It would be too much to say that his grasp of its psychological foundation enabled him entirely to move from the limitations of the older concept of a national prosperity expressed only in terms of bullion to the view of economics as a social science.

But at least he saw that economics is rooted in the nature of men and therein he had the secret of its true understanding.

_The Wealth of Nations_ would less easily have made its way had not the insight of Hume prepared the road for its reception.
What, then, and in general, is his place in the history of political thought?
Clearly enough, he is not the founder of a system; his work is rather a series of pregnant hints than a consecutive account of political facts.

Nor must we belittle the debt he owes to his predecessors.

Much, certainly, he owed to Locke, and the full radiance of the Scottish enlightenment emerges into the day with his teaching.
Francis Hutcheson gave him no small inspiration; and Hutcheson means that he was indebted to Shaftesbury.