C ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND

“ natural courfe, which force things into anothertL channel, or which endeavour to arrelt the pro-u grefs of fociety at a particular point, arc unna-“ tural, and to fupport themfelves are obliged to

“ be opprefhve and tyrannical.-A great part

“ of the opinions (he obferves) enumerated inct this paper, is treated of at length in fome lec-“ tures which I have Hill by me, and which werewritten in the hand of a clerk who left my fer-“ vice fix years ago. They have all of them been“ the conffant fubje&s of my lectures fince I firll“ taught Mr. Craigie’s clafs, the firfl winter I“ fpent in Glafgow, down to this day, with out<£ any confiderable variation. They had all of“ them been the fubjeifs of lectures which I read<£ at Edinburgh the winter before I left it, and I<{ can adduce innumerable witneffes both from“ that place and from this, who will afcertain“ them fufficiently to be mine.”

After all, perhaps the merit of fuch a -work asMr. Smith’s is to be eftimated lefs from the novel-ty of the principles it contains, than from the rea-fonings employed to fupport thefe principles, andfrom the fcientific manner in which they are un-folded in their proper order and connexion.General affertions with refpeft to the advantagesof a free commerce, may be cohered fromvarious writers of an early date. But in queffionsof fo complicated a nature as occur in political