Note 17 — VII THINKING AND READING

This may seem unjustified. Witness, however, this remarkable statement in a prospectus of Charles Eliot’s “Five Foot Shelf”: “ . . . The man who has not read the ‘Wealth of Nations’ is hardly qualified to speak or even think wisely on these vital subjects.” If this be true, Adam Smith himself was hardly qualified because he certainly could not have read his own book before he had written it!