One is astonished that a writer of such consummate genius as Adam Smith should have fallen into this mistake; speaking of smuggling, he says: “The law, contrary to all the ordinary principles of justice, first creates the temptation, and then punishes those who yield to it; and it commonly enhances the punishment, too, in proportion to the very circumstance which ought certainly to alleviate it—the temptation to commit the crime.”—Wealth of Nations, b. 5, ch. ii.