The Wealth of Nations_ Books 4-5 - Adam Smith [26]
133. WN, V.i.b.25; p.310.
134. WN, V.i.b.20, 21; p.307.
135. WN, V.i.i.2; p.405.
136. WN, V.i.d.4.; p.312.
137. WN, V.i.d.6; p.312.
138. This aspect of Smith’s work has been emphasized by Nathan Rosenberg in ‘Some Institutional Aspects of The Wealth of Nations’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 18 (1960), reprinted in J. C. Wood, Adam Smith: Critical Assessment (1984).
139. WN, V.i.f.4; p.348.
140. WN, V.i.d.9; p.314.
141. WN, I.i.11; Vol. 1, p.117.
142. WN, V.i.f.50; p.368.
143. R. Heilbroner, ‘The Paradox of Progress: Decline and Decay in The Wealth of Nations’, in A. S. Skinner and T. Wilson (eds.), Essays on Adam Smith (1975).
144. WN, I.i.8; Vol. 1, p.114.
145. WN, V.i.f.60; p.374.
146. WN, V.i.f.50; p.368.
147. See Section 1 of the Introduction to the Penguin edition of WN, Vol. 1.
148. WN, V.i.g.12; p.383.
149. WN, V.i.g.15; p.384.
150. WN, V.i.f.60; p.374.
151. WN, V.i.f.54; p.372.
152. WN, V.i.f.57; p.372.
153. WN, V.i.f.53; p.371.
154. Lectures, pp. 329–30.
155. WN, V.i.g.14; p.384.
156. WN, V.i.f.23; p.356.
157. WN, II.i.17; Vol. 1, p.377.
158. WN, V.i.f.61; p.375.
159. WN, V.i.i.5; p.406.
160. WN, V.i.f.55; p.371
161. WN, V.i.f.6; p.349.
162. See especially Smith’s letter to William Cullen, dated 20 September 1774 (Corr, letter 143). Cullen had written to Smith seeking his opinion on proposals from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The petition suggested that doctors should be graduates, that they should have attended university for at least two years and that they should present themselves for examination. Smith rejected the proposals from the Royal College. As he wrote to Cullen: ‘There never was, and I will venture to say there never will be, a University from which a degree could give any tolerable security, that the person upon whom it had been conferred, was fit to practise physic’ (Corr, p 176).
But the most telling argument was based on the advantage of competition: You propose, I observe, that no person should be admitted to examination for his degree unless he brought a certificate of his having studied at least two years in some University. Would not such a regulation be oppressive upon all private teachers, such as the Hunters, Hewson, Fordyce, etc? The scholars of such teachers surely merit whatever honour or advantage a degree can confer, much more than the greater part of those who havespent many years in some Universities, where the different branches of medical knowledge are either not taught at all, or are taught so superficially that they had as well not be taught at all. When a man has learnt his lesson very well, it surely can be of little importance where or from whom he has learnt it.
163. WN, V.i.g.39; p.400.
164. WN, V.i.f.8; p.350.
165. WN, V.i.f.13; p.351.
166. WN, V.i.f.9; p.351.
167. Lionel Robbins, The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy (1953), p.12.
168. Jacob Viner, ‘Adam Smith and Laissez-Faire’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 35 (1928); J. C. Wood, Adam Smith: Critical Assessment (1984), Vol. I, p.64. See the introduction to Vol. 1, Section 2.
169. WN, IV.vii.b.51; p.166. The most complete analysis of Smith’s position in this respect is provided by Donald Winch, Adam Smith’s Politics: An Essay in Historiographic Revision (1978).
170. WN, IV.v.b.53; p.123. The best known statement occurs in TMS, VI.ii.2.6: Where the statesman
cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force… He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and he will remedy as well as he can, the inconveniences which may flow from the want of those regulations which the people are averse to submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will endeavour to establish the best that the people