always uses them strictly in the sense proposed. Such a liberty however may be fairly questioned; at least, it must be allowed that if a person chooses to give a very unusual and inadequate definition in reference to the subject on which he proposes to treat, he may at once render his inquiries completely futile. If for instance, a writer professing to treat of the wealth of nations were to define wealth as consisting exclusively of broad cloth, it is obvious that however consistent he might be in the use of his terms, or however valuable a treatise he might produce on this one article, he would have given very little information to those who were looking for a treatise on wealth according to any common or useful acceptation of the term.
So important indeed is an appropriate definition, that perhaps it is not going too far to say, that the comparative merits of the system of the Economists,[1] and of that of Adam Smith depend upon their different definitions of wealth, and of productive labour. If the definitions which the economists have given of wealth and of productive labour, be the most useful and correct, their system, which is founded on them, is the correct one. If the definitions which Adam Smith has given of these terms accord best with the sense in which they are usually applied, and embrace more of the objects, the increase or decrease of which we wish to make the subject of our inquiry, his system must be considered as superior both in utility and correctness.
Of those writers who have either given a regular definition of wealth, or have left the sense in which they understand the term to be collected from their works, some appear to have confined it within too narrow limits, and others to have extended it greatly too far. In the former class the Economists stand pre-
- ↑ The reader will understand that when the term the Economists is used, it is intended to apply to the French economists, of the school of Quesnay. In order the better to mark the distinction from other economists, without circumlocution, italics are used.
