SOURCE: "Adam Smith's Empiricism and the Law of Nature. I," in The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. XLVIII, No. 4, August, 1940, pp. 487–520.
In the following excerpt, Bittermann examines Smith's methodology in relation to the doctrine of natural law, arguing that, in formulating his ethical and economic theories, Smith rejected the rationalistic methods of the natural-law school of thought in favor of empirical procedures.
