Note i-217 — INTRODUCTION

According to Jacob Viner ("Adam Smith and Laissez Faire," in Adam Smith, 1776-1926. Lectures to Commemorate the Sesqui-Centennial of the Publication of 'The Wealth of Nations,' 116-55), "Smith's major claim to fame ... seems to rest on his elaborate and detailed application to the economic world of the concept of a unified natural order, operating according to natural law, and if left to its own course producing results beneficial to mankind" (p. 118), which suggests, especially in Theory of Moral Sentiments, that self-love and social are the same. When Smith came to write the Wealth of Nations, he tended, Viner asserts, to distrust the operations of the harmonious natural order—yet Viner admits that many passages tend to corroborate his earlier view expressed in Theory of Moral Sentiments and that "There is no possible room for doubt that Smith in general believed that there was, to say the least, a stronger presumption against government activity beyond its fundamental duties of protection against its foreign foes and maintenance of justice" (p. 140). We shall see elsewhere that Franklin seems to have urged a less frugal governmental restraint in activities other than economic.