On this matter of commercial liberty there was already, towards the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, a small but a growing band of Mercantilists who had begun to protest against the irksomeness of the Customs regulations. They were, of course, still largely imbued with mercantile prejudice, but they are rightly classed as “Liberals.” Just as in France Boisguillebert had foreshadowed the Physiocrats, so in England Child, Petty, Tucker, Dudley North, and Gregory King had been preparing the way for a more liberal policy in foreign trade.[128] In addition to Hutcheson and Hume one other writer must be mentioned in this connection, namely, Bernard de Mandeville. He was not an economist at all, but a doctor with considerable philosophical interests. In 1704 he had published a small poem, which, along with a number of additions, was republished in 1714 under the title of _The Fable of the Bees; or, Private Vices Public Benefits_. The fundamental idea of the book, which caused quite a sensation at the time, and which was seized by order of the Government, is that civilisation—understanding by that term not only wealth, but also the arts and sciences—is the outcome, not of the virtues of mankind, but of what Mandeville calls its vices; in other words, that the desire for well-being, comfort, luxury, and all the pleasures of life arises from our natural wants. The book was a sort of apology for the natural man and a criticism of the virtuous. Smith criticised Mandeville in his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_,[129] and reproached him particularly for referring to tastes and desires as vices though in themselves they were nowise blameworthy. But despite his criticism Mandeville’s idea bore fruit in Smith’s mind. Smith in his turn was to reiterate the belief that it was personal interest (in his opinion no vice, but an inferior virtue) that unwittingly led society in the paths of well-being and prosperity. A nation’s wealth for Smith as well as for Mandeville is the result, if not of a vice, at least of a natural instinct which is not itself virtuous, but which is bestowed upon us by Providence for the realisation of ends that lie beyond our farthest ken. Such are the principal writers in whose works we may find an outline of some of the more important ideas which Smith was to incorporate in a true system. Mere systematisation, however, would not have given the _Wealth of Nations_ its unique position. Prior to Smith’s time attempts had been made by Quesnay and the Physiocrats to outline the scope of the science and to link its various portions together by means of a few general principles. Although he was not the first to produce a connected scientific treatise out of this material, he had a much greater measure of success than any of his predecessors.