in the Customs.  Until the end, indeed, he never quite gave up the hope, foreshadowed first in the Moral Sentiments of completing a gigantic survey of civilized institutions.  But he was a slow worker, and his health was never robust.  It was enough that he should have written his book and cherished friendships such as it is given to few men to possess.  Hume and Burke, Millar the jurist, James Watt, Foulis the printer, Black the chemist and Hutton of geological fame—­it is an enviable circle.  He had known Turgot on intimate terms and visited Voltaire on Lake Geneva.  Hume had told him that his book had “depth and solidity and acuteness”; the younger Pitt had consulted him on public affairs.  Few men have moved amid such happy peace within the very centre of what was most illustrious in their age.

We are less concerned here with the specific economic details of the Wealth of Nations than with its general attitude to the State.  But here a limitation upon criticism must be noted.  The man of whom Smith writes is man in search of wealth; by definition the economic motive dominates his actions.  Such abuse, therefore, as Ruskin poured upon him is really beside the point when his objective is borne in mind.  What virtually he does is to assume the existence of a natural economic order which tends, when unrestrained by counter-tendencies, to secure the happiness of men.  “That order of things which necessity imposes in general,” he writes, “... is, in every particular country promoted by the natural inclinations of man”; and he goes on to explain what would have resulted “if human institutions had never thwarted those natural inclinations.”  “All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away,” he writes again, “the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord.  Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest in his own way....  The sovereign is completely discharged from a duty in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge would ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interests of the society.”

The State, in this conception has but three functions—­defence, justice and “the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain.”  The State, in fact, is simply to provide the atmosphere in which production is possible.  Nor does Smith conceal his thought that the main function of justice is the protection of property.  “The affluence of the rich,” he wrote, “excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want and