out of place as a silk hat with a sack coat. These disquisitions do not belong with a discussion of the problems of public revenue, unless the whole subject of public revenue is organized into a much wider philosophy of society than Smith has outlined in The Wealth of Nations. All he needs for the immediate uses of his main inquiry is a list of the actual purposes for which the British type of society must provide. In such an excursus as the one just noted he does not go far enough to get at the roots of the question: Should society provide at all for such an object? He merely goes far enough to make his real argument carry a needless burden of luggage.

The same comments are in point in connection with the next subject, "Of the Expence of the Institutions for the Instruction of People of All Ages." The substance of the section may be inferred from the opening sentence: "The institutions for the instruction of people of all ages are chiefly those for religious instruction." Then follows an abbreviated history and critique of ecclesiastical institutions.13 It is grotesquely out of proportion, in whatever light it is considered. For the reason alluded to in the case of schools, it is uncalled for as a preliminary to discussion of British revenues. As a treatise on the struc

13 II, pp. 309-39.

ture and functions of ecclesiastical institutions as tributary to civilization in general, it opens up all the unsettled questions of sociology. A foundation of general sociology would have to be installed before opinions on such complex subjects could have a scientific basis. As in the section on educational institutions, this inquiry into the administration of ecclesiastical institutions is full of partially generalized and partially co-ordinated wisdom. The closing paragraph is characteristic:

The proper performance of every service seems to require that its pay or recompense should be, as exactly as possible, proportioned to the nature of the service. If any service is very much underpaid, it is very apt to suffer by the meanness and incapacity of the greater part of those who are employed in it. If it is very much overpaid, it is apt to suffer, perhaps, still more by their negli- . gence and idleness. A man of a large revenue, whatever may be his profession, thinks he ought to live like other men of large revenues; and to spend a great part of his time in festivity, in vanity, and in dissipation. But in a clergyman, this train of life not only consumes the time which ought to be employed in the duties of his function, but in the eyes of the common people destroys almost entirely that sanctity of character which can alone enable him to perform those duties with proper weight and authority."

Part IV in Chapter I of Book V was referred

14 II, p. 339.

to above in evidence of the shifting senses in which Smith uses the term "sovereign." The title of the section is, "Of the Expence of Supporting the Dignity of the Sovereign." Here it is plain that the "sovereign" is not the state, nor the people, but the monarch. The plain proposition which is in the line of the prospectus of Book V is merely that the public revenues must provide for the support of the chief magistrate. Smith incontinently restricts himself to a skimpy half-page on this subject, when by parity of reasoning it might fairly have consumed at least a score of pages. Then, as though under conviction of sin for his errors of commission in the onehundred-and-thirty-four-page-long chapter, he recapitulates all that is really pertinent in it in less than two pages. Still further abbreviated, it amounts to this:

The expence of defending the society, and that of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, are both laid out for the general benefit of the whole society. It is reasonable, therefore, that they should be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society, all the different members contributing, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities. Other items of national expence are not so obviously for the benefit of the commonwealth as a whole. The burden of these items may, therefore, reasonably be borne in part by the particular persons who cause the expence, or get the initial benefit

of it. Such items are the administration of justice, local or provisional outlays, turnpikes, educational or ecclesiastical institutions, etc. The general revenue of the society, over and above defraying the expence of defending the society, and of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, must make up for the deficiency of many particular branches of revenue.

15

Recurring to a point mentioned above, the reader will probably have noticed that the schedule of reasons for appropriating public expenses between the commonwealth and certain more interested or responsible members of the state, hardly bore the evidence of completeness. One need not be an expert in higher criticism to be tolerably confident in the opinion that Smith was not thoroughly clear in his own mind as to what he was trying to do in the chapter. It contains a number of incoherent ventures in general social philosophy. Among them the least successful was the excursion into administrative philosophy, in which he attempted to outline a scheme of apportioning civic expenses. His program stimulates the expectation that he will try to probe the subject thoroughly. He disappoints this hope ignominiously. His treatment of the subject is altogether sophomoric. With the exception of the six reasons scheduled above, he

15 II, p. 341.

avoids the problem altogether, and has recourse to the diversions in general social philosophy which we have reviewed.

But is it not finical, and even self-contradictory, to begin with laudation of Adam Smith for casting his whole conception of life within a framework of general moral philosophy, and to end by reproaching him for applying his economic technology to concrete moral situations? Yes; if that were what is meant by the foregoing criticisms, they would be both inconsistent and petulant. That is not what is meant. The criticism just passed is not an objection to the application of economic technique to decisions about complex questions of public policy. The objection is to confusion of the technical economic factors in questions of policy with other factors; and especially to premature waiving of the necessary social analysis, and substitution of miscellaneous generalization for analysis of the social factors to the limit. The question, for example, of the type of educational or religious establishments most conducive to the welfare of a nation is an altogether broader question than can properly be discussed on the mere basis of a theory of public finance. Each of these questions presupposes preliminaries which involve the whole scope of sociological theory. The problems of