This was not original to Adam Smith . It was never Adam Smith's invisible hand". It was a popular literary metaphor, widely used by theologians in their sermons (Augustine), political writers in their weighty tomes, playwrights (Shakespeare in Macbeth), fiction authors (Daniel Defoe in Moll Flanders), philosophers (Voltaire) and classical writers from Greece and Rome. The metaphor was easily recognizable among literate readers of Wealth Of Nations. I have a list of nearly 50 separate uses of the invisible hand metaphor, most of them probably known to Adam Smith, plus scores of other authors using the metaphor in other contexts up to the 20th century.Smith taught his students that a metaphor should be used to give “due strength of expression” in “a more striking and interesting manner” (see Adam Smith’s “Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres”, 29 November 1762, Oxford University press, 1983, p 29). His use of the metaphor of ‘an invisible hand’ (only once in Wealth Of Nations and once in Moral Sentiments, and once in his ‘juvenile student’s essay) certainly achieved his literary intention. Pity that modern economists from the 1950s burdened Smith’s achievement with a wholly invented content – not that they can agree on exactly what he meant by it, as a perusal of modern interpretations soon shows careful readers. - http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2010/01/invisible-hand-as-metaphor.html