ABSTRACT
this essay must start with a confession. In undertaking, some months ago, to submit an article on some such subject as ‘The Scottish Tradition in Economic Thought’, I was, it is now clear, in a state of not very creditable ignorance. I had then a rather vague idea that one could in an article say something directly significant on this subject. I had, of course, at various times read the Scots classics in a rather haphazard way; but the effect of reading them all straight through in their proper sequence, in the hope of tracing the individual Scottish thread running through them—the effect of this has been radical. For it has forced the conviction that there is a quite specific doctrine and method in Scots economic thinking, especially clear and influential between roughly 1730 and 1870, and still alive, if not on top. As it shows some of the greatest names—Hume, Smith, the Mills—and also some considerable satellites—Hutcheson, Lauderdale, Rae, McCulloch—it at once appears that a mere article will not do. If there is a Scottish line inspiring these great writings, then only a volume could do it justice. The kind of thesis one would like to examine is the view that between Hutcheson and John Stuart Mill it was that Scottish mode of approach that formed the atmosphere of British economic thought. But this starts many other hares, and the most we can do here is to chase some of them conscientiously.
