Immanuel Kant. Der Einklang und das Weschselverhältniss ihrer Lehren über Sitte, Staat und Wirthschaft, Part I. This work shows the connection between Adam Smith's economic ideas and his moral and political theories. It is, however, frequently inaccurate.

W. von Skarzynski, Adam Smith als Moralphilosoph und Schöpfer der Nationalökonomie. Berlin, 1878, 8vo. (This writer is too ready to depreciate Adam Smith in comparison with the physiocrats.)

Adam Smith was born at the village of Kirkcaldy, in 1723. He studied at the University of Glasgow (173740), and then at that of Oxford. In 1748 he went to Edinburgh, where he gave lectures on rhetoric and literature, and gained the friendship of David Hume. The philosophical and moral sciences had more attraction for him than literature, and at Glasgow, where he had first pursued those sciences, he obtained in 1751 the chair of Logic, and in 1752 that of Moral Philosophy. From 1752 to 1763 he was teaching moral philosophy. He divided the subject into four parts, natural theology, ethics properly so-called, political law and political economy. At that time Hume's Economic Essays had appeared, and they must have helped to fix Adam Smith's attention on the problems of the social ordering of wealth. There were also many writings of the French physiocrats which he probably consulted. While he was teaching at Glasgow, he published (1759) his work on the Theory of the Moral Sentiments. This ethical treatise was founded on the principle of sympathy. It agreed generally with the theories professed by the Scotch school, of which Hutcheson and Reid were the leaders, and Adam Smith himself one of the most

intelligent and active followers. The manner and the amount of his economic teaching, and the relations between his opinions at that time and those of the French school are points which remain obscure. Some of his biographers have asserted, but without producing adequate proof, that the principles laid down by the illustrious Scotchman in 1776 are in perfect accordance with those taught from the Glasgow chair more than twenty years before. It is much to be wished that some critic should consult the manuscripts of his lectures, which are said to be preserved, so as to discover what truth there is in this assertion. Having left the University in 1764, Adam Smith became tutor to the young Duke of Buccleugh, and accompanied him in journeys on the continent, more especially in France. They stayed for nearly twelve months in Paris, where Adam Smith was much in the society of Quesnay, Turgot, and other philosophers, publicists, and economists, making many cordial friends among them, and acquiring a more thorough knowledge of the economic doctrines of the French school. Returning from abroad in October, 1760, he retired to his native village, Kirkcaldy, and after ten years of preparation published his great work.

Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776, two vols. 4to.

Smith's work was translated into the principal languages of Europe. The first Italian translation was published at Naples, in five vols. 8vo, 1780; but the best is that in Ferrara's Biblioteca dell' Economista. Praise has been given, among the French translations, to that by the Count Garnier, and among the German translations to a recent one by C. W. Asher (Stuttgart, 1861, two vols. 8vo). Among the annotated English