n the whole, he saw no reason to call in
question its fundamental dogmas.

Therein, of course, may be found the main secret of his omissions. The
problem of labor finds no place in his book. The things that the poor
have absent from their lives, that concept of a national minimum below
which no State can hope to fulfil even the meanest of its aims, of these
he has no conception. Rather the note of the book is a quiet optimism,
impressed by the possibilities of constant improvement which lie
imbedded in the human impulse to better itself. What he did not see is
the way in which the logical outcome of the system he describes may
well be the attainment of great wealth at a price in human cost that is
beyond its worth. Therein, it is clear, all individualistic theories of
the state miss the true essence of the social bond. Those who came after
Adam Smith saw only half his problem. He wrote a consumer's theory of
value. But whereas he had in mind a happy and contented people, the
economics of Ricardo and Malthus seized upon a single element in human
nature as that which alone the State must serve. Freedom from restraint
came ultimately to mean a judgment upon national well-being in terms of
the volume of trade. "It is not with happiness," said Nassau Senior,
"but with wealth that I am concerned as a political economist; and I am
not only justified in omitting, but am perhaps bound to omit, all
considerations which have no influence upon wealth."

In such an aspect, it was natural for the balance of investigation to
swing towards the study of the technique of production; and with the
growing importance of capital, as machinery was introduced, the worker,
without difficulty, became an adjunct, easily replaced, to the machine.
What was remembered then was the side of Adam Smith which looked upon
enlightened selfishness as the key to social good. Regulation became
anathema even when the evils it attempted to restrain were those which
made the mass of the people incapable of citizenship. Even national
education was regarded as likely to destroy initiative; or, as a
pauper's dole which men of self-respect would regard with due
abhorrence. The State, in short, ceased to concern itself with justice
save insofar as the administration of a judicial code spelled the
protection of the new industrial system. Nothing is more striking in the
half-century after Adam Smith than the optimism of the economist and the
business man in contrast