He selected that passage from the Psalms which says, ‘The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.’ He then cut out the whole passage, except the words, ‘there is no God,’ and brought it forward as proof of his statement.” If these false notions about Adam Smith’s economic opinions had died with the pamphlets of obscure protectionists sixty years ago, no more need have been said. But as they have been revived again and again in England, Germany, and the United States, and solemnly adopted with all the plausibility of seemingly circumstantial moderation by persons of European repute, we shall examine the passages in the original, in order to settle the question whether Smith can be made to serve as “the spiritual father” of a commercial policy not essentially different from the one his criticism destroyed. By a policy of free trade, which Adam Smith said was the best means a statesman could adopt of promoting national wealth and commerce, he meant a policy that would relieve commerce and industry from all internal dues and all external duties or prohibitions. Anything that would bring other nations into line commanded his warm sympathy and support. But what he desired as a patriot was a policy of free imports irrespective of what other countries might do. The object of a national, as of an individual policy in trade, should be to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market.[35] This will appear at once from the so-called exceptions or limitations by which Smith is supposed to have watered down what Cobden’s biographer has called “the pure milk of the Cobdenic word.” The Act of Navigation is the first of “the two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry.”[36] But by “advantageous” Smith does not mean “likely to enrich.” It is a measure of defence, and is unfavourable to trade. “The defence of Great Britain,” he says, “depends very much upon the number of its sailors and shipping. The Act of Navigation, therefore, very properly endeavours to give the sailors and shipping of Great Britain the monopoly of the trade of their own country.” The Act is justified as a pure measure of defence, though it aims at monopoly, and offends against the principles of free trade. Lest, however, there should be any doubt upon the point, he goes on to make it quite clear that, while he praises the Act, as he might praise the building of a man-of-war, he condemns it as an economic measure. In the passage immediately following there are two sentences which exactly give the point of view, and should help to dissipate the false impression (accepted and circulated by authorities like Hasbach, who ought to know better) that Smith’s doctrines are very different from Cobden’s:—