seeks to secure a certain fund of subsistence for all the inhabitants, to obviate every circumstance which may render it precarious; to provide every thing necessary for supplying the wants of the society, and to employ the inhabitants ... in such manner as naturally to create reciprocal relations and dependencies between them, so as to supply one another with reciprocal wants. The book was the most complete and systematic survey of the science from the point of view of moderate mercantilism which had appeared in England and indeed the first full-fledged economics treatise to appear anywhere. Also the German philosopher Hegel recognized that book and wrote a comment about it in the year 1799. Although often regarded as part of the Scottish Enlightenment which produced David Hume and Adam Smith, Steuart's economics hark back to the earlier Mercantilist era. Mercantilism was the school of thought that held that a positive balance of trade was of primary importance for any nation and required a ban on the export of gold and silver. This theory led to high protective tariffs to maximize the use of domestic resources, colonial expansion and exclusivity of trade with those colonies. British attempts to follow the mercantilist ideas led to the four Anglo-Dutch navigation wars and the American colonials wars of 1776-1781 and 1812. Additionally in 1815, Britain adopted the high tariff, called the corn laws on all imported wheat at the suggestion of mercantilist advisors. Debate over the corn laws would be harsh and would dominate the political discussion and occupy all British governments until the corn laws were repealed in 1846. At the level of any individual sales transaction, mercantilism held that profit was developed at the point of the sale. Steuart held that profit was a mere "surcharge" upon alienation (sale) of the commodity. Steuart was not a pure mercantilist, however, he believed in a "scientific form of mercantilism." Steuart held that all profit arose from the seller "overcharging" the buyer in any single sales transaction. However, Steuart did allow that the "profit" obtained through exchange would "fluctuate" with the rise and/or fall in demand. Still like all good mercantilists, Steuart's eye remained on the exchange as the creator of profit and he recognized no value in a commodity before the sale. Steuart was one of the last representatives of the mercantilist school of economic thought. Although the work appears to have been well