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If the whole of Book V of the Wealth of Nations seems a bit 
daunting, the following passage on the role of the government 
in ensuring public health should provide some incentive: 
 
"Even though the martial spirit of the people were of 
no use towards the defence of the society, yet to 
prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity, and 
wretchedness, which cowardice necessarily involves 
in it, from spreading themselves through the great 
body of the people, would still deserve the most 
serious attention of government, in the same manner as 
it would deserve its most serious attention to prevent 
a leprosy or any other loathsome and offensive 
disease, though neither mortal nor dangerous, from 
spreading itself among them, though perhaps no other 
public good might result from such attention besides 
the prevention of so great a public evil." (WN 
V.i.f.60, p. 787-88.) 
 
Eric Schliesser 
Department of Philosophy 
University of Chicago 
 
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