ABSTRACT
Economics has been looked upon as a science ever since Adam Smith, in 1776, published his enquiry into the causes of the wealth of nations. The real economist is he who strives to get at the natural laws affecting man's material well-being, and is not necessarily engaged, as is sometimes erroneously thought, in trying to show how either an individual or a nation can become rich. The economist by this time was, at any rate, semi-conscious, the stage of the unconscious economist was over, and hence-forward there was to be a growing desire to elucidate phenomena which were pressing themselves upon the attention of the world. Towards the end of the seventeenth century two events set Englishmen speculating with renewed interest on economic subjects. In 1694 the Bank of England was founded, and in 1696 it was decided that a re-coinage was necessary.
