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. 
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