It is especially important that we should make a note of the opinions of those people who think that Smith intended his optimism to extend to distribution as well as to production. As a matter of fact he was too level-headed to entertain any such idea. Even Say himself in the last edition of his _Treatise_ expresses some doubts as to the equity of the present system of distribution.[213] Smith was not really concerned with the question at all. It is only at a much later date, when the socialists had demonstrated the importance of the problem, that we hear of this belief in the beneficence of economic institutions. It really represents a reaction against the socialistic teaching and an attempt at a justification of the present methods of distribution. We must beware of confusing Smith’s optimism with that of modern Hedonism, or of identifying it with Bastiat’s answer to the socialists. It lacks the scientific precision of the one and has none of the apologetic tone of the other. It is little more than a reflection prompted by the too naïve confidence of the eighteenth century in the bounty of “nature,” and an expression of profound conviction rather than the conclusion of a logical argument. III: ECONOMIC LIBERTY AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE The practical conclusion to which naturalism leads and to which Smith’s optimism points is economic liberty. So naturally does it proceed from what we have just said that the reader finds himself quite prepared for Smith’s celebrated phrases: “All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore, being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man, or order of men.” As to the Government, or “sovereign,” as Smith calls him, “he is completely discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the proper performance of which no human wisdom or knowledge could ever be sufficient; the duty of superintending the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interests of the society.” Smith, following the Physiocrats, but in a more comprehensive and scientific fashion, finds himself driven to the same conclusion, namely, the wisdom of non-intervention by the State in matters economic.[214]