ADAM SMITH AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS 595 on private interests so as to guide them into the directions AD, 1s in which they would cooperate for the maintenance of national power. Sir James Steuart' and other writers had attenuated the reasons and occasions for such interference more and more, but Adam Smith swept them away. The military and naval power of a country is clearly distinct from the powers of the individual citizens as separate and distinct persons; but there is no such obvious distinction as regards their possessions. It is at least plausible to say that He held the aggregate of the wealth of individual citizens makes up wie ck the wealth of the nation, and that if each is as free as sown possible to pursue his own gain the wealth of the nation national will be sufficiently attended to, and its power will follow as would a matter of course. The concentration of attention on the ~*~ wealth of the nation renders a thorough-going doctrine of economic individualism possible’. When the new conception was once clearly grasped it became obvious that interference with any individual, in the way he conducts his business, can scarcely ever be justified on strictly economic grounds, and that costly attempts to foster exotic trades or to stimulate native industries are on the face of it absurd. The standpoint, which Adam Smith thus took, enabled and that him to render his attack on these special encouragements Yo a much more forcible than would otherwise have been the ments were case. In the seventeenth century the agitations for economic and for political liberty had been blended; exception was taken to the special privileges accorded to the Merchant Ad- venturers and the patentees, because other Englishmen were excluded from certain opportunities of trade. This criticism no longer held good® during the period of Whig Ascendancy; 1 Sir James is still definitely within the circle of the Mercantilist’s ideas, since ne holds so strongly that it is wise for the statesman to direct industry and commerce into the right channels; though he realises, as few of his predecessors had done, that this is a most difficult and delicate operation. 3 Oncken has pointed out that Adam Smith recognises functions and interests of government which do not belong to any individual, and is thus separated from the standpoint of the Manchester School. Z. f. Socialwissenschaft, 1698. 1. 1-3; see also Salomon, William Pitt, 196. 8 Tt reappears in the controversies over the East India Company; Fox's Bill would have shorn it of its powers; Pitt's policy was to continue the power and sfficiency of the Company, but to bring it under proper control. I