There is something of a cult of Adam Smith at present. One devotee (George J. W. Goodman) has appropriated Smith's name to sell books about making money, others advise local and central governments in Britain and administrations in the United States of America, and some content themselves with wearing neckties of red or blue emblazoned with his head. It is not clear that Adam Smith would have approved of these enterprises. Contemporaries were disappointed that he did not leave more money in his will, but he had apparently given a great deal of it away in secret charity. His policy advice was requested by various governments, but his wisest counsel about ending the American revolutionary war was ignored. He put his privacy before public attention, and even denied David Hume's deathbed wish that he oversee publication of the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), because he was "uneasy" about the...