Gavin, this article may sheds some light on what 
you are saying: 
<http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98mar/misquote.htm>http://www.theatlanticcom/issues/98mar/misquote.htm

I believe Smith used the phrase three times. Once 
in TMS, where he applied it to the division of 
property; once in WN in connection with foreign 
trade; and once in the essay on Astronomy where 
it applies to gravity (I presume; I haven't read 
that essay). Yet somehow, the whole of his thesis 
tends to get reduced to this one phrase used in an sense he did not use it.

It was a popular metaphor of the day. Someone 
(perhaps it was on this list) has identified some 
35 uses outside of Smith at about the same time. 
It was merely an expression of the deism popular 
among intellectuals of the day.

It gets mixed up, I believe, with the 
"self-interest" of the butcher, baker, etc., but 
even that doesn't mean what we generally take it 
for today. Smith was not Mandeville.


John C. Médaille