The title given by Adam Smith to his immortal work, on the science we are now engaged with, The Xattere and Causes of the Wealth of Xations,' forms at the same time the most precise definition of that science. It presents a much more exact idea than the term political economy, af terwards adopted. The latter designation, at least, re quires to be understood according to the modern accepta tion of the word economy, not according to its etymology. In its present sense economy denotes the preservative, ad ministrative, and the management of property; and it is because we use the somewhat tautological phrase domestic economy for the management of a private fortune, that we have come to use the phrase political economy for the ma nagement of the national fortune.
From the time when men first entered into social union, they must have occupied themselves with the common in terests originating its their wealth. From the beginning. of societies, a portion of the public wealth was set apart to provide for the public wants. The levying and manage ment of this national revenue, which no longer pertained to each, became an essential part in the science of states men. It is what we call finance.
Private fortunes, on the other hand, made the interests of each citizen more complex ; being exposed to the at ta-lcs of cupidity and fraud, their wealth required to be defended by the public authority, according to the funda mental article of the social contract, which had combined the strength of individuals to protect each with the power of all. The rights over property, the divisions of it, the means of transmitting it, became one of the most impor tant branches of civil jurisprudence; and the application of justice to the distribution of national property, formed an essential function of the legislator.
But no inquiry concerning the nature and causes of na tional wealth had occupied the speculations of our ances tors. They had not ascended to the principles of political economy, in order to deduce from that source their sys tems of finance and civil jurisprudence, which ought, how ever, to be nothing more than corollaries from those prin ciples. They had abandoned the development of public wealth to the result of individual efforts, without examin ing their nature ; and thus property had accumulated silently, in each society, by the labour of each artisan to procure his own subsistence, and afterwards his own com forts—before the manner of acquiring and preserving it became an object of scientific speculation. The philoso phers of antiquity were engaged in proving to their disci ples, that riches are useless for happiness ; not in pointing out to governments the laws by which the increase of those riches may be favoured or retarded. The attention of thinking men was at length directed to national wealth by the requisitions of states, and the poverty of the people. An important change which occurred in the general poli tics of Europe, during the sixteenth century, almost every where overturned public liberty; oppressed the smaller states; destroyed the privileges of the towns and provinces; and conferred the right to dispose of national fortunes on a small number of sovereigns, absolutely unacquainted with the industry by which wealth is accumulated or pre served.' Before the reign of Charles V., one half of Eu
rope, lying under the feudal system, had no liberty or know ledge, and no finance. But the other half, which had alrea dy reached a high degree of prosperity, which was daily increasing its agricultural riches, its manufactories, and its trade, was governed by melt who, in private life, bad attended to the study of economy, who, in acquiring their own property, had learned what is suitable in that of states; and who, governing free communities to which they were responsible, guided their administrations, not according to their own ambition, but according to the in terest of all. Till the fifteenth century wealth and credit were no where to be found but in the republics of Italy, and of the Hanseatic league; the imperial towns of Ger many ; the free towns of Belgium and Spain, and perhaps also in some towns of France and England, which happen ed to enjoy great municipal 'privileges. The magistrates of all those towns were men constantly brought up in busi ness, and without having brought political economy to the form of a science, they had yet the feeling as well as the experience of what would serve or injure the interests of their fellow-citizens.
The dreadful wars which began with the nineteenth cen tury, and altogether overturned the balance of Europe, transferred a nearly absolute monarchy to three or four all powerful monarchsovho shared among them the govern relent of the civilized world. Charles V. united, under his dominion, all the countries which had hitherto been ce lebrated for their industry and wealth,—Spain, nearly all Italy, Flanders, and Germany ; but he united after having ruined them ; and his administration, by suppressing all their privileges, prevented the recovery of former opu lence. The most absolute kings can no more govern by themselves, than kings whose authority is limited by laws. The former transmit their power to ministers whom they themselves select, in place of taking such as would be no minated by the popular confidence. But they find them among; a class of persons different from that in which free governments find them. In the eyes of an absolute king, the first quality of a statesman is his being in possession of a rank so high that he may have lived in noble indo lence, or at least in absolute ignorance of domestic econo my. The ministers of Charles V., whatever talents they show for negotiation and intrigue, were all equally ignorant of pecuniary affairs. They ruined the public finances, agriculture, trade, and every kind of industry, from one end of Europe to the other; they made the people feel the difference, which might indeed have been anticipated, be tween their ignorance and the practical knowledge of re publican magistrates.