nselfish side of man's nature, in the _Wealth of Nations_ he was
dealing with a group of facts which required the abstraction of such
altruistic elements, are really beside the point. Nature for Smith is
simply the spontaneous action of human character unchecked by hindrances
of State. It is, as Bonar has aptly said, "a vindication of the
unconscious law present in the separate actions of men when these
actions are directed by a certain strong personal motive." Adam Smith's
argument is an assumption that the facts can be made to show the
relative powerlessness of institutions in the face of economic laws
grounded in human psychology. The psychology itself is relatively
simple, and, at least in the _Wealth of Nations_ not greatly different
from the avowed assumptions of utilitarianism. He emphasizes the
strength of reason in the economic field, and his sense that it enables
men to judge much better of their best interests than an external
authority can hope to do. And therefore the practices accomplished by
this reason are those in which the impulses of men are to be found. The
order they represent is the natural order; and whatever hinders its full
operation is an unwise check upon the things for which men strive.

Obviously enough, this attitude runs the grave risk of seeming to
abstract a single motive--the desire for wealth--from the confused
welter of human impulses and to make it dominant at the expense of human
nature itself. A hasty reading of Adam Smith would, indeed, confirm that
impression; and that is perhaps why he seemed to Ruskin to blaspheme
human nature. But a more careful survey, particularly when the _Moral
Sentiments_ is borne in mind suggests a different conclusion. His
attitude is implicit in the general medium in which he worked. What he
was trying to do was less to emphasize that men care above all things
for the pursuit of wealth than that no institutional modifications are
able to destroy the power of that motive to labor. There is too much
history in the _Wealth of Nations_ to make tenable the hypothesis of
complete abstraction. And there is even clear a sense of a nature behind
his custom when he speaks of a "sacred regard" for life, and urges that
every man has property in his own labor. The truth here surely is that
Smith was living in a time of commercial expansion. What was evident to
him was the potential wealth to be made available if the obsolete system
of restraint could be destroyed. L