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The brilliance of Smith is of the same order as the brilliance of Charles Darwin -- and
this brilliance can be seen even in only the first few pages (including the title pages)
of Smith's book.  What Darwin did -- which no biologist has done as well since -- is to
cast a empirical problem in our experience, and then offer a simple but powerful
underlying explanation which is
one part causal and one part logical/structural.  Smith does the same sort of thing, as no
economist has before -- and as few have done since.  It is Smith's _casting_ of an
explanatory problem, and his pairing of that problem with a powerful and briliantly cast
explanatory machinery which lends his work lasting power, and helped to garnered his work
its instant fame. (Explanatory machinary = division of labor plus "the invisible hand",
which is one part entreprenuerial judgment as dynamic learning and one part self-interest
as psychological motive (combining to create a consisten causal mechanism which expands
the division of labour, leading to an explantion of the increase of the wealth of
nations).
 
Where else did this empirical problem / causal solution explanatory structure get so
plainly and elequently cast in all of the earlier economic literature?  My answer would be
"nowhere".
 
Greg Ransom 
 
 
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