tore but by making another poorer; but
trade procures what is more valuable, the reciprocation of the
peculiar advantages of different countries. A merchant seldom thinks
but of his own particular trade. To write a good book upon it a man
must have extensive views; it is not necessary to have practised to
write well upon a subject."

It is not within the scope of a work like the present to give an
account of the doctrines of the _Wealth of Nations_, or any estimate
of their originality or value, or of their influence on the progress
of science, on the policy and prosperity of nations, or on the
practical happiness of mankind. Buckle, as we know, declared it to be
"in its ultimate results probably the most important book that has
ever been written"; a book, he said, which has "done more towards the
happiness of man than has been effected by the united abilities of all
the statesmen and legislators of whom history has preserved an
authentic account";[246] and even those who take the most sober view
of the place of this work in history readily admit that its public
career, which is far from being ended yet, is a very remarkable story
of successive conquest.

It has been seriously asserted that the fortune of the book in this
country was made by Fox quoting it one day in the House of Commons.
But this happened in November 1783, after the book had already gone
through two editions and was on the eve of appearing in a third. It is
curious, however, that that was the first time it was quoted in the
House, and it is curious, again, that the person to quote it then was
Fox, who was neither an admirer of the book, nor a believer in its
principles, nor a lover of its subject. He once told Charles Butler
that he had never read the book, and the remark must have been made
many years after its publication, for it was made at St. Anne's Hill,
to which Fox only went in 1785. "There is something in all these
subjects," the statesman added in explanation, "which passes my
comprehension; something so wide that I could never embrace them
myself nor find any one who did."[247] On another occasion, when he
was dining one evening in 1796 at Sergeant Heywood's, Fox showed his
hearty disdain for Smith and political economy together. The Earl of
Lauderdale, who was himself an economist of great ability, and by no
means a blind follower of Smith, made the remark that we knew nothing
of political economy before Adam Smith wrote. "Pooh," said Fox