ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that William Smart developed the interests which first took him to a study of John Ruskin’s ideas and that, through a synthesis of ideas and action, he managed to be both an economist and an acculturated Ruskinian. The entry for Smart in the New Palgrave, and T. Jones’s ‘Biographical Sketch’ which accompanies Smart’s final work, suggest that Smart outgrew his Ruskinian ideas of the early 1880s as he gradually matured in his understanding of economics. Smart enters the annals of studies in Ruskin primarily as the author of two lengthy pamphlets on Ruskin. Smart’s judgement is given within a wider piece of work which can be seen as a commonsense reflection upon ‘the ethical aspects of the science to which he had given his life’. Smart’s examination of the economic environment is also close to Ruskin’s approach. The examination is essential, for the economic environment is both a product of nature and of human effort and achievement.
