Smith's Uniform "Toil and Trouble": A "Vain Subtlety"?

When we take seriously Smiths's oft-expressed admiration for the "beauty of a systematical arrangement of different observations connected by a few common principles" (WN, V.i.f.25) and seek those"connecting principles" within his own system of thought, his "positive index of welfare" loses its paradoxical air; and Blaug's objection is revealed as yet one more illustration of the miscommunication that can occur when author and reader do not share a common analytical framework.