Apart from the metaphysical tenets indicated above as influencing them, there are, of course, reasons of economic history for the procedure of the early economists in so relegating the pecuniary activities to the background of economic theory. In the days of Adam Smith, for instance, economic life still bore much of the character of what Professor Schmoller calls _Stadtwirtschaft_. This was the case to some extent in practice, but still more decidedly in tradition. To a greater extent than has since been the case, households produced goods for their own consumption, without the intervention of sale; and handicraftsmen still produced for consumption by their customers, without the intervention of a market. In a considerable measure, the conditions which the Austrian marginal-utility theory supposes, of a producing seller and a consuming buyer, actually prevailed. It may not be true that in Adam Smith's time the business operations, the bargain and sale of goods, were, in general, obviously subservient to their production and consumption, but it comes nearer being true at that time than at any time since then. And the tradition having once been put into form and authenticated by Adam Smith, that such was the place of pecuniary transactions in economic theory, this tradition has lasted on in the face of later and further changes. Under the shadow of this tradition the pecuniary employments are still dealt with as auxiliary to the process of production, and the gains from such employments are still explained as being due to a productive effect imputed to them.