Life of Adam Smith (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Life of Adam Smith

The economist possesses a certain advantage over the metaphysician and the man of letters. His department of knowledge is not Old enough to have had periods of want of progress, and even Of backward movement. He has not to torment himself by Observing how much less the Greeks were embarrassed by conceptions, such as that Of the distinction of subject and Object, which today hinder us by thrusting themselves with irresistible force upon philosopher and man of letters alike. His is an unbroken history Of advances in the direction of in tellectual freedom. It is with the name of Adam Smith that the most important of these advances are associated. His work was something more than the overthrow of the agricultural and mercantile systems, and the extirpa tion of certain subtle prejudices derived from the doctrines of these systems by persons who did not in terms profess them. He threw the lessons Of modern political economy into a systematic form, and thereby left them advanced a stage in their development.

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