the beginning of Book IV , chapter iv , upon the details of various drawbacks ( vol. ii , pp. 2–5), the ten paragraphs on the herring fishery bounty ( vol. ii , pp. 20–4) with the appendix on the same subject ( pp. 435–7), and a portion of the discussion of the effects of the corn bounty ( vol. ii , pp. 10–11) also appear first in the third edition. With several other additions and corrections of smaller size these passages were printed separately in quarto under the title of “Additions and Corrections to the First and Second Editions of Dr. Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” Writing to Cadell in December, 1782, Smith says:—
“I hope in two or three months to send you up the second edition corrected in many places, with three or four very considerable additions, chiefly to the second volume. Among the rest is a short but, I flatter myself, a complete history of all the trading companies in Great Britain. These additions I mean not only to be inserted at their proper places into the new edition, but to be printed separately and to be sold for a shilling or half a crown to the purchasers of the old edition. The price must depend on the bulk of the additions when they are all written out.”
Besides the separately printed additions there are many minor alterations between the second and third editions, such as the complacent note on the adoption of the house tax ( vol. ii , p. 328), the correction of the estimate of possible receipts from the turnpikes ( vol. ii , p. 218, note), and the reference to the expense of the American war ( vol. ii , p. 409), but none of these is of much consequence. More important is the addition of the lengthy index surmounted by the rather quaint superscription “ N.B. The Roman numerals refer to the Volume, and the figures to the Page.” We should not expect a man of Adam Smith’s character to make his own index, and we may be quite certain that he did