1.D. 1689 
—1776. 
without 
direct re- 
ference to 
power, he 
wreated 
Economic 
Science. 
PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
seople,” the second was “to supply the State or common- 
wealth, with a revenue sufficient for the public services.” 
He simply discussed the subject of wealth; its bearing on 
the condition of the State appeared an after-thought. He 
solated the connection of National Wealth and pub it 
forward as the subject matter of his treatise; and in this 
way he may be said to have brought into clear light the 
principles which underlay Parliamentary Colbertism. Those 
who developed this system had concerned themselves about 
increasing -the mass of national wealth of any and every 
tind, as the indirect means of securing national power. 
\dam Smith gave clearness to the notions which were im- 
lied in their practice. It was his main achievement to 
reat national wealth as separable from other elements in 
political life, and in this way he defined the scope of the 
scientific study of Economics? 
[t thus came about that he cut away the political 
grounds which had been commonly urged for interfering 
with the ordinary course of business. In former times it 
had been possible to insist that some kinds of wealth were 
more important for the promotion of national power than 
others. and that it was the work of the statesman to play 
104, 
+ Wealth of Nations, 1V., introduction, p. 173. 
1 By isolating wealth as a subject for study he introduced an immense simpli- 
tcation. The examination of economic phenomena became more definite; and 
‘ust because Adam Smith achieved this result his work rendered it possible to ask 
1ew questions, and so to make a real advance in every direction of social study. 
Not till we isolate wealth and examine how it is procured and how it may be used, 
san we really set about enquiring how material goods may be made to subserve 
the highest ends of human life. National rivalries and national power are but 
mean things after all; but till the study of wealth was dissociated from these 
lower aims, it was hardly possible to investigate empirically how we could make 
the most of the resources of the world as a whole, and how material goods might 
be best applied for the service of man. It is owing to Adam Smith, and the 
manner in which he severed Economics from Politics, that we can raise and 
liscuss, even if we cannot solve, such problems to-day. 
Similarly, we find the clearest testimony to his greatness in the new form 
which the old enquiries assumed. He severed economic science from politics; he 
dealt with it as concerned with physical objects and natural laws. To his English 
predecessors it had been a department of politics or morals ; while many of his 
English successors recognised that in his hands it had become more analogous to 
physics, and delighted to treat it by the methods of mechanical science. ‘Whether 
sonsciously or unconsciously, he gave the turn to economic problems which has 
arought about the development of modern economic theory.