[18] See Wealth of Nations, Book II, chap. v, "Of the Different Employment of Capitals."
[19] Wealth of Nations, Book I, chap. v. See also the plea for free trade, Book IV, chap. ii: "But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or, rather, is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value."
[20] "The difference of natural talents in different men is in reality much less than we are aware of." Wealth of Nations, Book I, chap. ii.
[21] "Mit diesen philosophischen Ueberzeugungen tritt nun Adam Smith an die Welt der Enfahrung heran, und es ergiebt sich ihm die Richtigkeit der Principien. Der Reiz der Smith'schen Schriften beruht zum grossen Teile darauf, dass Smith die Principien in so innige Verbindung mit dem Thatsächlichen gebracht. Hie und da werden dann auch die Principien, was durch diese Verbindung veranlasst wird, an ihren Spitzen etwas abgeschliffen, ihre allzuscharfe Ausprägung dadurch vermieden. Nichtsdestoweniger aber bleiben sie stets die leitenden Grundgedanken." Richard Zeyss, Adam Smith und der Eigennutz (Tübingen, 1889), p. 110.
[22] See, e.g., Malthus and his Work, especially Book III, as also the chapter on Malthus in Philosophy and Political Economy, Book III, Modern Philosophy: Utilitarian Economics, chap. i, "Malthus."
[23] Ricardo is here taken as a utilitarian of the Benthamite color, although he cannot be classed as a disciple of Bentham. His hedonism is but the uncritically accepted metaphysics comprised in the common sense of his time, and his substantial coincidence with Bentham goes to show how well diffused the hedonist preconception was at the time.
[24] Cf. Bonar, Malthus and his Work, pp. 323-336.
[25] His work is an inquiry into "the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations."
[26] "The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labor or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations." Wealth of Nations, "Introduction and Plan," opening paragraph.
[27] "The produce of the earth—all that is derived from its surface by the united application of labor, machinery, and capital—is divided among three classes of the community.... To determine the laws which regulate this distribution, is the principal problem of political economy." Political Economy, Preface.