His practical conclusion is somewhat as follows: Instead of innumerable taxes which hinder importation and hamper production, England ought to content herself with the establishment of a certain number of taxes of a purely fiscal character, placed upon commodities such as wine, alcohol, sugar, tobacco, cocoa. Such a system, though perfectly consonant with a great deal of free exchange, would yield abundant revenue to the Treasury, and would afford ample compensation for the losses resulting from the introduction of Free Trade.[244] England has followed his advice, and her financial system is to-day founded on these bases. Few economists can boast of such a complete realisation of their projects. IV: THE INFLUENCE OF SMITH’S THOUGHT AND ITS DIFFUSION. J. B. SAY The eighteenth century was essentially a century of levelling down. In Smith’s conception of the economic world we have an excellent example of this. Its chief charm lies in the simplicity of its outlines, and this doubtless accounted for his influence among his contemporaries. The system of natural liberty towards which both their political and philosophical aspirations seemed to point were here deduced from, and supported by, evidence taken direct from a study of human nature—evidence, moreover, that seemed to tally so well with known facts that doubt was out of the question. Smith’s work still retains its irresistible charm. Even if his ideas are some day shown to be untenable—a contingency we cannot well imagine—his book will remain as a permanent monument of one of the most important epochs in economic thought. It must still be considered the most successful attempt made at embracing within a single purview the infinite diversity of the economic world. But its simplicity also constituted its weakness. To attain this simplicity more than one important fact that refused to fit in with the system had to remain in the background. The evidence employed was also frequently incomplete. None of the special themes—price, wages, profits, and rent, the theory of international trade or of capital—which occupy the greater portion of the work, but has been in some way corrected, disputed, or replaced. But the structure loses stability if some of the corner-stones are removed. And new points of view have appeared of which Smith did not take sufficient account. Instead of the pleasant impression of simplicity and security which a perusal of Smith’s work gave to the economists of the early nineteenth century, there has been gradually substituted by his successors a conviction of the growing complexity of economic phenomena.