THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. BY ADAM SMITH EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, MARGINAL BY EDWIN CANNAN, M.A., LL.D. PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON VOLUME. I METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON Third Edition THE PREFACE HE text of the present edition is copied from that of the fifth, the last published before Adam Smith's death. The fifth edition has been carefully collated with the first, and wherever the two were found to disagree the history of the alteration has been traced through the intermediate editions. With some half-dozen utterly insignificant exceptions such as a change of these' to 'those,' 'towards' to 'toward,' and several haphazard substitutions of conveniences' for 'conveniencies,' the results of this collation are all recorded in the footnotes, unless the difference between the editions is quite obviously and undoubtedly the consequence of mere misprints, such as 'is' for 'it,' that' for 'than,' 'becase' for 'because'. Even undoubted misprints are recorded if, as often happens, they make a plausible misreading which has been copied in modern texts, or if they present any other feature of interest. As it does not seem desirable to dress up an eighteenth century classic entirely in twentieth century costume, I have retained the spelling of the fifth edition and steadily refused to attempt to make it consistent with itself. The danger which would be incurred by doing so may be shown by the example of 'Cromwel'. Few modern readers would hesitate to condemn this as a misprint, but it is, as a matter of fact, the spelling affected by Hume in his History, and was doubtless adopted from him by Adam Smith, though in the second of the two places where the name is mentioned inadvertence or the obstinacy of the printers allowed the usual 'Cromwell' to appear till the fourth edition was reached. I have been equally rigid in following the original in the matter of the use of capitals and italics, except that in deference to modern fashion I have allowed the initial words of paragraphs to appear |