1

THE OLL BLUE BOOKSAnthologies from

the Online Library of Liberty<http://oll.libertyfund.org/collection/160>

THE INTRODUCTIONS TO THE GLASGOW EDITION OF THE WORKS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF

ADAM SMITH (1981-1987)<oll.libertyfund.org/title/2557>

THE OLL “BLUE BOOK” ANTHOLOGIES

<http://oll.libertyfund.org/collection/160>

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

...............................................................................................................Introduction 7

.................................................About the “Glasgow Edition” of the Works of Adam Smith 7

...........................................................................................................Copyright information: 7

................................................................................................................Fair Use Statement: 7

...................................................................................................Bibilographical Information 8

......................................................The Life and Work of Adam Smith (1723-1790) 9

.......................................................................................................Adam Smith (1723-1790) 9

.............................A Timeline of the Life and Work of Adam Smith (1723-1790) [DMH] 10

...................................................The Life and Works of Adam Smith [Mossner and Ross] 12

Dugald Stewart's “Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.” [January and ........................................................................................................................March, 1793] 15

...............................................................................................................Introduction [I.S. Ross] 15

ACCOUNT of the LIFE AND WRITINGS of ADAM SMITH, LL.D. From the Transactions of ...............the Royal Society of Edinburgh [Read by Mr Stewart, January 21, and March 18, 1793] 18

.............SECTION I. From Mr Smith’s Birth till the publication of the Theory of Moral Sentiments 18

........Section II. Of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and the Dissertation on the Origin of Languages 23

Section III. From the Publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, till that of The Wealth of Na-...........................................................................................................................................tions 39

.......................SECTION IV. Of the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations* 44

.....................................................................................SECTION V. Conclusion of the Narrative 54

............................................................................Notes to the LIFE OF ADAM SMITH, LL.D. 59

....................................................................................................................................Endnotes 74

Introduction to Vol. 1 The Theory of Moral Sentiments [D.D. Raphael and A.L. .....................................................................................................................Macfie] 91

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.............................................................1. Formation of The Theory of Moral Sentiments 91

................................................................................................(a) Adam Smith’s lectures on ethics 91

...................................................................................................(b) Influence of Stoic philosophy 95

.............................................................................................(c)Influence of contemporary thinkers 99

.........................................................................................................................2. Evolution 103

................................................................................................(a) Development between editions 103

.....................................................................................................(b) Relation of TMS to WN 107

........................................................................................................................3. Reception 111

...................................................................................(a) Early comment and foreign translations 111

................................................................................................................(b) Select bibliography 117

.........................................................................................................................4. The Text 120

........................................................................................................(a) Account of editions 1–7 120

....................................................................................................................(b) Editorial policy 130

.............................................................................................................................Endnotes 135

General Introduction to Vol. 2: The Wealth of Nations [R.H. Campbell and A.S .................................................................................................................Skinner] 137

.............................................................................................................Scope and Method 137

.....................................................................................................................Social Theory 140

.........................................................................................................The Stages of Society 146

................................................................Economic Theory and the Exchange Economy 152

.........................................................................................................The Role of the State 162

.............................................................................The Institutional Relevance of the WN 167

........................................................................................................Smith’s use of History 175

.............................................................................................................................Endnotes 183

.............................Introductions to Volume III: Essays on Philosophical Subjects 190

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...........................................1. General Introduction[1] [D.D. Raphael and A.S. Skinner] 190

..............................................................................................................................................I 190

.............................................................................................................................................II 192

...........................................................................................................................................III 194

............................................................................................................................................IV 198

.............................................................................................................................................V 201

..................................................................................................................................Endnotes 206

2. Introduction to Works edited and introduced by W.P.D. Wightman [Astronomy, Ancient .........................................................................................................................Physics, etc] 208

.........................................................................................................The History of Astronomy 213

..............The History of the Ancient Physics and the History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics 221

.......................................................................................................3. Bibliographical Note 225

........................................................................................................................Note on the Text 226

..................................................................................................................................Endnotes 226

.....Introduction to Volume IV: Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres [J.C. Bryce] 228

..............................................................................................................1. The Manuscript 228

..................................................................................................................2. The Lectures 233

......................................3. Considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages 246

........................................................................................................................Note on the Text 249

........................................................................................4. Rhetoric and literary criticism 251

.....................................................................................................5. System and aesthetics 254

...........................................................................................................Bibliographical Note 257

Introduction to Volume V: Lectures on Jurisprudence [R.L. Meek, D.D. Raphael, .......................................................................................................and P.G. Stein] 258

..............................................................1. Adam Smith’s Lectures at Glasgow University 258

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....................................................2. The Two Reports of Smith’s Jurisprudence Lectures 261

.................................................................3. Adam Smith’s Lecture Timetable in 1762–3 267

...................................................................................4. The Collation of LJ(A) and LJ(B) 273

.................................................................................................................Notes on the collation 276

........................................................5. Some Particular Aspects of the Report of 1762–3 281

............................................6. The Principles Adopted in the Transcription of the Texts 283

...............................................................................................................i. Numbering of Pages 285

...........................................................................................................................ii. Punctuation 286

......................................................................................................................iii. Capitalization 286

......................................................................iv. Straightforward Overwritings and Interlineations 286

..........................................................................................................................v. Contractions 287

...............................................................................................vi. Spelling Errors, Omissions, etc. 287

......................................................................................................................vii. Paragraphing 288

.................................................................................................viii. Deletions, Replacements, etc. 288

...........................................................ix. Doubtful Readings, Illegible Words, Blanks in MS., etc. 289

.....................................................................................x. Treatment of the Verso Notes in LJ(A) 289

....................................................................................................................xi. Cross–references 290

.............................................................................................................................Endnotes 290

6

INTRODUCTION

About the “Glasgow Edition” of the Works of Adam Smith

The Glasgow Edition was originally commissioned to celebrate the bicentenary of The Wealth of Nations, Smith’s greatest work and was published by Oxford University Press in a hard cover edition. The six titles of the Glasgow Edition, but not the associated volumes, are published in softcover by Liberty Fund. The online edition is published by Liberty Fund under license from Oxford University Press.

This Edition is the authoritative, scholarly edition of Smith’s works and each volume is ac-companied by a detailed Introduction written by leading scholars in the field. The introductions were written by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, R H. Campbell, A.S. Skinner, W.P.D. Wightman, J.C. Bryce, R.L. Meek, P. G. Stein, E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross. We have gathered these infor-mative introductions here, along with additional biographical material about Smith, in order to assist the reader is exploring the ideas of Smith further. The introductions are reproduced here in their entirely with no alteration and links back to the full volumes from which they are taken are provided.

Copyright information:

The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith and the associated volumes are published in hardcover by Oxford University Press. The six titles of the Glasgow Edition, but not the associated volumes, are being published in softcover by Liberty Fund. The online edition is published by Liberty Fund under license from Oxford University Press.

©Oxford University Press 1976. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be stored transmitted retransmitted lent or reproduced in any form or medium without the permission of Oxford University Press.

Fair Use Statement:

This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless oth-erwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.

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Bibilographical Information

Adam Smith, The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). 7 vols. <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/197>.

1. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, vol. I of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/192>.

2. Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 Vols., ed. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, vol. II of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981). <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/220>.

3. Adam Smith, Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W. P. D. Wightman and J. C. Bryce, vol. III of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/201>.

4. Adam Smith, Lectures On Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, ed. J. C. Bryce, vol. IV of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985). <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/202>.

5. Adam Smith, Lectures On Jurisprudence, ed. R.. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael and P. G. Stein, vol. V of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Lib-erty Fund, 1982). <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/196>.

6. Adam Smith, Correspondence of Adam Smith, ed. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross, vol. VI of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987). <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/203>.

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THE LIFE AND WORK OF ADAM SMITH (1723-1790)

Adam Smith (1723-1790)

Adam Smith (1723-1790) is commonly regarded as the first modern economist with the pub-lication in 1776 of The Wealth of Nations. He wrote in a wide range of disciplines: moral philoso-phy, jurisprudence, rhetoric and literature, and the history of science. He was one of the leading figures in the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith also studied the social forces giving rise to competi-tion, trade, and markets. While professor of logic, and later professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow University, he also had the opportunity to travel to France, where he met François Quesnay and the physiocrats; he had friends in business and the government, and drew broadly on his observations of life as well as careful statistical work summarizing his findings in tabular form. He is viewed as the founder of modern economic thought, and his work inspires econo-mists to this day.

For additional information about Smith nd his contemporaries see the following resources at the Online Library of Liberty:

• a list of works in various electronic formats can be found at the main bio page: Adam Smith (1723-1790) <http://oll.libertyfund.org/person/44>.

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• works by other members of the Scottish Enlihgtenment: School of Thought: The Scot-tish Enlightenment <http://oll.libertyfund.org/collection/19>

• F o r u m : R e s o u r c e s : E s s a y s : O n A d a m S m i t h <http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=73&Itemid=277>.

• R e a d i n g L i s t : R e a d i n g s o n A d a m S m i t h <http://oll.libertyfund.org/readinglists/view/282-readings_on_adam_smith>.

A Timeline of the Life and Work of Adam Smith (1723-1790) [DMH]

Source: Timelines in various sizes and formats are available at the OLL website:

• PDF <http://files.libertyfund.org/img/Smith.pdf>

• JPG <http://files.libertyfund.org/img/AdamSmith_Timeline2339.jpg>

• JPG <http://files.libertyfund.org/img/Smith1200.jpg>

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The Life and Works of Adam Smith [Mossner and Ross]

Source: In Adam Smith, Correspondence of Adam Smith, ed. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross, vol. VI of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987). <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/203/57672/923352>.

1720 Adam Smith Sr. md. Margaret Douglas of Strathenry

1723 c. 25 Jan. Adam Smith Sr. died; 5 June, Adam Smith baptized in Kirkcaldy

c.1732–7 attended Kirkcaldy Burgh School1737–40 attended Glasgow University; taught by Francis

Hutcheson; grad. M.A. with distinction1740–6 at Balliol College, Oxford, as Snell Exhibitioner

(£40 p.a.); matric. 7 July 1740; nominated to War-ner Exhibition (£8. 5s. p.a.) 2 Nov. 1742; visited Adderbury on holidays, home of John 2nd Duke of Argyll; left Balliol c. 15 Aug. 1746; resigned Snell Exhibition 4 Feb. 1749

1746–8 lived with his mother in Kirkcaldy1748–51 lectured at Edinburgh on rhetoric and belles lettres,

also jurisprudence, under the patronage of Henry Home of Kames, James Oswald of Dunnikier, and Robert Craigie of Glendoick

1751 9 Jan. elected Professor of Logic at Glasgow; admit-ted 16 Jan. then went back to Edinburgh to com-plete lecture course; from Oct. taught logic at Glas-gow, also jurisprudence and politics.

1752 22 Apr. elected Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow; became member of the Glasgow Literary Society, also Philosophical Society, Edinburgh

1754 member of the Select Society, Edinburgh1755 lectured on economic ideas to a Club organized by

Andrew Cochrane, Provost of Glasgowarticles in Edinburgh Review: ‘A Dic-tionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson’ (No. 1, 1 Jan.–1 July 1755); ‘A Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review’ (No. 2, July 1755–Jan. 1756)

1758 Quaestor for Glasgow University Library, served until 1760

1759 visited Inveraray, home of Archibald 3rd Duke of Argyll

TMS ed. 1

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1760 chosen Dean of Arts, served until 1763; summer jaunt for health reasons to England; visited the home of Lord Shelburne at High Wycombe

1761 Vice–rector of Glasgow University, served until 1763; in London on University business, late Aug.–early Oct.

Considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages, and the Different Genius of Original and Compounded Languages,’ The Philological Miscellany i (1761) 440–79TMS ed. 2

1762 3 May made a Burgess of Glasgow; 21 Oct. nomi-nated Glasgow LL.D.

1763 8 Nov. gave notice of resignation of his Chair; re-signed 14 Feb. 1764, from Paris

1764 Jan. left Glasgow for London, en route to France as travelling tutor to Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buc-cleuch; arrived in Paris 13 Feb. and remained ten days, then left for Toulouse; joined there by the Duke’s brother, the Hon. Hew Campbell Scott

1765 in Toulouse until Oct., at work on an early draft of WN; toured the south of France October; in Ge-neva Nov.–Dec. and met Voltaire; went on to Paris

1766 In Paris Jan.–Oct., on friendly terms with the La Rochefoucauld circle, Mme de Boufflers, the philoso-phes, and the Quesnai circle; 19 Oct. Hon. Hew Campbell Scott died of fever; Smith and the Duke of Buccleuch returned to England, landing at Do-ver on 1 Nov.; Smith was given a pension of £300 p.a. for life from the Buccleuch estates

1766 Nov.–Mar. 1767 in London: assisted Charles Townshend with taxation projects; carried out re-search on the history of colonies for Lord Shel-burne; elected Fellow of the Royal Society 21 May (admitted 27 May 1773)

1767 TMS ed. 3May–Apr. 1773 lived in Kirkcaldy with his mother, working on WN; made a Burgess of Edinburgh, June 1770

1773 May–Apr. 1776 in London, working on WN; elected member of The Club which Joshua Rey-nolds had founded as a forum for Dr. Johnson

1774 TMS ed. 41776 9 Mar. publication of WN; May–Dec. in Kirkcaldy,

visited Hume in Edinburgh during his last illnessWN

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1777 Jan.–beginning of Oct. in London Letter to Strahan’ (9 Nov. 1776) on the death of Hume, Scots Magazine xxxi (Jan. 1777), 5–7

Oct.–Jan. 1778 in Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh ? composed ‘Thoughts on the State of the Contest with America’

1778 30 Jan. gazetted Commissioner of Customs for Scotland (£500 p.a.) and of Salt Duties (£100 p.a.); settled in Panmure House, Canongate, Edinburgh, with his mother and as housekeeper his cousin Janet Douglas; adopted as his heir David Douglas (later Lord Reston), a nephew’s son; resumed member-ship of the Poker Club; gave Sunday suppers for friends among the literati and distinguished visitors

WN ed. 2 (early in the year)

1781 TMS ed. 51782 in London, attended dinners of The Club; returned

to Scotland early in July1783 founder member of the Royal Society of Edin-

burgh; served as one of the presidents of its literary class

1784 Apr. accompanied Edmund Burke to Glasgow for his installation as Lord Rector of the University; his mother died on 23 May

WN ed. 3 (‘Additions and Correc-tions’ to eds. 1 and 2 were printed separately)

1786 WN ed. 41787 Mar.–Aug. in London, probably for health reasons;

said to have been consulted by the Government of Pitt the Younger; 15 Nov. elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University, and served until 1789

1788 sometime after Sept. Janet Douglas died1789 WN ed. 51790 May 17 July, Adam Smith died in Panmure House;

buried in the Canongate kirkyardTMS ed. 6 (revised and enlarged)

Posthumous Publications1795 EPS, ed. Joseph Black and James Hutton1896 LJ (B), ed. Edwin Cannan1933 Smiths Thoughts on the State of the Contest with

America, February 1778’, ed. G. H. Guttridge, American Historical Review xxxviii. 714–20

1963 LRBL, ed. John M. Lothian1977 LJ (A), ed. Ronald Meek, D. D. Raphael, and Peter

Stein

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Dugald Stewart's “Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.” [January and March, 1793]

Source: Adam Smith, Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W. P. D. Wightman and J. C. Bryce, vol. III of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). Chapter: Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D. From the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh [Read by Mr Stewart, January 21, and March 18, 1793]. <http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/201/56054>.

Introduction [I.S. Ross]

‘I hate biography’ was the confession of Dugald Stewart (1753–1828) in a letter of 1797, but it appears that of the three pieces of this kind which he wrote for presentation to the Royal Soci-ety of Edinburgh, the one on Adam Smith was most to his taste (Works, ed. Hamilton, x. lxxv, n.1). Indeed, as a member of Smith’s circle, and like him a Scots professor of moral philosophy, inheriting and transmitting the same intellectual tradition, Stewart was a logical choice as a me-morialist of Smith, and he must have felt some affinity for this project.

The first news of it comes in a letter of 10 August 1790 to Smith’s heir, David Douglas, in which John Millar, distinguished Professor of Civil Law at Glasgow University, and a former pu-pil of Smith, welcomes the idea of publishing the posthumous essays (EPS), and states: ‘It will give me the greatest pleasure to contribute any hints to Mr Stuart with regard to Mr Smiths pro-fessorial talents, or any other particular you mention, while he remained at Glasgow’ (Glasgow University Library, MS. Gen. 1035/178). True to his word, Millar sent ‘some particulars about Dr. Smith’ to Stewart in December of the same year, and on 17 August 1792 the latter reported to the publisher Thomas Cadell as follows: ‘Mr Smith’s papers with the Account of his life will be ready for the press the beginning of next winter’ (National Library of Scotland, MS. 5319, f. 34). Cadell offered terms for the book to Henry Mackenzie, one of the ‘privy council’ advising Doug-las about the publication, on 21 December 1792 (GUL, MS. Gen. 1035/177), and Stewart wrote to Cadell on 13 March of the following year to say that he had finished the ‘Account’ and was ready to send it to the press ‘immediately’. (In fact, he read it at meetings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 21 January and 18 March 1793.) In the same letter to Cadell, Stewart mentions that neither the RSE Transactions nor EPS is likely to appear ‘this Season’, and he asks if a sepa-rate publication could be considered: ‘more especially, as [my papers] have Swelled to Such a Size, that I suspect they must be printed in an abridged form in the Transactions’ (NLS, MS. 5319, ff. 35–6).

As matters turned out, the first edition of the ‘Account’ was published in the third volume of the RSE Transactions (1794), and when EPS was published in 1795, under the editorship of Joseph Black and James Hutton, Smith’s literary executors, the ‘Account’ was printed as the first piece, with some minor changes from the RSE text. In 1810, Stewart withdrew from active teaching at

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Edinburgh University because of failing health, and among other projects undertook the revision of his RSE papers for publication as Biographical Memoirs of Adam Smith, William Robertson, and Thomas Reid (1811).

In the preface to this book, the author stated his belief that for Smith and Reid he had nearly exhausted all the information available, and that he had been induced to connect ‘with the slen-der thread of [his] narration a variety of speculative discussions and illustration’ (vi). These pro-vide a useful commentary on some of Smith’s ideas, and include such valuable material as Mil-lar’s description of Smith’s course of lectures at Glasgow (I.16–22). Also, discussing Smith’s thought in relation to that of the French economists, Stewart presented a fragment of a paper written by Smith in 1755, in which some of his leading ideas are outlined (IV.25). Stewart’s ver-sion of both documents is all that has survived, the originals perhaps being destroyed with Stewart’s own papers by his son when suffering from paranoia (Works, viii. x–xi; x. iii). In the pref-ace to the Memoirs, Stewart further states that he left the text of the ‘Account of Smith’ as it was (i.e. in 1794–5), ‘with the exception of some trifling verbal corrections’, and added to it notes that were ‘entirely new’ (vii).

In the same year as the Memoirs appeared, Stewart published an edition of Smith’s Works (1811–12), incorporating in the fifth volume the Memoirs text of the ‘Account’, but omitting at the conclusion two paragraphs describing EPS, and one dealing with the preference of Smith and his circle for the plain style of ‘Mr’ rather than the honorific ‘Doctor’. In a letter to ?William Davies, Cadell’s partner, dated 26 July 1810, Stewart suggests that since Smith’s Works are to be printed in London, they should be put ‘into the hands of some corrector’ whose accuracy can be relied on, ‘desiring him to follow the text of the last Editions published before Mr Smith’s death’. Stewart will correct EPS himself, and he asks that the ‘Account of Smith’ be printed last, ‘as I have some Slight alterations to make on it, and intend to add a few paragraphs to some of the Sections’. Stewart continues that ‘in a Week or two I propose to begin to print the 4to Edition of Lives [i.e. Memoirs]’, presumably in Edinburgh under his own eye (NLS, MS. 5319, ff.39–40).

Subsequently, Stewart’s Works (1854–60) were themselves edited by Sir William Hamilton (1788–1856) at the end of his life, and the ‘Account of Smith’ found its place in the tenth volume (1858). The advertisement to this volume, written by John Veitch (1829–94), states that the mem-oirs of Smith, Robertson, and Reid were ‘printed under . . . Hamilton’s revision and superinten-dence, from private copies belonging to [Stewart] which contained a few manuscript additions by him’ (x. vii). One such ‘private copy’ survives in Edinburgh University Library (MS. Df. 4. 52*), consisting of an EPS text of the ‘Account of Smith’ with marginal corrections in Stewart’s hand (pp. 46, 57, 63) and indicators for notes, followed by Notes A to I of the present edition, all in Stewart’s hand save that of Note D, which is in that of an amanuensis. Stewart must have worked on this ‘private copy’ after 1821, because Note E refers to Morellet’s Mémoires published in that year.

All the ‘last additions’ of the EUL ‘private copy’ are incorporated in Hamilton’s text of the ‘Account of Smith’, with the trifling exception of the ‘la’ in ‘la Rochefoucauld’ (303, below), and it is tempting to use the 1858 edition as the copy–text for our present purpose. However, in his

16

Memoir of Hamilton (1869), John Veitch prints letters indicating that Hamilton was fatally ill during the editing of Stewart’s Works, and was assisted by a Miss Petre, formerly governess to his daugh-ter (362–3). Indeed, Hamilton died before the tenth volume appeared and its publication was su-pervised by Veitch. In view of these facts, it has been thought best to make the 1811 Memoirs ver-sion of the ‘Account of Smith’ the copy–text for this edition, as the one containing the fullest amount of biographical material directly authorized by Stewart himself, also as the text he per-sonally revised for publication. A letter of 1798 by Stewart makes the claim, at least, that he read proof carefully: ‘The very great alterations and corrections which I have been in the habit of making during the time that the printing of my books was going on, put it out of my power to let anything out of my hands till it has undergone the very last revisal’ (Works, x. xxxi, n.4.).

Within each section of the text paragraphs have been numbered to facilitate references and citations. Asterisks and daggers point Stewart’s notes, and the signal 5 after a note indicates that it comes from Hamilton’s 1858 edition. Superscript letters refer the reader to textual notes preserv-ing substantive readings from the editions of 1794 and 1795, identified as 1 and 2. The author’s last additions of the EUL ‘private copy’ mentioned above are identified by that very phrase. The modern convention for indicating quotations has been adopted, and translations of Latin quota-tions have been supplied, in some cases from Stewart’s Works edited by Hamilton. The present editor’s notes are numbered consecutively, with material added by him placed within round brackets, and the General Editors’ notes are placed within square brackets.

Whereas Smith ‘considered every species of note as a blemish or imperfection; indicating, either an idle accumulation of superfluous particulars, or a want of skill and comprehension in the general design’ (Stewart, Works, x.169–70), Stewart followed the practice of Robertson in placing discursive notes at the end of the text. For the sake of convenience, these endnotes have been retained below, with the ‘last additions’, principally D and E, duly identified.

List of the Editions of ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.’

1 1794 Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (T. Cadell: London; J. Dickson and E. Bal-four: Edinburgh), iii.55–137.

2 1795 EPS, ix–cxxiii.3 1811 Biographical memoirs of Adam Smith, LL.D. of William Robertson, D.D. and of Thomas Reid,

D.D. (W. Creech, Bell and Bradfute, and A. Constable: Edinburgh; F. and C. Rivington et al. [including Cadell and Davies]: London), 3–152.

4 1811 The Works of Adam Smith, LL.D., ed. Dugald Stewart, 5 vols. (T. Cadell and W. Davies et al.: London; W. Creech, and Bell and Bradfute: Edinburgh), v.403–552.

5 1858 The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, Esq., F.R.S., ed. Sir William Hamilton, Bart., 11 vols. (Thomas Constable and Co.: Edinburgh; Little, Brown, and Co.: Boston), x.1–98.

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ACCOUNT of the LIFE AND WRITINGS of ADAM SMITH, LL.D. From the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh [Read by Mr Stewart, January 21, and March 18, 1793]

SECTION I. From Mr Smith’s Birth till the publication of the Theory of Moral Senti-ments

Adam Smith, author of the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, was the son of Adam Smith, comptroller of the customs at Kirkaldy* , and of Margaret Douglas, daughter of Mr Douglas of Strathenry. He was the only child of the marriage, and was born at Kirkaldy on the 5th of June 1723, a few months after the death of his father.

His constitution during infancy was infirm and sickly, and required all the tender solicitude of his surviving parent. She was blamed for treating him with an unlimited indulgence; but it pro-duced no unfavourable effects on his temper or his dispositions:—and he enjoyed the rare satis-faction of being able to repay her affection, by every attention that filial gratitude could dictate, during the long period of sixty years.

An accident which happened to him when he was about three years old, is of too interesting a nature to be omitted in the account of so valuable a life. He had been carried by his mother to Strathenry, on a visit to his uncle Mr Douglas, and was one day amusing himself alone at the door of the house, when he was stolen by a party of that set of vagrants who are known in Scot-land by the name of tinkers. Luckily he was soon missed by his uncle, who, hearing that some vagrants had passed, pursued them, with what assistance he could find, till he overtook them in Leslie wood; and was the happy instrument of preserving to the world a genius, which was des-tined, not only to extend the boundaries of science, but to enlighten and reform the commercial policy of Europe.

The school of Kirkaldy, where Mr Smith received the first rudiments of his education, was then taught by Mr David Miller, a teacher, in his day, of considerable reputation, and whose name deserves to be recorded, on account of the eminent men whom that very obscure seminary produced while under his direction. Of this number were Mr Oswald of Dunikeir* ; his brother, Dr John Oswald, afterwards Bishop of Raphoe; and our late excellent colleague, the Reverend Dr John Drysdale: all of them nearly contemporary with Mr Smith, and united with him through life by the closest ties of friendship.—One of his school–fellows is still alive† ; and to his kindness I am principally indebted for the scanty materials which form the first part of this narrative.

Among these companions of his earliest years, Mr Smith soon attracted notice, by his passion for books, and by the extraordinary powers of his memory. The weakness of his bodily constitu-tion prevented him from partaking in their more active amusements; but he was much beloved by them on account of his temper, which, though warm, was to an uncommon degree friendly and generous. Even then he was remarkable for those habits which remained with him through life, of speaking to himself when alone, and of absence in company.

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From the grammar–school of Kirkaldy, he was sent, in 1737, to the university of Glasgow, where he remained till 1740, when he went to Baliol college, Oxford, as an exhibitioner‡ on Snell’s foundation.

Dr Maclaine of the Hague, who was a fellow–student of Mr Smith’s at Glasgow, told me some years ago, that his favourite pursuits while at that university were mathematics and natural philosophy; and I remember to have heard my father remind him of a geometrical problem of considerable difficulty, about which he was occupied at the time when their acquaintance com-menced, and which had been proposed to him as an exercise by the celebrated Dr Simpson.

These, however, were certainly not the sciences in which he was formed to excel; nor did they long divert him from pursuits more congenial to his mind. What Lord Bacon says of Plato may be justly applied to him: ‘Illum, licet ad rempublicam non accessisset, tamen naturâ et inclinati-one omnino ad res civiles propensum, vires eo praecipue intendisse; neque de Philosophia Natu-rali admodum sollicitum esse; nisi quatenus ad Philosophi nomen et celebritatem tuendam, et ad majestatem quandam moralibus et civilibus doctrinis addendam et aspergendam sufficeret* .’ The study of human nature in all its branches, more particularly of the political history of man-kind, opened a boundless field to his curiosity and ambition; and while it afforded scope to all the various powers of his versatile and comprehensive genius, gratified his ruling passion, of contrib-uting to the happiness and the improvement of society. To this study, diversified at his leisure hours by the less severe occupations of polite literature, he seems to have devoted himself almost entirely from the time of his removal to Oxford; but he still retained, and retained even in ad-vanced years, a recollection of his early acquisitions, which not only added to the splendour of his conversation, but enabled him to exemplify some of his favourite theories concerning the natural progress of the mind in the investigation of truth, by the history of those sciences in which the connection and succession of discoveries may be traced with the greatest advantage. If I am not mistaken too, the influence of his early taste for the Greek geometry may be remarked in the elementary clearness and fulness, bordering sometimes upon prolixity, with which he fre-quently states his political reasonings.—The lectures of the profound and eloquent Dr Hutche-son, which he had attended previous to his departure from Glasgow, and of which he always spoke in terms of the warmest admiration, had, it may be reasonably presumed, a considerable effect in directing his talents to their proper objects† .

I have not been able to collect any information with respect to that part of his youth which was spent in England. I have heard him say, that he employed himself frequently in the practice of translation, (particularly from the French), with a view to the improvement of his own style: and he used often to express a favourable opinion of the utility of such exercises, to all who culti-vate the art of composition. It is much to be regretted, that none of his juvenile attempts in this way have been preserved; as the few specimens which his writings contain of his skill as a transla-tor, are sufficient to shew the eminence he had attained in a walk of literature, which, in our country, has been so little frequented by men of genius.

It was probably also at this period of his life, that he cultivated with the greatest care the study of languages. The knowledge he possessed of these, both ancient and modern, was un-

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commonly extensive and accurate; and, in him, was subservient, not to a vain parade of tasteless erudition, but to a familiar acquaintance with every thing that could illustrate the institutions, the manners, and the ideas of different ages and nations. How intimately he had once been conver-sant with the more ornamental branches of learning; in particular, with the works of the Roman, Greek, French, and Italian poets, appeared sufficiently from the hold which they kept of his memory, after all the different occupations and inquiries in which his maturer faculties had been employed* . In the English language, the variety of poetical passages which he was not only ac-customed to refer to occasionally, but which he was able to repeat with correctness, appeared surprising even to those, whose attention had never been directed to more important acquisitions.

After a residence at Oxford of seven years, he returned to Kirkaldy, and lived two years with his mother; engaged in study, but without any fixed plan for his future life. He had been originally destined for the Church of England, and with that view had been sent to Oxford; but not finding the ecclesiastical profession suitable to his taste, he chose to consult, in this instance, his own in-clination, in preference to the wishes of his friends; and abandoning at once all the schemes which their prudence had formed for him, he resolved to return to his own country, and to limit his ambition to the uncertain prospect of obtaining, in time, some one of those moderate pre-ferments, to which literary attainments lead in Scotland.

In the year 1748, he fixed his residence at Edinburgh, and during that and the following years, read lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres, under the patronage of Lord Kames. About this time, too, he contracted a very intimate friendship, which continued without interruption till his death, with Mr Alexander Wedderburn,1 now Lord Loughborough, and with Mr William John-stone, now Mr Pulteney.

At what particular period his acquaintance with Mr David Hume commenced, does not ap-pear from any information that I have received; but from some papers, now in the possession of Mr Hume’s nephew, and which he has been so obliging as to allow me to peruse, their acquain-tance seems to have grown into friendship before the year 1752. It was a friendship on both sides founded on the admiration of genius, and the love of simplicity; and, which forms an interesting circumstance in the history of each of these eminent men, from the ambition which both have shewn to record it to posterity.

In 1751, he was elected Professor of Logic in the University of Glasgow; and, the year follow-ing, he was removed to the Professorship of Moral Philosophy in the same University, upon the death of Mr Thomas Craigie, the immediate successor of Dr Hutcheson. In this situation he re-mained thirteen years; a period he used frequently to look back to, as the most useful and happy of his life.2 It was indeed a situation in which he was eminently fitted to excel, and in which the daily labours of his profession were constantly recalling his attention to his favourite pursuits, and familiarizing his mind to those important speculations he was afterwards to communicate to the world. In this view, though it afforded, in the meantime, but a very narrow scene for his ambition, it was probably instrumental, in no inconsiderable degree, to the future eminence of his literary character.

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Of Mr Smith’s lectures while a Professor at Glasgow, no part has been preserved, excepting what he himself published in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and in the Wealth of Nations. The Society therefore, I am persuaded, will listen with pleasure to the following short account of them, for which I am indebted to a gentleman who was formerly one of Mr Smith’s pupils, and who continued till his death to be one of his most intimate and valued friends* .

‘In the Professorship of Logic, to which Mr Smith was appointed on his first introduction into this University, he soon saw the necessity of departing widely from the plan that had been fol-lowed by his predecessors, and of directing the attention of his pupils to studies of a more inter-esting and useful nature than the logic and metaphysics of the schools. Accordingly, after exhibit-ing a general view of the powers of the mind, and explaining so much of the ancient logic as was requisite to gratify curiosity with respect to an artificial method of reasoning, which had once oc-cupied the universal attention of the learned, he dedicated all the rest of his time to the delivery of a system of rhetoric and belles lettres. The best method of explaining and illustrating the vari-ous powers of the human mind,3 the most useful part of metaphysics, arises from an examina-tion of the several ways of communicating our thoughts by speech, and from an attention to the principles of those literary compositions which contribute to persuasion or entertainment. By these arts, every thing that we perceive or feel, every operation of our minds, is expressed and delineated in such a manner, that it may be clearly distinguished and remembered. There is, at the same time, no branch of literature more suited to youth at their first entrance upon philoso-phy than this, which lays hold of their taste and their feelings.

‘It is much to be regretted, that the manuscript containing Mr Smith’s lectures on this subject was destroyed before his death. The first part, in point of composition, was highly finished; and the whole discovered strong marks of taste and original genius. From the permission given to stu-dents of taking notes, many observations and opinions contained in these lectures have either been detailed in separate dissertations, or engrossed in general collections, which have since been given to the public. But these, as might be expected, have lost the air of originality and the dis-tinctive character which they received from their first author, and are often obscured by that mul-tiplicity of common–place matter in which they are sunk and involved.

‘About a year after his appointment to the Professorship of Logic, Mr Smith was elected to the chair of Moral Philosophy. His course of lectures on this subject was divided into four parts. The first contained Natural Theology; in which he considered the proofs of the being and attrib-utes of God, and those principles of the human mind upon which religion is founded. The sec-ond comprehended Ethics, strictly so called, and consisted chiefly of the doctrines which he af-terwards published in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. In the third part, he treated at more length of that branch of morality which relates to justice, and which, being susceptible of precise and accurate rules, is for that reason capable of a full and particular explanation.

‘Upon this subject he followed the plan that seems to be suggested by Montesquieu; endeav-ouring to trace the gradual progress of jurisprudence, both public and private, from the rudest to the most refined ages, and to point out the effects of those arts which contribute to subsistence, and to the accumulation of property, in producing correspondent improvements or alterations in

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law and government.4 This important branch of his labours he also intended to give to the pub-lic; but this intention, which is mentioned in the conclusion of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, he did not live to fulfil.5

‘In the last part of his lectures, he examined those political regulations which are founded, not upon the principle of justice, but that of expediency, and which are calculated to increase the riches, the power, and the prosperity of a State. Under this view, he considered the political insti-tutions relating to commerce, to finances, to ecclesiastical and military establishments. What he delivered on these subjects contained the substance of the work he afterwards published under the title of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

‘There was no situation in which the abilities of Mr Smith appeared to greater advantage than as a Professor. In delivering his lectures, he trusted almost entirely to extemporary elocution. His manner, though not graceful, was plain and unaffected; and, as he seemed to be always inter-ested in the subject, he never failed to interest his hearers. Each discourse consisted commonly of several distinct propositions, which he successively endeavoured to prove and illustrate.6 These propositions, when announced in general terms, had, from their extent, not unfrequently some-thing of the air of a paradox.7 In his attempts to explain them, he often appeared, at first, not to be sufficiently possessed of the subject, and spoke with some hesitation. As he advanced, however, the matter seemed to crowd upon him, his manner became warm and animated, and his expres-sion easy and fluent. In points susceptible of controversy, you could easily discern, that he secretly conceived an opposition to his opinions, and that he was led upon this account to support them with greater energy and vehemence. By the fulness and variety of his illustrations, the subject gradually swelled in his hands, and acquired a dimension which, without a tedious repetition of the same views, was calculated to seize the attention of his audience, and to afford them pleasure, as well as instruction, in following the same object, through all the diversity of shades and aspects in which it was presented, and afterwards in tracing it backwards to that original proposition or general truth from which this beautiful train of speculation had proceeded.

‘His reputation as a Professor was accordingly raised very high, and a multitude of students from a great distance resorted to the University, merely upon his account. Those branches of sci-ence which he taught became fashionable at this place, and his opinions were the chief topics of discussion in clubs and literary societies. Even the small peculiarities in his pronunciation or manner of speaking, became frequently the objects of imitation.’

While Mr Smith was thus distinguishing himself by his zeal and ability as a public teacher, he was gradually laying the foundation of a more extensive reputation, by preparing for the press his system of morals. The first edition of this work appeared in 1759, under the title of ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments.’

Hitherto Mr Smith had remained unknown to the world as an author; nor have I heard that he had made a trial of his powers in any anonymous publications, excepting in a periodical work called The Edinburgh Review, which was begun in the year 1755, by some gentlemen of distin-guished abilities, but which they were prevented by other engagements from carrying farther than the two first numbers. To this work Mr Smith contributed a review of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary of

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the English Language, and also a letter, addressed to the editors, containing some general obser-vations on the state of literature in the different countries of Europe. In the former of these pa-pers, he points out some defects in Dr Johnson’s plan, which he censures as not sufficiently grammatical. ‘The different significations of a word (he observes) are indeed collected; but they are seldom digested into general classes, or ranged under the meaning which the word principally expresses: And sufficient care is not taken to distinguish the words apparently synonymous.’ To illustrate this criticism, he copies from Dr Johnson the articles but and humour, and opposes to them the same articles digested agreeably to his own idea. The various significations of the word but are very nicely and happily discriminated. The other article does not seem to have been exe-cuted with equal care.8

The observations on the state of learning in Europe are written with ingenuity and elegance; but are chiefly interesting, as they shew the attention which the Author had given to the philoso-phy and literature of the Continent, at a period when they were not much studied in this island.

In the same volume with the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Mr Smith published a Disserta-tion ‘on the Origin of Languages, and on the different Genius of those which are original and compounded.’9 The remarks I have to offer on these two discourses, I shall, for the sake of dis-tinctness, make the subject of a separate section.

Section II. Of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and the Dissertation on the Origin of Languages

The science of Ethics has been divided by modern writers into two parts; the one compre-hending the theory of Morals, and the other its practical doctrines. The questions about which the former is employed, are chiefly the two following. First, By what principle of our constitution are we led to form the notion of moral distinctions;—whether by that faculty which, in the other branches of human knowledge, perceives the distinction between truth and falsehood; or by a peculiar power of perception (called by some the Moral Sense) which is pleased with one set of qualities, and displeased with another? Secondly, What is the proper object of moral approbation? or, in other words, What is the common quality or qualities belonging to all the different modes of virtue?1 Is it benevolence; or a rational self–love; or a disposition (resulting from the ascendant of Reason over Passion) to act suitably to the different relations in which we are placed? These two questions seem to exhaust the whole theory of Morals. The scope of the one is to ascertain the origin of our moral ideas; that of the other, to refer the phenomena of moral perception to their most simple and general laws.

The practical doctrines of morality comprehend all those rules of conduct which profess to point out the proper ends of human pursuit, and the most effectual means of attaining them; to which we may add all those literary compositions, whatever be their particular form, which have for their aim to fortify and animate our good dispositions, by delineations of the beauty, of the dignity, or of the utility of Virtue.

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I shall not inquire at present into the justness of this division. I shall only observe, that the words Theory and Practice are not, in this instance, employed in their usual acceptations. The theory of Morals does not bear, for example, the same relation to the practice of Morals, that the theory of Geometry bears to practical Geometry. In this last science, all the practical rules are founded on theoretical principles previously established: But in the former science, the practical rules are obvious to the capacities of all mankind; the theoretical principles form one of the most difficult subjects of discussion that ahavea ever exercised the ingenuity of metaphysicians.

In illustrating the doctrines of practical morality, (if we make allowance for some unfortunate prejudices produced or encouraged by violent and oppressive systems of policy), the ancients seem to have availed themselves of every light furnished by nature to human reason; and indeed those writers who, in later times, have treated the subject with the greatest success, are they who have followed most closely the footsteps of the Greek and the Roman philosophers. The theoreti-cal question, too, concerning the essence of virtue, or the proper object of moral approbation, was a favourite topic of discussion in the ancient schools. The question concerning the principle of moral approbation, though not entirely of modern origin, has been chiefly agitated since the writings of Dr Cudworth, in opposition to those of Mr Hobbes; and it is this question accord-ingly (recommended at once by its novelty and difficulty to the curiosity of speculative men), that has produced most of the theories which characterize and distinguish from each other the later systems of moral philosophy.

It was the opinion of Dr Cudworth, and also of Dr Clarke, that moral distinctions are per-ceived by that power of the mind, which distinguishes truth from falsehood.2 This system it was one great object of Dr Hutcheson’s philosophy to refute, and in opposition to it, to show that the words Right and Wrong express certain agreeable and disagreeable qualities in actions, which it is not the province of reason but of feeling to perceive; and to that power of perception which renders us susceptible of pleasure or of pain from the view of virtue or of vice, he gave the name of the Moral Sense.3 His reasonings upon this subject are in the main acquiesced in, both by Mr Hume and Mr Smith; but they differ from him in one important particular,—Dr Hutcheson plainly supposing, that the moral sense is a simple principle of our constitution, of which no ac-count can be given; whereas the other two philosophers have both attempted to analyze it into other principles more general. Their systems, however, with respect to it are very different from each other. According to Mr Hume, all the qualities which are denominated virtuous, are useful either to ourselves or to others, and the pleasure which we derive from the view of them is the pleasure of utility.4 Mr Smith, without rejecting entirely Mr Hume’s doctrine, proposes another of his own, far more comprehensive; a doctrine with which he thinks all the most celebrated theories of morality invented by his predecessors coincide in part, and from some partial view of which he apprehends that they have all proceeded.

Of this very ingenious and original theory, I shall endeavour to give a short abstract. To those who are familiarly acquainted with it as it is stated by its author, I am aware that the attempt may appear superfluous; but I flatter myself that it will not be wholly useless to such as have not been much conversant in these abstract disquisitions, by presenting to them the leading principles of

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the system in one connected view, without those interruptions of the attention which necessarily arise from the author’s various and happy illustrations, and from the many eloquent digressions which animate and adorn his composition.

The fundamental principle of Mr Smith’s theory is, that the primary objects of our moral perceptions are the actions of other men; and that our moral judgments with respect to our own conduct are only applications to ourselves of decisions which we have already passed on the con-duct of our neighbour. His work accordingly bincludes two distinct inquiries, which, although sometimes blended together in the execution of his general design, it is necessary for the reader to discriminate carefully from each other, in order to comprehend all the different bearings of the author’s argument. The aim of the former inquiry is, to explain in what manner we learn to judge of the conduct of our neighbour; that of the latter, to shew how, by applying these judg-ments to ourselves, we acquire a sense of duty, and a feeling of its paramount authority over all our other principles of action.b

Our moral judgments, both with respect to our own conduct and that of others, include two distinct perceptions: first, A perception of conduct as right or wrong; and, secondly, A perception of the merit or demerit of the agent. To that quality of conduct which moralists, in general, express by the word Rectitude, Mr Smith gives the name of Propriety; and he begins his theory with in-quiring in what it consists, and how we are led to form the idea of it. The leading principles of his doctrine on this subject are comprehended in the following propositions.

1. It is from our own experience alone, that we can form any idea of what passes in the mind of another person on any particular occasion; and the only way in which we can form this idea, is by supposing ourselves in the same circumstances with him, and conceiving how we should be affected if we were so situated. It is impossible for us, however, to conceive ourselves placed in any situation, whether agreeable or otherwise, without feeling an effect of the same kind with what would be produced by the situation itself; and of consequence the attention we give at any time to the circumstances of our neighbour, must affect us somewhat in the same manner, al-though by no means in the same degree, as if these circumstances were our own.

That this imaginary change of place with other men, is the real source of the interest we take in their fortunes, Mr Smith attempts to prove by various instances. ‘When we see a stroke aimed, and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slackrope, naturally writhe and twist and balance their own bodies, as they see him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do if in his situation.’5 The same thing takes place, according to Mr Smith, in every case in which our attention is turned to the condition of our neighbour. ‘Whatever is the passion which arises from any object in the person principally concerned, an analogous emotion springs up, at the thought of his situation, in the breast of every attentive spectator. In every pas-sion of which the mind of man is susceptible, the emotions of the bystander always correspond to what, by bringing the case home to himself, he imagines should be the sentiments of the sufferer.’6

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To this principle of our nature which leads us to enter into the situations of other men, and to partake with them in the passions which these situations have a tendency to excite, Mr Smith gives the name of sympathy or fellow–feeling, which two words he employs as synonymous. Upon some occasions, he acknowledges, that sympathy arises merely from the view of a certain emo-tion in another person; but in general it arises, not so much from the view of the emotion, as from that of the situation which excites it.

2. A sympathy or fellow–feeling between different persons is always agreeable to both. When I am in a situation which excites any passion, it is pleasant to me to know, that the spectators of my situation enter with me into all its various circumstances, and are affected with them in the same manner as I am myself. On the other hand, it is pleasant to the spectator to observe this correspondence of his emotions with mine.

3. When the spectator of another man’s situation, upon bringing home to himself all its vari-ous circumstances, feels himself affected in the same manner with the person principally con-cerned, he approves of the affection or passion of this person as just and proper, and suitable to its object. The exceptions which occur to this observation are, according to Mr Smith, only ap-parent. ‘A stranger, for example,7 passes by us in the street with all the marks of the deepest afflic-tion: and we are immediately told, that he has just received the news of the death of his father. It is impossible that, in this case, we should not approve of his grief; yet it may often happen, with-out any defect of humanity on our part, that, so far from entering into the violence of his sorrow, we should scarce conceive the first movements of concern upon his account.8 We have learned, however, from experience, that such a misfortune naturally excites such a degree of sorrow; and we know, that if we took time to examine his situation fully, and in all its parts, we should, without doubt, most sincerely sympathize with him. It is upon the consciousness of this conditional sym-pathy that our approbation of his sorrow is founded, even in those cases in which that sympathy does not actually take place; and the general rules derived from our preceding experience of what our sentiments would commonly correspond with, correct upon this, as upon many other occasions, the impropriety of our present emotions.’9

By the propriety therefore of any affection or passion exhibited by another person, is to be un-derstood its suitableness to the object which excites it. Of this suitableness I can judge only from the coincidence of the affection with that which I feel, when I conceive myself in the same cir-cumstances; and the perception of this coincidence is the foundation of the sentiment of moral approbation.

4. Although, when we attend to the situation of another person, and conceive ourselves to be placed in his circumstances, an emotion of the same kind with that which he feels naturally arises in our own mind, yet this sympathetic emotion bears but a very small proportion, in point of de-gree, to what is felt by the person principally concerned. In order, therefore, to obtain the pleas-ure of mutual sympathy, nature teaches the spectator to strive, as much as he can, to raise his emotion to a level with that which the object would really produce: and, on the other hand, she teaches the person whose passion this object has excited, to bring it down, as much as he can, to a level with that of the spectator.

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5. Upon these two different efforts are founded two different sets of virtues. Upon the effort of the spectator to enter into the situation of the person principally concerned, and to raise his sym-pathetic emotions to a level with the emotions of the actor, are founded the gentle, the amiable virtues; the virtues of candid condescension and indulgent humanity. Upon the effort of the per-son principally concerned to lower his own emotions, so as to correspond as nearly as possible with those of the spectator, are founded the great, the awful, and respectable virtues; the virtues of self–denial, of self–government, of that command of the passions, which subjects all the movements of our nature to what our own dignity and honour, and the propriety of our own conduct, require.

As a farther illustration of the foregoing doctrine, Mr Smith considers particularly the de-grees of the different passions which are consistent with propriety, and endeavours to shew, that, in every case, it is decent or indecent to express a passion strongly, according as mankind are dis-posed, or not disposed to sympathize with it. It is unbecoming, for example, to express strongly any of those passions which arise from a certain condition of the body; because other men, who are not in the same condition, cannot be expected to sympathize with them. It is unbecoming to cry out with bodily pain; because the sympathy felt by the spectator bears no proportion to the acuteness of what is felt by the sufferer. The case is somewhat similar with those passions which take their origin from a particular turn or habit of the imagination.

In the case of the unsocial passions of hatred and resentment, the sympathy of the spectator is divided between the person who feels the passion, and the person who is the object of it. ‘We are concerned for both, and our fear for what the one may suffer damps our resentment for what the other has suffered.’10 Hence the imperfect degree in which we sympathize with such pas-sions; and the propriety, when we are under their influence, of moderating their expression to a much greater degree than is required in the case of any other emotions.

The reverse of this takes place with respect to all the social and benevolent affections. The sympathy of the spectator with the person who feels them, coincides with his concern for the per-son who is the object of them. It is this redoubled sympathy which renders these affections so pe-culiarly becoming and agreeable.

The selfish emotions of grief and joy, when they are conceived on account of our own private good or bad fortune, hold a sort of middle place between our social and our unsocial passions. They are never so graceful as the one set, nor so odious as the other. Even when excessive, they are never so disagreeable as excessive resentment; because no opposite sympathy can ever interest us against them: and when most suitable to their objects, they are never so agreeable as impartial humanity and just benevolence; because no double sympathy can ever interest us for them.

After these general speculations concerning the propriety of actions, Mr Smith examines how far the judgments of mankind concerning it are liable to be influenced, in particular cases, by the prosperous or the adverse circumstances of the agent. The scope of his reasoning on this subject is directed to shew (in opposition to the common opinion), that when there is no envy in the case, our propensity to sympathize with joy is much stronger than our propensity to sympathize with sorrow; and, of consequence, that it is more easy to obtain the approbation of mankind in pros-

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perity than in adversity. From the same principle he traces the origin of ambition, or of the desire of rank and pre–eminence; the great object of which passion is, to attain that situation which sets a man most in the view of general sympathy and attention, and gives him an easy empire over the affections of others.

Having finished the analysis of our sense of propriety and of impropriety, Mr Smith proceeds to consider our sense of merit and demerit; which he thinks has also a reference, in the first in-stance, not to our own characters, but to the characters of our neighbours. In explaining the ori-gin of this part of our moral constitution, he avails himself of the same principle of sympathy, into which he resolves the sentiment of moral approbation.

The words propriety and impropriety, when applied to an affection of the mind, are used in this theory (as has been already observed) to express the suitableness or unsuitableness of the affection to its exciting cause. The words merit and demerit have always a reference (according to Mr Smith) to the effect which the affection tends to produce. When the tendency of an affection is beneficial, the agent appears to us a proper object of reward; when it is hurtful, he appears the proper ob-ject of punishment.

The principles in our nature which most directly prompt us to reward and to punish, are gratitude and resentment. To say of a person, therefore, that he is deserving of reward or of pun-ishment, is to say, in other words, that he is a proper object of gratitude or of resentment; or, which amounts to the same thing, that he is to some person or persons the object of a gratitude or of a resentment, which every reasonable man is ready to adopt and sympathize with.

It is however very necessary to observe, that we do not thoroughly sympathize with the grati-tude of one man towards another, merely because this other has been the cause of his good for-tune, unless he has been the cause of it from motives which we entirely go along with. Our sense, therefore, of the good desert of an action, is a compounded sentiment, made up of an indirect sympathy with the person to whom the action is beneficial, and of a direct sympathy with the af-fections and motives of the agent.—The same remark applies, mutatis mutandis, to our sense of demerit, or of ill–desert.

From these principles, it is inferred, that the only actions which appear to us deserving of re-ward, are actions of a beneficial tendency, proceeding from proper motives; the only actions which seem to deserve punishment, are actions of a hurtful tendency, proceeding from improper motives. A mere want of beneficence exposes to no punishment; because the mere want of be-neficence tends to do no real positive evil. A man, on the other hand, who is barely innocent, and contents himself with observing strictly the laws of justice with respect to others, can merit only, that his neighbours, in their turn, should observe religiously the same laws with respect to him.

These observations lead Mr Smith to anticipate a little the subject of the second great divi-sion of his work, by a short inquiry into the origin of our sense of justice, as applicable to our own conduct; and also of our sentiments of remorse, and of good desert.

The origin of our sense of justice, as well as of all our other moral sentiments, he accounts for by means of the principle of sympathy. When I attend only to the feelings of my own breast,

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my own happiness appears to me of far greater consequence than that of all the world besides. But I am conscious, that, in this excessive preference, other men cannot possibly sympathize with me, and that to them I appear only one of the crowd, in whom they are no more interested than in any other individual. If I wish, therefore, to secure their sympathy and approbation (which, according to Mr Smith, are the objects of the strongest desire of my nature), it is necessary for me to regard my happiness, not in that light in which it appears to myself, but in that light in which it appears to mankind in general. If an unprovoked injury is offered to me, I know that society will sympathize with my resentment; but if I injure the interests of another, who never injured me, merely because they stand in the way of my own, I perceive evidently, that society will sympathize with his resentment, and that I shall become the object of general indignation.

When, upon any occasion, I am led by the violence of passion to overlook these considera-tions, and, in the case of a competition of interests, to act according to my own feelings, and not according to those of impartial spectators, I never fail to incur the punishment of remorse. When my passion is gratified, and I begin to reflect coolly on my conduct, I can no longer enter into the motives from which it proceeded; it appears as improper to me as to the rest of the world; I la-ment the effects it has produced; I pity the unhappy sufferer whom I have injured; and I feel my-self a just object of indignation to mankind. ‘Such,’ says Mr Smith, ‘is the nature of that senti-ment which is properly called remorse.11 It is made up of shame from the sense of the impropri-ety of past conduct; of grief for the effects of it; of pity for those who suffer by it; and of the dread and terror of punishment from the consciousness of the justly provoked resentment of all rational creatures.’12

The opposite behaviour of him who, from proper motives, has performed a generous action, inspires, in a similar manner, the opposite sentiment of conscious merit, or of deserved reward.

The foregoing observations contain a general summary of Mr Smith’s principles with respect to the origin of our moral sentiments, in so far at least as they relate to the conduct of others. He acknowledges, at the same time, that the sentiments of which we are conscious, on particular oc-casions, do not always coincide with these principles; and that they are frequently modified by other considerations, very different from the propriety or impropriety of the affections of the agent, and also from the beneficial or hurtful tendency of these affections. The good or the bad consequences which accidently follow from an action, and which, as they do not depend on the agent, ought undoubtedly, in point of justice, to have no influence on our opinion, either of the propriety or the merit of his conduct, scarcely ever fail to influence considerably our judgment with respect to both; by leading us to form a good or a bad opinion of the prudence with which the action was performed, and by animating our sense of the merit or demerit of his design. These facts, however, do not furnish any objections which are peculiarly applicable to Mr Smith’s theory; for whatever hypothesis we may adopt with respect to the origin of our moral percep-tions, all men must acknowledge, that, in so far as the prosperous or the unprosperous event of an action depends on fortune or on accident, it ought neither to increase nor to diminish our moral approbation or disapprobation of the agent. And accordingly it has, in all ages of the world, been the complaint of moralists, that the actual sentiments of mankind should so often be in opposi-

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tion to this equitable and indisputable maxim. In examining, therefore, this irregularity of our moral sentiments, Mr Smith is to be considered, not as obviating an objection peculiar to his own system, but as removing a difficulty which is equally connected with every theory on the subject which has ever been proposed. So far as I know, he is the first philosopher who has been fully aware of the importance of the difficulty, and he has indeed treated it with great ability and suc-cess. The explanation which he gives of it is not warped in the least by any peculiarity in his own scheme; and, I must own, it appears to me to be the most solid and valuable improvement he has made in this branch of science. It is impossible to give any abstract of it in a sketch of this kind; and therefore I must content myself with remarking, that it consists of three parts. The first ex-plains the causes of this irregularity of sentiment; the second, the extent of its influence; and the third, the important purposes to which it is subservient. His remarks on the last of these heads are more particularly ingenious and pleasing; as their object is to shew, in opposition to what we should be disposed at first to apprehend, that when nature implanted the seeds of this irregularity in the human breast, her leading intention was, to promote the happiness and perfection of the species.

The remaining part of Mr Smith’s theory is employed in shewing, in what manner our sense of duty comes to be formed, in consequence of an application to ourselves of the judgments we have previously passed on the conduct of others.

In entering upon this inquiry, which is undoubtedly the most important in the work, and for which the foregoing speculations are, according to Mr Smith’s theory, a necessary preparation, he begins with stating the fact concerning our consciousness of merited praise or blame; and it must be owned, that the first aspect of the fact, as he himself states it, appears not very favourable to his principles. That the great object of a wise and virtuous man is not to act in such a manner as to obtain the actual approbation of those around him, but to act so as to render himself the just and proper object of their approbation, and that his satisfaction with his own conduct depends much more on the consciousness of deserving this approbation than from that of really enjoying it, he candidly acknowledges; but still he insists, that although this may seem, at first view, to inti-mate the existence of some moral faculty which is not borrowed from without, our moral senti-ments have always some secret reference, either to what are, or to what upon a certain condition would be, or to what we imagine ought to be, the sentiments of others; and that if it were possi-ble, that a human creature could grow up to manhood without any communication with his own species, he could no more think of his own character, or of the propriety or demerit of his own sentiments and conduct, than of the beauty or deformity of his own face. There is indeed a tri-bunal within the breast, which is the supreme arbiter of all our actions, and which often mortifies us amidst the applause, and supports us under the censure of the world; yet still, he contends, that if we inquire into the origin of its institution, we shall find, that its jurisdiction is, in a great measure, derived from the authority of that very tribunal whose decisions it so often and so justly reverses.

When we first come into the world, we, for some time, fondly pursue the impossible project of gaining the good–will and approbation of everybody. We soon however find, that this universal

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approbation is unattainable; that the most equitable conduct must frequently thwart the interests or the inclinations of particular persons, who will seldom have candour enough to enter into the propriety of our motives, or to see that this conduct, how disagreeable soever to them, is perfectly suitable to our situation. In order to defend ourselves from such partial judgments, we soon learn to set up in our own minds, a judge between ourselves and those we live with. We conceive our-selves as acting in the presence of a person, who has no particular relation, either to ourselves, or to those whose interests are affected by our conduct; and we study to act in such a manner as to obtain the approbation of this supposed impartial spectator. It is only by consulting him that we can see whatever relates to ourselves in its proper shape and dimensions.

There are two different occasions, on which we examine our own conduct, and endeavour to view it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it. First, when we are about to act; and, secondly, after we have acted. In both cases, our views are very apt to be partial.

When we are about to act, the eagerness of passion seldom allows us to consider what we are doing with the candour of an indifferent person. When the action is over, and the passions which prompted it have subsided, although we can undoubtedly enter into the sentiments of the indif-ferent spectator much more coolly than before, yet it is so disagreeable to us to think ill of our-selves, that we often purposely turn away our view from those circumstances which might render our judgment unfavourable.—Hence that self–deceit which is the source of half the disorders of human life.

In order to guard ourselves against its delusions, nature leads us to form insensibly, by our continual observations upon the conduct of others, certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or avoided. Some of their actions shock all our natural sentiments; and when we observe other people affected in the same manner with ourselves, we are confirmed in the belief, that our disapprobation was just. We naturally therefore lay it down as a general rule, that all such actions are to be avoided, as tending to render us odious, contemptible, or pun-ishable; and we endeavour, by habitual reflection, to fix this general rule in our minds, in order to correct the misrepresentations of self–love, if we should ever be called on to act in similar cir-cumstances. The man of furious resentment, if he were to listen to the dictates of that passion, would perhaps regard the death of his enemy as but a small compensation for a trifling wrong. But his observations on the conduct of others have taught him how horrible such sanguinary re-venges are; and he has impressed it on his mind as an invariable rule, to abstain from them upon all occasions. This rule preserves its authority with him, checks the impetuosity of his passion, and corrects the partial views which self–love suggests; although, if this had been the first time in which he considered such an action, he would undoubtedly have determined it to be just and proper, and what every impartial spectator would approve of.—A regard to such general rules of morality constitutes, according to Mr Smith, what is properly called the sense of duty.

I before hinted, that Mr Smith does not reject entirely from his system that principle of utility, of which the perception in any action or character constitutes, according to Mr Hume, the sen-timent of moral approbation. That no qualities of the mind are approved of as virtues, but such as are useful or agreeable, either to the person himself or to others, he admits to be a proposition

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that holds universally; and he also admits, that the sentiment of approbation with which we re-gard virtue, is enlivened by the perception of this utility, or, as he explains the fact, it is enlivened by our sympathy with the happiness of those to whom the utility extends: But still he insists, that it is not the view of this utility which is either the first or principal source of moral approbation.

To sum up the whole of his doctrine in a few words. ‘When we approve of any character or action, the sentiments which we feel are13 derived from four different sources.14 First, we sympa-thize with the motives of the agent; secondly, we enter into the gratitude of those who receive the benefit of his actions; thirdly, we observe that his conduct has been agreeable to the general rules by which those two sympathies generally act; and, lastly,15 when we consider such actions as making a part of a system of behaviour which tends to promote the happiness either of the indi-vidual or of society,16 they appear to derive a beauty from this utility, not unlike that which we ascribe to any well–contrived machine.’17 These different sentiments, he thinks, exhaust com-pletely, in every instance that can be supposed, the compounded sentiment of moral approbation. ‘After deducting, says he, in any one particular case, all that must be acknowledged to proceed from some one or other of these four principles, I should be glad to know what remains; and I shall freely allow this overplus to be ascribed to a moral sense, or to any other peculiar faculty, provided any body will ascertain precisely what this overplus is.’18

Mr Smith’s opinion concerning the nature of virtue, is involved in his theory concerning the principle of moral approbation. The idea of virtue, he thinks, always implies the idea of propri-ety, or of the suitableness of the affection to the object which excites it; which suitableness, ac-cording to him, can be determined in no other way than by the sympathy of impartial spectators with the motives of the agent. But still he apprehends, that this description of virtue is incom-plete; for although in every virtuous action propriety is an essential ingredient, it is not always the sole ingredient. Beneficent actions have in them another quality, by which they appear, not only to deserve approbation, but recompense, and excite a superior degree of esteem, arising from a double sympathy with the motives of the agent, and the gratitude of those who are the objects of his affection. In this respect, beneficence appears to him to be distinguished from the inferior vir-tues of prudence, vigilance, circumspection, temperance, constancy, firmness, which are always regarded with approbation, but which confer no merit. This distinction, he apprehends, has not been sufficiently attended to by moralists; the principles of some affording no explanation of the approbation we bestow on the inferior virtues; and those of others accounting as imperfectly for the peculiar excellency which the supreme virtue of beneficence is acknowledged to possess.*

Such are the outlines of Mr Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments; a work which, whatever opinion we may entertain of the justness of its conclusions, must be allowed by all to be a singu-lar effort of invention, ingenuity, and subtilty. For my own part I must confess, that it does not co-incide with my notions concerning the foundation of Morals: but I am convinced, at the same time, that it contains a large mixture of important truth, and that, although the author has some-times been misled by too great a desire of generalizing his principles, he has had the merit of di-recting the attention of philosophers to a view of human nature which had formerly in a great measure escaped their notice. Of the great proportion of just and sound reasoning which the

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theory involves its striking plausibility is a sufficient proof; for, as the author himself has re-marked, no system in morals can well gain our assent, if it does not border, in some respects, upon the truth. ‘A system of natural philosophy (he observes) may appear very plausible, and be for a long time very generally received in the world, and yet have no foundation in nature; but the author who should assign as the cause of any natural sentiment, some principle which neither had any connection with it, nor resembled any other principle which had some connection, would appear absurd and ridiculous to the most injudicious and inexperienced reader.’19 The merit, however, of Mr Smith’s performance does not rest here. No work, undoubtedly, can be mentioned, ancient or modern, which exhibits so complete a view of those facts with respect to our moral perceptions, which it is one great object of this branch of science to refer to their gen-eral laws; and upon this account, it well deserves the careful study of all whose taste leads them to prosecute similar inquiries. These facts are indeed frequently expressed in a language which in-volves the author’s peculiar theories: But they are always presented in the most happy and beauti-ful lights; and it is easy for an attentive reader, by stripping them of hypothetical terms, to state them to himself with that logical precision, which, in such very difficult disquisitions, can alone conduct us with certainty to the truth.

It is proper to observe farther, that with the theoretical doctrines of the book, there are eve-rywhere interwoven, with singular taste and address, the purest and most elevated maxims con-cerning the practical conduct of life; and that it abounds throughout with interesting and instruc-tive delineations of characters and manners. A considerable part of it too is employed in collat-eral inquiries, which, upon every hypothesis that can be formed concerning the foundation of morals, are of equal importance. Of this kind is the speculation formerly mentioned, with respect to the influence of fortune on our moral sentiments, and another speculation, no less valuable, with respect to the influence of custom and fashion on the same part of our constitution.

The style in which Mr Smith has conveyed the fundamental principles on which his theory rests, does not seem to me to be so perfectly suited to the subject as that which he employs on most other occasions. In communicating ideas which are extremely abstract and subtile, and about which it is hardly possible to reason correctly, without the scrupulous use of appropriated terms, he sometimes presents to us a choice of words, by no means strictly synonymous, so as to divert the attention from a precise and steady conception of his proposition: and a similar effect is, in other instances, produced by that diversity of forms which, in the course of his copious and seducing composition, the same truth insensibly assumes. When the subject of his work leads him to address the imagination and the heart, the variety and felicity of his illustrations; the richness and fluency of his eloquence; and the skill with which he wins the attention and commands the passions of his readers, leave him, among our English moralists, without a rival.

The Dissertation on the Origin of Languages, which now forms a part of the same volume with the Theory of Moral Sentiments, was, I believe, first annexed to the second edition of that work.20 It is an essay of great ingenuity, and on which the author himself set a high value; but, in a general review of his publications, it deserves our attention less, on account of the opinions it contains, than as a specimen of a particular sort of inquiry, which, so far as I know, is entirely of

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modern origin, and which seems, in a peculiar degree, to have interested Mr Smith’s curiosity.* Something very similar to it may be traced in all his different works, whether moral, political, or literary; and on all these subjects he has exemplified it with the happiest success.

When, in such a period of society as that in which we live, we compare our intellectual ac-quirements, our opinions, manners, and institutions, with those which prevail among rude tribes, it cannot fail to occur to us as an interesting question, by what gradual steps the transition has been made from the first simple efforts of uncultivated nature, to a state of things so wonderfully artificial and complicated. Whence has arisen that systematical beauty which we admire in the structure of a cultivated language; that analogy which runs through the emixturee of languages spoken by the most remote and unconnected nations; and those peculiarities by which they are all distinguished from each other? Whence the origin of the different sciences and of the different arts; and by what chain has the mind been led from their first rudiments to their last and most refined improvements? Whence the astonishing fabric of the political union; the fundamental principles which are common to all governments; and the different forms which civilized society has assumed in different ages of the world? On most of these subjects very little information is to be expected from history; for long before that stage of society when men begin to think of re-cording their transactions, many of the most important steps of their progress have been made. A few insulated facts may perhaps be collected from the casual observations of travellers, who have viewed the arrangements of rude nations; but nothing, it is evident, can be obtained in this way, which approaches to a regular and connected detail of human improvement.

In this want of direct evidence, we are under a necessity of supplying the place of fact by conjecture; and when we are unable to ascertain how men have actually conducted themselves upon particular occasions, of considering in what manner they are likely to have proceeded, from the principles of their nature, and the circumstances of their external situation. In such inquiries, the detached facts which travels and voyages afford us, may frequently serve as land–marks to our speculations; and sometimes our conclusions a priori, may tend to confirm the credibility of facts, which, on a superficial view, appeared to be doubtful or incredible.

Nor are such theoretical views of human affairs subservient merely to the gratification of cu-riosity. In examining the history of mankind, as well as in examining the phenomena of the ma-terial world, when we cannot trace the process by which an event has been produced, it is often of importance to be able to show how it may have been produced by natural causes. Thus, in the in-stance which has suggested these remarks, although it is impossible to determine with certainty what the steps were by which any particular language was formed, yet if we can shew, from the known principles of human nature, how all its various parts might gradually have arisen, the mind is not only to a certain degree satisfied, but a check is given to that indolent philosophy, which refers to a miracle, whatever appearances, both in the natural and moral worlds, it is un-able to explain.

To this species of philosophical investigation, which has no appropriated name in our lan-guage, I shall take the liberty of giving the title of Theoretical or Conjectural History; an expression

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which coincides pretty nearly in its meaning with that of Natural History, as employed by Mr Hu-me* , and with what some French writers have called Histoire Raisonnée.

The mathematical sciences, both pure and mixed, afford, in many of their branches, very fa-vourable subjects for theoretical history; and a very competent judge, the late M. d’Alembert, has recommended this arrangement of their elementary principles, which is founded on the natural succession of inventions and discoveries, as the best adapted for interesting the curiosity and ex-ercising the genius of students. The same author points out as a model a passage in Montucla’s History of Mathematics,21 where an attempt is made to exhibit the gradual progress of philo-sophical speculation, from the first conclusions suggested by a general survey of the heavens, to the doctrines of Copernicus. It is somewhat remarkable, that a theoretical history of this very sci-ence (in which we have, perhaps, a better opportunity than in any other instance whatever, of comparing the natural advances of the mind with the actual succession of hypothetical systems) was one of Mr Smith’s earliest compositions, and is one of the very small number of his manu-scripts which he did not destroy before his death.

I already hinted, that inquiries perfectly analogous to these may be applied to the modes of government, and to the municipal institutions which have obtained among different nations. It is but lately, however, that these important subjects have been considered in this point of view; the greater part of politicians before the time of Montesquieu, having contented themselves with an historical statement of facts, and with a vague reference of laws to the wisdom of particular legis-lators, or to accidental circumstances, which it is now impossible to ascertain.22 Montesquieu, on the contrary, considered laws as originating chiefly from the circumstances of society; and at-tempted to account, from the changes in the condition of mankind, which take place in the dif-ferent stages of their progress, for the corresponding alterations which their institutions undergo.23 It is thus that, in his occasional elucidations of the Roman jurisprudence, instead of bewildering himself among the erudition of scholiasts and of antiquaries, we frequently find him borrowing his lights from the most remote and unconnected quarters of the globe, and combin-ing the casual observations of illiterate travellers and navigators, into a philosophical commen-tary on the history of law and of manners.

The advances made in this line of inquiry since Montesquieu’s time have been great.24 Lord Kames, in his Historical Law Tracts,25 has given some excellent specimens of it, particularly in his Essays on the History of Property and of Criminal Law, and many ingenious speculations of the same kind occur in the works of Mr Millar.26

In Mr Smith’s writings, whatever be the nature of his subject, he seldom misses an opportu-nity of indulging his curiosity, in tracing from the principles of human nature, or from the cir-cumstances of society, the origin of the opinions and the institutions which he describes. I for-merly mentioned a fragment concerning the History of Astronomy which he has left for publica-tion; and I have heard him say more than once, that he had projected, in the earlier part of his life, a history of the other sciences on the same plan. In his Wealth of Nations, various disquisi-tions are introduced which have a like object in view, particularly the theoretical delineation he has given of the natural progress of opulence in a country; and his investigation of the causes

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which have inverted this order in the different countries of modern Europe.27 His lectures on jurisprudence seem, from the account of them formerly given, to have abounded in such inquir-ies.

I am informed by the same gentleman who favoured me with the account of Mr Smith’s lec-tures at Glasgow, that he had heard him sometimes hint an intention of writing a treatise upon the Greek and Roman republics. ‘And after all that has been published on that subject, I am con-vinced (says he), that the observations of Mr Smith would have suggested many new and impor-tant views concerning the internal and domestic circumstances of those nations, which would have displayed their several systems of policy, in a light much less artificial than that in which they have hitherto appeared.’

The same turn of thinking was frequently, in his social hours, applied to more familiar sub-jects; and the fanciful theories which, without the least affectation of ingenuity, he was continu-ally starting upon all the common topics of discourse, gave to his conversation a novelty and vari-ety that were quite inexhaustible. Hence too the minuteness and accuracy of his knowledge on many trifling articles, which, in the course of his speculations, he had been led to consider from some new and interesting point of view; and of which his lively and circumstantial descriptions amused his friends the more, that he seemed to be habitually inattentive, in so remarkable a de-gree, to what was passing around him.

I have been led into these remarks by the Dissertation on the Formation of Languages, which exhibits a very beautiful specimen of theoretical history, applied to a subject equally curious and difficult. The analogy between the train of thinking from which it has taken its rise, and that which has suggested a variety of his other disquisitions, will, I hope, be a sufficient apology for the length of this digression; more particularly, as it will enable me to simplify the account which I am to give afterwards, of his inquiries concerning political economy.

I shall only observe farther on this head, that when different theoretical histories are proposed by different writers, of the progress of the human mind in any one line of exertion, these theories are not always to be understood as standing in opposition to each other. If the progress deline-ated in all of them be plausible, it is possible at least, that they may all have been realized; for human affairs never exhibit, in any two instances, a perfect uniformity. But whether they have been realized or no, is often a question of little consequence. In most cases, it is of more impor-tance to ascertain the progress that is most simple, than the progress that is most agreeable to fact; for, paradoxical as the proposition may appear, it is certainly true, that the real progress is not always the most natural. It may have been determined by particular accidents, which are not likely again to occur, and which cannot be considered as forming any part of that general provi-sion which nature has made for the improvement of the race.

In order to make some amends for the length (I am afraid I may add for the tediousness) of this section, I shall subjoin to it an original letter of Mr Hume’s addressed to Mr Smith, soon af-ter the publication of his Theory. It is strongly marked with that easy and affectionate pleasantry which distinguished Mr Hume’s epistolary correspondence, and is entitled to a place in this Memoir, on account of its connection with an important event of Mr Smith’s life, which soon

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after removed him into a new scene, and influenced, to a considerable degree, the subsequent course of his studies. The letter is dated from London, 12th April 1759.28

‘I give you thanks for the agreeable present of your Theory. Wedderburn and I made presents of our copies to such of our acquaintances as we thought good judges, and proper to spread the reputation of the book. I sent one to the Duke of Argyll, to Lord Lyttleton, Horace Walpole, Soame Jennyns, and Burke, an Irish gentleman, who wrote lately a very pretty treatise on the Sublime. Millar desired my permission to send one in your name to Dr Warburton. I have de-layed writing to you till I could tell you something of the success of the book, and could prognos-ticate with some probability, whether it should be finally damned to oblivion, or should be regis-tered in the temple of immortality. Though it has been published only a few weeks, I think there appear already such strong symptoms, that I can almost venture to foretel its fate. It is in short this— But I have been interrupted in my letter by a foolish impertinent visit of one who has lately come from Scotland. He tells me that the University of Glasgow intend to declare Rouet’s office vacant, upon his going abroad with Lord Hope. I question not but you will have our friend Fer-guson in your eye, in case another project for procuring him a place in the University of Edin-burgh should fail. Ferguson has very much polished and improved his treatise on Refinement* , and with some amendments it will make an admirable book, and discovers an elegant and a sin-gular genius. The Epigoniad, I hope, will do; but it is somewhat up–hill work. As I doubt not but you consult the reviews sometimes at present, you will see in the Critical Review a letter upon that poem; and I desire you to employ your conjectures in finding out the author. Let me see a sample of your skill in knowing hands by your guessing at the person. I am afraid of Lord Kames’s Law Tracts. A man might as well think of making a fine sauce by a mixture of worm-wood and aloes, as an agreeable composition by joining metaphysics and Scotch law. However, the book, I believe, has merit; though few people will take the pains of diving into it. But, to re-turn to your book, and its success in this town, I must tell you—. A plague of interruptions! I or-dered myself to be denied; and yet here is one that has broke in upon me again. He is a man of letters, and we have had a good deal of literary conversation. You told me that you was curious of literary anecdotes, and therefore I shall inform you of a few that have come to my knowledge. I believe I have mentioned to you already Helvetius’s book de l’Esprit. It is worth your reading, not for its philosophy, which I do not highly value, but for its agreeable composition. I had a letter from him a few days ago, wherein he tells me that my name was much oftener in the manuscript, but that the Censor of books at Paris obliged him to strike it out. Voltaire has lately published a small work called Candide, ou l’Optimisme. I shall give you a detail of it— But what is all this to my book? say you.—My dear Mr Smith, have patience: Compose yourself to tranquillity: Shew yourself a philosopher in practice as well as profession: Think on the emptiness, and rashness, and futility of the common judgments of men: How little they are regulated by reason in any subject, much more in philosophical subjects, which so far exceed the comprehension of the vul-gar.

—Non si quid turbida Roma,

Elevet, accedas: examenve improbum in illaCastiges trutina: nec te quaesiveris extra.29

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A wise man’s kingdom is his own breast; or, if he ever looks farther, it will only be to the judgment of a select few, who are free from prejudices, and capable of examining his work. Noth-ing indeed can be a stronger presumption of falsehood than the approbation of the multitude; and Phocion, you know, always suspected himself of some blunder, when he was attended with the applauses of the populace.

‘Supposing, therefore, that you have duly prepared yourself for the worst by all these reflec-tions, I proceed to tell you the melancholy news, that your book has been very unfortunate; for the public seem disposed to applaud it extremely. It was looked for by the foolish people with some impatience; and the mob of literati are beginning already to be very loud in its praises. Three Bishops called yesterday at Millar’s shop in order to buy copies, and to ask questions about the author. The Bishop of Peterborough said he had passed the evening in a company where he heard it extolled above all books in the world. The Duke of Argyll is more decisive than he uses to be in its favour. I suppose he either considers it as an exotic, or thinks the author will be serv-iceable to him in the Glasgow elections. Lord Lyttleton says, that Robertson and Smith and Bower are the glories of English literature. Oswald protests he does not know whether he has reaped more instruction or entertainment from it. But you may easily judge what reliance can be put on his judgment who has been engaged all his life in public business, and who never sees any faults in his friends. Millar exults and brags that two–thirds of the edition are already sold, and that he is now sure of success. You see what a son of the earth that is, to value books only by the profit they bring him. In that view, I believe it may prove a very good book.

‘Charles Townsend, who passes for the cleverest fellow in England, is so taken with the per-formance, that he said to Oswald he would put the Duke of Buccleuch under the author’s care, and would make it worth his while to accept of that charge. As soon as I heard this I called on him twice, with a view of talking with him about the matter, and of convincing him of the pro-priety of sending that young Nobleman to Glasgow: For I could not hope, that he could offer you any terms which would tempt you to renounce your Professorship. But I missed him. Mr Town-send passes for being a little uncertain in his resolutions: so perhaps you need not build much on this sally.

‘In recompence for so many mortifying things, which nothing but truth could have extorted from me, and which I could easily have multiplied to a greater number, I doubt not but you are so good a Christian as to return good for evil; and to flatter my vanity by telling me, that all the godly in Scotland abuse me for my account of John Knox and the Reformation. I suppose you are glad to see my paper end, and that I am obliged to conclude with

Your humble servant,

David Hume.’

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Section III. From the Publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, till that of The Wealth of Nations

After the publication of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, Mr Smith remained four years at Glasgow, discharging his official duties with unabated vigour, and with increasing reputation. During that time, the plan of his lectures underwent a considerable change. His ethical doctrines, of which he had now published so valuable a part, occupied a much smaller portion of the course than formerly: and accordingly, his attention was naturally directed to a more complete illustration of the principles of jurisprudence and of political economy.

To this last subject, his thoughts appear to have been occasionally turned from a very early period of life. It is probable, that the uninterrupted friendship he had always maintained with his old companion Mr Oswald,1 had some tendency to encourage him in prosecuting this branch of his studies; and the publication of Mr Hume’s political discourses, in the year 1752, could not fail to confirm him in those liberal views of commercial policy which had already opened to him in the course of his own inquiries. His long residence in one of the most enlightened mercantile towns in this island, and the habits of intimacy in which he lived with the most respectable of its inhabitants, afforded him an opportunity of deriving what commercial information he stood in need of, from the best sources; and it is a circumstance no less honourable to their liberality than to his talents, that notwithstanding the reluctance so common among men of business to listen to the conclusions of mere speculation, and the direct opposition of his leading principles to all the old maxims of trade, he was able, before he quitted his situation in the university, to rank some very eminent merchants in the number of his proselytes* .

Among the students who attended his lectures, and whose minds were not previously warped by prejudice, the progress of his opinions, it may be reasonably supposed, was much more rapid. It was this class of his friends accordingly that first adopted his system with eagerness, and dif-fused a knowledge of its fundamental principles over this part of the kingdom.

Towards the end of 1763, Mr Smith received an invitation from Mr Charles Townsend to accompany the Duke of Buccleuch on his travels; and the liberal terms in which the proposal was made to him, added to the strong desire he had felt of visiting the Continent of Europe, induced him to resign his office at Glasgow. With the connection which he was led to form in consequence of this change in his situation, he had reason to be satisfied in an uncommon degree, and he al-ways spoke of it with pleasure and gratitude. To the public, it was not perhaps a change equally fortunate; as it interrupted that studious leisure for which nature seems to have destined him, and in which alone he could have hoped to accomplish those literary projects which had flattered the ambition of his youthful genius.

The alteration, however, which, from this period, took place in his habits, was not without its advantages. He had hitherto lived chiefly within the walls of an university; and although to a mind like his, the observation of human nature on the smallest scale is sufficient to convey a tol-erably just conception of what passes on the great theatre of the world, yet it is not to be doubted, that the variety of scenes through which he afterwards passed, must have enriched his

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mind with many new ideas, and corrected many of those misapprehensions of life and manners which the best descriptions of them can scarcely fail to convey.—But whatever were the lights that his travels afforded to him as a student of human nature, they were probably useful in a still greater degree, in enabling him to perfect that system of political economy, of which he had al-ready delivered the principles in his lectures at Glasgow, and which it was now the leading object of his studies to prepare for the public. The coincidence between some of these principles and the distinguishing tenets of the French economists, who were at that very time in the height of their reputation, and the intimacy in which he lived with some of the leaders of that sect, could not fail to assist him in methodizing and digesting his speculations; while the valuable collection of facts, accumulated by the zealous industry of their numerous adherents, furnished him with ample materials for illustrating and confirming his theoretical conclusions.

After leaving Glasgow, Mr Smith joined the Duke of Buccleuch at London early in the year 1764, and set out with him for the continent in the month of March following. At Dover they were met by Sir James Macdonald, who accompanied them to Paris, and with whom Mr Smith laid the foundation of a friendship, which he always mentioned with great sensibility, and of which he often lamented the short duration. The panegyrics with which the memory of this ac-complished and amiable person has been honoured by so many distinguished characters in the different countries of Europe, are a proof how well fitted his talents were to command general admiration. The esteem in which his abilities and learning were held by Mr Smith, is a testimony to his extraordinary merit of still superior value. Mr Hume, too, seems, in this instance, to have partaken of his friend’s enthusiasm. ‘Were you and I together (says he in a letter to Mr Smith), we should shed tears at present for the death of poor Sir James Macdonald. We could not possibly have suffered a greater loss than in that valuable young man.’2

In this first visit to Paris, the Duke of Buccleuch and Mr Smith employed only ten or twelve days* , after which they proceeded to Thoulouse, where they fixed their residence for eighteen months; and where, in addition to the pleasure of an agreeable society, Mr Smith had an oppor-tunity of correcting and extending his information concerning the internal policy of France, by the intimacy in which he lived with some of the principal persons of the Parliament.

From Thoulouse they went, by a pretty extensive tour, through the south of France to Ge-neva. Here they passed two months. The late Earl Stanhope, for whose learning and worth Mr Smith entertained a sincere respect, was then an inhabitant of that republic.

About Christmas 1765, they returned to Paris, and remained there till October following. The society in which Mr Smith spent these ten months, may be conceived from the advantages he enjoyed, in consequence of the recommendations of Mr Hume. Turgot, Quesnai, aMorellet ,†a Necker, d’Alembert, Helvetius, Marmontel, Madame Riccoboni, were among the number of his acquaintances; and some of them he continued ever afterwards to reckon among his friends. From Madam bd’Anville,b the respectable mother of the late excellent and much lamented Duke of clac Rochefoucauld* , he received many attentions, which he always recollected with particular gratitude.

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It is much to be regretted, that he preserved no journal of this very interesting period of his history; and such was his aversion to write letters, that I scarcely suppose any memorial of it ex-ists in his correspondence with his friends. The extent and accuracy of his memory, in which he was equalled by few, made it of little consequence to himself to record in writing what he heard or saw; and from his anxiety before his death to destroy all the papers in his possession, he seems to have wished, that no materials should remain for his biographers, but what were furnished by the lasting monuments of his genius, and the exemplary worth of his private life.

The satisfaction he enjoyed in the conversation of Turgot may be easily imagined. Their opinions on the most essential points of political economy were the same; and they were both animated by the same zeal for the best interests of mankind. The favourite studies, too, of both, had directed their inquiries to subjects on which the understandings of the ablest and the best informed are liable to be warped, to a great degree, by prejudice and passion; and on which, of consequence, a coincidence of judgment is peculiarly gratifying. We are told by one of the biog-raphers of Turgot, that after his retreat from the ministry, he occupied his leisure in a philosophi-cal correspondence with some of his old friends; and, in particular, that various letters on impor-tant subjects passed between him and Mr Smith. I take notice of this anecdote chiefly as a proof of the intimacy which was understood to have subsisted between them; for in other respects, the anecdote seems to me to be somewhat doubtful. It is scarcely to be supposed, that Mr Smith would destroy the letters of such a correspondent as Turgot; and still less probable, that such an intercourse was carried on between them without the knowledge of any of Mr Smith’s friends. From some inquiries that have been made at Paris by a gentleman of this Society since Mr Smith’s death, I have reason to believe, that no evidence of the correspondence exists among the papers of M. Turgot, and that the whole story has taken its rise from a report suggested by the knowledge of their former intimacy. This circumstance I think it of importance to mention, be-cause a good deal of curiosity has been excited by the passage in question, with respect to the fate of the supposed letters.3

Mr Smith was also well known to M. Quesnai, the profound and original author of the Eco-nomical Table; a man (according to Mr Smith’s account of him) ‘of the greatest modesty and simplicity;’4 and whose system of political economy he has pronounced, ‘with all its imperfec-tions,’ to be ‘the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published on the principles of that very important science.’5 If he had not been prevented by Quesnai’s death, Mr Smith had once an intention (as he told me himself) to have inscribed to him his ‘Wealth of Nations.’

It was not, however, merely the distinguished men who about this period fixed so splendid an aera in the literary history of France, that excited Mr Smith’s curiosity while he remained in Paris. His acquaintance with the polite literature both of ancient and modern times was exten-sive; and amidst his various other occupations, he had never neglected to cultivate a taste for the fine arts;—less, it is probable, with a view to the peculiar enjoyments they convey, (though he was by no means without sensibility to their beauties,) than on account of their connection with the general principles of the human mind; to an examination of which they afford the most pleasing of all avenues. To those who speculate on this very delicate subject, a comparison of the modes of

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taste that prevail among different nations, affords a valuable collection of facts; and Mr Smith, who was always disposed to ascribe to custom and fashion their full share in regulating the opin-ions of mankind with respect to beauty, may naturally be supposed to have availed himself of every opportunity which a foreign country afforded him of illustrating his former theories.

Some of his peculiar notions, too, with respect to the imitative arts, seem to have been much confirmed by his observations while abroad. In accounting for the pleasure we receive from these arts, it had early occurred to him as a fundamental principle, that a very great part of it arises from the difficulty of the imitation;6 a principle which was probably suggested to him by that of the difficulté surmontée, by which some French critics had attempted to explain the effect of versifi-cation and of rhyme* . This principle Mr Smith pushed to the greatest possible length, and re-ferred to it, with singular ingenuity, a great variety of phenomena in all the different fine arts. It led him, however, to some conclusions, which appear, at first view at least, not a little paradoxical; and I cannot help thinking, that it warped his judgment in many of the opinions which he was accustomed to give on the subject of poetry.

The principles of dramatic composition had more particularly attracted his attention; and the history of the theatre, both in ancient and modern times, had furnished him with some of the most remarkable facts on which his theory of the imitative arts was founded. From this theory it seemed to follow as a consequence, that the same circumstances which, in tragedy, give to blank verse an advantage over prose, should give to rhyme an advantage over blank verse; and Mr Smith had always inclined to that opinion.7 Nay, he had gone so far as to extend the same doc-trine to comedy; and to regret that those excellent pictures of life and manners which the English stage affords, had not been executed after the model of the French school. The admiration with which he regarded the great dramatic authors of France tended to confirm him in these opinions; and this admiration (resulting originally from the general character of his taste, which delighted more to remark that pliancy of genius which accommodates itself to established rules, than to wonder at the bolder flights of an undisciplined imagination) was increased to a great degree, when he saw the beauties that had struck him in the closet, heightened by the utmost perfection of theatrical exhibition. In the last years of his life, he sometimes amused himself, at a leisure hour, in supporting his theoretical conclusions on these subjects, by the facts which his subsequent studies and observations had suggested; and he intended, if he had lived, to have prepared the result of these labours for the press. Of this work he has left for publication a short fragment;d but he had not proceeded far enough to apply his doctrine to versification and to the theatre. As his notions, however, with respect to these were a favourite topic of his conversation, and were inti-mately connected with his general principles of criticism, it would have been improper to pass them over in this sketch of his life; and I even thought it proper to detail them at greater length than the comparative importance of the subject would have justified, if he had carried his plans into execution. Whether his love of system, added to his partiality for the French drama, may not have led him, in this instance, to generalize a little too much his conclusions, and to overlook some peculiarities in the language and versification of that country, I shall not take upon me to determine.

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In October 1766, the Duke of Buccleuch returned to London. His Grace, to whom I am in-debted for several particulars in the foregoing narrative, will, I hope, forgive the liberty I take in transcribing one paragraph in his own words: ‘In October 1766, we returned to London, after having spent near three years together, without the slightest disagreement or coolness;—on my part, with every advantage that could be expected from the society of such a man. We continued to live in friendship till the hour of his death; and I shall always remain with the impression of having lost a friend whom I loved and respected, not only for his great talents, but for every pri-vate virtue.’

The retirement in which Mr Smith passed his next ten years, formed a striking contrast to the unsettled mode of life he had been for some time accustomed to, but was so congenial to his natural disposition, and to his first habits, that it was with the utmost difficulty he was ever per-suaded to leave it. During the whole of this period, (with the exception of a few visits to Edin-burgh and London,) he remained with his mother at Kirkaldy; occupied habitually in intense study, but unbending his mind at times in the company of some of his old school–fellows, whose ‘sober wishes’ had attached them to the place of their birth. In the society of such men, Mr Smith delighted; and to them he was endeared, not only by his simple and unassuming manners, but by the perfect knowledge they all possessed of those domestic virtues which had distinguished him from his infancy.

Mr Hume, who (as he tells us himself) considered ‘a town as the true scene for a man of let-ters,’8 made many attempts to seduce him from his retirement. In a letter, dated in 1772, he urges him to pass some time with him in Edinburgh. ‘I shall not take any excuse from your state of health, which I suppose only a subterfuge invented by indolence and love of solitude. Indeed, my dear Smith, if you continue to hearken to complaints of this nature, you will cut yourself out entirely from human society, to the great loss of both parties.’9 In another letter, dated in 1769, from his house in James’s Court, (which commanded a prospect of the Frith of Forth, and of the opposite coast of Fife,) ‘I am glad (says he) to have come within sight of you; but as I would also be within speaking terms of you, I wish we could concert measures for that purpose. I am mor-tally sick at sea, and regard with horror and a kind of hydrophobia the great gulf that lies be-tween us. I am also tired of travelling, as much as you ought naturally to be of staying at home. I therefore propose to you to come hither, and pass some days with me in this solitude. I want to know what you have been doing, and propose to exact a rigorous account of the method in which you have employed yourself during your retreat. I am positive you are in the wrong in many of your speculations, especially where you have the misfortune to differ from me. All these are rea-sons for our meeting, and I wish you would make me some reasonable proposal for that purpose. There is no habitation in the island of Inchkeith, otherwise I should challenge you to meet me on that spot, and neither of us ever to leave the place, till we were fully agreed on all points of con-troversy. I expect General Conway here tomorrow, whom I shall attend to Roseneath, and I shall remain there a few days. On my return, I hope to find a letter from you, containing a bold accep-tance of this defiance.’10

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At length (in the beginning of the year 1776) Mr Smith accounted to the world for his long retreat, by the publication of his ‘Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.’ A letter of congratulation on this event, from Mr Hume, is now before me. It is dated 1st April 1776 (about six months before Mr Hume’s death), and discovers an amiable solicitude about his friend’s literary fame.11 ‘Euge! Belle! Dear Mr Smith: I am much pleased with your performance, and the perusal of it has taken me from a state of great anxiety. It was a work of so much expec-tation, by yourself, by your friends, and by the public, that I trembled for its appearance; but am now much relieved. Not but that the reading of it necessarily requires so much attention, and the public is disposed to give so little, that I shall still doubt for some time of its being at first very popular. But it has depth and solidity and acuteness, and is so much illustrated by curious facts, that it must at last take the public attention. It is probably much improved by your last abode in London. If you were here at my fire–side, I should dispute some of your principles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . But these, and a hundred other points, are fit only to be discussed in conversation.12 I hope it will be soon; for I am in a very bad state of health, and cannot afford a long delay.’

Of a book which is now so universally known as ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ it might be consid-ered perhaps as superfluous to give a particular analysis; and, at any rate, the limits of this essay make it impossible for me to attempt it at present. A few remarks, however, on the object and tendency of the work, may, I hope, be introduced without impropriety. The history of a philoso-pher’s life can contain little more than the history of his speculations; and in the case of such an author as Mr Smith, whose studies were systematically directed from his youth to subjects of the last importance to human happiness, a review of his writings, while it serves to illustrate the pecu-liarities of his genius, affords the most faithful picture of his character as a man.

SECTION IV. Of the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations*

An historical view of the different forms under which human affairs have appeared in differ-ent ages and nations,1 naturally suggests the question, Whether the experience of former times may not now furnish some general principles to enlighten and direct the policy of future legisla-tors? The discussion, however, to which this question leads, is of singular difficulty: as it requires an accurate analysis of by far the most complicated class of phenomena that can possibly engage our attention, those which result from the intricate and often the imperceptible mechanism of political society;—a subject of observation which seems, at first view, so little commensurate to our faculties, that it has been generally regarded with the same passive emotions of wonder and submission,2 with which, in the material world, we survey the effects produced by the mysterious and uncontroulable operation of physical causes. It is fortunate that upon this, as upon many other occasions, the difficulties which had long baffled the efforts of solitary genius begin to ap-pear less formidable to the united exertions of the race; and that in proportion as the experience and the reasonings of different individuals are brought to bear upon the same objects, and are combined in such a manner as to illustrate and to limit each other, the science of politics assumes more and more that systematical form which encourages and aids the labours of future inquirers.

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In prosecuting the science of politics on this plan, little assistance is to be derived from the speculations of ancient philosophers, the greater part of whom, in their political inquiries, con-fined their attention to a comparison of the different forms of government, and to an examina-tion of the provisions they made for perpetuating their own existence, and for extending the glory of the state. It was reserved for modern times to investigate those universal principles of justice and of expediency,3 which ought, under every form of government, to regulate the social order; and of which the object is, to make as equitable a distribution as possible, among all the different members of a community, of the advantages arising from the political union.

The invention of printing was perhaps necessary to prepare the way for these researches. In those departments of literature and of science, where genius finds within itself the materials of its labours; in poetry, in pure geometry, and in some branches of moral philosophy; the ancients have not only laid the foundations on which we are to build, but have left great and finished models for our imitation. But in physics, where our progress depends on an immense collection of facts, and on a combination of the accidental lights daily struck out in the innumerable walks of observation and experiment; and in politics, where the materials of our theories are equally scat-tered, and are collected and arranged with still greater difficulty, the means of communication afforded by the press have, in the course of two centuries, accelerated the progress of the human mind, far beyond what the most sanguine hopes of our predecessors could have imagined.

The progress already made in this science, inconsiderable as it is in comparison of what may be yet expected, has been sufficient to shew, that the happiness of mankind depends, not on the share which the people possesses, directly or indirectly, in the enactment of laws, but on the eq-uity and expediency of the laws that are enacted. The share which the people possesses in the government is interesting chiefly to the small number of men whose object is the attainment of political importance; but the equity and expediency of the laws are interesting to every member of the community: and more especially to those whose personal insignificance leaves them no encouragement, but what they derive from the general spirit of the government under which they live.

It is evident, therefore, that the most important branch of political science is that which has for its object to ascertain the philosophical principles of jurisprudence; or (as Mr Smith expresses it) to ascertain ‘the general principles which ought to run through and be the foundation of the laws of all nations* .’ In countries where the prejudices of the people are widely at variance with these principles, the political liberty which the constitution bestows, only furnishes them with the means of accomplishing their own ruin: And if it were possible to suppose these principles com-pletely realized in any system of laws, the people would have little reason to complain, that they were not immediately instrumental in their enactment. The only infallible criterion of the excel-lence of any constitution is to be found in the detail of its municipal code; and the value which wise men set on political freedom, arises chiefly from the facility it is supposed to afford, for the introduction of those legislative improvements which the general interests of the community rec-ommenda; combined with the security it provides in the light and spirit of the people, for the pure and equal administration of justicea .—I cannot help adding, that the capacity of a people to ex-

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ercise political rights with utility to themselves and to their country, presupposes a diffusion of knowledge and of good morals, which can only result from the previous operation of laws fa-vourable to industry, to order, and to freedom.

Of the truth of these remarks, enlightened politicians seem now to be in general convinced; for the most celebrated works which have been produced in the different countries of Europe, during the last thirty years, by Smith, Quesnai, Turgot, Campomanes, Beccaria, and others, have aimed at the improvement of society,—not by delineating plans of new constitutions, but by en-lightening the policy of actual legislators. Such speculations, while they are more essentially and more extensively useful than any others, have no tendency to unhinge established institutions, or to inflame the passions of the multitude. The improvements they recommend are to be effected by means too gradual and slow in their operation, to warm the imaginations of any but of the speculative few; and in proportion as they are adopted, they consolidate the political fabric, and enlarge the basis upon which it rests.

To direct the policy of nations with respect to one most important class of its laws, those which form its system of political economy, is the great aim of Mr Smith’s Inquiry:4 And he has unquestionably had the merit of presenting to the world, the most comprehensive and perfect work that has yet appeared, on the general principles of any branch of legislation. The example which he has set will be followed, it is to be hoped, in due time, by other writers, for whom the internal policy of states furnishes many other subjects of discussion no less curious and interest-ing; and may accelerate the progress of that science which Lord Bacon has so well described in the following passage: ‘Finis et scopus quem leges intueri, atque ad quem jussiones et sanctiones suas dirigere debent, non alius est, quam ut cives feliciter degant; id fiet, si pietate et religione recte instituti; moribus honesti; armis adversus hostes externos tuti; legum auxilio adversus sedi-tiones et privatas injurias muniti; imperio et magistratibus obsequentes; copiis et opibus locupletes et florentes fuerint.—Certe cognitio ista ad viros civiles proprie spectat; qui optime nôrunt, quid ferat societas humana, quid salus populi, quid aequitas naturalis, quid gentium mores, quid re-rumpublicarum formae diversae: ideoque possint de legibus, ex principiis et praeceptis tam aequitatis naturalis, quam politices decernere. Quamobrem id nunc agatur, ut fontes justitiae et utilitatis publicae petantur, et in singulis juris partibus character quidam et idea justi exhibeatur, ad quam particularium regnorum et rerumpublicarum leges probare, atque inde emendationem moliri, quisque, cui hoc cordi erit et curae, possit.’5 The enumeration contained in the foregoing passage, of the different objects of law, coincides very nearly with that given by Mr Smith in the conclusion of his Theory of Moral Sentiments; and the precise aim of the political speculations which he then announced, and of which he afterwards published so valuable a part in his Wealth of Nations, was to ascertain the general principles of justice and of expediency, which ought to guide the institutions of legislators on these important articles;—in the words of Lord Bacon, to ascertain those leges legum, ‘ex quibus informatio peti possit, quid in singulis legibus bene aut per-peram positum aut constitutum sit.’6

The branch of legislation which Mr Smith has made choice of as the subject of his work, naturally leads me to remark a very striking contrast between the spirit of ancient and of modern

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policy in respect to the Wealth of Nations* . The great object of the former was to counteract the love of money and a taste for luxury, by positive institutions; and to maintain in the great body of the people, habits of frugality, and a severity of manners. The decline of states is uniformly as-cribed by the philosophers and historians, both of Greece and Rome, to the influence of riches on national character; and the laws of Lycurgus, which, during a course of ages, banished the precious metals from Sparta, are proposed by many of them as the most perfect model of legisla-tion devised by human wisdom.—How opposite to this is the doctrine of modern politicians! Far from considering poverty as an advantage to a state, their great aim is to open new sources of na-tional opulence, and to animate the activity of all classes of the people, by a taste for the comforts and accommodations of life.

One principal cause of this difference between the spirit of ancient and of modern policy, may be found in the difference between the sources of national wealth in ancient and in modern times. In ages when commerce and manufactures were yet in their infancy, and among states con-stituted like most of the ancient republics, a sudden influx of riches from abroad was justly dreaded as an evil, alarming to the morals, to the industry, and to the freedom of a people. So different, however, is the case at present, that the most wealthy nations are those where the people are the most laborious, and where they enjoy the greatest degree of liberty. Nay, it was the gen-eral diffusion of wealth among the lower orders of men, which first gave birth to the spirit of in-dependence in modern Europe, and which has produced under some of its governments, and especially under our own, a more equal diffusion of freedom and of happiness than took place under the most celebrated constitutions of antiquity.7

Without this diffusion of wealth among the lower orders, the important effects resulting from the invention of printing would have been extremely limited; for a certain degree of ease and in-dependence is necessary to inspire men with the desire of knowledge, and to afford them the lei-sure which is requisite for acquiring it; and it is only by the rewards which such a state of society holds up to industry and ambition, that the selfish passions of the multitude can be interested in the intellectual improvement of their children. The extensive propagation of light and refine-ment arising from the influence of the press, aided by the spirit of commerce, seems to be the remedy provided by nature, against the fatal effects which would otherwise by produced, by the subdivision of labour accompanying the progress of the mechanical arts: Nor is any thing want-ing to make the remedy effectual, but wise institutions to facilitate general instruction, and to adapt the education of individuals to the stations they are to occupy. The mind of the bartistb , which, from the limited sphere of his activity,8 would sink below the level of the peasant or the savage, might receive in infancy the means of intellectual enjoyment, and the seeds of moral im-provement; and even the insipid uniformity of his professional engagements, by presenting no object to awaken his ingenuity or to distract his attention, might leave him at liberty to employ his faculties, on subjects more interesting to himself, and more extensively useful to others.

These effects, notwithstanding a variety of opposing causes which still exist, have already re-sulted, in a very sensible degree, from the liberal policy of modern times. Mr Hume, in his Essay on Commerce, after taking notice of the numerous armies raised and maintained by the small

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republics in the ancient world, ascribes the military power of these states to their want of com-merce and luxury. ‘Few artisans were maintained by the labour of the farmers, and therefore more soldiers might live upon it.’ He adds, however, that ‘the policy of ancient times was violent, and contrary to the natural course of things;’9 —by which, I presume, he means, that it aimed too much at modifying, by the force of positive institutions, the order of society, according to some preconceived idea of expediency; without trusting sufficiently to those principles of the human constitution, which, wherever they are allowed free scope, not only conduct mankind to happiness, but lay the foundation of a progressive improvement in their condition and in their character. The advantages which modern policy possesses over the ancient, arise principally from its conformity, in some of the most important articles of political economy, to an order of things recommended by nature; and it would not be difficult to shew, that, where it remains imperfect, its errors may be traced to the restraints it imposes on the natural course of human affairs. In-deed, in these restraints may be discovered the latent seeds of many of the prejudices and follies which infect modern manners, and which have so long bid defiance to the reasonings of the phi-losopher and the ridicule of the satirist.

The foregoing very imperfect hints appeared to me to form, not only a proper, but in some measure a necessary introduction to the few remarks I have to offer on Mr Smith’s Inquiry; as they tend to illustrate a connection between his system of commercial politics, and those specula-tions of his earlier years, in which he aimed more professedly at the advancement of human im-provement and happiness. It is this view of political economy that can alone render it interesting to the moralist, and can dignify calculations of profit and loss in the eye of the philosopher.10 Mr Smith has alluded to it in various passages of his work, but he has nowhere explained himself fully on the subject; and the great stress he has laid on the effects of the division of labour in in-creasing its productive powers, seems, at first sight, to point to a different and very melancholy conclusion;—that the same causes which promote the progress of the arts, tend to degrade the mind of the artist; and, of consequence, that the growth of national wealth implies a sacrifice of the character of the people.11

The fundamental doctrines of Mr Smith’s system are now so generally known, that it would have been tedious to offer any recapitulation of them in this place; even if I could have hoped to do justice to the subject, within the limits which I have prescribed to myself at present.c I shall content myself, therefore, with remarking, in general terms, that the great and leading object of his speculations is, to illustrate the provision made by nature in the principles of the human mind, and in the circumstances of man’s external situation, for a gradual and progressive augmentation in the means of national wealth; and to demonstrate, that the most effectual plan for advancing a people to greatness, is to maintain that order of things which nature has pointed out; by allowing every man, as long as he observes the rules of justice, to pursue his own interest in his own way, and to bring both his industry and his capital into the freest competition with those of his fellow–citizens.12 Every system of policy which endeavours, either by extraordinary encouragements to draw towards a particular species of industry a greater share of the capital of the society than what would naturally go to it, or, by extraordinary restraints, to force from a particular species of

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industry some share of the capital which would otherwise be employed in it, is, in reality, subver-sive of the great purpose which it means to promote.13

What the circumstances are, which, in modern Europe, have contributed to disturb this order of nature, and, in particular, to encourage the industry of towns, at the expence of that of the country, Mr Smith has investigated with great ingenuity;14 and in such a manner, as to throw much new light on the history of that state of society which prevails in this quarter of the globe. His observations on this subject tend to shew, that these circumstances were, in their first origin, the natural and the unavoidable result of the peculiar situation of mankind during a certain pe-riod; and that they took their rise, not from any general scheme of policy, but from the private interests and prejudices of particular orders of men.

The state of society, however, which at first arose from a singular combination of accidents, has been prolonged much beyond its natural period, by a false system of political economy, propagated by merchants and manufacturers; a class of individuals, whose interest is not always the same with that of the public, and whose professional knowledge gave them many advantages, more particularly in the infancy of this branch of science, in defending those opinions which they wished to encourage. By means of this system, a new set of obstacles to the progress of national prosperity has been created. Those which arose from the disorders of the feudal ages, tended di-rectly to disturb the internal arrangements of society, by obstructing the free circulation of labour and of stock, from employment to employment, and from place to place. The false system of po-litical economy which has been hitherto prevalent, as its professed object has been to regulate the commercial intercourse between different nations, has produced its effect in a way less direct and less manifest, but equally prejudicial to the states that have adopted it.

On this system, as it took its rise from the prejudices, or rather from the interested views of mercantile speculators, Mr Smith bestows the title of the Commercial or Mercantile System;15 and he has considered at great length its two principal expedients for enriching a nation; re-straints upon importation, and encouragements to exportation.16 Part of these expedients, he observes, have been dictated by the spirit of monopoly, and part by a spirit of jealousy against those countries with which the balance of trade is supposed to be disadvantageous.17 All of them appear clearly, from his reasonings, to have a tendency unfavourable to the wealth of the nation which imposes them.—His remarks with respect to the jealousy of commerce are expressed in a tone of indignation, which he seldom assumes in his political writings.

‘In this manner (says he) the sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire.18 By such maxims as these,19 nations have been taught that their interest consisted in beggaring all their neighbours. Each nation has been made to look with an invidious eye upon the prosperity of all the nations with which it trades, and to consider their gain as its own loss. Commerce, which ought naturally to be among nations as among individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become the most fertile source of discord and animosity. The capricious ambition of Kings and Ministers has not, during the present and the preceding century, been more fatal to the repose of Europe, than the impertinent jealousy of merchants and manufacturers. The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient

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evil, for which20 perhaps the nature of human affairs can scarce admit of a remedy. But the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are nor ought to be the rulers of mankind, though it cannot perhaps be corrected, may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquillity of any body but themselves.’21

Such are the liberal principles which, according to Mr Smith, ought to direct the commercial policy of nations; and of which it ought to be the great object of legislators to facilitate the estab-lishment. In what manner the execution of the theory should be conducted in particular in-stances, is a question of a very different nature, and to which the answer must vary, in different countries, according to the different circumstances of the case. In a speculative work, such as Mr Smith’s, the consideration of this question did not fall properly under his general plan; but that he was abundantly aware of the danger to be apprehended from a rash application of political theories, appears not only from the general strain of his writings, but from some incidental obser-vations which he has expressly made upon the subject. ‘So unfortunate (says he, in one passage) are the effects of all the regulations of the mercantile system, that they not only22 introduce very dangerous disorders into the state of the body politic, but disorders which it is often difficult to remedy, without occasioning, for a time at least, still greater disorders.—In what manner, there-fore,23 the natural system of perfect liberty and justice ought gradually to be restored, we must leave to the wisdom of future statesmen and legislators to determine.’24 In the last edition of his Theory of Moral Sentiments, he has introduced some remarks, which have an obvious reference to the same important doctrine. The following passage seems to refer more particularly to those derangements of the social order which derived their origin from the feudal institutions:

‘The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence, will re-spect the established powers and privileges even of individuals, and still more25 of the great or-ders and societies into which the state is divided. Though he should consider some of them as in some measure abusive, he will content himself with moderating, what he often cannot annihilate without great violence. When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force; but will religiously observe what, by Cicero, is justly called the divine maxim of Plato, never to use violence to his country no more than to his parents. He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements to the con-firmed habits and prejudices of the people; and will remedy, as well as he can, the inconvenien-cies which may flow from the want of those regulations which the people are averse to submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but, like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will endeavour to establish the best that the people can bear.’26

These cautions with respect to the practical application of general principles were peculiarly necessary from the Author of ‘The Wealth of Nations;’ as the unlimited freedom of trade, which it is the chief aim of his work to recommend, is extremely apt, by flattering the indolence of the statesman, to suggest to those who are invested with absolute power, the idea of carrying it into immediate execution. ‘Nothing is more adverse to the tranquillity of a statesman (says the author of an Eloge on the Administration of Colbert) than a spirit of moderation; because it condemns

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him to perpetual observation, shews him every moment the insufficiency of his wisdom, and leaves him the melancholy sense of his own imperfection; while, under the shelter of a few gen-eral principles, a systematical politician enjoys a perpetual calm. By the help of one alone, that of a perfect liberty of trade, he would govern the world, and would leave human affairs to arrange themselves at pleasure, under the operation of the prejudices and the self–interests of individuals. If these run counter to each other, he gives himself no anxiety about the consequence; he insists that the result cannot be judged of till after a century or two shall have elapsed. If his contempo-raries, in consequence of the disorder into which he has thrown public affairs, are scrupulous about submitting quietly to the experiment, he accuses them of impatience. They alone, and not he, are to blame for what they have suffered; and the principle continues to be inculcated with the same zeal and the same confidence as before.’ These are the words of the ingenious and eloquent author of the Eloge on Colbert, which obtained the prize from the French Academy in the year 1763; a performance which, although confined and erroneous in its speculative views, abounds with just and important reflections of a practical nature. How far his remarks apply to that par-ticular class of politicians whom he had evidently in his eye in the foregoing passage, I shall not presume to decide.

It is hardly necessary for me to add to these observations, that they do not detract in the least from the value of those political theories which attempt to delineate the principles of a perfect legislation. Such theories (as I have elsewhere observed* ) ought to be considered merely as de-scriptions of the ultimate objects at which the statesman ought to aim. The tranquillity of his ad-ministration, and the immediate success of his measures, depend on his good sense and his prac-tical skill; and his theoretical principles only enable him to direct his measures steadily and wisely, to promote the improvement and happiness of mankind, and prevent him from being ever led astray from these important ends, by more limited views of temporary expedience. ‘In all cases (says Mr Hume) it must be advantageous to know what is most perfect in the kind, that we may be able to bring any real constitution or form of government as near it as possible, by such gentle alterations and innovations as may not give too great disturbance to society.’27

The limits of this Memoir make it impossible for me to examine particularly the merit of Mr Smith’s work in point of originality. That his doctrine concerning the freedom of trade and of industry coincides remarkably with that which we find in the writings of the French Economists, appears from the slight view of their system which he himself has given.28 But it surely cannot be pretended by the warmest admirers of that system, that any one of its numerous expositors has approached to Mr Smith in the precision and perspicuity with which he has stated it, or in the scientific and luminous manner in which he has deduced it from elementary principles. The awkwardness of their technical language, and the paradoxical form in which they have chosen to present some of their opinions, are acknowledged even by those who are most willing to do jus-tice to their merits; whereas it may be doubted, with respect to Mr Smith’s Inquiry, if there exists any book beyond the circle of the mathematical and physical sciences, which is at once so agree-able in its arrangement to the rules of a sound logic, and so accessible to the examination of or-dinary readers. Abstracting entirely from the author’s peculiar and original speculations, I do not know that, upon any subject whatever, a work has been produced in our times, containing so me-

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thodical, so comprehensive, and so judicious a digest of all the most profound and enlightened philosophy of the age* .

In justice also to Mr Smith, it must be observed, that although some of the economical writ-ers had the start of him in publishing their doctrines to the world, these doctrines appear, with respect to him, to have been altogether original, and the result of his own reflections.29 Of this, I think, every person must be convinced, who reads the Inquiry with due attention, and is at pains to examine the gradual and beautiful progress of the author’s ideas: But in case any doubt should remain on this head, it may be proper to mention, that Mr. Smith’s political lectures, compre-hending the fundamental principles of his Inquiry, were delivered at Glasgow as early as the year 1752 or 1753; at a period, surely, when there existed no French performance on the subject, that could be of much use to him in guiding his researches† . In the year 1756, indeed, M. Turgot (who is said to have imbibed his first notions concerning the unlimited freedom of commerce from an old merchant, M. Gournay), published in the Encyclopédie, an article which sufficiently shews how completely his mind was emancipated from the old prejudices in favour of commer-cial regulations: But that even then, these opinions were confined to a few speculative men in France, appears from a passage in the Mémoires sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de M. Turgot; in which, after a short quotation from the article just mentioned, the author adds: ‘These ideas were then consid-ered as paradoxical; they are since become common, and they will one day be adopted univer-sally.’

The Political Discourses of Mr Hume were evidently of greater use to Mr Smith, than any other book that had appeared prior to his lectures. Even Mr Hume’s theories, however, though always plausible and ingenious, and in most instances profound and just, involve some fundamen-tal mistakes; and, when compared with Mr. Smith’s, afford a striking proof, that, in considering a subject so extensive and so complicated, the most penetrating sagacity, if directed only to particu-lar questions, is apt to be led astray by first appearances;30 and that nothing can guard us effec-tually against error, but a comprehensive survey of the whole field of discussion, assisted by an accurate and patient analysis of the ideas about which our reasonings are employed.—It may be worth while to add, that Mr. Hume’s Essay ‘on the Jealousy of Trade,’ with some other of his Po-litical Discourses, received a very flattering proof of M. Turgot’s approbation, by his undertaking the task of translating them into the French language* .

I am aware that the evidence I have hitherto produced of Mr Smith’s originality may be ob-jected to as not perfectly decisive, as it rests entirely on the recollection of those students who at-tended his first courses of moral philosophy at Glasgow; a recollection which, at the distance of forty years, cannot be supposed to be very accurate. There exists, however, fortunately, a short manuscript drawn up by Mr. Smith in the year 1755, and presented by him to a society of which he was then a member;31 in which paper, a pretty long enumeration is given of certain leading principles, both political and literary, to which he was anxious to establish his exclusive right; in order to prevent the possibility of some rival claims which he thought he had reason to appre-hend, and to which his situation as a Professor, added to his unreserved communications in pri-vate companies, rendered him peculiarly liable. This paper is at present in my possession. It is

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expressed with a good deal of that honest and indignant warmth, which is perhaps unavoidable by a man who is conscious of the purity of his own intentions, when he suspects that advantages have been taken of the frankness of his temper. On such occasions, due allowances are not al-ways made for those plagiarisms,32 which, however cruel in their effects, do not necessarily imply bad faith in those who are guilty of them; for the bulk of mankind, incapable themselves of original thought, are perfectly unable to form a conception of the nature of the injury done to a man of inventive genius, by encroaching on a favourite speculation. For reasons known to some members of this Society, it would be improper, by the publication of this manuscript, to revive the memory of private differences; and I should not have even alluded to it, if I did not think it a valuable document of the progress of Mr Smith’s political ideas at a very early period.33 Many of the most important opinions in The Wealth of Nations are there detailed; but I shall quote only the following sentences: ‘Man is generally considered by statesmen and projectors as the materials of a sort of political mechanics. Projectors disturb nature in the course of her operations in hu-man affairs; and it requires no more than to let her alone, and give her fair play in the pursuit of her ends, that she may establish her own designs.’—And in another passage: ‘Little else is requi-site to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into an-other channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are un-natural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.—A great part of the opinions (he observes) enumerated in this paper is treated of at length in some lectures which I have still by me, and which were written in the hand of a clerk who left my service six years ago. They have all of them been the constant subjects of my lectures since I first taught Mr Craigie’s class, the first winter I spent in Glasgow, down to this day, without any considerable variation. They had all of them been the subjects of lectures which I read at Edinburgh the winter before I left it, and I can adduce innumerable witnesses, both from that place and from this, who will as-certain them sufficiently to be mine.’

After all, perhaps the merit of such a work as Mr Smith’s is to be estimated less from the nov-elty of the principles it contains, than from the reasonings employed to support these principles, and from the scientific manner in which they are unfolded in their proper order and connection.34 General assertions with respect to the advantages of a free commerce, may be col-lected from various writers of an early date. But in questions of so complicated a nature as occur in political economy, the credit of such opinions belongs of right to the author who first estab-lished their solidity, and followed them out to their remote consequences; not to him who, by a fortunate accident, first stumbled on the truth.

Besides the principles which Mr Smith considered as more peculiarly his own, his Inquiry ex-hibits a systematical view of the most important articles of political economy, so as to serve the purpose of an elementary treatise on that very extensive and difficult science. The skill and the comprehensiveness of mind displayed in his arrangement, can be judged of by those alone who have compared it with that adopted by his immediate predecessors. And perhaps, in point of util-ity, the labour he has employed in connecting and methodizing their scattered ideas, is not less

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valuable than the results of his own original speculations: For it is only when digested in a clear and natural order, that truths make their proper impression on the mind, and that erroneous opinions can be combated with success.

It does not belong to my present undertaking (even if I were qualified for such a task) to at-tempt a separation of the solid and important doctrines of Mr Smith’s book from those opinions which appear exceptionable or doubtful. I acknowledge, that there are some of his conclusions to which I would not be understood to subscribe implicitly; more particularly in that chapter, where he treats of the principles of taxationd;—a subject, which he has certainly examined in a manner more loose and unsatisfactory than most of the others which have fallen under his review* .d

It would be improper for me to conclude this section without taking notice of the manly and dignified freedom with which the author uniformly delivers his opinions, and of the superiority which he discovers throughout, to all the little passions connected with the factions of the times in which he wrote. Whoever takes the trouble to compare the general tone of his composition with the period of its first publication, cannot fail to feel and acknowledge the force of this remark.—It is not often that a disinterested zeal for truth has so soon met with its just reward. Philosophers (to use an expression of Lord Bacon’s) are ‘the servants of posterity;’ and most of those who have devoted their talents to the best interests of mankind, have been obliged, like Bacon, to ‘bequeath their fame’ to a race yet unborn, and to console themselves with the idea of sowing what another generation was to reap:

Insere Daphni pyros, carpent tua poma nepotes.35 Mr Smith was more fortunate; or rather, in this respect, his fortune was singular. He survived the publication of his work only fifteen years; and yet, during that short period, he had not only the satisfaction of seeing the opposition it at first excited, gradually subside, but to witness the practical influence of his writings on the com-mercial policy of his country.

SECTION V. Conclusion of the Narrative

About two years after the publication of ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ Mr Smith was appointed one of the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs in Scotland; a perferment which, in his esti-mation, derived an additional value from its being bestowed on him at the request of the Duke of Buccleuch. The greater part of these two years he passed in London, enjoying a society too ex-tensive and varied to afford him any opportunity of indulging his taste for study. His time, how-ever, was not lost to himself; for much of it was spent with some of the first names in English lit-erature. Of these no unfavourable specimen is preserved by Dr Barnard, in his well–known ‘Verses addressed to Sir Joshua Reynolds and his friends.’

If I have thoughts, and can’t express ’em,Gibbon shall teach me how to dress ’emIn words select and terse:

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Jones teach me modesty and Greek,Smith how to think, Burke how to speak,

And Beauclerc to converse.*In consequence of Mr Smith’s appointment to the Board of Customs, he removed, in 1778,

to Edinburgh, where he spent the last twelve years of his life; enjoying an affluence which was more than equal to all his wants; and, what was to him of still greater value, the prospect of pass-ing the remainder of his days among the companions of his youth.

His mother, who, though now in extreme old age, still possessed a considerable degree of health, and retained all her faculties unimpaired, accompanied him to town; and his cousin Miss Jane Douglas, (who had formerly been a member of his family at Glasgow, and for whom he had always felt the affection of a brother) while she divided with him those tender attentions which her aunt’s infirmities required, relieved him of a charge for which he was peculiarly ill qualified, by her friendly superintendence of his domestic economy.

The accession to his income which his new office brought him, enabled him to gratify, to a much greater extent than his former circumstances admitted of, the natural generosity of his dis-position; and the state of his funds at the time of his death, compared with his very moderate es-tablishment, confirmed, beyond a doubt, what his intimate acquaintances had often suspected, that a large proportion of his annual savings was allotted to offices of secret charity. A small, but excellent library, which he had gradually formed with great judgment in the selection; and a sim-ple, though hospitable table, where, without the formality of an invitation, he was always happy to receive his friends, were the only expences that could be considered as his own.*

The change in his habits which his removal to Edinburgh produced, was not equally favour-able to his literary pursuits. The duties of his office, though they required but little exertion of thought, were yet sufficient to waste his spirits and to dissipate his attention; and now that his ca-reer is closed, it is impossible to reflect on the time they consumed, without lamenting, that it had not been employed in labours more profitable to the world, and more equal to his mind.

During the first years of his residence in this city, his studies seemed to be entirely suspended; and his passion for letters served only to amuse his leisure, and to animate his conversation. The infirmities of age, of which he very early began to feel the approaches, reminded him at last, when it was too late, of what he yet owed to the public, and to his own fame. The principal mate-rials of the works which he had announced, had been long ago collected; and little probably was wanting, but a few years of health and retirement, to bestow on them that systematical arrange-ment in which he delighted; and the ornaments of that flowing, and apparently artless style, which he had studiously cultivated, but which, after all his experience in composition, he ad-justed, with extreme difficulty, to his own taste.†

The death of his mother in 1784, which was followed by that of Miss Douglas in 1788, con-tributed, it is probable, to frustrate these projects. They had been the objects of his affection for more than sixty years; and in their society he had enjoyed, from his infancy, all that he ever knew of the endearments of a family.‡ He was now alone, and helpless; and, though he bore his loss

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with equanimity, and regained apparently his former cheerfulness, yet his health and strength gradually declined till the period of his death, which happened in July 1790, about two years af-ter that of his cousin, and six after that of his mother. His last illness, which arose from a chronic obstruction in his bowels, was lingering and painful; but had every consolation to sooth it which he could derive from the tenderest sympathy of his friends, and from the complete resignation of his own mind.

A few days before his death, finding his end approach rapidly, he gave orders to destroy all his manuscripts, excepting some detached essays, which he entrusted to the care of his executors; and they were accordingly committed to the flames. What were the particular contents of these papers, is not known even to his most intimate friends; but there can be no doubt that they con-sisted, in part, of the lectures on rhetoric, which he read at Edinburgh in the year 1748, and of the lectures on natural religion and on jurisprudence, which formed part of his course at Glas-gow. That this irreparable injury to letters proceeded, in some degree, from an excessive solici-tude in the author about his posthumous reputation, may perhaps be true; but with respect to some of his manuscripts, may we not suppose, that he was influenced by higher motives? It is but seldom that a philosopher, who has been occupied from his youth with moral or with political inquiries, succeeds completely to his wish in stating to others, the grounds upon which his own opinions are founded; and hence it is, that the known principles of an individual, who has ap-proved to the public his candour, his liberality, and his judgment, are entitled to a weight and an authority, independent of the evidence which he is able, upon any particular occasion, to produce in their support. A secret consciousness of this circumstance, and an apprehension that, by not doing justice to an important argument, the progress of truth may be rather retarded than ad-vanced, have probably induced many authors to withhold from the world the unfinished results of their most valuable labours; and to content themselves with giving the general sanction of their suffrages to truths which they regarded as peculiarly interesting to the human race.*

The additions to the Theory of Moral Sentiments, most of which were composed under se-vere disease, had fortunately been sent to the press in the beginning of the preceding winter; and the author lived to see the publication of the work.1 The moral and serious strain that prevails through these additions, when connected with the circumstance of his declining health, adds a peculiar charm to his pathetic eloquence, and communicates a new interest, if possible, to those sublime truths, which, in the academical retirement of his youth, awakened the first ardours of his genius, and on which the last efforts of his mind reposed.

In a letter addressed, in the year 1787, to the Principal of the University of Glasgow, in con-sequence of being elected Rector of that learned body, a pleasing memorial remains of the satis-faction with which he always recollected that period of his literary career, which had been more peculiarly consecrated to these important studies. ‘No preferment (says he) could have given me so much real satisfaction. No man can owe greater obligations to a society than I do to the Uni-versity of Glasgow. They educated me; they sent me to Oxford. Soon after my return to Scot-land, they elected me one of their own members; and afterwards preferred me to another office, to which the abilities and virtues of the never to be forgotten Dr Hutcheson had given a superior

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degree of illustration. The period of thirteen years which I spent as a member of that society, I remember as by far the most useful, and therefore as by far the happiest and most honourable period of my life; and now, after three and twenty years absence, to be remembered in so very agreeable a manner by my old friends and protectors, gives me a heart–felt joy which I cannot easily express to you.’2

The short narrative which I have now finished, however barren of incident, may convey a general idea of the genius and character of this illustrious Man. Of the intellectual gifts and at-tainments by which he was so eminently distinguished;—of the originality and comprehensive-ness of his views; the extent, the variety, and the correctness of his information; the inexhaustible fertility of his invention; and the ornaments which his rich and beautiful imagination had bor-rowed from classical culture;—he has left behind him lasting monuments. To his private worth the most certain of all testimonies may be found in that confidence, respect, and attachment, which followed him through all the various relations of life. The serenity and gaiety he enjoyed, under the pressure of his growing infirmities, and the warm interest he felt to the last, in every thing connected with the welfare of his friends, will be long remembered by a small circle, with whom, as long as his strength permitted, he regularly spent an evening in the week; and to whom the recollection of his worth still forms a pleasing, though melancholy bond of union.

The more delicate and characteristical features of his mind, it is perhaps impossible to trace. That there were many peculiarities, both in his manners, and in his intellectual habits, was mani-fest to the most superficial observer; but although, to those who knew him, these peculiarities de-tracted nothing from the respect which his abilities commanded; and although, to his intimate friends, they added an inexpressible charm to his conversation, while they displayed, in the most interesting light, the artless simplicity of his heart; yet it would require a very skilful pencil to pre-sent them to the public eye. He was certainly not fitted for the general commerce of the world, or for the business of active life. The comprehensive speculations with which he had been occupied from his youth, and the variety of materials which his own invention continually supplied to his thoughts, rendered him habitually inattentive to familiar objects, and to common occurrences; and he frequently exhibited instances of absence, which have scarcely been surpassed by the fancy of La Bruyère. Even in company, he was apt to be engrossed with his studies; and ap-peared, at times, by the motion of his lips, as well as by his looks and gestures, to be in the fervour of composition. I have often, however, been struck, at the distance of years, with his accurate memory of the most trifling particulars; and am inclined to believe, from this and some other cir-cumstances, that he possessed a power, not perhaps uncommon among absent men, of recollect-ing, in consequence of subsequent efforts of reflection, many occurrences, which, at the time when they happened, did not seem to have sensibly attracted his notice.

To the defect now mentioned, it was probably owing, in part, that he did not fall in easily with the common dialogue of conversation, and that he was somewhat apt to convey his own ideas in the form of a lecture. When he did so, however, it never proceeded from a wish to engross the discourse, or to gratify his vanity. His own inclination disposed him so strongly to enjoy in silence the gaiety of those around him, that his friends were often led to concert little schemes, in order

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to engage him in the discussions most likely to interest him. Nor do I think I shall be accused of going too far, when I say, that he was scarcely ever known to start a new topic himself, or to ap-pear unprepared upon those topics that were introduced by others. Indeed, his conversation was never more amusing than when he gave a loose to his genius, upon the very few branches of knowledge of which he only possessed the outlines.

The opinions he formed of men, upon a slight acquaintance, were frequently erroneous; but the tendency of his nature inclined him much more to blind partiality, than to ill–founded preju-dice. The enlarged views of human affairs, on which his mind habitually dwelt, left him neither time nor inclination to study, in detail, the uninteresting peculiarities of ordinary characters; and accordingly, though intimately acquainted with the capacities of the intellect, and the workings of the heart, and accustomed, in his theories, to mark, with the most delicate hand, the nicest shades, both of genius and of the passions; yet, in judging of individuals, it sometimes happened, that his estimates were, in a surprising degree, wide of the truth.

The opinions, too, which, in the thoughtlessness and confidence of his social hours, he was accustomed to hazard on books, and on questions of speculation, were not uniformly such as might have been expected from the superiority of his understanding, and the singular consistency of his philosophical principles. They were liable to be influenced by accidental circumstances, and by the humour of the moment; and when retailed by those who only saw him occasionally, suggested false and contradictory ideas of his real sentiments. On these, however, as on most other occasions, there was always much truth, as well as ingenuity, in his remarks; and if the dif-ferent opinions which, at different times, he pronounced upon the same subject, had been all combined together, so as to modify and limit each other, they would probably have afforded ma-terials for a decision, equally comprehensive and just. But, in the society of his friends, he had no disposition to form those qualified conclusions that we admire in his writings; and he generally contented himself with a bold and masterly sketch of the object, from the first point of view in which his temper, or his fancy, presented it. Something of the same kind might be remarked, when he attempted, in the flow of his spirits, to delineate those characters which, from long inti-macy, he might have been supposed to understand thoroughly. The picture was always lively, and expressive; and commonly bore a strong and amusing resemblance to the original, when viewed under one particular aspect; but seldom, perhaps, conveyed a just and complete conception of it in all its dimensions and proportions.—In a word, it was the fault of his unpremeditated judg-ments, to be too systematical, and too much in extremes.

But, in whatever way these trifling peculiarities in his manners may be explained, there can be no doubt, that they were intimately connected with the genuine artlessness of his mind. In this amiable quality, he often recalled to his friends, the accounts that are given of good La Fontaine; a quality which in him derived a peculiar grace from the singularity of its combination with those powers of reason and of eloquence, which, in his political and moral writings, have long engaged the admiration of Europe.

In his external form and appearance, there was nothing uncommon. When perfectly at ease, and when warmed with conversation, his gestures were animated, and not ungraceful: and, in the

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society of those he loved, his features were often brightened with a smile of inexpressible benig-nity. In the company of strangers, his tendency to absence, and perhaps still more his conscious-ness of this tendency, rendered his manner somewhat embarrassed;—an effect which was proba-bly not a little heightened by those speculative ideas of propriety, which his recluse habits tended at once to perfect in his conception, and to diminish his power of realizing. He never sat for his picture; but the medallion of Tassie conveys an exact idea of his profile, and of the general ex-pression of his countenance.

His valuable library, together with the rest of his property, was bequeathed to his cousin Mr David Douglas, Advocate.* In the education of this young gentleman, he had employed much of his leisure; and it was only two years before his death (at a time when he could ill spare the pleas-ure of his society), that he had sent him to study law at Glasgow, under the care of Mr Mil-lar;—the strongest proof he could give of his disinterested zeal for the improvement of his friend, as well as of the esteem in which he held the abilities of that eminent Professor.

The executors of his will were Dr Black and Dr Hutton; with whom he had long lived in hab-its of the most intimate and cordial friendship; and who, to the many other testimonies which they had given him of their affection, added the mournful office of witnessing his last moments.

Notes to the LIFE OF ADAM SMITH, LL.D.

Note (A.), p. 270

‘Of this number were Mr Oswald of Dunikeir,’ etc.]—The late James Oswald, Esq.—for many years one of the most active, able and public–spirited of our Scottish representatives in Parliament. He was more particularly distinguished by his knowledge in matters of finance, and by his attention to whatever concerned the commercial or the agricultural interests of the coun-try. From the manner in which he is mentioned in a paper of Mr Smith’s which I have perused, he appears to have combined, with that detailed information which he is well known to have pos-sessed as a statesman and man of business, a taste for the more general and philosophical discus-sions of political economy. He lived in habits of great intimacy with Lord Kames and Mr Hume; and was one of Mr Smith’s earliest and most confidential friends.1

Note (B.), p. 271

‘The lectures of the profound and eloquent Dr Hutcheson,’ etc.] Those who have derived their knowledge of Dr Hutcheson solely from his publications, may, perhaps, be inclined to dis-pute the propriety of the epithet eloquent, when applied to any of his compositions; more particu-larly, when applied to the System of Moral Philosophy, which was published after his death, as the substance of his lectures in the University of Glasgow. His talents, however, as a public speaker, must have been of a far higher order than what he has displayed as a writer; all his pupils whom I have happened to meet with (some of them, certainly, very competent judges) having agreed ex-

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actly with each other in their accounts of the extraordinary impression which they made on the minds of his hearers. I have mentioned, in the text, Mr Smith as one of his warmest admirers; and to his name I shall take this opportunity of adding those of the late Earl of Selkirk; the late Lord President Miller; and the late Dr Archibald Maclaine, the very learned and judicious trans-lator of Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History. My father, too, who had attended Dr Hutcheson’s lec-tures for several years, never spoke of them without much sensibility. On this occasion we can only say, as Quinctilian has done of the eloquence of Hortensius; ‘Apparet placuisse aliquid eo dicente, quod legentes non invenimus.’2

Dr Hutcheson’s Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue; his Discourse on the Passions; and his Illustrations of the Moral Sense, are much more strongly marked with the characteristical features of his genius, than his posthumous work. His great and deserved fame, however, in this country, rests now chiefly on the traditionary history of his academical lectures, which appear to have contributed very powerfully to diffuse, in Scotland, that taste for analytical discussion, and that spirit of liberal inquiry, to which the world is indebted for some of the most valuable produc-tions of the eighteenth century.

Note (C.), p. 290

According to <John Gillies> the learned English translator of ‘Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics,’ the general idea which runs through Mr Smith’s Theory, was obviously borrowed from the fol-lowing passage of Polybius: ‘From the union of the two sexes, to which all are naturally inclined, children are born. When any of these, therefore, being arrived at perfect age, instead of yielding suitable returns of gratitude and assistance to those by whom they have been bred, on the con-trary, attempt to injure them by words or actions, it is manifest that those who behold the wrong, after having also seen the sufferings and the anxious cares that were sustained by the parents in the nourishment and education of their children, must be greatly offended and displeased at such proceeding. For man, who among all the various kinds of animals is alone endowed with the fac-ulty of reason, cannot, like the rest, pass over such actions: but will make reflection on what he sees; and comparing likewise the future with the present, will not fail to express his indignation at this injurious treatment; to which, as he foresees, he may also, at some time, be exposed. Thus again, when any one who has been succoured by another in the time of danger, instead of shew-ing the like kindness to this benefactor, endeavours at any time to destroy or hurt him; it is cer-tain, that all men must be shocked by such ingratitude, through sympathy with the resentment of their neighbour; and from an apprehension also, that the case may be their own. And from hence arises, in the mind of every man, a certain notion of the nature and force of duty, in which consists both the beginning and the end of justice. In like manner, the man, who, in defence of others, is seen to throw himself the foremost into every danger, and even to sustain the fury of the fiercest animals, never fails to obtain the loudest acclamations of applause and veneration from all the multitude; while he who shews a different conduct is pursued with censure and reproach. And thus it is, that the people begin to discern the nature of things honourable and base, and in what consists the difference between them; and to perceive that the former, on account of the advan-

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tage that attends them, are fit to be admired and imitated, and the latter to be detested and avoided.’

‘The doctrine’ (says Dr Gillies) ‘contained in this passage is expanded by Dr Smith into a the-ory of moral sentiments. But he departs from his author, in placing the perception of right and wrong, in sentiment or feeling, ultimately and simply.—Polybius, on the contrary, maintains with Aristotle, that these notions arise from reason, or intellect, operating on affection or appetite; or, in other words, that the moral faculty is a compound, and may be resolved into two simpler prin-ciples of the mind.’—(Gillies’s Aristotle, Vol. I. pp. 302, 303, 2d Edit.)

The only expression I object to in the two preceding sentences, is the phrase, his author, which has the appearance of insinuating a charge of plagiarism against Mr Smith;—a charge which, I am confident, he did not deserve; and to which the above extract does not, in my opinion, afford any plausible colour. It exhibits, indeed, an instance of a curious coincidence between two phi-losophers in their views of the same subject; and as such, I have no doubt that Mr Smith himself would have remarked it, had it occurred to his memory, when he was writing his book. Of such accidental coincidences between different minds, examples present themselves every day to those, who, after having drawn from their internal resources all the lights they could supply on a par-ticular question, have the curiosity to compare their own conclusions with those of their prede-cessors: And it is extremely worthy of observation, that, in proportion as any conclusion ap-proaches to the truth, the number of previous approximations to it may be reasonably expected to be multiplied.

In the case before us, however, the question about originality is of little or no moment; for the peculiar merit of Mr Smith’s work does not lie in his general principle, but in the skilful use he has made of it to give a systematical arrangement to the most important discussions and doc-trines of Ethics. In this point of view, the Theory of Moral Sentiments may be justly regarded as one of the most original efforts of the human mind in that branch of science to which it relates; and even if we were to suppose that it was first suggested to the author by a remark of which the world was in possession for two thousand years before, this very circumstance would only reflect a stronger lustre on the novelty of his design, and on the invention and taste displayed in its execu-tion.

I have said, in the text, that my own opinion about the foundation of morals does not agree with that of Mr Smith; and I propose to state, in another publication, the grounds of my dissent from his conclusions on that question.* At present, I shall only observe, that I consider the defects of his Theory as originating rather in a partial, than in a mistaken view of the subject; while, on some of the most essential points of ethics, it appears to me to approximate very nearly to a cor-rect statement of the truth. I must not omit to add, in justice to the author, that his zeal to sup-port his favourite system never has led him to vitiate or misrepresent the phenomena which he has employed it to explain; and that the connected order which he has given to a multiplicity of isolated facts, must facilitate greatly the studies of any of his successors, who may hereafter prosecute the same inquiry, agreeably to the severe rules of the inductive logic.

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After the passage which I have quoted in the beginning of this note, I hope I shall be par-doned if I express my doubts, whether the learned and ingenious bwriterb has not, upon this, as well as on some other occasions, allowed his partiality to the ancients to blind him a little too much to the merits of his contemporaries. Would not his laborious and interesting researches into the remains of the Greek philosophy, have been employed still more usefully in revealing to us the systems and discoveries to which our successors may yet lay claim, than in conjectures concerning the origin of those with which we are already acquainted? How does it happen that those men of profound erudition, who can so easily trace every past improvement to the fountain–head of an-tiquity, should not sometimes amuse themselves, and instruct the world, by anticipating the future progress of the human mind.

In studying the connection and filiation of successive Theories, when we are at a loss, in any instance, for a link to complete the continuity of philosophical speculation, it seems much more reasonable to search for it in the systems of the immediately preceding period, and in the inquir-ies which then occupied the public attention, than in detached sentences, or accidental expressions gleaned from the relics of distant ages. It is thus only, that we can hope to seize the precise point of view, in which an author’s subject first presented itself to his attention; and to account, to our own satisfaction, from the particular aspect under which he saw it, for the subsequent direction which was given to his curiosity. In following such a plan, our object is not to detect plagiarisms, which we suppose men of genius to have intentionally concealed; but to fill up an apparent chasm in the history of Science, by laying hold of the thread which insensibly guided the mind from one station to another. By what easy and natural steps Mr Smith’s Theory arose from the state of ethical discussion in Great Britain, when he began his literary career, I shall endeavour elsewhere to explain.3

A late author, of taste and learning, has written a pleasing and instructive essay on the Marks of Poetical Imitation. The marks of Philosophical Plagiarism, are not less discernible by an unpreju-diced and discriminating eye; and are easily separable from that occasional similarity of thought and of illustration, which we may expect to meet with in writers of the most remote ages and countries, when employed in examining the same questions, or in establishing the same truths.

As the foregoing observations apply with fully as great force to the Wealth of Nations, as to the Theory of Moral Sentiments, I trust some allowance will be made for the length of this note.*

d Note (D.), p. 292

Extracted by Mr. Stewart from (John) Nichols’s Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, etc., Vol III (1818), pp. 515, 516; and appended in manuscript to one of his own copies of this Memoir. (Edinburgh University Library, MS. Df.4.52* .)

Dr. Adam Smith to Mr. George Baird4

Glasgow, February 7, 1763.

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‘DEAR SIR,—I have read over the contents of your friend’s* work with very great pleasure; and heartily wish it was in my power to give, or to procure him all the encouragement which his ingenuity and industry deserve. I think myself greatly obliged to him for the very obliging notice he has been pleased to take of me, and should be glad to contribute anything in my power to-wards completing his design. I approve greatly of his plan for a Rational Grammar, and am con-vinced that a work of this kind, executed with his abilities and industry, may prove not only the best system of grammar, but the best system of logic in any language, as well as the best history of the natural progress of the human mind in forming the most important abstractions upon which all reasoning depends. From the short abstract which Mr. Ward has been so good as to send me, it is impossible for me to form any very decisive judgement concerning the propriety of every part of his method, particularly of some of his divisions. If I was to treat the same subject, I should endeavour to begin with the consideration of verbs; these being, in my apprehension, the original parts of speech, first invented to express in one word a complete event: I should then have endeavoured to show how the subject was divided from the attribute; and afterwards, how the object was distinguished from both; and in this manner I should have tried to investigate the origin and use of all the different parts of speech, and of all their different modifications, consid-ered as necessary to express all the different qualifications and relations of any single event. Mr. Ward, however, may have excellent reasons for following his own method; and, perhaps, if I was engaged in the same task, I should find it necessary to follow the same,—things frequently ap-pearing in a very different light when taken in a general view, which is the only view that I can pretend to have taken of them, and when considered in detail.

Mr. Ward, when he mentions the definitions which different authors have given of nouns sub-stantive, takes no notice of that of the Abbé Girard, the author of a book called Les vrais Principes de la Langue Française, which made me think it might be possible he had not seen it. It is a book which first set me a thinking upon these subjects, and I have received more instruction from it than from any other I have yet seen upon them. If Mr. Ward has not seen it, I have it at his serv-ice. The grammatical articles, too, in the French Encyclopédie have given me a good deal of enter-tainment. Very probably Mr. Ward has seen both these works, and, as he may have considered the subject more than I have done, may think less of them. Remember me to Mrs. Baird, and Mr. Oswald; and believe me to be, with great truth, dear Sir, sincerely yours,

(Signed) ADAM SMITH.’

e Note (E.), p. 302

I ought to have mentioned, among the number of Mr. Smith’s friends at Paris, the Abbé Mo-rellet, of whom I have frequently heard him speak with much respect. But his name, with which I was not then very well acquainted, happened to escape my recollection while writing this Memoir; nor was I at all aware that they had been so well known to each other, as I have since learned that they were. On this subject I might quote the Abbé Morellet himself, of whom I had the pleasure to see much in the year 1806; but I prefer a reference to his own words, which coincide exactly with what he stated to myself. ‘J’avais connu Smith dans un voyage qu’il avait fait en France, vers

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1762; il parlait fort mal notre langue; mais La Théorie des Sentimens Moraux, publiée en 1758, m’a-vait donné une grande idée de sa sagacité et de sa profondeur. Et véritablement je le regarde en-core aujourd’hui comme un des hommes qui a fait les observations et les analyses les plus com-plètes dans toutes les questions qu’il a traitées. M. Turgot, qui aimait ainsi que moi la métaphy-sique, estimait beaucoup son talent. Nous le vîmes plusieurs fois; il fut présenté chez Helvétius; nous parlâmes de la théorie commerciale, banque, crédit public, et de plusieurs points du grand ouvrage qu’il méditait.’—Mémoires de l’Abbé Morellet, Tome I. p. 257, (Paris, 1821).

Note (F.), p. 303

The Theory of Moral Sentiments does not seem to have attracted so much notice in France as might have been expected, till after the publication of the Wealth of Nations. Mr Smith used to ascribe this in part to the Abbé Blavet’s translation, which he thought was but indifferently executed. A better reason, however, may perhaps be found in the low and stationary condition of Ethical and Metaphysical science in that country, previous to the publication of the Encyclopédie. On this head I beg leave to transcribe a few sentences from an anonymous paper of his own, printed in the Edinburgh Review for the year 1755. The remarks contained in them, so far as they are admitted to be just, tend strongly to confirm an observation which I have elsewhere quoted from D’Alembert, with respect to the literary taste of his countrymen. (See Philosophical Essays, pp. 110–111.) fPart I, Essay iii; <Stewart>, Works Vol.V. p. 126.f

‘The original and inventive genius of the English, has not only discovered itself in Natural Philosophy, but in morals, metaphysics, and part of the abstract sciences. Whatever attempts have been made in modern times towards improvement in this contentious and unprosperous philoso-phy, beyond what the ancients have left us, have been made in England. The meditations of Des Cartes excepted, I know nothing in French that aims at being original on that subject; for the phi-losophy of M. Regis, as well as that of Father Malebranche, are but refinements on the medita-tions of Des Cartes. But Mr Hobbes, Mr Locke, and Dr Mandeville, Lord Shaftesbury, Dr Butler, Dr Clarke, and Mr Hutcheson, have all of them, according to their different and inconsistent sys-tems, endeavoured at least, to be, in some measure, original; and to add something to that stock of observations with which the world had been furnished before them. This branch of the Eng-lish Philosophy, which seems now to be entirely neglected by the English themselves, has, of late, been transported into France. I observe some traces of it, not only in the Encyclopédie, but in the Theory of agreeable sentiments by M. de Pouilly, a work that is in many respects original; and above all, in the late Discourse upon the origin and foundation of the inequality amongst man-kind, by M. Rousseau of Geneva.’

A new translation of Mr Smith’s Theory, (including his last additions), was published at Paris in 1798 by Madame de Condorcet, with some ingenious letters on Sympathy annexed to it, writ-ten by the translator.

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Note (G.), p. 309

By way of explanation of what is hinted at in the foot–note, p. 309, I think it proper for me now to add, that at the period when this memoir was read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, it was not unusual, even among men of some talents and information, to confound, studiously, the speculative doctrines of Political Economy, with those discussions concerning the first princi-ples of Government which happened unfortunately at that time to agitate the public mind.5 The doctrine of a Free Trade was itself represented as of a revolutionary tendency; and some who had formerly prided themselves on their intimacy with Mr. Smith, and on their zeal for the propagation of his liberal system, began to call in question the expediency of subjecting to the disputations of philosophers, the arcana of State Policy, and the unfathomable wisdom of the feudal ages. In reprinting this Section at present, I have, from obvious motives, followed scrupu-lously the text of the first edition, without any alterations or additions whatsoever; reserving any comments and criticisms which I have to offer on Mr. Smith’s work, for a different publication. (1810.)

Note (H.), p. 320

Notwithstanding the unqualified praise I have bestowed, in the text, on Mr Smith’s arrange-ment, I readily admit, that some of his incidental discussions and digressions might have been more skilfully and happily incorporated with his general design. Little stress, however, will be laid on blemishes of this sort, by those who are aware of the extreme difficulty of giving any thing like a systematic shape to researches so various, and, at first view, so unconnected, as his plan embraces:—Some of them having for their aim to establish abstract principles of universal appli-cation; and others bearing a particular reference to the circumstances and policy of our own country.—It ought to be remembered, besides, how much our taste, in matters of arrangement, is liable to be influenced by our individual habits of thought; by the accidental conduct of our early studies; and by other circumstances which may be expected to present the same objects under different aspects to different inquirers. Something of this kind is experienced even in those more exact Sciences, where the whole business of an elementary writer is to state known and demon-strated truths, in a logical and pleasing series. It has been experienced most remarkably in pure geometry, the elements of which have been modelled into a hundred different forms by the first mathematicians of modern Europe; while none of them has yet been able to unite the suffrages of the public in favour of any one arrangement as indisputably the best. What allowances, then, are those entitled to, who, venturing upon a vast and untrodden field, aspire to combine with the task of original speculation, a systematical regard to luminous method, if they should sometimes happen to mistake the historical order of their own conclusions for the natural procedure of the human understanding!

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Note (I.), p. 321*

When this memoir was first written, I was not fully aware to what an extent the French Economists had been anticipated in some of their most important conclusions, by writers (chiefly British) of a much earlier date. I had often, indeed, been struck with the coincidence between their reasonings concerning the advantages of their territorial tax, and Mr Locke’s speculations on the same subject, in one of his political discourses published sixty years before; as well as with the coincidence of their argument against corporations and exclusive companies, with what had been urged at a still earlier period, by the celebrated John de Witt; by Sir Josiah Child; by John Cary of Bristol; and by various other speculative men, who appeared in the latter part of the sev-enteenth century. To these last writers, my attention had been directed by some quotations and references of the Abbé Morellet, in his very able Memoir on the East India Company of France, printed in 1769. Many passages, however, much more full and explicit than those which had fallen in his way, have been pointed out to me by the Earl of Lauderdale, in his curious and valu-able collection of rare English Tracts relating to political economy. In some of these, the argu-ment is stated in a manner so clear and so conclusive, as to render it surprising, that truths of which the public has been so long in possession, should have been so completely overborne by prejudice and misrepresentation, as to have had, to a large proportion of readers, the appearance of novelty and paradox, when revived in the philosophical theories of the present age* .

The system of political economy which professes to regulate the commercial intercourse of different nations, and which Mr Smith has distinguished by the title of the Commercial, or Mer-cantile System, had its root in prejudices still more inveterate than those which restrained the freedom of commerce and industry among the members of the same community. It was sup-ported not only by the prejudices with which all innovations have to contend, and by the talents of very powerful bodies of men interested to defend it, but by the mistaken and clamorous patri-otism of many good citizens, and their blind hostility to supposed enemies or rivals abroad. The absurd and delusive principles, too, formerly so prevalent, with respect to the nature of national wealth, and the essential importance of a favourable balance of trade (principles which, though now so clearly and demonstrably exploded by the arguments of Mr Smith, must be acknowl-edged to fall in naturally, and almost inevitably, with the first apprehensions of the mind when it begins to speculate concerning the Theory of Commerce), communicated to the Mercantile Sys-tem a degree of plausibility, against which the most acute reasoners of our own times are not al-ways sufficiently on their guard. It was accordingly, at a considerably later period, that the wis-dom of its maxims came to be the subject of general discussion; and, even at this day, the contro-versy to which the discussion gave rise cannot be said to be completely settled, to the satisfaction of all parties. A few enlightened individuals, however, in different parts of Europe, very early got a glimpse of the truth† ; and it is but justice, that the scattered hints which they threw out should be treasured up as materials for literary history. I have sometimes thought of attempting a slight sketch on that subject myself; but am not without hopes that this suggestion may have the effect of recommending the task to some abler hand. At present, I shall only quote one or two para-graphs from a pamphlet published in 1734, by Jacob Vanderlint* ; an author whose name has been frequently referred to of late years, but whose book never seems to have attracted much no-

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tice till long after the publication of the Wealth of Nations. He describes himself, in his Preface, as an ordinary tradesman, from whom the conciseness and accuracy of a scholar is not to be expected; and yet the following passages will bear a comparison, both in point of good sense and of liberality, with what was so ably urged by Mr Hume twenty years afterwards, in his Essay on the Jealousy of Trade.

‘All nations have some commodities peculiar to them, which, therefore, are undoubtedly de-signed to be the foundation of commerce between the several nations, and produce a great deal of maritime employment for mankind, which probably, without such peculiarities, could not be; and in this respect, I suppose, we are distinguished, as well as other nations; and I have before taken notice, that if one nation be by nature more distinguished in this respect than another, as they will, by that means, gain more money than such other nations, so the prices of all their commodities and labour will be higher in such proportion, and consequently, they will not be richer or more powerful for having more money than their neighbours.

‘But, if we import any kind of goods cheaper than we can now raise them, which otherwise might be as well raised at home; in this case, undoubtedly, we ought to attempt to raise such commodities, and thereby furnish so many new branches of employment and trade for our own people; and remove the inconvenience of receiving any goods from abroad, which we can any-wise raise on as good terms ourselves: and, as this should be done to prevent every nation from finding their account with us by any such commodities whatsoever, so this would more effectually shut out all such foreign goods than any law can do.

‘And as this is all the prohibitions and restraints whereby any foreign trade should be ob-structed, so, if this method were observed, our gentry would find themselves the richer, notwith-standing their consumption of such other foreign goods, as being the peculiarities of other na-tions, we may be obliged to import. For if, when we have thus raised all we can at home, the goods we import after this is done be cheaper than we can raise such goods ourselves, (which they must be, otherwise we shall not import them), it is plain, the consumption of any such goods can-not occasion so great an expence as they would, if we could shut them out by an act of parlia-ment, in order to raise them ourselves.

‘From hence, therefore, it must appear, that it is impossible any body should be poorer, for using any foreign goods at cheaper rates than we can raise them ourselves, after we have done all we possibly can to raise such goods as cheap as we import them, and find we cannot do it; nay, this very circumstance makes all such goods come under the character of the peculiarities of those countries, which are able to raise any such goods cheaper than we can do; for they will necessarily operate as such.’—(pp. 97, 98, 99.)

The same author, in another part of his work, quotes from Erasmus Philips, a maxim which he calls a glorious one: ‘That a trading nation should be an open warehouse, where the merchant may buy what he pleases, and sell what he can. Whatever is brought to you, if you don’t want it, you won’t purchase it; if you do want it, the largeness of the impost don’t keep it from you.’

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‘All nations of the world, therefore,’ (says Vanderlint) ‘should be regarded as one body of tradesmen, exercising their various occupations for the mutual benefit and advantage of each other.’—(p. 42.) ‘I will not contend,’ (he adds, evidently in compliance with national prejudices,) ‘I will not contend for a free and unrestrained trade with respect to France, though I can’t see it could do us any harm even in that case.’—(p. 45.)

In these last sentences, an argument is suggested for a free commerce all over the globe, founded on the same principle on which Mr Smith has demonstrated the beneficial effects of a division and distribution of labour among the members of the same community. The happiness of the whole race would, in fact, be promoted by the former arrangement, in a manner exactly analogous to that in which the comforts of a particular nation are multiplied by the latter.

In the same Essay, Mr. Vanderlint, following the footsteps of Locke, maintains, with consider-able ingenuity, the noted doctrine of the Economists, that all taxes fall ultimately on land; and recommends the substitution of a land–tax, in place of those complicated fiscal regulations, which have been everywhere adopted by the statesmen of modern Europe; and which, while they impoverish and oppress the people, do not, in the same degree, enrich the sovereign* .

The doctrine which more exclusively distinguishes this celebrated sect, is neither that of the freedom of trade, nor of the territorial tax, (on both of which topics they had been, in part, an-ticipated by English writers), but what they have so ingeniously and forcibly urged, with respect to the tendency of the existing regulations and restraints, to encourage the industry of towns in preference to that of the country. To revive the languishing agriculture of France was the first and the leading aim of their speculations; and it is impossible not to admire the metaphysical acuteness and subtlety, with which all their various discussions are so combined as to bear sys-tematically upon this favourite object. The influence of their labours in turning the attention of French statesmen, under the old monarchy, to the encouragement of this essential branch of na-tional industry, was remarked by Mr Smith more than thirty years ago; nor has it altogether ceased to operate in the same direction, under all the violent and fantastic metamorphoses which the government of that country has since exhibited* .

In combating the policy of commercial privileges, and in asserting the reciprocal advantages of a free trade among different nations, the founders of the economical sect candidly acknowl-edged, from the beginning, that their first lights were borrowed from England. The testimony of M. Turgot upon this point is so perfectly decisive, that I hope to gratify some of my readers (in the present interrupted state of our communication with the continent), by the following quota-tions from a memoir, which, till lately, was very little known, even in France. They are transcribed from his Eloge on M. Vincent de Gournay; a name which has always been united with that of Quesnay, by the French writers who have attempted to trace the origin and progress of the now prevailing opinions on this branch of legislation.—(Oeuvres de M. Turgot, Tome III. Paris, 1808.)

‘Jean–Claude–Marie Vincent, Seigneur De Gournay, etc. est mort à Paris le 27. Juin dernier (1759) âgé de quarante sept ans.

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‘Il etoit né à Saint–Malo, au moi de Mai 1712, de Claude Vincent, l’un des plus considérables négocians de cette ville, et secrétaire du roi.

‘Ses parens le destinèrent au commerce, et l’envoyèrent à Cadix en 1729, à peine âgé de dix sept ans.’—(p. 321.)

‘Aux lumières que M. de Gournay tiroit de sa propre expérience et de ses réflexions, il joignit la lecture des meilleurs ouvrages que possèdent sur cette matière les différentes nations de l’Eu-rope, et en particulier la nation Angloise, la plus riche de toutes en ce genre, et dont il s’étoit rendu, pour cette rai-son, la langue familière. Les ouvrages qu’il lut avec plus de plaisir, et dont il goûta le plus la doctrine, furent les traités du fameux Josias Child, qu’il a traduits depuis en François, et les mémoires du Grand Pensionnaire Jean de Witt. On sait que ces deux grands hommes sont considérés, l’un en Angleterre, l’autre en Hollande, comme les législateurs du commerce; que leurs principes sont devenus les principes nationaux, et que l’observation de ces principes est regardée comme une des sources de la prodigieuse supériorité que ces deux nations ont acquise dans le commerce sur toutes les autres puissances. M. de Gournay trouvoit sans cesse dans la pratique d’un commerce étendu la vérification de ces principes simples et lumineux, il se les rendoit propres sans prévoir qu’il étoit destiné à en repandre un jour la lumière en France, et à mériter de sa patrie le même tribut de reconnoissance, que l’Angleterre et la Hollande rendent à la mémoire de ces deux bien-faiteurs de leur nation et de l’humanité.’—(pp. 324, 325.)

‘M. de Gournay, après avoir quitté l’Espagne, prit la resolution d’employer quelques années à voyager dans les différentes parties de l’Europe, soit pour augmenter ses connoissances, soit pour étendre ses correspondances et former des liaisons avantageuses pour le commerce, qu’il se pro-posoit de continuer. Il voyagea à Hambourg; il parcourut la Hollande et l’Angleterre; partout il faisoit des observations et rassembloit des mémoires sur l’etat du commerce et de la marine, et sur les principes d’administration adoptés par ces différentes nations relativement à ces grands ob-jects. Il entretenoit pendant ses voyages une correspondance suivie avec M. de Maurepas, auquel il faisoit part des lumières qui’il recueilloit.’—(pp. 325, 326.)

‘M. de Gournay acheta, en 1749, une charge de conseiller au grand conseil; et une place d’in-tendant du commerce etant venue à vâquer au commencement de 1751, M. de Machault, à qui le mérite de M. de Gournay etoit trèsconnu, la lui fit donner. C’est de ce moment que la vie de M. de Gournay devint celle d’un homme public: son entrée au Bureau du commerce parut être l’epoque d’une révolution. M. de Gournay, dans une pratique de vingt ans du commerce le plus étendu et le plus varié, dans la fréquentation des plus habiles négocians de Hollande et d’Angleterre, dans la lecture des auteurs les plus estimés de ces deux nations, dans l’observation attentive des causes de leur étonnante pro-spérité, s’êtoit fait des principes qui parurent nouveaux à quelques–uns des magistrats qui compo-soient le Bureau du Commerce.’—(pp. 327, 328.)

‘M. de Gournay n’ignoroit pas que plusieurs des abus auxquels il s’opposoit, avoient été autrefois établis dans une grande partie de l’Europe, et qu’il en restoit même encore des vestiges en Angleterre; mais il savoit aussi que le gouvernement Anglois en avoit détruit une partie; que s’il en restoit encore quelques–unes, bien loin de les adopter comme des établissemens utiles, il cherchoit à les restreindre, à les empêcher de s’étendre, et ne les toléroit encore, que parceque la

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constitution républicaine met quelquefois des obstacles à la réformation de certains abus, lorsque ces abus ne peuvent être corrigés que par une autorité dont l’exercice le plus avantageux au peu-ple excite toujours sa défiance. Il savoit enfin que depuis un siècle toutes les personnes éclairées, soit en Hol-lande, soit en Angleterre, regardoient ces abus comme des restes de la barbarie Gothique et de la foiblesse de tous les gouvernemens qui n’avoient ni connu l’importance de la liberté publique, ni su la protéger des invasions de l’esprit monopoleur et de l’intérêt particulier* .

‘M. de Gournay avoit fait et vu faire, pendant vingt ans, le plus grand commerce de l’univers sans avoir eu occasion d’apprendre autrement que par les livres l’existence de toutes ces loix aux-quelles il voyoit attacher tant d’importance, et il ne croyoit point alors qu’on le prendroit pour un novateur et un homme à systêmes, lorsqu’ il ne feroit que développer les principes que l’experience lui avoit enseignés, et qu’il voyoit universellement reconnus par les négocians les plus éclairés avec lesquels il vivoit.

‘Ces principes, qu’on qualifioit de systême nouveau, ne lui paroissoient que les maximes du plus simple bon sens. Tout ce prétendu systême êtoit appuyé sur cette maxime, qu’en general tout homme connoit mieux son propre intérêt qu’un autre homme à qui cet intérêt est entièrement indifférent* .

‘De là M. de Gournay concluoit, que lorsque l’intérêt des particuliers est précisément le même que l’intérêt general, ce qu’on peut faire de mieux est de laisser chaque homme libre de faire ce qu’il veut.—Or il trouvoit impossible que dans le commerce abandonné à lui–meme, l’intérêt particulier ne concourût pas avec l’intérêt général.’—(pp. 334, 335, 336.)

In mentioning M. de Gournay’s opinion on the subject of taxation, M. Turgot does not take any notice of the source from which he derived it. But on this head (whatever may be thought of the justness of that opinion) there can be no doubt among those who are acquainted with the writings of Locke and of Vanderlint. ‘Il pensoit’ (says Turgot) ‘que tous les impôts, sont en der-niere analyse, toujours payés par le propriétaire, qui vend d’autant moins les produits de sa terre, et que si tous les impôts êtoient répartis sur les fonds, les propriétaires et le royaume y gagneroient tout ce qu’ absorbent les fraix de régie, toute la consommation ou l’emploi stérile des hommes perdus, soit à percevoir les impôts, soit à faire la contrebande, soit à l’empecher, sans compter la prodigieuse augmentation des richesses et des valeurs résultantes de l’augmentation du commerce.’—(pp. 350, 351.)

In a note upon this passage by the Editor, this project of a territorial tax, together with that of a free trade, are mentioned among the most important points in which Gournay and Quesnay agreed perfectly together† : and it is not a little curious, that the same two doctrines should have been combined together as parts of the same system, in the Treatise of Vanderlint, published al-most twenty years before.‡

It does not appear from Turgot’s account of M. de Gournay, that any of his original works were ever published; nor have I heard that he was known even in the capacity of a translator, prior to 1752. ‘Il eut le bonheur’ (says M. Turgot) ‘de rencontrer dans M. Trudaine, le même amour de la vérité et du bien public qui l’animoit; comme il n’avoit encore développé ses princi-

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pes que par occasion, dans la discussion des affaires ou dans la conversation, M. Trudaine l’en-gagea à donner comme une espèce de corps de sa doctrine; et c’est dans cette vue qu’il a traduit, en 1752, les traités sur le commerce et sur l’intérêt de l’argent, de Josias Child et de Thomas Culpepper.’—(p. 354.) I quote this passage, because it enables me to correct an inaccuracy in point of dates, which has excaped the learned and ingenious writer to whom we are indebted for the first complete edition which has yet appeared of Turgot’s works. After dividing the Econo-mists into two schools, that of Gournay, and that of Quesnay, he classes under the former de-nomination (among some other very illustrious names), Mr David Hume; whose Political Dis-courses, I must take the liberty of remarking, were published as early as 1752, the very year when M. Gournay published his translations of Child and of Culpepper.

The same writer afterwards adds: ‘Entre ces deux écoles, profitant de l’une et de l’autre, mais évitant avec soin de paroître tenir à aucune, se sont élevés quelques philosophes éclectiques, à la tête desquels il faut placer M. Turgot, l’Abbé de Condillac, et le célèbre Adam Smith; et parmi lesquels on doit compter très–honorablement le traducteur de celui–ci, M. le Sénateur Germain Garnier, en Angleterre my Lord Landsdown, à Paris M. Say. à Genève M. Simonde.’

How far Mr Smith has availed himself of the writings of the Economists in his Wealth of Na-tions, it is not my present business to examine. All that I wish to establish is, his indisputable claim to the same opinions which he professed in common with them, several years before the names of either Gournay or of Quesnay were at all heard of in the republic of letters.

With respect to a very distinguished and enlightened English statesman,7 who is here in-cluded along with Mr Smith among the eclectic disciples of Gournay and of Quesnay, I am en-abled to state, from his own authority, the accidental circumstance which first led him into this train of thought. In a letter which I had the honour to receive from his Lordship in 1795, he ex-presses himself thus:

‘I owe to a journey I made with Mr Smith from Edinburgh to London, the difference be-tween light and darkness through the best part of my life. The novelty of his principles, added to my youth and prejudices, made me unable to comprehend them at the time, but he urged them with so much benevolence, as well as eloquence, that they took a certain hold, which, though it did not develope itself so as to arrive at full conviction for some few years after, I can fairly say, has constituted, ever since, the happiness of my life, as well as any little consideration I may have enjoyed in it.’

As the current of public opinion, at a particular period (or at least the prevailing habits of study), may be pretty accurately judged of by the books which were then chiefly in demand, it may be worth mentioning, before I conclude this note, that in the year 1751 (the same year in which Mr Smith was promoted to his professorship), several of our choicest tracts on subjects connected with political economy were re–published by Robert and Andrew Foulis, printers to the Univer-sity of Glasgow. A book of Mr Law’s entitled, Proposals and Reasons for constituting a Council of Trade in Scotland, etc. reprinted in that year, is now lying before me; from which it appears, that the following works had recently issued from the university press:—Child’s Discourse of Trade; Law’s Essay on Money and Trade; Gee’s Trade and Navigation of Great Britain consid-

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ered; and Berkeley’s Querist. In the same list, Sir William Petty’s Political Arithmetic is advertised as being then in the press.

Mr Smith’s Lectures, it must be remembered (to the fame of which he owed his appointment at Glasgow), were read at Edinburgh as early as 1748.

Note (J.), p. 323

Among the questionable doctrines to which Mr Smith has lent the sanction of his name, there is perhaps none that involves so many important consequences as the opinion he has main-tained concerning the expediency of legal restrictions on the rate of interest. The inconclusive-ness of his reasoning on this point, has been evinced, with a singular degree of logical acuteness, by Mr Bentham, in a short treatise entitled A Defence of Usury;8 a performance to which (notwith-standing the long interval that has elapsed since the date of its publication), I do not know that any answer has yet been attempted; and which a late writer, eminently acquainted with the op-erations of commerce, has pronounced (and, in my opinion, with great truth), to be ‘perfectly unanswerable* .’ It is a remarkable circumstance, that Mr Smith should, in this solitary instance, have adopted, on such slight grounds, a conclusion so strikingly contrasted with the general spirit of his political discussions, and so manifestly at variance with the fundamental principles which, on other occasions, he has so boldly followed out, through all their practical applications. This is the more surprising, as the French Economists had, a few years before, obviated the most plausi-ble objections which are apt to present themselves against this extension of the doctrine of com-mercial freedom. See, in particular, some observations in M. Turgot’s Reflections on the Forma-tion and Distribution of Riches; and a separate Essay, by the same author, entitled, ‘Mémoire sur le prêt à interêt, et sur le Commerce des Fers† .’

Upon this particular question, however, as well as upon those mentioned in the preceding Note, I must be allowed to assert the prior claims of our own countrymen to those of the Economists. From a memoir presented by the celebrated Mr Law (before his elevation to the min-istry), to the Regent Duke of Orleans, that very ingenious writer appears to have held the same opinion with M. Turgot; and the arguments he employs in support of it are expressed with that clearness and conciseness which, in general, distinguish his compositions. The memoir to which I refer is to be found in a French work entitled, Recherches et Considérations sur les Finances de France, depuis 1595 jusqu’en 1721. (See Vol. VI. p. 181. Edit. printed at Liège, 1758.) In the same volume, this doctrine is ascribed by the editor, to Mr Law as its author, or, at least, as its first broacher in France. ‘Une opinion apportée en France pour la première fois par M. Law, c’est que l’etat ne doit jamais donner de réglemens sur le taux de l’interêt.’—p. 64.

To this opinion Law appears evidently to have been led by Locke, whose reasonings (although he himself declares in favour of a legal rate of interest), seem, all of them, to point at the oppo-site conclusion. Indeed the apology he suggests for the existing regulations is so trifling and so slightly urged, that one would almost suppose he was prevented merely by a respect for estab-lished prejudices, from pushing his argument to its full extent. The passage I allude to, consider-

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ing the period when it was written, does no small credit to Locke’s sagacity.—(See the folio edit. of his Works <1714>, Vol. II. p. 31, et seq.)

I would not have entered here into the historical details contained in the two last Notes, if I had not been anxious to obviate the effect of that weak, but inveterate prejudice which shuts the eyes of so many against the most manifest and important truths, when they are supposed to pro-ceed from an obnoxious quarter. The leading opinions which the French Economists embodied and systematized were, in fact, all of British origin; and most of them follow as necessary conse-quences, from a maxim of natural law, which (according to Lord Coke), is identified with the first principles of English jurisprudence. ‘La loi de la liberté entière de tout commerce est un corollaire du droit de propriété.’

The truly exceptionable part of the economical system (as I have elsewhere remarked), is that which relates to the power of the Sovereign. Its original authors and patrons were the decided opposers of political liberty, and, in their zeal for the right of property and the freedom of com-merce, lost sight of the only means by which either the one or the other can be effectually pro-tected.

Note (K.), p. 326

In the early part of Mr Smith’s life it is well known to his friends, that he was for several years attached to a young lady of great beauty and accomplishment. How far his addresses were fa-vourably received, or what the circumstances were which prevented their union, I have not been able to learn; but I believe it is pretty certain that, after this disappointment, he laid aside all thoughts of marriage. The lady to whom I allude died also unmarried. She survived Mr Smith for a considerable number of years, and was alive long after the publication of the first edition of this Memoir. I had the pleasure of seeing her when she was turned of eighty, and when she still retained evident traces of her former beauty. The powers of her understanding and the gaiety of her temper seemed to have suffered nothing from the hand of time.

End of the notes

P.S. Soon after the foregoing account of Mr Smith was read before the Royal Society, a Vol-ume of his Posthumous Essays was published by his executors and friends, Dr Black and Dr Hut-ton. In this volume are contained three Essays on the Principles which lead and direct Philo-sophical Inquiries;—illustrated, in the first place, by the History of Astronomy; in the second, by the History of the Ancient Physics; in the third, by the History of the Ancient Logics and Meta-physics. To these are subjoined three other Essays;—on the Imitative Arts; on the Affinity be-tween certain English and Italian Verses; and on the External Senses. ‘The greater part of them appear’ (as is observed in an advertisement subscribed by the Editors) ‘to be parts of a plan the Author had once formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant

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arts.’—‘This plan’ (we are informed by the same authority) ‘he had long abandoned as far too extensive; and these parts of it lay beside him neglected till his death.’

As this posthumous volume did not appear till after the publication of the foregoing Memoir, it would be foreign to the design of these Notes, to offer any observations on the different Essays which it contains. Their merits were certainly not overrated by the two illustrious editors, when they expressed their hopes, ‘that the reader would find in them that happy connection, that full and accurate expression, and that clear illustration which are conspicuous in the rest of the author’s works; and that, though it is difficult to add much to the great fame he so justly acquired by his other writings, these would be read with satisfaction and pleasure.’ The three first Essays, more particularly the fragment on the History of Astronomy, are perhaps as strongly marked as any of his most finished compositions, with the peculiar characteristics of his rich, original, and comprehensive mind.

In order to obviate a cavil which may possibly occur to some of those readers who were not personally acquainted with Mr Smith, I shall take this opportunity of mentioning, that in sup-pressing, through the course of the foregoing narrative, his honorary title of LL. D. (which was conferred on him by the University of Glasgow a very short time before he resigned his Profes-sorship), I have complied not only with his own taste, but with the uniform practice of that circle in which I had the happiness of enjoying his society. To have given him, so soon after his death, a designation, which he never assumed but on the title–pages of his books; and by which he is never mentioned in the letters of Mr Hume and of his other most intimate friends, would have subjected me justly to the charge of affection from the audience before whom my paper was read; but the truth is (so little was my ear then accustomed to the name of Doctor Smith), that I was altogether unconscious of the omission, till it was pointed out to me, several years afterwards, as a circumstance which, however trifling, had been magnified by more than one critic, into a subject of grave animadversion.

Endnotes

[In the original Glasgow edition there were footnotes within footnotes which are difficult to reproduce here. As the editor Ross notes, asterisks and daggers are Stewart’s notes, “5” after a note indicates that it comes from Hamilton’s 1858 edition, superscript letters “refer the reader to textual notes preserving substantive readings from the editions of 1794 and 1795, identified as 1 and 2.”]

Notes for Section 1

[* ]Mr Smith, the father, was a native of Aberdeenshire, and, in the earlier part of his life, practised at Edinburgh as a writer to the signet. He was afterwards private secretary to the Earl of Loudoun (during the time he held the offices of principal secretary of state for Scotland, and of

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keeper of the great seal), and continued in this situation till 1713 or 1714, when he was ap-pointed comptroller of the customs at Kirkaldy. He was also clerk to the courts–martial and councils of war for Scotland; an office which he held from 1707 till his death. As it is now seventy years since he died, the accounts I have received of him are very imperfect; but, from the particu-lars already mentioned, it may be presumed, that he was a man of more than common abilities.

[* ]See Note (A.)

[† ]George Drysdale, Esq. of Kirkaldy, brother of the late Dr Drysdale.

[‡ ]As the word exhibitioner has misled a French author, to whose critical acquaintance with the English language I am indebted for a very elegant translation of this memoir, I think it proper to mention, that it is used here to denote a student who enjoys a salary to assist him in carrying on his academical education. ‘The word Exhibition’ (says Johnson) ‘is much used for pensions allowed to scholars at the university.’—In the translation above referred to, as well as in the Notice prefixed to M. Garnier’s translation of the Wealth of Nations, the clause in the text is thus rendered: il entra au college de Baliol à Oxford, en qualité de démonstrateur de la fondation de Snell.

With respect to Snell’s foundation (‘the largest, perhaps, and most liberal in Britain’), see the Sta-tistical Account of the University of Glasgow aby Dr. Thomas Reida .

[aby Dr. Thomas Reida]added in 5

[* ]Redargutio Philosophiarum. (‘Although he had not taken up politics, he was by nature and entire disposition inclined towards civil affairs, and his talents tended chiefly in that direction; nor was he particularly concerned about Natural Philosophy, except to the degree it should suffice for maintaining the good name and fame of Philosopher, and adding to moral and civil disciplines and shedding on them a kind of majesty.’)

[† ]See Note (B.)

[* ]The uncommon degree in which Mr Smith retained possession, even to the close of his life, of different branches of knowledge which he had long ceased to cultivate, has been often remarked to me by my learned colleague and friend, Mr Dalzel, Professor of Greek in this University.—Mr Dalzel mentioned particularly the readiness and correctness of Mr Smith’s memory on philological subjects, and the acuteness and skill he displayed in various conversations with him on some of the minutiae of Greek grammar.

[* ]Mr. Millar, the late celebrated Professor of Law in the University of Glasgow. [See the editor’s Introduction, 265, above.]

[1 ][See above, 172, 229, 242n.]

[2 ][See below, V.10, where Stewart cites Smith’s letter to the Principal of the University ac-cepting the office of Rector.]

[3 ][And see below, Note D.]

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[4 ][Dugald Stewart comments further on this subject below, II.50. Millar himself observed in his Historical View of the English Government (1787; ed. in 4 vols., 1803): ‘I am happy to acknowl-edge the obligations I feel myself under to this illustrious philosopher, by having, at an early pe-riod of life, had the benefit of hearing his lectures on the History of Civil Society, and of enjoy-ing his unreserved conversation on the same subject. The great Montesquieu pointed out the road. He was the Lord Bacon in this branch of philosophy. Dr. Smith is the Newton’. H.V.ii.429–30n.]

[5 ][The promise was recalled in the advertisement to the 6th edition of TMS (1790) where Smith also observed that he was now unlikely to fulfil it. The subject is treated in LJ and also to a considerable extent in WN III and V.]

[6 ][Smith throws some light on this statement in LRBL ii.125–6 (ed. Lothian, 136–7), when discussing didactic eloquence, where ‘the design of the writer is to lay down a proposition and prove this by the different arguments that lead to that conclusion . . . But it will often happen that, in order to prove the capitall proposition, it will be necessary to prove severall subordinate ones . . . We are to observe however, that these subordinate propositions should not be above 5 at most. When they exceed this number, the mind cannot easily comprehend them at one view, and the whole runs into confusion. Three, or thereabout, is a very proper number . . .’]

[7 ][In Astronomy, IV.34, Smith refers to ‘that love of paradox, so natural to the learned’.]

[8 ][See above, 232 ff. The quotation is not quite exact.]

[9 ][First published in Philological Miscellany (1761) and included in ed. 3 of TMS (1767). Stewart himself states that he believed the work was first appended to ed. 2 (1761); below, II.44.]

Notes for Section 2

[a–a]has 5

[1 ][TMS VII.1.1.]

[2 ][TMS VII.iii.2.]

[3 ][TMS VII.iii.3.]

[4 ][TMS IV.1–2.]

[b–b]consists of two parts. In the former, he explains in what manner we learn to judge of the conduct of our neighbour; in the latter, in what manner, by applying these judgments to our-selves, we acquire a sense of duty. 1–2

[5 ](TMS I.i.1.3.)

[6 ](TMS I.i.1.4.)

[7 ][The words ‘for example’ do not occur in the actual text of TMS, nor is the punctuation of this quotation exact.]

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[8 ][A complete sentence is omitted at this point.]

[9 ](TMS I.i.3.4.)

[10 ](TMS I.ii.3.1. The punctuation does not exactly follow the printed text.)

[11 ][The quotation omits the words ‘; of all the sentiments which can enter the human breast the most dreadful’.]

[12 ](TMS II.ii.2.3.)

[13 ][TMS reads: ‘according to the foregoing system’.]

[14 ][TMS reads: ‘four sources, which are in some respects different from one another’.]

[15 ][TMS reads ‘last of all’.]

[16 ][TMS reads ‘or of the society’.]

[17 ][TMS VII.iii.3.16. The punctuation does not exactly follow the printed texts.]

[18 ](Ibid.)

[* ]cSee Note (C.)c

[c]added in 5

[19 ][The quotation runs together passages from the second and concluding sentences of TMS VII.ii.4.14, and does not follow the punctuation or spelling of the printed text exactly.]

[* ]dSee the letter quoted in Note (D.)d

[d]added in 5

[e–e]texture 1

[20 ](In fact ed. 3. See above, I.26 and note.)

[* ]See his Natural History of Religion. [Stewart also commented on the distinctive nature of ‘natural history’ in his ‘Account of the Life and Writings of William Robertson, D.D.’ where he remarked on: ‘the ability and address with which he has treated some topics that did not fall within the ordinary sphere of his studies, more especially those which border on the province of the natural historian’. Works, x (1858), 156.]

[21 ][First published in 1758, i.e. after the composition of the Astronomy; see above, 7.]

[22 ][See above, I.19 and note 4.]

[23 ][While Montesquieu does not neglect time in L’ Esprit, it is more a feature of his Con-sidérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence (1734).]

[24 ][Stewart returned to this theme in his ‘Account of the Life and Writings of William Robertson, D.D.’ read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 21 March 1796:

‘It will not, I hope, be imputed to me as a blameable instance of national vanity, if I conclude this

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Section with remarking the rapid progress that has been made in our own country during the last fifty years, in tracing the origin and progress of the present establishments in Europe. Montes-quieu undoubtedly led the way, but much has been done since the publication of his works, by authors whose names are enrolled among the members of this Society’. Stewart no doubt had in view Hume, Robertson, Smith, and Adam Ferguson. Works, x (1858), 147.]

[25 ][First published in 1758.]

[26 ](John Millar, The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1771; ed. 3, 1779): An Historical View of the English Government (1787; ed. in 4 vols., 1803).)

[27 ][WN III.]

[28 ](The corrected text is published in Corr., Letter 31.)

[* ]Published afterwards under the title of ‘An Essay on the History of Civil Society’. (1767)

[29 ](Persius, Satires, i.5–7: If confused Rome makes light of anything, do not go up and cor-rect the deceitful tongue in that balance of theirs, or look to anyone except yourself.)

Notes for Section III

[* ]I mention this fact on the respectable authority of James Ritchie, Esq. of Glasgow.

[1 ][See above, I.4 and Note A. Dugald Stewart also pointed out with regard to the division of factor rewards into wages, rent, and profit that: ‘It appears from a manuscript of Mr. Smith’s now in my own possession, that the foregoing analysis or division was first suggested to him by Mr. Oswald of Dunnikier.’ Works, ix (1856), 6.]

[* ]The day after his arrival at Paris, Mr Smith sent a formal resignation of his Professorship to the Rector of the University of Glasgow. ‘I never was more anxious (says he in the conclusion of this letter) for the good of the College, than at this moment; and I sincerely wish, that whoever is my successor may not only do credit to the office by his abilities, but be a comfort to the very excellent men with whom he is likely to spend his life, by the probity of his heart, and the good-ness of his temper.’ (Corr., Letter 81.)

The following extract from the records of the University, which follows immediately after Mr Smith’s letter of resignation, is at once a testimony to his assiduity as a Professor, and a proof of the just sense which that learned body entertained of the talents and worth of the colleague they had lost:

‘The meeting accept of Dr Smith’s resignation, in terms of the above letter, and the office of Pro-fessor of Moral Philosophy in this University is therefore hereby declared to be vacant. The Uni-versity, at the same time, cannot help expressing their sincere regret at the removal of Dr Smith, whose distinguished probity and amiable qualities procured him the esteem and affection of his colleagues; and whose uncommon genius, great abilities, and extensive learning, did so much

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honour to this society; his elegant and ingenious Theory of Moral Sentiments having recom-mended him to the esteem of men of taste and literature throughout Europe. His happy talent in illustrating abstracted subjects, and faithful assiduity in communicating useful knowledge, distin-guished him as a Professor, and at once afforded the greatest pleasure and the most important instruction to the youth under his care.’ [Scott, ASSP, 221.]

[† ]See note (E.)

[a–a]Author’s last additions

[2 ](Corr., Letter 96.)

[* ]The following letter, which has been very accidentally preserved, while it serves as a me-morial of Mr Smith’s connection with the family of Rochefoucauld, is so expressive of the virtu-ous and liberal mind of the writer, that I am persuaded it will give pleasure to the Society to re-cord it in their Transactions. (Corr., Letter 194.)

Paris, 3. Mars 1778.

‘Le desir de se rappeller à votre souvenir, Monsieur, quand on a eu l’honneur de vous connoître, doit vous paroitre fort naturel; permettez que nous saisissions pour cela, ma Mère et moi, l’occa-sion d’une edition nouvelle des Maximes de la Rochefoucauld, dont nous prenons la liberté de vous offrir un exemplaire. Vous voyez que nous n’avons point de rancune, puisque le mal que vous avez dit de lui dans la Théorie des Sentimens Moraux, ne nous empêche point de vous envoyer ce même ouvrage. Il s’en est même fallu de peu que je ne fisse encore plus, car j’avois eu peut–être la témérité d’entreprendre une traduction de votre Théorie; mais comme je venois de terminer la première partie, j’ai vu paroître la traduction de M. l’Abbé Blavet, et j’ai été forcé de renoncer au plaisir que j’aurois eu de faire passer dans ma langue un des meilleurs ouvrages de la vôtre† .

‘Il auroit bien fallu pour lors entreprendre une justification de mon grandpère. Peut–être n’auroit–il pas été difficile, premièrement de l’excuser, en disant, qu’il avoit toujours vu les hommes à la Cour, et dans la guerre civile, deux théatres sur lesquels ils sont certainement plus mauvais qu’ailleurs; et ensuite de justifier par la conduite personelle de l’auteur, les principes qui sont cer-tainement trop généralisés dans son ouvrage. Il a pris la partie pour le tout; et parceque les gens qu’il avoit eu le plus sous les yeux étoient animés par l’amour propre, il en a fait le mobile général de tous les hommes. Au reste, quoique son ouvrage merite à certains égards d’être combattu, il est cependant estimable même pour le fond, et beaucoup pour la forme.

‘Permettez–moi de vous demander, si nous aurons bientôt une édition complette des œuvres de votre illustre ami M. Hume? Nous l’avons sincèrement regretté.

‘Recevez, je vous supplie, l’expression sincère de tous les sentimens d’estime et d’attachement avec lesquels j’ai l’honneur d’être, Monsieur, votre très humble et très obeissant serviteur.

79

Le Duc de la Rochefoucauld.’

Mr Smith’s last intercourse with this excellent man was in the year 1789, when he informed him, by means of a friend who happened to be then at Paris, that in the future editions of his Theory the name of Rochefoucauld should be no longer classed with that of Mandeville. In the enlarged edition, accordingly, of that work, published a short time before his death, he has suppressed his censure of the author of the Maximes; who seems indeed (however exceptionable many of his principles may be) to have been actuated, both in his life and writings, by motives very different from those of Mandeville. The real scope of these maxims is placed, I think, in a just light by the ingenious author of the notice prefixed to the edition of them published at Paris in 1778. (The friend above mentioned was Dugald Stewart himself.)

[†]See Note (F.)

[b–b]D’Enville, 5

[c–c]Author’s last additions

[3 ][The relations between Turgot and Smith are explored in P. D. Groenewegen, ‘Turgot and Adam Smith’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, xvi (1969). See also Corr., Letters 93 and 248.]

[4 ](WN IV.ix.38.) [See also Corr., Letters 94 and 97. In the latter place Smith described Quesnay as ‘one of the worthiest men in France and one of the best Physicians that is to be met with in any country. He was not only the Physician but the friend and confident of Madame Pompadour a woman who was no contemptible Judge of merit.’ Smith comments at length on physiocratic teaching in WN IV.ix.]

[* ]See the Preface to Voltaire’s Oedipe, edit. of 1729.

[5 ](WN IV.ix.38. The quotation occurs at the beginning of the paragraph.)

[6 ][See, for example, Imitative Arts, I.16.]

[7 ][Rae, Life, 35, records that Boswell had acquainted Johnson with Smith’s preference for rhyme over blank verse ‘always, no doubt, on the same principle that the greater the difficulty the greater the beauty. This delighted the heart of Johnson, and he said: “Sir, I was once in company with Smith, and we did not take to each other, but had I known that he loved rhyme as much as you tell me he does, I should have hugged him.”’]

[d]the first part of which is, in my judgment, more finished in point of style than any of his compositions; added in 1

[8 ](My Own Life.)

[9 ](Corr., Letter 129.)

[10 ](Corr., Letter 121.)

[11 ](Corr., Letter 150.)

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[12 ][The quotation omits: ‘; which, till you tell me the contrary, I shall still flatter myself with soon’.]

Notes for Section IV

[* ]The length to which this Memoir has already extended, together with some other reasons which it is unnecessary to mention here, have induced me, in printing the following section, to confine myself to a much more general view of the subject than I once intended. See Note (G.)

[1 ][See above, II. 45–52.]

[2 ][Stewart’s view seems to be quite different from that of Smith himself. See Astronomy, I–II.]

[3 ][See I.20 above, where the term is used by Millar in describing Smith’s lectures on eco-nomics.]

[* ]See the conclusion of his Theory of Moral Sentiments. (VII.iv.37.)

[a–a]Author’s last additions

[4 ][While not neglecting Smith’s analytical achievement, e.g. §27 below, Stewart’s preoccupa-tion with policy may explain his defence of Smith’s originality in terms of the doctrine of natural liberty at §23 and §25.]

[* ]Science de la Legislation, par le Chev. Filangieri, Liv. i. chap. 13.

[5 ](Exemplum Tractatus de Fontibus Juris, Aphor. 5: ‘The ultimate object which legislators ought to have in view, and to which all their enactments and sanctions ought to be subservient, is, that the citizens may live happily. For this purpose, it is necessary that they should receive a religious and pious education; that they should be trained to good morals; that they should be secured from foreign enemies by proper military arrangements; that they should be guarded by an effectual policy against seditions and private injuries; that they should be loyal to government, and obedi-ent to magistrates; and finally, that they should abound in wealth, and in other national re-sources.’ De Augmentis Scientiarum, lib. viii. cap. iii: ‘The science of such matters certainly belongs more particularly to the province of men who, by habits of public business, have been led to take a comprehensive survey of the social order; of the interests of the community at large; of the rules of natural equity; of the manners of nations; of the different forms of government; and who are thus prepared to reason concerning the wisdom of laws, both from considerations of justice and of policy. The great desideratum, accordingly, is, by investigating the principles of natural justice, and those of political expediency, to exhibit a theoretical model of legislation, which, while it serves as a standard for estimating the comparative excellence of municipal codes, may suggest hints for their correction and improvement, to such as have at heart the welfare of man-kind.’ Stewart’s translation, from Works, i. 71–2.)

[6 ](De Fontibus Juris, Aphor. 6: ‘Laws of Laws from which we can determine what is right or wrong in the appointments of each individual law.’ Stewart, Works, xi.2.)

81

[b–b]artisan 5

[7 ][See, for example, WN III and especially III. iv together with the notes to the Glasgow edition. For comment, see A. Skinner. ‘Adam Smith: An Economic Interpretation of History’, and D. Forbes, ‘Sceptical Whiggism, Commerce, and Liberty’, in Essays on Adam Smith. The point made in the text was repeated by John Millar, Historical View, iv.124.]

[8 ][See WN V.i.f.51 and this section generally, i.e. ‘Of the Expence of the Institutions for the Education of Youth’.]

[9 ][Essays Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Green and Grose (1882), i.291. The quotation reads: ‘contrary to the more natural and usual course of things’.]

[c]A distinct analysis of his work might indeed be useful to many readers; but it would itself form a volume of considerable magnitude. I may perhaps, at some future period, present to the Society, an attempt towards such an analysis, which I began long ago, for my own satisfaction, and which I lately made considerable progress in preparing for the press, before I was aware of the impossibility of connecting it, with the general plan of this paper. In the mean time 1–2 (See the article Smith, Adam, in the Index to Stewart, Works, xi, for references to analysis of parts of WN.)

[10 ][This statement, together with the broadly liberal sentiments of the preceding para-graphs, may bear upon Stewart’s own experience. See for example, Works x. xlvi–liv.]

[11 ][See, for example, WN V.i.f.50.]

[12 ][WN IV.ix.51.]

[13 ][WN IV.ix.50.]

[14 ][Smith makes this point in WN II.v.37, drawing attention to the two following books.]

[15 ][The title of WN IV.i. In the introduction to this book, the commercial system is de-scribed as ‘the modern system, and is best understood in our own country and in our own times’.]

[16 ][WN IV.i.35.]

[17 ][See, for example, the conclusion of WN IV.iii.a.1.]

[18 ][WN IV.iii.c.8. The quotation occurs at the end of the paragraph and reads ‘are thus erected’.]

[19 ][The original reads ‘By such maxims as these, however, . . .’.]

[20 ][The original text reads ‘for which, I am afraid, the nature . . .’.]

[21 ](WN IV.iii.c.9.)

[22 ][The original reads ‘Such are the unfortunate effects of all the regulations of the mer-cantile system! They not only . . .’.]

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[23 ][The original continues ‘the colony trade ought gradually to be opened; what are the restraints which ought first, and what are those which ought last to be taken away; or in what manner’.]

[24 ](WN IV.vii.c.44.)

[25 ][The original reads ‘still more those . . .’.]

[26 ](TMS VI.ii.2.16.)

[* ]Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, p.261. (Stewart, Works, ii.240.)

[27 ](‘Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth’, Essays Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Green and Grose, i.481.)

[28 ][Not perhaps a wholly fair assessment of WN. ix: cf. A. Skinner, ‘Adam Smith: The De-velopment of a System’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, xxiii (1976).]

[* ]See Note (H.)

[† ]In proof of this, it is sufficient for me to appeal to a short history of the progress of politi-cal economy in France, published in one of the volumes of Ephémérides du Citoyen. See the first part of the volume for the year 1769. The paper is entitled, Notice abrégée des différens Ecrits modernes, qui ont concouru en France à former la science de l’économie politique.

[29 ][It is pointed out above (III.5), however, that contact with the physiocrats ‘could not fail to assist him in methodizing and digesting his speculations’.]

[* ]See Note (I.)

[30 ][Possibly a reference to sentiments which Smith was known to have expressed. In LJ(B) 253 (ed. Cannan, 197), for example, Smith refers to the ingenuity of Hume’s reasoning on the subject of money, while noting that: ‘He seems however to have gone a little into the notion that public opulence consists in money.’]

[31 ][Scott comments on this paper in ASSP, 117 ff.]

[32 ][Smith writes briefly of plagiarism, but with no especial warmth of feeling, in TMS III.2.15: ‘A weak man . . . pretends to have done what he never did, to have written what another wrote, to have invented what another discovered; and is led into all the miserable vices of plagia-rism and common lying.’ See also TMS VII.ii.4.8: ‘the foolish plagiary who gives himself out for the author of what he has no pretensions to’ is ‘properly accused’ of vanity.]

[33 ][Cf. Scott, ASSP, 118–20.]

[34 ][A rather similar judgement of TMS is given in Note C, §4.]

[* ]See Note (J.)

[d–d]and which is certainly executed in a manner more loose and unsatisfactory than the other parts of his system. 1–2

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[35 ](Virgil, Eclogues, ix.50: ‘Graft your pears, Daphnis, your descendants will gather your fruits’.)

Notes for Section V

[* ]See Annual Register for the year 1776.

[* ]Some very affecting instances of Mr Smith’s beneficence, in cases where he found it im-possible to conceal entirely his good offices, have been mentioned to me by a near relation of his, and one of his most confidential friends, Miss Ross, daughter of the late Patrick Ross, Esq. of In-nernethy. They were all on a scale much beyond what might have been expected from his for-tune; and were accompanied with circumstances equally honourable to the delicacy of his feel-ings and the liberality of his heart.

[† ]Mr Smith observed to me, not long before his death, that after all his practice in writing, he composed as slowly, and with as great difficulty, as at first. He added, at the same time, that Mr Hume had acquired so great a facility in this respect, that the last volumes of his History were printed from his original copy, with a few marginal corrections.

It may gratify the curiosity of some readers to know, that when Mr Smith was employed in com-position, he generally walked up and down his apartment, dictating to a secretary. All Mr Hume’s works (I have been assured) were written with his own hand. A critical reader may, I think, per-ceive in the different styles of these two classical writers, the effects of their different modes of study.

[‡ ]See Note (K.)

[* ]Since writing the above, I have been favoured by Dr Hutton with the following particulars.

‘Some time before his last illness, when Mr Smith had occasion to go to London, he enjoined his friends, to whom he had entrusted the disposal of his manuscripts, that, in the event of his death, they should destroy all the volumes of his lectures, doing with the rest of his manuscripts what they pleased. When now he had become weak, and saw the approaching period of his life, he spoke to his friends again upon the same subject. They entreated him to make his mind easy, as he might depend upon their fulfilling his desire. He was then satisfied. But some days afterwards, finding his anxiety not entirely removed, he begged one of them to destroy the volumes immedi-ately. This accordingly was done; and his mind was so much relieved, that he was able to receive his friends in the evening with his usual complacency.

‘They had been in use to sup with him every Sunday; and that evening there was a pretty numer-ous meeting of them. Mr Smith not finding himself able to sit up with them as usual, retired to bed before supper; and, as he went away, took leave of his friends by saying, “I believe we must adjourn this meeting to some other place.” He died a very few days afterwards.’

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Mr Riddell, an intimate friend of Mr Smith’s, who was present at one of the conversations on the subject of the manuscripts, mentioned to me, in addition to Dr Hutton’s note, that Mr Smith re-gretted ‘he had done so little.’ But I meant (said he) to have done more; and there are materials in my papers, of which I could have made a great deal. But that is now out of the question.’

That the idea of destroying such unfinished works as might be in his possession at the time of his death, was not the effect of any sudden or hasty resolution, appears from the following letter to Mr Hume, written by Mr Smith in 1773, at a time when he was preparing himself for a journey to London, with the prospect of a pretty long absence from Scotland.

My dear Friend,

Edinburgh, 16th April 1773.

As I have left the care of all my literary papers to you, I must tell you, that except those which I carry along with me, there are none worth the publication, but a fragment of a great work, which contains a history of the astronomical systems that were successively in fashion down to the time of Des Cartes. Whether that might not be published as a fragment of an intended juvenile work, I leave entirely to your judgment, though I begin to suspect myself that there is more refinement than solidity in some parts of it. This little work you will find in a thin folio paper book in my back room. All the other loose papers which you will find in that desk, or within the glass folding doors of a bureau which stands in my bed–room, together with about eighteen thin paper folio books, which you will likewise find within the same glass folding doors, I desire to be destroyed without any examination. Unless I die very suddenly, I shall take care that the papers I carry with me shall be carefully sent to you.

I ever am, my dear Friend, most faithfully your’s,

Adam Smith.

To David Hume, Esq.

St Andrew’s Square.

(The corrected text appears in Corr., Letter 137.)

[1 ](Ed. 6, 2 vols. 8vo, 1790.)

[2 ](Corr., Letter 274.)

[* ]aUltimately a Senator of the College of Justice, under the title of Lord Reston.a

[a]added in 5

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Notes for the Notes to the Life of Adam Smith

Note A

[1 ](In a note to ed. 1 (94), Stewart acknowledged inaccuracy in mentioning Oswald and Smith as school–fellows: ‘the former was born in 1715; the latter in 1723. It appears, however, that their intimacy had commenced before Mr Smith went to the University.’)

Note B

[2 ](Institutio Oratoria, XI.iii.8: ‘his speaking appears to have pleased in some manner, which we do not find in reading.’)

Note C

[* ]aVide <Stewart>, Works, vol. vii, pp. 35, 36, 329, seq., 407, seq.a

[a]added in 5

[b–b]author 5

[3 ](See Stewart, Works, vi.412–14.)

[* ]I shall have occasion afterwards to vindicate Mr Smith’s claims to originality in the former of these works, against the pretensions of some foreign writers. As I do not mean, however, to recur again to his alleged plagiarisms from the ancients, I shall introduce here, though somewhat out of place, two short quotations; from which it will appear, that the germ of his speculations concerning national wealth, as well as concerning the principles of ethics, is (according to Dr Gil-lies) to be found in the Greek philosophers.

‘By adopting Aristotle’s principles on the subjects of exchangeable value, and of national wealth, Dr Smith has rescued the science of political economy from many false subtilties and many gross errors.’ Vol. I. p. 377, 2d edit.

‘The subject of money is treated above, Vol. I. p. 374, et seq. In that passage, compared with an-other in the Magna Moralia, we find the fundamental principles of the modern economists.’ Vol. II. p. 43.

In reply to these observations, I have only to request my readers to compare them with the well–known passage in the first book of Aristotle’s Politics, with respect to the lawfulness of usury. When we consider how much the interest of money enters as an element into all our modern disquisitions concerning commercial policy, is it possible to imagine, that there should be any thing more than the most general and fortuitous coincidence between the reasonings of such writers as Smith, or Hume, or Turgot; and those of an author whose experience of the nature

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and effects of commerce was so limited, as to impress his mind with a conviction, that to receive a premium for the use of money was inconsistent with the rules of morality? cCompare the subse-quent edition of Gillies’s Ethics and Politics of Aristotle.c

[cCompare the subsequent edition of Gillies’s Ethics and Politics of Aristotle.c]added in 5

Note D

[* ]Probably William Ward, A.M. master of the Grammar School of Beverley, Yorkshire, who, among other grammatical works, published An Essay on Grammar as it may be applied to the Eng-lish Language, in two Treatises, etc., 410, 1765, which is perhaps the most philosophical Essay on the English language extant.

[d]This Note was added in 5

[4 ](Corr., Letter 69.)

Note E

[e]This Note was added in 5 (It was appended in manuscript to one of Stewart’s own copies of this Memoir: Edinburgh University Library, MS. Df.4.52*. See the editor’s Introduction, 267–8, above.)

Note F

[f–f]added in 5

Note G

[5 ](See John Veitch, ‘Memoir of Stewart’, in Stewart, Works, x. lxx–lxxv.)

Note I

[* ]gIn regard to Adam Smith’s originality on various points of Political Economy, I may re-fer, in general, to Vols. VIII and IX (of Stewart’s Works), in which Mr. Stewart’s Lectures on this science are contained. See also in Vol. IX, art. Smith, Adam, etc., of the Index.g

[g]added in 5

[* ]That the writers of this Island should have had the start of those in the greater part of Europe, in adopting enlightened ideas concerning commerce, will not appear surprising, when we consider that ‘according to the Common Law of England, the freedom of trade is the birth-right of the subject.’ For the opinions of Lord Coke and of Lord Chief–Justice Fortescue, on this point, see a pamphlet by Lord Lauderdale, entitled, ‘Hints to the Manufacturers of Great Brit-

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ain,’ etc. (printed in 1805); where also may be found a list of statutes containing recognitions and declarations of the above principle.

[† ]According to the statement of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the following doctrine was de-livered in the English House of Commons by Sir Thomas More (then speaker), almost three cen-turies ago. ‘I say confidently, you need not fear this penury or scarceness of money; the inter-course of things being so establish’d throughout the whole world, that there is a perpetual deriva-tion of all that can be necessary to mankind. Thus, your commodities will ever find out money; while, not to go far, I shall produce our own merchants only, who, (let me assure you) will be al-ways as glad of your corn and cattel as you can be of any thing they bring you.’—The Life and Reign of King Henry the Eighth, London, 1672, p. 135.

It is not a little discouraging to reflect, that the mercantile prejudice here combated by this great man, has not yet yielded entirely to all the philosophical lights of the 18th century.

[* ]‘Money Answers all Things,’ etc. etc. London, 1734.

[* ]Lord Lauderdale has traced some hints of what are commonly considered as the peculi-arities of the economical system, in various British publications now almost forgotten. The fol-lowing extract, from a Treatise published by Mr Asgill, in 1696, breathes the very spirit of Ques-nay’s philosophy.

‘What we call commodities is nothing but land severed from the soil. Man deals in nothing but earth. The merchants are the factors of the world, to exchange one part of the earth for another. The king himself is fed by the labour of the ox: and the clothing of the army, and victualling of the navy, must all be paid for to the owner of the soil as the ultimate receive. All things in the world are originally the produce of the ground, and there must all things be raised.’—(Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth, p. 113.)

The title of Asgill’s Treatise is, ‘Several assertions proved, in order to create another species of Money than Gold.’ Its object was to support Dr Chamberlayne’s proposition for a Land Bank, which he laid before the English House of Commons in 1693, and before the Scottish Parliament in 1703.

[* ]It is but justice to the Economists to add, that they have laid more stress than any other class of writers whatsoever, on the principles of political economy, considered in their connection with the intellectual and moral character of a people.

[* ]Some of these liberal principles found their way into France before the end of the 17th century.—See a very curious book entitled, Le Détail de la France sous le Règne Présent. The first edi-tion (which I have never met with), appeared in 1698 or 1699; the second was printed in 1707. Both editions are anonymous; but the author is well known to have been M. de Bois–Guilbert; to whom Voltaire has also (erroneously) ascribed the Projet d’une dixme Royale, published in the name of the Maréchal de Vauban. (See the Ephémérides du Citoyen for the year 1769, Tome IX. pp. 12, 13.)

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The fortunate expression, laissez nous faire, which an old merchant (Le Gendre) is said to have used in a conversation with Colbert; and the still more significant maxim of the Marquis d’Argenson, pas trop gouverner, are indebted chiefly for that proverbial celebrity which they have now acquired, to the accidental lustre reflected upon them by the discussions of more modern times. They must, at the same time, be allowed to evince in their authors, a clear perception of the importance of a problem, which Mr Burke has somewhere pronounced to be ‘one of the finest in legislation;—to ascer-tain, what the state ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom; and what it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual discretion.’6 The solution of this problem, in some of its most interesting cases, may be regarded as one of the principal objects of Mr Smith’s Inquiry; and, among the many happy changes which that work has gradually produced in prevailing opinions, none is, perhaps, of greater consequence, than its powerful effect in discrediting that empirical spirit of tampering Regulation, which the multitude is so apt to mistake for the provident sagacity of political experience.

[6](The reference to Burke is to his ‘Thoughts and Details on Scarcity’, originally presented to the Right Hon. William Pitt (1795). Works (1802), iv.287.)

[* ]I have endeavoured, in a former work, to vindicate, upon the very same principle, some of Mr Smith’s political speculations against the charge of being founded rather on theory than on actual experience. I was not aware, till very lately, that this view of the subject had been sanc-tioned by such high authorities as M. de Gournay and M. Turgot.—See Philosophy of the Hu-man Mind, pp. 254, 255, 256, 3d edit. hchap. iv§ 8: <Stewart>, Works, Vol. II. p. 235 seq.h

[† ]Ceci est, avec la liberté du commerce et du travail, un des principaux points sur lesquels M. de Gournay et M. Quesnay ont êté complettement d’accord.

[‡ ]I have already quoted, from Vanderlint, his opinion about the freedom of trade. His ideas with respect to taxation I shall also state in his own words: ‘I can’t dismiss this head without shew-ing, that if all the taxes were taken off goods, and levied on lands and houses only, the gentlemen would have more nett rent left out of their estates, than they have now when the taxes are almost wholly levied on goods.’ For his argument in proof of this proposition, see his Essay on Money, p. 109, et seq. See also Locke’s Considerations on the lowering of interest and raising the Value of Money; published in 1691.

As to the discovery (as it has been called) of the luminous distinction between the ‘produit total’ and the ‘pro-duit net de la culture§,’ it is not worth while to dispute about its author. Whatever merit this theory of taxation may possess, the whole credit of it evidently belongs to those who first proposed the doc-trine stated in the foregoing paragraph. The calculations of M. Quesnay, however interesting and useful they may have appeared in a country where so great a proportion of the territory was cul-tivated by Mêtayers or Coloni Partiarii, cannot surely be considered as throwing any new light on the general principles of Political Economy.

[7 ](First Marquess of Lansdowne and second Earl of Shelburne.)

89

Note J

[8 ](Corr., Appendix C, ‘Bentham’s Letters to Adam Smith’, 386–404.)

[* ]Sir Francis Baring. Pamphlet on the Bank of England. (The full title of this work is: Obser-vations on the Establishment of the Bank of England, 1797.)

[† ]In an Essay read before a literary society in Glasgow, some years before the publication of the Wealth of Nations, Dr Reid disputed the expediency of legal restrictions on the rate of inter-est; founding his opinion on some of the same considerations which were afterwards so forcibly stated by Mr Bentham. His attention had probably been attracted to this question by a very weak defence of these restrictions in Sir James Stewart’s Political Economy; a book which had then been recently published, and which (though he differed widely from many of its doctrines), he was accustomed, in his academical lectures, to recommend warmly to his students. It was indeed the only systematical work on the subject that had appeared in our language, previous to Mr Smith’s Inquiry.

[Sir James Steuart’s Principles was first published in 1767. The defence of regulation of the rate of interest will be found in Book IV, Part I, especially chapters 5 and 6. Dugald Stewart recom-mended his students to begin their studies with the WN and then to consult Steuart’s work as one which contains ‘a great mass of accurate details . . . ascertained by his own personal observation during his long residence on the Continent’: Works, ix.458; Principles, ed. A. Skinner (1966), 4n.]

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INTRODUCTION TO VOL. 1 THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTI-

MENTS [D.D. RAPHAEL AND A.L. MACFIE]

1. Formation of The Theory of Moral Sentiments

(a) Adam Smith’s lectures on ethics

The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith’s first book, was published in 1759 during his ten-ure of the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. A second, revised edition appeared in 1761. Smith left Glasgow at the beginning of 1764. Editions 3 (1767), 4 (1774), and 5 (1781) of TMS differ little from edition 2. Edition 6, however, published shortly before Smith’s death in 1790, contains very extensive additions and other significant changes. The original work arose from Smith’s lectures to students. The revisions in edition 2 were largely the result of criti-

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cism from philosophically minded friends. The new material in edition 6 was the fruit of long reflection by Smith on his wide knowledge of public affairs and his equally wide reading of his-tory.

Adam Smith was appointed to the Chair of Logic at Glasgow in 1751 and moved to the Chair of Moral Philosophy in 1752. His predecessor as Professor of Moral Philosophy, Thomas Craigie, was already ill in 1751, and Smith was asked to substitute for him with lectures on natu-ral jurisprudence and politics1 in addition to taking the Logic class. Thereafter Smith gave the whole of the Moral Philosophy course, in which he was expected to deal with natural theology and ethics before proceeding to law and government. In view of the speed with which Smith had to prepare his extensive range of teaching at Glasgow, it was inevitable that he should make use of material already available from a series of public lectures which he had delivered in Edin-burgh during the years 1748–50. These lectures were sponsored especially by Lord Kames. Both Dugald Stewart in a biography of Smith and A. F. Tytler in one of Kames describe the sub-ject–matter of the Edinburgh lectures simply as rhetoric and belles lettres,2 but it seems that by 1750 Smith also included political and economic theory, presumably under the title of jurispru-dence or civil law.3 In a later part of his biography (IV.25), Dugald Stewart refers to a short manuscript written by Adam Smith in 1755, listing ‘certain leading principles, both political and literary, to which he was anxious to establish his exclusive right’. Stewart says that they included ‘many of the most important opinions in The Wealth of Nations’, and then quotes a few sentences from the manuscript itself. These end with a statement from Smith that ‘a great part of the opin-ions enumerated in this paper’ had formed ‘the constant subjects of my lectures since I first taught Mr. Craigie’s class, the first winter I spent in Glasgow, down to this day, without any con-siderable variation’ and that they had also ‘been the subjects of lectures which I read at Edin-burgh the winter before I left it’.

A report of the content and character of the early Glasgow lectures, both in the Logic and in the Moral Philosophy class, was given to Stewart by John Millar, Professor of Law at Glasgow, originally a pupil and afterwards a close friend of Smith. In his Logic course Smith despatched the traditional logic rather briskly and then ‘dedicated all the rest of his time to the delivery of a system of rhetoric and belles lettres’.4 His Moral Philosophy course could not rely so heavily on the Edinburgh lectures but it will certainly have drawn on them in its latter sections. Millar’s re-port to Dugald Stewart gives a detailed description of it.

His course of lectures on this subject [Moral Philosophy] was divided into four parts. The first contained Natural Theology. . . . The second comprehended Ethics strictly so called, and consisted chiefly of the doctrines which he afterwards published in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. In the third part, he treated at more length of that branch of morality which relates to justice, . . .

Upon this subject he followed the plan that seems to be suggested by Montesquieu; endeavouring to trace the gradual progress of jurisprudence, both public and private, from the rudest to the most refined ages, . . . This important branch of his labours he

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also intended to give to the public; but this intention, which is mentioned in the con-clusion of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, he did not live to fulfil.

In the last part of his lectures, he examined those political regulations which are founded, not upon the principle of justice, but that of expediency, and which are calcu-lated to increase the riches, the power, and the prosperity of a State. . . . What he de-livered on these subjects contained the substance of the work he afterwards published under the title of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.5

There is no evidence to suggest that the Edinburgh lectures included ethical theory proper, and we must therefore presume that Smith’s composition of the subject–matter of TMS began in 1752 at Glasgow.

Millar’s statement that both of Smith’s books arose from his lectures on Moral Philosophy is confirmed by the evidence of James Wodrow, writing (probably in 1808) to the eleventh Earl of Buchan.

Adam Smith, whose lectures I had the benefit of hearing for a year or two . . . made a laudable attempt at first to follow Hut[cheso]ns animated manner, lecturing on Ethics without papers, walking up and down his class rooms but not having the same facility in this that Hutn. had, . . . Dr. Smith soon relinquished the attempt, and read with propriety, all the rest of his valuable lectures from the desk. His Theory of Moral Sentiment founded on sympathy, a very ingenious attempt to account for the principal phenomena in the moral world from this one general principle, like that of gravity in the natural world, did not please Hutcheson’s scholars so well as that to which they had been accustomed. The rest of his lectures were admired by them and by all especially those on Money and Commerce, which contained the substance of his book on the Wealth of Nations. . . .6

Francis Hutcheson was Professor of Moral Philosophy from 1730 to 1746. Smith was his pu-pil in the late 1730s, Wodrow in the 1740s. Wodrow remained at the University as Keeper of the Library from 1750 to 1755.

It seems, then, that the first published version of TMS was prepared or worked up from the final form of the second part of Smith’s lectures on Moral Philosophy. No doubt there was steady development between 1752 and 1758. Although no copy of a student’s notes of Smith’s lectures on ethics has as yet appeared, there is some evidence from which we can reconstruct his method of improving what he had written. In Appendix II we give reasons for thinking that a fragmen-tary manuscript of philosophical considerations on justice is a part of Smith’s lectures on ethics. Revisions within the manuscript itself and detailed comparison with corresponding passages in TMS show that Smith tended to work over previous composition rather than write a new version. He made minor corrections both of style and of content, he inserted substantial additions, and (when it came to preparing a text for publication) he shuffled passages about like pieces in a jig-saw puzzle. Exactly the same methods of development can be seen in the changes that Smith made when revising the printed book for edition 2 and for edition 6. There is far more evidence for tracing the genesis of The Wealth of Nations; we have two Reports by students, apparently from

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successive sessions, of Smith’s lectures on jurisprudence, a fairly long manuscript that has been called ‘An early draft of part of The Wealth of Nations’, and two fragmentary manuscripts that come much nearer to the text of WN itself. From this material Professor Ronald L. Meek and Mr. Andrew S. Skinner have been able to give an extraordinarily precise account of the devel-opment of Smith’s thought on a central topic of his economic theory.7 The picture of Smith’s working methods that emerges from a comparison of these documents with one another and with WN is similar to that gathered from the more limited evidence for TMS.

The printed text at times betrays its origin in lectures. At several points Smith refers back to something he has said on a former ‘occasion’, whereas it would be more natural, in a book, to write of an earlier ‘place’. Then again, in the final paragraph of the work he promises to treat of the general theory of jurisprudence in another ‘discourse’.

One other piece of internal evidence seems to match part of the description of the original Glasgow lectures given to Dugald Stewart by Millar: ‘Each discourse consisted commonly of sev-eral distinct propositions, which he successively endeavoured to prove and illustrate.’8 Much of Part II of TMS can be said to fit this account in a general way, but the first chapter, II.i.1, illus-trates it quite strikingly and would seem, if unrelated to Millar’s account and the lecture form, a rather odd way of continuing from the more natural mode of discussion in Part I. If this chapter does indeed retain Smith’s original method of procedure in his lectures, it is almost unique in this respect and shows that Smith must have commonly recast the actual structure of his lectures for the book, even though he kept most of the words and phrases.

The printed text allows a further conjecture about the lectures. The last part of the book seems to originate from material that formed the first part of the lectures on ethics in their earliest version. Why otherwise should Smith set out here (VII.i.2) the two main problems of ethical the-ory, as if by way of introduction, when in fact most of his task is already done? It seems probable (and it would accord with his usual method of approaching a subject) that at first he entered upon ethics with a survey of its history in dealing with the two topics of moral motive and moral judgement. Having carried the history up to the thinkers of his own day, he will have reflected upon the differences between the two theories that impressed him most, those of his teacher Hutcheson and his friend Hume. Whether or not he already had definite views of his own on these matters in 1752, it is impossible to say; in any event his account of sympathy and its place in moral judgement will have developed as he gave more attention to the subject. Once it had developed it became the focus of Smith’s own distinctive theory of ethics, and at this stage (if our conjecture about the original form of the lectures is correct) Smith will have recast his thoughts, starting off with sympathy, building up his theory from that base, and making the historical sur-vey a sort of appendix.

An examination of changes in style might perhaps give some guidance about alterations from the original lecture notes. There is a clear difference in style between much of what Smith wrote for edition 1 and the considerable additions, including the whole of Part VI, which he composed late in life for edition 6. The earlier matter tends to be rhetorical, in tune with the style accepted for lectures in the mid–eighteenth century, while the later writing is in the more urbane style of

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WN. Both WN and the additions to TMS were of course written with a direct view to publica-tion. When one remembers the type of classes that Smith addressed as a Professor in Glasgow, the style of the original material can be better understood. Most of the students were of the age of secondary schoolboys today. The number attending the class of public lectures on Moral Phi-losophy in Smith’s time was probably about eighty, many of them being destined for the Church. To hold the attention of his class Smith used rhetorical language and made humorous references to manners of the day in a way likely to interest young people.

Of the lectures that Smith delivered in his last four years at Glasgow after the publication of TMS, Stewart (III.1) writes:

During that time, the plan of his lectures underwent a considerable change. His ethical doctrines, of which he had now published so valuable a part, occupied a smaller portion of the course than formerly: and accordingly, his attention was natu-rally directed to a more complete illustration of the principles of jurisprudence and of political oeconomy.

The last statement appears to be borne out by the two surviving Reports of the lectures on jurisprudence as delivered in sessions 1762–3 and 1763–4. It would be wrong, however, to infer from Stewart’s account that Smith’s thought on ethics stood still at this time. There is substantial development of his theory in edition 2 of TMS, especially of his notion of the impartial specta-tor. He can also be seen to apply that concept in the lectures on jurisprudence, so that there is a continuity in his thinking, as indeed Smith himself makes plain at the end of TMS.

(b) Influence of Stoic philosophy

Stoic philosophy is the primary influence on Smith’s ethical thought. It also fundamentally affects his economic theory. Like other scholars of his day Smith was well versed in ancient phi-losophy, and in TMS he often refers as a matter of course to Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero (the last sometimes, but not always, as a source of information about Stoicism). In his survey of the his-tory of moral philosophy in Part VII, however, Stoicism is given far more space than any other ‘system’, ancient or modern, and is illustrated by lengthy passages from Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. (The Discourses of Epictetus seem to have been chiefly responsible for Smith’s early fas-cination with Stoicism.) In editions 1–5 of TMS some of this material on the Stoics appears separately in Part I, but the separation does not produce a lesser impact on the reader; on the contrary, it shows up more clearly the pervasive character of Stoic influence. Even in edition 6 there remain in the earlier Parts of the book enough direct references to and quotations from Stoic doctrine to indicate this. Stoicism never lost its hold over Smith’s mind. When revising his book for edition 6 in his last years, he not only moved two of the earlier passages on ‘that famous sect’ (as he calls it in the Advertisement) to the historical survey in Part VII. He also added fur-ther reflections, especially on the Stoic view of suicide, stimulated no doubt by the posthumous publication of an essay by Hume arguing that suicide was sometimes admirable.

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More important, however, is the influence of Stoic principles on Smith’s own views, again something that persisted to his latest writings. In the fresh material added to edition 6 of TMS, Smith’s elaboration of his account of Stoicism in Part VII is less significant than the clearly Stoic tone of much that he wrote for Part III on the sense of duty and for the new Part VI on the char-acter of virtue. Part VI deals with the three virtues of prudence, beneficence, and self–command. The third of these, which also figures in the additions to Part III, is distinctively Stoic. The first, though common to many systems of ethics, is interpreted by Smith in a Stoic manner. He departs from Stoicism in his views on beneficence, but even there, when he comes to discuss universal be-nevolence in VI.ii.3, he introduces Stoic ideas and Stoic language to a remarkable degree.

Smith’s ethical doctrines are in fact a combination of Stoic and Christian virtues—or, in philosophical terms, a combination of Stoicism and Hutcheson. Hutcheson resolved all virtue into benevolence, a philosophical version of the Christian ethic of love. At an early stage in TMS, Adam Smith supplements this with Stoic self–command.

And hence it is, that to feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature; . . . As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us. (I.i.5.5)

Smith emphasizes self–command again when supplementing for edition 6 his treatment of the sense of duty in Part III. He there repeats the dual character of his ideal. ‘The man of the most perfect virtue . . . is he who joins, to the most perfect command of his own original and self-ish feelings, the most exquisite sensibility both to the original and sympathetic feelings of others’ (II.3.34). In Part VI Smith goes farther, making self–command a necessary condition for the exer-cise of other virtues. Great merit in the practice of any virtue presupposes that there has been temptation to the contrary and that the temptation has been overcome; that is to say, it presup-poses self–command. ‘Self–command is not only itself a great virtue, but from it all the other vir-tues seem to derive their principal lustre’ (VI.iii.11). For Adam Smith, self–command has come to permeate the whole of virtue, an indication of the way in which Stoicism permeated his reflec-tion over the whole range of ethics and social science.

When Smith sets Stoic self–command beside Christian love in the first of the quotations given above, he calls it ‘the great precept of nature’. Life according to nature was the basic tenet of Stoic ethics, and a Stoic idea of nature and the natural forms a major part of the philosophical foundations of TMS and WN alike. The Stoic doctrine went along with a view of nature as a cosmic harmony. Phrases that occur in Smith’s account of this Stoic conception are echoed when he expresses his own opinions. The correspondence is most striking in the chapter on universal benevolence, where Marcus Aurelius is recalled by name as well as in phrase: ‘the great Conduc-tor’ whose ‘benevolence and wisdom have . . . contrived and conducted the immense machine of the universe’ (in the new material of edition 6 at VI.ii.3.4–5) is a recollection of the ‘all–wise Ar-chitect and Conductor’ of ‘one immense and connected system’, ‘the whole machine of the

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world’, (quoted from Marcus Aurelius in VII.ii.1.37). Essentially similar turns of speech are to be found in a number of passages, both early and late, of TMS. Indeed, the frequency of such phrases leads one to think that commentators have laid too much stress on the ‘invisible hand’, which appears only once in each of Smith’s two books. On both occasions the context is the Stoic idea of harmonious system, seen in the working of society.

The Stoics themselves applied the notion to society no less than to the physical universe, and used the Greek word sympatheia (in the sense of organic connection) of both. This is not the sym-pathy that figures in Adam Smith’s ethics. Sympathy and the impartial spectator, as Smith inter-prets them, are the truly original features of his theory. Yet it is quite likely that in his own mind each of these two ideas was intimately related to the Stoic outlook. Like the Stoics he thought of the social bond in terms of ‘sympathy’, and he describes the Stoic view of world citizenship and self–command as if it implied the impartial spectator.

Man, according to the Stoics, ought to regard himself . . . as a citizen of the world, a member of the vast commonwealth of nature. . . . We should view ourselves . . . in the light in which any other citizen of the world would view us. What befalls our-selves we should regard as what befalls our neighbour, or, what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour regards what befalls us. (III.3.11)

In WN the Stoic concept of natural harmony appears especially in ‘the obvious and simple system of natural liberty’ (IV.ix.51). We should remember that the three writers on whom Smith chiefly draws for Stoic doctrine—Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Cicero—were all Roman, and that the practical bent of the Romans closely connected men’s moral duties with their legal obli-gations as citizens. The universalist ethic of Stoicism became enshrined in the ‘law’ of nature. This tradition Smith accepted, understandably in his setting. Ethics for him implied a ‘natural jurisprudence’, and his economic theories arose out of, indeed were originally part of, his lectures on jurisprudence.

The Stoic concept of social harmony, as Smith understood it, did not mean that everyone behaved virtuously. Stoic ethics said it was wrong to injure others for one’s own advantage, but Stoic metaphysics said that good could come out of evil.

The ancient stoics were of opinion, that as the world was governed by the all–ruling providence of a wise, powerful, and good God, every single event ought to be regarded, as making a necessary part of the plan of the universe, and as tending to promote the general order and happiness of the whole: that the vices and follies of mankind, therefore, made as necessary a part of this plan as their wisdom or their virtue; and by that eternal art which educes good from ill, were made to tend equally to the prosperity and perfection of the great system of nature. (I.ii.3.4)

This doctrine anticipates the better–known statement of Smith’s own opinion that the selfish rich ‘are led by an invisible hand’ to help the poor and to serve the interest of society at large (IV.1.10). Smith has added the idea of a ‘deception’ by nature and the phrase ‘an invisible hand’. The famous phrase may have sprung from an uneasiness about the reconciliation of selfishness with the perfection of the system. In itself the idea of deception by an invisible hand is uncon-

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vincing. It gains its plausibility from the preceding account of aesthetic pleasure afforded by power and riches, a pleasure that is reinforced by the admiration of spectators. Smith himself clearly set most store by the psychological explanation. But the invisible hand, through its reap-pearance in WN, has captured the attention, especially of economists.

In the TMS passage Smith writes disparagingly of the ‘natural selfishness and rapacity’ of the rich, but this does not mean that he regards all self–interested action as bad in itself and redeem-able only by the deception of nature. He does not even accept the view of Hutcheson that self–love is morally neutral. Smith follows the Stoics once again in holding that self–preservation is the first task committed to us by nature and that prudence is a virtue so long as it does not injure oth-ers. His explicit account of Stoicism in Part VII begins with the doctrine that ‘every animal was by nature recommended to its own care, and was endowed with the principle of self–love’, for the sake of preserving its existence and perfection (VII.ii.1.15). This is echoed by an expression of Smith’s own view in Part II, ‘Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recom-mended to his own care’ (II.ii.2.1), and then again in the new Part VI, where it is reaffirmed with acknowledgement, ‘Every man, as the Stoics used to say, is first and principally recommended to his own care’ (VI.ii.1.1).

Smith does appear to give rather more scope to prudence in the new Part VI than in the ear-lier material, no doubt reflecting a change of emphasis in the thought of the more mature man who had written WN. Essentially, however, TMS and WN are at one. For example, Smith writes in TMS of ‘that great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition’ (I.iii.2.1). This reappears in WN in vivid form: ‘But the principle which prompts to save, is the desire of bettering our condition, a desire which, though generally calm and dispassionate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the grave’ (II.iii.28).9 In WN this is of course worked out in its economic aspect, as the drive to employ one’s stock and industry to one’s best advantage. In TMS the desire to better our condition is related to class distinction and is attrib-uted to ‘vanity’, the desire ‘to be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation’. There is a difference of tone, but both books treat the desire to better our condition as natural and proper.

The consistency and the Stoic character of Smith’s views of prudence may be brought out by comparing two passages, one written for edition 6, the other for edition 1. In VI.i.11 Smith says: ‘In the steadiness of his industry and frugality, in his steadily sacrificing the ease and enjoyment of the present moment for the probable expectation of the still greater ease and enjoyment of a more distant but more lasting period of time, the prudent man is always both supported and re-warded by the entire approbation of the impartial spectator. . . .’ The reference to industry and frugality immediately recalls WN. The other passage, in IV.2.8, written thirty years earlier, con-tains a similar reference when discussing self–command: from the spectator’s approval of self–command ‘arises that eminent esteem with which all men naturally regard a steady perseverance in the practice of frugality, industry, and application, though directed to no other purpose than the acquisition of fortune’. The passage in Part VI appears to take a more charitable view of prudence as such, but in fact there is no real change of doctrine, for in the Part VI passage Smith

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goes on to explain that the approval of the impartial spectator is really directed at ‘that proper exertion of self–command’ which enables the prudent man to attach almost as much importance to future enjoyment as to present. There is no reason to suppose that Smith departs in any way from this view when he gives similar praise to industry and frugality in WN. The moral quality of prudence depends on its association with the Stoic virtue of self–command.

Smith’s respect for Stoicism was not unqualified, and he ends his account of it, as of other ‘systems’, with some firm criticisms. Apart from the particular question of suicide, which he says is contrary to nature ‘in her sound and healthful state’, Smith finds fault with two features of the Stoic philosophy. First, he rejects the Stoic ‘paradoxes’ that all virtuous actions are equally good and all failings equally bad. Second, while accepting the idea of world citizenship, he rejects the Stoic view that this should obliterate stronger ties of feeling for smaller groups. On the contrary, Smith argues, it is nature that teaches us to put family, friends, and nation first, while also provid-ing us with the judgements of the impartial spectator to check any excessive attachment. Despite the criticisms, however, it is not too much to say that Adam Smith’s ethics and natural theology are predominantly Stoic.

(c)Influence of contemporary thinkers

Among contemporary thinkers Hume had the greatest influence on the formation of Smith’s ethical theory. Smith rejects or transforms Hume’s ideas far more often than he follows them, but his own views would have been markedly different if he had not been stimulated to disagreement with Hume. Second in order of importance is the influence of Hutcheson, whose teaching di-rected Smith’s general approach to moral philosophy and enabled him to appreciate the progress in that approach made by Hume. The particular doctrines of TMS, however, owe little to Hutcheson’s actual theory, which Smith probably took to be superseded by Hume’s more com-plex account.

The relation of Smith’s ethics to the thought of Hutcheson and Hume needs to be described in some detail, but first let us note the extent to which Smith was influenced by other moral phi-losophers of his time. It is remarkably small. Smith was well informed about ancient philosophy, keenly interested in the history of science and the evolution of society, and widely read in the cul-ture of his own time, especially its literature, history, and nascent social science. He was anything but insular: his reading of recent books was almost as extensive in French as in English, and it was not negligible in Italian. Yet he was not closely acquainted with much of the ethical theory of the eighteenth century. Perhaps the very breadth of his interests and outlook was responsible for this. In his ‘Letter to the Editors of the Edinburgh Review’, July 1755, Smith could describe, from his own reading, not only Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality but also ‘the Theory of agreeable sen-timents by Mr. De Pouilly’; yet his ignorance of recent works in English comparable with the lat-ter is shown by his remark that the characteristic English approach to philosophy, taken over by France, ‘now seems to be intirely neglected by the English themselves’. In fact there were several English contributions to mental and moral philosophy in the 1740s and early 1750s at least as valuable as Lévesque de Pouilly’s little book on the psychology of pleasure. Smith’s statement in

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the ‘Letter’ that England had until then been pre–eminent for originality in philosophy is simply a repetition of what Hume had said in the Introduction to the Treatise of Human Nature, and Smith’s list of ‘English’ thinkers (Hobbes, Locke, Mandeville, Shaftesbury, Butler, Clarke, Hutcheson) differs little from Hume’s. It follows Hume in including Hutcheson, although the point of the ‘Letter’, unlike that of Hume’s Introduction, is to urge the Edinburgh Review to look beyond Scotland.

There are a few particular issues on which Smith was affected by contemporary thinkers other than Hutcheson and Hume. When he distinguishes justice from beneficence he refers to the work of Lord Kames, ‘an author of very great and original genius’ (II.ii.1.5), but perhaps Smith’s view of the distinction was reinforced rather than suggested by that of Kames since the theories of the two men do not have much in common. (The tone of homage in Smith’s allusion to Kames may owe something to gratitude for promoting the Edinburgh lectures, which in turn led to the Glasgow appointment.) At I.iii.1.1 Smith refers, rather inaccurately, to a passage of Bishop Butler about sympathy, though not so as to suggest any indebtedness. In another place, III.5.5–6, Smith unconsciously recalls some of Butler’s phrases about the authority of conscience. Here Smith is as much influenced by Hutcheson as by Butler himself, for Hutcheson’s lectures (post-humously published as A System of Moral Philosophy) had adopted Butler’s language on this topic. The passage in TMS probably survives from the earliest version of Smith’s lectures, in which he will have followed the example of Hutcheson more closely than in later years when he had devel-oped his own theory of conscience as the imagined impartial spectator. The unconscious repeti-tion of phrases, both from his own earlier work and from that of other writers who had moved him to agreement or disagreement, is a characteristic feature of Adam Smith’s writings, and But-ler is not the only contemporary philosopher to leave such traces in his mind. Faint echoes of Mandeville and of Rousseau can be heard in the passage about the deception of nature (IV.1.8 and 10). But all these are nothing to the echoes of Stoicism and of Hume that appear so often in both the language and the doctrine of TMS.

In Part VII of the book Smith discusses recent as well as ancient philosophy. Apart from Hutcheson, the only contemporary philosopher who is considered at length is Mandeville in VII.ii.4. (In editions 1–5 his name was coupled with that of La Rochefoucauld, but Smith’s actual exposition and criticism of ‘licentious systems’ in this chapter were always confined to the work of Mandeville.) There are short accounts of Hume’s views in VII.ii.3.21 and in VII.iii.3.3 and 17. There are references to Hobbes in VII.iii.1 and 2, a glance at Clarke, Wollaston, and Shaftesbury in VII.ii.1.48, a perfunctory mention of the Cambridge Platonists in VII.ii.3.3, and a more defi-nite reference in VII.iii.2.4 to one of them, Cudworth, as a representative of ethical rationalism.

The ethical writings of both Hutcheson and Hume contain important criticism of opposing views. Hutcheson attacked egoistic theory, notably as expounded by Mandeville, and theories of ethical rationalism, especially those of Samuel Clarke and William Wollaston. Hume redoubled the assault on rationalism with a veritable barrage of subtle argument, but he did not repeat Hutcheson’s criticism of egoism, doubtless thinking that this was now dead. Adam Smith evi-dently felt the same about ethical rationalism. His chapter on the rationalists (VII.iii.2) is brief

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and summary. He takes it for granted that moral rules are inductive generalizations and that moral concepts must arise in the first place from feeling. In the last paragraph of the chapter he refers to Hutcheson’s criticism of ethical rationalism in Illustrations upon the Moral Sense as being quite decisive. (It is noteworthy that he does not explicitly mention Hume’s more finely directed series of arguments in the Treatise of Human Nature, though there is presumably an implicit refer-ence to Hume in the statement that Hutcheson was ‘the first’ to distinguish ‘with any degree of precision’ the respective roles of reason and feeling in morals.) Smith writes as if he had little knowledge or appreciation of the carefully argued counter–attacks on Hutcheson in writers such as John Balguy and Richard Price. Unlike Hume, however, Smith evidently thought that egoistic theory was still a force to be reckoned with, as is shown by the length of his chapter on Man-deville. Perhaps this was because he had seen the strength of Mandeville’s position in economic affairs. At any rate he treats it more seriously than ethical rationalism. Mandeville’s system, he says, could not have ‘imposed upon’ so many people or have caused ‘alarm’ to so many others ‘had it not in some respects bordered upon the truth’ (VII.ii.4.14).

Hutcheson held (against egoism) that moral action and moral judgement are both disinter-ested, and (against rationalism) that they both depend on natural feelings. Moral action is moti-vated by the disinterested feeling of benevolence, and moral judgement expresses the disinter-ested feeling of approval or disapproval that Hutcheson called ‘the moral sense’. Since benevo-lence aims at producing happiness or preventing unhappiness, and since a wide benevolence is approved more than a narrow, the morally best action is that which ‘procures the greatest happi-ness for the greatest numbers’.10 The approval of virtue is like the appreciation of beauty, a feel-ing aroused in a spectator.

Hume agreed with Hutcheson that benevolence is a motive natural to man and that it natu-rally evokes approval. But he did not agree that benevolence is the sole motive of virtuous action or that moral approval is an innate basic feeling. He distinguished natural from artificial virtue; benevolence is the chief example of the former, justice of the latter. Moral approval can be ex-plained by sympathy. The spectator takes sympathetic pleasure in the happiness that natural vir-tue, such as benevolence, tends to produce, and his approval is an expression of that sympathetic pleasure. Artificial virtue depends indirectly on utility, the utility of its rules, and the approval of artificial virtue depends ultimately on sympathy with the happiness of society. Hume therefore retained the view that all virtue is connected with beneficial effects. He also retained from Hutcheson the analogy between ethics and aesthetics and an emphasis on the role of the specta-tor in moral judgement.

Hume’s theory is superior to Hutcheson’s in explaining more. It recognizes a complexity in moral motivation and tries to account for our adherence to moral rules. It is not satisfied with the bare existence of disinterested approval and gives an explanation in terms of sympathy. Adam Smith follows up Hume’s advance by pointing out a greater complexity and offering different ex-planations. Sympathy is central in Smith’s account but is itself more complex than Hume’s con-cept of sympathy. For Hume, sympathy is a sharing of the pleasure or pain produced in a person affected by an action. For Smith, sympathy can be a sharing of any feeling and its first role in

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moral approbation concerns the motive of the agent. The spectator who sympathizes with the agent’s motive approves of the action as proper. Sympathy with the feelings of the person af-fected by the action comes in to help form the more complex judgement of merit. A benevolent action is not only proper but meritorious. The judgement of merit expresses a double sympathy, both with the benevolent motive of the agent and with the gratitude felt by the person benefited. The second element in double sympathy has some affinity with Hume’s concept but is not quite the same. Hume thinks of the spectator as sharing by sympathy the pleasure of the benefit itself; Smith thinks of the spectator as sharing by sympathy the gratitude that the benefit evokes.

This difference points to a sharper difference between the two philosophers on justice and on the place of utility in moral judgement. Although Hume distinguishes justice from benevolence, he connects both with utility and relates the approval of both to sympathy with beneficial effects. Smith’s explanation of justice is built in the first instance on sympathy with resentment for harm (as merit is built on sympathy with gratitude for benefit). Smith continually insists that considera-tions of utility are the last, not the first, determinants of moral judgement. Our basic judgement of right and wrong is concerned with the agent’s motive, not with the effect of his action. Our more complex judgements of merit and demerit, justice and injustice, depend on the reactions of gratitude and resentment to benefit and harm respectively, not simply on the benefit and harm themselves. And even though the pleasant or painful effects of action are relevant to the moral judgement passed upon it, they are primarily the effects of this particular action upon particular individuals, not the more remote effects upon society at large. Considerations of general social utility are an afterthought, not a foundation.

This is not to say that utility is of little importance in Smith’s thought. It is of course crucial for his economic theory. One feature that comes out more clearly in TMS is the place of aes-thetic pleasure in the value attached to utility. Useful means are valued first for the ends at which they aim, but then we are charmed by the beauty of their own sheer efficiency, and this pleasure, Smith believes, plays a major part in sustaining economic activity and political planning. Smith legitimately took pride in his originality on this last point (IV.1.3) but derived the more general idea from Hume. Both Hume and Smith learned from Hutcheson to keep aesthetics in mind when thinking about ethics. In Treatise of Human Nature, II.ii.5, Hume wrote of the effect of sym-pathy in forming esteem for the rich and powerful (a thesis followed by Smith in TMS I.iii.2), and then went on to compare with this the role of sympathy in the communication of aesthetic pleas-ure, including the aesthetic pleasure afforded by convenience or utility. Smith seized on the last remark and emphasized its social importance.

It seems likely that the title of Lévesque de Pouilly’s book, Théorie des sentiments agréables, sug-gested to Smith that a suitable name for the philosophy of morals, as he understood it, would be the theory of moral sentiments. This is a description of the subject, not of Smith’s individual theory (for which the word ‘sympathy’ is virtually essential). Smith took it as established by Hutcheson and Hume that morals depend on ‘sentiment’ or feeling. He differed from them, how-ever, in insisting upon the plurality of moral feelings. Hutcheson postulated a single ‘moral sense’ or capacity to feel approval, analogous to the sense of beauty and the sense of honour. Hume

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likewise wrote in the Treatise of Human Nature (III.i.2) of approbation as a ‘particular’ or ‘peculiar’ kind of pleasant feeling, but in the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (appendix iv) he distin-guished different kinds of approbation for different kinds of virtue. Smith followed the distinction drawn by Hume in the Enquiry between the ‘amiable’ and the ‘awful’ virtues, each arousing a dif-ferent type of approval. For Smith this meant that there are different forms of the ‘sense of pro-priety’. He then further distinguished the sense of propriety from the sense of merit and the sense of duty. Smith accordingly took the view that there are several kinds of moral approbation, a va-riety of moral feelings or sentiments. The philosophy of morals may therefore be called the the-ory of moral sentiments. Nothing of all this can be found in Lévesque de Pouilly’s book, which is mainly concerned with the psychology of pleasant feeling in general. The content of TMS owes nothing to it, but Smith seems to have adapted Lévesque de Pouilly’s title to suit his own more specific subject. Lévesque de Pouilly’s book appeared in English translation in 1749 as The Theory of Agreeable Sensations, but Smith’s reference to it as the ‘Theory of agreeable sentiments’ shows that he had read the original French version, first published in 1747 and then reprinted in 1749 and 1750 (the 1750 edition in London). His use of the phrase ‘the Theory of moral Sentiments’ as a name for the subject of ethics appears already in the manuscript fragment of his lecture on justice, presumably written in the early 1750s (see Appendix II).

2. Evolution

(a) Development between editions

Smith made substantial changes to TMS in editions 2 and 6. The most important feature of these changes is a development of his concept of the impartial spectator. An account of this is given by D. D. Raphael in the volume of Essays on Adam Smith (edited by Andrew S. Skinner and Thomas Wilson) accompanying the present edition of Smith’s Works. A summary of salient points will therefore suffice here.

Both Hutcheson and Hume gave prominence, in their ethical theories, to the approval of ‘a spectator’ or of ‘every spectator’, even of ‘a judicious spectator’. This conception helps to bring out the disinterested character of the moral standpoint; the spectator is not personally involved, as is the agent or a person affected by the action. A spectator theory of moral judgement implies impartiality, even though Hutcheson and Hume did not use the adjective ‘impartial’11 in this connection. The originality of Adam Smith’s impartial spectator lies in his development of the idea so as to explain the source and nature of conscience, i.e. of a man’s capacity to judge his own actions and especially of his sense of duty. On this aspect of ethics the theories of Hutche-son and Hume were undoubtedly lame, as was clear to their rationalist critics. Hutcheson himself must have seen the force of the criticism when he accepted, in his later work, the view of Bishop Butler that conscience has ‘authority’, though he did not attempt to explain this in terms of his theory of approval. Smith did, in terms of his own theory.

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According to Smith, conscience is a product of social relationship. Our first moral sentiments are concerned with the actions of other people. Each of us judges as a spectator and finds himself judged by spectators. Reflection upon our own conduct begins later in time and is inevitably af-fected by the more rudimentary experience. ‘Reflection’ is here a live metaphor, for the thought process mirrors the judgement of a hypothetical observer. ‘We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behaviour, and endeavour to imagine what effect it would, in this light, produce upon us. This is the only looking–glass by which we can, in some measure, with the eyes of other people, scrutinize the propriety of our own conduct’ (III.1.5). The looking–glass requires imagination; Smith’s impartial spectator is not the actual ‘man without’ but an imagined ‘man within’. When I judge my own conduct I do not simply observe what an actual spectator has to say; I imagine what I should feel if I myself were a spectator of the proposed action.

There is an important difference between this view and the more straightforward idea that conscience reflects the feelings of real external spectators. If I imagine myself as a spectator, I may on the one hand fail to overcome my natural partiality for myself as the actual agent, and in this respect ‘the man within’ may be an inferior witness. But on the other hand ‘the man without’ is liable to lack relevant information that I possess, and in that way the judgement of conscience can be superior to that of actual spectators.

This feature of Smith’s account was not made sufficiently clear in edition 1 of TMS. Smith was led to clarify it for his readers, and perhaps also for himself, as the result of an objection put to him by Sir Gilbert Elliot. Elliot’s letter has not survived but we can infer the point of it from Smith’s reply,12 which was accompanied by a draft of a revision that was introduced (with some changes of detail) in edition 2. Elliot’s objection must have come to this: if conscience is a reflec-tion of social attitudes, how can it ever differ from, or be thought superior to, popular opinion? In the revision for edition 2 Smith showed how the imagined impartial spectator can reach a more objective opinion than actual spectators, who are liable to be misled by ignorance or the distor-tions of perspective. Imagination can conjure up a spectator free from those limitations, just as it can enable us to reach objective judgements of perception.

At this stage Smith still retained the view that conscience begins with popular opinion. He says, in the revision for edition 2, that the jurisdiction of conscience ‘is in a great measure derived from the authority of that very tribunal, whose decisions it so often and so justly reverses’. But by the time he came to revise the work again for edition 6, Smith had become even more sceptical of popular opinion and replaced the passage just quoted by the statement that ‘the jurisdictions of those two tribunals are founded upon principles which, though in some respects resembling and akin, are, however, in reality different and distinct’ (III.2.32). The judgement of the real spectator depends on the desire for actual praise, that of the imagined impartial spectator on the desire for praiseworthiness. Smith maintains the distinction in other parts of the new material added to edi-tion 6, especially in his treatment of self–command.

Although Smith’s special concept of the impartial spectator was developed to explain a man’s moral judgements about himself, the general idea is of course used for other moral judgements too. In Smith’s view, the main stream of ethical theory, which holds that virtue consists in ‘propri-

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ety’, has offered only two suggestions for a firm criterion of right action; one is utility, the other is the impartial spectator. Throughout the work he gives reasons for preferring the second. Its cen-tral importance for him is underlined by his adding to edition 6 a short paragraph in criticism of modern theories of propriety (VII.ii.1.49).

None of those systems either give, or even pretend to give, any precise or distinct measure by which this fitness or propriety of affection can be ascertained or judged of. That precise and distinct measure can be found nowhere but in the sympathetic feelings of the impartial and well–informed spectator.

Sir Gilbert Elliot was not the only critic to be answered in edition 2. Smith also deals, at I.iii.1.9, with an objection put to him by Hume in Letter 36, dated 28 July 1759. Hume’s objec-tion concerned sympathy and approval. According to Hume’s own theory, the feeling of approval is a special sort of pleasure and arises from sympathy with the pleasure produced by a virtuous action. Smith likewise connected approbation with sympathy but did not limit this to sympathy with pleasure. He wrote of sympathizing with grief and thereby approving it as proper in the cir-cumstances. Sympathy with grief is of course a sharing of a painful feeling. But Smith also wrote, in I.i.2.6, that we are always pleased when we can sympathize. Hume thought there was an in-consistency here. In his reply Smith makes clearer the relation between sympathetic feeling and the feeling of approval. Sympathetic feeling can be either pleasurable or painful. When a specta-tor does sympathize, in either way, he can also note the correspondence between his own feeling and that of the person observed, and this perception of correspondence is always pleasurable. The sentiment of approval is the second, necessarily pleasurable, feeling, not the first.

A distinction between sympathy and approval is all the more necessary for a passage added to edition 6. As has already been mentioned in section 1(c) above (p. 14), Smith followed Hume in using sympathy to explain ‘the distinction of ranks’ (I.iii.2). We admire the rich and the great be-cause we take sympathetic pleasure in their enjoyments. The admiration or respect is perfectly natural and contributes to the stability of society. By 1789, however, when revising the book for edition 6, Smith was less complacent and followed that discussion with a new chapter (I.iii.3) on ‘the corruption of our moral sentiments’ by the disposition to admire the rich and the great. In it he says that while wealth and power commonly receive respect, they do not deserve it, as do wis-dom and virtue. Yet he still thinks that the respect for the rich and the great is both natural and useful. In VI.ii.1.20, again a passage written for edition 6, Smith returns briefly to the rich and the great as contrasted with the wise and the virtuous. He there commends ‘the benevolent wis-dom of nature’ in leading us to admire the former so much, his reason being the old one that our natural tendency to respect wealth and power helps to maintain social order. Despite the connec-tion with sympathy and utility, Smith does not wish to class this respect as a form of moral ap-probation. It is, he says, similar to and apt to be mistaken for the moral respect that we feel for wisdom and virtue, but nonetheless it is not the same (I.iii.3.3).

A major change in edition 6 was the inclusion of an entirely new Part VI. In general this rounds out and clarifies, rather than changes, Smith’s ethical theory. It describes a division of vir-tue into three categories: prudence; benevolence and justice (both of which concern the effects of

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conduct on other people); and self–command. Smith always included all of these in his idea of virtue, but the earlier version of his views did not set out so clearly their relative place in the scheme of things and did not say much about prudence. The increased attention to prudence in edition 6 is natural from the more mature Adam Smith who had pondered on economics for so long. The prudent man of TMS VI.i. is the frugal man of WN.II.iii. The Stoic virtue of self–command was highlighted even in edition 1. Edition 6 devotes a substantial section (iii) to self–command in the new Part VI and also adds further reflections in III.3, where self–command is compared with conscience in the fully developed concept of the impartial spectator. The more extensive treatment given to self–command in edition 6 suggests that Smith had now acquired an even warmer regard for Stoicism than he felt in earlier days. This is confirmed both by the more elaborate treatment of Stoic philosophy as such, in VII.ii.1, and by the account of universal be-nevolence, in VII.ii.3, in terms of Stoic rather than of Christian doctrine.

Other features of the new Part VI reflect the interests and experience of an older man. De-scriptions of different characters—the prudent man, the man of system, the magnanimous, the proud, the vain man—follow the model of Aristotle and Theophrastus but also declare Smith’s own scale of values. Unlike Aristotle he did not think that theorizing was necessarily the best form of human life. Indeed he despised the pure theorist who pursued dogma with no regard for practice, and he seems to have admired heroic characters most.

In his strictures on civil faction and the spirit of system (VI.ii.2.12–18), Smith appears to be reacting to the French Revolution. This has led Walther Eckstein, in the Introduction (xlii f.) to his edition of TMS, to attribute to Smith’s old age a conservatism that was not there before. If we did not know from other evidence that Smith was a lifelong Whig, Eckstein says, we might sup-pose from this section of TMS that he was a Tory. It seems to us, however, that Eckstein’s inter-pretation is dubious. Most men grow more cautious with advancing years, and Smith was no ex-ception. But his general position in politics does not seem to have changed substantially. He was always a staunch republican in spirit (as Eckstein agrees). There is at first sight some substance in a specific point made by Eckstein. In VI.ii.2.16 Smith commends ‘the divine maxim of Plato’ that a man should not ‘use violence’ against his country any more than against his parents. Eck-stein notes (xliii) that this is recalled in LJ(B) 15 (Cannan ed., 11), where Smith says the Tory principle of authority declares that ‘to offend’ against government is as bad as ‘to rebel’ against a parent. (LJ(A) v.124 contains a similar statement.) There is, however, a difference between the two formulations; one does not have to be a Tory to take the TMS view that it is wrong to use ‘vio-lence’ against the state. Eckstein also cites as evidence Smith’s view in VI.ii.1.20 that respect for rank contributes to social stability, and his comparable statements in VI.ii.2.9–10 that attachment to one’s own particular order also helps stability and ‘checks the spirit of innovation’. But such support for the existing social structure is nothing new in Smith. We have already noted that he approved of the respect for rank even more warmly (i.e. without qualification) in edition 1. Fur-ther, his approval is on grounds of utility, which in the LJ passage is said to be the principle of Whig, as contrasted with Tory, politics. Smith believed in a careful balance between order and innovation. There is a strong conservative strain in his thinking, but it is not markedly stronger in

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the edition 6 material of TMS than in the earlier writing. That he should be shocked by the events of 1789 is entirely what we would expect.

There is more of a case for Eckstein’s further suggestion (intro. xlv ff.) that a change in Smith’s religious views can be inferred from revisions in edition 6, especially from the omission of a passage on the Atonement and from the sceptical sound of a single dry sentence that took its place (II.ii.3.12). Less striking indications of such a change can in fact be seen in earlier revisions of the passage. This matter is dealt with fully in Appendix II. Other passages added in edition 6 show that Smith was still imbued with a religious spirit (as Eckstein notes), but it seems reasonable to conclude that he had moved away from orthodox Christianity. There is additional evidence pointing in the same direction, e.g. Letter 163 addressed to Alexander Wedderburn, dated 14 August 1776, which says: ‘Poor David Hume is dying very fast, but with great chearfulness and good humour and with more real resignation to the necessary course of things, than any Whin-ing Christian ever dyed with pretended resignation to the will of God.’ Smith did not, however, follow Hume into scepticism. All the evidence points rather to a trend towards natural religion, an attitude shown also in the sympathy with which he rearranged and expanded the Stoic pas-sages of TMS.

(b) Relation of TMS to WN

In the light of what has been said in the preceding section about changes in edition 6, there is no need to add much to discussions in the past about the relation of TMS to WN. The so–called ‘Adam Smith problem’ was a pseudo–problem based on ignorance and misunderstanding. Any-body who reads TMS, first in one of the earlier editions and then in edition 6, will not have the slightest inclination to be puzzled that the same man wrote this book and WN, or to suppose that he underwent any radical change of view about human conduct. Smith’s account of ethics and of human behaviour is basically the same in edition 6 of 1790 as in edition 1 of 1759. There is development but no fundamental alteration. It is also perfectly obvious that TMS is not isolated from WN (1776). Some of the content of the new material added to edition 6 of TMS clearly comes from the author of WN. No less clearly, a little of the content of edition 1 of TMS comes from the potential author of WN. Of course WN is narrower in scope and far more extensive in the working out of details than is TMS. It is largely, though by no means wholly, about economic activity and so, when it refers to motivation, concentrates on self–interest. There is nothing sur-prising in Adam Smith’s well known statement (WN I.ii.2): ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.’ Who would suppose this to imply that Adam Smith had come to disbelieve in the very existence or the moral value of benevolence? Nobody with any sense. But this does not necessar-ily exclude scholars, some of whom have adopted the Umschwungstheorie, the hypothesis that the moral philosopher who made sympathy the basis of social behaviour in TMS did an about–turn from altruistic to egoistic theory in WN owing to the influence of the French ‘materialist’ thinkers whom he met in Paris in 1766.

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The charge of ‘materialism’ (meaning an egoistic theory of human nature) in WN was made by Bruno Hildebrand as early as 1848 in Die Nationalökonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft (Frankfurt). It was followed up by Carl G. A. Knies in Die Politische Oekonomie vom Standpunkte der geschichtlichen Methode (Braunschweig, 1853), where the suggestion was first made that Smith changed his views between writing TMS and WN, and that the change was a result of his visit to France. The full–blown version of the Umschwungstheorie, however, was produced by Witold von Skarżyński in Adam Smith als Moralphilosoph und Schoepfer der Nationaloekonomie (Berlin, 1878). Skarżyński’s ideas were sparked off by those of H. T. Buckle in vol. ii of his History of Civilization in England (London, 1861). Buckle put forward a theory of a peculiar relationship between Smith’s two books. Skarżyński saw that this was questionable, but in reacting against it (and against Buckle’s high praise of Smith) he adopted one of Buckle’s chief errors and then added some of his own. Buckle’s view needs to be considered first.

Buckle’s interpretation of Adam Smith is in Chapter 6 of his book, dealing with Scottish thought in the eighteenth century. Buckle had a curious obsession with methodology, and in this chapter he insists that all Scottish philosophers of that period proceeded by the method of de-duction and would have nothing to do with induction. Adam Smith conformed to the pattern, according to Buckle, except for one thing; he followed ‘a peculiar form of deduction’ (p. 437) in arguing from premisses that deliberately left out part of the relevant data. The procedure, based on the method of geometry (so Buckle says), was to select one set of premisses and reason from them in one context, and then to take the remaining data as another set of premisses for infer-ence in a different context. Each piece of reasoning, Buckle continues, is incomplete on its own; they need to be seen as supplementing each other. That is how we must view TMS and WN.

To understand the philosophy of this, by far the greatest of all the Scotch thinkers, both works must be taken together, and considered as one; since they are, in reality, the two divisions of a single subject. In the Moral Sentiments, he investigates the sympa-thetic part of human nature; in the Wealth of Nations, he investigates its selfish part. And as all of us are sympathetic as well as selfish . . . and as this classification is a primary and exhaustive division of our motives to action, it is evident, that if Adam Smith had completely accomplished his vast design, he would at once have raised the study of human nature to a science, . . . (432–3)

The general theme of this passage has point, but it is distorted by Buckle’s assumption that sympathy and selfishness can be set side by side as motives, indeed as an ‘exhaustive division’ of motives. After asserting that Smith ‘soon perceived that an inductive investigation was impossible’ and therefore adopted his ‘peculiar form of deduction’, Buckle repeats his view of how Smith proceeded in the two books.

In the Moral Sentiments, he ascribes our actions to sympathy; in his Wealth of Nations, he ascribes them to selfishness. A short view of these two works will prove the exis-tence of this fundamental difference, and will enable us to perceive that each is sup-plementary to the other; so that, in order to understand either, it is necessary to study both. (437)

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It is indeed true that the two books complement each other and that the understanding of either is helped by studying both. But Buckle has not taken his own advice. He cannot have ‘stud-ied’ TMS if he thinks that it ‘ascribes our actions to sympathy’. Sympathy is the core of Smith’s explanation of moral judgement. The motive to action is an entirely different matter. Smith recog-nizes a variety of motives, not only for action in general but also for virtuous action. These mo-tives include self–interest or, to use the eighteenth–century term, self–love. It is this, not ‘selfish-ness’, that comes to the fore in WN. Smith distinguished the two expressions, using ‘selfishness’ in a pejorative sense for such self–love as issues in harm or neglect of other people. While Smith is ready to couple selfishness with ‘rapacity’ (TMS IV.1.10), he also insists, against Hutcheson, that a proper ‘regard to our own private happiness and interest’ is a necessary element in virtue (VII.ii.3.16). It is therefore impossible to accept the view that there is any difference of substance between TMS and WN on self–interest as a motive.

As for methodology, Buckle may have been misled by WN V.i.f.26, the one paragraph about logic in that work. In describing the divisions of ancient philosophy, Smith says that logic arose from considering ‘the difference between a probable and a demonstrative argument, between a fallacious and a conclusive one’. Buckle may have taken this to imply that probable or inductive argument should be wholly rejected. Smith has something more to say about methodology in LRBL and in the essay on the History of Astronomy in EPS. In LRBL ii.133–5 (Lothian ed., 139–40) he prefers the ‘Newtonian’ method of ‘didactic’ discourse to ‘that of Aristotle’. The first connects together all the relevant phenomena and their explanatory principles, while the latter, ‘the unconnected method’, explains each phenomenon ad hoc. But it is not at all clear that this is a distinction between deduction and induction. For in Astronomy. II.12, Smith represents scientific explanation, including that of Newton, as addressing itself to the imagination by showing regu-larities in the apparently irregular, and here he is following Hume’s view of inductive reasoning. There is no good reason to suppose that Smith thought ‘inductive investigation was impossible’, let alone that he pursued a special form of deduction, with a ‘peculiar artifice’, derived from ge-ometry. His own habits of reasoning include both deduction and induction, as one would expect. Buckle’s suggestion that he followed the analogy of geometry is particularly inept because it allies Smith with the method of rationalism. Smith was in fact a firm empiricist and had little sympa-thy with rationalist philosophy. The ‘peculiar artifice’ of distorting the premisses of an argument is Buckle’s own invention, designed to explain the existence of two allegedly inconsistent accounts of human nature.

Skarżyński rightly rejected the idea that an artifice of logic could make inconsistency consis-tent, but he mistakenly accepted Buckle’s assumption that Smith’s two books gave contrary ac-counts of conduct. He therefore was led to the conclusion that Smith changed his views between writing them. To this was added the conviction that Smith was not an original thinker: according to Skarżyński, Smith learned all his moral philosophy from Hutcheson and Hume, and all his economics from French scholars. So Smith’s change of mind between 1759 and 1776 was attrib-uted to his visit to France in 1764–6.

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Skarżyński knew Dugald Stewart’s ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith’, which contains two important pieces of evidence against the thesis that Smith learned all his economics in France. We have already noted these in section 1(a) above. First, Stewart gives us the report of John Millar that Smith’s lectures on Moral Philosophy included a section on economics that ‘con-tained the substance’ of WN; and second, Stewart describes a manuscript of 1755 in which Smith claims to have dictated before 1749, and to have delivered from 1750 onwards, lectures that incorporated certain of his leading principles in political economy. For Skarżyński, however, this is not evidence. How unfortunate, he says ironically, that ‘these valuable lectures’ were burned shortly before Smith’s death; mere assertion without written evidence is worthless (pp. 6–7). And when he quotes Millar’s statement that the lectures contained the substance of WN, he adds two exclamation marks to show his incredulity (53).

What Skarżyński would have called genuine evidence came to light eighteen years after the appearance of his book. A Report, copied in 1766, of Adam Smith’s lectures on jurisprudence was brought to the attention of Edwin Cannan and published by him in 1896. We can now say with some certainty that it relates to lectures given in 1763–4. A further Report of the lectures given in 1762–3 has been discovered more recently. Skarżyński would (or should) have found these Reports even more effective than the original notes that Adam Smith asked his friends to burn as he lay dying. If Smith’s manuscripts had not been burned, Skarżyński might have said that they were not necessarily the same as the manuscripts used for lectures in the 1760s; and in-deed they may well have been altered. The Reports that we now have are less authentic in one sense, but there is no question of their having been revised by Smith after his visit to France.

A comparison of the two Reports shows that Smith was actively developing and varying his treatment of the subject–matter in the period 1762–4. We also have a manuscript that W. R. Scott called ‘An early draft of part of The Wealth of Nations’ and published in his Adam Smith as Stu-dent and Professor. It must have been written before April 1763.13 These documents show that Smith had gone a considerable way in his economic thinking by the time he left Scotland for France in 1764, and that this early material provided a sound foundation for developments which were certainly stimulated by the visit to France but which occupied his mind throughout the pe-riod 1764–76. What he took from the Physiocrats is clear, as are his criticisms.

Although Skarżyński did not have access to the manuscripts known today, he could have in-formed himself more adequately of facts that were available. He says on p. 166 of his book, truly enough, that Smith did not publish anything on political economy before 1776, but he then goes on to assert, in defiance of the testimony of Dugald Stewart, that Smith had ‘probably not once applied himself definitely to the study of political economy’ before his visit to France. Skarżyński evidently had no notion that lectures on economic matters were a recognized part of Moral Phi-losophy as taught in the Scottish Universities at that time. The tradition stemmed from the treatment of natural law by Roman and medieval writers, and more immediately from the juris-prudence of Grotius and Pufendorf. At Glasgow, Hutcheson’s predecessor in the Chair of Moral Philosophy, Gerschom Carmichael, used his own annotated edition of Pufendorf ’s De Officio Hominis et Civis. Hutcheson continued the practice. Smith draws on Grotius in TMS (and on both

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Grotius and Pufendorf in LJ, though Skarżyński could not have known that). The tradition is common to all the Scottish teachers of Moral Philosophy in the eighteenth century. Skarżyński’s study of TMS seems to have been concentrated on noting Smith’s indebtedness to Hume. He treats the book as merely reproducing from Hume and at times doing it badly (76–7, 94–5). He even says (88) that Smith’s ‘twists and turns’, ‘sophistries and confusions’, could serve very well to obtain for TMS ‘the approval of three bishops and numerous literati’ (Schöngeister), an ironic ref-erence to Hume’s teasing account (Letter 31, dated 12 April 1759) of the success of the book. If Skarżyński had studied TMS more thoroughly, he might have learned that Smith’s ethical theory differs substantially from Hume’s, despite indebtedness. He might even have come to see that Buckle’s interpretation of it was mistaken.

Smith himself provides the best evidence against any idea that there is a conflict between his two works. In the Advertisement to edition 6 of TMS he refers to the final paragraph of the book, which promises another one on law and government, and says that he has ‘partly executed this promise’ in WN. Clearly therefore he regards WN as continuing the sequence of thought set out in TMS. Moreover, as we have said at the beginning of this section, any reader can see that the new material in edition 6 is simply a development of Smith’s earlier position and at the same time reflects some of the interests of WN. Skarżyński was presumably unaware of the Adver-tisement and the additional matter in edition 6 of TMS. The references on pp. 36 and 48 of his book show that he used the Rautenberg translation (1770) of edition 3, although the main addi-tions to edition 6 were in fact available in the later German translation by Kosegarten (1791–5).

Commentators who have taken the trouble to read TMS with more care reject the view that there was a ‘swing’ or that there is any radical inconsistency between TMS and WN. The schol-ars who show the most thorough knowledge of the book and of its Scottish background are: Wil-helm Hasbach, Untersuchungen über Adam Smith und die Entwicklung der Politischen Ökonomie (Leipzig, 1891); Ludovico Limentani, La morale della simpatia (Genoa, 1914); Walther Eckstein in the Intro-duction to his translation (1926); and T. D. Campbell, Adam Smith’s Science of Morals (London, 1971). To these can be added, for acute treatment of the Umschwungstheorie: Richard Zeyss, Adam Smith und der Eigennutz (Tübingen, 1889); and August Oncken, ‘The Consistency of Adam Smith’, Economic Journal, vii (London, 1897), 443–50, and in more detail, ‘Das Adam Smith–Problem’, Zeitschrift für Socialwissenschaft, ed. Julius Wolf, I Jahrgang (Berlin, 1898), 25–33, 101–8, 276–87. See also A. L. Macfie, The Individual in Society (London, 1967).

3. Reception

(a) Early comment and foreign translations

Smith’s reputation in Scotland was already established before 1759. The publication of TMS made him known and esteemed both in England and abroad. The immediate success of the book is delightfully described by Hume, writing from London in Letter 31, dated 12 April 1759. After

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a teasing tale of alleged interruptions to his letter, he finally reaches the point, prefacing it with a reminder that popular opinion is worthless, as if to console Smith for a coming disappointment.

Supposing, therefore, that you have duely prepard yourself for the worst by all these Reflections; I proceed to tell you the melancholy News, that your Book has been very unfortunate: For the Public seem disposed to applaud it extremely. It was looked for by the foolish People with some Impatience; and the Mob of Literati are begin-ning already to be very loud in its Praises. Three Bishops calld yesterday at Millar’s14 Shop in order to buy Copies, and to ask Questions about the Author: The Bishop of Peterborough said he had passed the Evening in a Company, where he heard it ex-tolld above all Books in the World. You may conclude what Opinion true Philoso-phers will entertain of it, when these Retainers to Superstition praise it so highly. The Duke of Argyle is more decisive than he uses to be in its Favour: . . . Lord Lyttleton says, that Robertson and Smith and Bower are the Glories of English Literature. Os-wald15 protests he does not know whether he has reap’d more Instruction or Enter-tainment from it: . . . Millar exults and brags that two thirds of the Edition are al-ready sold, and that he is now sure of Success. . . .

Charles Townsend, who passes for the cleverest Fellow in England, is so taken with the Performance, that he said to Oswald he wou’d put the Duke of Buccleugh under the Authors Care, and woud endeavour to make it worth his while to accept of that Charge. . . .

At the beginning of the letter Hume says that he sent copies of the book to the Duke of Ar-gyll, Lord Lyttelton, Horace Walpole, Soame Jenyns, and Edmund Burke (‘an Irish Gentleman, who wrote lately a very pretty Treatise on the Sublime’). Their names, and also those of Charles Townshend and ‘Mr. Solicitor General’ (i.e. Charles Yorke, referred to in Hume’s second letter below), are included in a list of recipients of complimentary copies that heads Letter 33, sent by Andrew Millar to Adam Smith on 26 April 1759. Hume wrote again to Smith on 28 July (Letter 36) to report further reactions.

I am very well acquainted with Bourke, who was much taken with your Book. He got your Direction from me with a View of writing to you, and thanking you for your Present: For I made it pass in your Name. I wonder he has not done it: . . . I am not acquainted with Jennyns; but he spoke very highly of the Book to Oswald, . . . Millar show’d me a few days ago a Letter from Lord Fitz–maurice; where he tells him, that he had carryd over a few Copies to the Hague for Presents. Mr. Yorke was much taken with it as well as several others who had read it.

I am told that you are preparing a new Edition, and propose to make some Additions and Alterations, in order to obviate Objections.

Hume then proceeds to give Smith his own objection about sympathy, which we have dis-cussed in section 2(a) above. The contemplation by Smith (and presumably Millar) of a second edition so soon after the publication of the first is a further mark of the book’s success.

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Burke did write to Smith, but not until the autumn. Meanwhile Smith had received addi-tional testimony of the warm reception in London. William Robertson wrote to him from Edin-burgh on 14 June (Letter 34):

Our friend John Home arrived here from London two days ago. Tho’ I dare say you have heard of the good reception of the Theory from [m]any different people, I must acquaint you with the intelligence Home brings. He assures me that it is in the hands of all persons of the best fashion; that it meets with great approbation both on account of the matter and stile; and that it is impossible for any book on so serious a subject to be received in a more gracious manner. It comforts the English a good deal to hear that you were bred at Oxford, they claim some part of you on that account.

In July 1759 a notice of the book appeared in the Monthly Review (xxi.1–18). It was unsigned, as was customary, but it has been identified as the work of William Rose.16 After some general introductory remarks on moral philosophy, he writes:

The Author of the work now before us, however, bids fairer for a favourable hear-ing than most other moral Writers; his language is always perspicuous and forcible, and often elegant; his illustrations are beautiful and pertinent; and his manner lively and entertaining. Even the superficial and careless Reader, though incapable of form-ing a just judgment of our Author’s system, and entering into his peculiar notions, will be pleased with his agreeable manner of illustrating his argument, by the fre-quent appeals he makes to fact and experience; and those who are judges of the sub-ject, whatever opinion they may entertain of his peculiar sentiments, must, if they have any pretensions to candor, readily allow, that he has supported them with a great deal of ingenuity.

The principle of Sympathy, on which he founds his system, is an unquestionable principle in human nature; but whether his reasonings upon it are just and satisfac-tory or not, we shall not take upon us to pronounce: it is sufficient to say, that they are extremely ingenious and plausible. He is, besides, a nice and delicate observer of hu-man nature; seems well acquainted with the systems both of antient and modern moralists; and possesses the happy talent of treating the most intricate subjects not only with perspicuity but with elegance.—We now proceed to give some account of what he has advanced.

Then follows extensive quotation or summary of Smith’s argument covering all six Parts of the book. When the reviewer gives Smith’s criticism of utilitarian theory in Part IV, he names Hume as the target. A concluding paragraph reverts from quotation to appraisal and ends as fol-lows:

The last part of the Theory will be peculiarly agreeable to the learned reader, who will there find a clear and distinct view of the several systems of moral philosophy, which have gained any considerable degree of reputation either in antient or modern times; with many pertinent and ingenious reflections upon them. The whole work, indeed, shews a delicacy of sentiment, and acuteness of understanding, that are sel-

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dom to be met with; and what ought particularly to be mentioned, there is the strict-est regard preserved, throughout, to the principles of religion, so that the serious reader will find nothing that can give him any just ground of offence.—In a word, without any partiality to the author, he is one of the most elegant and agreeable writ-ers, upon morals, that we are acquainted with.

The Monthly Review was owned and edited by Ralph Griffiths. In Letter 48 addressed to Wil-liam Strahan, dated 4 April 1760, Smith asks to be remembered to Griffiths and adds: ‘I am greatly obliged to him for the very handsom character he gave of my book in his review.’

Burke wrote a review that was more handsome still, for his periodical, the Annual Register. But first he sent a letter to Smith on 10 September 1759 (Letter 38), in which he gave his opinion at greater length and added some criticism. It will be remembered that Hume had expected Burke to thank Smith for a complimentary copy of TMS. In his letter Burke apologizes for the delay, pleading business and saying that he wanted to read the book ‘with proper care and attention’ before writing. He then shows that he has indeed read it and reflected on it with care.

I am not only pleased with the ingenuity of your Theory; I am convinced of its solidity and Truth; and I do not know that it ever cost me less trouble to admit so many things to which I had been a stranger before. I have ever thought that the old Systems of morality were too contracted and that this Science could never stand well upon any narrower Basis than the whole of Human Nature. All the writers who have treated this Subject before you were like those Gothic Architects who were fond of turning great Vaults upon a single slender Pillar; There is art in this, and there is a degree of ingenuity without doubt; but it is not sensible, and it cannot long be pleas-ing. A theory like yours founded on the Nature of man, which is always the same, will last, when those that are founded on his opinions, which are always changing, will and must be forgotten. I own I am particularly pleased with those easy and happy illustrations from common Life and manners in which your work abounds more than any other that I know by far. They are indeed the fittest to explain those natural movements of the mind with which every Science relating to our Nature ought to begin. . . . Besides so much powerful reasoning as your Book contains, there is so much elegant Painting of the manners and passions, that it is highly valuable even on that account. The stile is every where lively and elegant, and what is, I think equally important in a work of that kind, it is well varied; it is often sublime too, particularly in that fine Picture of the Stoic Philosophy towards the end of your first part which is dressed out in all the grandeur and Pomp that becomes that magnificent delusion. I have mentioned something of what affected me as Beauties in your work. I will take the Liberty to mention too what appeared to me as a sort of Fault. You are in some few Places, what Mr Locke is in most of his writings, rather a little too diffuse. This is however a fault of the generous kind, and infinitely preferable to the dry sterile man-ner, which those of dull imaginations are apt to fall into. To another I should apolo-gise for a freedom of this Nature.

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Burke’s review in the Annual Register (year 1759, pp. 484 ff.) repeats some of the comments made in the private letter. After some general introductory remarks about ‘this excellent work’ in which ‘the parts grow so naturally and gracefully out of each other’, the review goes on:

There have been of late many books written on our moral duties, and our moral sanctions. One would have thought the matter had been exhausted. But this author has struck out a new, and at the same time a perfectly natural road of speculation on this subject. . . . We conceive, that here the theory is in all its essential parts just, and founded on truth and nature. The author seeks for the foundation of the just, the fit, the proper, the decent, in our most common and most allowed passions; and making approbation and disapprobation the tests of virtue and vice, and shewing that those are founded on sympathy, he raises from this simple truth, one of the most beautiful fabrics of moral theory, that has perhaps ever appeared. The illustrations are numer-ous and happy, and shew the author to be a man of uncommon observation. His lan-guage is easy and spirited, and puts things before you in the fullest light; it is rather painting than writing.

Charles Townshend, referred to in Hume’s first letter, had married the widowed Countess of Dalkeith and was therefore the stepfather of the young Duke of Buccleuch. Townshend did even-tually carry out the plan that Hume describes, of asking Smith to act as tutor to the Duke, on terms tempting enough for Smith to give up his Professorship at Glasgow. That is how Smith vis-ited France and Geneva in 1764–6, and how he was able to retire thereafter to Kirkcaldy and de-vote himself to writing WN.

Townshend was not alone in being led by TMS to think of using Smith’s services as a teacher. Lord Buchan says he went to Glasgow after St. Andrews, Edinburgh, and Oxford in order to learn from Smith and John Millar; but since this was in 1760 and since Millar’s appointment at Glasgow began in 1761, Buchan must in fact have been attracted in the first place by the reputa-tion of Smith alone.17 Another student who came from Oxford, in 1762, was Henry Herbert, later Lord Porchester.18 Some came from farther afield. Théodore Tronchin, the celebrated phy-sician of Geneva who attended Voltaire among others, sent his son to Glasgow in 1761, expressly ‘to study under Mr. Smith’.19

The international reputation of TMS is borne out by part of the resolution adopted by the University of Glasgow on 1 March 1764 accepting the resignation of Adam Smith, ‘whose un-common Genius, great Abilities and extensive Learning did so much Honour to this Society; His elegant and ingenious Theory of Moral Sentiments having recommended him to the esteem of Men of Taste and Literature thro’out Europe’.20 The last two words are a pardonable exaggera-tion, but certainly in France the book was soon applauded.

The Journal encyclopédique for October 1760 carried a notice consisting of a short extract fol-lowed by some favourable comment, perhaps echoing that of the Monthly Review.

Cet Ouvrage Nous a paru recommandable par la force et la chaleur de son style, par la beauté et la noblesse des sentimens, par la nouveauté et la justesse des reflex-ions, par le ton imposant des raisonnemens; mais ce qui le rend encore plus précieux,

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c’est que tout y respire la vertu la plus pure, et que la Religion y est par–tout respectée.21

Hume went to France in 1763 as Secretary to the British Embassy, and shortly after his arri-val he wrote to Smith from Fontainebleau in Letter 77, dated 28 October 1763: ‘The Baron d’Holbac, whom I saw at Paris, told me, that there was one under his Eye that was translating your Theory of moral Sentiments; and desird me to inform you of it: . . .’ This was Marc–An-toine Eidous, who had also translated Hutcheson’s Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue. His rendering of TMS appeared in 1764 under the title Métaphysique de l’âme. A contemporary note in F.–M. de Grimm’s Correspondance littéraire (Part I, vol. iv, 291 f.) says that the work did not have any success in Paris to match its reputation in Britain, but that this was due to the defects of the translation and was no argument against its merit.22

However, Parisians of literary tastes were perfectly capable of reading TMS in English. The Abbé Morellet records that he did so.23 The Comtesse de Boufflers–Rouverel wrote in a letter of 6 May 1766 to Hume that she had begun to read TMS and thought she would like it.24 There is another record, a few years later, of the interest of Madame de Boufflers and of other Parisians in TMS. Gilbert and Hugh Elliot, the young sons of Sir Gilbert Elliot, were in Paris in 1770, and a letter from Hugh describes a visit to Madame de Boufflers.

She received us very kindly, and spoke about all our Scotch and English authors; if she had time, she would set about translating Mr. Smith’s Moral Sentiments—‘Il a des idées si justes de la sympathie.’ This book is now in great vogue here; this doctrine of sympathy bids fair for cutting out David Hume’s Immaterialism, especially with the ladies, ever since they heard of his marriage.25

Another member of the French nobility who contemplated, and indeed began, a translation of TMS was Louis–Alexandre, Duc de La Rochefoucauld–d’Anville, a descendant of the author of the Maximes. He abandoned the task after completing Part I, because of the appearance of a translation by the Abbé Blavet.26 Blavet’s translation was of edition 3 (1767) and was published in 1774–5. Yet another French translation, of edition 7 (1792), appeared in 1798. This was by Sophie de Grouchy, widow of Condorcet, who appended some essays of her own (in the form of letters) on the topic of sympathy.

Eckstein (intro. xxxii ff.) has brought together evidence of the reception of TMS in Germany. Lessing mentions the book in his celebrated work on aesthetics, Laokoon (1766), quoting a passage, in his own translation, from I.ii.1. Herder makes several references to it, the earliest one being in his aesthetic work, Kritische Wälder (1769). The first German translation was of edition 3 and ap-peared in 1770. The name of the translator is not stated but he was in fact Christian Günther Rautenberg, who had already translated Lord Kames’s Principles of Morality and Natural Religion.

It seems that Kant knew and valued TMS, judging from a letter of 1771 written to him by one Markus Herz. A passage in this letter speaks of ‘the Englishman Smith, who, Mr. Friedländer tells me, is your favourite’ (Liebling), and then goes on to compare the work of Smith with ‘the first part’ of ‘Home, Kritik’, no doubt meaning Elements of Criticism by Henry Home, Lord Kames. As Eckstein points out, the date of 1771 (too early for WN and one year after the publication of the

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first German translation of TMS) and the comparison with Kames show that the writer must have had TMS in mind. The passage also suggests that Herz at least, like Lessing and Herder, was interested in the relevance of TMS to aesthetics. It is unlikely, however, that Kant’s own re-gard for the work will have been thus confined. Eckstein goes on to note that there is a passage in Kant’s Reflections on Anthropology where Kant writes of ‘the man who goes to the root of things’ and who looks at every subject ‘not just from his own point of view but from that of the commu-nity’ and then adds, in brackets, ‘the Impartial Spectator’ (der Unpartheyische Zuschauer).

A second German translation, by Ludwig Theobul Kosegarten, was published in 1791, pre-sumably made from edition 4 or 5. Kosegarten produced a supplementary volume in 1795, con-taining a translation of the main additions of edition 6, and of the whole of Part III as revised for that edition.

A third German translation, that of Walther Eckstein, appeared in 1926. This is more than a translation. It contains a careful record of practically all the revisions of substance that were made in the different editions of TMS; it is annotated in detail; and its long Introduction is a valuable contribution to knowledge. The work is indeed the first scholarly edition of TMS, and its scholarship is of a high order. We are greatly indebted to it as the starting–point for many of our own notes and for some of the information given in our Introduction.

A further German translation by Elisa von Loeschebrand–Horn was published in 1949 as the first volume of selections from the works of Adam Smith, edited by Hans Georg Schachtschabel. We have not seen this version, but the description of the edition and the length of the volume concerned (338 pp.) suggest that it does not include the whole of TMS.

In Russia Smith was well known as an economist, little as a moral philosopher. One of his Russian pupils, however, Semyon Desnitsky, who later became a Professor of Law at Moscow University, made some use of TMS (and much of LJ) in his lectures. In a work of 1770 he said that he hoped to publish a Russian translation of TMS, but for some reason he did not carry out the intention.27 A Russian translation by P. A. Bibikov appeared in 1868.

A Spanish translation by Edmund O’Gorman was published in Mexico in 1941. A Japanese translation by Tomio Yonebayashi was published in 1948–9 and was reprinted in 1954. See also p. 402 below.

(b) Select bibliography

1. Editions of TMS

Editions authorized by Adam Smith (all imprinted London and Edinburgh):

Ed. 1, 1759; ed. 2, 1761; ed. 3, 1767; ed. 4, 1774; ed. 5, 1781; ed. 6, 2 vols., 1790.

Other editions (this list is almost certainly incomplete):

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Dublin, 1777 (called ‘the sixth edition’); ed. 7, 2 vols., London and Edinburgh, 1792; Basel, 1793; ed. 8, 2 vols., London, 1797; ed. 9, 2 vols., London, 1801; ed. 10, 2 vols., London, 1804; 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1808; Glasgow, 1809; London, 1812; 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1813; Boston, 1817; Philadelphia, 1817; New York, 1821; 2 vols., New York, 1822; 2 vols., London, 1825; London, 1846; Edinburgh, 1849; London, 1853; London, 1861; London, 1871; Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, in or before 1876; London, 1880; Boston and New York, 1887; London, 1887; London, 1892; Edinburgh, 1894; London, 1907; London, 1911; Kyoto, 1961; New York, 1966; New Rochelle, N.Y., 1969.

TMS is also published in vol. i of The Works of Adam Smith, London, 1812; reprinted, Aalen, 1963; in vol. i of The Whole Works of Adam Smith, London, 1822; in vols. iv–v of The Works of Adam Smith, London, 1825; and in Essays, Philosophical and Literary, London, 1869; reprinted, New York, in or before 1876; reprinted, London, 1880.

2. Translations

French:

1. Métaphysique de l’âme: ou Théorie des sentimens moraux [translated by Marc–Antoine Eidous]; 2 vols., Paris, 1764.

2. Théorie des sentimens moraux, translated by l’Abbé Blavet; 2 vols., Paris, 1774–5; reprinted, Paris, 1782.

3. Théorie des sentimens moraux, translated from ed. 7 by Sophie de Grouchy, Marquise de Con-dorcet; 2 vols., Paris, 1798; reprinted, Paris, 1820; revised ed., Paris, 1830; republished with in-troduction and notes by Henri Baudrillart, Paris, 1860.

German:

1. Theorie der moralischen Empfindungen, translated from ed. 3 [by Christian Günther Rauten-berg]; Braunschweig, 1770.

2. Theorie der sittlichen Gefühle, translated and edited by Ludwig Theobul Kosegarten; Leipzig, 1791: vol. ii, containing the additions to ed. 6; Leipzig, 1795.

3. Theorie der ethischen Gefühle, translated (from ed. 6 but including variants in earlier eds.) and edited by Walther Eckstein; 2 vols., Leipzig, 1926.

4. Theorie der ethischen Gefühle, translated by Elisa von Loeschebrand–Horn (vol. i of Smith, Werke, selected and edited by Hans Georg Schachtschabel); Frankfurt, 1949.

Russian:

Teoriya Nravstvennykh Chuvstv, translated by P. A. Bibikov; St. Petersburg, 1868.

Spanish:

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Teoría de los sentimientos morales, translated by Edmund O’Gorman, introduced by Edward Ni-col; Pánuco, Mexico, 1941.

Japanese:

Dōtoku Jōsō Ron, translated by Tomio Yonebayashi; 2 vols., Tokyo, 1948–9; reprinted, Tokyo, 1954. See also p. 402 below.

3. Discussion

This list is restricted to books and published theses that contain a substantial treatment of Smith’s ethical thought. (Even as such it is no doubt incomplete.) It does not include articles nor, except incidentally, books dealing with his other writings. Readers who wish to supplement it should consult the bibliographies in: Eckstein, i.lxxiv ff; The Vanderblue Memorial Collection of Smithi-ana (Baker Library, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration; Boston, 1939): Burt Franklin and Francesco G. M. Cordasco, Adam Smith: A Bibliographical Checklist; critical writings and scholarship on Smith, 1876–1950 (New York, 1950); and Keitaro Amano, Bibliography of the Classical Economics, Part I (Science Council of Japan, Economic Series No. 27; Tokyo, 1961).

The most important works concerned with the ‘Adam Smith problem’ have been listed in sec-tion 2(b) above.

Thomas Brown, Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. iv; Edinburgh, 1820. Reprinted in Lectures on Ethics; Edinburgh, 1846.

Victor Cousin, Cours d’histoire de la philosophie morale aux dix–huitième siècle, vol. iii, École écossaise; Paris, 1840.

August Oncken, Adam Smith und Immanuel Kant; Leipzig, 1877.

Witold von Skarżyński, Adam Smith als Moralphilosoph und Schoepfer der Nationaloe-konomie; Berlin, 1878.

James Anson Farrer, Adam Smith; London, 1881.

Richard Zeyss, Adam Smith und der Eigennutz; Tübingen, 1889.

Wilhelm Paszkowski, Adam Smith als Moralphilosoph; Halle, 1890.

Johannes Schubert, Adam Smith’s Moralphilosophie; Leipzig, 1890 and 1891.

Ethel Muir, The Ethical System of Adam Smith; Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1898.

Johan Gerrit Appeldoorn, De Leer der Sympathie bij David Hume en Adam Smith; Drachten, 1903.

Albion Woodbury Small, Adam Smith and Modern Sociology; Chicago, 1907.

Ludovico Limentani, La morale della simpatia; Genoa, 1914.

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Giovanni Pioli, L’etica della simpatia nella ‘Teoria dei Sentimenti Morali’ di Adamo Smith; Rome, 1920.

Glen Raymond Morrow, The Ethical and Economic Theories of Adam Smith; New York, 1923.

James Bonar, Moral Sense; London and New York, 1930.

Manuel Fuentes Irurozqui, El moralista Adam Smith, economista; Madrid, 1944.

Luigi Bagolini, La simpatia nella morale e nel diritto; Bologna, 1952; ed. 2, revised and extended, Turin, 1966.

Giulio Preti, Alle origini dell’ etica contemporeana: Adamo Smith; Bari, 1957.

Alec Lawrence Macfie, The Individual in Society; London, 1967.

Thomas Douglas Campbell, Adam Smith’s Science of Morals; London, 1971.

4. The Text

(a) Account of editions 1–7

Six authorized editions of TMS were published in Adam Smith’s lifetime. Edition 6, which incorporated extensive additions and substantial revision of other kinds, appeared in 1790, a few weeks before his death. In Letter 295 addressed to Thomas Cadell, his publisher, dated 25 May 1790, Smith acknowledges the receipt of his twelve copies of this edition. Glasgow University Library possesses one of them, presented by Smith to a friend and inscribed in his own hand. We have collated copies of all these six editions, and also of edition 7 (published in 1792) since it is in principle possible that some of the minor changes in edition 7 were corrections made by the author after going through edition 6. This is in fact unlikely, because Smith was already very ill by the time that edition 6 appeared. There is also some internal evidence against it: in VII.ii.4.3, editions 6 and 7 intelligibly but mistakenly print ‘lawful’ instead of ‘awful’, and if Smith had cor-rected edition 6 he would almost certainly have picked up this error, while a printer, less familiar with the doctrines of the book as a whole, would not have recognized it as an error. Nevertheless there are a few places in which edition 7 does correct errors (as well as some where it introduces new ones, and a number where it revises punctuation or spelling), so that it is as well to include the variants of edition 7 in the collation.

John Rae’s account, in his Life of Adam Smith, of the different editions of TMS is erroneous in several respects. On p. 141 he says that edition 1 was published in two volumes, while in fact it was a single volume. On pp. 148–9 he writes:

The second edition of the Theory, which Hume was anticipating immediately in 1759, did not appear till 1761, and it contained none of the alterations or additions he expected; but the Dissertation on the Origin of Languages was for the first time pub-lished along with it. The reason for the omission of the other additions is difficult to

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discover, for the author had not only prepared them, but gone the length of placing them in the printer’s hands in 1760, as appears from the following letter [Letter 50 addressed to William Strahan, the printer, dated 4 April 1760]. They did not appear either in the third edition in 1767, or the fourth in 1774, or the fifth in 1781; nor till the sixth, which was published, with considerable additions and corrections, immedi-ately before the author’s death in 1790.

On p. 425 Rae repeats the gist of this by saying of the projected edition 6: ‘The book had been thirty years before the world and had passed through five editions, but it had never under-gone any revision or alteration whatever.’ In fact edition 2 is considerably revised when compared with edition 1. Although the alterations and additions are not as extensive as in edition 6, they are very substantial and are perfectly consistent with Letter 50. The particular addition which Hume was expecting in answer to his criticism made in Letter 36 addressed to Smith, dated 28 July 1759, appears as a footnote to I.iii.1.9. The Dissertation on the Origin of Languages, however, was first appended, not to edition 2 of TMS, but to edition 3, having previously been published in the Philological Miscellany, vol. i, in 1761. Editions 3, 4, and 5 of TMS each contain some minor revision by the author.

We have used two copies of edition 1, one belonging to Glasgow University Library, the other to the Bodleian Library, and have found no differences between them. Edition 1 is a single octavo volume of [xii] + 552 pages, the last page containing a list of Errata (two of which, being respec-tively on the first and last lines of a page, have in fact already been corrected in the text). The ti-tle–page describes the work simply as ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments’ and the author as ‘Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow’. The book is im-printed 1759, London and Edinburgh. In Letter 33 addressed to Smith, dated 26 April 1759, the London publisher, Andrew Millar, wrote: ‘I reed the errata which are printed, . . . I have no Sort of doubt of this Impression being Soon gone tho’ it will not be published till next Week, . . .’

We have used three copies of edition 2, two from Glasgow University Library and one from the Bodleian. One of the Glasgow copies is defective, lacking the final Part; but since this particu-lar volume is not in its original binding, it is likely that it was complete when first issued. In other respects (e.g. broken letters and misprints) it is identical with the other two copies. Edition 2, like edition 1, is a single octavo volume, but is completely reset in a new form. The pages are slightly longer than those of edition 1, the type is a little smaller, and there is less space between the lines. This edition contains [x] + 436 pages, with no list of Errata. The title–page follows that of edi-tion 1 in its description of the book and author, and is likewise imprinted as being published at London and Edinburgh. It bears the date 1761, but copies must have been available, at least to the author if not to the public, at the end of 1760, since Smith sent a list of Errata with Letter 54 addressed to William Strahan, dated 30 December 1760. The letter begins:

My Dear Strahan

The opposite leaf will set before your eyes the manifold sins and iniquities you have been guilty of in printing my book. The first six, at least the first, third and fourth and sixth are what you call sins against the holy Ghost which cannot upon any

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account be pardoned. The Remainder are capable of remission in case of repen-tance, humiliation and contrition.

W. R. Scott printed this letter in his book, Adam Smith as Student and Professor, but without the list of Errata that accompanied it. The sheet of Errata was traced by Professor Ernest C. Moss-ner in the course of preparing the volume of Correspondence for the present edition of Smith’s Works. The Errata relate to edition 2 of TMS. They are divided into two groups. The first group of six is preceded by the statement, ‘The following Errata must be corrected as totally disfiguring the sense’, which is why the letter calls them sins against the Holy Ghost. Some indeed not only disfigure but flatly contradict the sense required: ‘approbation’ for ‘disapprobation’, ‘utility’ for ‘inutility’, and ‘pleased’ for ‘displeased’. All six of this first group of errors are corrected in edi-tion 3. The second group consists of twenty–five errors, seven of which are corrected in edition 3, three in edition 4, and four in edition 6; one further error is avoided in edition 6 by a new form of correction (Smith had evidently forgotten the original list by this time); the remaining ten have never been corrected before the present edition. Since the list of Errata was no doubt intended to be printed with any further impressions of edition 2, we have treated it as if it had been, incorpo-rating Smith’s revisions (apart from the one which he rephrased for edition 6) in our text.

Edition 2 contains substantial revisions of edition 1. A couple of the changes are merely for-mal: Section ii of Part I in edition 1 becomes Chapters 2–5 of Section i, and the ‘Sections’ of Parts III–V become ‘Chapters’. Throughout the book there are quite a large number of minor stylistic improvements. The footnote at I.iii.1.9, in reply to Hume’s criticism, is added. After III.1.4, edition 1 had three paragraphs; edition 2 transfers the first to a later position, withdraws the second (substituting for it, in the present § 6, an improved version of the same thought), and retains the third with slight revision but in a new position. At the end of III.1.5, edition 2 with-draws a paragraph that was in edition 1, and adds § 6, the improved version of the paragraph withdrawn earlier. In what was III.ii of edition 1, and III.2 of editions 2–5 (see the present III.2.31 and III.3.1–5, 7–9, 11), edition 2 adds sixteen new paragraphs; these include an impor-tant development of the theory of the impartial spectator so as to provide a genetic explanation of conscience. Consequently, edition 2 is not quite the same book as edition 1, though the changes are not on the scale of those made in edition 6.

Smith mentioned the changes in Letter 50 addressed to William Strahan, dated 4 April 1760, to which Rae refers in the passage quoted earlier from Life, 148–9. We give part of the first para-graph of this letter.

I sent up to Mr Millar four or five Posts ago the same additions, which I had for-merly sent to you, with a good many corrections and improvements which occurred to me since. If there are any typographical errors remaining in the last edition which had escaped me, I hope you will correct them. In other respects I could wish it was printed pretty exactly according to the copy which I delivered to you. . . . To desire you to read my book over and mark all the corrections you would wish me to make upon a sheet of paper and send it to me, would, I fear, be giving you too much trou-ble. If, however, you could induce yourself to take this trouble, you would oblige me

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greatly: I know how much I shall be benefitted and I shall at the same time preserve the pretious right of private judgement for the sake of which our forefathers kicked out the Pope and the Pretender. I believe you to be much more infallible than the Pope, but as I am a Protestant my conscience makes me scruple to submit to any un-scriptural authority.

Apart from changes in ‘substantives’ (i.e. in the words as conveyors of meaning), there are in edition 2 numerous revisions of ‘accidentals’ (i.e. of punctuation, spelling, division of words, and use of capital or lower–case letters and of roman or italic type). Many of them will have been introduced by the printer, but it cannot be assumed that all were. Some of the changes in punc-tuation, such as the substitution of a full point and new sentence for a semi–colon, are almost cer-tainly due to the author. The revision of chapter headings, so as to replace roman by italic type, is likely at least to have had Smith’s approval, since in Letter 276 addressed to Thomas Cadell (Mil-lar’s successor as publisher), dated 15 March 1788, he himself uses this style to refer to chapter headings. Letter 50 addressed to Strahan, dated 4 April 1760 and quoted above, shows the care that Smith took in revising the work and in giving instructions to the printer.

Editions 3, 4, and 5 have the same size, format, pagination, and (in general) division of lines as edition 2, but with the Dissertation on the Origin of Languages added. None of them, how-ever, is a reprint from standing type. Each has been composed anew, but following the pages and (mostly) the line divisions of the previous edition, a frequent printing practice of the time, used in order to allow different parts of a book to be set up in type by different compositors working si-multaneously. Our evidence for saying that no edition is a reprint is twofold. The mere fact that there is sometimes a different division of lines is of course not conclusive, since a compositor us-ing standing type would reset some lines in order to accommodate revisions or to improve bad spacing. But, in the first place, misprints in these particular editions have been introduced when the compositor had no reason whatever to reset a line. Secondly, a test suggested by R. B. McKerrow, of laying a ruler across two full points and seeing whether it always cuts the same let-ters, shows conclusively that even when there is no change in the text, the later edition has been recomposed.

We have used two copies of edition 3, one from Glasgow University Library, the other from the Bodleian, and have found no differences between them. Edition 3 is a single octavo volume of [viii] + 478 pages, with no list of Errata. The text of TMS ends at p. 436, and pp. 437–78 con-tain the Dissertation on the Origin of Languages. There is in consequence a new form of ti-tle–page, which describes the contents of the book as: ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments. To which is added A Dissertation on the Origin of Languages.’ The author is now called ‘Adam Smith, L.L.D.’ with no reference to his former Professorship at the University of Glasgow, which Smith had resigned in 1764. In Letter 100 addressed to William Strahan (undated but probably written in the winter of 1766–7), Smith refers to the forthcoming edition 3 and asks that he be called ‘simply Adam Smith without any addition before or behind’. Presumably he would have preferred to dispense even with the insertion of his LL.D. Edition 3 was published at London and Edinburgh in 1767.

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As is to be expected in a line–by–line repetition of an earlier edition, the revision of substan-tives in edition 3 is light, though not negligible. Two groups of these minor changes are of inter-est and have a related character. In a theological passage at II.ii.3.12 and the paragraph that then followed it, the categorical tone of certain phrases is softened to a problematic one; for example, ‘religion authorises’ becomes ‘religion, we suppose, authorises’, and ‘neither can he [man] see any reason’ becomes ‘and he thinks he can see no reason’. Similarly, in passage at V.2.5 about the character of the clergyman, two instances of ‘is are altered to ‘seems to be’ and ‘is supposed to be’. Since the treatment in edition 6 of the former passage became the subject of controversy after Smith’s death, the change of tone in 1767 is of some significance.

There is also in edition 3 a fair amount of revision in accidentals, probably due in the main to the printer on this occasion. As has already been stated, some of the mistakes (including all of the first group) listed in the draft Errata page for edition 2 are corrected, but many are left uncor-rected. The printer has corrected a few further misprints of edition 2, has introduced a number of new ones, and has changed the punctuation quite often and the spelling occasionally.

The Dissertation on the Origin of Languages was evidently set up, not from manuscript, but from a copy of the printed version that had already appeared in the Philological Miscellany, vol. i (London, 1761), for in Letter 100 addressed to Strahan, Smith wrote:

The Dissertation upon the Origin of Languages is to be printed at the end of the Theory. There are some literal errors in the printed copy of it which I should have been glad to have corrected, but have not the opportunity as I have no copy by me. They are of no great consequence. In the titles, both of the Theory and Dissertation, call me simply Adam Smith without any addition either before or behind.

In fact there is no separate title–page for the Dissertation. The reference in the letter to ‘the printed copy’ may have confirmed Rae’s mistaken impression (shared by Dugald Stewart in his ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith’, II.44) that the Dissertation was first printed in edition 2 of TMS, for he repeats the statement on p. 233 of his Life, before giving the text of the letter.

In the present edition of Smith’s Works the Dissertation on the Origin of Languages is being published together with LRBL. The relevant volume will include a collation of the text of the Dissertation in the Philological Miscellany and in the different editions of TMS.

We have used one copy of edition 4, belonging to the Aberdeen Public Library. Edition 4 is, like edition 3, a single octavo volume of [viii] + 478 pages, but these are followed on this occasion by two pages of advertisement. The title–page is different, however, in adding to the description of the main work: ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments, or An Essay towards an Analysis of the Principles by which Men naturally judge concerning the Conduct and Character, first of their Neighbours, and afterwards of themselves.’ The author remains ‘Adam Smith, LL.D.’ Edition 4 was published in 1774 at London and Edinburgh.

Edition 4 was set up from a copy of edition 3. It includes the latter’s intentional revisions, both in substantives and in accidentals, but it corrects most of the misprints introduced in edition

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3. In fact, whereas the compositors of edition 3 were rather careless, the printer evidently took great pains with edition 4 to secure accuracy and consistency. There are very few misprints, and the many revisions of accidentals are made with intelligence. They include modernization of such words as ‘compleat’ (though only from what was then I.iii.3), ‘meer’, ‘antient’, ‘falshood’, ‘vitious’; relative consistency in the spelling of words (e.g. ‘sympathize’, ‘entire’) which had previ-ously been spelt inconsistently; and the removal of nearly all the remaining instances (usually at the end of a line) of the contracted form ‘tho’’. There are again, as in edition 3, a few minor changes in substantives, and some at least of these are such that they must have been made by the author.

We have used two copies of edition 5, both belonging to Glasgow University Library, and have found no differences between them. Edition 5 is, like edition 4, a single octavo volume of [viii] + 478 pages together with the same two pages of advertisement. The title–page follows that of its predecessor. Edition 5 was published in 1781 at London and Edinburgh. It contains a fair number of revisions of accidentals, chiefly in punctuation, but occasionally in spelling; e.g. it re-verts from the spelling ‘blamable’ of edition 4 to the spelling ‘blameable’ of editions 1–3. Never-theless it must have been set up from a copy of edition 4 and not from one of the earlier editions, since it includes all the revisions of substantives, and most of the revisions of accidentals, that were made in edition 4. It also includes a few further revisions in substantives, of a minor charac-ter.

The changes in accidentals, especially in punctuation, are usually sensible, though sometimes pernickety, and are such as one would expect to be carried over by the printer of the next edition. In fact, however, most of the revisions of accidentals in edition 5, and all of its revisions of sub-stantives, are not carried over to edition 6, though a minority of the accidentals are. This must mean that the printer of edition 6 worked from a revised copy of edition 4, and not from one of edition 5.

Why, then, it may be asked, are certain of the revisions of accidentals in edition 5 carried over? It is conceivable that the printer of edition 6 had at hand an unrevised copy of edition 5 also, but since edition 6 does not contain the substantive revisions of edition 5, this is most im-probable. It is more likely that those revisions of accidentals which are repeated in edition 6 were introduced anew by the printer or the author for the same sort of reasons that had caused them to be inserted in edition 5. We say ‘the printer or the author’ because it is quite likely that some of the changes in accidentals were made by Adam Smith himself. There is at least one instance (the last sentence of I.iii.1) where the substitution of an exclamation mark in edition 5 for a question mark in edition 4 is essential to restore the required sense (editions 1–3 had printed an innocuous full point), but this would not be perceived by a printer, who would not know whether the Duke of Biron’s tears did or did not disgrace his memory. In this instance, the revision is not repeated in edition 6, which reverts to the misleading question mark of edition 4.

Most of the revisions of accidentals which are carried over from edition 5 to edition 6 are in fact of a kind that one could expect to be reintroduced in a later revision of edition 4. There is, however, one place (VII.ii.1.16–18) where, for a few pages, edition 6 follows the accidentals of

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edition 5, as against those of edition 4, to an extent that suggests more than coincidence. It looks as if the printer were using, at this point, printed copy from pages of edition 5. Significantly, the passage is one (on the Stoics) that has been transposed from Part I, with some cancellation. It seems probable that the particular circumstances of revision of this passage made it necessary for Smith to use a second set of the printed pages, and that he took these from a copy of edition 5.

What of the minor changes of substantives in edition 5, none of which is carried over to edi-tion 6? It cannot be assumed mechanically that changes in substantives are due to the author. In-deed one of those in edition 5 (at VII.iii.3.17) cannot have been made by the author since it is clearly an error, giving a sense opposite to that required. On the other hand, two of the changes in substantives, though of a minor character like the rest, could not possibly have been intro-duced by the printer. We can therefore be certain that Adam Smith himself made some light revi-sion of edition 4 for the printing of edition 5. He must, however, have forgotten this when he again used a copy of edition 4 in revising for edition 6. This supposition is confirmed by the con-clusion already reached, that he was ready to substitute a few pages of edition 5 for those of edi-tion 4 when working out his transposition and partial cancellation of the passage on the Stoics. He must have thought that the two editions were identical.

The hypothesis that Smith had forgotten his light revision for edition 5 is less implausible than it sounds. During these years he was heavily preoccupied with more important matters than im-perfections of detail in TMS. Furthermore, we can infer with certainty an analogous lapse of memory. We know that Smith compiled a long list of minor errata (as well as a few major ones) in edition 2; and since ten of his corrections were never introduced into the later editions, we are entitled to conclude that Smith had forgotten all about the list. This is especially clear from the one instance (II.iii.intro.1) where he saw, when revising for edition 6, that a mistake had been made, but corrected it in a different manner.

We have used four copies of edition 6, three from Glasgow University Library and one from the Bodleian. One of the Glasgow copies had pp. 145–58 of Volume I bound up between pp. 128 and 129. This particular copy is not in its original binding, and the error is likely to have oc-curred when the volume was rebound. Otherwise there is no difference between the four copies, except in details of the gilt design on the covers of those that still have their original binding.

Edition 6 is in two volumes octavo. Volume I has xvi + 488 pages, and contains Parts I–IV of TMS. Volume II has viii + 462 pages; it contains Parts V–VII of TMS, which ends on p. 399, and the Dissertation on Languages, which occupies pp. 401–62. Edition 6 is of course completely reset and is quite different typographically from its predecessors. The actual type is of the same size as that used for editions 2–5, but there is more space between the lines, as there was in edi-tion 1. But since edition 1 also had slightly larger type, edition 6 has the neatest appearance of all and is the easiest to read. There are line spaces between the paragraphs in edition 6, but not in any of the earlier editions. The title–page of each volume of edition 6 follows editions 4 and 5 in its description of the contents, but the author is now called ‘Adam Smith, LL.D. Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh; One of the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs in Scotland; and formerly Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow’. The ti-

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tle–pages also state that edition 6 is ‘with considerable additions and corrections’. The edition was published in 1790 at London and Edinburgh.

Two letters of Adam Smith to Thomas Cadell speak of his work of revising TMS for the en-larged edition. In Letter 276, dated 15 March 1788, he wrote:

. . . I am at present giving the most intense application. My subject is the theory of moral Sentiments, to all parts of which I am making many additions and corrections. The chief and the most important additions will be to the third part, that concerning the sense of Duty and to the last part concerning the History of moral Philosophy. . . . I am a slow a very slow workman, who do and undo everything I write at least half a dozen of times before I can be tolerably pleased with it; and tho’ I have now, I think, brought my work within compass, yet it will be the month of June before I shall be able to send it to you.

In fact the work took even longer than he anticipated, and on 31 March 1789 (Letter 287) he wrote again:

Ever since I wrote to you last I have been labouring very hard in preparing the proposed new edition of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. . . . Besides the Additions and Improvements I mentioned to you; I have inserted, immediately after the fifth part, a compleat new sixth part containing a practical system of Morality, under the title of the Character of Virtue. The Book now will consist of seven Parts and will make two pretty large 8 vo. Volumes. After all my labours, however, I am afraid it will be Midsummer before I can get the whole Manuscript in such proper order as to send it to you. I am very much ashamed of this delay; but the subject has grown upon me.

Smith’s estimate that he would be ready by the summer of 1789 was again over–optimistic. Stewart, V.9, says of the publication of edition 6 in 1790 that the additions had been sent to the press ‘in the beginning of the preceding winter’, presumably about December 1789.

Edition 6 begins with an added Advertisement, which appears to say that the revisions had been contemplated over a long period, and briefly mentions the main changes made. A more de-tailed account of the major changes is as follows. In the footnote to I.iii.1.9, which had been added in edition 2, edition 6 omits the final sentence. At I.iii.2.9, editions 1–5 began a fresh chap-ter on the Stoical Philosophy; in edition 6, part of the material is transferred to VII.ii.1.23 and 20, part is withdrawn, and a sentence is added at the beginning of I.iii.2.9 so as to connect the preceding discussion with what follows. I.iii.3 is a new chapter, in which the social advantages of admiration for ‘the rich and the great’ are qualified by its corrupting effect on moral approbation. At the conclusion of II.ii.3.12, a sentence is added to replace a paragraph which had previously followed § 12 and which is now withdrawn; this particular revision, as we have already mentioned in our account of edition 3, was later the subject of controversy; we discuss it in Appendix II, where we also give new information about a manuscript fragment that has been supposed to be connected with Smith’s revision of the passage. At II.iii.3.4–5, one and a half paragraphs are added on the concept of ‘piacular’ guilt, a topic referred to again in new material at VII.iv.30. At

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III.1.2, the major part of what was Chapter 1 in editions 2–5 (Section i in edition 1) is transferred to become part of Chapter 2, and what was formerly Chapter 2 (Section ii in edition 1) becomes Chapter 1, with a few linking sentences. Most of III.2 is new, but three paragraphs (§§ 4, 5, and the major part of § 9) have been transferred from what was III.1 in editions 2–5; the new mate-rial includes a further development of the theory of conscience so as to distinguish the sense of praiseworthiness from the consciousness of being actually praised by others; at the same time some caution is introduced about the reliability and the efficacy of the judgements of conscience in the face of erroneous judgement by the outside world. At III.3, a fresh chapter, with an addi-tion to the beginning of § 1, is begun, taking up material which in editions 2–5 was part of III.2; one and a half paragraphs are added at §§ 5–6; § 10 is new; one and a half paragraphs are with-drawn at § 11; and there is a lengthy addition at §§ 12–45, mainly on self–command, with some further development again of the theory of the impartial spectator and conscience. III.4 is largely a revised version of what was the latter part of III.2 in editions 2–5. The whole of Part VI is new; it deals with certain practical and political applications of moral theory, and especially with the virtues of prudence, benevolence, and self–command (already the subject of new material in III.3), and the vices of pride and vanity. In VII.ii.1, there is rearrangement and development of Smith’s account of Stoicism: at § 17, a passage is withdrawn; at the end of § 18, a sentence is added; after § 19, one paragraph is withdrawn, § 20 has been transferred from Part I, §§ 21–2 are added, and § 23 is another insertion of a passage formerly in Part I; §§ 24–47 are new, dealing mainly with the Stoic view of suicide. Edition 6 then reverts to the text of editions 1–5 at § 48, but adds a short paragraph at § 49. At VII.ii.4, where the earlier editions had linked La Roche-foucauld with Mandeville as the authors of ‘licentious systems’, all references to La Rochefou-cauld are withdrawn. In VII.4, a new passage is added at §§ 23–7 and the beginning of § 28, de-veloping Smith’s views on veracity and deceit; a passage that had formed the latter part of § 28 is withdrawn; and three new paragraphs are added at §§ 29–31, again on deceit and with a further reference to ‘piacular’ guilt.

Edition 6 also contains many minor revisions, both of substantives and of accidentals. Some of the changes in accidentals appear to be due to the author himself. Quite frequently, punctua-tion which has been left unchanged in all the editions from 1 to 5 is revised in edition 6; and while one cannot be certain that this is not the work of the printer, anxious to do his part in pro-ducing a highly superior edition, it seems likely that Smith himself will have paid attention to these details, as to others.

We have already given, in our account of edition 5, the evidence for believing that both author and printer used a revised copy of edition 4 in preparing most of the older material for incorporation in edition 6. In matters of spelling and the use of initial capital letters, edition 6 generally follows and takes farther the revisions of edition 4, which had made fairly radical changes from the practice of the earlier editions. There are some exceptions. For example, edi-tions 1–3 tended, though not uniformly, to print the word ‘nature’ with a lower–case initial letter, even when Smith personifies nature, as he frequently does. Edition 4 uses a capital letter for most instances of personification or near–personification. Edition 6 follows edition 4 in the old mate-rial, but in the new material it sometimes uses a capital letter, more commonly a lower–case. An-

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other example is the use of a capital initial letter for the word ‘gods’ when referring to pagan dei-ties. Editions 1–3 had done this at times. Edition 4 changed the capital letter to lower–case. Edi-tion 6 prints a capital letter both in old and in new material, but a lower–case initial for the one instance of ‘goddess’. This simply means that the printers were accustomed to use the capital let-ter for the word ‘God’ and did not stop to distinguish, as the reviser for edition 4 did, between the Christian God and pagan gods.

We have used two copies of edition 7, one from Glasgow University Library, the other from the Bodleian, and have found no differences between them. Edition 7 resembles edition 6 very closely. Like its predecessor, it is in two octavo volumes, the first of xvi + 488 pages, the second of viii + 462 pages. The title–pages follow those of edition 6, except that the words ‘with consider-able additions and corrections’ are properly omitted since the revisions are not new in this edi-tion. The Advertisement, however, is repeated without any indication that it was written for edi-tion 6, and in consequence some of its words appear incongruous in 1792, the year in which edi-tion 7 was published at London and Edinburgh.

Edition 7 has the same pagination, and generally the same division of lines, as edition 6. It is not a reprint, but has been set up so as to follow edition 6 line by line, in the same way as editions 3–5 were each set up to follow their predecessors. The tests that establish this for editions 3–5 show it to be true of edition 7 also. Edition 7 corrects a few misprints of edition 6, introduces some new misprints or other errors, and resets a few lines so as to improve spacing. There are some changes in accidentals, chiefly punctuation. For the reasons given at the beginning of this section, it is practically certain that the compositors of edition 7 did not have any author’s correc-tions of edition 6 to guide them.

An unauthorized edition of TMS was published in Dublin, bearing the date 1777 and calling itself ‘the sixth edition’. The Library of Trinity College, Dublin, possesses a copy (another is in the Goldsmiths’ Library, London) and we have examined a Xerox of it. The Dublin edition seems clearly to have been set up from a copy of edition 4 but it is quite different from editions 3, 4, and 5 in format, pagination, and division of lines. It is a single octavo volume of [viii] + 426 pages. The text of TMS occupies pp. 1–388, and the Dissertation on Languages pp. 389–426. On the titlepage the account of the contents is the same as in editions 4 and 5, but the author is differently described as ‘Adam Smith, L.L.D. F.R.S. Formerly Professor of Philosophy in the Uni-versity of Glasgow; and Author of the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations’. The date of 1777 is consonant with the mention, albeit incorrect (‘Cause’ instead of ‘Causes’), of the title of WN, which first appeared in 1776 and named its author as ‘Adam Smith, LL.D. and F.R.S. For-merly Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow’. The text of the Dublin edi-tion departs at times from that of editions 4 and 5 in accidentals. It commonly agrees with edi-tion 4 where that differs from edition 5, so there is little doubt that the Dublin printer followed edition 4 (1774) and not edition 5 (1781), and this again fits the date of 1777. There is no reason to suppose that Adam Smith consented to, or even knew of, the publication of the Dublin edi-tion, and therefore we have ignored it in our collation of variants.

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(b) Editorial policyIn the preparation of a critical edition of a work from printed books, bibliographical scholars

of the present day attach great importance to the principles laid down by Sir Walter Greg in his paper, ‘The Rationale of Copy–Text’, first published in Studies in Bibliography (University of Vir-ginia), vol. iii (1950), and reprinted in W. W. Greg, Collected Papers, edited by J. C. Maxwell (Ox-ford, 1966). In that paper Greg drew, and explained the importance of, the distinction between the two kinds of variants to be found in the different editions of a book, changes in substantives and changes in accidentals. So long as one is dealing with editions which can be assumed to have received revision by the author, changes in substantives can usually, though not always, be attrib-uted to him, while changes in accidentals (of books printed some considerable time ago) can of-ten, but again certainly not always, be attributed to the printer. Consequently, bibliographical scholars recommend that, in order to elicit a text that gives the nearest possible approach to the author’s intentions, the editor of a critical edition should, in the absence of a manuscript, make the first edition of a work his copy–text; he should then proceed, through each successive edition that appeared during the author’s lifetime, to the first of the posthumous editions, if there are any such, keeping in mind the distinction between substantives and accidentals when introducing revisions. As a general rule, but one to be applied with judgement and discretion, they advise an editor, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, to include changes in substantives, provided that such changes make good sense, and to exclude changes in accidentals, on the ground that these were probably due to the printer.

To this general rule there are naturally exceptions. One class of works that cannot easily be subjected to it are those for which an edition later than the first is known to have been extensively and carefully revised by the author. TMS falls into this class. To follow the usual rule for this book would in fact produce a curious patchwork.

There is no doubt that the printers of edition 1 of TMS followed their manuscript copy fairly closely. Edition 1 frequently, though not consistently, uses antique spellings such as ‘compleat’, ‘antient’, ‘chearful’, ‘cloaths’, ‘intire’, and the contractions ‘tho’’ and ‘thro’’, all of which we know were used by Adam Smith or his amanuenses. These older or abbreviated forms were gradually removed in later editions, especially in 4 and 6. We can also be fairly sure that many of the revi-sions in punctuation were made by the printers, though there is good evidence that some of them were made by the author. While it is a hazardous business to judge which revisions of accidentals are due to the author, and which to the printer, that is insufficient reason for refusing to make the attempt, and it can be done. But the new material added in edition 6 does not go back to the an-tique spellings; its usage on accidentals is, generally speaking, closely consistent with the usage that edition 6 follows in the older material. It would be quite unwarrantable for an editor to in-troduce the antique spellings into the new material of edition 6, especially since even edition 1 does not use them consistently, and since there is evidence from certain idiosyncrasies in the new passages that the printers of edition 6 kept reasonably close to their manuscript copy. In the added material, therefore, the accidentals of edition 6 must generally be accepted. But if, at the same time, the accidentals of edition 1 were retained for the older material, the result would be a patchwork text, which would indeed show up immediately some features of the history of the

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editions, but which would undoubtedly be contrary to the intentions of the author. Adam Smith took great care over the preparation of edition 6, and he would not thank us if we replaced its general appearance of neat consistency by a mixture of ancient and modern forms. In a sense, of course, every revised version of a book is a patchwork in its substantives; but when the author has tried to present it as a seamless fabric, an editor has no business to disclose the seams, in the text itself, by printing the differing accidentals of the original versions of old and new matter.

It follows that the copy–text for TMS must be edition 6 and not edition 1. There is no virtue in making a fetish of retaining the accidentals of the first edition. Mr. J. C. Maxwell has pointed out to us that the main purpose of Greg’s article was not to insist that editors should exclude changes of accidentals and include those of substantives, but to show the need to test the creden-tials of each change in a substantive before accepting it as due to the author. This of course im-plies that one should equally not assume without consideration that changes in accidentals are due to the printer or that the accidentals of the first edition are the nearest approach one can make to the work of the author. Sometimes one can be fairly certain that a revision of an acci-dental was made by the author; we have given examples in 4(a) above (pp. 38, 41). Sometimes one can be even more certain that an inconsistency in the accidentals of a first printed version is not a reflection of the manuscript but simply an indication that different parts of the book were set up by different compositors; in edition 1 of TMS, the first few chapters use the spelling ‘sympathize’, the next few, ‘sympathise’, and the next again go back to ‘sympathize’; similarly, in the new Part VI of edition 6, Chapter 1 of Section ii regularly uses the spelling ‘connection’, while Chapters 2–3 regularly use ‘connexion’. Furthermore, the actual writing of the author on accidentals does not always represent his intentions for the printed text. Edition 1 of TMS very often has the con-tracted forms ‘tho’’ and ‘thro’’. These are commonly used by Adam Smith in letters written in his own hand, but we cannot assume that he intended this labour–saving device to be reproduced in print. He often used the contracted from ‘&’, but nobody would suppose that he wanted that to be reproduced in the printed versions of his books. So when later editions of TMS replace ‘tho’’ by ‘though’, it is reasonable to think that Smith would have approved. Likewise, if the printer adds a comma where its absence impedes the reader from seeing at once the sense of a passage, one must again suppose that the author would have approved.

The view that all changes in accidentals should normally be rejected assumes that the author will not have had much opportunity or determination to attend to these details in proofs. This is in fact not true of Adam Smith. While he will not have been quite so meticulous as a modern scholar might be, he evidently took particular pains over the correction of proofs. This has al-ready been illustrated in quotations from some of his letters to his publishers, especially Letter 50 addressed to William Strahan, dated 4 April 1760. There is further evidence to the same effect in three of his letters about WN. In Letter 227 addressed to William Strahan, dated 22 May 1783, he wrote: ‘I must correct the press myself and you must, therefor, frank me the sheets as they are printed. I would even rather than not correct it myself come up to London in the beginning of next winter and attend the Press myself.’ Letter 237 addressed to William Strahan, dated 10 June 1784, confirms the impression which can be formed independently, from internal evidence, that Smith gave his personal attention to punctuation: ‘I return you the Proof which, indeed, requires

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little correction, except in the pointing and not much in that.’ William Strahan died in 1785. The third letter (No. 256) is addressed to his son, Andrew Strahan, and is dated 13 February 1786: ‘I beg you will employ one of your best compositors in printing the new edition of my book. I must, likewise beg that a compleat copy be sent to me before it is published, that I may revise and cor-rect it. You may depend upon my not detaining you above a week.’

We are not suggesting that Smith himself was responsible for most of the changes in acciden-tals. Plainly he was not. But since he went over his proofs so carefully and was ready to revise even punctuation, we must assume that he was prepared to approve such revisions as he left unal-tered. This applies particularly to edition 6, on which he worked so long. If he had wanted to go back, for example, to the antique spellings of editions 1–3, he had the opportunity at this time to do so. Since edition 6 in fact repeats the modernized spellings of edition 4 both in the old and in the new material, and often introduces them in places where edition 4 had omitted to do so, we are bound to suppose that this procedure had Smith’s approval.

If we did revert to the forms of edition 1 on accidentals, it is by no means certain that we should be reproducing what Smith himself had written. Writing in his own hand was very irk-some to him, and he was in the habit of employing amanuenses for any extensive piece of work. The manuscript of WN was almost certainly written by an amanuensis, and it will be seen from Appendix II that Smith evidently used an amanuensis for his lectures in Glasgow at quite an early stage of his Professorship. This would suggest that the manuscript of TMS was probably not in the hand of Smith himself. As it happens, edition 1 of WN contains far more antique spellings than does edition 1 of TMS, and would give a quite false impression if taken to illustrate Smith’s own practice. For example, edition 1 of WN usually adds ‘k’ to many words that we now com-monly end with ‘c’, such as ‘public’, ‘republic’, ‘mechanic’, ‘Catholic’, ‘physic’, ‘academic’, ‘stoic’, ‘metallic’, ‘authentic’, ‘characteristic’, ‘domestic’, ‘rustic’, ‘politic’. Not many of these words are to be found in letters written in Smith’s own hand, but ‘public’ and ‘mechanic’ do occur and are spelt without a ‘k’. Quite a number of the words listed occur in TMS also, and in edition 1 of that work none of them, except ‘public’ occasionally and ‘republic’ once, is spelt with an added ‘k’. In so far as direct comparison can be made between edition 1 of TMS and Smith’s usage in letters written in his own hand, there is a fair degree of correspondence, and certainly nothing like the extent of discrepancy that exists between the letters and edition 1 of WN. Both the letters and edition 1 of TMS commonly use the forms ‘inconveniency’, ‘cloaths’, ‘antient’, ‘compleat’, ‘chearful’, and ‘chuse’. (The last, which is not universal in the earlier editions, is generally re-tained in the old material of edition 6 and is quite commonly used in the new material too.) The letters tend to use the contracted forms ‘tho’’ and ‘thro’’, which occur usually, but by no means universally, in edition 1 of the book. On the other side, the letters have ‘Nature’ with a capital initial and ‘public’ without a ‘k’, while edition 1 of TMS prints ‘nature’ almost always and ‘pub-lick’ from time to time. Both the letters and the book are inconsistent in using the two forms ‘en-tire’ and ‘intire’, but ‘e’ is more common in the letters, while ‘i’ is far more common in edition 1 of the book. In his letters and in inscribing presentation copies of his books, Smith showed a marked preference for the spelling ‘author’, while the book always uses the form ‘author’. The correspondences between the letters and the book are not at all strong evidence that Smith him-

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self wrote the manuscript for edition 1, since these correspondences are equally consistent with the hypothesis that the manuscript of TMS was written by an amanuensis, though not the one who wrote the manuscript of WN. On the other hand, the discrepancies in this instance do not add up to any strong evidence that Smith did not write the manuscript. It remains an open ques-tion. Comparison with the letters is inconclusive. The fact that Smith used an amanuensis for his lectures suggests that he is likely to have done so for the book. J. R. McCulloch is reported by Rae (Life, 260–1) to have said that Smith wrote TMS in his own hand, but it seems that McCulloch was going simply on his own impression that the style of the book was less diffuse than that of WN. (This point is further discussed in Appendix II.)

We have, then, taken edition 6 as our copy–text. We have departed from it in a small number of instances. First, we have corrected misprints. Second, we have incorporated those corrections of the Errata lists for editions 1 and 2 which were overlooked. Third, we have included those re-visions in edition 5 which can reasonably be attributed to the author and which were forgotten in the preparation of edition 6. Fourth, there are some instances where the reading of an earlier edition is to be preferred on the ground that the later reading is an error that was overlooked. Fifth, there are a few places where we have ourselves introduced an emendation which we believe represents the author’s own intention. With one exception, these emendations are a necessary consequence of nearby revisions that the author himself has made. The exception concerns the words ‘convenience(s)’ and ‘inconvenience(s)’. In editions 1–5, the forms ‘conveniency’, etc., are always used, except for a lapse on a single occasion in edition 4. Edition 6 retains these forms in the old material, apart from one paragraph of Part VII. In its new material it uses the alternative forms ‘convenience’, etc., in Part VI (several instances), but ‘conveniency’, etc., in new passages of III.3 and of VII.ii.1. Now in the case of this particular set of words, we can say with confidence that Smith had an insistent preference for ‘conveniency’ and its cognates. Apart from the fact that he always uses these forms in letters written in his own hand, there is an interesting piece of evi-dence in the manuscript that W. R. Scott called ‘An early draft of part of The Wealth of Nations’. This manuscript was written by an amanuensis, but some of the revisions, written over original material, are in Adam Smith’s own hand. Scott (ASSP, 325) notes an instance of the word ‘con-veniencies’ where the last three letters are in Smith’s hand, and Scott conjectures that the amanuensis may originally have written ‘conveniences’ There is another instance of the word ‘conveniencies’ (331) where the second ‘i’ is due to revision, probably for the same reason. Con-sequently we have judged that Adam Smith would have wanted the word (and its cognates) to be spelt in this way throughout his book, and that it was probably so spelt in the manuscript of the new material for edition 6. The instances of the alternative spelling in the text of edition 6 were probably due to a particular compositor.

One could argue that our editorial emendation of ‘convenience’ to ‘conveniency’ might have been extended to certain other forms of words for which Smith is known to have had a prefer-ence, such as ‘authour’, ‘compleat’, ‘cloaths’, and ‘chearful’. But these words do not stand on all fours with ‘conveniency’ and its cognates, which are the forms regularly used in editions 1–5 and carried over to edition 6 in all instances but one of the old material, as well as being used some-times in the new material. By contrast, ‘authour’ is never used in any of the editions; ‘compleat’ is

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generally, though not consistently, used in editions 1–3, but is replaced by ‘complete’ for the ma-jor part of edition 4 and throughout edition 6; ‘cloaths’ and its cognates, and likewise ‘chearful’, are regularly used in editions 1–5 but not at all in edition 6.

At any rate we have decided to be fairly conservative in our departures from the text of edi-tion 6. We have given the reader some indication of the changes in accidentals, as between the different editions, that are most important for this purpose, and the apparatus of variants will en-able him to go farther if he wishes. The critical apparatus is divided into two sections, one ap-pearing as footnotes to the text, the other forming Appendix I. The character of the two sections needs some explanation.

The variants in the textual footnotes are referred to by alphabetical indicators in the text it-self. They consist of two quite distinct groups. (1) Since edition 6 is our copy–text, the reader ought to be told immediately whenever our text departs from that of edition 6. Every such depar-ture is indicated in the text by being enclosed within superscribed letters of the alphabet; the reading of edition 6, and the variants, if any, in other editions, are given in the footnote, together with reasons for the emendation if these are not at once obvious. (2) We have also printed as footnotes, with alphabetical indicators in the text, all variants that disclose a change or addition of thought by the author, as contrasted with revisions of substantives that constitute merely an im-provement in the expression of the same thought. (Occasionally there may be difference of opin-ion whether a revision of words does or does not have a slight effect on the sense conveyed, and in such instances we have thought it best to allow for a possible change of thought and to include the variant in the footnotes to the text pages.) This class of variants is the really important one for most readers. TMS is a book on a philosophical subject, and a proper understanding of it re-quires an awareness of the respects in which the author’s thought developed. We have therefore thought it right to bring these changes directly to the reader’s attention by the same method of immediate presentation as has been used for emendations.

Other variants that are at all worthy of record have been included in Appendix I. They in-clude both substantives and accidentals. The variants in substantives that appear in Appendix I are those which the author has revised simply in order to improve the expression of his thought, without changing the thought itself. Appendix I also contains the vast majority of variants in ac-cidentals, but not all, since a few changes of accidentals are involved in one or other of the two classes of variants that are printed on the text pages.

One small group of trivial variants has not been recorded, on the ground that they are prac-tically of no significance, except to students of the history of printing, who would in any event want to make their own record of such matters. These are the introduction of a misprint, or the addition or omission of a mark of punctuation, in one intermediate edition only, when the next edition restores the original reading. We have, however, excluded edition 5 from our rule of ig-noring such trivia. Because of the unusual relationship of edition 5 to its predecessor and succes-sor, there is some interest in noting all the variants that it affords.

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Editions 1–7 all conclude the headings and titles of Parts, Sections, and chapters with full points. There is no reason why a modern edition should reproduce this particular piece of early printing practice, and we have not done so either in the text or in the relevant variants.

In the textual apparatus, the numerals in italic type following an entry stand for the editions containing it, 1E and 2E being used for the Errata lists of editions 1 and 2. The numerals in ro-man type preceding an entry in Appendix I stand for the page and line in which the passage is located. A caret below the line (⁁) stands for the omission of a mark of punctuation. A wavy dash (∼) stands for a repetition of all the words up to a mark of punctuation or a caret.

The numerals printed in the margin at the beginning of each paragraph are not in the origi-nal editions. The practice of numbering the paragraphs within each chapter, or similar segment, will be followed also for WN and EPS in this edition of the Works of Adam Smith, in order that crossreferences may be made from one work to another by means of paragraphs instead of pages, and so without confining the reader to the present edition.

Endnotes

[1] Corr., Letter 9 addressed to William Cullen, dated 3 September 1751.

[2] Dugald Stewart, ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.’ (1793; re-printed in EPS), I.12; A. F. Tytler, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Henry Home of Kames (Edin-burgh, 1807), i.190.

[3] W. R. Scott, Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow, 1937), 50, 54–5, cites evidence for lectures on civil law.

[4] Stewart, I.16. Stewart identifies his informant as Millar in a note added to the reprint of the ‘Account’ included in Works of Adam Smith (London, 1811), v.412.

[5] Stewart, I.18–20.

[6] Taken from transcription in Glasgow Univ. Library, Murray MS. 506, pp. 169 ff.

[7] ‘The Development of Adam Smith’s Ideas on the Division of Labour’, Economic Journal, lxxxiii (1973), 1094–1116.

[8] Stewart, I.21.

[9] Cf. also WN III.iii.12; IV.v.b.43; IV.ix.28.

[10]Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, III.viii; D. D. Raphael, British Moralists 1650–1800, § 333.

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[11] It may have been suggested to Smith by Addison’s dedication of vol. i of The Spectator, which begins: ‘I should not act the part of an impartial spectator, if I directed the following pa-pers to one who is not of the most consummate and most acknowledged merit.’

[12] Corr., Letter 40, dated 10 October 1759.

[13] Ronald L. Meek and Andrew S. Skinner, ‘The Development of Adam Smith’s Ideas on the Division of Labour’, Economic Journal, lxxxiii (1973), 1103.

[14] Andrew Millar, the publisher.

[15] James Oswald, a friend of Smith’s from boyhood.

[16] Benjamin C. Nangle, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749 1789, Indexes of Con-tributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934), 199.

[17] Cf. John Rac, Life of Adam Smith (London, 1895), 51–2. Rae is, however, mistaken when he says (58) that admiration for TMS induced the future Earl of Shelburne (Lord Fitzmaurice) to send his brother Thomas to study under Smith. Lord Fitzmaurice advised his father to do this in 1758 on the suggestion of Sir Gilbert Elliot, and Thomas Fitzmaurice was in residence at Glas-gow early in 1759 before TMS appeared (see Letter 27 to Smith from Elliot, dated 14 November 1758, and Letter 28 from Smith to Lord Fitzmaurice, dated 21 February 1759).

[18] Scott, ASSP, 68, 293 n.3.

[19] Rae, Life, 59.

[20] Scott, ASSP, 221.

[21] Quoted by the Abbé Blavet in the preface (vii–viii) of his translation of TMS.

[22] Eckstein, intro. xxi n. 1; cf. Rae, Life, 196.

[23] Rae, Life, 197.

[24] J. H. Burton (ed.), Letters of Eminent Persons addressed to David Hume (Edinburgh and London, 1849), 237–8; cf. Rae, Life, 198.

[25] Countess of Minto, A Memoir of Hugh Elliot (Edinburgh, 1868), 13; cf. Rae, Life, 199. The report of Hume’s marriage was an unfounded rumour.

[26] Corr., Letter 194 from the Duc de La Rochefoucauld to Smith, dated 3 March 1778.

[27] A. H. Brown, ‘Adam Smith’s First Russian Followers’, in the volume of Essays on Adam Smith (edited by Andrew S. Skinner and Thomas Wilson) accompanying the present edition of Smith’s Works.

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO VOL. 2: THE WEALTH OF NA-

TIONS [R.H. CAMPBELL AND A.S SKINNER]

Scope and Method

Although it would be extravagant to claim that Adam Smith was the last of the great poly-maths, it is nonetheless true that he wrote on a remarkable range of subjects including as it does economics and history; law and government; language and the arts, not to mention essays on as-tronomy, ancient logics and metaphysics. Indeed, the latter group of essays, apparently written in the 1750s, although not published until 1795, moved J. A. Schumpeter to remark that ‘Nobody, I venture to say, can have an adequate idea of Smith’s intellectual stature who does not know these essays’ and to describe that on astronomy as the ‘pearl of the collection’1 .

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The Astronomy is especially valuable as an exercise in ‘philosophical history’; a form of en-quiry in which Smith was particularly interested, and which, in this case, led him to examine the first formation and subsequent development of those astronomical theories which had culmi-nated in the work of Newton. But at the same time, the essay was designed to illustrate the prin-ciples which lead and direct philosophical enquiries. The essay was thus concerned with the ques-tion of motivation, and as such may tell us a good deal about Smith’s own drives as a thinker, con-tributing in this way to our understanding of the form which his other works in fact assumed.

Smith’s main purpose in the Astronomy was to consider the stimulus given to the exercise of the understanding by the sentiments of surprise, wonder, and admiration; sentiments which he did not necessarily consider to be the sole sources of stimuli to philosophical work, but which represented forces whose influence was, he believed, ‘of far wider extent than we should be apt upon a care-less view to imagine’ (Intro., 7). In elaborating on this statement Smith made a number of simple assumptions: that man is endowed with certain faculties and propensities such as reason, reflec-tion, and imagination, and that he is motivated by a desire to acquire the means of pleasure and to avoid pain, where in this context pleasure relates to a state of the imagination involving tran-quility and composure; a state attained from the contemplation of relation, similarity, or custom-ary connection. He went on to argue that we feel surprise when some object or relation does not fall into an expected pattern; a sentiment which is quickly followed by wonder, which is in turn as-sociated with the perception of something like a gap or interval (i.e. a lack of known connection or failure to conform to an established classification) between the object or objects of examina-tion. For Smith, the essence of wonder was that it gave rise to a feeling of pain (i.e. disutility) to which the normal response is an act of attempted explanation, designed to restore the mind to a state of equilibrium; a goal which can only be attained where an explanation for the phenomena in question is found, and where that explanation is coherent, capable of accounting for observed appearances, and stated in terms of plausible (or familiar) principles.

Smith considered these feelings and responses to be typical of all men, while suggesting that the philosopher or scientist was particularly subject to them, partly as a result of superior powers of observation and partly because of that degree of curiosity which normally leads him to exam-ine problems (such as the conversion of flesh into bone) which are to the ordinary man so ‘famil-iar’ as not to require any explanation at all (II.11).

Nature as a whole, Smith argued, ‘seems to abound with events which appear solitary and incoherent’ (II.12) so that the purpose of philosophy emerges as being to find ‘the connecting principles of nature’ (II.12) with, as its ultimate end, the ‘repose and tranquility of the imagina-tion’ (IV.13). It is here especially that the sentiment of admiration becomes relevant in the sense that once an explanation has been offered for some particular problem, the very existence of that explanation may heighten our appreciation of the ‘appearances’ themselves. Thus, for example, we may learn to understand and thus to admire a complex economic structure once its hidden ‘springs’ have been exposed, just as the theory of astronomy leads us to admire the heavens by presenting ‘the theatre of nature’ as a coherent and therefore as a more ‘magnificent spectacle’ (II.12). Scientific explanation is thus designed to restore the mind to a state of balance and at the

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same time productive of a source of pleasure in this rather indirect way. Smith also added, how-ever, that men pursue the study of philosophy for its own sake, ‘as an original pleasure or good in itself, without regarding its tendency to procure them the means of many other pleasures’ (III.3).

There are perhaps three features of this argument which are worth emphasizing at this point. First, Smith’s suggestion that the purpose of philosophy is to explain the coherence of nature, allied to his recognition of the interdependence of phenomena, leads directly to the idea of a sys-tem which is designed to explain a complex of phenomena or ‘appearances’. It is interesting to re-call in this connection that the history of astronomy unfolded in terms of four systems of this kind, and that Smith should have likened such productions of the intellect to machines whose function was to connect together ‘in the fancy those different movements and effects which are already in reality performed’ (IV.19). Secondly, it is noteworthy that Smith should have associated intellectual effort, and the forms which the corresponding output may assume, with certain sources of pleasure. He himself often spoke of the beauty of ‘systematical arrangement’ (WN V.i.f.25) and his ‘delight’ in such arrangement was one of the qualities of his mind to which Dugald Stewart frequently drew attention. In the Imitative Arts (II.30) Smith likened the pleasure to be derived from the contemplation of a great system of thought to that felt when listening to ‘a well composed concerto of instrumental Music’ ascribing to both an almost sensual quality. Points such as these are relevant at least in the sense that a general preference for order or system may lead the thinker to work in certain ways and even to choose a particular method of organiz-ing his arguments. Smith in fact considered the various ways of organizing scientific (or didactic) discourse in the LRBL where it is stated that the technique whereby we ‘lay down certain princi-ples, [primary?] or proved, in the beginning, from whence we account for the severall Phaenom-ena, connecting all together by the same chain’ is ‘vastly more ingenious’ and for that reason ‘more engaging’ than any other. He added: ‘It gives us a pleasure to see the phenomena which we reck-oned the most unaccountable, all deduced from some principle (commonly, a wellknown one) and all united in one chain’. (LRBL ii.133–4, ed. Lothian, 140.) Elsewhere he referred to a propensity, common to all men, to account for ‘all appearances from as few principles as possible’ (TMS VII.ii.2.14).

However, while there is little doubt that Smith’s major works (including of course the Astron-omy itself) are dominated by such a choice, it would be as wrong to imply that such works are to be regarded as deductive exercises in practical aesthetics as it would be to ignore the latter ele-ment altogether. The fact is that the dangers as well as the delights of purely deductive reasoning were widely recognized at this time, and the choice of Newton rather than Descartes (who was also a proponent of the ‘method’ described above) as the model to be followed is indicative of the point. The distinctive feature of Newton’s work was not, after all, to be found in the use of ‘cer-tain principles’ in the explanation of complex phenomena, but rather in the fact that he (follow-ing the lead of others) sought to establish those principles in a certain way. Those interested in the scientific study of man at this time sought to apply the Newtonian vision of a law governed uni-verse to a new sphere, and to employ the ‘experimental method’ as an aid to the discovery of those laws of nature which governed the behaviour of the machine and disclosed the intention of its Design.

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Smith’s contribution to what would now be defined as the ‘social sciences’ is contained in his work on ethics, jurisprudence, and economics, which correspond in turn to the order in which he lectured on these subjects while Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow. All are characterized by certain common features which are readily apparent on examination: in each case Smith sought to explain complex problems in terms of a small number of basic principles, and each conforms to the requirements of the Newtonian method in the broad sense of that term. All three make use of the typical hypothesis that the principles of human nature can be taken as con-stant, and all employ the doctrine of ‘unintended social outcomes’—the thesis that man, in fol-lowing the prompting of his nature, unconsciously gives substantial expression to some parts of the [Divine?] Plan. Again, each area of Smith’s thought is marked by a keen sense of the fact that manners and institutions may change through time and that they may show striking varia-tions in different communities at the same point in time—a feature which was rapidly becoming quite common in an age dominated by Montesquieu.

It is perhaps even more remarkable that not only were Smith’s ethics, jurisprudence, and eco-nomics, marked by a degree of systematic thought of such a kind as to reveal a great capacity for model–building, but also by an attempt to delineate the boundaries of a single system of thought, of which these separate subjects were the component parts. For example, the TMS may be seen to offer an explanation as to the way in which so self–regarding a creature as man succeeds (by natural as distinct from artificial means) in erecting barriers against his own passions; an argu-ment which culminates in the proposition that some system of magistracy is generally an essential condition of social stability. On the other hand, the historical treatment of jurisprudence com-plements this argument by showing the way in which government originates, together with the sources of social and political change, the whole running in terms of a four stage theory of eco-nomic development.2 The economic analysis as such may be seen to be connected with the other areas of Smith’s thought in the sense that it begins from a specific stage of historical development and at the same time makes use of the psychological assumptions established by the TMS.

Before proceeding to the economics it may therefore be useful to review the main elements of the other branches of Smith’s work, and to elucidate some of their interconnections. This may be an appropriate choice not only because Smith himself taught the elements of economics against a philosophical and historical background, but also because so much of that background was formally incorporated in the WN itself—a book, after all, which is concerned with much more than economics as that term is now commonly understood.

Social Theory

Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments is, of course, an important contribution to moral philosophy in its own right, and one which attempted to answer the two main questions which Smith consid-ered to be the proper province of this kind of philosopher:

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First, wherein does virtue consist? Or what is the tone of temper, and tenour of conduct, which constitutes the excellent and praise–worthy character, the character which is the natural object of esteem, honour, and approbation? And, secondly, by what power or faculty in the mind is it, that this character, whatever it be, is recom-mended to us? Or in other words, how and by what means does it come to pass, that the mind prefers one tenour of conduct to another? (VII.i.2)

On Smith’s argument, the process by which we distinguish between objects of approval or disapproval depends largely on our capacity for ‘other–regarding’ activities and involves a com-plex of abilities and propensities which include sympathy, imagination, reason and reflection. To begin with, he stated a basic principle in arguing that man is possessed of a certain fellow feeling which permits him to feel joy or sorrow according as the circumstances facing others contribute to their feelings of pleasure or pain. An expression of sympathy (broadly defined) for another person thus involves an act of reflection and imagination on the part of the observer in the sense that we can only form an opinion with regard to the mental state of another person by ‘changing places in the fancy’ with him. Smith was also careful to argue in this connection that our judge-ment with regard to others was always likely to be imperfect, at least in the sense that we can have ‘no immediate experience of what other men feel’ (I.i.1.2). Given these basic principles, Smith then proceeded to apply them in considering the two different ‘aspects’ or ‘relations’ under which we may judge an action taken by ourselves or others, ‘first, in relation to the cause or ob-ject which excites it; and, secondly, in relation to the end which it proposes, or to the effect which it tends to produce’ (II.i.2).

We may take these in turn:

In dealing with the first question we go beyond the consideration of the circumstances in which the subject of our judgement may find himself, and his state of mind (i.e. whether he is happy or sad) to consider the extent to which his actions or ‘affections’ (i.e. expressions of feeling) are appropriate to the conditions under which they take place or the objects which they seek to at-tain. In short, the purpose of judgement is to form an opinion as to the propriety or impropriety of an action, or expression of feeling, where these qualities are found to consist in ‘the suitable-ness or unsuitableness, in the proportion or disproportion which the affection seems to bear to the cause or object which excites it’ (I.i.3.6).

Given the principles so far established it will be evident that when the spectator of another man’s conduct tries to form an opinion as to its propriety, he can only do so by ‘bringing home to himself ’ both the circumstances and feelings of the subject. Smith went on to argue that exactly the same principles apply when we seek to form a judgement as to our own actions, the only dif-ference being that we must do so indirectly rather than directly; by visualizing the manner in which the real or supposed spectator might react to them. Or, as Smith put it:

We can never survey our own sentiments and motives, we can never form any judgement concerning them; unless we remove ourselves, as it were, from our own natural station, and endeavour to view them as at a certain distance from us. But we

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can do this in no other way than by endeavouring to view them with the eyes of other people, or as other people are likely to view them. (III.1.2)

Given these points, we can now examine the second ‘relation’, that is, the propriety of action ‘in relation to the end which it proposes, or the effect which it tends to produce’. Here, as far as the agent is concerned, Smith argued that the spectator can form a judgement as to whether or not an action is proper or improper in terms, for example, of motive as well as by reference to the propriety of the choice of means to attain a given end. In the same way, the spectator can form a judgement with regard to the propriety of the reaction of the subject (or person affected) to the circumstances created by the action of the agent.

Now while it is evident that the spectator can form these judgements when examining the ac-tions of the two parties taken separately, it is an essential part of Smith’s argument that a view with regard to the merit or demerit of a given action can be formed only by taking account of the activities of the two parties simultaneously. He was careful to argue in this connection, for example, that we might sympathize with the motives of the agent while recognizing that the action taken had had unintended consequences which might have either harmed or benefited some third party. Similarly, the spectator might sympathize with the reaction of the subject to a particular situation, while finding that sympathy qualified by recognition of the fact that the person acting had not intended another person either to gain or lose. It is only given a knowledge of the mo-tives of the agent and the consequences of an action that we can form a judgement as to its merit or demerit, where that judgement is based on some perception of the propriety or impropriety of the activities of the two parties. Given these conditions Smith concluded that as our perception of the propriety of conduct ‘arises from what I shall call a direct sympathy with the affections and motives of the person who acts, so our sense of its merit arises from what I shall call an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of the person who is, if I may say so, acted upon’ (II.i.5.1).

Smith went on from this point to argue that where approval of motive is added to a percep-tion of the beneficent tendency of the action taken, then such actions deserve reward; while those of the opposite kind ‘seem then to deserve, and, if I may say so, to call aloud for, a proportion-able punishment; and we entirely enter into, and thereby approve of, that resentment which prompts to inflict it’ (II.i.4.4). As we shall see, this principle was to assume considerable impor-tance in terms of Smith’s discussion of justice.

Before going further there are perhaps three points which should be emphasized and which arise from Smith’s discussion of the two different ‘relations’ in terms of which we can examine the actions of ourselves or other men.

First, Smith’s argument is designed to suggest that judgement of our actions is always framed by the real or supposed spectator of our conduct. It is evident therefore that the accuracy of the judgement thus formed will be a function of the information available to the spectator with regard to action or motive, and the impartiality with which that information is interpreted.

Secondly, it follows from the above that wherever an action taken or a feeling expressed by one man is approved of by another, then an element of restraint (and therefore control of our ‘affections’) must be present. For example, it is evident that since we have no immediate experi-

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ence of what other men feel, then we as spectators can ‘enter into’ their situation only to a lim-ited degree. The person judged can therefore attain the agreement of the spectator only:

by lowering his passion to that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of going along with him. He must flatten, if I may be allowed to say so, the sharpness of its natural tone, in order to reduce it to harmony and concord with the emotions of those who are about him. (I.i.4.7)

Finally, it will be obvious that the individual judged will only make the effort to attain a certain ‘mediocrity’ of expression where he regards the opinion of the spectator as important. In fact Smith made this assumption explicit in remarking:

Nature when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren. She taught him to feel pleas-ure in their favourable, and pain in their unfavourable regard. She rendered their ap-probation most flattering . . . for its own sake; and their disapprobation most mortify-ing and most offensive. (III.2.6)

Given the desire to acquire the sources of pleasure and to avoid pain, this aspect of the psy-chology of man would appear to ensure that he will generally act in ways which will secure the approbation of his brethren, and that he is to this extent fitted for the society of other men. At the same time, however, Smith makes it clear that this general disposition may of itself be insuffi-cient to ensure an adequate source of control over our actions and passions, and this for reasons which are at least in part connected with the spectator concept and the problem of self–interest.

We have already noted that the spectator can never be entirely informed with regard to the feelings of another person, and it will be evident therefore that it will always be particularly diffi-cult to attain a knowledge of the motive which may prompt a given action. Smith noted this point in remarking that in fact the world judges by the event, and not by the design, classifying this tendency as one of a number of ‘irregularities’ in our moral sentiments. The difficulty is, of course, that such a situation must constitute something of a discouragement to virtue; a problem which was solved in Smith’s model by employing an additional (and explicit) assumption with re-gard to the psychology of man. As Smith put it, a desire for approval and an aversion to the dis-approval of his fellows would not alone have rendered man fit:

for that society for which he was made. Nature, accordingly, has endowed him not only with a desire of being approved of, but with a desire of being what ought to be approved of; or of being what he approves of in other men. The first desire could only have made him wish to appear to be fit for society. The second was necessary in order to render him anxious to be really fit. (III.2.7)

Hence the importance in Smith’s argument of the ideal or supposed spectator, of the ‘man within the breast’, the abstract, ideal, spectator of our sentiments and conduct who is always well informed with respect to our own motives, and whose judgement would be that of the actual spectator where the latter was possessed of all the necessary information. It is this tribunal, the voice of principle and conscience, which, in Smith’s argument, helps to ensure that we will in fact

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tread the path of virtue and which supports us in this path even when our due rewards are denied us or our sins unknown.

However, having made this point, Smith drew attention to another difficulty, namely that even where we have access to the information necessary to judge our own conduct, and even where we are generally disposed to judge ourselves as others might see us, if they knew all, yet there are at least two occasions on which we may be unlikely to regard our own actions with the required degree of impartiality: ‘first, when we are about to act; and, secondly, after we have acted. Our views are apt to be very partial in both cases; but they are apt to be most partial when it is of most importance that they should be otherwise’ (III.4.2). In this connection he went on to note that when ‘we are about to act, the eagerness of passion will very seldom allow us to consider what we are doing with the candour of an indifferent person’, while in addition a judgement formed in a cool hour may still be lacking in sufficient candour, because ‘It is so disagreeable to think ill of ourselves, that we often purposely turn away our view from those circumstances which might render that judgement unfavourable’ (III.4.4).

The solution to this particular logical problem is found in the idea of general rules of morality or accepted conduct; rules which we are disposed to obey by virtue of the claims of conscience, and of which we attain some knowledge by virtue of our ability to form judgements in particular cases. As Smith argued:

It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular instances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve, or disapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions; because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the con-trary, is formed, by finding from experience, that all actions of a certain kind, or cir-cumstanced in a certain manner, are approved or disapproved of. (III.4.8)

It will be noted that such rules are based on our experience of what is fit and proper to be done or to be avoided, and that they become standards or yardsticks against which we can judge our conduct even in the heat of the moment, and which are therefore ‘of great use in correcting the misrepresentations of self–love’ (III.4.12).

Yet even here Smith does not claim that a knowledge of general rules will of itself be suffi-cient to ensure good conduct, and this for reasons which are not unconnected with (although not wholly explained by) yet a further facet of man’s nature.

For Smith, man was an active being, disposed to pursue certain objectives which may be mo-tivated by a desire to be thought well of by his fellows but which at the same time may lead him to take actions which have hurtful consequences as far as others are concerned. It is indeed one of Smith’s more striking achievements to have recognized the social objective of many economic goals in remarking:

it is chiefly from this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty. For to what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? what is

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the end of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power and pre–emi-nence? . . . what are the advantages we propose by that great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition? To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it. (I.iii.2.1)

However, Smith was well aware that the pursuit of status, the desire to be well thought of in a public sense, could be associated with self–delusion, and with actions which could inflict damage on others either by accident or design. In this connection, he remarked that the individual:

In the race for wealth, and honours, and preferments . . . may run as hard as he can, and strain every nerve and every muscle, in order to outstrip all his competitors. But if he should justle, or throw down any of them, the indulgence of the spectators is entirely at an end. It is a violation of fair play, which they cannot admit of. (II.ii.2.1)

Knowledge of the resentment of the spectators thus emerges as something of a deterrent as far as the agent is concerned, although Smith placed more emphasis on the fact that a feeling of resentment generated by some act of injustice produces a natural approval of punishment, just as the perception of the good consequences of some action leads, as we have seen, to a desire to see it rewarded. In this world at least, it is our disposition to punish and approval of punishment which restrains acts of injustice, and which thus helps to restrain the actions of individuals within due bounds. Justice in this sense of the term is of critical importance, and Smith went on to notice that while nature ‘exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the pleasing consciousness of de-served reward’, beneficence is still the ‘ornament which embellishes, not the foundation which supports the building’. He continued:

Justice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immense fabric of human society . . . must in a moment crumble into atoms. (II.ii.3.4)

In Smith’s eyes, a fundamental pre–condition of social order was a system of positive law, embodying our conception of those rules of conduct which relate to justice. He added that these rules must be administered by some system of government or ‘magistracy’, on the ground that:

As the violation of justice is what men will never submit to from one another, the public magistrate is under a necessity of employing the power of the commonwealth to enforce the practice of this virtue. Without this precaution, civil society would be-come a scene of bloodshed and disorder, every man revenging himself at his own hand whenever he fancied he was injured. (VII.iv.36)

It now remains to be seen just how ‘government’ originates, to explain the sources of its authority, and the basis of obedience to that authority.

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The Stages of Society

It was in the lectures on justice rather than the TMS that Smith set out to consider the grounds on which we were disposed to obey our ‘magistrates’, finding the basis of obedience in the principles of utility and authority. In practice, Smith placed most emphasis on the latter and identified four main sources: personal qualifications, age, fortune, and birth. Taking these four sources in turn, he argued that personal qualities such as wisdom, strength, or beauty, while im-portant as sources of individual distinction, were yet of rather limited political value, since they are all qualities which are open to dispute. As a result, he suggests that age, provided there is no ‘sus-picion of dotage’, represents a more important source of authority and of respect, since it is ‘a plain and palpable quality’ about which there can be no doubt’. Smith also observed that as a matter of fact age regulates rank among those who are in every other respect equal in both primi-tive and civilized societies, although its relative importance in the two cases is likely to vary.

The third source of authority, wealth, of all the sources of power is perhaps the most empha-sized by Smith, and here again he cites two elements. First, he noted that through an ‘irregular-ity’ of our moral sentiments, men tend to admire and respect the rich (rather than the poor, who may be morally more worthy) as the possessors of all the imagined conveniences of wealth. Sec-ondly, he argued that the possession of riches may also be associated with a degree of power which arises from the dependence of the poor for their subsistence. Thus, for example, the great chief who has no other way of spending his surpluses other than in the maintenance of men, ac-quires retainers and dependents who:

depending entirely upon him for their subsistence, must both obey his orders in war, and submit to his jurisdiction in peace. He is necessarily both their general and their judge, and his chieftainship is the necessary effect of the superiority of his for-tune. (WN V.i.b.7)

Finally, Smith argues that the observed fact of our tendency to venerate antiquity of family, rather than the upstart or newly rich, also constitutes an important source of authority which may reinforce that of riches. He concluded that:

Birth and fortune are evidently the two circumstances which principally set one man above another. They are the two great sources of personal distinction, and are therefore the principal causes which naturally establish authority and subordination among men. (V.i.b.11)

Having made these points, Smith then went on to argue that just as wealth (and the subsequent distinction of birth) represents an important source of authority, so in turn it opens up an impor-tant source of dispute. In this connection we find him arguing that where people are prompted by malice or resentment to hurt one another, and where they can be harmed only in respect of per-son or reputation, then men may live together with some degree of harmony; the point being that ‘the greater part of men are not very frequently under the influence of those passions; and the very worst men are so only occasionally.’ He went on to note:

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As their gratification too, how agreeable soever it may be to certain characters, is not attended with any real or permanent advantage, it is in the greater part of men commonly restrained by prudential considerations. Men may live together in society with some tolerable degree of security, though there is no civil magistrate to protect them from the injustice of those passions. (V.i.b.2)

But in a situation where property can be acquired, Smith argued there could be an advantage to be gained by committing acts of injustice, in that here we find a situation which tends to give full rein to avarice and ambition.

The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour, civil government is not so neces-sary. (ibid.)

Elsewhere he remarked that ‘Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all’ (V.i.b.12). It is a government, on Smith’s ar-gument, which in some situations at least is supported by a perception of its utility, at least on the side of the ‘rich’, but which must gradually have evolved naturally and independently of any consideration of that necessity. In Smith’s own words:

Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the necessity of civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of valuable property, so the principal causes which naturally introduce subordination gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable property. (V.i.b.3)

In this way Smith stated the basic principles behind the origin of government and illustrated the four main sources of authority. In the subsequent part of the argument he then tried to show the way in which the outlines of society and government would vary, by reference to four broad socio–economic types: the stages of hunting, pasture, agriculture, and commerce.3 One of the more striking features of Smith’s argument is in fact the link which he succeeded in establishing between the form of economy prevailing (i.e. the mode of earning subsistence) and the source and distribution of power or dependence among the classes of men which make up a single ‘so-ciety’.

The first stage of society was represented as the ‘lowest and rudest’ state, such ‘as we find it among the native tribes of North America’ (WN V.i.a.2). In this case, life is maintained through gathering the spontaneous fruits of the soil, and the dominant activities are taken to be hunting and fishing—a mode of acquiring subsistence which is antecedent to any social organization in production. As a result, Smith suggested that such communities would be small in size and char-acterized by a high degree of personal liberty—due of course to the absence of any form of eco-nomic dependence. Smith also observed that in the absence of private property which was also capable of accumulation, disputes between different members of the community would be minor ‘so there is seldom any established magistrate or any regular administration of justice’ (V.i.b.2) in such states. He added:

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Universal poverty establishes there universal equality, and the superiority, either of age, or of personal qualities, are the feeble, but the sole foundations of authority and subordination. There is therefore little or no authority or subordination in this period of society. (V.i.b.7)

The second social stage is that of pasture, which Smith represented as a ‘more advanced state of society, such as we find it among the Tartars and Arabs’ (V.i.a.3). Here the use of cattle is the dominant economic activity and this mode of subsistence meant, as Smith duly noted, that life would tend to be nomadic and the communities larger in size than had been possible in the pre-ceding stage. More dramatically, Smith observed that the appropriation of herds and flocks which introduced an inequality of fortune, was that which first gave rise to regular government. We also find here a form of property which can be accumulated and transmitted from one gen-eration to another, thus explaining a change in the main sources of authority as compared to the previous period. As Smith put it:

The second period of society, that of shepherds, admits of very great inequalities of fortune, and there is no period in which the superiority of fortune gives so great authority to those who possess it. There is no period accordingly in which authority and subordination are more perfectly established. The authority of an Arabian scherif is very great; that of a Tartar khan altogether despotical. (V.i.b.7)

At the same time it is evident that the mode of subsistence involved will ensure a high degree of dependence on the part of those who must acquire the means of subsistence through the ex-change of personal service, and those who, owning the means of subsistence, have no other means of expending it save on the maintenance of dependents, who also contribute to their mili-tary power. Smith added that while the distinction of birth, being subsequent to the inequality of fortune, can have no place in a nation of hunters, this distinction ‘always does take place among nations of shepherds’ (V.i.b.10). Since the great families lack, in this context, the means of dissi-pating wealth, it follows that ‘there are no nations among whom wealth is likely to continue longer in the same families’ (ibid.).

The third economic stage is perhaps the most complicated of Smith’s four–fold classification at least in the sense that it seems to have a lower, middle and upper phase. Thus for example the initial stage may be seen to correspond to that situation which followed the overthrow of Rome by the barbarians; pastoral nations which had, however, acquired some idea of agriculture and of property in land. Smith argued that such peoples would naturally adapt existing institutions to their new situation and that their first act would be to divide the available territories, introducing by this means a settled abode and some form of rudimentary tillage; i.e. the beginnings of a new form of productive activity. Under the circumstances outlined, each estate or parcel of land would assume the character of a separate principality, while presenting many of the features of the second stage. As in the previous case, for example, the basis of power is property, and, as be-fore, those who lack the means of subsistence can acquire it only through the exchange of per-sonal service, thus becoming members of a group who ‘having no equivalent to give in return for their maintenance’ must obey their lord ‘for the same reason that soldiers must obey the prince who pays them’ (III.iv.5). Each separate estate could thus be regarded as stable in a political sense

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in that it was based on clear relations of power and dependence, although Smith did emphasize that there would be an element of instability in terms of the relations between the principalities; a degree of instability which remained even after the advent of the feudal period with its complex of rights and obligations. In Smith’s words the authority possessed by the government of a whole country ‘still continued to be, as before, too weak in the head and too strong in the inferior mem-bers’ (III.iv.9), a problem basically created by the fact that:

In those disorderly times, every great landlord was a sort of petty prince. His ten-ants were his subjects. He was their judge, and in some respects their legislator in peace, and their leader in war. He made war according to his own discretion, fre-quently against his neighbours, and sometimes against his sovereign. (III.ii.3)

It was a situation which effectively prevented economic development, and one where the open country remained ‘a scene of violence, rapine, and disorder’ (III.iv.9).

The middle stage of this period may be represented as preserving the institutions of the pre-vious stage (save with the substitution of the feudal for the allodial system of land–tenure), albeit with the significant addition of self–governing cities paying a ‘rent certain’ to the king. In this way, Smith suggested, the kings were able to acquire a source of power capable of offsetting that of the great lords, by way of a tactical alliance with the cities. Smith made exactly this point when remarking that mutual interest would lead the burghers to ‘support the king, and the king to support them against the lords. They were the enemies of his enemies, and it was his interest to render them as secure and independent of those enemies as he could’ (III.iii.8). Two significant developments were then traced from this situation, itself a response to the political instability of the agrarian period. First, the cities, as self–governing communities (a kind of independent re-publics Smith calls them) would create the essential conditions for economic development (per-sonal security), while, secondly, their development would also generate an important shift in the balance of political power.

The upper stage of the period differs from the previous phase most obviously in that Smith here examines a situation where the trade and manufactures of the cities had had a significant impact on the power of the nobles, by providing them for the first time with a means of expend-ing their surpluses. It was this trend, Smith suggested, which led the great proprietors to improve the form of leases (with a view to maximizing their exchangeable surpluses) and to the dismissal of the excess part of their tenants and retainers—all with consequent effects on the economic and thus the political power of this class. As Smith put it:

For a pair of diamond buckles perhaps, or for something as frivolous and useless, they exchanged the maintenance, or what is the same thing, the price of the mainte-nance of a thousand men for a year, and with it the whole weight and authority which it could give them. (III.iv.10)

The fourth and apparently final economic stage (commerce) may be simply described as one wherein all goods and services command a price, thus effectively eliminating the direct depend-ence of the feudal period and to this extent diminishing the power to be derived from the owner-ship of property. Thus for example Smith noted that in the present stage of Europe a man of ten

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thousand a year might maintain only a limited number of footmen, and that while tradesmen and artificers might be dependent on his custom, none the less ‘they are all more or less inde-pendent of him, because generally they can all be maintained without him’ (III.iv.11).

From the standpoint of the economics of the situation, the significant development was that of a two sector economy at the domestic level where the constant drive to better our condition could provide the maximum stimulus to economic growth within an institutional framework which en-sured that the pursuit of private interest was compatible with public benefit. From the standpoint of the politics of the situation, the significant development was a new source of wealth which was more widely distributed than previously, and which ultimately had the effect of limiting the power of kings by shifting the balance of consideration away from the old landed aristocracy and towards a new mercantile class. In the words of John Millar, it was a general trend which served to propagate sentiments of personal independence, as a result of a change in the mode of earn-ing subsistence; a trend which must lead us to expect that ‘the prerogatives of the monarch and of the ancient nobility will be gradually undermined, that the privileges of the people will be ex-tended in the same proportion, and that power, the usual attendant of wealth, will be in some measure diffused over all the members of the community.’4

Once again we face a situation where a change in the mode of earning subsistence has al-tered the balance and distribution of political power, with consequent effects on the nature of government. Once again, we find a situation where the basis of authority and obedience are found in the principles of utility and authority, but where the significance of the latter is dimin-ished (and the former increased) by the change in the pattern of dependence. It is also a situation where the ease with which fortunes may be dissipated makes it increasingly unlikely that eco-nomic, and thus political, power, will remain in the hands of particular families over long periods of time.

The two areas of argument just considered disclose a number of interesting features.

The TMS for example can be seen to accept the proposition that mankind are always found in ‘troops and companies’ and to offer an explanation as to how it is that man is fitted for the so-ciety of his fellows. In developing this argument Smith, as we have seen, makes much of the im-portance of the rules of morality (including justice), while offering an explanation of their origin of a kind which places him in the anti–rationalist tradition of Hutcheson and Hume. At the same time it is evident that the form of argument used discloses Smith’s awareness of the fact that hu-man experience may vary; a point which is made explicitly in the TMS, and which is reflected in the fact that he did not seek to define the content of general rules in any but the most general terms.

The historical argument on the other hand, can be seen to offer an explanation for the origin of government (whose necessity was merely postulated in the TMS), and at the same time indirectly to throw some light on the causes of change in accepted patterns of behaviour as a result of the emphasis given to the four socio–economic stages of growth. This same argument may also

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throw into relief certain problems which the TMS does not formally handle; by drawing atten-tion to the fact that societies are not homogeneous, and to the possibility of a conflict of values. Interestingly enough, exactly this point is made in the WN in the course of a discussion of relig-ion: ‘In every civilized society, in every society where the distinction of ranks has once been com-pletely established, there have been always two different schemes or systems of morality current at the same time’ (V.i.g.10).

But for the present purpose the most important connections are those which exist between the ethics and jurisprudence on the one hand, and the economics on the other.

The historical analysis, for example, has the benefit of showing that the commercial stage or exchange economy may be regarded as the product of certain historical processes, and of dem-onstrating that where such a form of economy prevails, a particular social structure or set of rela-tions between classes is necessarily presupposed. At the same time the argument (developed espe-cially in Book III of the WN) helps to demonstrate that a particular form of government will be associated with the same socio–economic institutions; a form of government which in the particu-lar case of England had been perfected by the Revolution Settlement, and which reflected the growing importance of the ‘middling’ ranks.

But perhaps the links between the economic analysis and the TMS are even more readily ap-parent and possibly more important.

As we have seen, the whole point of the TMS is to show that society, like the individual men who make it up, represents something of a balance between opposing forces; a form of argument which gave due weight to our self–regarding propensities (much as Hutcheson had done) but which departs from the teaching of Hutcheson in denying that ‘Self–love was a principle which could never be virtuous in any degree or in any direction’ (TMS VII.ii.3.12). In much the same way Smith denied Mandeville’s suggestion that the pursuit of ‘whatever is agreeable in dress, fur-niture, or equipage’ should be regarded as ‘vicious’ (VII.ii.4.12). To both he in effect replied that the ‘condition of human nature were peculiarly hard, if those affections, which, by the very na-ture of our being, ought frequently to influence our conduct, could upon no occasion appear vir-tuous, or deserve esteem and commendation from any body’ (VII.ii.3.18).

In many respects Smith was at his most successful in showing that the desire to be approved of by our fellows, which was so important in the discussion of moral judgement, was also relevant in the economic sphere. As we have seen, he argued that the whole object of bettering our condi-tion was to find ourselves as objects of general esteem, and noted elsewhere that ‘we cannot live long in the world without perceiving that the respect of our equals, our credit and rank in the so-ciety we live in, depend very much upon the degree in which we possess, or are supposed to pos-sess’, the advantages of external fortune (VI.i.3). While the pursuit of status and the imagined conveniences of wealth were important sources of dispute, Smith also emphasized their eco-nomic advantage even within the confines of the TMS. It is such drives, he asserted, which serve to rouse and keep in ‘continual motion the industry of mankind’ (IV.i.1.10) and he went on to note that those who have attained fortune are, in expending it,

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led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. (ibid.)

Equally interesting is the fact that Smith should also have discussed at such length the means whereby the poor man may seek to attain the advantages of fortune, in emphasizing the impor-tance of prudence, a virtue which, being uncommon, commands general admiration and explains that ‘eminent esteem with which all men naturally regard a steady perseverance in the practice of frugality, industry, and application, though directed to no other purpose than the acquisition of fortune’ (IV.i.2.8). It is indeed somewhat remarkable that it is the TMS, and in particular that portion of it (Part VI) which Smith wrote just before his death, that provides the most complete account of the psychology of Smith’s public benefactor: the frugal man.

Economic Theory and the Exchange Economy

In terms of Smith’s teaching, his work on economics was designed to follow on his treatment of ethics and jurisprudence, and therefore to add something to the sum total of our knowledge of the activities of man in society. To this extent, each of the three subjects can be seen to be inter-connected, although it is also true to say that each component of the system contains material which distinguishes it from the others. One part of Smith’s achievement was in fact to see all these different subjects as parts of a single whole, while at the same time differentiating econom-ics from them. Looked at in this way, the economic analysis involves a high degree of abstraction which can be seen in a number of ways. For example, in his economic work, Smith was con-cerned only with some aspects of the psychology of man and in fact confined his attention to the self–regarding propensities; a fact which is neatly expressed in his famous statement that ‘It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest’ (WN I.ii.2). Moreover, Smith was not concerned, at least in his formal analysis, with a level of moral or social experience other than that involved in a ‘mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation’ (TMS II.ii.3.2); in short, all that the economic work requires is a situation where the minimum condition of justice ob-tains. Given this basic premiss, together with the hypothesis of self–interest, Smith then set out to explain the interdependence of economic phenomena. There are of course two types of account as to the way in which Smith fulfilled these purposes; one represented by the state of his knowl-edge when he left Glasgow in 1763, and the other by the WN itself.

We now have two versions of Smith’s lecture course, together with the so called ‘early draft’ of the WN; sufficient at least to provide an adequate guide to the ground covered. There are dif-ferences between these documents: LJ (A), for example, while generally more elaborate, is less complete than LJ (B): it does not, for example, consider such topics as Law’s Bank, interest, ex-change, or the causes of the slow progress of opulence. The ED, on the other hand, contains a much more elaborate account of the division of labour than that provided in either of the lecture

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notes, although it has nothing to say regarding the link between the division of labour and the extent of the market. While the coverage of the ED is very similar to that found in LJ (B) it is also true to say that topics other than the division of labour are dealt with in note form. But these are basically differences in detail: the three documents are not marked by any major shifts of empha-sis or of analytical perspective, and it is this fact which makes it quite appropriate to take LJ (B) as a reasonable guide to the state of Smith’s thought on economics in the early 1760s.

Turning now to this version of the lectures, one cannot fail to be struck by the same quality of system which we have already had occasion to note elsewhere. The lectures begin with a discus-sion of the natural wants of man; a discussion already present in the ethics. Smith links this thesis to the development of the arts and of productive forces, before going on to remark on the mate-rial enjoyments available to the ordinary man in the modern state as compared to the chief of some savage nation. In both the lectures and the ED Smith continued to note that, while it can-not be difficult to explain the superior advantages of the rich man as compared to the savage, it seems at first sight more difficult to explain why the ‘peasant should likewise be better provided’ (ED 2.2), especially given the fact that he who ‘bears, as it were, upon his shoulders the whole fabric of human society, seems himself to be pressed down below ground by the weight, and to be buried out of sight in the lowest foundations of the building’ (ED 2.3).

The answer to this seeming paradox was found in the division of labour, which explained the great improvement in the productive powers of modern man. Smith continued to examine the sources of so great an increase in productivity, tracing the origin of the institution to the famous propensity to ‘truck, barter and exchange’, while observing that the scope of this development must be limited by the extent of the market.

Examination of the division of labour led directly to Smith’s point that unlike the savage the modern man was largely dependent on the labour of others for the satisfaction of his full range of wants, thus directing attention to the importance of exchange. In the course of this discussion, Smith introduced the problem of price and the distinction between natural and market price.

In the Lectures, natural price (or supply price) was largely defined in terms of labour cost, the argument being that:

A man then has the natural price of his labour when it is sufficient to maintain him during the time of labour, to defray the expence of education, and to compen-sate the risk of not living long enough and of not succeeding in the business. When a man has this, there is sufficient encouragement to the labourer and the commodity will be cultivated in proportion to the demand. (LJ (B) 227, ed. Cannan 176)

Market price, on the other hand, was stated to be regulated by ‘quite other circumstances’, these being: the ‘demand or need for the commodity’, the ‘abundance or scarcity of the com-modity in proportion to the need of it’ and the ‘riches or poverty of those who demand’ (LJ (B) 227–8, ed. Cannan 176–7). Smith then went on to argue that while distinct, these prices were ‘necessarily connected’ and to show that where the market exceeded the natural price, labour would crowd into this employment, thus expanding the supply, and vice versa, leading to the con-clusion that in equilibrium the two prices would tend to coincide. Smith quite clearly understood

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that resources would tend to move between employments where there were differences in the available rates of return, thus showing a grasp of the interdependence of economic phenomena which led him to speak of a ‘natural balance of industry’ and of the ‘natural connection of all trades in the stock’ (LJ (B) 233–4, ed. Cannan 180–81).

Progressing logically from this point, Smith proceeded to show that any policy which pre-vented the market prices of goods from coinciding with their supply prices, such as monopolies or bounties, would tend to diminish public opulence and derange the distribution of stock between different employments.

The discussion of price led in turn to the treatment of money as the means of exchange; to a review of the qualities of the metals which made them so suitable as a means of exchange and to the discussion of coinage.5 Smith also included an account of the problems of debasement at this stage of his analysis, making in the course of his argument a point with which he is not al-ways associated, namely, that where the value of money is falling ‘People are disposed to keep their goods from the market, as they know not what they will get for them’ (LJ (B) 242, ed. Can-nan 188).

It was in the course of this analysis that Smith defined money as merely the instrument of exchange, at least under normal circumstances, going on to suggest that it was essentially a ‘dead stock in itself ’; a point which helped to confirm ‘the beneficial effects of the erection of banks and paper credit’ (LJ (B) 246, ed. Cannan 191).

This argument led quite naturally to a critique of the prejudice that opulence consists in money and to Smith’s argument that mercantile policy as currently understood was essentially self–contradictory, and that it hindered the division of labour by artificially restricting the extent of the market. It was a short step to the conclusion (stated with characteristic caution) that:

From the above considerations it appears that Brittain should by all means be made a free port, that there should be no interruptions of any kind made to forreign trade, that if it were possible to defray the expences of government by any other method, all duties, customs, and excise should be abolished, and that free commerce and liberty of exchange should be allowed with all nations and for all things. (LJ (B) 269, ed. Cannan 209)6

It will be obvious that that section of the lectures which deals with ‘cheapness and plenty’ does in fact contain many of the subjects which were to figure in the WN. It also appears that many of his central ideas were already present in a relatively sophisticated form: ideas such as equilibrium price, the working of the allocative mechanism, and the associated concept of the ‘natural balance’ of industry. Smith also made allowance for the importance of ‘stock’ both in discussing the natural connection of all stocks in trade and with reference to the division of la-bour, while the distinction between employer and employed is surely implied in the discussion of the individual whose sole function is to contribute the eighteenth part of a pin.

Yet at the same time there is also a good deal missing from the lectures; there is, for example, no clear distinction between factors of production and categories of return,7 not to mention the

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macro–economic analysis of the second Book of the WN with its model of the ‘circular flow’ and discussion of capital accumulation. While the distinction between rent, wages, and profits, may have come from James Oswald, or emerged as the natural consequence of Smith’s own reflection on his lectures (which seems very probable), the macro–economic model which finally appeared in the WN may well have owed something, either directly or indirectly, to Smith’s contact with the Physiocrats, and especially those who revised the system, such as Mercier de la Rivière, Baudeau and Turgot.8

It is obviously difficult to the point of impossibility to establish the extent of Smith’s debts to his predecessors, and Dugald Stewart probably had the right of it when he remarked that ‘After all, perhaps the merit of such a work as Mr Smith’s is to be estimated less from the novelty of the principles it contains, than from the reasonings employed to support these principles, and from the scientific manner in which they are unfolded in their proper order and connexion’ (Stewart, IV.26). While Stewart duly noted that Smith had made an original contribution to the subject it need not surprise us to discover that the WN (like the TMS) may also represent a great synthetic performance whose real distinction was to exhibit a ‘systematical view of the most important ar-ticles of Political Economy’ (Stewart, IV.27); a systematical view whose content shows a clear de-velopment both from Smith’s state of knowledge as it existed in the 1760s, and from that repre-sented by the Physiocrats as a School.9 While it would be inappropriate to review here the pat-tern of this development in detail (a task which we have attempted to fulfill in the notes to the text) it may be useful to delineate at least some of the elements of the reformulated system albeit in the broadest terms.

The first three chapters of the WN begin with an examination of the division of labour which closely follows the elaborate account provided in the ED.10 The most obvious changes, as regards the latter document, relate to the provision of a separate chapter linking the division of labour to the extent of the market using an account which often parallels that found in the two ‘fragments’, which W. R. Scott had thought to be part of the Edinburgh Lectures.11 It is also in-teresting to note that the discussion of inequality is omitted from the WN and that the argument as a whole is no longer prefaced by a statement of the thesis of ‘natural wants’. The following chapter is also recognizably a development of the earlier work, and deals with the inconveniences of barter, the advantages of the metals as a medium of exchange, and the necessity for coinage; the only major difference relates to arrangement in that the discussion of money now precedes that of price. Chapter v, which leads on from the previous discussion, does however break new ground in discussing the distinction between real and nominal price. In this place Smith was anx-ious to establish the point that while the individual very naturally measures the value of his re-ceipts in money terms, the real measure of welfare is to be established by the money’s worth, where the latter is determined by the quantity of products (i.e. labour commanded) which can be acquired. In this chapter Smith was not so directly concerned with the problem of exchange value as normally understood, so much as with finding an invariable measure of value which would permit him to compare levels of economic welfare at different periods of time. It was probably this particular perspective which led him to state but not to ‘solve’ the so–called ‘para-dox of value’—a paradox which he had already explained in the Lectures.12

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Chapter vi leads on to a discussion of the component parts of the price of commodities and once more breaks new ground in formally isolating the three main factors of production and the three associated forms of monetary revenue: rent, wages and profit. These distinctions are, of course, of critical importance, and perhaps Smith’s acute awareness of the fact is reflected in his anxiety to show how easily they may be confused. Chapter vii then proceeds to discuss the de-terminants of price, developing ideas already present in the Lectures but in the more sophisticated form appropriate to the three–fold factor division. This section of Smith’s work is perhaps among the best from a purely analytical point of view, and is quite remarkable for the formality with which the argument unfolds. For example, the analysis is explicitly static in that Smith takes as given certain rates of factor payment (the ‘natural’ rates), treating the factors as stocks rather than flows. Smith’s old concept of ‘natural price’ is then redefined as obtaining when a commodity can be sold at a price which covers the natural rates of rent, wages, and profits, i.e. its cost of production. Market price, on the other hand, (the ‘actual’ price) is shown to be determined by specific relations of demand and supply while both prices are interconnected in that any diver-gence of the market from the natural price must raise or lower the rates of factor payment in re-lation to their natural rates, thus generating a flow of factors which has the effect of bringing the market and natural prices to equality.13

The argument then proceeds to the discussion of those forces which determine the ‘natural’ rates of return to factors. Chapter viii takes up the problem of wages, and argues that this form of return is payable for the use of a productive resource and normally arises where ‘the labourer is one person, and the owner of the stock which employs him another’ (I.viii.10). While making allowance for the relative importance of the bargaining position of the two parties, Smith con-cluded that the wage rate would normally be determined by the size of the wages fund and the supply of labour, where both are affected by the price of wage goods.

Now this argument means that the wage rate actually payable in a given (annual) period may vary considerably (i.e. the prevailing or natural rate of the theory of price) as compared to other such time periods, and that it may be above, below, or equal to, the subsistence wage (where the latter must be sufficient to maintain the labourer and his family, including an allowance for cus-tomary expense). Smith illustrates these possibilities in terms of the examples of advancing, sta-tionary, and declining economies, using this argument to suggest that whenever the prevailing wage rate sinks below, or rises above, the subsistence wage, then in the long run there will be a population adjustment.

Chapter ix shows the same basic features: that is, Smith sets out to show why profit accrues and in so doing differentiates it from interest as a category of return, while arguing that it is not a return for the work of ‘inspection and direction’ but rather for the risks involved in combining the factors of production. Again, there is a ‘static’ element in that Smith, while admitting the diffi-culty of finding an average rate of profit, argues that some indication will be given by the rate of interest, and that the rate of profit will be determined by the level of stock in relation to the busi-ness to be transacted together with the prevailing wage rate. Once more there is also a concern

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with the dynamics of the case, i.e. with the trend of profits over time, the conclusion being that profits, like wages, would tend to fall, as the number of capitals increases.

The following chapter is a direct development from the two which preceded it and is chiefly concerned with the ‘static’ aspects of the theory of allocation and returns. In dealing with the theory of ‘net advantage’, Smith provides a more elaborate account of the doctrine already found in the Lectures, and there confined to the discussion of labour. In the present context Smith dropped the assumption of given rates of factor payment (as made at the beginning of I.vii) in explaining that rates of monetary return may be expected to vary with the agreeableness or dis-agreeableness of the work, the cost of learning a trade, the constancy or inconstancy of employ-ment, the great or small trust which may be involved, and the probability or improbability of success. Of these it is argued that only the first and the last affect profits, thus explaining the greater uniformity of rates of return (as compared to wages) in different employments. The whole purpose of the first section of this chapter is to elaborate on the above ‘circumstances’ and to show, at least where there is perfect liberty, that different rates of monetary return need occa-sion no difference in the ‘whole of the advantages and disadvantages, real or imaginary’ which affect different employments (I.x.b.39).

In terms of the discussion of the price mechanism, we now have a complex of rates of return in different employments and an equilibrium situation where the rate of return in each type of employment stands in such a relation to the others as to ensure that there is no tendency to enter or leave any one of them. The same argument adds a further dimension of difficulty to Smith’s account of the allocative mechanism, by drawing attention to the problem of moving between employments which require different skills or levels of training.14

Mobility is in fact the theme of the second part of the chapter where (again elaborating on ideas present in the Lectures) Smith shows the various ways in which the policy of Europe pre-vented the equality of ‘advantages and disadvantages’ which would otherwise arise; citing such examples as the privileges of corporations, the statute of apprenticeship, public endowments and especially the poor law.

The closing chapter of Book I is concerned with the third and final form of re-turn—rent—and is among the longest and most complex of the whole work. But perhaps the following points can be made when looking at the chapter from the standpoint of Smith’s ana-lytical system. First, and most obviously, the general structure of the chapter is similar to those which deal with wages and profit. That is, Smith initially tries to explain what rent is in suggesting that it is the price which must be paid for a scarce resource which is a part of the property of in-dividuals, and in arguing that it must vary with the fertility and situation of the land. Unlike the other forms of revenue, Smith emphasized that rent was unique in that it accrued without neces-sarily requiring any effort from those to whom it was due, and that what was a cost to the indi-vidual farmer was really a surplus as far as society was concerned; a point which led Smith to the famous statement that rent ‘enters into the composition of the price of commodities in a different way from wages and profit. High or low wages and profit, are the causes of high or low price; high or low rent is the effect of it.’ (I.xi.a.8.)

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Secondly, it is noteworthy that the analysis continues the ‘static’ theme already found in the theory of price, wages, and profits, by concentrating attention on the forces which determine the allocation of land between alternative uses (such as the production of corn and cattle) and in suggesting, at least in the general case, that rent payments would tend to equality in these differ-ent uses.

Thirdly, it is noteworthy that Smith should have included a dynamic perspective in the discus-sion of allocation, of such a kind as to make his historical sketch of the changing pattern of land use an important, if rather neglected, aspect of his general theory of economic development.

Finally, Smith continues the dynamic theme in the form in which it appears in the previous chapters by considering the long term trends as far as this form of return is concerned; the con-clusion being that rent payments must increase as more land is brought into use under the pres-sure of a growing population, and that the real value of such payments must rise given that the real price of manufactures tends to fall in the long run.

If we look back over this Book from the (rather narrow) perspective of Smith’s system, it will be evident that the argument is built up quite logically by dealing with a number of separate but inter–related subjects such as costs, price, and returns. At the same time two themes appear to run through the treatment of the different subjects: a static theme in that Smith is often con-cerned to explain the forces which determine the prevailing rates of return at particular points in time, together with the working of the allocative mechanisms, with factors treated as stocks rather than as flows; and, secondly, a dynamic aspect where Smith considers the general trends of factor payments over long periods, together with the pattern of land use and the probable changes in the real value of wage goods and manufactures. Both of these major themes were to find a place in the analysis of the following Books.

The Introduction to Book II sets the theme of the following chapters by taking the reader back to the division of labour and by re–iterating a point which had already been made in the Lectures, namely that the division of labour depends on the prior accumulation of stock. An im-portant difference here, however, as compared to the Lectures, is to be found in the fact that the task of accumulation is now seen to face the employer of labour rather than the labourer himself. Chapter i then proceeds to elaborate on the nature of stock and its applications in suggesting that the individual may devote a part of his ‘stock’ to consumption purposes, and therefore earn no revenue or income from it, while a part may be devoted to the acquisition of income. In the latter case stock is divided, in the manner of the physiocrats, into circulating and fixed capital; it is also shown that different trades will require different combinations of the two types of stock and that no fixed capital can produce an income except when used in combination with a circulating capi-tal.

Reasoning by analogy, Smith proceeded to argue that the stock of society taken as a whole could be divided into the same basic parts. In this connection he suggested that in any given pe-riod (such as a year) there would be a certain stock of goods, both perishable and durable re-served for immediate consumption, one characteristic being that such goods were used up at dif-ferent rates. Secondly, he argued that society as a whole would possess a certain fixed capital,

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where the latter included such items as machines and useful instruments of trade, stocks of buildings which were used for productive purposes, improved lands, and the ‘acquired and useful abilities’ of the inhabitants (i.e. human capital). Finally, he identified the circulating capital of so-ciety as including the supply of money necessary to carry out circulation, the stocks of materials and goods in process held by the manufacturers or farmers, and the stocks of completed goods available for sale but still in the hands of producers or merchants as distinct from their ‘proper’ consumers.

Such an argument is interesting in that it provides an example of the ease with which Smith moved from the discussion of micro– to the discussion of macro–economic issues. At the same time it serves to introduce Smith’s account of the ‘circular flow’, whereby he shows how, within a particular time period, goods available for sale are used up by the parties to exchange. In Smith’s terminology, the pattern of events is such that the necessary purchases of goods by consumers and producers features a ‘withdrawal’ from the circulating capital of society, with the resulting purchases being used up during the current period or added to either the fixed capital or the stock of goods reserved for immediate consumption. As he pointed out, the constant withdrawal of goods requires replacement, and this can be done only through the production of additional raw materials and finished goods in both main sectors (agriculture and manufactures) thus expos-ing the ‘real exchange which is annually made between those two orders of people’ (II.i.28). The basic division into types of capital, and this particular way of visualizing the working of the proc-ess, may well owe a great deal to the Physiocrats, even if the basic sectoral division had already been suggested by Hume.

The remaining chapters of the Book are basically concerned to elaborate on the relations es-tablished in the first. For example, chapter ii makes the division into classes (proprietors, under-takers, wage–labour) explicit and establishes another connection with the analysis of Book I by reminding the reader that if the price of each commodity taken singly comprehends payments for rent, wages, and profits, then this must be true of all commodities taken ‘complexly’, so that in any given (annual) period aggregate income must be divided between the three factors of pro-duction in such a way as to reflect the prevailing levels of demand for, and supply of, them. Once again we find an implicit return to the ‘static’ analysis of Book I, save at a macro–economic level. The relationship between output and income adds something to Smith’s general picture of the ‘circular flow’ and at the same time enabled him to expand on his account by drawing a distinc-tion between gross and net aggregate output where the latter is established by deducting the cost of maintaining the fixed capital (together with the costs of maintaining the money supply) from the gross product. In this way Smith was able to indicate the desirability of reducing the mainte-nance costs of the fixed capital, and of the money supply (a part of society’s circulating capital), introducing by this means the discussion of paper money (a cheaper instrument than coin) and of banks. The chapter goes on to provide a very long account of Scottish affairs in the 1760s and 1770s, together with a history of the Bank of England. Law’s Bank is accorded a single para-graph, in contrast to the treatment in the Lectures, on the ground that its activities had already been adequately exposed by Messrs. DuVerney and DuTot. The Bank of Amsterdam, also men-

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tioned in the conclusion of this chapter and in the Lectures, was accorded a separate digression in WN IV.iv.

The third chapter of the Book elaborates still further on the basic model by introducing a dis-tinction between income in the aggregate and the proportion of that income devoted to con-sumption (revenue) or to savings. Smith also introduced the famous distinction between produc-tive and unproductive labour at this point, where the former is involved in the creation of com-modities and therefore of income while the latter is involved in the provision of services. Smith does not, of course, deny that services (such as defence or justice) are useful or even necessary, he merely wished to point out that the labour which is involved in the provision of a service is always maintained by the industry of other people and that it does not directly contribute to aggregate output. Smith’s argument was of course that funds intended to function as a capital would always be devoted to the employment of productive labour, while those intended to act as a revenue might maintain either productive or unproductive labour. Two points arise from this argument: first, that the productive capacity of any society would depend on the proportion in which total income was distributed between revenue and capital; and, secondly, that capitals could only be increased through parsimony, i.e. through a willingness to forego present advantages with a view to attaining some greater future benefit. It was in fact Smith’s view that net savings would always be possible during any given annual period, and that the effort would always be made through man’s natural desire to better his condition. Moreover, he evidently believed that wherever sav-ings were made they would be converted into investment virtually sur le champ (thus providing an-other parallel with Turgot) and that the rapid progress which had been made by England con-firmed this general trend. In Book II economic dynamics begins to overshadow the static branch of the subject: an important reminder that Smith’s version of the ‘circular flow’ is to be seen as a spiral of constantly expanding dimensions, rather than as a circle of constant size. It is also worth emphasizing in this connection that Smith’s concern with economic growth takes us back in a sense to the oldest part of the edifice, namely his treatment of the division of labour, the point being that the increasing size of the market gives greater scope to this institution, thus enhancing the possibilities for expansion, which are further stimulated by technical change in the shape of the flow of invention (I.i.8).

The fourth and fifth chapters of this book offer further insights into the working of the ‘flow’ on the one hand, and the theory of economic growth on the other. II.iv, for example, contains not only an account of the determinants of interest, but confirms that interest is distinct from profit as a form of return, while introducing the monied interest as something separate from the manufacturing and agricultural interests.

The following chapter adds four additional uses for capitals (again providing a close parallel with Turgot) in stating that they may be used in the wholesale or retail trades in addition to all those above mentioned. Thus as far as our understanding of the circular flow is concerned, Smith argues that the retailer in purchasing from the wholesale merchant in effect replaces the capital which the latter had laid out in purchasing commodities for sale; purchases which had themselves contributed to replace the capitals advanced by the farmers or manufacturers in creat-

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ing them. In the same way, the manufacturer, for example, in making purchases of the instru-ments of trade replaces the outlay of some fellow ‘undertaker’ while his purchases of raw materi-als contribute to restore the capitals laid out by the farmers on their production.15 Smith’s enu-meration of the different employments of capital is also relevant as far as his theory of growth is concerned, because each one can be shown to give employment to different quantities of produc-tive labour. While he had already observed in the Lectures that agriculture was the most productive form of investment, the argument was here expanded to suggest that manufacture was the next most productive, followed by the wholesale and retail trades. He also argued with regard to the wholesale trade, that its contribution to the maintenance of productive labour varied, in declin-ing order of importance, according as it was concerned with the home trade, the foreign trade of consumption, or the carrying trade, where the critical factor was the frequency of returns. A fur-ther dimension was added to this discussion in the opening chapter of Book III where it is sug-gested that, when left to their own devices, men would naturally choose to invest in agriculture, manufactures, and trade (in that order) thus contributing to maximize the rate of growth by choosing those forms of investment which generated the greatest level of output for a given injec-tion of capital.

Smith’s thesis concerning the different productivities of capital and the associated (although logically distinct) argument concerning the natural progress of opulence are sometimes regarded as being among the less successful parts of the edifice; a fact which makes it all the more impor-tant to observe the great burden which they are made to bear in the subsequent argument. In Book III, for example, Smith uses the history of Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire to confirm that the pattern of development had inverted the ‘natural’ order, in the sense that the stimulus to economic advance had initially come through the cities with their trade in surpluses. As we shall see in another context, (below, p. 55) the development of trade had given a stimulus to domestic manufactures based on the refinement of local goods or on imitation of the for-eigner; a pattern of events which eventually impinged on the agrarian sector, and which is made to explain the transition to the final economic stage. Smith thus suggests that a process of devel-opment regarded as ‘natural’ from the standpoint of the theory of history, was essentially ‘un-natural’ from the standpoint of the analysis of the progress of opulence. However, the argument does explain the position of the third Book and the use there made of historical material which had been included in the Lectures, where it had been mainly intended to serve a very different purpose to that found in the WN.

The second main application of the thesis is in Book IV where Smith returns to a theme which had already figured prominently in the Lectures; the critique of mercantilism. Many of the points which had been made in the earlier work undoubtedly re–appear in this section of the WN. In the WN, the mercantile system, with its associated patterns of control over the import, export, and production of commodities, is again shown to be based on an erroneous notion of wealth. Smith also argues, as he had before, that the chief engines of mercantilism, such as mo-nopoly powers, adversely affect the allocative mechanism and to this extent affect economic wel-fare. But the main burden of his argument concerning distortion in the use of resources runs in terms not of the static allocative mechanism, so much as the essentially dynamic theory of the

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natural progress of opulence, the argument being that mercantile policy had diverted stock to less productive uses, with slower returns, than would otherwise have been the case. This argument is particularly marked in Smith’s treatment of the colonial relationship with America; a relationship which was central to the mercantile system as presented by Smith, and which sought to create a self–sufficient economic unit.16 In this connection Smith argued that the mercantile system was essentially self–contradictory: that by encouraging the output of rude products in America, Great Britain had helped (unwittingly) only to accelerate an already rapid rate of growth to an extent which would inevitably make the restrictions imposed on American manufactures unduly bur-densome. As far as Great Britain was concerned, Smith believed that her concentration on the American market had in effect drawn capital from trades carried on with European outlets and diverted it to the more distant one of America, while at the same time forcing a certain amount of capital from a direct to an indirect trade. Obviously, all of this must have had an adverse effect on the rate of economic growth in Great Britain; a matter of some moment, in that, as Smith represents the case, a country with a suboptimal rate of growth happened to face an increasing burden of costs from the colonies themselves. It is a plausible, powerful, thesis which may be de-fended on a variety of grounds other than those on which Smith relied. But, as one shrewd con-temporary critic noted, Smith’s view on the different productivities of investment was central to his case, and he begged leave to arrest his steps ‘for a moment, while we examine the ground whereon we tread: and the more so, as I find these propositions used in the second part of your work as data; whence you endeavour to prove, that the monopoly of the colony trade is a disad-vantageous . . . institution.’17

The Role of the State

While the immediately preceding sections have concentrated to a large extent on the structure and organization of Smith’s thought, perhaps enough has also been said regarding its content to illustrate the existence of another kind of ‘system’; an analytical system which treats the economy as a type of model analogous to some kind of machine whose parts are unconscious of their mu-tual connection, or of the end which their interaction serves to promote, but where that interac-tion is governed by the laws of the machine. In economic terms, these law–governed processes re-fer, for example, to the working of the allocative mechanism, the theory of distribution, or of economic growth. The components of the ‘model’ are of course the sectors, the classes, and the in-dividuals whose pursuit of gain contributes to the effective working of the whole. Thus, for ex-ample, the undertaker in pursuit of gain contributes to economic efficiency by endeavouring to make ‘such a proper division and distribution of stock’ amongst his workmen as to enable them to ‘produce the greatest quantity of work possible’. The individual workman or undertaker offers his services in the most lucrative employments and helps to ensure, by this means, that goods are sold at their cost of production, and all factors are paid at their ‘natural’ rates. Similarly, the con-stant desire to better one’s condition contributes to the flow of savings and thus to the process of economic growth. In all these cases social benefit and economic order are the result of the self–

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interested actions of individuals rather than the consequences of some formal plan; indeed, Smith went further in insisting that public benefit would not and need not form any part of the normal motivation of the main actors in the drama. The famous doctrine of the invisible hand, already prefigured in the TMS in precisely this connection, was designed to show that the indi-vidual, in pursuing his own objectives, contributed to the public benefit, thereby promoting an end ‘which was no part of his intention’ (WN IV.ii.9).18

Now this general view of the working of economic processes is important in that it helps to explain the functions which any government ought ideally to undertake, and the way in which these functions should be performed; broadly speaking, a subject which provides the focal point of Book V. In terms of the model itself, for example, governments have no strictly economic func-tions, at least in the sense that the sovereign should be discharged from ‘the duty of superintend-ing the industry of private people, and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interest of the society’ (IV.ix.51). And yet, the functions of the state, if minimal, are quite in-dispensable in the sense that it must provide for such (unproductive) services as defence, justice, and those public works which are unlikely to be provided by the market because ‘the profit could never repay the expence to any individual or small number of individuals’ (IV.ix.51).

Smith’s list of public services is a short one, but the discussion of the principles on which their provision should be organized is developed at some length and is interesting for two main rea-sons. First, Smith argued that public services should be provided only where the market has failed to do so; secondly, he suggested that the main problems with regard to such services were those of equity and efficiency. With regard to equity, Smith suggested, for example, that public services should always be paid for by those who use them (including roads and bridges). He also defended the principle of direct payment on the ground of efficiency in arguing that it is only in this way that we can avoid the building of roads through deserts for the sake of some private interest, or a situation where a great bridge is ‘thrown over a river at a place where nobody passes, or merely to embellish the view from the windows of a neighbouring palace: things which sometimes happen, in countries where works of this kind are carried on by any other revenue than that which they themselves are capable of affording’ (V.i.d.6). At the same time Smith insisted that all public serv-ices should be provided by such bodies as found it in their interest to do so effectively, and that they should be organized in such a way as to take account of the self–interested nature of man. Smith stated his basic belief in remarking that ‘Publick services are never better performed than when their reward comes only in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them’ (V.i.b.20). He tirelessly emphasized this point, espe-cially in reference to university teaching, while reminding his readers that the principle held good in all situations and in all trades.

Of course, Smith did recognise the limitations of this principle and the fact that it would not always be possible to fund or to maintain public services without recourse to general taxation. But here again the main features of the analytical system are relevant in that they affect the way in which taxation should, where possible, be handled. Thus Smith pointed out on welfare grounds that taxation should be imposed according to the famous canons of equality, certainty, conven-

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ience, and economy, and insisted that they should not be levied in ways which infringed the lib-erty of the subject—for example, through the ‘odious visits’ and examinations of the tax–gath-erer (V.ii.b.3–7). Similarly he argued that ideally taxes ought not to interfere with the allocative mechanism (as for example, taxes on necessities) or constitute important disincentives to the indi-vidual effort on which the working of the whole system has been seen to depend (such as taxes on profits). In short, Smith’s recommendations with regard to the functions of government are de-signed to ensure the freedom of the individual to pursue his own (socially beneficial) ends and merely require that the state should provide such services as facilitate the working of the system, while conforming to the constraints of human nature and the market mechanism. Looked at from this point of view, Smith’s discussion of the role of the state is very much a part of his gen-eral model and confirms his view that the task of political economy, considered as a part of the science of the statesman or legislator, is ‘to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the peo-ple, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves’ (IV.Intro.1).

But Smith went much further than this in discussing the role of the state, and in ways which remind us of his essentially practical concerns, and of the importance of other branches of his general system such as the theory of history and the TMS.

To begin with, it will already be evident that one thread which runs through the WN involves criticism of those contemporary institutions which impeded the realization in its entirety of the system of natural liberty. Broadly speaking, these impediments can be reduced to four main cate-gories each one of which Smith wished to see removed. First, there is the problem (already raised in terms of the historical analysis) that ‘Laws frequently continue in force long after the circum-stances, which first gave occasion to them, and which could alone render them reasonable, are no more’ (III.ii.4). Secondly, Smith drew attention to certain institutions which had their origins in the past but which still commanded active support; institutions such as guilds and corporations, which could still regulate the government of trades. All such arrangements were, in Smith’s view impolitic because they impeded the working of the allocative mechanism and unjust because they were a ‘violation of this most sacred property’ which ‘every man has in his own labour’ (I.x.c.12). In a very similar way Smith commented on the problems presented by the poor law and the laws of settlement and summarized his appeal to government in these terms: ‘break down the exclu-sive privileges of corporations, and repeal the statute of apprenticeship, both which are real en-croachments upon natural liberty, and add to these the repeal of the law of settlements . . .’ (IV.ii.42). Thirdly, Smith criticised the continuing use of positions of privilege, such as monopoly powers, which did not necessarily have any particular link with the past. Here again the basic theme remains, that such institutions are impolitic and unjust: unjust because they are positions of privilege and impolitic because they again affect the working of the allocative mechanism, being besides, ‘a great enemy to good management’ (I.xi.b.5).

Finally, we have the main theme of Book IV which we have already had occasion to mention; that is Smith’s call for a reform of national policy in so far as that was represented by the mercan-tile system.

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All this amounts to a very considerable programme of reform, although, quite characteristi-cally, Smith recognized that reality would fall a long way short of perfection, and that it could do so without damage to that fundamental drive to better our condition or to the capacity of that drive to overcome ‘a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations’ (IV.v.b.43). Smith recognized the existence of many practical dif-ficulties; that people are attached to old forms and institutions for example, quite as much as to old families and kings, and also that sectional economic pressures would always find some means of influencing the legislature in their favour, precisely because of those same economic forces which helped to explain the historical dominance of the House of Commons in England.19 For such reasons he concluded that ‘To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be en-tirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it’ (IV.ii.43).

If points such as these contribute to qualify the rather ‘optimistic’ thesis with which Smith is generally associated, the impression is further confirmed by those passages in the WN (occurring mainly in Book V) which bear more directly on the analysis of the TMS. In the former work, it will be remembered that welfare is typically defined in material terms; in terms of the level of real income, i.e. the extent to which the individual can command the produce (or labour) of oth-ers. On the other hand, in the philosophical work welfare was defined more in terms of the quality of life attainable, where ‘quality’ refers to a level of moral experience greater than that involved in the ‘mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation’. There is of course no inconsistency between these two positions, since the two major books, while analytically linked, in fact refer to different areas of human experience. But at the same time Smith made a number of points in the WN which establish an important link between the philosophical and economic as-pects of his study of man in society, while constituting a reminder that welfare should not be con-sidered solely in economic terms. In this connection Smith drew attention to the fact that the worker in a ‘large manufactory’ was liable to the temptations of bad company with consequent effects on moral standards (I.viii.48). In the same vein he also mentioned the problems presented by large cities where, unlike the rich man who is noticed by the public and who therefore has an incentive to attend to his own conduct, the poor man is ‘sunk in obscurity and darkness. His con-duct is observed and attended to by nobody, and he is therefore very likely to neglect it himself, and to abandon himself to every sort of low profligacy and vice.’ (V.i.g.12.)

To this extent, the importance of the spectator is undermined, and so too may be those facul-ties and propensities on which moral experience has been seen to depend (a separate point). For Smith drew attention to the ‘fact’ that the division of labour which had contributed to economic growth through the subdivision and simplification of productive processes, had at the same time confined the activities of the worker to a few simple operations which gave no stimulus to the ex-ercise of his mind, thus widening the gulf between the philosopher and the ordinary man or his employer. Smith believed that the worker could lose the habit of mental exertion, thus gradually becoming as ‘stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become’ and he went on, in a famous passage, to remark:

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The torpor of his mind renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. (V.i.f.50)

As Smith duly noted, this general trend could produce the apparently paradoxical result that while the inhabitants of the fourth economic stage enjoyed far greater material benefits than those available to the hunter or savage, yet the latter would be more likely to exercise his mental faculties and to this extent be ‘better off ’ (V.i.f.51). Smith recognized that the occupations of the savage were unlikely to produce an ‘improved and refined understanding’, but his main point was that in the modern state this refinement can only be attained by the few who are able to reflect at large on a wide range of problems, including the social. As Smith put it, in a passage which once again reminds us of the importance of the Astronomy and of the problems of stratification in society:

The contemplation of so great a variety of objects necessarily exercises their minds in endless comparisons and combinations, and renders their understandings, in an extraordinary degree, both acute and comprehensive. Unless those few, however, happen to be placed in some very particular situations, their great abilities, though honourable to themselves, may contribute very little to the good government or hap-piness of their society. Notwithstanding the great abilities of those few, all the nobler parts of the human character may be, in a great measure, obliterated and extin-guished in the great body of the people. (V.i.f.51)

Smith’s belief that the ‘labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people’ (V.i.f.50) might suffer a kind of ‘mental mutilation’ led him directly to the discussion of education. To some ex-tent he argued that market forces had proved themselves capable of the effective provision of this service, especially with regard to the education of women (V.i.f.47), and he also noted that it was the absence of such pressures which had enabled the ancient universities to become ‘the sanctu-aries in which exploded systems and obsolete prejudices’ had found support and protection (V.i.f.34). Yet at the same time, he did not believe that the public could rely on the market, not least because the lower orders could scarce afford to maintain their children even in infancy, and he went on to note, with regard to the children of the relatively poor, that ‘As soon as they are able to work, they must apply to some trade by which they can earn their subsistence’ (V.i.f.53). Smith therefore advocated the provision of parish schools on the Scottish model wherein the young could be taught to read and to acquire the rudiments of geometry and mechanics—pro-vided of course that their masters were ‘partly, but not wholly paid by the publick’ (V.i.f.55). Smith even went so far as to suggest that the public should impose ‘upon almost the whole body of the people the necessity of acquiring those most essential parts of education, by obliging every man to undergo an examination or probation in them before he can obtain the freedom in any corporation, or be allowed to set up any trade’ (V.i.f.57). Smith also advocated that the better off, despite their superior (economic) advantages in acquiring education, should be required to attain a rather higher standard of knowledge ‘by instituting some sort of probation, even in the higher and more difficult sciences, to be undergone by every person before he was permitted to exercise

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any liberal profession, or before he could be received as a candidate for any honourable office of trust or profit’ (V.i.g.14).

Such policies were defended on the ground of benefit to the individual, but also for more practical reasons. The labourer armed with a knowledge of the rudiments of geometry and me-chanics was likely to be better placed to perform his tasks effectively and to continue to see how they could be improved. Similarly, Smith suggested that an educated people would be better placed to see through the interested claims of faction and sedition, while in addition an ‘in-structed and intelligent people . . . are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stu-pid one’. Such a people, he continued (in a strain which reminds us of the importance of the ear-lier discussion of political obligation) are also more likely to obtain the respect of their ‘lawful su-periors’ and to reciprocate that respect. He concluded:

In free countries, where the safety of government depends very much upon the favourable judgment which the people may form of its conduct, it must surely be of the highest importance that they should not be disposed to judge rashly or capri-ciously concerning it. (V.i.f.61)

In this way Smith granted the state an important cultural purpose and at the same time in-troduced a significant qualification to the optimistic thesis with which he is often associat-ed—both with regard to the efficacy of market forces and the benefits of economic growth.

The Institutional Relevance of the WN

The attractions of Smith’s system, and of an analysis which stretched even beyond the WN to encompass his other works, was quickly recognized by contemporaries. A stream of tributes found their way to Smith. Hugh Blair, the erstwhile Minister of the High Kirk of Edinburgh and later Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University wrote:

I am Convinced that since Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois, Europe has not received any Publica-tion which tends so much to Enlarge & Rectify the ideas of mankind.

Your Arrangement is excellent. One chapter paves the way for another; and your System gradually erects itself. Nothing was ever better suited than your Style is to the Subject; clear & distinct to the last degree, full without being too much so, and as ter-cly as the Subject could admit. Dry as some of the Subjects are, It carried me along.20

William Robertson was more to the point: ‘You have formed into a regular and consistent sys-tem one of the most intricate and important parts of political science.’21 In similar vein Joseph Black commended Smith for providing ‘. . . a comprehensive System composed with such just & liberal Sentiments’.22 Lastly, some eighteen months later Edward Gibbon described the WN as ‘the most profound and systematic treatise on the great objects of trade and revenue which had ever been published in any age or in any Country.’23

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Unstinted admiration of Smith’s system was accompanied by a fear, not always clearly ex-pressed, that the work might not prove to have an immediate appeal, a fear based on an apprecia-tion that the WN is not a simple but a difficult and involved book. With some feeling Hugh Blair pled for an index and a ‘Syllabus of the whole’, because, ‘You travel thro’ a great Variety of Sub-jects. One has frequently occasion to reflect & look back.’ (Letter 151.) David Hume looked for-ward to a day which he, within months of his death, was not to see, when the book would be popular, but he was less sanguine about its immediate prospects:

. . . the Reading of it necessarily requires so much Attention, and the Public is dis-posed to give so little, that I shall still doubt for some time of its being at first very popular: But it has Depth and Solidity and Acuteness, and it is so much illustrated by curious Facts, that it must at last take the public Attention.24

A week later Hume offered a comparison with Gibbon’s Decline and Fall to William Strahan, the publisher of both, a comparison not altogether in favour of the WN: ‘Dr Smith’s Perform-ance is another excellent Work that has come from your Press this Winter; but I have ventured to tell him, that it requires too much thought to be as popular as Mr Gibbon’s.’25 Even on publica-tion, there were signs that Hume was unduly pessimistic. In his reply Strahan, while concurring with Hume’s comparison, admitted that the sales of the WN ‘though not near so rapid, has been more than I could have expected from a work that requires much thought and reflection’.26 Adam Ferguson’s more optimistic predictions were nearer the mark: ‘You are not to expect the run of a novel, nor even of a true history; but you may venture to assure your booksellers of a steady and continual sale, as long as people wish for information on these subjects.’27

In the event the fears of lack of immediate success were ill–founded. The first edition of the WN, published on 9 March 1776, was sold out in six months. On 13 November 1776 Smith wrote to William Strahan acknowledging payment of a sum of £300, the balance of money due to him for the first edition, and proposed that the second edition ‘be printed at your [Strahan’s] expense, and that we should divide the profits’.28 Strahan agreed and the second edition ap-peared early in 1778. Only minor amendments, though many of them, distinguished it from the first; but the third edition, published late in 1784, had such substantial additions that they were also published separately for the benefit of those who had purchased the earlier editions, under the title 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. The most notable changes were the introduction of Book IV, chapter viii (Conclusion of the Mercentile System); Book V, chapter i.e. (Of the Public Works and Institutions which are necessary for facilitating particular Branches of Commerce); passages on drawbacks (IV.iv.3–11), on the corn bounty (IV.v.8–9), on the herring bounty (IV.v.28–37) and the Appendix; and, particularly significant in view of Hugh Blair’s early plea, the first index. The fourth edition of 1786 and the fifth of 1789, the last in Smith’s lifetime, had only minor altera-tions. The English editions were not the only ones to appear in Smith’s lifetime; by 1790 the book had been, or was being published in French, German, Danish and Italian.

The WN did not suffer the fate which befell the previous great treatise on economics, Sir James Steuart’s Principles of Political Oeconomy, published only nine years earlier in 1767. Its success,

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judged even merely by its level of sales and the five editions in Smith’s lifetime, hardly accorded with some of the fears for the book’s popularity which tinged the otherwise unbounded admira-tion of Smith’s friends. In welcoming the WN the members of Smith’s intellectual circle faced a dilemma. They were attracted by the WN as the crown of Smith’s system, but they feared that great achievement would not, perhaps even could not, be generally and immediately appreciated. There was, however, another side to the WN, a more pragmatic, down to earth side, which gave the work a practical relevance in the eyes of many to whom the intellectual system was perhaps a mystery or merely irrelevant. Smith’s friends did not always recognize that his ‘proper attention to facts’, even to Hume’s ‘curious facts’, was to prove an immediate source of attraction. Having gained attention in this way, Smith then commanded respect because the practical conclusions which followed from the chief elements of his system were evidently related to the economic problems of the middle of the eighteenth century. These practical conclusions may be demon-strated by casting leading elements in Smith’s system in the form of a series of practical prescrip-tions for economic growth. When the prescriptions are compared with the historical situation in Britain in the mid–eighteenth century, their immediate relevance is apparent. The various cate-gories of Smith’s system had thus an institutional content or background derived from the expe-rience of his day, which many admired and followed even when the system and its categories re-mained difficult for them to understand.

The division of labour remained central to this institutional analysis. Even when Smith rec-ognized the theoretical possibility of the operation of other factors—an increased labour force or mechanization—the division of labour remained in practice the fundamental cause of economic growth. The emphasis is clear in Book II where, as has already been pointed out (p. 30), eco-nomic dynamics begins to overshadow economic statics, specifically in II.iii.32:

The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of its productive la-bourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who had before been employed. The number of its productive labourers, it is evident, can never be much increased, but in consequence of an increase of capital, or of the funds destined for maintaining them. The productive powers of the same number of labourers cannot be increased, but in consequence either of some addition and improvement to those machines and instruments which facilitate and abridge labour; or of a more proper division and distribution of employment. In either case an additional capital is almost always re-quired. It is by means of an additional capital only that the undertaker of any work can either provide his workmen with better machinery, or make a more proper distri-bution of employment among them.

Given that the division of labour remained the key to economic growth its full effectiveness was limited by an inadequate expansion of the market and by an inadequate supply of capital. An inadequate supply of capital also limited the effectiveness of those other influences—in-creased quantity of labour and mechanization—which Smith recognized as theoretical, if not

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practical causes of economic expansion. The distinction between productive and unproductive labour had led to the conclusion that growth of capital depended on the most extensive use of funds in the employment of productive labour. Smith then developed his system to determine those fields where productive labour was most effectively employed and the conclusions, derived in this way from his analytical framework, had highly institutional implications, for they indicated the areas where growth was to be welcomed and encouraged. That was guidance for the practical man.29 Three propositions from II.v make the order of preference clear:

No equal capital puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labour than that of the farmer. (12)

After agriculture, the capital employed in manufactures puts into motion the greatest quantity of productive labour, and adds the greatest value to the annual pro-duce. That which is employed in the trade of exportation, has the least effect of any of the three. (19)

The capital, therefore, employed in the home–trade of any country will generally give encouragement and support to a greater quantity of productive labour in that country, and increase the value of its annual produce more than an equal capital em-ployed in the foreign trade of consumption: and the capital employed in this latter trade has in both these respects a still greater advantage over an equal capital em-ployed in the carrying trade. (31)

Such were the practical conclusions to which the theory led and, since the desirable allocation was to be achieved through ‘the uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to bet-ter his condition’, the implication was obvious: government intervention had to be restrained, es-pecially when it was possible to demonstrate, as in Book IV, that intervention was usually exer-cised on behalf of those vested interests which perverted the natural course of opulence. Well might Hugh Blair exclaim:

You have done great Service to the World by overturning all that interested Soph-istry of Merchants, with which they had Confounded the whole Subject of Com-merce. Your work ought to be, and I am persuaded will in some degree become, the Commercial Code of Nations. (Letter 151)

Even a cursory survey of the major economic characteristics of Britain in the eighteenth cen-tury confirms the contemporary relevance of Smith’s emphases. He advocated for example the desirability of encouraging agriculture because of the superior productivity of capital invested in it. To the practical man, whether he appreciated the full logic of Smith’s analysis or not, the ad-vocacy struck a responsive chord, since the main source of economic advance in Britain in the mid–eighteenth century lay in agriculture. Of that no one was unaware. Poor harvests and high prices benefited no one, obviously not industrial workers, and not the majority of farmers. Only a few specialist grain growers expected to reap the profits of scarcity and any potential gain was frequently eroded by the prohibitions on the use of grain for purposes other than the making of bread in times of scarcity and, more dramatically, by the activities of bread rioters. Hence a modern historian has described the period as one when ‘the coming of dearth was sufficient in

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itself to halt, or reverse, an upward movement of activity’.30 This restraint on increasing wealth was at last being tackled in the eighteenth century. Contemporaries, as well as later historians, disputed the significance and effectiveness of the specific agricultural improvements which brought the change to fruition, but, even when the method was disputed, the end was plain. The age–old spectre of famine was removed for the first time, and secure economic advance was pos-sible. That was a dramatic change from the experience of many other countries.

A similar sympathetic response followed Smith’s evaluation of the form and function of trade. Agriculture and commerce were the twin props of the economy in the eyes of many con-temporaries and Smith’s extensive treatment of the latter reflected its domination of economic thought and practice. More strikingly still, the pattern of foreign trade in the eighteenth century was changing and so drew attention to the relevance of Smith’s attempt to assess the comparative contributions to economic growth of the different forms of trade. The relevance of the analysis is evident in the changes in the pattern of both commodities and markets.

Woollen exports had long been the traditional staple, particularly to European markets, which at the beginning of the eighteenth century took over 90 per cent of the woollen goods exported. Thereafter, though Spain and Portugal were taking more, other European countries were taking less; the future lay less with Europe than in the past. Later in the eighteenth century cotton as-sumed the role of leading export which wool had once held, but it was dependent on non–Euro-pean markets. Between the two phases of domination by two different textile industries the buoy-ant trading sector lay in re–exports, which had not been of great significance until the second half of the seventeenth century, but by the beginning of the eighteenth century re–exports were equal to half the level of domestic exports. Sugar, tobacco, Indian calicos were the leading com-modities, and their buoyancy reflected an economy which gained from a commerce based more on Britain’s trading links than on the sale of domestic production overseas, an economy in which it was impossible to deny the paramount position, for good or ill, of overseas trade, and especially of the carrying trade. Nowhere in Britain was that situation more evident than in the economic structure of Glasgow in the third quarter of the eighteenth century. The foreign trade of Scot-land had been turning from the continent of Europe to the New World even before the parlia-mentary union of 1707 confirmed the move, and the protection afforded by the Navigation Acts provided a firm and unfettered basis for Glasgow’s success as an entrepot in the tobacco trade. Hence to read the practical discussion in Book IV of the WN, whether to accept or to reject its conclusions, was to read an account highly relevant to the contemporary economic scene. The Book discusses the stuff of which contemporary economic policy was made.

Though the problems of agriculture and of commerce were the economic issues which dominated the mind of the practical man of the eighteenth century, industrial production was increasing, and, when Smith wrote, its increase was bringing to an end a period of stability in the relative contributions to the national product of agriculture, manufacturing and commerce. Smith’s emphasis on the growth, but not on the existing domination, of manufacturing industry, and particularly his exposition of the division of labour as the prime agent of change, accorded with contemporary experience. The increased industrial output was associated with a decline in

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the relative importance of the woollen industry and a marked growth in the relative contribution of metal manufactures, reflecting increased division of labour in small units and not the emer-gence of the larger and more modern units of industrial organisation which are associated with substantial capital formation and with joint–stock enterprise. The day of large–scale capital for-mation and extensive joint–stock enterprise came years after Smith. Though the problems of the industrial sector did not loom large in the minds of many contemporaries, when they did, they assumed the forms which Smith enunciated. The increasing capital intensity of production, and of its concentration, which was to begin with the appearance of the cotton industry, were yet to be, and the absence of any significant analysis of that sector in the WN should be cited less as a matter of regret and criticism and more as an indication of Smith’s awareness of those aspects of the contemporary industrial scene which were of concern at the time he wrote.

The WN succeeded not only because its institutional emphasis made it thus so evidently, as Blair wrote, ‘a publication for the present time’ but also because it contained a stirring message. Its plea for liberty accorded with the intellectual presuppositions of the eighteenth century. The plea for liberty in the WN is a vital factor explaining the different reception accorded to Steuart and Smith within a decade of each other. Steuart may have suffered from additional handicaps. Apart from his personal handicap of Jacobitism, his work appealed less powerfully to the intel-lects of the eighteenth century, and above all Steuart’s support for government intervention placed him in a different camp from Smith, and in one which was not popular among the in-creasingly influential elements in contemporary society.31

Smith provided a system with categories and elements which remain valid as parts of his ana-lytical framework, but their institutional content, so pertinent to economic conditions in Britain in the eighteenth century, that it helped ensure the success of the WN, limits the acceptability and applicability of the system in other places and at other times. Whatever the intellectual attrac-tiveness of Smith’s writing on the continent of Europe, it was frequently institutionally irrelevant there when it was first published. For example, in contrast with Britain, ancient mercantilist and agrarian restrictions were acceptable on the continent. In Germany local monopolistic guilds still dominated economic life, and the advocacy of the new degree of economic freedom requisite for new forms of economic enterprise was not acceptable. Palyi suggests that the surprising aspect of the WN’s reception in Germany was not that it was not readily received, but ‘that the resistance against the WN did not last longer than some twenty years and did not take a more active form’.32 In France, again as Palyi points out, the situation was confused because of the influence of the physiocrats. Smith gave sufficient recognition to the physiocratic point of view to lend some sup-port to its claims, and that support was especially helpful since the acceptability of their doctrines was waning, partly because of the antagonism the physiocrats had engendered from the new and rising industrial groups, whose dislike of physiocracy grew from the support it provided to the large landowners. That confusion influenced the reception accorded to the WN.

Attempts to apply the WN to societies more advanced than Britain on the eve of the indus-trial revolution encounter similar, or even greater problems. The difficulty of doing so is demon-strated by contrasting Smith’s emphasis on the division of labour as the central cause of eco-

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nomic growth and his neglect of other factors, such as increases in the supply of labour, particu-larly through the growth of population, and improvements in the productivity of labour through mechanization. Smith recognized that an increase in the labour force led to an increase in out-put, but he did not envisage unemployed labour resources being brought into use, and any in-crease in the supply of labour was likely to be a long–run consequence of an expansion of the national product.

The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and stock is the increase of national wealth. The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, naturally increases with the increase of national wealth, and cannot possibly increase without it. (I.viii.21)

Increasing population, whether a cause of economic growth, or as something to fear, was not highlighted. That may seem surprising. Others, among them Sir James Steuart, feared over–population, but it was possible to be as optimistic about the future in the mid–eighteenth century as at any time. The spectre of famine and of some diseases had been removed; the sharp rise in population and the problems of its concentration were yet to be. Hence it was easy to conceive the problem of economic growth as one of utilizing the labour force in ways which would most effectively meet the opportunities offered by the expansion of the market, either by improvements in the division of labour or by mechanization. Of the two possibilities Smith, with his analysis firmly rooted in the institutional structure of his day, stressed the former. Mechanization was rec-ognized—as in his discussion of the steam engine—but it was conceived as a process accompany-ing the division of labour.

The owner of the stock which employs a great number of labourers, necessarily endeavours, for his own advantage, to make such a proper division and distribution of employment, that they may be enabled to produce the greatest quantity of work pos-sible. For the same reason, he endeavours to supply them with the best machinery which either he or they can think of. (I.viii.57)

In consequence of better machinery, of greater dexterity, and of a more proper division and distribution of work, all of which are the natural effects of improvement, a much smaller quantity of labour becomes requisite for executing any particular piece of work. . . (I.xi.o.1)

Not only are the division of labour and mechanization closely interwoven, but invention itself was in Smith’s opinion ‘originally owing to the division of labour’ (I.i.8).33 Innovation is no more central to the analysis. Projectors pass through the pages of the WN, frequently to be dismissed as detrimental rather than helpful to economic growth. In spite of his stress on psychological pro-pensities in other parts of his work, Smith did not extend his analysis in a serious way to evaluate the qualities which determined the ability to innovate successfully.

The dominance of the division of labour, and the comparative neglect of other categories in the analysis, notably mechanization, is, of course, a reflection of the institutional relevance of the WN to the British economy in the mid–eighteenth century. The penalty paid was the opening of

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a penetrating line of criticism for those who wished to stress Smith’s comparative neglect of the other and ultimately more powerful agent of economic growth. Into that context can be placed the criticism of Lauderdale, who, though not distinguishing between capital and entrepreneur-ship, was anxious to remedy Smith’s alleged failure to make adequate allowance for differences in knowledge and ability in different countries. Rae suggested even more forcefully that invention held the key to explaining the greater productivity of capital in some societies than in others. Smith’s admirer, J. B. Say, developed the idea of entrepreneurship as a very special form of la-bour. Later Schumpeter placed the entrepreneur and his innovating ability at the heart of an ex-planation of economic growth. Lauderdale, Rae, Say, Schumpeter belong to later generations, which, unlike Smith’s, had witnessed the effect of mechanization on industrial output. Smith was writing even before the large–scale application of mechanization to cotton–spinning. Hence, just as the WN did not seem so relevant to societies other than Britain in the later eighteenth century, so the institutional content of the WN was not applicable to the industrial state which Britain was beginning to be.

Nevertheless, discussion of Smith’s institutional relevance can become almost pointless if it tries to prove either that Smith anticipated modern industrialization, or if it spends much time proving that he did not. Any evaluation must start from the obvious fact that Smith’s thought was formulated in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, and that many of his ideas had been formulated as early as the 1760s. To search the WN for examples of the institutional structure which was to emerge later in a more advanced industrial economy is to search for qualities which it cannot possess except fortuitously. The attraction of the WN was not that it was a tourist’s guide to the subsequent course of industrialization, but that it had a command of the institu-tional structure of the time, sufficiently convincing to demonstrate its contemporary relevance.

The institutional features of the WN which date it also helped towards its immediate success. The modern reader may recognize the systematic analysis as the great intellectual achievement of the treatise and qualify the validity of Smith’s views on public policy, or even adopt the extreme interpretation of dismissing them as totally irrelevant. No contemporary could have entertained such a view; obviously misleading or erroneous comments on the public policy of the age, or, worse still, irrelevant comments, would have detracted from the intellectual achievement in their eyes. The acceptance of the WN by contemporaries rested on its apparent relevance to the affairs of everyday life as much as on its systematic analysis. It became the authority to quote as much in public discussion as in parliamentary debate. But that was not all. Smith’s relevance to his day and age insured such immediate acceptance for the WN that, even when its popularity as a guide to policy was waning, and was ultimately rejected, the work was so well established, and so gen-erally established, that it was never neglected, and the systematic analysis was then recognized for the massive intellectual achievement which it is.

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Smith’s use of History

If Smith achieved the unusual distinction of being a prophet with honour in his own country, he did so partly because his work was firmly rooted in a historical situation. The WN may, there-fore, be used as a historical source, in at least two distinctive senses. Since Smith frequently wrote as a historian—sometimes deliberately, sometimes otherwise—he may be judged accordingly by the common criteria of historical scholarship. In addition, Smith’s account of events in the later eighteenth century may be assessed for its reliability as the report of a contemporary observer. In neither case is an account of Smith’s writing a straightforward and uncomplicated matter. Just as anyone using Smith to illuminate later economic thought must make full allowance for the limita-tions of his institutional background on the general applicability of his theories, so those who use the WN as a historical source in whatever sense must make even greater allowances. In the for-mer case the deficiencies are inevitable, as Smith could not have envisaged changes which were yet to be; in the latter case the omissions may even be deliberate and so misleading, especially if they are not obvious. As always, Smith’s desire to devise a major intellectual system determined the use he made of historical and factual material. No one of his intellectual eminence would distort the facts, even if only because refutation would thus have been infinitely easier, but, even when facts were not distorted, they may still have been used in such a subordinate and supporting role to the dominating systematic model that their use for any other purpose needs qualification.

If parts of the WN are to be judged as straightforward pieces of historical writing, it is neces-sary to distinguish the different ways in which Smith wrote as a historian. When he wrote as an orthodox historian, he tried to assemble the best documentary and factual evidence for his case; when he wrote as a philosopher of history, he tried to distil an ideal interpretation of an historical process ostensibly from the facts he had accumulated.

Smith, as any orthodox historian, may be assessed by a review of his sources and his use of them. Their variety is striking, whether the impression be derived from those quoted in the WN itself, from the resources in Smith’s personal library, or from the accounts of the Library at Glas-gow when he controlled its expenditure. The break with the tradition of Christian authority is obvious; even historical parts of the Bible and its apparent relevance to the discussion of a no-madic life are virtually ignored, with only the most incidental of references to the Old Testament. By contrast, the classical tradition dominates and supplies many illustrations of early times. Given the inevitable paucity of source material for an account of an earlier age, and yet given the ne-cessity of formulating such an account as part of an essential background to the dynamic histori-cal evolution which he was seeking, Smith—in common with others who adopted his ap-proach—was forced to use another group of source materials: the travellers’ tales and accounts of contemporary societies which were at a much earlier and much more primitive stage of social evolution. Travellers’ tales bulk large in what is generally regarded as Smith’s historical writing, taking pride of place even over the classical references. To a more orthodox historian the exten-sive use of travellers’ tales is even more suspect than the use of classical writers, whose work can at least be subjected to a more critical appraisal of their reliability. Travellers’ tales, especially in

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an age when they were frequently rare, even unique, accounts of far off places, could not easily be confirmed or refuted, and so the travellers tended to highlight the unusual and the bizarre. A warning of Francis Hutcheson could well be taken to heart:

The Entertainment therefore in these ingenious Studys consists chiefly in exciting Horror, and making Men stare . . . What is most surprizing in these Studys, is the won-drous Credulity of some Gentlemen of great Pretentions in other Matters to Caution of Assent, for these marvellous Memoirs of Monks, Friars, Sea–Captains, Pirates; and for the Historys, Annals, Chronologys, received by oral Tradition, or Hieroglyphicks.34

Smith was not more culpable than many of his contemporaries in his use of such material. He was certainly less guilty than some others of falling into the trap against which Hutcheson warned, for he did not accept all his sources uncritically. Trade statistics were held perceptively and authoritatively to be unreliable:

Heavy duties being imposed upon almost all goods imported, our merchant im-porters smuggle as much, and make entry of as little as they can. Our merchant ex-porters, on the contrary, make entry of more than they export; sometimes out of van-ity, and to pass for great dealers in goods which pay no duty; and sometimes to gain a bounty or a drawback. Our exports, in consequence of these different frauds, appear upon the customhouse books greatly to overbalance our imports; to the unspeakable comfort of those politicians who measure the national prosperity by what they call the balance of trade. (V.ii.k.29)

Hence it is not surprising that Smith, though ready to endorse Gregory King’s skill in political arithmetic (I.viii.34), and willing to quote the calculations of Charles Smith on the corn trade (I.xi.g.18), had to admit that he himself had ‘no great faith in political arithmetick’ (IV.v.b.30). Quantitative sources were not the only ones treated with some reserve.

After all the wonderful tales which have been published concerning the splendid state of those countries [Mexico and Peru] in antient times, whoever reads, with any degree of sober judgment, the history of their first discovery and conquest, will evi-dently discern that, in arts, agriculture, and commerce, their inhabitants were much more ignorant than the Tartars of the Ukraine are at present. (I.xi.g.26)

Yet sometimes Smith’s use of a source is less critical than it should be, especially when the source confirms an argument he is developing from other and more general, often speculative sources, so that the orthodox historian thus becomes the supporter of the philosophic historian. Instances range from the trivial to the substantial. At the most trivial level Smith’s faults represent merely different standards of transcription between the eighteenth century and the present day. At times he seems to quote from memory, as when his quotations are not quite verbatim, or when he attributes a view to a source which it does not quite support, as for example, in his use of the works of Juan and Ulloa and of Frézier to support his condemnation of the mining of precious metals in the New World (I.xi.c.26–8). More serious still, in his use of statutes Smith falls into the error, not unique among historians, of failing to distinguish between the intention of the statute and the manner and extent of its implementation. The error is surprising in Smith’s case, be-

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cause his experience at least after his appointment as Commissioner of Customs in 1778, enabled him to observe the gulf which could be fixed between intention and implementation in the case of some statutes, as in various attempts to suppress smuggling, and even more important because he himself sometimes provided the material for drawing such a distinction, as in his discussion of the laws relating to apprenticeship. A more serious example is his discussion of the settlement provisions of the poor law. In both cases Smith objected because of interference with the liberty he considered essential for the effective allocation of resources (above, 37).

After castigating the generally restrictive effect of the Statute of Apprentices Smith pro-ceeded to recognize the limitations on its application: to market towns and not in the country (I.x.c.8); to those trades which were established when the Act was passed and not to those which appeared subsequently, excluding—on Smith’s own admission—‘the manufactures of Manches-ter, Birmingham and Wolverhampton’, or at least ‘many of them’ (I.x.c.9); and finally, not to sol-diers and sea–men who, ‘when discharged from the king’s service, are at liberty to exercise any trade, within any town or place of Great Britain or Ireland’ (IV.ii.42).

Smith’s failure to make adequate allowance for the qualifications to the law of settlement is more serious. Smith objected to the legal restraints imposed on the right to obtain a settlement in a parish, with its entitlement to poor relief, as part of his general objection to artificial restraints on the free mobility of labour. He made his objection forcefully:

There is scarce a poor man in England of forty years of age . . . who has not in some part of his life felt himself most cruelly oppressed by this ill–contrived law of settlements. (I.x.c.59)

The reasons had been as sweepingly advanced in the previous paragraph:

. . . in England, where it is often more difficult for a poor man to pass the artificial boundary of a parish, than an arm of the sea or a ridge of high mountains, natural boundaries which sometimes separate very distinctly different rates of wages in other countries. (I.x.c.58)

In addition Smith contrasted conditions in Scotland with those in England, alleging that in England the law of settlement ensured that ‘The scarcity of hands in one parish . . . cannot al-ways be relieved by their super–abundance in another, as it is constantly in Scotland’ (I.x.c.58). Once again Smith himself provided qualifications which should have led to the enunciation of his proposition in more moderate terms. He recognized the major mitigation of the restraints on the mobility of labour which followed the introduction of certificates, whereby a parish accepted liability for a potential pauper, though he promptly cast doubt on the effectiveness of the measure by commenting rather cynically, after quoting from a passage in Richard Burn’s Justice of the Peace, that ‘certificates ought always to be required by the parish where any poor man comes to reside, and that they ought very seldom to be granted by that which he proposes to leave’ (I.x.c.56). Smith also provided a general explanation of differences of wage rates between Scotland and England; one dependent not on their different laws of settlement but on differences between their rates of development and between the levels of subsistence in the two countries (I.viii.33–4).

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Other evidence reinforces the doubts Smith raises himself. Removals of potential paupers in England were probably less frequent than he implies, otherwise it is difficult to understand how the new developing areas ever obtained the labour force they required; in Scotland paupers were sometimes forcefully removed, though less frequently than in England. The issue was one of con-temporary importance, and could have been investigated by a detailed examination of parochial administration, but of such investigation there is no evidence in the WN, so that in these matters Smith did not have knowledge comparable to that which he had about customs procedure, even before his appointment as a commissioner, and which enabled him to be more critical of evi-dence in that field. In his discussion of both the laws of apprenticeship and settlement Smith provides evidence which damages his own case against the restrictive legislation, and provides indications that investigations which might have been undertaken to confirm his case or other-wise were not carried out. The general principles, the opposition to restrictions damaging to the free allocation of resources, were held so strongly that there seemed no case to answer.

Criticism of Smith’s use of sources becomes truly damaging only if he read into a source more serious evidence in support of a proposition than he was entitled to do. Even that criticism must not be pushed too far. All historians must choose the facts they judge relevant to their argu-ment, and so their discussion is forced in one direction or another. Hence a significant distinction between the approaches of Smith and of orthodox historians can be drawn only if Smith’s choice of evidence strayed beyond the limits set by human frailty in determining degrees of rele-vance towards a demonstrable distortion of historical evidence, whether deliberate or not. Then, even if Smith’s use of his sources meets the requirements of the most refined critical apparatus of textual criticism, he would stand condemned by orthodox historians for his unacceptable choice of evidence.

Any such distinction, or even gulf, between the approaches of Smith and of orthodox histori-ans appears only when Smith writes as a speculative or philosophical as well as an orthodox his-torian, and so a fundamental issue in any appreciation of the WN lies in determining how Smith deals with any tensions which emerge between the two approaches. Each strand of his historical reasoning, the orthodox and the speculative, is a logical entity, and each, if examined and judged by its own standards, is internally consistent. Problems emerge only when attempts are made to integrate the two in order to eliminate the tensions which seem to emerge between them. Smith does not recognize the tensions, he was probably unaware of them, because his grand design of a comprehensive system dominates every other approach. Yet tension between the two approaches appears at central parts of his analysis, most significantly in Book III, where the historical evi-dence is, of course, embedded at the centre of the exposition, not merely providing a peripheral part of the reasoning. The philosophical historian states unequivocally the course of the ‘natural progress of opulence’:

According to the natural course of things, therefore, the greater part of the capital of every growing society is, first, directed to agriculture, afterwards to manufactures, and last of all to foreign commerce. This order of things is so very natural, that in

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every society that had any territory, it has always, I believe, been in some degree ob-served. (III.i.8)

In the next paragraph the orthodox historian upsets ‘the natural progress’:

though this natural order of things must have taken place in some degree in every such soci-ety, it has, in all the modern states of Europe, been, in many respects, entirely inverted. The for-eign commerce of some of their cities has introduced all their finer manufactures, or such as were fit for distant sale; and manufactures and foreign commerce together, have given birth to the principal improvements of agriculture.

(III.i.9)

The last sentence of the chapter provides both an explanation and an accusation:

The manners and customs which the nature of their original government intro-duced, and which remained after that government was greatly altered, necessarily forced them into this unnatural and retrograde order. (III.i.9)

The three chapters which follow, to make up the shortest Book in the WN, then proceed to expound an orthodox historical progress of opulence in a way which differs from that outlined in ‘the natural progress’, of how, for example in III.iv, the commerce of the towns contributed to the improvement of the country.

This distinction between the speculative historical progress of opulence and the orthodox his-torical progress is the prime example of the tensions involved in the use of the WN as a historical source. Yet allegations of tension, of an uneasy relationship and even of contradictions between the two strands of thought, are evident only when Smith is judged by standards, and by a meth-odology, which he would not have accepted. Smith’s objective was to delineate an ideal account of historical evolution, which did not need to conform to any actual historical situation, so his-torical evidence, while playing a central part in his thought, was supplementary evidence of sec-ondary importance. If historical facts indicated a divergence from the ideal explanation, then Smith felt obliged to offer explanations of the divergence. He worked from the system to the facts not from the facts to the system, and in that context his protestation that he had ‘no great faith in political arithmetic’ is significant. If the historian or the political arithmetician demonstrated the divergence from the ideal that, for instance, the progress of opulence was from the town to the country and not the reverse, the interesting problem then lay in determining the reasons for the divergence—in the present example it lay in unwise and undesirable intervention from the gov-ernment. H. T. Buckle, though given to overstating his case, made a vital point, and in a lively style:

Adam Smith . . .very properly rejected [statistical facts] as the basis of his science, and merely used them by way of illustration, when he could select what he liked. The same remark applies to other facts which he drew from the history of trade, and, in-deed, from the general history of society. All of these are essentially subsequent to the argument. They make the argument more clear, but not more certain. For, it is no exaggeration to say, that, if all the commercial and historical facts in the Wealth of Na-

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tions were false, the book would still remain, and its conclusions would hold equally good, though they would be less attractive.35

Any tension between the speculative, or systematic, and the orthodox strands of Smith’s thought is potentially even more misleading when the systematic thought is contrasted with, or used to illuminate aspects of contemporary policy. Then Smith’s comments on the happenings of his time in the eighteenth century may be so coloured by his speculative approach that his ac-counts and views may have to be treated with some reserve and not used as reliable source mate-rial for historical studies of the period.

It was suggested earlier that the conclusion of greatest practical significance in Smith’s analy-sis for the eighteenth century lay in his ordering of the productive use of capital, as in II.v.19: first, in agriculture; then in manufactures; last in ‘the trade of exportation’. In the subsequent evaluation of the wholesale trade, the very practical conclusion was stated unequivocally:

. . . the great object of the political oeconomy of every country, is to encrease the riches and power of that country. It ought, therefore, to give no preference nor supe-rior encouragement to the foreign trade of consumption above the home–trade, nor to the carrying trade above either of the other two. (II.v.31)

Just as Smith’s orthodox historical work sometimes qualified the use that may be made of his speculative history, so his orthodox empirical studies cast doubt on some of the recommendations on contemporary policy derived directly from his analytical system. Examples can be given at both ends of his proposition concerning the desirable deployment of resources, from his com-ment on agriculture and on the colonial trade.

‘In proportion as a greater share of [capital] is employed in agriculture, the greater will be the quantity of productive labour which it puts into motion within the country’. (II.v.19.) It was sug-gested above (p. 45) that the prospects for economic growth in Britain in the eighteenth century were greatest in agriculture, and Smith provides empirical evidence of the progress already made in that field in his own day and of further possible lines of progress, as, for example, in an accu-rate and perceptive account of the expansion of the Scottish cattle trade (I.xi.l.2–3). But another part of Smith’s system, and the empirical content he gave to its operation in agriculture, casts doubt on the pre–eminence given to agriculture in economic progress. He asserts from empirical evidence that the division of labour, the great agent of change, is least applicable in agriculture (I.i.4). Once again the different strands of the argument are logically valid, but the relationship between the two is uneasy and unclear, and so too is the use which may be made of the evidence as reflecting economic conditions in the eighteenth century.

Smith’s treatment of the colonial trade is even more significant, because it looms large in the WN and in contemporary discussion. Given his general analysis it is not surprising that Smith condemns the tobacco trade as an example of how undesirable government intervention had turned trade ‘from a direction in which it would have maintained a greater quantity of produc-tive labour, into one, in which it can maintain a much smaller quantity’ and had ‘rendered the whole state of that industry and commerce more precarious and less secure, than if their produce had been accommodated to a greater variety of markets’. (IV.vii.c.46 and 40.) It has already been

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suggested (p. 46) that Smith’s account of the carrying trade, both of its dependence on current commercial policy and of its effect on the domestic economy, would have been recognized by his contemporaries as a realistic survey of the conditions of the time. The growth of re–exports, and the tobacco trade’s domination, especially in Glasgow, owed much to the Navigation Acts, and the effect on the domestic economy was so limited that it is even possible to suggest that there ex-isted two separate economies, each with its rate and extent of growth determined by different factors. But, once again, the WN itself provides the qualifications to the practical conclusion de-rived from the systematic analysis.

To begin with, it is not clear that commercial legislation was the critical cause of the growth of the colonial trade in general, and the tobacco trade in particular. ‘There are no colonies of which the progress has been more rapid than that of the English in North America’ (IV.vii.b.15), because ‘Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs their own way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new colonies’ (IV.vii.b.16). Even the exact influence of the monopoly is unclear: it ‘raises the rate of mercantile profit, and therefore augments some-what the gains of our merchants’, but it also ‘hinders the sum of profit from rising so high as it otherwise would do’ (IV.vii.c.59). To determine the overall effect of the monopolistic restrictions, Smith is admitting in effect the necessity of a nice calculation of gain and loss. In the long–run even more necessary for that purpose is an evaluation of the use to which any profit is put: a smaller profit in the hands of those who use it in ways deemed appropriate may promote eco-nomic growth more rapidly than a larger profit in the hands of those who use it differently. Of that problem Smith was aware:

If the prodigality of some was not compensated by the frugality of others, the conduct of every prodigal, by feeding the idle with the bread of the industrious, tends not only to beggar himself, but to impoverish his country. (II.iii.20)

Smith’s distinction between the prodigal and the frugal man raises immense difficulties for any attempt to use his systematic analysis as a final commentary on the effect of the colonial trade. The distinction can be highlighted in Smith’s own words in II.iii:

The proportion between capital and revenue . . . seems every where to regulate the proportion between industry and idleness. Wherever capital predominates, industry prevails: wherever revenue, idleness. (13)

Capitals are increased by parsimony, and diminished by prodigality and miscon-duct. (14)

Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of capital. In-dustry, indeed, provides the subject which parsimony accumulates. But whatever in-dustry might acquire, if parsimony did not save and store up, the capital would never be the greater. (16)

Hence, whatever the limitations, derived from Smith’s systematic analysis, on the beneficial effects of the carrying trade, the colonial trade might still have made a major contribution to economic growth if the merchants were parsimonious and not prodigal, particularly if they then diverted their capital into agricultural enterprises at home. Smith recognized in general terms

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what was happening. ‘Merchants are commonly ambitious of becoming country gentlemen, and when they do, they are generally the best of all improvers’ (III.iv.3), certainly better than the great proprietors (III.ii.7). The experience of the eighteenth century confirms this aspect of Smith’s discussion. Parsimony among the merchants, including colonial merchants, and their desire to become landed gentlemen, provided the capital which Smith recognized as essential for the ex-ploitation of the agricultural resources of Scotland itself. The undesirability of concentration on the carrying trade which Smith’s intellectual analysis demonstrated, was evidently much less in practice when a full study is made, and, once again as in the discussion of agriculture, for reasons which are embedded in the WN. The reasons are not stressed, because to do so would have re-quired some qualification to conclusions derived from the central analysis of the desirable distri-bution of capital and to some of the allegedly harmful effects of the Navigation Acts.

Smith’s historical writing has practical implications in the use of the WN. The historical writ-ing is meaningful only if interpreted as part of the intellectual system which the historical mate-rial was used to illustrate and support. Similarly, Smith’s discussion of contemporary problems and events, which can easily be assumed to be an example of unbiased reporting, must also be integrated into his entire system. The belief in the natural progress of opulence, almost in its in-evitability, is so strong throughout the WN that, when dealing with a contemporary problem, Smith’s main objective is to isolate those barriers which lay in the path of natural progress as he saw it, and to advocate their speedy removal. Hence on contemporary issues his writing verges on propaganda, he uses evidence in ways which are not wholly convincing to those not committed to his system, and he presses interpretations of contemporary events to more extreme conclusions than may well be warranted.

The defects of Smith’s emphasis must not be stressed unduly, though they may seem to justify the suggestion that he was never noted for his consistency. Paradoxically the inconsistency was often consistent, because it rarely damaged the central analysis and was indeed usually intro-duced as a means of support for it. Nor can Smith easily be accused of inconsistency in the trans-fer of his analysis to policy, so long as his practical recommendations were confined to a general advocacy of the desirability of eliminating government intervention from many, if not from all aspects of economic life. The inconsistencies appear only in the detail. These are defects of greater consequence to those who read the WN today than to those who read the WN when it was first published. Then the analysis, both systematic and institutional, was largely applicable in Britain, and was a major cause of the work’s popularity; it was excellent political propaganda and such stretching of empirical evidence as it contained was not such as could discredit the whole. The problem is for those readers of later generations who seek to use the WN as a source book of contemporary comment.

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Endnotes

[1] History of Economic Analysis (London, 1954), 182.

[2] For comment, see R. L. Meek ‘Smith, Turgot and the Four Stages Theory’ in History of Political Economy, iii (1971), and his introduction to Turgot on Progress, Sociology, and Economics (Cam-bridge, 1973).

[3] LJ (B) 149, ed. Cannan 107. The socio–economic analysis appears chiefly in Books III and V of the WN.

[4] John Millar, The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1771), ed. W. C. Lehmann and included in his John Millar of Glasgow (Cambridge, 1960), 292.

[5] It is a remarkable fact that Smith’s systematic course of instruction on economic subjects closely follows the order used by his old teacher, Francis Hutcheson, in his System of Moral Philoso-phy (published posthumously in 1755). For Hutcheson, like Smith, begins with an account of the division of labour (II.iv) and having explained the sources of increase in ‘skill and dexterity’ pro-ceeded to emphasize the interdependence of men which results from it. Having next examined the importance for exchange of the right to the property of one’s own labour (II.vi) he then con-sidered the determinants of value, using in the course of this discussion a distinction between demand and supply price and defining the latter in terms of labour cost (II.xii). The argument then proceeds to the discussion of money as a means of exchange and the analytical work is completed with an account of ‘the principal contracts of a social life’ such as interest and insur-ance (II.xiii). While Smith’s own lectures were undoubtedly more complete, with the economic section developed as a single whole, the parallel is nonetheless worthy of note. For comment, see W. R. Scott, Francis Hutcheson (London, 1900).

[6] Hume had also drawn attention to the problems of trade regulation and shown a clear grasp of the interdependence of economic phenomena. There is certainly sufficient evidence to give some force to Dugald Stewart’s claim that ‘The Political Discourses of Mr. Hume were evi-dently of greater use to Mr. Smith, than any other book that had appeared prior to his Lectures’ (Stewart, IV.24).

On the other hand, it would be wrong to imply that Smith may have taken an analytical structure established by Hutcheson and grafted on to it policy views, derived from Hume, regarding the freedom of trade (views which Hutcheson did not always share). To qualify this position we have Smith’s famous manifesto, dated 1755 and quoted by Dugald Stewart from a document, now lost, wherein Smith claimed some degree of originality with a good deal of ‘honest and indignant warmth’ apparently in respect of his main thesis of economic liberty. In this paper, which was read before one of Glasgow’s literary societies, Smith rejected the common view that man could be regarded as the subject of a kind of political mechanics, and stated his belief that economic prosperity only required ‘peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice’. Such be-liefs, he asserted, ‘had all of them been the subject of lectures which I read at Edinburgh the win-

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ter before I left it, and I can adduce innumerable witnesses, both from that place and from this, who will ascertain them sufficiently to be mine.’ (Stewart, IV.25.)

The possible links between Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith are explored in W. L. Taylor, Frances Hutcheson and David Hume as Precursors of Adam Smith (Duke, North Carolina, 1965). See also E. Rotwein’s valuable introduction in David Hume: Writings on Economics (London, 1955).

[7] With regard to the separation of returns into wages, profits, and rent Dugald Stewart has stated that ‘It appears from a manuscript of Mr. Smith’s, now in my possession, that the forego-ing analysis or division was suggested to him by Mr. Oswald of Dunnikier’ (Works, ix (1856), 6). It is also stated in Works x (1858) that Oswald was ‘well known to have possessed as a Political and man of business, a taste for the more general and philosophical discussions of Political Economy. He lived in habits of great intimacy with Lord Kames and Mr. Hume, and was one of Mr. Smith’s earliest and most confidential friends.’ Memoir Note A

[8] Smith’s initial stay in Paris as tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch, was for a period of only ten days, so that his real contact with the French thinkers came during the second visit (December 1765 to October 1766). By this time the School was well established: the Tableau Economique had been perfected in the late 1750s, and was followed in 1763 by the appearance of the Philosophie Rurale, the first text–book of the School and a joint production of Quesnay and Mirabeau.

Smith knew both men, while in addition his own commentary on the School (WN IV.ix) shows a close knowledge of its main doctrines. It is also known from the contents of Smith’s library that he had a remarkably complete collection of the main literature, including copies of the Journal de l’Agriculture and a range of the Epemèrides du Citoyen which includes the first two (out of three) parts of Turgot’s Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Riches—a work which Turgot completed in 1766 when Smith was resident in Paris. See H. Mizuta, Adam Smith’s Library (Cambridge, 1967).

In fact Turgot begins his account of the formation and distribution of riches in a way with which Smith would have immediately sympathized: with a discussion of the division of labour, ex-change, and money, using this introductory section to confirm the importance of a prior accumu-lation of stock. The real advance, however, came from another source, and is the consequence of Turgot’s reformulation of the basic Quesnay model in such a way as to permit him to employ a distinction between entrepreneurs and wage labour in both the agrarian and manufacturing sec-tors. This distinction led on to another in the sense that Turgot was able to offer a clear distinc-tion between factors of production (land, labour, capital) and to point the way towards a theory of returns which included recognition of the point that profit could be regarded as a reward for the risks involved in combining the factors of production. At the same time, Turgot introduced a number of distinctions between the different employments of capital of a kind which is very close to that later used by Smith, before going on to show that the returns in different employments were necessarily interdependent and affected by the problems of ‘net advantage’. While the ac-count offered in the WN IV.ix of the agricultural system owes a good deal to Quesnay’s work, it may not be unimportant to notice that the version which Smith expounded includes an allow-

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ance for wages, profit, and rent, distinctions which were not present in Quesnay’s original model.

The most exhaustive modern commentary on the physiocrats as a school is R. L. Meek’s The Eco-nomics of Physiocracy (London, 1962). This book includes translations of the main works: see also Quesnay’s Tableau Economique, ed. M. Kuczynski and R. L. Meek (London, 1972). The possible links between Turgot and Smith are explored by P. D. Groenewegen in ‘Turgot and Adam Smith’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, xvi (1969).

[9] The most comprehensive modern account of the content of Smith’s work is by Samuel Hollander, The Economics of Adam Smith (Toronto, 1973).

[10] In the WN, the division of labour was also associated with technical change, arising from: improvements made by workmen as a consequence of their experience; inventions intro-duced by the makers of machines, (once that has become a separate trade) and, finally, inventions introduced by philosophers ‘whose trade it is, not to do any thing, but to observe every thing’ (I.i.9). Of these, Smith considered that the first was likely to be affected adversely by the conse-quences of the division of labour once it had attained a certain level of development. See below, 39–40.

[11] See R. L. Meek and A. S. Skinner, ‘The Development of Adam Smith’s Ideas on the Di-vision of Labour’, Economic Journal, lxxxiii (1973).

[12] For a particularly helpful comment on Smith’s treatment of value from this point of view, see M. Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect (London, 1964), 48–52.

[13] There are perhaps four features of Smith’s treatment of price which may be of particu-lar interest to the modern reader:

1. While Smith succeeds in defining an equilibrium condition he was obviously more interested in the nature of the processes by virtue of which it was attained. Natural price thus emerged as the ‘central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating’, whatever be the obstacles which prevent its actual attainment (I.vii.15).

2. Smith gives a good deal of attention to what might be called ‘natural’ impediments; i.e. im-pediments associated with the nature of the economy (as distinct from ‘artificial’ obstacles which might be introduced by government action) in referring to such points as the instability of agri-cultural output (I.vii.17), the importance of singularity of soil or situation, spatial problems and secrets in manufacture.

3. Smith’s account may be seen to suggest that before the whole system can be in equilibrium each commodity must be sold at its natural price and each factor paid in each employment at its ‘natural’ rate. Any movement from this position can then be shown to involve inter–related re-sponses in the factor and commodity markets as a result of which the trend towards equilibrium is sustained. Looked at from this point of view, Smith’s argument has a dynamic aspect at least in the sense that he handles the consequences of a given change (say in demand) as a continuously

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unfolding process.

4. The discussion of price is linked to the analysis of the economy as a system in Book II by throwing some light on the allocation of a given stock of resources amongst alternative uses. At the same time, the analysis of Book II with its suggestion of a continuous cycle of the purchase, consumption, and replacement of goods adds a further dimension to the use of time in I.vii. For an interesting modern example of a problem of this kind see W. J. Baumol, Economic Dynamics (2nd ed. New York, 1959), 6–7, where a time axis is added to those dealing with price and quan-tity.

[14] While in general Smith seems to have considered that job mobility would be compara-tively easy, it is evident that such movement might be difficult in cases where there is a consider-able capital invested in learning—thus setting up distortions in the system (which could take time to resolve themselves) even in cases where there was perfect liberty. Smith also drew attention to the problems of status and geographical mobility. Citing as evidence the considerable differentials between London, Edinburgh, and their environs, in respect even of employments of a similar kind, he concluded that ‘man is of all sorts of luggage the most difficult to be transported’ (I.viii.31).

[15] It may be useful to give a ‘conjectural’ picture of the ‘circular flow’, by drawing some of the elements of Smith’s argument together.

Smith’s theory of price has already established that since each commodity taken singly must comprehend payments for rent, wages, and profits, this must be true of all taken complexly (II.ii.2 and see above, p. 25 n. 13). He therefore suggests a relationship between aggregate output and income where the latter must be distributed between the three major forms of return. Taking the year as the time period within which the working of the system is to be examined, factors can be treated as stocks (as in the theory of price) whose ordinary or natural rates (i.e. natural within the framework of the year) are determined by current levels of demand and supply (a theme de-veloped in the theory of distribution). This income can be used for the purchase of consumption goods, including services (thus generating a secondary source of income available for expenditure in the current period) or in the form of a fixed or circulating capital. If we examine the system from the standpoint of the beginning of the period in question, each group will have an accumu-lated stock of goods intended for consumption, together with a certain fixed capital representing acquired skills and useful abilities. The proprietors in addition possess a capital which is fixed in the land while the entrepreneurs engaged in manufacture, agriculture, or trade, own a fixed capi-tal embodied in their machines, implements, etc. In addition, we can assume at the beginning of the period, that the undertakers and merchants have a stock of finished goods (consumption and investment goods) which are available for sale in the current period, together with raw materials and work in process—all of which make up a part of the circulating capital of society. Assume also the undertakers have a certain net income available for use in the current period.

If the farmers transmit rent payments to the proprietors to secure the use of a productive re-

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source, this gives the latter group an income with which they can make the necessary purchases of consumption and investment goods. The undertakers in both the main sectors may then transmit to wage–labour the content of the wages fund, thus generating an income which can be used to make purchases of consumption goods from each sector. Similarly, the undertakers will make purchases from each other, thus generating a series of flows of money and goods within and be-tween the sectors—with the whole pattern carried on by the wholesale and retail trades. As a re-sult of the complex of transactions, the content of the circulating capital of society (as repre-sented, in part, by the stock of all goods available for sale) is withdrawn from the market and ei-ther added to the social stock of consumption goods, or fixed capital, or used to replace items which reached the end of their life during the present period, or used up within that period. On the other hand, these goods are replaced by current productive activity, so that the model taken as a whole admirably succeeds in its aim of elucidating the interconnections which exist between the parts of the machine. It is worth noting perhaps, here as in the theory of price, that the em-phasis is on the processes involved, rather than on the formulation of equilibrium conditions. In-deed it would have been very difficult for Smith to formulate the conditions which would have to be met before the following period could open under identical conditions to those which obtained at the beginning of the period examined, (as for example Quesnay had done) if only because of the explicit allowance made for goods which have different life–spans and for stocks of goods which have different age structures.

[16] See D. N. Winch, Classical Political Economy and the Colonies (London, 1965), chapter 2.

[17] A Letter from Governor Pownall to Adam Smith, L.L.D. F.R.S. (London, 1776), 23: cf. Winch, op. cit., 8–9.

[18] It is interesting to observe that the solitary example of the ‘invisible hand’ which occurs in the WN does so in the context of the thesis concerning the natural progress of opulence. It is remarked in IV.ii.9 that:

As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestick industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the great-est value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the publick interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestick to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.

[19] Smith’s concern with sectional economic pressures is to be found throughout the WN; in the discussion of the regulation of wages, for example (I.x.c.61) and in his ascription of undue influence on colonial policy to mercantile groups (IV.vii.b.49). He referred frequently to the ‘clamourous importunity of partial interests’ and in speaking of the growth of monopoly pointed out that government policy ‘has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of

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them, that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature.’ (IV.ii.43.) The point helps to explain Smith’s recurring theme that legislative proposals emanating from members of this class ‘ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention’ (I.xi.p.10).

[20] Letter 151 addressed to Smith, dated 3 April 1776.

[21] Letter 153, 8 April 1776.

[22] Letter 152, April 1776.

[23] Letter 187, 26 November 1777.

[24] Letter 150, 1 April 1776.

[25] J. Y. T. Greig (ed.), The Letters of David Hume (Oxford, 1932), ii.314.

[26] Letter from William Strahan to David Hume, dated 12 April 1776 (Hume MSS. Royal Society of Edinburgh).

[27] Letter 154, 18 April 1776.

[28] Letter 179.

[29] Smith’s friends recognized this aspect but were faintly worried by it. Hugh Blair felt that some parts of the book, notably the discussion on the American colonies, might well be left out because they made the book ‘like a publication for the present moment’ (Letter 151), and Hume was aware that it had the attraction of offering ‘curious facts’ (Letter 150). Whatever the esti-mates of Blair or Hume of the practical aspect of the WN, it was a side which attracted a wider readership. A perceptive reviewer in an otherwise uninformative and brief notice in the Scots Magazine (xxxviii (1776) 205–6) assessed the twin attractions more equally and more fairly:

Few writers . . . have united a proper attention to facts with a regular and scientific investigation of principles . . . [Smith] has taken an extensive and connected view of the several subjects in which the wealth of nations is concerned; and from an happy union of fact and theory had de-duced a system, which, we apprehend, is on the whole more satisfactory, and rests on better grounds, than any which had before been offered to the public. Hume, Blair, the reviewer in the Scots Magazine, each in his own and different way, recognized both the intellectual attraction of a comprehensive and systematic analysis and the additional attraction of a valid interpretation of contemporary events and problems.

[30] T. S. Ashton, Economic Fluctuations in England, 1700–1800 (Oxford, 1959), 173.

[31] Steuart’s general position is perhaps adequately summarized in the statement that ‘In treating every question of political œconomy, I constantly suppose a statesman at the head of government, systematically conducting every part of it, so as to prevent the vicissitudes of man-ners, and innovations, by their natural and immediate effects or consequences, from hurting any interest within the commonwealth.’ (An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy: Being an Essay

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on the Science of Domestic Policy in Free Nations (London, 1767) i. 120, ed. Skinner (Edinburgh 1966), i.122). Most of the contemporary reviews of Steuart’s work commented on this aspect of it, in a way which throws an interesting light on the kind of reception Smith could expect. The Critical Review, xxiii (1767), commented for example: ‘We have no idea of a statesman having any con-nection with the affair, and we believe that the superiority which England has at present over all the world, in point of commerce, is owing to her excluding statesmen from the executive part of all commercial concerns.’ (412.)

[32] M. Palyi, ‘The Introduction of Adam Smith on the Continent’ in J. M. Clark et al., Adam Smith, 1776–1926 (1928, reprinted New York, 1966), 196.

[33] Even in the art of war, where the contribution of the ‘state of the mechanical as well as of some other arts’ is recognized in general, and the invention of fire–arms in particular (V.i.a.43), the division of labour is still the key to success: ‘it is necessary that [the art of war] should become the sole or principal occupation of a particular class of citizens, and the division of labour is as necessary for the improvement of this, as of every other art.’ (V.i.a.14).

[34] F. Hutcheson, An Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil in An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (London, 4th ed., 1738), 207.

[35] H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England (London, 1857–61). Reprinted as On Scotland and the Scotch Intellect, ed. H. J. Hanham (Chicago, 1970), 285.

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INTRODUCTIONS TO VOLUME III: ESSAYS ON PHILOSOPHI-

CAL SUBJECTS

1. General Introduction[1] [D.D. Raphael and A.S. Skinner]

I

Most of the essays contained in this book were not prepared for the press by Smith. They are fragments in fact—perhaps, as Black and Hutton suggested in the ‘Advertisement’ to EPS, parts of ‘a plan he had once formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts’. The essays are also diverse both in terms of subject–matter and in the degree of finish they had acquired at the time of Smith’s death. Yet, at the same time, there are some common ele-ments.

To begin with, the more important of the essays plainly have a ‘philosophical’ character, which conforms to Smith’s own recommendations regarding the organization of scientific dis-course. Smith believed that writers of ‘didactical’ discourse ought ideally to deliver a system of

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science by laying down ‘certain principles, known or proved, in the beginning, from whence we account for the several phaenomena, connecting all together by the same chain’ (LRBL ii.133, ed. Lothian, 140). Smith described this as the ‘Newtonian’ method, while well aware that it had been used before Newton—most notably by Descartes. This point in itself is an important re-minder that Smith drew an implicit distinction between the method used in expounding a system of thought and that employed in establishing such a system: in the former case, he was able to point out that Descartes and Newton shared a common approach; in the latter, he insisted that the Cartesian system was ‘fanciful’, ‘ingenious and elegant, tho’ fallacious’ (Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review, § 5).2 In short, the task of establishing a system of thought must be conducted in terms of the combination of reason and experience—although even here he was quick to asso-ciate this definition of the term ‘method’ with Galileo rather than Newton (Astronomy, IV.44).

Secondly, it is at least broadly true that many of the essays provide evidence of Smith’s con-cern with the principles of human nature, again, a wide–ranging interest. For example, Smith himself was to point out that under some conditions the study of grammar could provide the ‘best History of the natural progress of the Human mind in forming the most important abstrac-tions upon which all reasoning depends’,3 and John Millar explained his teacher’s choice of em-phasis in the LRBL by reference to Smith’s belief that: ‘The best method of explaining and illus-trating the various powers of the human mind, the most useful part of metaphysics, arises from an examination of the several ways of communicating our thoughts by speech, and from an at-tention to the principles of those literary compositions which contribute to persuasion or enter-tainment.’ (Stewart, I.16.) In the same vein, Dugald Stewart suggested that Smith’s cultivation of the Fine Arts was developed: ‘less, it is probable, with a view to the peculiar enjoyments they con-vey, (though he was by no means without sensibility to their beauties,) than on account of their connection with the general principles of the human mind; to an examination of which they af-ford the most pleasing of all avenues’ (Stewart, III.13).

Finally, we should recall Smith’s overriding interest in historical questions and the fact that he: ‘seldom misses an opportunity of indulging his curiosity, in tracing from the principles of human nature, or from the circumstances of society, the origin of the opinions and the institutions which he describes’ (Stewart, II.52). Earlier, Stewart had commented on Smith’s youthful interest in mathematics4 and the natural sciences, together with the principles of human nature, both of which: ‘enabled him to exemplify some of his favourite theories concerning the natural progress of the mind in the investigation of truth, by the history of those sciences in which the connection and succession of discoveries may be traced with the greatest advantage’ (Stewart, I.8).

While the features outlined above are all characteristic of the major essays in this volume, they are combined in one of them to greatest effect—the Astronomy, once described by J. A. Schumpeter as ‘the pearl of the collection’.5 While the essay is one of the best examples of theo-retical history, it is perhaps most remarkable as a study of those principles of human nature which ‘lead and direct’ philosophical inquiry.

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II

One of the characteristics of theoretical history is that it may be applied to situations where direct evidence is lacking. As Stewart put it: ‘In this want of direct evidence, we are under a ne-cessity of supplying the place of fact by conjecture; and when we are unable to ascertain how men have actually conducted themselves upon particular occasions, of considering in what man-ner they are likely to have proceeded, from the principles of their nature, and the circumstances of their external situation.’ (II.46.) In the context of the discussion of the origin of philosophy, Smith had comparatively little to say about man’s external situation, but he did note that philo-sophical effort could only take place under conditions where subsistence was no longer precarious and where social order and a regular subordination of ranks were established (Astronomy, III.1,5).6 Elsewhere he also noted the importance of language as a means of expressing ideas while pointing out that language7 itself developed by virtue of man’s intellectual capabilities—for example, his capacity for abstraction and generalization in addition to speech itself.

Given the above conditions, the assumptions employed are fundamentally simple: Smith as-sumes that all men are endowed with certain faculties and propensities such as reason, reflection, and imagination, and that they are motivated by a desire to acquire the sources of pleasure and avoid those of pain. In this context pleasure relates to a state of the imagination: the ‘state of . . . tranquillity, and composure’ (Imitative Arts, II.20). Such a state, Smith suggested, may be at-tained even where the objects contemplated are unlike or the processes involved are com-plex—provided only that the connection is a customary one. He added that the ‘indolent’ imagi-nation finds satisfaction but no stimulus to thought under such circumstances and duly noted that ‘the bulk of mankind’ often express no interest in the common–place. For example, the conver-sion of food into flesh and bone (Astronomy, II.11), even looking–glasses, become ‘so familiar’ that men typically do not think that ‘their effects require any explication’ (Imitative Arts, I.17). In the same way, Smith cited the example of the skilled artisan (such as a brewer, dyer, or distiller) who effects the most remarkable transformations in the materials that he uses and yet ‘cannot conceive what occasion there is for any connecting events to unite those appearances, which seem to him to succeed each other very naturally. It is their nature, he tells us, to follow one another in this order, and that accordingly they always do so.’ (Astronomy, II.11.)

Three points are worth emphasizing before going further: first, Smith places a good deal of weight on ‘conventional’ knowledge8 (i.e. that kind of ‘knowledge’ which is based on customary connection), and on the fact that the imagination is ‘indolent’. As Smith put it, men ‘have seldom had the curiosity to inquire by what process of intermediate events’ a given change is brought about, where ‘the passage of the thought from . . . one object to the other is by custom become quite smooth and easy’ (Astronomy, II.11). In fact Smith had very little more to say about the ori-gin and nature of ‘knowledge’ of this kind.

Secondly, Smith stressed the difference between the philosopher and the ordinary man, while being careful to add that these differences arise ‘not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education’ (WN I.ii.4). But habit, custom, and education can make the philosopher more perceptive, so that just as the botanist differs from the casual gardener, or the musician from the

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generality of his auditors, so he ‘who has spent his whole life in the study of the connecting prin-ciples of nature, will often feel an interval betwixt two objects, which, to more careless observers, seem very strictly conjoined’ (Astronomy, II.11).

Finally, it must be emphasized that in the Astronomy Smith was not so much concerned with the state of ‘composure’ per se, as with the sources of its disturbance, and the nature of those processes by virtue of which that state could be re–established. In fact, Smith was largely con-cerned with a very specific aspect of the problem of ‘knowledge’, namely, the stimulus given to the undertanding by ‘sentiments’ such as surprise, wonder, or admiration. The limited objective of the Astronomy was clearly stated at the outset: ‘It is the design of this Essay to consider particularly the nature and causes of each of these sentiments, whose influence is of far wider extent than we should be apt upon a careless view to imagine.’ (Introduction, 7.)

Smith’s initial argument then is to the effect that when certain objects or events follow in a particular order, ‘they come to be so connected together in the fancy, that the idea of the one seems, of its own accord, to call up and introduce that of the other’. But, while the imagination finds no stimulus to thought under such conditions, Smith went on to argue that this would not be the case where the ‘appearances’ studied were in any way unexpected: ‘We are at first surprised by the unexpectedness of the new appearance, and when that momentary emotion is over, we still wonder how it came to occur in that place.’ (II.8.) In other words, we feel surprise when some object (or number of objects) is drawn to our attention which does not fall into a recognized pat-tern; a sentiment which is quickly followed by that of wonder, where the latter is defined in these terms: ‘The stop which is thereby given to the career of the imagination, the difficulty which it finds in passing along such disjointed objects, and the feeling of something like a gap or interval betwixt them, constitute the whole essence of this emotion.’ (II.9.) Wonder, in short, involves a source of pain (a disutility); a feeling of discomfort which gives rise to uncertainty and ‘anxious curiosity’ and even to ‘giddiness and confusion’. On the other hand, the response to this situation involves the pursuit of some explanation, with a view to relieving the mind from a state of dise-quilibrium (i.e. lack of ‘composure’); a natural reaction, given Smith’s assumptions, designed to eliminate the sense of wonder by providing some appropriate ordering of the phenomena in question, or some plausible account of the links between different objects. Finally, Smith sug-gested that once we have succeeded in providing an acceptable and coherent account of a par-ticular problem, the very existence of that explanation may ‘heighten’ our appreciation of the ‘appearances’ in question. In this way, for example, we learn to admire a complex social structure once its ‘hidden springs’ have been exposed, while in the same way a theory of astronomy may help us to admire the heavens through presenting the ‘theatre of nature’ as a coherent ‘and there-fore a more magnificent spectacle’ (II.12).

Surprise, wonder, and admiration are, therefore, the three sequential sentiments on which Smith’s account of mental stimulus depends.9

Once again, there are a number of points which deserve notice: First, it will be observed, that man is impelled to seek an explanation for observed ‘appearances’ as a result of a subjective feeling of discomfort, and that the resulting explanation or theory is therefore designed to meet some

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psychological need. Nature as a whole, Smith suggests, ‘seems to abound with events which ap-pear solitary and incoherent’ and which therefore ‘disturb the easy movement of the imagination’ (II.12). Under these circumstances, the philosopher feels the disutility involved in the sentiment of wonder; a sentiment which thus emerges as ‘the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature’ (III.3). It follows from this that the explanation offered can only satisfy the mind if it is coherent, capable of accounting for observed appearances, and stated in terms of principles which are at least plausible.10

Secondly, it will be noted that wonder is the first, but not the only principle featured and Smith duly went on to emphasize that philosophical effort involved not only an escape from the contemplation of ‘jarring and discordant appearances’ but also a source of pleasure in its own right; a point made by him in suggesting that men: ‘pursue this study for its own sake, as an origi-nal pleasure or good in itself, without regarding its tendency to procure them the means of many other pleasures’ (III.3). In fact Smith provided many examples of the kinds of pleasure which might be involved in philosophical work. In the LRBL, for example, he noted that ‘It gives us a pleasure to see the phaenomena which we reckoned the most unaccountable, all deduced from some principle (commonly a well known one) and all united in one chain’ (ii.133–4, ed. Lothian, 140). Likewise, in WN he referred to the beauty of a ‘systematical arrangement of different ob-servations connected by a few common principles’ (V.i.f.25), and in the Imitative Arts (II.30), lik-ened the pleasure to be derived from the contemplation of a great system of thought to the intel-lectual and even sensual delights of a ‘well composed concerto of instrumental music’.11

But, perhaps characteristically, Smith noted that such sources of pleasure were not equally accessible even to those of philosophical pretensions; that scientific thought also involved a disci-pline of which not all were capable and that this discipline could sometimes put too great a strain (i.e. a disutility) on the mind even where presented with an organized body of thought. Under some circum-stances at least, ‘too severe an application to study sometimes brings on lunacy and frenzy, in those especially who are somewhat advanced in life, but whose imaginations, from being too late in applying, have not got those habits which dispose them to follow easily the reasonings in the abstract sciences’ (Astronomy, II.10).

III

Most of these points find further illustration in the History of Astronomy itself, where Smith reviewed four main systems of thought, not with a view to judging their ‘absurdity or probability, their agreement or inconsistency with truth and reality’, but rather with a view to considering how far each of them was fitted to ‘sooth(e) the imagination’—‘that particular point of view which belongs to our subject’ (II.12). Looked at in this way, the analysis has a ‘static’ aspect at least in so far as it is designed to show the extent to which each of the four main astronomical systems reviewed does in fact ‘soothe’ the imagination, isolating by this means the characteristics which they have in common. But Smith goes further than his stated object in noting that the sys-tems of astronomy reviewed followed each other in a certain historical sequence, and in exposing

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the causal links which, he felt, might explain that sequence. The essence of Smith’s argument would seem to be that each system at the time of its original appearance did satisfy the needs of the imagination, but that each was subject to a process of modification as new problems came to light; a process of modification which resulted in a degree of complexity which ultimately be-came unacceptable to the imagination. This in turn paves the way for a new kind of respon-se—the production not just of an account, but of an alternative account (in this case of the heav-ens); a new thought–system designed to explain the same problems as the first, at least in its most complex form.

From one point of view this is the classic pattern of cultural history—human activity released within a given environment ultimately causing a qualitative change in that environment—as illus-trated, say, by the development of language or the transition from feudalism to the commercial stage (WN III). But there is a difference, partly because ‘environment’ here relates to a state of ‘knowledge’ and partly because the reactions of individuals are now described as self–conscious—i.e. designed deliberately to modify an existing thought–system or to replace it with a more ac-ceptable alternative.

As a means of illustrating the burden of the argument, it may be helpful to review the origin, development, and decline of the first astronomical system before going on to say something of those which followed it. Specialist comment on the astronomical content (e.g. as to its accuracy) of Smith’s treatment is outwith the competence of the general editors, and must be left to the histo-rian of science.

On Smith’s argument, the first astronomers were faced with the need to explain the move-ments of the Stars, Sun, Moon, and five known planets; a task which was fulfilled in terms of a theory of Solid Spheres each of which was thought to have a circular but regular motion.12 The Stars for example, being fixed in their positions relative to one another, while changing with ref-erence to the observer, ‘were naturally thought to have all the marks of being fixed, like so many gems, in the concave side of the firmament, and of being carried round by the diurnal revolu-tions of that solid body’ (IV.1). Additional Spheres were used to account for the movements of the Sun and Moon (one inside the other to explain the eclipse) with five more for the planets or ‘wandering stars’. The astronomical system which emerged thus represented the Earth as: ‘self balanced and suspended in the centre of the universe, surrounded by the elements of Air and Ether, and covered by eight polished and cristalline Spheres, each of which was distinguished by one or more beautiful and luminous bodies, and all of which revolved round their common cen-tre, by varied, but by equable and proportionable motions’ (IV.5).

Such a system of thought apparently met the needs of the imagination by providing a coher-ent and plausible explanation for observed phenomena, and, in connecting by simple and famil-iar processes the ‘grandest and most seemingly disjointed appearances in the heavens’, added to man’s admiration for them (IV.4).

Indeed, even if some contemporaries recognized that such a system did not account for all ap-pearances, the degree of completeness was such that the generality of men would be tempted to ‘slur over’ (IV.6) such problems rather than qualify in any degree the satisfaction derived from the

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theory itself. In fact, Smith went on to suggest that this beautiful and appealing construction of the intellect might ‘have stood the examination of all ages, and have gone down triumphant to the re-motest posterity’ had there been ‘no other bodies discoverable in the heavens’ (IV.4).

But additional bodies were discovered, and this together with the fact that Eudoxus was not one of the ‘generality of men’ led to the need to modify the existing system and to the addition of more spheres, as a means of accounting for changes in the relative positions of the planets. As a result Eudoxus raised the total number of spheres to 27, Callippus to 34, and Aristotle ‘upon a yet more attentive observation’ to 56 (until Fracastoro, ‘smit with the eloquence of Plato and Ar-istotle and with the regularity and harmony of their system’, felt it necessary to raise the number of spheres to 72, IV.7). In this way the relatively simple system of Eudoxus was gradually modi-fied in order to meet the needs of the imagination when faced with new problems to be ex-plained, until a situation was reached where the explanation offered actually violated the basic prerequisite of simplicity (IV.8).

In consequence, Smith suggests, a second major system was developed—by Apollonius (sub-sequently refined by Hipparchus and Ptolemy)—that of Eccentric Spheres and Epicycles. Once again, therefore, we are presented with a system which was designed to ‘introduce harmony and order into the mind’s conception of the movements’ of the heavenly bodies and which succeeded in so doing at least at one stage of its development. However, the same argument is advanced by Smith; namely, that a gradual process of modification followed as adherents of the new system came to terms with new observations, or newly perceived problems, until a situation was once more reached where this intellectual system or ‘imaginary machine’: ‘though, perhaps, more simple, and certainly better adapted, to the phaenomena than the Fifty–six Planetary Spheres of Aristotle, was still too intricate and complex for the imagination to rest in it with complete tran-quillity and satisfaction’ (IV.19). Indeed, Smith considered that the situation became even more complex and thus unsatisfactory as a result of the efforts of the Schoolmen, and especially those of Peurbach, who laboured with perverse ingenuity to reconcile the first astronomical system (of Concentric Spheres) with the second which had been designed to replace it (IV.25).

The response to this situation was the system of Copernicus: a system prompted, ‘he tells us’, by the confusion ‘in which the old hypothesis represented the motions of the heavenly bodies’ (IV.28).

Like the system which it was to replace, the Copernican managed to account for observed appearances in the manner of a simpler ‘machine’, requiring ‘fewer movements’ and by repre-senting: ‘the Sun, the great enlightener of the universe, whose body was alone larger than all the Planets taken together, as established immoveable in the center, shedding light and heat on all the worlds that circulated around him in one uniform direction, but in longer or shorter periods, ac-cording to their different distances’ (IV.32). This was to prove an attractive hypothesis to some, not merely because of the beauty and coherence of the system, but also because of the novelty of the view of nature which it suggested—emphatically the case with an account which ‘moved the Earth from its foundations, stopt the revolution of the Firmament, made the Sun stand still’ (IV.33).

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Yet at the same time, Smith argued that the system was by no means acceptable to all or even to those who confined their attention to astronomical matters, the difficulty being that Coperni-cus had invested the earth with a velocity which was ‘unfamiliar’, i.e. which ran counter to nor-mal experience. The imagination tended to think of the earth as ponderous ‘and even averse to motion’ (IV.38), and it was this difficulty which led to the formulation of the alternative system of Tycho Brahe—a system partly prompted by jealousy of Copernicus, but none the less a system to some extent compounded of those of the latter and of Ptolemy. In this system, ‘the Earth contin-ued to be, as in the old account, the immoveable center of the universe’ (IV.42). Smith added that Brahe’s account was ‘more complex and more incoherent than that of Copernicus. Such, how-ever, was the difficulty that mankind felt in conceiving the motion of the Earth, that it long bal-anced the reputation of that otherwise more beautiful system’ (IV.43).

In other words, the coherence and simplicity of the Copernican system was qualified by the unfamiliarity of one of its central principles; a problem which was so important as to render a more complex account more acceptable to some than it could otherwise have been. Interestingly enough, Smith represents subsequent developments as involving an attempt to make the more elegant system (of Copernicus) acceptable to the imagination by removing the basic difficulty—i.e. by providing a plausible explanation for the movement of the Earth. In this connection Smith argued that the astronomical work done by Kepler contributed to the completion of the system, while research on the problem of motion by Galileo helped to remove some of the more telling objections to the idea of a moving Earth. But in terms of the general acceptance of the idea of the Earth spinning at high velocity Smith gave most emphasis to the work of Descartes, who had represented the planets as floating in an immense ocean of ether containing ‘at all times, an infi-nite number of greater and smaller vortices, or circular streams’ (IV.62). Once the imagination accepted a hypothesis based on the familiar principle of motion after impulse, it was a short step to the elimination of the central difficulty since ‘it was quite agreeable to its usual habits to con-ceive’ that the planets ‘should follow the stream of this ocean, how rapid soever’ (IV.65). He added, in a significant passage, that under such circumstances: ‘the imaginations of mankind could no longer refuse themselves the pleasure of going along with so harmonious an account of things. The system of Tycho Brahe was every day less and less talked of, till at last it was forgotten altogether’ (Ibid.).

Yet, as Smith went on to note, the modifications introduced by Descartes were not prompted by astronomical knowledge so much as by a desire to produce a plausible explanation for the Co-pernican thesis. Moreover, he noted that further observations, especially those of Cassini, sup-ported the authority of laws first discovered by Kepler for which the Cartesian ‘theory’ could provide no explanation. Under such circumstances, the latter system while it ‘might continue to amuse the learned in other sciences . . . could no longer satisfy those that were skilled in Astron-omy’ (IV.67).

The Cartesian system was to give way to the Newtonian; a theory which was capable of ac-counting for observed phenomena in terms of a small number of basic and familiar principles, and of successfully predicting their future movements. Smith wrote of the Newtonian system

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with real enthusiasm and in his Letter to the Edinburgh Review rejoiced as a ‘Briton’ to find the contributors to the Encyclopédie acknowledge its authority as compared to that of Descartes. Char-acteristically, however, he left readers of the Astronomy with the reminder that ‘all philosophical systems’ are ‘mere inventions of the imagination’, even though he had ‘insensibly been drawn in’ to write as if Newton’s system was objectively true (IV.76; cf. Section V below).

IV

While the papers in this volume help to illustrate Smith’s wide range of interests, they also confirm that he had an extensive knowledge of literature of a broadly scientific kind. The As-tronomy, for example, suggests a very close knowledge of the works of classical authors, together with more modern writers such as Cassini, Kepler, Descartes, Copernicus, and Newton. Other essays extend the list to include Franklin and Linnaeus, while the Letter to the Edinburgh Review calls attention to Boyle and Bacon, together with Continental authors such as d’Alembert, Buf-fon, Daubenton, and Réaumur.13 It is worth observing in this connection that Dugald Stewart called attention to Smith’s unusual knowledge of Continental scientific work (I.25) and consid-ered the ‘mathematical sciences’ to be ‘very favourable subjects for theoretical history’—a fact which may have prompted Smith to undertake ‘perfectly analogous’ inquiries into the wider fields of language and jurisprudence (II.49,50).14

There can be no doubt that Smith regarded such exercises in theoretical history as having a serious scientific purpose or that an essay such as the Astronomy conforms in terms of structure to the general requirements of didactical discourse as set out in LRBL. At the same time, the ar-gument of the Astronomy appears to rely on the use of both reason and experience—partly by virtue of passing in review a series of models which had a historical existence, and partly by ex-plaining their appearance, development, and replacement by reference to a number of principles of human nature whose manifestations could be empirically verified. In this sense, Smith’s meth-odology would seem to conform to the requirements of the Newtonian method properly so called in that he used the techniques of analysis and synthesis in the appropriate order. For, as Colin Maclaurin pointed out: ‘in any other way, we can never be sure that we assume the principles that really obtain in nature; and that our system, after we have composed it with great labour, is not mere dream and illusion’.15

‘Dream and illusion’ . . . yet it is one thing to suggest that the (‘first order’) activities of indi-viduals in the field of philosophy or science can be studied in a ‘scientific way’ (the ‘second order’ enterprise on which Smith was engaged) and another to argue that activity of either kind can al-ways be said to be scientific in the sense of conforming to the ideal of objectivity. Moreover, Smith’s discussion of the principles which lead and direct philosophical inquiries concentrates, as we have seen, on the needs of the imagination—on broadly psychological needs—so that, as Richard Olson has recently pointed out:

The great significance of Smith’s doctrine is that since it measures the value of philosophical systems solely in relation to their satisfaction of the human craving for

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order, it sets up a human rather than an absolute or natural standard for science, and it leaves all science essentially hypothetical. Furthermore, Smith implied that unceas-ing change rather than permanence must be the characteristic of philosophy.16

While this position does seem accurately to express the burden of Smith’s argument as con-tained in the Astronomy, two points might be suggested by way of qualification. First, it should be noted that Smith did not claim an exclusive role for the central principles of surprise, wonder, and admiration, but rather asserted that the part played by these sentiments was ‘of far wider extent than we should be apt upon a careless view to imagine’. Secondly, it is worth remarking that while Smith regarded all theoretical constructions as products of the imagination designed to meet its needs, he also indicated that there was a difference between the natural and moral sci-ences. As he put the point in the TMS (VII.ii.4.14):

A system of natural philosophy may appear very plausible, and be for a long time very generally received in the world, and yet have no foundation in nature, nor any sort of resemblance to the truth. The vortices of Des Cartes were regarded by a very ingenious nation, for near a century together, as a most satisfactory account of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. Yet it has been demonstrated, to the conviction of all mankind, that these pretended causes of those wonderful effects, not only do not actually exist, but are utterly impossible, and if they did exist, could produce no such effects as are ascribed to them. But it is otherwise with systems of moral philosophy, and an author who pretends to account for the origin of our moral sentiments, can-not deceive us so grossly, nor depart so very far from all resemblance to the truth.

And yet by way of qualification almost, Smith had earlier remarked that some philosophers, notably mathematicians, ‘are frequently very indifferent about the reception which they may meet with from the public’, enjoying as they do ‘the most perfect assurance, both of the truth and of the importance of their discoveries’. He added: ‘Natural philosophers, in their independency upon the public opinion, approach nearly to mathematicians, and, in their judgments concerning the merit of their own discoveries and observations, enjoy some degree of the same security and tranquillity.’ (TMS III.2.20.) Passages such as these suggest that ‘truth’ is attainable while at the same time reminding us of the importance of opinion.

But there can be no doubt that Smith did as a matter of fact draw attention to the impor-tance of the subjective side of science both in emphasizing the role of the imagination when re-viewing his basic principles, and in illustrating the working of these principles by reference to the history of astronomy. For example, when speaking of the introduction of the ingenious ‘equaliz-ing circle’ in the system of eccentric spheres, he noted that ‘Nothing can more evidently show, how much the repose and tranquillity of the imagination is the ultimate end of philosophy’ (As-tronomy, IV.13), than this device, and later commented on the ease with which ‘the learned give up the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination’ (IV.35). In the same way, he emphasized the pleasure to be derived from simplicity, order, coher-ence, and indicated that because men find beauty to be a source of pleasure they may unwittingly give the products of the intellect a form which satisfies purely aesthetic criteria. Hence the New-

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tonian ‘method’ as described in LRBL may be used because it is ‘more ingenious and for that rea-son more engaging’ than any other.

Smith also recognized the importance of analogy in suggesting that philosophers, in attempt-ing to explain unusual ‘appearances’, often did so in terms of knowledge gained in unrelated fields. It was suggested that reasoning by analogy might affect the nature of the work done, in the manner of the Pythagoreans who first studied arithmetic and then explained ‘all things by the properties of numbers’—or the modern physician who ‘lately gave a system of moral philosophy upon the principles of his own art’ (Astronomy, II.12): ‘In the same manner also, others have written parallels of painting and poetry, of poetry and music, of music and architecture, of beauty and virtue, of all the fine arts; systems which have universally owed their origin to the lu-cubrations of those who were acuainted with the one art, but ignorant of the other’. Indeed, Smith went further in noting that in some cases the analogy chosen could become not just a source of ‘ingenious similitudes’ but even ‘the great hinge upon which every thing turned’ (ibid.).

This leads on to the discussion of another side of the problem, again illustrated by the As-tronomy, namely that different types of philosopher may produce conflicting accounts of the same phenomena. We have already noted that while at a certain stage of development the Carte-sian system ‘might continue to amuse the learned in other sciences’ it could no longer satisfy those who were skilled in Astronomy (IV.67). But Smith also observed that the Copernican system had been adopted by astronomers even though inconsistent with the systems of physics as then known (IV.35), and that the system of eccentric spheres had been accepted by astronomers and mathematicians, but not by philosophers in general: ‘Each party of them too, had . . . completed their peculiar system or theory of the universe, and no human consideration could then have in-duced them to give up any part of it.’ (IV.18.) As this implies, there may be a certain unwilling-ness to accept ideas formulated in a particular way, and even resistance to the reception of new ones as a result of certain ’prejudices’. Some of these are obvious: for example, the ‘natural prejudices of the imagination’ (IV.52), which partly explained the original resistance to the idea of a moving earth. Others are more complex, especially those which Smith described as prejudices of education.17 For example, Smith pointed out that resistance to the acceptance of Copernican ideas was partly explained by the ’Peripatetic Philosophy, the only philosophy then known in the world’ (IV.38) and added, with reference to the system as a whole that: ‘When it appeared in the world, it was almost universally disapproved of, by the learned as well as by the ignorant. The natural prejudices of sense, confirmed by education, prevailed too much with both, to allow them to give it a fair examination.’ (IV.35.) In the same way, the immediate followers of Copernicus were held to have faced objections which were ‘necessarily connected with that way of conceiving things, which then prevailed universally in the learned world’ (IV.39).

Smith also noted the constraint on the development of new knowledge represented by rever-ence for the past (IV.20, 28) and made a good deal of national prejudice in the Letter to the Edin-burgh Review, observing that the attachment of French philosophers to the system of Descartes had for a time ‘retarded and incumbered the real advancement of the science of nature’ (§ 5).

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Points such as these seem to have been ‘confirmed’ by those whose business it has been to ex-amine the behaviour of philosophers (in Smith’s sense of the term). To go no further than the re-cent past, it is noteworthy that T. S. Kuhn’s work on scientific revolutions also emphasized the problems of communication which exist between proponents of different theories (Smith’s ‘prejudices of education’) while explaining the development of ideas in terms of systems (para-digms) each of which was doomed to destruction.18 Indeed, Kuhn’s argument taken as a whole may seem to suggest broad agreement with Smith’s assessment of the principles of human nature and to support his belief that these principles were constant through time. It was, of course, this thesis that made it possible for the thinker of Smith’s period to conceive of the social sciences as being on a par with the natural, thus matching the achievements of Newton in this field. For Dugald Stewart, the application of this ‘fundamental and leading idea’ to the various branches of theoretical history was to become ‘the peculiar glory of the latter half of the eighteenth century’.19 What Smith does is to leave the reader of these essays in some doubt as to wherein exactly ‘glory’ is to be found: in a contribution to knowledge, or to the composure of the imagination, or both.

V

It remains to note the influence of Hume on Adam Smith’s philosophy of science. In his youth Smith evidently shared the usual interest of philosophers in the theory of knowledge. His essay on the External Senses is just the kind of thing one would expect from an able young phi-losopher. Typically, and for this subject very properly, Smith brings together evidence from scien-tists and arguments from philosophers in order to reach his views. A prominent feature of the essay is his acknowledgement of indebtedness to Berkeley’s New Theory of Vision, from which he is ready to accept much and to criticize a little. There is no reference to the more radical use that Berkeley made of the self–same arguments in the wider theory of his Principles of Human Knowl-edge. Whether or not Smith ever read the latter work, he must surely have learned something of Berkeley’s idealist philosophy from Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature. It therefore seems likely, as Dr. Wightman suggests (133 below), that the essay on the External Senses is a very early piece, written before Smith had read Hume.

If so, the History of Astronomy will have come later. Although it does not mention Hume by name, it shows unmistakable signs of influence from the Treatise of Human Nature. Apart from Humean language about the association of ideas and about degrees of vivacity in sensations, Smith’s account of the imagination seems to be an adaptation of Hume. He does not simply fol-low Hume, however, as he largely followed Berkeley when writing of vision in the essay on the External Senses. His view of the imagination in the History of Astronomy adds a significant ele-ment of originality by applying to the hypotheses of science a notion which Hume had used to explain the beliefs of common sense. That is one point of historical interest in Smith’s account of the imagination here.

Another is that it shows Smith’s appreciation of the positive side of Hume’s epistemology. Scholars have tended to assume that Hume’s contemporaries, like the thinkers of the nineteenth

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century, saw him as simply a sceptic—in the theory of knowledge at any rate. This was certainly true of his most severe critics, Thomas Reid and James Beattie. Hume’s constructive philosophy of human nature, brought out by such twentieth–century scholars as N. Kemp Smith and H. H. Price, was unperceived by Reid and Beattie, and so by the later critics who took their cue from Reid and Beattie.

There is evidence, however, that some of Hume’s contemporaries in Scotland, Adam Smith among them, did not share this blind spot. After Smith’s death, his heir, David Douglas, evidently wrote to John Millar about the manuscripts which Smith had allowed to remain understroyed. We know of this letter from the reply which it evoked. After referring to the essay on the Imitative Arts, Millar continues: ‘Of all his writings, I have most curiosity about the metaphysical work you mention. I should like to see his powers of illustration employed upon the true old Humean phi-losophy.’ The last words imply that Douglas, in his letter, had seen a connection between a work of Smith and the philosophy of Hume. They do not necessarily imply that Douglas would have agreed with Millar in regarding Hume’s philosophy (or the relevant part of Hume’s philosophy) as ‘true’, but they do at least suggest that he would not think the judgement novel or bizarre.

The letter was printed by W. R. Scott in ASSP, 311–13. Scott was not sure whether ‘the meta-physical work’ of Adam Smith that is referred to could be identified. In a note on p. 313 he said there was no trace of thhe manuscript so described, but in an earlier part of the book (p. 115, note 3) he suggested that it might be either an unknown manuscript or the work entitled ‘The Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Enquiries’ that was printed in Smith’s posthumous Essays on Philosophical Subjects. There can be little doubt that this work is what David Douglas was talking about. Each of its three parts carries a title beginning ‘The Principles which lead and di-rect Philosophical Enquiries; illustrated by . . .’. The term ‘illustrated by’ is picked up in John Mil-lar’s phrase, ‘I should like to see his powers of illustration employed . . .’. In fact the ‘metaphysi-cal’ discussion, on Humean lines, occurs only at the beginning of the first and longest essay, the History of Astronomy, but the initial sections of that essay are intended to be a general introduc-tion to the work as a whole. It is these introductory sections that David Douglas must have had in mind when he talked of a ‘metaphysical work’ in the spirit of Hume.

What, then, is particularly Humean about Adam Smith’s view of the history of science and philosophy? Smith follows the dictum of Plato and Aristotle that philosophy begins in wonder, but he gives this a Humean twist. Wonder arises when the smooth course of the imagination is disturbed by an unusual sequence of events. It is assuaged when philosophy (meaning science) shows the unusual event to be part of a system, a customary order, and so enables the imagina-tion to resume an easy passage. Smith describes the work of the imagination in words that recall the doctrine of Hume’s Treatise:

When two objects, however, unlike, have often been observed to follow each other, and have constantly presented themselves to the senses in that order, they come to be so connected together in the fancy, that the idea of the one seems, of its own accord, to call up and introduce that of the other. If the objects are still observed to succeed each other as before, this connection, or, as it has been called, this association of their

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ideas, becomes stricter and stricter, and the habit of the imagination to pass from the conception of the one to that of the other, grows more and more rivetted and con-firmed. . . . When objects succeed each other in the same train in which the ideas of the imagination have thus been accustomed to move, . . . such objects appear all closely connected with one another, and the thought glides easily along them, without effort and without interruption. . . . There is no break, no stop, no gap, no interval. The ideas excited by so coherent a chain of things seem, as it were, to float through the mind of their own accord, without obliging it to exert itself, or to make any effort in order to pass from one of them to another.

But if this customary connection be interrupted, if one or more objects appear in an order quite different from that to which the imagination has been accustomed, and for which it is prepared, the contrary of all this happens. . . . The imagination no longer feels the usual facility of passing from the event which goes before to that which comes after. . . . The fancy is stopped and interrupted in that natural move-ment or career, according to which it was proceeding. Those two events seem to stand at a distance from each other; it endeavours to bring them together, but they refuse to unite; and it feels, or imagines it feels, something like a gap or interval betwixt them. It . . . endeavours to find out something which may fill up the gap, which like a bridge, may so far at least unite those seemingly distant objects, as to render the pas-sage of the thought betwixt them smooth, and natural, and easy. The supposition of a chain of intermediate, though invisible, events, which succeed each other in a train similar to that in which the imagination has been accustomed to move, and which link together those two disjointed appearances, is the only means by which the imagi-nation can fill up this interval, is the only bridge which, if one may say so, can smooth its passage from the one object to the other. (Astronomy, II.7–8)

Smith is drawing here on Hume’s account both of causation and of our belief in an external world. He writes not only of constant conjunction but also of coherence in our experience. When he describes the ‘interruption’ of customary connections and of the ‘smooth passage’ of the imagi-nation (or ‘the fancy’ or ‘the thought’), and when he proceeds to say that the imagination fills up the gap by supposing a chain of intermediate though invisible events, he is making use of Hume’s doctrine in Treatise, I.iv.2, the section entitled ‘Of scepticism with regard to the senses’. Smith is not simply taking over Hume’s theory, for Hume deals with our belief in the continued existence of material things while Smith talks about scientific theory. But Smith is adapting Hume’s ac-count of the imagination from the one subject to the other. Smith thinks that philosophy or sci-ence is an enlargement of commonsense belief as represented by Hume. Philosophy, ‘the science of the connecting principles of nature . . . may be regarded as one of those arts which address themselves to the imagination’ (§ 12). Of course Hume himself says that systems of philosophy are also a product of the imagination, but his description of the processes of the imagination in filling up gaps comes into his account of our ordinary belief in an external world, and that is what Adam Smith uses in his account of scientific theory.

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The Humean character of this section of Smith’s History of Astronomy immediately strikes the modern scholar who is familiar with H. H. Price’s book, Hume’s Theory of the External World (1940). It seems that David Douglas saw it in the same sort of way and that his conception of Hume’s philosophy included the role of the imagination in building up our beliefs about the world. There can be little doubt that Adam Smith himself appreciated this side of Hume. Al-though his debt to Hume is not explicitly acknowledged in the Astronomy, the phrases from the Treatise are unmistakable.

Smith takes seriously his conclusion that scientific theory is the work of the imagination. His History of Astronomy leads up to a detailed account of the theory of Newton. While Smith writes in more than one place of the attractions of the Newtonian system to the imagination, his description of it very naturally uses at times the language of objective fact. So he ends by recog-nizing that a work of imagination can seem to be the discovery of truth.

And even we, while we have been endeavouring to represent all philosophical sys-tems as mere inventions of the imagination, to connect together the otherwise dis-jointed and discordant phaenomena of nature, have insensibly been drawn in, to make use of language expressing the connecting principles of this one, as if they were the real chains which Nature makes use of to bind together her several operations. Can we wonder then, that it should have gained the general and complete approba-tion of mankind, and that it should now be considered, not as an attempt to connect in the imagination the phaenomena of the Heavens, but as the greatest discovery that ever was made by man, the discovery of an immense chain of the most important and sublime truths, all closely connected together, by one capital fact, of the reality of which we have daily experience. (IV.76)

Smith seems to be implying here that it is in fact a mistake, though a natural one, to think of Newton’s system as the discovery of objective truths and to think of gravity as a ‘real chain’ that binds operations in nature. This belief is an ‘illusion of the imagination’, to use a Humean phrase that Smith borrows in The Theory of Moral Sentiments,20 composed a little later than the History of Astronomy. The Moral Sentiments is much concerned with the role of the imagination in moral judgement, but there is one place where Smith also relates it to economics. This comes at the be-ginning of Part IV. Again Smith builds on a doctrine of Hume. Hume, he says, has explained the beauty of utility. The owner of a useful object receives aesthetic pleasure from it by being re-minded of its convenience. A spectator receives similar pleasure by sympathy. We find ‘the pal-aces of the great’ beautiful because we imagine the satisfaction we would get if we owned and used them. Smith then adds his own contribution, that we often come to set a greater value on the convenient means than on the end which they were designed to promote. ‘The poor man’s son, whom heaven in its anger has visited with ambition,’ goes beyond admiration of palaces to envy. He labours all his life to outdo his competitors, only to find in the end that the rich are no happier than the poor in the things that really matter. ‘And it is well that nature imposes on us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of man-kind.’ The individual does not reap for himself the full benefit of his exertions; there is a benefit to society at large, for the rich ‘are led by an invisible hand’ to distribute much of their substance

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among a circle of retainers, and so, ‘without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species’ (TMS IV.1.8–10).

Smith has an ambivalent attitude to this ‘deception’ by nature or the imagination. On the one hand, he says it is a deception; the ambition of the poor man’s son is unfortunate, a visitation of the anger of heaven, and is succeeded in the end by the discovery that power and riches afford little satisfaction and are dangerous. On the other hand, this realization of the truth is a ‘splenetic philosophy’ that comes to us only ‘in the languour of disease and the weariness of old age’. In a normal healthy state we let our imagination run away with us, and this is just as well because the deception is useful to society and mankind. At any rate Smith is clear that it is a deception and that there is an alternative view which is true, though apparently less preferable.

Would he say quite the same of Newton’s scientific theory? He does imply that we are de-ceived in thinking the theory to be a discovery of truth and not just an ‘invention’ of the imagina-tion. But would he be ready to add that it is therefore false and that there is, or could be, an alter-native theory which is true? Apparently not, for he puts all scientific theories in the same boat. Are there then no objective truths of astronomy to be discovered, or is the position rather that there are truths of nature but they cannot be discovered by man because he has to rely on his imagination?

There is one important difference between Hume’s view of the external world and Adam Smith’s view of Newtonian mechanics. Hume began his discussion by distinguishing two ques-tions. ‘We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but ’tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.’ Smith has endeavoured to answer the Humean question. ‘What causes induce us to believe in the existence of gravity?’ He would not, however, have added: ‘But ’tis in vain to ask, Whether there be gravity or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.’ Earlier theories of astronomy did not include a belief in gravity; and if anyone had suggested to Smith that a later theory might abandon Newton’s concept of gravity and explain the observed facts in a different way, Smith would have agreed that this was quite possible. So although he is following Hume in the type of explanation that he gives, there is an important difference in their conclu-sions. In Smith’s time it was a bold thing to say that Newton’s mechanics was an ‘invention of the imagination’ rather than a discovery of truth, but it was far less bold than Hume’s theory that belief in a continuing material world is due to ‘fiction’ by the imagination. Since past systems of astronomy had done without gravity, one could conceive that future systems might dispense with it. There is no analogue in a history of different systems of ordering common experience. The belief in continuing material bodies has not been preceded by one or more different ways of in-terpreting sense experience, in consequence of which we could conceive of yet another interpre-tation becoming standard at some future time.

When Smith writes that scientists have imagined inventions he does not say they have in-vented science fiction—or any other sort of fiction. But he does contrast an invention by the imagination with a discovery of truth, and so he implies that scientific theory cannot be true. The constructions of scientific theory are like the constructions of perceptual belief in Hume’s theory

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of the external world because both are intended to render coherent the data of experience. But they are also unlike in that one scientific theory is succeeded by another; and today we should be more ready than Adam Smith to think that the replacement of the currently favoured theory of physics or astronomy is not just possible but probable. The replacement of one theory by another is not always in order to accommodate new empirical facts. The new facts could often be ac-commodated within a revised, but more complicated, version of the old theory. The new theory may be preferred because it is simpler or because it can be connected more directly with the the-ory of a related branch of science. If so, the criteria for preference are quasi–logical and aes-thetic, like the criteria that shape the course of the imagination in Hume’s theory of the external world. Is it then proper to claim that the preferred theory is more true than its rival? In these days of relativity theory, physics itself seems to cast doubt on any idea of strictly objective truths in nature independent of observers at different points of space and time. Adam Smith’s view of sci-ence appears more perceptive today than it will have done in the eighteenth century.

Endnotes

[1] For a related account of the views expressed in Sections I–IV of this Introduction, see A. S. Skinner, ‘Adam Smith: Science and the Role of the Imagination’, in W. B. Todd, ed., Hume and the Enlightenment (1974). Much of Section V is drawn from part of a paper by D. D. Raphael pre-viously printed (under the title ‘ “The true old Humean philosophy” and its influence on Adam Smith’) in G. P. Morice, ed., David Hume: Bicentenary Papers (1977) and now reproduced by permis-sion of the Edinburgh University Press.

[2] Smith has been seen by some commentators to have had something of a preoccupation with Descartes. See, for example, S. Moscovici, ‘A propos de quelque travaux d’Adam Smith sur l’histoire et la philosophie des sciences’ in Revue d’Histoire des Sciences et de leurs Applications, ix (1956), section 3.

[3] Letter 69 addressed to George Baird, dated Glasgow, 7 February 1763.

[4] Interestingly enough, it is remarked in TMS IV.2.7 that: ‘It is in the abstruser sciences, particularly in the higher parts of mathematics, that the greatest and most admired exertions of human reason have been displayed.’

[5] History of Economic Analysis (1954), 182.

[6] This point is emphasized by Moscovici, op. cit., 5.

[7] See J. F. Becker, ‘Adam Smith’s Theory of Social Science’, Southern Economic Journal, xxviii (1961–2).

[8] J. R. Lindgren considers that this point has often been given less than its due weight: The Social Philosophy of Adam Smith (1973), 6, and see generally chapter 1 together with the same author’s ‘Adam Smith’s Theory of Inquiry’, Journal of Political Economy, lxxvii (1969).

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[9] Vernard Foley has emphasized the importance of classical sources, especially that of Ar-istotle, in this connection. The Social Physics of Adam Smith (1976), chap. 2.

[10] For comment, see T. D. Campbell, Adam Smith’s Science of Morals (1971), chap. 1.

[11] The importance of aesthetic considerations is particularly noted by H. F. Thomson, ‘Adam Smith’s Philosophy of Science’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, lxxix (1965).

[12] Much later in the argument Smith provided an interesting explanation for such choices. The circle was used, he suggests, because it ‘is of all curve lines the simplest and the most easily conceived’ (IV.51) while ‘an equal motion can be more easily attended to, than one that is con-tinually either accelerated or retarded’ (IV.52).

[13] It is conceivable that Smith’s knowledge of contemporary work in biology may have in-fluenced his historical outlook. See Skinner, op. cit., 181–2.

[14] A major direct influence was probably Rousseau, whose work features in the Letter to the Edinburgh Review.

[15] An Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries (1748, ed. 3, 1775), 9.

[16] Scottish Philosophy and British Physics, 1750–1880 (1975), 123. The hypothetical element in Smith’s thought is also noted by Moscovici, op. cit.

[17] Cf. Home, A Treatise of Human Nature, I.iii.x.1: ‘But tho’ education be disclaim’d by phi-losophy, as a fallacious ground of assent to any opinion, it prevails nevertheless in the world, and is the cause why all systems are apt to be rejected at first as new and unusual.’ Hume’s influence on Smith is the subject of the following section.

[18] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).

[19] Works, ed. Hamilton (1854), i.70.

[20] Hume, Treatise (ed. Selby–Bigge), 267; cf. 200, and ‘illusion of the fancy’, 314, 360: Smith, TMS III.2.4; cf. I.iii.2.2, II.i.5.11, IV.1.9.

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2. Introduction to Works edited and introduced by W.P.D. Wightman [Astronomy, Ancient Physics, etc]

To the inquiring layman, Adam Smith was the author of the Wealth of Nations; to the philoso-pher, of a comparable classic, the Theory of Moral Sentiments; these were the only books published in his lifetime. Within five years of his death (1790), however, appeared under the editorship of his two friends, Joseph Black and James Hutton, a substantial volume entitled Essays on Philosophi-cal Subjects . . . to which is prefixed an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author by Dugald Stewart. Though far less celebrated than the two major works the EPS nevertheless appeared during the next hundred years in at least eight editions, including one from Revolutionary Paris and one from Basel (see Bibliographical Note, Nos. 3, 4). In the present century the book has acquired a renewed interest, attention having been drawn principally to the first three essays, consideration of which has formed the basis of a significant secondary literature. The subject of each of these essays is the history of a branch of science, namely, of Astronomy, of the Ancient Physics, and of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics. Of these the first alone is of any considerable length; the other two are hardly more than fragments. To none of them would a modern scholar turn for enlightenment on the history of the sciences; at most he could expect to discover what an out-standing mind living in the second half of the eighteenth century believed to represent the histories of these subjects. Wherein then lies the attraction to writers during recent decades? It lies in the full titles of the three essays: The Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Enquiries; illustrated by the History of Astronomy; the preamble is repeated before each of the other two histories. It might be conjectured from this that the first three essays are to be taken rather as chapters in a book than as separate pieces; that such a conjecture might be correct is supported by the Advertisement of the editors in which they emphasize that though immediately before his death Smith had de-stroyed many other manuscripts, he had left these ‘in the hands of his friends to be disposed of as they thought proper’, and that on inspection ‘the greater number of them appeared to be parts of a plan he once had formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts’ but that he had long since ‘found it necessary to abandon that plan as far too extensive’. Though there is now no trace of the manuscripts on which the collection was based, we know from other sources that this is hardly an adequate account. of the allegedly projected history was to embrace the ‘elegant arts’ why was the telling preamble to the first three essays omitted from the remain-der? To the modern reader it seems evident that whereas the former, inadequate though they may now appear, do conform to a unitary and highly significant plan, the remainder, though not without their interesting features, are neither treated historically nor do they illustrate the ‘princi-ples which lead and direct philosophical enquiry’. The editors, though in other respects men of high eminence, were not noted for scholarship as such. We must turn to other sources to discover what part the composition of these essays played in the author’s intellectual scheme of things.

Fortunately we do not have to look beyond the volume itself: the Essays were preceded by a long and detailed ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith’, read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1793 and subsequently published in their Transactions. The author was Dugald Stewart, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh from 1785 to 1810, and

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the editor of the first Collected Works of Smith published in 1811–12. Towards the end of this ‘Ac-count’ is cited Smith’s earliest reference to the EPS of which we have any knowledge; it was con-tained in letter (137) to David Hume dated ‘Edinburgh, 16th. April 1773’ when Smith was pre-paring to go to London where he expected to remain some time. In the expectation that Hume would in the event of his own earlier death act as his literary executor, Smith insisted that of all the papers he was about to leave behind ‘there are none worth the publishing but a fragment of a great work which contains a history of the Astronomical Systems that were successively in fashion down to the time of Des Cartes. Whether that might not be published as a fragment of an in-tended juvenile work, I leave entirely to your judgment; tho I begin to suspect myself that there is more refinement than solidity in some parts of it.’ There is neither here nor anywhere else refer-ence to other ‘fragments’ such as the Ancient Physics and Ancient Logics that ultimately came to be published in the same volume as the Astronomy; the possible significance of this omission will be discussed later (below, 26–7).

In 1773 Smith was already fifty; it is unlikely, therefore, that he would have referred to any work as ‘juvenile’ except such as had been written many years earlier. This supposition receives some support from his asking (Astronomy, II.12) ‘Why has the chemical philosophy in all ages crept along in obscurity, and been so disregarded by the generality of mankind . . . ?’ How Smith could have formed such a judgement nearly a century after the prominence of Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke at the Royal Society it is difficult to understand; but such an opinion would surely have been modified by intercourse with William Cullen with whom Smith is known1 to have been on intimate terms after he assumed the Glasgow Chair of Logic in 1751. Since by 1748, almost two years after relinquishing the Snell Exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford, he must have been heavily engaged in the preparation and reading of his lectures on belles–lettres at Edin-burgh, it has been fairly generally assumed that he at least laid the foundation of the History of Astronomy at Oxford; but from further internal evidence it may be inferred that he did not finish it there. Towards the end of the Astronomy Smith wrote that ‘the observations of Astronomers at Lapland and Peru have fully confirmed Sir Isaac’s system’ (IV.72); Bouguer’s account of his ob-servations in Peru confirming Newton’s model of the figure of the Earth was published in 1749—three years after Smith left Balliol.

The reader may have noticed a discrepancy between this reference to ‘Sir Isaac’s [Newton] system’ and (in the letter to David Hume) the description of the History as being of the astro-nomical systems that were successively in fashion down to the time of Descartes: the last ten pages of the original printed text are in fact devoted to establishing ‘the superior genius and sa-gacity of Sir Isaac Newton’. Relevant to this question is the editors’ terminal note: ‘The Author, at the end of this Essay, left some Notes and Memorandums, from which it appears, that he con-sidered this last part of his History of Astronomy as imperfect, and needing several additions. The Editors, however, chose rather to publish than to suppress it. It must be viewed, not as a His-tory or Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Astronomy, but chiefly as an additional illustration of those Principles in the Human Mind which Mr. Smith has pointed out to be the universal mo-tives of Philosophical Researches.’

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This is consistent with the view put forward above that though the Astronomy may well have been largely composed in Oxford the ‘last part’ of it could have been added after Smith’s return to Scotland. That even this ‘last part’ was written before 1758 appears from his statement (Astron-omy, IV.74) that Newton’s ‘followers have, from his principles, ventured even to predict the re-turns of several of them [sc. comets], particularly of one which is to make its appearance in 1758. We must wait for that time . . .’. Thus the text; a footnote on the same page reads: ‘It must be observed, that the whole of this Essay was written previous to the date here mentioned; and that the return of the comet happened agreeably to the prediction.’ There is in the original text no indication as to who added this note; but P. Prevost, the translator of the French edition (see Bibliographical Note 3), describes the note as ‘de l’editeur anglais’. Since Prevost was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and claimed to be personally acquainted with Dugald Stewart he may have had first–hand information.

The apparent discrepancy in the letter to Hume disappears if it is recalled that Smith was expressing an opinion as to what of his literary remains might be worthy of publication: the ‘Notes and Memorandums’ referred to in the editors’ final note to the Astronomy, suggest that Smith was more than doubtful as to whether the ‘last part’ should qualify.

The period 1746–8 when Smith was residing at Kirkcaldy with his mother and before he was committed to the reading of lectures on Rhetoric and Belles–Lettres at Edinburgh would seem as likely as any for laying the foundation of a project on the scale that he is known to have envis-aged. Whether the other two ‘fragments’ were composed during that period is a matter of no special consequence; there would, at any rate, be no inconsistency in his having spoken more than once [and presumably much later] to Dugald Stewart of having ‘projected, in the earlier part of his life, a history of the other sciences on the same plan’ (Stewart, II.52) and of his editors having referred to a ‘plan he had once formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sci-ences and elegant arts’. There were, of course, neither then nor for a long time afterwards, any Faculties of Science in the Scottish universities and the boundary between ‘arts’ and ‘sciences’ was hardly, if at all, clearly drawn. ‘Logics and Metaphysics’ are still mainly the concern of Fac-ulties of Arts, as would also be the sort of ‘ancient physics’ that Smith was describing in the essay so entitled.

There is extant one other allusion by Smith which, though somewhat inconsistent with those that have been referred to, cannot be ignored in any attempt to date the composition of the EPS. It occurs in a letter (248) to the Duc de La Rochefoucauld written from Edinburgh in November 1785 but not published until 1895; the relevant section runs as follows:

I have likewise two other great works upon the anvil; the one is a sort of Philo-sophical History of all the different branches of Literature, of Philosophy, Poetry and Eloquence; the other is a sort of theory and History of Law and Government. The materials of both are in a great measure collected, and some Part of both is put into tollerable good order. But the indolence of old age, tho’ I struggle violently against it, I feel coming fast upon me, and whether I shall ever be able to finish either is ex-tremely uncertain.

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Now whereas the description of the former of these ‘other great works’ could well refer to the Histories of Astronomy, Ancient Physics, and Logics and Metaphysics included in the Essays on Philosophical Subjects, the remaining essays, though falling under the generous heading of ‘Litera-ture, Philosophy, Poetry and Eloquence’, are almost wholly devoid of any reference to any his-torical development. Moreover, the limited range of topics hardly warrants the claim that the ‘materials’ were ‘in a great measure collected’. In the fitful light of such evidence as is now avail-able it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that after the exacting labour of the Wealth of Nations with its successive revisions Smith’s ‘great work on a sort of philosophical history’ existed more in the hope of realizing a youthful ambition than in any adequate progress towards its achievement.2 Fortunately the impossibility of any precise dating of its components does not preclude further fruitful consideration of the part this ambition continued to play in Smith’s intel-lectual development.

In 1755, four years after Smith had been appointed to the Glasgow Chair, he wrote the two well–known letters to the Edinburgh Review. In the second of these letters Smith evidently consid-ered himself so much a master of the state of the sciences in Europe as to include a critical re-view of ‘the new French Encyclopedia’ (below, 245–8); and though the modern reader will detect a certain degree of superficiality—not to say even contradiction—in his judgements he had clearly a wide–ranging knowledge relevant to the task. Among the contributors he refers to—‘many of them already known to foreign nations by the valuable works which they have pub-lished’ (Letter, §6)—he singles out ‘Mr. Alembert’ and ‘Mr. Diderot’ and refers to the former’s famous Discours préliminaire.

A perusal of d’Alembert’s Discours reveals a strong resemblance to Smith’s approach to the ‘principles which lead and direct philosophical enquiries’. In his stress on what he called Smith’s ‘Theoretical or Conjectural History’ Dugald Stewart (II.49) expressed the view that the ‘mathe-matical sciences, both pure and mixed, afford, in many of their branches, very favourable sub-jects for theoretical history’; and he went on to note d’Alembert’s recommendation of this his-torical approach for teaching. More striking still, he follows this reference by instancing a passage in Montucla’s Histoire des mathématiques (Paris, 1758) which included long sections on ‘mixed’ mathematics (viz. astronomy, mechanics, optics, and their applications) where an attempt is made to ‘exhibit the gradual progress of philosophical speculation, from the first conclusions suggested by a general survey of the heavens, to the doctrines of Copernicus. It is somewhat remarkable, that a theoretical history of this very science . . . was one of Mr. Smith’s earliest compositions’. Since Stewart shared with Smith the habit of almost total lack of significant documentation, we do not know where he read d’Alembert’s reference to Montucla, but it obviously could not have been in the first (1751) edition of the Encyclopédie, which we know to have been in Smith’s hands before 1755.

Although we can beyond all reasonable doubt reject any charge of plagiarism, there is never-theless one feature in Smith’s appreciation of the Encyclopédie that must strike us as rather odd: in acclaiming the outstanding quality of d’Alembert’s contributions he makes no mention of the strong affinity between the latter’s views on the nature, significance, and enlargement of ‘philoso-

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phy’ and those we believe he had already set forth in the ‘historical’ essays. Smith’s review of the Encyclopédie was part of the evidence he submitted to the ‘Authors’ of the newly founded Edinburgh Review in support of the proposal that they should enlarge the scope of their Review to include not only English but also European letters. Is it not a matter for some surprise that a young man, little more than thirty, recently established as the leading philosophical teacher in a small but ancient university, should not in such circumstances have at least briefly impressed upon the Review the universal significance of the Discours préliminaire? D’Alembert, though only six years older than Smith, was already accepted as one of the most brilliant analytical and comprehensive of Euro-pean minds: a mathematician of the first rank, who appreciated both the power of mathematics and its limitations as a mode for ‘philosophy’ in general, and whose concern for this ‘philosophy’ was primarily in its significance for human welfare. The broad agreement of the views of such an authority with this ‘juvenile’ plan would, one might have supposed, have prompted Smith to a more enthusiastic welcome to the Discours than that ‘Mr. Alembert gives an account of the con-nection of the different arts and sciences, their genealogy and filiation, as he calls it; which, a few alterations and corrections excepted, is nearly the same with that of my Lord Bacon’ (Letter, §6). It is perhaps necessary to emphasize that the ‘broad agreement’ in the views of Smith and d’Alembert was mainly (as noted above) in respect of their approach. A review of the details of their argument would here be out of place; but one especially marked difference in their empha-sis may be the clue to the puzzle: it is that whereas Smith sets so much store on ‘wonder’ and ‘surprise’ (below, 13–14), d’Alembert, following Bacon, stresses the greater significance of ‘need and use’ in discovery—a position that the author of the Wealth of Nations as dogmatically rejects (Astronomy, III.3). Could it have been that the ‘juvenile’ author of the Essays on Philosophical Sub-jects held his horses in the hope that an opportunity would later present itself for the systematic refutation of a theory whose wrong–headedness he evidently deplored?

Though this account of the circumstances of time, place, and purpose of the composition of the EPS has been if not wholly negative at least mainly ‘conjectural’, it may have given some in-sight into the nature of the undertaking and the reason for its continued interest to scholars. Ref-erence to d’Alembert’s Discours has shown that Smith’s attempt at ‘conjectural history’ was no iso-lated phenomenon; Dugald Stewart claims that the ‘expression . . . coincides pretty nearly in its meaning with that of Natural History, as employed by Mr. Hume [i.e. The Natural History of Religion, 1757], and with what some French writers have called Histoire Raisonnée’ (Stewart, II.48). Among examples of the latter he names Montesquieu’s Esprit des lois (1748). The title of that great work is itself indicative of what many writers were doing at that time: Paul Hazard reminds us of the numerous attempts to distil the Esprit of this, that, and the other; frequently by means of a search for the origin and growth of the ‘science’ or ‘art’ concerned. The Encyclopédie was not the first to envisage this task: something of the same sort had appeared in Ephraim Chambers’s relatively concise Cyclopaedia; or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1728), but never before had it been accomplished in such a penetrating manner or on such an immense scale.

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The History of Astronomy

The importance of this essay to modern scholars lies mainly in the preamble and the first three sections; these contain a statement and elaboration of the chief ‘principles’ that Smith be-lieved to ‘lead and direct philosophical enquiries’. The History of Astronomy sensu stricto, that be-gins only in Section IV, is of interest partly as an indication of contemporary knowledge of the subject, but mainly for the incidental remarks made by the author in pursuance of his central aim. Though acceptable to a modern historian in its main lines, it contains so many errors of de-tail and not a few serious omissions as to be no longer more than a museum specimen of its kind. This is not to deny its high merit for an age when systematic study of the history of the sciences was in its infancy. But by 1758 a student would have been better advised to read Jean–Étienne Montucla’s Histoire des mathématiques (written incidentally in the enlightened spirit characteristic of the young Adam Smith) which by 1802 had been revised and extended by Jérôme de Lalande. The first history of astronomy still used as an important work of reference was completed by Jean–Baptiste–Joseph Delambre in 1827.

In any attempt to assess the success of Smith’s enterprise we are met at the outset by his in-consistent and ill–defined terminology ‘philosophy is the science . . . Philosophy . . . may be re-garded as one of those arts . . .’ (both in Astronomy, II.12). In fact the terms philosophy, physics, arts, sciences, and natural philosophy are used almost indiscriminately. In this of course he was not alone: Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, Introduction) speaks of ‘philosophy and the sciences’, which seems to promise a distinction more in line with modern usage; but by including Natural Religion and Criticism among the ‘sciences’ he introduced a possible source of confusion. The actual words ‘natural science’ in the sense of an ‘inquiry by reason alone into all things in the natural kingdom of God’ were first used by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan; but ‘natural philosophy’ was preferred (though not in the restricted sense still current in the Scottish universities) through-out the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first demarcation between ‘science’ and ‘art’ is attributed by the Oxford English Dictionary to Richard Kirwan: ‘Previous to the year 1780 mineral-ogy tho’ tolerably understood as an art could scarcely be termed a science’ (1796). James Hutton about the same time wrote that ‘philosophy must proceed in generalising those truths which are the objects of particular sciences’. In respect of the recent blossoming of the so–called ‘social sci-ences’ the failure of English to distinguish the species Naturwissenschaft from the genus Wissenschaft has become even more embarrassing than heretofore.

Had Smith consistently used ‘philosophy’ to include natural philosophy, leaving it to the con-text to indicate whether the general term or the specific application was concerned, there could, in relation to the period, be no quarrel. When he writes (Astronomy, IV.18) ‘Philosophers, long before the days of Hipparchus [c. 140 b.c.], seem to have abandoned the study of nature . . .’ and to have regarded ‘all mathematicians, among whom they counted astronomers’ with ‘supercilious and ignorant contempt’ his usage (whatever we may think of his judgement) was in general accord with ancient and medieval practice.

In the Middle Ages the interpretation of ‘philosophy’ varied from one university to another. Roughly speaking when the trivium was enlarged under the term studia humanitatis (and in many

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cases the quadrivium, as such, disappeared in practice), ‘philosophy’ meant moral philosophy. Mathematics and astronomy, together with ‘natural philosophy’ (more often called ‘physics’), be-came mainly the concern of the Faculty of Medicine; this was especially the case in the Italian universities. But Smith’s judgement cited above follows a brief account of the epicyclic and ec-centric systems of planetary motion by which ‘those philosophers (IV.9) imagined they could ac-count for the apparently unequal velocities of all those bodies’. Who are ‘those philosophers’? It was, we are told, Apollonius (IV.8) who ‘invented’ the system and Hipparchus who ‘afterwards perfected’ it. Apollonius was a mathematician of the calibre of Eudoxus and Euclid; Hipparchus pioneered the branch of mathematics that came long afterwards to be known as spherical trigo-nometry and he was also among the greatest observers of all time. Most of the astronomical works of each were irretrievably lost; but to neither is any interest in ‘philosophy’ attributed—a fact at which Smith himself hints in another context (Astronomy, IV.25) where he speaks of ‘the philosophy of Aristotle, and the astronomy of Hipparchus’. The precise distinction made by the Greeks themselves will be cited in the Introduction to the essay on ‘The Ancient Physics’.

It would of course be absurd to demand precisely demarcated categories which would only stifle attempts to reveal latent relationships. But that in relation to the age of Adam Smith there are traps easily fallen into is shown by a recent comment3 that Smith referred to Isaac Newton ‘as a philosopher not scientist’. From Smith’s use of the term in this context nothing can be in-ferred, since the word ‘scientist’ did not exist before 1839. The use of such expressions as ‘Adam Smith’s philosophy of science’ may similarly be a source of confusion; better to risk a charge of repetitiveness and pedantry than that of circularity; each reference must be explicated on its own merits.

This caveat has an indirect bearing on the introductory sections of the Astronomy. Smith’s aim in this and the succeeding essays was to show how these histories illustrate ‘the principles which lead and direct philosophical enquiries’. Having in the first three paragraphs given the barest hint of the relevance of ‘surprise’ and ‘wonder’ to these ‘principles’ he reviews at what may seem inordinate length the influence of the sentiments of surprise and wonder on the emo-tions of joy, grief, panic, frenzy, etc. The modern reader, especially one unfamiliar with the per-vasive significance accorded to the ‘passions’ by Smith and his contemporaries, may feel puzzled to know what all this has to do with the clearly expressed aim of the essays. Smith might have been wise to recall Bacon’s words that such observations are ‘well inquired and collected in meta-physic, but in physic they are impertinent’ (Advancement of Learning II.vii.7). But after a dozen pages the rhetorical fog lifts: the ‘surprise’ excited in the observer by the motion of a piece of iron ‘without any visible impulse, in consequence of the motion of a loadstone at some little distance from it’ and the ‘wonder’ how it came to be ‘conjoined to an event with which, according to the ordinary train of things, he could have so little suspected it to have any connection’ (II.6) establish the thesis in the clearest possible manner. The further deployment of the thesis, even if unneces-sarily prolonged, displays Smith’s elegant and imaginative style at its best. Had he but set his own words ‘philosophy is the science of the connecting principles of nature’ at the beginning instead of near the end, and then avoided the trap in the ill–defined term ‘philosophy’, this section might well have ranked as the most fundamental in the whole work. Though not free from confusion,

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the concluding pages of this section reveal in greater emphasis Smith’s ‘principles of philosophi-cal enquiries’. Central among these is an interpretation of causal investigation as a search for a ‘bridge’; the examples here are much more convincing. The special characteristics of this ‘bridge’ or ‘chain’ are analogy to more familiar objects, coherence, and—of special significance for the modern scholar—‘without regarding their absurdity or probability, their agreement or inconsis-tency with truth and reality’ (II.12). This remarkable passage is our justification for caution in speaking about what has been called ‘Smith’s philosophy of science’. For Smith himself who, as we have seen, defines ‘philosophy’ as ‘the science of the connecting principles of nature’ the term could have no clear connotation; nor could it for anyone until the term ‘science’ was restricted to what Smith is here calling ‘philosophy’. There is still no general agreement as to the range of the ‘philosophy of science’; but that it is essentially meta–science, or talk about science, would probably not be contested. Of this there could not in Smith’s time be any explicit recognition. No doubt the study of his enterprise will shed light on the nature of the problems to be talked about; but in respect of its ‘systems’ his inquiry was less about their truth than about ‘how far each of them was fitted to sooth(e) the imagination, and to render the theatre of nature a more coherent, and therefore a more magnificent spectacle, than otherwise it would have appeared to be’ (ibid.). This has certainly a modern ring about it; but a modern ‘philosophy of science’ that thus ignored the problem of truth would get rather a cold reception. It is thus less the philosophy of science than the history of the idea of the ‘philosophy of science’ that Smith’s enterprise is likely to illuminate.4

The dubious historiography and scrappy exposition of Section III—‘Of the Origin of Phi-losophy’—are characteristic of the ‘Age of Reason’: imaginative liveliness creates a colourful stage upon which the drama of Western culture is to take its rise. Regrettably ‘imagination’5 aided and abetted but not controlled by ‘reason’ takes command; and what was in the circum-stances inevitably no more than a ‘likely story’ is presented with a degree of naïve dogmatism and assurance that would be beguiling if it had not engendered distorted attitudes in the long shadows of which we are still living. The danger of ‘conjectural history’ is thus made only too plain; justification of this rather critical assessment may most suitably wait on textual commen-tary.

In Section IV we are plunged rather abruptly into ‘The History of Astronomy’ proper: abruptly, since Smith has already stated that it is from Plato and Aristotle that he will ‘begin to give her history in any detail’. The highly complex and mathematically beautiful system of Eu-doxus is thus made to appear fully formed like Pallas from the head of Zeus. For his purpose Smith is perhaps justified in thus proceeding; but not to emphasize the extreme unlikelihood of such a creation without a long preparation of accurate observation and critical correlation is to risk begging the whole question of the genesis of philosophical inquiry. Once launched, however, on the exposition of the ‘first regular system of Astronomy’ (Astronomy, IV.4) he moves, not in-deed with complete mastery, but with a remarkable degree of precision and understanding. Since among the readers of this edition there may be some wholly unfamiliar with the rationale of this system it may be as well to give a necessarily somewhat simplified but also more concise account

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of it than Smith provides; to facilitate cross–reference this will be set out in a somewhat schematic form.

The celestial phenomena (appearances) were either relatively transitory (e.g. meteors) or eter-nal; comets, remaining visible for months, were the subjects of some controversy.

The ‘eternal’ bodies, with seven notable exceptions, were fixed in space relative to each other. The exceptions—Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn (to give them their La-tinized names)—were all called ‘planets’ or ‘wandering stars’, since their positions varied con-tinuously both with respect to each other and to the pattern of the ‘fixed’ stars.

All the visible objects were seen to move in circles round the Earth in a time constituting a ‘day’. The various minor discrepancies among the planets were accounted for by assuming addi-tional circular motions superimposed upon the uniform daily rotation. The ‘fixed’ stars were thus regarded as being carried round by the rotation of the ‘celestial sphere’ whose axis, since many of them periodically ‘rose’ in the east and ‘set’ in the west, was held to be variously inclined to the surface of the Earth. Contrary to the belief still held in some quarters, the ‘flat Earth’ had been generally abandoned about a century earlier, and, though reintroduced to conform to biblical cosmology, was probably never again seriously considered among men having any pretension to astronomical knowledge.

Since the Sun and Moon are seen to make a circuit of the stellar sphere once in roughly 365 and 29 days respectively, the motion of each was regarded as being compounded of that of the stellar sphere and that of a second sphere whose axis was inclined to that of the steller; in the case of the Sun the ‘equator’ of the second sphere was called the ‘ecliptic’, and the latter’s ‘obliq-uity’ represents the observed progressive changes in the Sun’s altitude in the course of the year. A third sphere had to be added to account for a further minor irregularity in the observed motion. The Moon’s observed motion resisted any adequate representation; it was one of the few prob-lems that gave Newton a headache 2,000 years later.

The motions of the remaining ‘planets’ were partially accounted for by supposing them to share the daily and (approximate) annual motion of the Sun’s two spheres—the third was pecu-liar to the Sun. But these five bodies—and very obviously those that were believed to be always further from the Earth than is the Sun—possessed a characteristic irregularity of apparently coming to a halt, and then roughly retracing their paths to a second point before once more pro-ceeding in the general direction. These meaningless ‘stations’ and ‘retrogradations’ of each of these planets were ‘saved’ by the ingenious device of ‘fixing’ each planet on a sphere, the poles of whose axis were also ‘fixed’ on the surface of the surrounding sphere to whose axis their axes were inclined; and at the same time supposing them to rotate in the opposite sense, each at a characteristic rate different from that of the surrounding sphere. The process could be repeated, and the inclinations and relative rates of rotation varied, to give the closest possible approxima-tion to the ‘appearances’.

All this is set out by Smith with only relatively minor historical inaccuracies; but he does not here make clear that the ‘constant and equable motions’ reported by reliable commentators to

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have been demanded by Plato were in fact uniform angular motion in perfectly circular paths. Nor, though he has his own view as to the human urge to see coherence and a continuous chain in natural phenomena, does he comment on Plato’s postulates in flat opposition to the evidence of the senses, except in respect of the daily revolution. Plato discussed these questions in several dialogues, and his final ‘vision’ of the cosmos (if he did in fact ever arrive at one) is still a matter of controversy. But his guiding principle, from which he made no fundamental departure, was that the ‘visible’ heavens have the same relation to ‘things divine’ as they really exist as do geo-metrical figures to those ‘truths of reason’ that they are made to represent.

In proceeding from the concentric systems of Eudoxus to the excentric (and epicyclic) systems that permanently superseded it among the Greeks, Smith missed two points of fundamental im-portance to his ‘principles that lead and direct’ philosophical investigation. The first was that Ar-istotle’s addition of twenty–two spheres had nothing to do with the ‘insufficiency’ of the spheres to represent the motions; the reason was what we should call a philosophical demand for a physi-cal coherence: the additional spheres were so intercalated as to prevent the characteristic motion of each of the planets from being transmitted to the remainder. Another serious physical discrep-ancy apparently first observed by Autolycus of Pitane but not by Aristotle, was the fact that no system of spheres concentric with the Earth could conceivably account for the marked changes in the apparent size of e.g. Mars and Venus, implying variation in their distances from the Earth. The contrast between ‘astronomy’ and ‘physics’ sketched by Aristotle, well known to the Middle Ages and Renaissance through the Commentaries of Simplicius, but apparently lost sight of later until stressed by Paul Duhem in his Σώζειν τὰ φαινόμενα, will be discussed more at large in the Introduction to the Ancient Physics.

The first step towards the epicyclic (and incidentally towards the Copernican) theory of planetary motion was taken by Heracleides of Pontus, who, noting the fact that neither Mercury nor Venus is ever seen far from the Sun as the latter makes its annual circuit of the heavens, put forward the hypothesis that the circular paths of the former bodies were centred at the Sun, not the Earth. A century later, when Alexandria had replaced Athens as the centre of ‘Greek’ culture, this hypothesis was extended by Aristarchus of Samos to include all the planets, of which he re-garded the Earth instead of the Sun to be one. This revolutionary hypothesis, in which the diur-nal rotation of the Earth (already assumed by Heracleides) was also adopted, was summarily re-jected by his contemporaries. Nevertheless, since their imaginative leaps achieved the essential basis of that of Copernicus, the omission by Smith of any mention of these two men is quite un-accountable.

Though no motion of the Earth was acceptable to astronomers until the time of Copernicus, and even then but tardily, the concept of epicyclic motion (i.e. the circular motion of a body about another body itself describing a circle about a third) rapidly achieved a dominating influ-ence and received a definitive form in the Almagest of Ptolemy (c.a.d. 150). Stripped down to the barest essentials this system was based on the following postulates:

(i) The Earth is the ‘centre’ of the world.

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(ii) The Sun moves at a uniform rate on a circle (the ‘eccentric’) whose centre is somewhat distant from the Earth.

(iii) The remaining planets (except the Moon) move on circles (epicycles) whose centres move on larger circles (‘deferents’) centred at the eccentric; but the planets themselves are represented as moving at a uniform rate round a separate point (‘equant’) on the side of the eccentric remote from the Earth.

(iv) The Moon’s motion is especially anomalous.

The eccentric and epicycle had been elaborated by earlier astronomers, notably Hipparchus (c. 170 b.c.), but the equant point, concerned not with the shape but with the rate of planetary movement, was the creation of Ptolemy himself. Since their concern was to provide a mathe-matical model for forecasting celestial events, the Alexandrian (Hellenistic) astronomers took no account of the existence of ‘spheres’. The later Islamic astronomers, strongly influenced by Aris-totelian and later ‘physics’, devised means of harmonizing epicyclic and eccentric motion with concentric celestial spheres. This mode of thought achieved its ultimate refinement in the theory of Georg (of) Peurbach. The so–called ‘Copernican Revolution’ was in fact a retrogression to ‘ancient’ principles buttressed by superior mathematical technique and the less ‘parochial’ world–view characteristic of the Renaissance. Far from being technically ‘modern’, the system of Co-pernicus was in some respects retrograde in the pejorative sense; this judgement does not detract from the dedication and intellectual courage of the man himself.

By one of those paradoxes that the history of science displays from time to time, Tycho Brahe, ‘the great restorer of the science of the heavens’ as Smith describes him, spent his life and fortune (aided by royal patronage on a lavish scale) in assembling the data enabling Ioannes Kep-ler to demolish both his own extension of the system of Heracleides and the details of the Co-pernican system. Tycho’s model, postulating a heliocentric system of all the planets, the Sun and Moon alone describing circles about the Earth, was mathematically equivalent to that of Coper-nicus, at the same time avoiding any affront to the physical prejudices of the age, still predomi-nantly Aristotelian. Endowed with a spirit in which intense religious feeling, high poetic fancy, and unswerving intellectual integrity were combined to a degree probably unsurpassed in any man before or since, Kepler made the first and final break with the Platonic postulates of ‘equa-ble circular motion’ for celestial bodies. It is the Sun, not the Earth, around which the planets de-scribe the only discoverable simple curve—not a circle, but an ellipse; and it is the Sun that de-termines, in a degree corresponding to the harmonics of the diatonic scale, the speed with which they move in the paths appointed by God. Stripped of the overtones that Kepler himself re-garded as his supreme act of praise to the living God, his three6 ‘laws’ are the basis of the mod-ern astronomy of the solar system.

Within the limits of the available knowledge Smith’s account of the revolution in astronomi-cal thought effected by Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler displays remarkable understand-ing; there is however one misleading feature in his exposition—the statements (Astronomy, IV.29,32) that the Copernican system has no need of epicycles. It is indeed true that each of these statements is made in the context of the apparent shape of the planetary motions, but not

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many paragraphs later it is made clear that in order to rid his system of the ‘incoherence’ of the equant point (IV.53) Copernicus had in fact been compelled to employ a number of epicycles. One of Kepler’s earliest discoveries was that the motion of the Earth demanded just such an equant point: it is of course a mathematical dodge to represent the hitherto ‘unthinkable’ fact that the planets move faster when near the Sun than when more remote. Smith’s account is fur-ther notable for having stressed the possibly decisive nature of Galileo’s telescopic observa-tions—the ‘rough’ surface of the Moon, the satellites of Jupiter, sunspots, and the phases of Ve-nus—all phenomena that could ‘appeal to a wide audience’, thus enlisting a wider support for the Copernican hypothesis than Copernicus’s own dry mathematical exposition would have done. Smith’s claim that the latter ‘was adopted . . . by astronomers only’ (IV.36), though qualified on the next page, gives a misleading impression of the situation. This and some relatively minor points are more conveniently dealt with in footnotes to the text.

The confused state of astronomy during the first half of the seventeenth century was just such as to give point to Smith’s ‘principle’ that discovery is the fruit of a search for a ‘connecting chain of intermediate objects to link together . . . discordant qualities’ (IV.60)—in this case the immensity of the celestial bodies and the hardly conceivable speeds with which they are hurled round the Sun. The ‘gap’ left in the ‘imagination’ by a purely mathematical model, however sub-tle and however accurately representative of the facts, received expression in the full title of Kep-ler’s Astronomia Nova. The ‘physical or if you will metaphysical’ element in his system was supplied by a supposed magnetic ‘radiation’ emitted by the Sun as it rotated, thus maintaining the revolu-tions of the planets at varying speeds. ‘That doctrine,’ wrote Smith, ‘like almost all those of the philosophy in fashion during his time, bestowed a name upon this invisible chain, called it an immaterial virtue, but afforded no determinate idea of what was its nature.’ (Astronomy, IV.60.) In an age dominated by Newton’s proper rejection of ‘occult causes’ such a reaction was inevita-ble. But it is not the whole story. Kepler’s ‘magnetic virtue’ was more than a name; in fact mag-netism was not, in the distinction made by Newton, an ‘occult’ but a ‘manifest’ quality. The fact that it is a different ‘manifest’ quality—gravitation—that was later shown to be the controlling factor between Sun and planets does not detract from Kepler’s recognition that a ‘chain’ must exist. In his second letter to Richard Bentley, Newton emphasized that ‘the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know’. Smith and his clear–sighted contemporaries failed to realize that the greatest creative advances in the search for the ‘invisible chain’ have seldom been free from the wildest guesses.

The ‘first who attempted to ascertain, precisely, wherein this invisible chain consisted, and to afford the imagination a train of intermediate events, . . .’ was, Smith justly states, Descartes (As-tronomy, IV.61). The details of the Cartesian system fortunately do not concern us. But Smith shows remarkable sagacity in emphasizing that it was he (and not, as is still occasionally stated, Galileo) who stated three propositions that jointly imply ‘Newton’s’ First Law of Motion; that his notion of God’s conservation of the quantity of motion in the universe (IV. 61) made a notable advance towards Newton’s Second Law; and that he was ‘among the first of the moderns, who . . . took away the boundaries of the Universe’. Not surprisingly Smith nowhere shows any knowl-edge of the wide–ranging mathematical speculation of the fifteenth–century Cardinal Nicholas

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of Cues (whom Kepler called ‘divine’), nor of the limited publication of Thomas Digges’s theory of stellar distribution in depth; but his omission of any reference to the ill–supported but widely publicized ‘plurality of worlds’ affirmed by Giordano Bruno is less easy to excuse.

His lengthy treatment of Descartes in a history of astronomy, Smith claims, is justified less by his theory of the heavens that by the time Smith was writing was almost entirely abandoned, than by his demonstration that a coherent ‘system of the world’ could be based on simple me-chanical principles applicable to both celestial and terrestrial bodies. This was a radical departure from the ‘natural philosophy’ still dominant in the schools: Samuel Pepys was so ‘vexed’ to dis-cover that his younger brother, John’s, knowledge of ‘physiques’ was based on Descartes instead of Aristotle that he decided to find out ‘what it is that he has studied since his going to the Uni-versity’. So far as ‘physiques’ were concerned both Samuel and John were wasting their time; for in the same year a young sizar of Trinity College in the same university of Cambridge was also giving less than satisfaction in his undergraduate studies. But within three years he was to think of ‘extending gravity to the orbe of the Moon’. Cambridge was slow to appreciate the tremendous revolution that the young Lucasian Professor of Mathematics proceeded to hatch within its walls; but a few years after its publication (1687—under the imprimatur of Samuel Pepys P.R.S.!) the elements of Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica were being introduced to the stu-dents of the University of Edinburgh by David Gregory.

Despite the lack of any break in the narrative, it seems most probable that it was at this point (Astronomy, IV.67) that Smith’s original manuscript ended and the remainder was added at some later date (above, 7–8).

About Smith’s account of the Newtonian system, which, despite his doubts, stands least in need of correction at the present day, little need be said. It is clearly written and includes all the ‘verifications’ available by the middle of the eighteenth century. It is doubtful whether he had ever studied the Principia at that time. Voltaire’s Elemens de la philosophie de Neuton had been pub-lished in London by 1737, and, if this section was in fact written some years after the rest of the essay, Colin Maclaurin’s Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries would have been avail-able to him after 1748; of course he may have been sufficiently well grounded in the qualitative aspects before leaving Glasgow. The only disconcerting feature of his account, taken as a contribution to the ‘principles of philosophical investigation’, is the facile manner in which he accepts gravitation as an adequate explanation of the mutually determined motions of the celestial bodies, simply on the grounds that it has always been ‘familiar’ to men on the Earth. Taken in conjunction with his remarks (Astronomy, IV.61) in hailing Descartes as having been the first to attempt to ‘ascertain, precisely, wherein this invisible chain consisted’, this must be regarded as a serious deficiency. It betrays a strange lack of awareness of the fact that what he saw as ‘so famil-iar a principle of connection, which completely removed all the difficulties the imagination had hitherto felt in attending to them [sc. planetary motions]’ (IV.67), many continental ‘philoso-phers’, notably Leibniz, regarded as either a miracle or a blasphemy. The root of their objections was that celestial gravitation, unlike the ‘familiar’ form, must be held to act instantaneously across immense distances. Moreover, since the planets showed no sign of slowing down as a result of

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external resistance, there could be no material medium to transmit the gravitational influence. Such an ‘action at a distance’ must be regarded as either an inexplicable miracle or an ‘occult’ property of matter itself. Neither ‘solution’ was acceptable: not the former, since it removed the question entirely from the realm of natural philosophy; nor the latter, since it reintroduced the ‘specific occult qualities’ postulated by the Aristotelians, which as Newton himself later remarked ‘put a stop to the improvement of natural philosophy’ (Opticks, Q.30). This fundamental dilemma, and much else of a more technical nature, was ventilated in the famous Leibniz–Clarke Correspon-dence first published in 1707. Newton, on whose behalf (and at the instigation of Princess Caro-line) Clarke replied to Leibniz, showed his recognition of the difficulties by adding to the second edition of the Principia (1713) the famous General Scholium containing the even more famous (and misunderstood) phrase ‘Hypotheses non fingo’, and by his letters to the Master of Trinity, Richard Bentley, in one of which he explicitly denied that gravity is ‘essential and inherent to matter’. Newton was fully aware of the lack of finality in his ‘System of the World’ and returned to the question several times; but since Smith was apparently unaware of this, it would be inap-propriate to enter into the inevitably long and difficult discussion here.

The History of the Ancient Physics and the History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphys-ics

The History of Astronomy, though naturally imperfect, was in a sense complete. After the second edition of Newton’s Principia there was no fundamental change or addition to the ‘system of the world’, that was Smith’s main concern, until long after his death. The mathematical the-ory was under constant refinement; and Smith shows his continuing interest in the progress of physical astronomy when in the Edinburgh Review article he refers to James Bradley’s important discovery of the aberration of light. But the titles of the two subsequent essays suggest that the restriction to the ‘ancient’ period expressed the fact that he had said all that he intended to say.

The two essays now to be considered, though like that on the History of Astronomy both written with an eye to ‘philosophical investigation’, are in a different class from the first. The title of each reveals a subtle change of aim: the histories of these ‘sciences’ are to be restricted to their ‘ancient’ development. For this and other reasons that will appear during the discussion it is con-venient to introduce them under a single heading. To a greater extent than in the ‘history’ of as-tronomy his account of the ‘facts’ of pre–Socratic ‘physics’ is not only without adequate historical foundation but lacks any historical coherence other than that imposed by Smith’s own ‘likely story’, namely that ‘from arranging and methodizing the System of the Heavens, Philosophy de-scended to the consideration of the inferior parts of Nature’ (Ancient Physics, 1). There neither is, nor ever was, as far as we know, any evidence for this order of inquiry; on the contrary, Aris-totle rightly referred to his predecessors as φυσιολόγοι—those who strove to ‘account for nature’, which for them was the whole cosmos. Their speculations about the objects above the Earth in fact lacked any ‘arrangement or methodizing’: they remained crude and ill–supported by reason. The views on the ‘elements’ (ἀρχαί, Aristotle calls them), on the other hand, put forward sepa-rately by the Ionian pioneers embodied a profound insight into the problem of the relation be-

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tween change and the permanent ground of being. Only later did the Italian, Empedocles, order the elements in such a manner as to make possible the even later ‘square of opposite properties’ introduced by Aristotle.

As has been hinted already, Smith never made explicit the cardinal distinction between ‘phys-ics’ and ‘astronomy’—a distinction that in fact ‘guided and directed philosophical enquiry’ from Aristotle onwards, and which, in somewhat altered terms, is still a living issue in the philosophy of science, notably in the interpretation of quantum mechanics. The basic formulation has never been more clearly put than by the sixth–century Neoplatonist, Simplicius, in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, and in which he claims to be quoting the actual words of Geminus summariz-ing the views of the Stoic Poseidonius, both of them having lived much nearer to the time of Ar-istotle. After a long and detailed preamble he emphasized that while ‘the physicist will in many cases, reach the cause by looking to creative force’, ‘it is no part of the business of the astronomer to know what is by nature suited to a position of rest and what sort of bodies are apt to move, but he introduces hypotheses under which some bodies remain fixed while others move, and then considers to which hypotheses the phenomena actually observed in the heaven will correspond’.7 The astronomer, in other words, is satisfied if, given certain physical postulates, such as ‘equable motion’, he can devise a mathematical scheme from which the motions of the heavenly bodies can be deduced; the question of ‘truth’ has for him, qua astronomer, no relevance. In the History of Astronomy (notably in the introductory Section II) Smith shows his appreciation of this aspect of ‘philosophical investigation’. But his failure to explicate the notion of cause, latent in the vari-ous pre–Socratic speculations and dominating Aristotle’s whole philosophy, reduces his Ancient Physics, despite its elegant and persuasive presentation of certain aspects, to a much lower level of cogency. Detailed justification for this judgement would here be out of place; suffice it to say that the reader of the text will find no hint of the pervasive notion of final causation and the grades of ‘animation’ (the Latin anima replaced ψυχή in the transmission of the Aristotelian corpus) in living beings.

Having momentarily forgotten his most promising hypothesis that ‘philosophical enquiries’ stem from ‘surprise and wonder’ Smith opens the essay on the ‘History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics’ with a liberal application of the term ‘evident’ to assumptions that to thinkers in another tradition seem far from evident. This apart, however, he rightly insists that ‘philosophy, . . . in considering the general nature of Water, takes no notice of those particularities which are peculiar to this Water, but confines itself to those things which are common to all water’. From which it follows that ‘Species, or Universals, and not Individuals, are the objects of Philosophy’ (§ 1). In the succeeding passage, amounting to little more than twenty lines, Smith condenses all that he has to say on the relation between the ‘ancient’ sciences of ‘logics’ and ‘metaphysics’. Re-stricted to such a compass his account of what came to be regarded as ‘logic’ and ‘metaphysics’ might do well enough, though the exclusive emphasis on classification is hardly warranted. But viewed as a stage in the achievement of his historical aim it is quite inadequate. In claiming with some justice that these two sciences ‘seem, before the time of Aristotle, to have been regarded as one’ and, with less justice, ‘to have made up between them that ancient Dialectic of which we hear so much, and of which we understand so little’ (Ancient Logics, 1) Smith gives no hint that

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λογική and its derivatives covered a huge range of meaning as much to do with ‘words’ as with ‘reasoning’; nor that the term ‘metaphysics’ came only long after Aristotle’s death to refer to those of his books which embodied a consideration of ‘those causes and principles the knowledge of which constitutes Wisdom’—‘First philosophy’ as Aristotle himself described it. The throw–a-way comment on the ‘ancient Dialectic’ may have been prompted by Smith’s native caution: the subtle and even inconsistent use of the term by Plato and Aristotle is still the subject of scholarly debate. The inappropriateness of the remark becomes even more remarkable in the light of the following definition proposed by the Stranger from Elea: ‘Dividing according to kinds, not taking the same Form for a difference or a different one for the same—is not that the business of the science of Dialectic?’ (Plato, Sophist, 253 D.) This ‘division by kinds’ is precisely the method that Smith himself regarded as being the essence of the ‘ancient logics’ and one of which he himself makes frequent use. This account of dialectic differs from the more basic requirement stipulated by Socrates (i.e. the effort to attain truth by correction of agreed hypotheses rather than the con-futation of an adversary) but is not inconsistent with it. Equally regrettable is Smith’s failure to make clear, as Aristotle had, that the pre–Socratic φυσιολόγοι (as Aristotle calls them) were asking ‘metaphysical’ questions but for the most part (Parmenides being clearly an exception) giving ‘physical’ answers.

The part of the essay devoted to an exposition of Plato’s attitude to Nature and its relation to the general theory of ‘Ideas’, though disproportionately long, is almost the only part that carries conviction that the author had adequately prepared himself for the ambitious task he had under-taken. But even here he fails to drive home the lesson, so important for his own thesis, that what Plato was for the most part concerned with, even in the dialogue that looks like natural philoso-phy, the Timaeus, is perhaps not even metaphysics, but rather natural theology as it was perhaps understood in the original scheme for the Gifford Lectures. This was far from being without in-fluence on the development of natural philosophy and subsequently of the natural sciences; but by placing ‘cause and principle’ of nature as it were outwith nature and providing only a ‘likely story’ of how it (δημιουργός) might have operated, Plato effectively closed the door on further investigation on the lines initiated by the φυσιολόγοι. Or rather he would have closed it, had not his independent–minded pupil, Aristotle, put his foot in the doorway—at least for the sublunary world!

At this stage some readers may reasonably protest that it is an editor’s function at most to comment on the text and not to argue with its author. To leave without qualification the rather disparaging remarks which this editor has felt it necessary to make would amount to a failure to view the matter in that historical perspective for the lack of which Smith has been censured. Well versed in the classical tongues as the young Adam Smith undoubtedly was, he cannot be blamed for having failed to transcend the limitations set by the materials available to him. And these were meagre indeed, for though we may think of the eighteenth century as one in which classical scholarship was most highly appreciated and familiarity with the classical authors more widely spread than perhaps at any other time, it is apt to be forgotten that both scholarship and familiar-ity were almost wholly restricted to grammatical and stylistic aspects; it is probable that Smith’s contemporaries were far less conversant with the matter of the Greek classics than had been the

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humanists of three centuries earlier. In his valuable Greek Studies in England, 1700–1830 (1945) (which in fact includes a knowledgeable chapter on Scotland) M. L. Clarke states that ‘the under-graduates at Oxford and Cambridge read only a few isolated dialogues of Plato and learned nothing of his philosophical theories’. Before 1759 there was no English translation, except of the Phaedo, to which the Scottish scholar, Spens, added the Republic only in 1763. Aristotle was in like case. Smith’s dismissal (Astronomy, III.6) of the Ionian φυσιολόγοι on the ground that the extant accounts ‘represent the doctrines of those sages as full of the most inextricable confusion’ is of a piece with Clarke’s judgment that ‘of the remarkable speculations of the pre–Socratics there was no appreciation’ (op. cit., 114); he would have had to rely upon Aristotle’s biased views put forward in the Metaphysics. In respect of ‘Logics’ he was presumably the victim of the ‘triviali-zation’ of Aristotle’s logic, unavoidable if it was to be taught to the lower end of the teenage stream! His point of view (putting ‘objects’ into the ‘right’ classes) seems to be based on the Topics, even perhaps mediated through Ramism; but of the structure of inference as expounded by Aris-totle himself in the two Analytics he gives no hint. If this ‘conditioning’ was effected at Glasgow it would not have been unique; it is only in our time (by Jan Lukasiewicz and others) that the ‘mod-ernity’ of Aristotle’s canon has been made generally known. Smith was also unlucky in setting forth on this immensely ambitious endeavour at a time when Giambattista Vico’s principles of critical historiography based on critical philology (Scienza Nuova, 1725–44) were still wholly unap-preciated outside Italy. Nevertheless, when all allowance has been made for the handicaps under which Smith must have laboured when composing these ‘juvenile’ historical pieces, there remains an air of brashness about the two (presumably) later ones that provokes the question whether the author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations would have countenanced their publication in the form in which he had left them. It is true that as late as November 1785, in the letter (248) to Rochefoucauld referred to above, the ‘sort of Philosophical History’ he mentions as still being ‘upon the anvil’ must have been at least based on the ‘great work’ mentioned in the let-ter to Hume twelve years earlier. But in that letter he expressly stated that none of his papers were worth publishing except a fragment—the history of the astronomical systems—and even that one he suspected contained ‘more refinement than solidity’. How much more apposite would this judgment be of the two subsequent essays! In view of his repeated request—as he neared his end—for assurance that his papers had been destroyed, it seems more than a little doubtful whether his editors were not doing his memory a disservice in making public these two essays without a more extensive caveat than the rather fulsome and misleading last sentence of their Advertisement.

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3. Bibliographical Note

The survey on which this Note has been based was restricted to the following institutions: British Library (BL), National Library of Scotland (NLS), Bodleian (O), Cambridge University (C), Trinity College, Dublin (D), and the four Scottish universities existing before the recent ex-pansion: St. Andrews (StA), Glasgow (G), Aberdeen (A—see, however, No. 6 below), Edinburgh (E). Eight editions prior to 1900 have been established, at least one copy of each having been ex-amined. Only NLS has a copy of every edition, two of these being accessions from the library of Lauriston Castle near Edinburgh. Thanks are due to members of the library staff at NLS, C, StA, and D for information about their holdings.

The full title–page of the First Edition is provided together with brief descriptions of the re-maining editions. Only ‘sample’ collations have been carried out; no substantial differences in the texts have been discovered.

1. London 1795 4to. First edition. BL, NLS, O, C. StA, G, A, E.

2. Dublin 1795 8vo. Some spelling mistakes have been corrected. BL, NLS, O, C, D. Mr. M. Pollard of Trinity College Library states that the copy of this edition was purchased only in 1962; it contains the bookplate of Eliz. Anne Levinge with the signature ‘Elizth. Anne Parkyns 1808’ on the title–page. Mr. Pollard emphasizes that reprint by Dublin printers was perfectly legal provided that the books were not offered for sale in England.

3. Essais philosophiques; par feu ADAM SMITH, Docteur en droit, de la société royale de Lon-dres, de celle d’Edimbourg, etc. etc. Précédés d’un précis de sa vie et de ses écrits; Par DUGALD STEWART, de la société royale d’Edimbourg. Traduits de l’anglais par P. Prevost, professeur de philosophie à Genève de l’académie de Berlin, de la société des Curieux de la Nature, et de la société royale d’Edimbourg. PREMIERE PARTIE. A Paris, Chez H. AGASSE, imprimeur–li-brairie, rue des Poitevins, noo 18. An V de la République (1797, vieux style.) Fine portrait bust of Adam Smith (‘B.L. Prevost sculp.’) opposite title–page.Of this, in some respects the most ade-quate, edition a rather fuller description seems to be justified. It is unique among editions before 1900 in containing Adam Smith’s long letter to the Edinburgh Review (1756), here in French trans-lation, numerous notes of varying lengths by the translator and mainly relating to the later essays, also a fairly detailed Table of Contents of the whole, the Seconde Partie of which is separately signed and paged. The Notes are described (presumably by the publisher) as ‘très intéressantes’ (ii.316). Of special interest is the translator’s statement (i.277) that the note on Halley’s comet is de ‘l’editeur anglais’ (sic). BL, NLS.

4. Basel 1799 8vo. Essays on Philosophical Subjects by the late ADAM SMITH LL.D. . . . To which is affixed an account of the Life and Writings of the Author by DUGALD STEWART F.R.S.E. Basil: printed for the Editor of the Collection of English Classics sold by James Decker, Printer and Bookseller 1799. BL, NLS.The only point of interest in this edition is the omission of any reference to the original editors, Joseph Black and James Hutton.

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5. Volume v of Adam Smith’s Works edited by Dugald Stewart and dated 1811 (as is vol. iv, vols. i–iii being 1812). Vol. v also contains the essay entitled Considerations concerning the first Forma-tion of Languages. BL, NLS, O.

6. Essays on Philosophical Subjects by Adam Smith LL.D., F.R.S. etc. London 1822. A new edi-tion. This apparently very rare edition was printed (title–page verso) by A. Allardice, Leith, for Allardice, Edinburgh; R. Griffin, Glasgow; and several London houses. The copy examined is inscribed ‘Biblioth. Classis Physicae in Acad. Mariscallana’ and stamped ‘Nat. Phil. Clas. Library 1860 University of Aberdeen’, i.e. on the union of King’s and Marischal Colleges, previously separate universities. NLS. A.

7. London 1869 8vo. Essays. The volume is in fact a reprint of both TMS (followed, as usual, by Languages) and EPS. The ‘Biographical Notice’ is drastically abridged. BL, O, C, StA.

8. London 1880 8vo. Essays Philosophical and Literary. Stated in BL catalogue to be a ‘duplicate’ of No. 7. BL, NLS, O, C, StA.

9. The Essays are included in The Early Writings of Adam Smith edited by J. R. Lindgren (Augustus M. Kelley, New York 1967). This edition includes the Edinburgh Review articles, the Preface to William Hamilton’s Poems on Several Occasions (1748), and the Languages. It is not intro-duced or annotated.

Note on the Text

The present volume follows the text of the first edition (published by Cadell and Davies in 1795, five years after Smith’s death), but with printer’s errors corrected. Since the essay is de-signed to illustrate ‘the principles which lead and direct philosophical enquiries’ rather than to provide a history of astronomy per se, no attempt has been made to achieve that completeness of documentation which would be appropriate in a definitive classic.

Endnotes

[1] Rae, Life, 44, states that before the middle of November [1751] he [Smith] and Cullen were ‘already deeply immersed in quite a number of little schemes for the equipment of the Col-lege’ [Glasgow].

[2] That Smith himself was far from being consistent in referring to his literary achievements and aims will appear in connection with the dating of the Imitative Arts (172 below).

[3] H. F. Thomson, ‘Adam Smith’s Philosophy of Science’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, lxxix (1965), 218.

[4] For a further elaboration, see the present writer’s ‘Adam Smith and the History of Ideas’ in Essays on Adam Smith. The essay was designed to be read in conjunction with this introduction.

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[5] On Smith’s attitude to the ‘faculty’ of imagination see below, 20.

[6] Really four: the first, the demonstration that the planets’ orbits, including the Earth’s, are coplanar with the Sun is unaccountably omitted from the ‘text–books’. Kepler himself never set out the laws in any systematic form.

[7] Quoted from T. Heath, Greek Astronomy (1932), 124–5.

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INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME IV: LECTURES ON RHETORIC

AND BELLES LETTRES [J.C. BRYCE]

1. The Manuscript

In The Scotsman newspaper of 1 and 2 November 1961 John M. Lothian, Reader (later titular Professor) in English in the University of Aberdeen announced his discovery and purchase, at the sale of an Aberdeenshire manor–house library in the late summer of 1958, of two volumes of manuscript ‘Notes of Dr. Smith’s Rhetorick Lectures’. They had been part of the remainder of a once extensive collection begun in the sixteenth century by William Forbes of Tolquhoun Castle, and in the late eighteenth century the property of the Forbes–Leith family of Whitehaugh, an

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estate brought to the Forbeses by the marriage of Anne Leith. In September 1963 Lothian pub-lished an edition of the notes as Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres Delivered in the University of Glas-gow by Adam Smith, Reported by a Student in 1762–63 (Nelson).

Identification of the lecturer was easy. It had always been known that Smith gave lectures on rhetoric; his manuscript of these (Stewart, I. 17) was among those destroyed in the week before his death in obedience to the strict instructions he had given, first to Hume in 1773, then in 1787 to his literary executors Joseph Black and James Hutton. Lecture 3 of the discovered report is a shortened version of the essay on the First Formation of Languages published by Smith in 1761. Further, Lothian found later in the 1958 sale volumes 2–6 of manuscript notes of lectures on Ju-risprudence, and though they bore no name they turned out to be a more elaborate version of the lectures by Smith reported in notes discovered in 1876 and published by Edwin Cannan in 1896. A search in Aberdeen junk–shops was rewarded, thanks to the extraordinary serendipity which Lothian’s friends always envied him, by the finding of the missing volume 1. These vol-umes have the same format and paper as the Rhetoric and the same hand as its main text.

When the Whitehaugh family acquired these manuscripts is not known. Absence of mention of them in three successive catalogues of the collection now in Aberdeen University Library has probably no significance; these are lists of printed books. No link between the Forbes–Leiths and the University of Glasgow has come to light. The most probable one is that at some point they engaged as a private tutor a youth who had been one of Adam Smith’s students and who knew that he would endear himself to his notably bookish employers by bringing them this otherwise unavailable work by a philosopher already enjoying an international reputation as the author of the Moral Sentiments. Such private tutorships were among the most usual first employments of products of the Scottish universities in the eighteenth century; and of Smith himself we learn from the obituary notice in the Gentleman’s Magazine of August 1790 (lx. 761) that ‘his friends wished to send him abroad as a travelling tutor’ when he came down from Oxford in 1746 after six years as Snell Exhibitioner at Balliol—though WN V. f. i 45 suggests that even after his happy travels with the young Duke of Buccleuch in 1764–66 he had doubts about the value of such posts. Still, both his successors in the Chair of Logic at Glasgow had held them. Of course the discovery of a Whitehaugh tutor among the graduates of, say, 1763–64 would not necessarily bring us nearer to identifying the note–taker, who may have been another student. Such notes circulated very widely at the time. Indeed, given the celebrity of this lecturer it is surprising that the Rhetoric should have turned up so far in only one version. The attempt to match the handwrit-ing of the manuscript with a signature in the Matriculation Album of the relevant period has been thwarted by the depressing uniformity of these signatures; entrants were calligraphically on their best behaviour.

In the matter of provenance an interesting possibility is opened up by a letter from John Forbes–Leith to James Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen in 1779 about his family’s library (JML xi, quoting Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland LXXII, 1938, 252). The Rhetoric is not mentioned, but its subjectmatter lay so much in Beattie’s field of interest that one is tempted to wonder whether he was in some way instrumental in ac-

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quiring the manuscript. A similar possibility is that Smith’s successor as Professor of Moral Phi-losophy in 1764, Thomas Reid, who maintained his contacts with friends in Aberdeen long after his move to Glasgow, may have obtained the notes and handed them on to Whitehaugh. Reid is known to have been anxious to see notes of his predecessor’s lectures: ‘I shall be much obliged to any of you Gentlemen or to any other, who can furnish me with Notes of his Prelections whether in Morals, Jurisprudence, Police, or in Rhetorick’—so he said in his Inaugural Lecture on 10 Oc-tober 1764 as preserved in Birkwood MS 2131/4/II in Aberdeen University Library.

The manuscript of the Rhetoric, now Glasgow University Library MS Gen. 95. 1 and 2, is bound in half–calf (i.e. with leather tips) and marbled boards. In the top three of the six panels of the spine is incised blind in cursive: ‘Notes of Dr. Smith’s Rhetorick Lectures: Vol. 1st.’ and ‘. . . Vol. 2nd’. The pages are not numbered; the present edition supplies numbering in the margin. The gatherings, normally of four leaves each, have been numbered on the top left corner of each first page, apparently in the same (varying) ink as the text at that point. Volume 1 has 51 gather-ings, of which the 14th is a bifolium, here given the page–numbers 52a, v.52a, 53b, v.53b, to in-dicate that it is an insertion. Volume 2 consists of gatherings 52–114; 94 has six leaves; and 74 has a bifolium of different paper stuck in loosely between the first and second leaves with no break in the continuity of the text, and a partially erased ‘My Dear Dory’ written vertically on the inner left page, i.e. ii. v. 90 under the note about Sancho Panca. The pages measure 195 × 118 mm, but gatherings 1–4 only 168 × 106 mm (of stouter paper than the rest), and 5–15 185 × 115 mm. The watermark is LVG accompanied by a crown of varying size and a loop below it, and in some of the gatherings GR under the crown. This is the L. V. Gerrevink paper commonly used throughout much of the eighteenth century. The chain lines are vertical in all gatherings. The first page of each of the earlier gatherings is much faded, as though having lain exposed for a time before the binding was done.

Three hands, here designated A, B, and C, can be distinguished. Hand C, using a dark ink, appears in only a few places in the earlier pages, and may be that of a later owner of the manu-script: sometimes merely touching up faded letters. An appreciation of the nature and authority of the notes depends on an understanding of the activities of scribes A and B, who (especially A) were responsible for transcribing them from the jottings made in class. The scribal habits, of which the textual apparatus will furnish the evidence, rule out the possibility that the pages we have were written while the students listened.

There is an apparent contradiction between two reports of Adam Smith’s attitude to no-te–taking. According to his student John Millar, later Professor of Law: ‘From the permission given to students of taking notes, many observations and opinions contained in these lectures (on rhetoric) have either been detailed in separate dissertations, or engrossed in general collections, which have since been given to the public’ (Stewart I. 17). The Gentleman’s Magazine obituary (lx. 762) records that ‘the Doctor was in general extremely jealous of the property of his lectures . . . and, fearful lest they should be transcribed and published, used often to repeat, when he saw any one taking notes, that “he hated scribblers”.’ The paradox is resolved if we remember the advice given by Thomas Reid, and by many a university teacher before and since, that those who write

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most in class understand least, ‘but those who write at home after carefull recollection, under-stand most, and write to the best Purpose’, and that this reflective reconstruction of what has been heard is precisely what a philosophical discourse requires (Birkwood MS 2131/8/III). The general success with which our scribes grasped the structure and tenor of Smith’s course, as well as much of the detail, exemplifies what Reid had in mind. Even the exasperated admissions of failure—‘I could almost say damn it’, ‘Not a word more can I remember’ (ii. 38, 44)—confirm the method by which they are working. In some cases the scribe begins his transcription with a heading which will recall the occasion as well as the matter, as when he notes that Smith deliv-ered Lectures 21 and 24 ‘without Book’ or ‘sine Libro’; and he is careful to give Lecture 12, the hinge between the two halves of the course, the title ‘Of Composition’ because it begins the dis-cussion of the various species of writing.

Our manuscript is the result of a continuous collaboration between two students intent on making the notes as full and accurate a record of Smith’s words as their combined resources can produce. The many slips and gaps which remain should not blind us to the great pains taken. Working from fairly full jottings, Scribe A writes the basic text on the recto pages (except, oddly, i. 18–68 when he uses the verso pages), and thereafter two kinds of revision take place. He corrects and expands the text, writing the revision above the line when only a word or two are involved. Unfortunately the additions of this kind are far too numerous to be specially signalized without overburdening the textual apparatus, and they have been silently incorporated in the text. In any case it is impossible to distinguish those added currente calamo from those added later, except of course where the interlined words replace a deletion (and these are always noted here). When the addition is too lengthy to be inserted between lines, Scribe A writes them on the facing page (i.e. a verso page, except at i. 18–68) at the appropriate point, and often keys them in with x or some other symbol. All such additions on the facing page are, in this edition, enclosed in brace brackets { }. Scribe A’s sources for his additional materials no doubt varied; some of it was certainly ‘rec-ollected in tranquillity’ as Reid would have recommended; some of it such a tirelessly conscien-tious student would acquire by consultation with a fellow–student, or perhaps one of the sets of notes in circulation from a previous year. There is reason to think that some of the material had simply been inadvertently omitted at the first transcription.

The second revision, much less extensive but very useful, is Scribe B’s. Apart from a few cor-rections of A’s words, B makes two sorts of contribution. He fills in a good many of the blanks clearly left by A with this in view—alas, not enough, though he is obviously in many ways better informed than A. This comes out also in the sometimes substantial notes he writes on the verso page facing A’s text, with supplementary illustration and explanation of the points there treated. These are enclosed in { }, with a footnote assigning them to Hand B. They raise the same ques-tion of source as A’s notes. From the fact that B never himself deletes or alters what he has writ-ten and generally arranges his lines so as to end exactly within a certain space, e.g. opposite the end of a lecture (i. v. 116; ii. v. 18), we may deduce that he is working from a tidy original or fair copy: another set of notes? The order in which A and B wrote their inserted matter varied: at i. 46 A’s note is squeezed into space left by B’s, and similarly at ii. v. 30 and elsewhere: but normally

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B’s notes are clearly later than A’s, as at i. v. 146, and at ii. v. 101 B’s note is squeezed between two of A’s although the second of these was written (in different ink) later than the first.

There is a noticeable falling–off in verso–page notes from about Lecture 16 onwards: inexpli-cable, unless Scribe A was becoming more adept in transcription. Certainly the report of the last lecture is much the longest of them all, but Smith probably, like most lecturers, used more than the hour this time in order to finish his course. Scribe A relieved the tedium of transcription by occasional lightheartedness. There is the doodled caricature of a face (meant to resemble Smith’s?) ‘This is a picture of uncertainty’, at ii. 67: at ii. 166 ‘WFL’, i.e. ‘wait for laugh’, is in-serted then deleted; at ii. 224 the habitual spelling ‘tho’ is for once expanded by the addition of ‘ugh’ below the line. Of special interest is the added note at i. 196 recording the witticism of ‘Mr Herbert’ about Adam Smith’s notorious absent–mindedness. The joke about Smith must have been made just after the lecture and the note added shortly after the transcription in this case.

Henry Herbert (1741–1811), later Baron Porchester and Earl of Carnarvon, was a gentle-man–boarder in Smith’s house throughout the session 1762–3. On 22 February 1763 Smith wrote to Hume introducing him as ‘very well acquainted with your works’ and anxious to meet Hume in Edinburgh (Letter 70). Hume (71) found him ‘a very promising young man’, but refers to him on 13 September 1763 (75) as ‘that severe Critic, Mr Herbert’. There is a letter from Her-bert to Smith (74) dated 11 September 1763.

To suggest that Herbert may have been the source of at least some of the additional notes would be an unwarranted use of Occam’s razor. No one enjoying this degree of familiarity with the lecturer and consulting him on the content of the lectures would have left so many blanks unfilled; and Smith would certainly not knowingly have helped to compile notes of his talks. It is also worth noting that the Rhetoric lectures, unlike those on Jurisprudence etc. (see LJ 14–15), were not followed by an ‘examination’ hour in which additional points might be picked up.

The well–marked scribal habits of Scribe A point to his having suffered from a defect of eye-sight, some sort of stenopia or tunnelvision. He is prone to various forms of haplography, omis-sion of a word or syllable which resembled its predecessor: ‘if I may so’ (say omitted), ‘coing’ (coin-ing), ‘possed’ (possessed). He writes ‘on the hand’, adds r to the, and imagines he has written ‘other’. Angle brackets < > have been used for omissions here supplied. There are frequent repetitions of word or phrase; these have been enclosed in square brackets [] . There are innumerable instances of anticipation of words or phrases lying ahead: most of these have been corrected by the scribe when his eye returns to his original jottings. In one case he anticipates a phrase from the begin-ning of the following lecture (i. 116, 117), showing that on this occasion he had allowed a week-end to pass before transcribing Lectures 8 and 9—Friday and Monday, 3 and 6 December. He often tries to hold in his mind too long a passage, writing words that convey the sense and having to change them, when on going back to his jottings he finds the proper words. He starts to write ‘object’ and has to change it to ‘design’. Most of the many overwritten words in the manuscript are examples of this, and unfortunately it is seldom possible to decipher the original word; where it is, it has been noted. The scribe’s memory of the drift of Smith’s meaning no doubt played a

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part; but here as elsewhere he is eager to record the master’s ipsissima verba. He frequently reverses the order of words and phrases and restores the proper order by writing numbers above them.

The aim of the present edition has been to allow the reader to judge for himself the nature of the manuscript by presenting it as fully as print will allow; but in the interests of legibility several compromises have been made. Where the punctuation is erratic or accidental it has been normal-ized: e.g. commas separating subject from verb, ‘is’ from its complement, a conjunction from its clause, and the like. The original paragraphing has been retained where it clearly exists and is intended. Not all initial capitals have been retained. The scribe usually employs them for empha-sis or to convey an impression of a technical or special use of a word; but in ‘Some’, ‘Same’, ‘Such’, ‘with Regard to’, ‘in Respect to’, ‘for my Part’, ‘for this Reason’, etc., the capital has been ignored. Frequently used abbreviations have been silently expanded: such are ys (this), ym (them), yr (their), yn (than), yse (those), nëyr (neither), oyr (other), Bröyr (Brother), p̈t (part), ag̈st (against), figs (figures), dïs (divisions), nom ̈ve (nominative), and others of similar type. It has not been possible to record the many changes of ink, pen, and style of writing (from copperplate to hurried), though these are no doubt indicative of the circumstances in which Scribe A was working. The misnumbering of Lec-ture 5 onwards has been corrected, and noted.

To sum up the textual notation used:

{ } notes on page facing main text—‘Hand B’ if relevant< > omissions supplied conjecturally[] erroneous repetitionsdeleted deleted words not replaced above linereplaces: words corrected in line above a deletionchanged from: original word decipherable beneath over–writingsuperscript indicators: normally refer to the preceding word or words, to which reference is made.

2. The Lectures

The notes we have date from what was apparently the fifteenth winter in which Adam Smith lectured on rhetoric. Disappointed of a travelling tutorship on coming down from Balliol, and after two years at home in Kirkcaldy in 1746–8, he ‘opened a class for teaching rhetorick at Ed-inburgh’, as the obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine (Aug. 1790, lx. 762) puts it; and it goes on to remark on an advantage enjoyed by Smith and frequently to be noticed in later years: ‘His pro-nunciation and his style were much superior to what could, at that time, be acquired in Scotland only’. The superiority was often (as by Sir James Mackintosh in introducing the second edition of the 1755–6 Edinburgh Review in 1818) ascribed to the influence of the speech of his Glasgow Pro-fessor Francis Hutcheson, as well as to his six Oxford years. His awareness of language as an ac-tivity had certainly been sharpened by both experiences of different modes—differences so often embarrassing to his fellow–countrymen, speakers and writers alike, in the mid–century. The Edin-burgh Review no. 1 named as one of the obstacles to the progress of science in Scotland ‘the diffi-culty of a proper expression in a country where there is no standard of language, or at least one

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very remote’ (EPS 229); and two years later, on 2 July 1757, Hume observes in a letter to Gilbert Elliott of Minto (Letter 135, ed. J. Y. T. Greig, 1932) that we ‘are unhappy, in our Accent and Pronunciation, speak a very corrupt Dialect of the Tongue which we make use of ’. The back-ground of desire for ‘self–improvement’ and the part played by the many societies in Edinburgh and elsewhere are described in JML xxiii–xxxix, and D. D. McElroy, Scotland’s Age of Improvement (1969). Smith ‘teaching rhetorick’ in 1748 was the right man at the right moment.

In the absence of advertisement or notice of the lectures in the Scots Magazine (these would have been unusual at this time: not so ten years later) we do not know exact dates; but A. F. Tytler in his Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames, containing sketches of the Progress of Literature and General Improvement in Scotland during the greater part of the eighteenth century (1807: i. 190) gives this account:

It was by his [sc. Kames’s] persuasion and encouragement, that Mr Adam Smith, soon after his return from Oxford, and when he had abandoned all views towards the Church, for which he had been originally destined, was induced to turn his early studies to the benefit of the public, by reading a course of Lectures on Rhetoric and the Belles Lettres. He delivered those lectures at Edinburgh in 1748, and the two follow-ing years, to a respectable auditory, chiefly composed of students in law and theology; till called to Glasgow. . . .

The ‘auditory’ included Alexander Wedderburn (who edited The Edinburgh Review 1755–6), William Johnston (who became Sir William Pulteney), James Oswald of Dunnikeir (a boyhood friend of Smith’s from Kirkcaldy), John Millar, Hugh Blair, ‘and others, who made a distin-guished figure both in the department of literature and in public life’. When on 10 January 1751 Smith wrote (Letter 8) to the Clerk of Senate at Glasgow accepting appointment to the Chair of Logic there and explaining that he could not immediately take up his duties because of his com-mitments to his ‘friends here’, i.e. in Edinburgh, the plural shows that he had sponsors for his lec-tures besides Kames, and it has been supposed that these were James Oswald and Robert Craigie of Glendoick. There is independent evidence that at least in his last year at Edinburgh if not ear-lier he also lectured on jurisprudence; but Tytler is quite clear on the duration of the rhetoric course; and after Smith’s departure for Glasgow a rhetoric course continued to be given by Rob-ert Watson till his departure for the Chair of Logic at St Andrews in 1756. This was only the be-ginning: one of Smith’s first ‘auditory’, Hugh Blair, on 11 December 1759, began a course on the same subject in the University of Edinburgh, which conferred the title of Professor on him in August 1760 and appointed him to a new Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (destined to be-come in effect the first Chair of English Literature in the world) on 7 April 1762. Smith’s original lectures were presumably delivered in one of the Societies, the Philosophical being the most likely because since the ’45 its ordinary activities had been suspended, and Kames would have seen the courses as a way of keeping it alive. In 1737 Colin Maclaurin, Professor of Mathematics (see As-tronomy IV. 58), was instrumental in broadening the Society’s scope to include literature and sci-ence.

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When Adam Smith arrived in Glasgow in October 1751 to begin teaching as Professor of Logic and Rhetoric he found his duties augmented owing to the illness of Thomas Craigie, the Professor of Moral Philosophy, the work of whose classes was to be shared by Smith and three other professors. We hardly need evidence to prove that, hard–pressed as he was, he would fall back on his Edinburgh materials, including the Rhetoric, which it was his statutory duty to teach. Craigie died in November and his Chair was filled by the translation to it of Smith in April 1752. Throughout the eighteenth century the ordinary or ‘public’ class of Moral Philosophy met at 7.30 a.m. for lectures on ethics, politics, jurisprudence, natural theology, and then at 11 a.m. for an ‘examination’ hour to ensure that the lecture had been understood. A ‘private’ class, some-times called a ‘college’, attended by those who had already in the previous year taken the public class and were now attending that for the second time—or even third—but not the examination class, met at noon, normally three days a week. Each professor used the private class for a course on a subject of special interest to himself. Hutcheson had lectured on Arrian, Antoninus (Marcus Aurelius), and other Greek philosophers; Thomas Reid on the powers of the mind.

Adam Smith chose for his private class the first subject he had ever taught, Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Here a question arises. Rhetoric was now in the domain of his successor in the Chair of Logic, James Clow. There is no record of a protest from Clow, as there was in Edin-burgh from John Stevenson, who had been teaching logic and rhetoric for thirty–two years when Blair’s Chair was founded. Several explanations suggest themselves, apart from personal good–will. The phrase ‘Belles Lettres’, though it did not mollify Stevenson, differentiated in a decisive way the two Glasgow courses. Clow’s emphasis seems to have rested on rhetorical analysis of pas-sages, in keeping with the discipline of logic (see JML xxx quoting Edinburgh Univ. Lib. MS DC 8, 13). More important, at Glasgow a public class was not the offender. In any case Smith’s rheto-ric students had attended Clow’s class two years before, and the opportunity (which Smith knew they enjoyed) of making correlations can only have been philosophically beneficial. Similar op-portunities were opened by their hearing at the same time—and having already heard—Smith’s discourses on ethics and jurisprudence. The lectures on history and on judicial eloquence would be illustrated by those on public and private law. And we must not forget that these students were simultaneously studying natural philosophy, theoretical and practical, the fifth year subjects of the Glasgow Arts curriculum. Such juxtapositions were then as now among the great benefits of the Scottish University system, and without them Scotland would not have made the mark she did in philosophy in Adam Smith’s century. In particular, Smith’s students must have noted the mul-ti–faceted relationship between the ethics and rhetoric, in three broad areas. First, Smith em-ployed many of the general principles stated in TMS in illustrating the different forms of commu-nication: for example, our admiration for the great (ii. 107 and below, section 4), or for hardships undergone with firmness and constancy (ii. 100). Smith also drew attention to the influence of environment on forms and modes of expression (ii. 113–16, 142 ff., 152 ff.) in a manner which would be familiar to those who had already heard his treatment of the rules of conduct. Sec-ondly, Smith’s students would note the points at which the rhetoric elaborated on the discussion of the role of sympathy and the nature of moral judgement and persuasion (cf. TMS I. i. 3–4; cf. 18–19 below). The character of the man of sensibility is strikingly developed in Lecture XXX (ii.

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234 ff.) while the argument as a whole implies that the spoken discourse could on some occasions affect moral judgement. Thirdly, Smith’s students would perceive that the arguments developed in the lectures on rhetoric complement the analysis of TMS, where it is remarked that:

We may judge of the propriety or impropriety of the sentiments of another person by their correspondence or disagreement with our own, upon two different occasions; either, first, when the objects which excite them are considered without any peculiar relation, either to ourselves or to the person whose sentiments we judge of; or, sec-ondly, when they are considered as peculiarly affecting one or other of us’ (TMS, I.i.4.1).

Objects which lack a peculiar relation include ‘the expression of a picture, the composition of a discourse . . . all the general subjects of science and taste’.

Smith’s lecturing timetable is set out in LJ 13–22, with references to the sources of our infor-mation. On the Rhetoric lectures, two accounts by men who had heard them show with what clarity they were remembered more than thirty years later. The first was given by John Millar, Professor of Law, who had heard them both in Edinburgh and Glasgow, to Dugald Stewart for a memoir of Smith to be delivered at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1793 (Stewart I. 16):

In the Professorship of Logic, to which Mr. Smith was appointed on his first intro-duction into this University, he soon saw the necessity of departing widely from the plan that had been followed by his predecessors, and of directing the attention of his pupils to studies of a more interesting and useful nature than the logic and metaphys-ics of the schools. Accordingly, after exhibiting a general view of the powers of the mind, and explaining so much of the ancient logic as was requisite to gratify curiosity with respect to an artificial method of reasoning, which had once occupied the uni-versal attention of the learned, he dedicated all the rest of his time to the delivery of a system of rhetoric and belles–lettres. The best method of explaining and illustrating the various powers of the human mind, the most useful part of metaphysics, arises from an examination of the several ways of communicating our thoughts by speech, and from an attention to the principles of those literary compositions which contrib-ute to persuasion or entertainment. By these arts, every thing that we perceive or feel, every operation of our minds, is expressed and delineated in such a manner, that it may be clearly distinguished and remembered. There is, at the same time, no branch of literature more suited to youth at their first entrance upon philosophy than this, which lays hold of their taste and their feelings.

The second report, written after 1776 in a letter from James Wodrow, Library Keeper at the University of Glasgow from 1750 to 1755, to the Earl of Buchan and preserved in Glasgow Univ. Lib. Murray Collection (Buchan Correspondence, ii. 171), reads:

Adam Smith delivered a set of admirable lectures on language (not as a grammar-ian but as a rhetorician) on the different kinds or characteristics of style suited to dif-

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ferent subjects, simple, nervous, etc., the structure, the natural order, the proper ar-rangement of the different members of the sentence etc. He characterised the style and the genius of some of the best of the ancient writers and poets, but especially historians, Thucydides, Polybius etc. translating long passages of them, also the style of the best English classics, Lord Clarendon, Addison, Swift, Pope, etc; and, though his own didactic style in his last famous book (however suited to the subject) — the style of the former book was much superior—was certainly not a model for good writing, yet his remarks and rules given in the lectures I speak of, were the result of a fine taste and sound judgement, well calculated to be exceedingly useful to young composers, so that I have often regretted that some part of them has never been pub-lished.

With this stricture on the style of WN, incidentally, may be compared the remark made by Lord Monboddo to Boswell that though Smith came down from Oxford a good Greek and Latin scholar, from the style of WN ‘one would think that he had never read any of the Writers of Greece or Rome’ (Boswell, Private Papers, ed. Scott and Pottle, xiii. 92); and even his friends Hume, Millar and Blair took this view. On the other hand John Ramsay of Ochtertyre (Scotland and Scotsmen in the eighteenth Century, published 1888, i. 462) thought that in view of the purity and ele-gance with which he ordinarily wrote it was ‘no wonder, then, that his lectures should be re-garded as models of composition’. A kindred activity of Smith’s in his Glasgow days is recorded in the Foulis Press Papers, extracted by W. J. Duncan in Notes and Documents illustrative of the Literary History of Glasgow (Maitland Club 1831, 16): in January 1752 he had helped to found a Literary Society in the University, and ‘he read papers to this society on Taste, Composition and the His-tory of Philosophy which he had previously delivered while a lecturer on rhetoric in Edinburgh’. Of these, two were parts I and II of the essay on the Imitative Arts—this on the evidence of John Millar who was a member of the Society (EPS 172)—an essay which Smith told Reynolds he in-tended publishing ‘this winter’, i.e. 1782–3 (Reynolds, letter of 12 September 1782, in Correspon-dence of James Boswell, ed. C. N. Fifer, Yale UP 1976, 126).

What modifications the lectures on rhetoric underwent between 1748 and the session in which our notes were taken it is almost impossible to determine. There are few datable post–1748 references. Macpherson’s Ossian imitations, ‘lately published’ (ii. 113), appeared in 1760, 1762, 1763. Gray’s two Pindaric odes, if the reference at ii. 96 includes them, belong to 1757; the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, of which Smith became so fond, to 1751; Shenstone’s Pastoral Ballad to 1755. Rousseau’s Discours (i. 19) appeared in 1755 and was discussed by Smith in the Edinburgh Review no. 2 (EPS 250–4). All of these references, except perhaps the last, could easily have been inserted without radical revision of the text. The unmistakable reference to Hume’s History of England at ii. 73, whether we read ‘so’ or (‘10’ in the added marginal note, raises a complex ques-tion. The History appeared in instalments, working backwards chronologically, in 1754, 1757, 1759, and was completed in 1762, after which date the reference becomes relevant. On 12 Janu-ary 1763 Smith must have read out what had stood in his manuscript for some years, and then in the last moments of the lecture made an impromptu correction when recollecting a friend’s very

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recent publication. Why this afterthought is also recorded by Scribe A in an afterthought is per-haps not in the circumstances all that mysterious.

The general continuity of the lecture–course from 1748 to 1763, details apart, is established by its structure and by the set of central principles which inform all twentynine reported lectures and which could not have been added or superimposed on the argument at some intermediate stage of its development. Basic to the whole is the division into ‘an examination of the several ways of communicating our thoughts by speech’ and ‘an attention to the principles of those liter-ary compositions which contribute to persuasion or entertainment’.

To set this out in summary: first section, linguistic: (a) Language, communication, expression (Lectures 2–7, i. 85); (b) Style and character (Lectures 7–11).—Second section, the species of composition: (a) Descriptive (Lectures 12–16); (b) Narrative or historical (Lectures 17–20); (c) Po-etry (Lecture 21); (d) Demonstrative oratory, i.e. panegyric (Lectures 22–23); (e) Didactic or scien-tific (Lecture 24); (f) Deliberative oratory (Lectures 25–27); (g) Judicial or forensic oratory (Lec-tures 28–30).

Two features of the course enable us to make a plausible guess at the contents of the intro-ductory lecture—whose absence, by the way, tends to prove that this set of notes was not pre-pared with a view to sale. At the heart of Smith’s thinking, his doctrine, and his method of pres-entation (the three are always related) is the notion of the chain (see ii. 133 and cf. Astronomy II. 8–9)—articulated continuity, sequence of relations leading to illumination. Leave no chasm or gap in the thread: ‘the very notion of a gap makes us uneasy’ (ii. 36). The orator ‘puts the whole story into a connected narration’; the great art of an orator is to throw his argument ‘into a sort of a narration, filling up in the manner most suitable . . .’ (ii. 206, 197). The art of transition is a vital matter (i. 146). Smith is concerned with this on the strategic level just as contemporary writ-ers on Milton and Thomson were on the imaginative. As a lecturer, giving an exhibition of the very craft he is discussing, he insists that his listeners know where they have been and where they are going. Dugald Stewart notes in his Life of Thomas Reid that ‘neither he nor his immediate predecessor ever published any general prospectus of their respective plans; nor any heads or outlines to assist their students in tracing the trains of thought which suggested their various transitions’ (1802: 38–9). In Smith’s case the frequent signposts would have made such a prospectus superflu-ous, and readers of the lectures are more likely to complain of being led by the hand than of bafflement. What all this amounts to is that the opening themephrase ‘Perspicuity of stile’ must have been clearly led up to.

The other habit of Smith’s gives a clue to how this may have been done. He often shows his impatience with intricate subdivisions and classifications of his subject, such as had long made rhetoric a notoriously scholastic game. La Bruyère speaks of ‘un beau sermon’ made according to all the rules of the rhetoricians, with the cognoscenti in the preacher’s audience following with admiration ‘toutes les énumérations où il se promène’. But though Smith thinks it all very silly and refers anyone so inclined to read about it in Quintilian, his teacherly conscience compels him to ensure that his students have heard of the old terms. Lecture 1 no doubt defined the scope of

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this course by saying what it was not going to include. At least since the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium early in the first century B.C. the orator’s art had been divided into invention, ar-rangement, expression, memory, and delivery; Quintilian’s words (Institutio Oratoria III. iii. 1; and passim) are inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and pronuntiatio or actio. Smith in effect sees only the second and third as important, the third (style) occupying Lectures 2–11, the second underlying virtually all that Lectures 12–30 discuss.

It is to be hoped that for the sake of clarity one other traditional division was at least men-tioned. As early as i. 12 ‘the didactick stile’ is compared with that of historians and orators, and the phrase and the comparison occur repeatedly throughout the lectures as if their meaning was already known. The central place occupied in Smith’s whole conception of discourse by the ‘di-dactick stile’ becomes clear in the lecture (24) devoted to it, where it emerges as not only a mode of expression but as a procedure of thought: the scientific (ii. 132–5), that concerned with the exposition of a system, the clarification of a multitude of phenomena by one known or proved principle. Perhaps this was too early in the course; but the analogy with music set out in Imitative Arts II. 29 (see below, section 5) by which many notes are related both to a leading or key–note and a succession of notes or ‘song’, and the observation that this is like ‘what order and method are to discourse’, would have proved helpful to the many who, then as later, find it harder to ap-prehend pattern in language than in sound or colour. Smith makes things harder by equating, at i. 152, the ancient (indeed Aristotelian) division of speeches into Demonstrative, Deliberative, Judicial, with his own philosophical division into narrative, didactic, rhetorical (i. 149). This, it must be admitted, involves some straining. ‘It is rather reverence for antiquity than any great re-gard for the Beauty or usefullness of the thing itself which makes me mention the Antient divi-sions of Rhetorick’ (i. 152); but in this case he could have been less scrupulous, since Quintilian (III. iv) asks ‘why three?’ rather than a score of others. He is echoing Cicero; and Jean–François Marmontel, author of the literary articles in the Encyclopédie vols 3–7 and Supplément (collected in Eléments de Littérature, 1787) pours scorn on the terms themselves: Deliberative speech, where the orator exerts all his energy to proving to the meeting that there is nothing at all to deliberate; Demonstrative, which demonstrates nothing but flattery or hatred (and, he should have added, the orator’s virtuosity—not showing but showing off); Judicial, aiming at demonstrating, and leaving it all to the judges’ deliberation. In any case Smith in the end does not scrap the ancient divison but simply adds the Didactic to it: Lectures 22–30.

By chance our notes begin at what Smith thought of first importance: style, language. ‘Nobis prima sit virtus perspicuitas’ said Quintilian (VIII. ii. 22, echoing Aristotle’s σαϕὴς λέξις, Rhetoric III. ii. 1), and defined the main ingredient in perspicuity as proprietas, each thing called by its own, its properly belonging name. The root meaning of perspicuity is the quality of being seen through, and the subject of Smith’s lectures may be said to be what it is that language allows to show through it, and how. For Smith there is much more to this transparence than the handing over of facts or feelings, and the first paragraph introduces some of this. Words are no mere convenience; they are natives of a community, as citizens are—and as i. 5–6 shows, of a particular part of the

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community. The Abbé du Bos devoted I. xxxvii of Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (1719) to showing the kind of force the words of our own language have on our minds. When an English–reading Frenchman meets the word God it is to the word Dieu and all its associations that his emotions respond.

A more immediate motive for this paragraph can best be indicated by a well–known story about the poet of the Seasons. After completing his Arts course at Edinburgh, James Thomson’s first exercise in the Faculty of Divinity was the preparation of a sermon on the Jod section of Psalm cxix. When he read it to his class on 27 October 1724 it was severely criticised by his pro-fessor, William Hamilton, for its grandiloquence of style, quite unsuitable for any congregation. Thomson, discouraged, gave up his studies, went off to London, and spent his life writing poems whose highly Latinate diction has often been remarked on: as was that of his fellow–countrymen in his own century. The Scoticisms against which Scottish writers were put on their guard, as by Hume and Beattie, were partly of this kind, and have been attributed to the Latin base of Scots Law as well as of Scottish education. Hutcheson was the first professor at Glasgow to lecture in English, and this, quite apart from his teaching, was seen as a help to the students in unlearning their linguistic tendencies. A. F. Tytler (Kames, i. 163) emphasises the influence of another Scottish professor in the same direction, that of the Edinburgh mathematician Colin Maclaurin, his ‘pure, correct and simple style inducing a taste for chasteness of expression . . . a disrelish of affected ornaments’. Scots youths were encouraged towards ‘an ease and elegance of composition as a more engaging vehicle for subjects of taste, in the room of the dry scholastic style in which they had hitherto been treated’. They were ‘attracted to the more pleasing topics of criticism and the belles lettres. The cultivation of style became an object of study’, replacing the ancient school dialectics. This, if only Tytler had provided evidence and illustration, would parallel the linguistic programme of the Royal Society as outlined by Sprat in its History in 1667: ‘this trick of Meta-phors’, ‘those specious Tropes and Figures’, to be replaced by positive expressions ‘bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness as they can’.

A much wider context for Smith’s lectures is thus created, though we must not forget the im-mediate one suggested by i. 103: ‘We in this country are most of us very sensible that the perfec-tion of language is very different from that we commonly speak in’. Periodically throughout the history of style there occur combats between the respective upholders of the plain and the elabo-rate: Plato versus the sophist Gorgias; Calvus charging Cicero with ‘Asianic’ writing as opposed to Attic purity. Smith’s teaching comes at such a moment. While he was a student John Constable’s Reflections upon accuracy of style enjoyed something of a vogue. Not published till 1734 (reprinted 1738), this attack on the highly figurative language of Jeremy Collier’s Essays (1697) had been written in 1701; and in the meantime Collier’s ‘huddle of metaphors’ and conceits had been sharply criticized in John Oldmixon’s adaptation of the influential La manière de bien penser dans les ouvrages d’esprit (1687) by Dominique Bouhours—The arts of Logick and Rhetorick (1728). Behind all of them lies another combat: the Chevalier de Méré’s strictures on the verbal extravagances of Voiture in De la Justesse (1671), which gave Constable his title. These oppositions are of many kinds, and all differ from the one Smith sets up between the lucidity of Swift and the ‘pompous-ness’ of Shaftesbury—the shaping motive of much of Lectures 7–11. This is perhaps the earliest

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appreciation of Swift as writer; political and quasi–moral objections prevented his critical recog-nition till late in the century. Smith’s admiration rests on something central in the Rhetoric: ‘All his works show a complete knowledge of his Subject . . . One who has such a complete knowledge of what he treats will naturally arange it in the most proper order’ (i. 105–6). Shaftesbury is a dilet-tante and does not know enough. Above all he has not kept up with modern scientific advances; he makes up for superficiality and ignorance by ornament (i. 140–1, 144). That his letters ‘have no marks of the circumstances the writer was in at the time he wrote. Nor any reflections pecu-liarly suited to the times and circumstances’ is the most telling fault. The writing does not belong anywhere or to any one.

It is his criticism of the reverence paid to the figures of speech (whether departures from normal use of word, figurae verborum; or unusual modes of presentation, figurae sententia-rum—Cicero, Orator xxxix–xl; Quintilian IX. i–iii; Rhetorica ad Herennium Book IV) that leads Smith to his decisive formulations of beauty of language. ‘When the sentiment of the speaker is ex-pressed in a neat, clear, plain and clever manner, and the passion or affection he is possessed of and intends, by sympathy, to communicate to his hearer, is plainly and cleverly hit off, then and then only the expression has all the force and beauty that language can give it’. Figures of speech may or may not do the job. See i. 56, 73, 79. ‘The expression ought to be suited to the mind of the author, for this is chiefly governed by the circumstances he is placed in’. Language is organi-cally related not merely to thought in the abstract (see section 3 below); it bears ‘the same stamp’ as the speaker’s nature. Ben Jonson, writing about 1622 (Timber or Discoveries), observed: ‘Lan-guage most shewes a man: speake, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and in-most parts of us, and is the Image of the Parent of it, the mind. No glasse renders a mans forme or likeness so true as his speech’.

The discussion of this relationship is introduced by a nice piece of Smithian economy. The character–sketches of the plain and the simple man not only illustrate two styles and lead on to Swift and Temple (i. 85–95); they offer the student models of ethologia, the form prescribed (ac-cording to Quintilian I. ix. 3) to pupils in rhetoric as an exercise, and they prepare for the instruc-tion in character–drawing in Lecture 15 and the discussion of the Character as a genre—in-vented by Theophrastus, edited by Isaac Casaubon in 1592, introduced in England by Joseph Hall in 1608, and practised by La Bruyere, who is Smith’s favourite because his collection is a mi-crocosm of society and of mankind. When Hugh Blair, as he tells us, was lent the manuscript of Smith’s lectures (he no doubt remembered hearing this passage) when preparing his own, it was from these ethologiae that he drew hints: ‘On this head, of the General Characters of Style, par-ticularly, the Plain and the Simple, and the characters of those English authors who are classed under them, in this, and the following Lecture, several ideas have been taken from a manuscript treatise on rhetoric, part of which was shown to me, many years ago, by the learned and ingen-ious author, Dr Adam Smith; and which, it is hoped, will be given by him to the Public’ (Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 1783, i. 381). The Theophrastan form influenced the historians; see the collection Characters of the Seventeenth Century, ed. D. Nichol Smith (1920). It is significant that

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the first critic to publish a series of studies of Shakespeare’s characters, William Richardson, the Glasgow Professor of Humanity from 1773, was a student of Adam Smith’s; his A philosophical analysis and illustration of some of Shakespeare’s remarkable characters appeared in 1774, and two more volumes in 1784 and 1788.

Boswell, another student who heard the Rhetoric lectures (in 1759), was struck by Smith’s emphasis on the personal aspects of writers, and he twice recalled the remark about Milton’s shoes (absent from our report; it should have come at ii. 107): ‘I remember Dr. Adam Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to know that Milton wore latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles’ (Journal of a tour to the Hebrides §9). ‘I have a pleasure in hearing every story, tho’ never so little, of so distinguished a Man. I remember Smith took notice of this pleas-ure in his lectures upon Rhetoric, and said that he felt it when he read that Milton never wore buckles but strings in his shoes’ (Boswell Papers i. 107). Such was the training of the future author of the greatest of all biographies of a man of letters. In no. 1 of the Spectator (1 March 1711) Ad-dison ‘observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure ’till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of a like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author’. John Harvey included in his Collection of Miscellany Poems and Letters (1726: 84–88) a par-ody of this Spectator, with a fictitious life of himself.

Beauty of style, then, is propriety in the exact sense of the word: language which embodies and exhibits to the reader that distinctive turn and quality of spirit in the author ‘qui lui est propre’, as Marivaux insisted in the Spectateur français, 8e feuille (8 September 1722). Our pleasure is, as Hutcheson noted in his Inquiry into the original of our ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725: I. sec. IV. vii), in recognizing a perfect correspondence or aptness in a curious mechanism for the execution of a design. It is characteristic of Smith that his aesthetics should thus centre on correspondence, rela-tion, affinity. What he finds wrong with Shaftesbury’s style is that he arbitrarily made it up; it has nothing to do with his own character (i. 137–8). When the principle is extended from persons to societies—‘all languages . . . are equally ductile and equally accommodated to all different tem-pers’—very wide and illuminating prospects open up. Good examples are Trajan’s Rome as for-mative background for Tacitus (Lecture 20), the comparison of Athens and Rome as contexts for Demosthenes and Cicero (Lecture 26), and the association of the rise of prose with the growth of commerce and wealth (ii. 144 ff.). Indeed the accounts of historical writing and of the three types of oratory are made the occasions for elaborate excursus on different kinds of social and political organization, ancient and modern.

‘By sympathy’ (i. v. 56): this phrase in the formulation of the highest beauty language can attain is one of the very few which Scribe A underlines, and pains had clearly been taken by Smith to bring out the parallel between his ethical and rhetorical principles. Just as we act under the eye of an impartial spectator within ourselves, the creation of an imaginative self–projection into an outsider whose standards and responses we reconstruct by sympathy or ability to feel as he does, so our language is enabled to communicate our thoughts and ‘affections’ (i.e. inclinations) by our

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ability to predict its effect on our hearer. This is what is meant by seeing the Rhetoric and TMS as two halves of one system, and not merely at occasional points of contact. The connection of ‘sympathy’ as a rhetorical instrument with the vision of speech and personality as an organic unity need not be laboured. Again, it should be obvious how often Smith’s concern is with the sharing of sentiments and attitudes rather than mere ideas or facts. The arts of persuasion are close to his heart for this reason. The opening of Lecture 11 is a key passage. The conveying to a hearer of ‘the sentiment, passion or affection with which [his thought] affects him’—‘the perfec-tion of stile’—is regulated by a ‘Rule, which is equally applicable to conversation and behaviour as writing’; ‘all the Rules of Criticism and morality when traced to their foundation, turn out to be some Principles of Common Sence which every one assents to’. One of the most frequent terms of critical praise in the Rhetoric is ‘interesting’, bearing its original and normal eighteenth century sense of involving, engaging, as at ii. 27 where, thanks to Livy’s skill, ‘we enter into all the concerns of the parties’ and are as affected as if we had been there. The reason why history is enjoyed is that events which befall mankind ‘interest us greatly by the Sympatheticall affections they raise in us’ (ii. 16). The good historian shows the effects wrought on those who were actors or spectators of the events (ii. 5; cf. ii. 62–3). Knowledge of the plot of a tragedy is an advantage since it leaves us ‘free to attend to the Sentiments’ (ii. 30). A variation on this is acutely described in dealing with the picture of Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia, by Timanthes (ii. 8); cf. i. 180, Addison on St Peter’s. Indeed the entire treatment of the art of description in Lectures 12–16 is profoundly instructive of Smith’s main interests. Even minutiae such as the arrangement of words in a sentence (i. v. 42–v. 52b) repay an attention beyond the merely grammatical.

The species of writing are so intimately bound up with each other that Smith finds it difficult in Lectures 12–30 to demarcate them sharply. By instinct, as already noted, he is a historian in the sense that he sees narrative as the very type of human thought–procedure; but his interest in it is also that suggested by Hume’s description of history’s records as ‘so many collections of ex-periments by which the moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science’. (William Richard-son used similar terms about his studies of Shakespeare’s characters in 1784). The first paper read to the Literary Society in the University, on 6 February 1752, was ‘An essay on historical composition’ by James Moor, the Professor of Greek (Essays, 1759). Moor’s elaboration of the kinship of history and poetry, the unified pattern which both exhibit in events, throws interesting light on the position occupied by Lecture 21 in Smith’s progression. Bolingbroke compared his-tory and drama; and Voltaire wrote to the Marquis d’Argenson on 26 January 1740 (Correspon-dence ed. T. Besterman, xxxv. 373): ‘Il faut, dans une histoire, comme dans une pièce de théâtre, exposition, noeud, et dénouement’. There may be an echo of the ancient assimilation of history and poetry in ‘the Poeticall method’ of keeping up the connection between events, other than the causal (ii. 36); and history, like poetry, is said to ‘amuse’ (ii. 62), and to have originated with the poets. Leonard Welsted expounded this view fully in his Dissertation concerning the perfection of the English Language (1724). For Quintilian (X. i. 31) a history is a poem: ‘Est enim proxima poetis et quodammodo carmen solutum’. There was indeed much collocation by the ancient rhetoricians of all these genres—history, poetry, rhetoric, philosophical exposition—as in Cicero’s Orator XX. 66–7. The Muses are said to have spoken in Xenophon’s voice (Orator XIX. 62). They are all

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combined by Fénelon in the educational project he outlined to the French Academy, first in 1716. That panegyrical eloquence ‘tient un peu de la poésie’ as Voltaire maintained in the Encyclopédie article on Eloquence is also Smith’s view (ii. 111–2).

The lecture on poetry (21), delivered extemporaneously, is both instructive and disappointing. The post–Coleridge student looks for more analysis of short poems; these are of little interest, naturally, to the philosopher. More important, why does not Smith of all critics tackle the prob-lem of the pleasure afforded us by tragedy? This is specially strange since Hume, who had offered a highly ingenious answer in his essay on tragedy in 1757, expressed dissatisfaction with the treatment of sympathy in this context in TMS I. iii. 1. 9 (Corr. Letter 36, 28 July 1759), and the second edition of TMS contained a footnote on the question. The insistence in the lecture (ii. 82) on the tragic writer’s heightening of the painful nature of his story in order to lead to a satisfying ‘catastrophe’ is an oblique solution of the problem and one frequently given: the difference be-tween suffering on the stage and in real life resides in the artifice of the former. ‘The delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction’, said Johnson in the Preface to Shakespeare (1765)—though Burke in 1757 took the opposite view, because ‘we enter into the concerns of others’. Kames in The Elements of Criticism (1762: I. ii. 1 sec. 7) discusses ‘the emotions caused by Fiction’. The function of Lecture 21 is to prepare for the arts of persuasion used by the orator, playing down or exaggerating as the need demands, by describing the similar arts of the good story–teller. Tragedy and Comedy both arrange events so as to culminate in true conclusiveness. Note that Smith’s imagination is as tuned to good cadence as is his ear.

That is why he delights in rhyme. Boswell reports that when Johnson was extolling rhyme over blank verse, ‘I mentioned to him that Dr. Adam Smith, in his lectures upon composition, when I studied under him in the College of Glasgow, had maintained the same opinion strenu-ously, and I repeated some of his arguments’. Johnson had no love for Smith, but—‘had I known that he loved rhyme as much as you tell me he does, I should have HUGGED him’ (Life of John-son, ed. Hill–Powell, i. 427–8). Dugald Stewart associates this bias with Smith’s ascription of our pleasure in the Imitative Arts (e.g. I. 16, III. 2) to admiration of difficulté surmontée (Stewart III. 14–15). The phrase is by Antoine Houdar de La Motte in his controversy with Voltaire over Œdipe (1730). La Motte opposed both the Unities and Rhyme in drama: ‘toutes ces puérilités n’ont d’autre mérite que celui de la difficulté surmontée’. Both Voltaire and Smith counter this argu-ment by pointing to the observed triumph over observed obstacles, as a source of our surprised delight in all the arts, both plastic and literary. Stewart (III. 15) wonders whether Smith’s ‘love of system, added to his partiality for the French drama’, may have led him to generalize too much in this. Rhyme is not in fact explicitly mentioned in our manuscript at ii. 74 ff., but it is implicit in couplet and reference to Pope. Cf. TMS V. i. 7.

‘The principles of dramatic composition had more particularly attracted his attention’ (Stewart III. 15); and though the dogmas about unity of Time and Place had often been attacked since Corneille’s Discours in 1660—in Farquhar’s Discourse upon Comedy (1702) and Kames’s Ele-ments of Criticism (1762: chap. xxiii)—it is pleasant to find Smith transferring the question to

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‘Unity of Interest’ (ii. 81). This time he is on La Motte’s side. In the first of his Discours sur la Tragédie (1730) this is made the supreme law of dramatic art: but, as Smith remarks, the phrase is susceptible of many interpretations, and it is a little surprising to find him not following La Motte’s thesis that concentration of the audience’s sympathy on a group of characters—always present, always acting, animating and vivifying the action of the piece—is what constitutes ‘unité d’intérêt’, as they are ‘tous dignes que j’entre dans leurs passions’. ‘That every part of the Story should tend to some one end, whatever that be’ is of course also a typically Smithian formula-tion.

Beside the remark on Comedy (ii. 82) we must place the full account of the comic at i. 107–v.116. Smith’s interest in the laughter–provoking (we must remember that that is simply what the eighteenth century words ridicule and ridiculous mean) was no doubt kindled early by Hutche-son, whose criticism of Hobbes’s view—‘the passion of laughter is nothing but sudden glory aris-ing from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves’ (Leviathan vi)—first appeared in the Dublin Journal 10–12 (June 1725), collected as Reflections on Laughter (1750). Smith’s approach is proper to someone preoccupied with comparison: unexpected incongruities arising from the ag-grandisement of the little (as in mock–heroic) or diminution of the grand. At i. 112 he seems to allude to Leibnitz: ‘All raillery includes a little contempt, and it is not just to try to make con-temptible what does not deserve it’ (Remarks on Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks, 1711; printed in Masson’s Histoire critique de la République des Lettres, 1715). He does not accept therefore Shaftes-bury’s notion of laughter as a ‘test of truth’. For Smith on wit and humour cf. the review of John-son’s Dictionary (EPS 240–1).

Johnson would not have ‘hugged’ Smith for his words on tragi–comedy (ii. 83–4). This ‘mixed’ kind, described in Spectator 40 as monstrous, was several times vigorously defended by Johnson for its truth to life: e.g. Rambler 156 (14 Sept. 1751), as well as the Preface to Shakespeare in 1765.

To one tradition of rhetorical instruction Smith is faithful, in the readiness with which he quotes poetic examples side by side with prose. At i. 9 he refers to Samuel Clarke’s preface to his edition of the Iliad (1729) in praise of Homer’s perspicuity—such, says Clarke, that no prose writer has ever equalled him in this his ‘perpetua et singularis virtus’. Clarke also makes an inter-esting distinction between the poet’s ars and his oratio; so in our day Ezra Pound has insisted that poetry must have the qualities of good prose.

Like that later polymath Coleridge, Adam Smith nursed till his last days the hope of produc-ing a magnum opus of immense scope. ‘I have likewise two other great works upon the anvil; the one is a sort of Philosophical History of all the different branches of Literature, of Philosophy, Poetry and Eloquence’ (the other being his Jurisprudence); ‘The materials of both are in a great measure collected, and some Part of both is put into tollerable good order’. So he wrote to the Duc de La Rochefoucauld on 1 Nov. 1785 (Corr., Letter 248). This was no doubt why in 1755, in a paper read to Cochrane’s Political Economy Club, he gave ‘a pretty long enumeration . . . of certain leading principles, both political and literary, to which he was anxious to establish his ex-clusive right; in order to prevent the possibility of some rival claims . . .’ (Stewart IV. 25). Unfor-tunately Stewart does not tell us which ‘literary’ principles were listed. Smith describes the opin-

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ions as having formed the subjects of his lectures since he first taught Mr Craigie’s class ‘down to this day, without any considerable variation’.

One envies the eighteenth century the freedom and width of vision made possible to them by their not circumscribing the word literature and narrowing the scope of its study as we have since done. Our two scribes enable us to glimpse that first work which would have become the founda-tion of the tantalizing ‘Philosophical History’ of all literature.

3. Considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages

It may be worth remembering that the dissertation Adam Smith delivered, as by statute re-quired, on 16 January 1751 to justify his induction into the Chair of Logic and Rhetoric at the University of Glasgow was entitled De origine idearum. In the absence of the text of this we cannot know in what sense idea was used. His first published essay was on a semantic subject. For the first number of the Edinburgh Review which he had helped to found in 1755 he chose to review John-son’s newly issued Dictionary, and he made his review an exercise in the systematic distinction and arrangement of the meanings of words: but and humour as examples. He found Johnson’s treat-ment insufficiently ‘grammatical’, i.e. philosophically analytic (EPS 232–41) and offers an alter-native plan. There is evidence to support the statement of A. F. Tytler in his Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames . . . containing sketches of the Progress and General Improve-ment in Scotland during the greater part of the eighteenth century (1807: i. 168) that of all the articles in the two numbers of the magazine this was the one which attracted most attention—and the implica-tions of Tytler’s long sub–title help us to understand why. Tytler admits that though Smith’s arti-cle ‘displays the same philosophic views of universal grammar, which distinguish his Essay on the formation of Languages’ his metaphysical discrimination and ingenuity were less suitable than John-son’s method ‘for conveying a critical knowledge of the English language’ (170).

Light is thrown on the beginnings of Smith’s interest in language in a letter which he wrote on 7 February 1763 to George Baird who had sent him an Abstract of An Essay on Grammar as it may be applied to the English Language (1765) by his friend William Ward. The letter (69), which was printed by Nichols in Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century (iii, 1818, 515–16), expresses surprise that Ward, mentioning various definitions of nouns, ‘takes no notice of that of the Abbé Girard, the author of a book, called, ‘Les vrais Principes de la Langue Françoise’. . . . It is the book which first set me a thinking upon these subjects, and I have received more instruction from it than from any other I have yet seen upon them. . . . The grammatical articles, too, in the French Encyclopedie have given me a good deal of entertainment.’ The comments on Ward’s design offer a useful introduction to Smith’s own thinking.

I approve greatly of his plan for a Rational Grammar, and I am convinced that a work of this kind, executed with his abilities and industry, may prove not only the best system of grammar, but the best system of logic in any language, as well as the best history of the natural progress of the human mind in forming the most important

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abstractions upon which all reasoning depends. . . . If I was to treat the same subject, I should endeavour to begin with the consideration of verbs; these being, in my ap-prehension, the original parts of speech, first invented to express in one word a com-plete event: I should then have endeavoured to shew how the subject was divided from the attribute; and afterwards, how the object was distinguished from both; and in this manner I should have tried to investigate the origin and use of all the different parts of speech, and of all their different modifications, considered as necessary to express all the different qualifications and relations of any single event.

Smith is too modest to say that all this—‘taken in a general view, which is the only view that I can pretend to have taken of them’—he did in fact set out in an essay published two years earlier, but, as Stewart tells us (II. 44), he was proud of the ‘considerations concerning the First Forma-tion of Languages’: ‘It is an essay of great ingenuity, and on which the author himself set a high value’ and justly—it is a masterpiece of lucid exposition which any summary can only blur. Stewart’s comments (II. 44–56) are the most perceptive ever made on it. He saw that its value lies, not in the possible accuracy of the opinions, but in its being a specimen of an entirely modern kind of inquiry ‘which seems, in a peculiar degree, to have interested Mr Smith’s curiosity.’ To this Stewart applied the now famous phrase ‘Theoretical or Conjectural History’, and he finds exam-ples of it in all Smith’s writings. In the absence of direct evidence, ‘when we are unable to ascer-tain how men have actually conducted themselves upon particular occasions’ we must consider ‘in what manner they are likely to have proceeded, from the principles of their nature, and the circumstances of their external situation.’ ‘The known principles of human nature’; ‘the natural succession of inventions and discoveries’; ‘the circumstances of society’—these are the founda-tions on which rests Smith’s thinking ‘whatever be the nature of his subject’; astronomy, politics, economics, literature, language. ‘In most cases, it is of more importance to ascertain the progress that is most simple, than the progress that is most agreeable to fact; for . . . the real progress is not always the most natural’ (56). Stewart is stressing the timelessness of Smith’s argument, which still makes sense even after the birth of comparative philology in 1786 with Sir William Jones’s dem-onstration before the Royal Asiatic Society of the kinship between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and the Germanic and Celtic languages. Smith instinctively uses the historical mode for his exposition of principles in this context while exhibiting the powers of the mind operating in their most fully human and characteristic activity: comparing, classifying, abstracting. The primacy he gives to language, which entails that something like Lecture 3 must have come early in his Rhetoric course right from its first delivery, rests on his vision of language as the embodiment of the mind’s striving towards the ‘metaphysical’, towards conceptualization.

‘Essay’, ‘Dissertation’, ‘Considerations’: the last is the appropriate title, since three (of quite different kinds) are offered. The first, ‘theoretical history’ proper, has two sections: (a) on nouns, adjectives and prepositions (1–25); (b) on verbs and pronouns (26–32). That mere chronology is not Smith’s real concern is shown by his beginning with nouns, although he believes verbs are the most ancient part of speech, which starts with the presentation of a single undifferentiated event as in the impersonal verb. He does so because the inflectional systems of the noun are well adapted to exhibiting his analysis of the process of abstraction: from classes of things, to modifi-

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cation by quality, gender, number, and relationship—and even within relationships, a hierarchy or range of degrees of the metaphysical, there Smith’s vision of the organic connection between thinking and speaking becomes clear. No one will attribute to him the naive notion that early man first conceived the relations by, with, or from, and then invented the device of adding –o or –e to the root of the noun to express them. Language and thought are generated together, as d’Alembert maintained in the ‘Discours préliminaire’ to the Encyclopédie in 1751. He too had learned from the Abbé Gabriel Girard’s Les vrais principes de la langue françoise, ou la parole réduite en méthode conformément aux lois de l’usage (1747) to see ‘parts of speech’, not as dead terms in school grammar, but as operations of the human intellect, and ‘grammar’ itself as the image of logic. Girard’s book is a perfect example of the beautiful unity and harmony he finds in the linguistic works of the spirit.

The second Consideration (33–40) moves from conjectural to actual history: the breakdown of the inflectional system which results from peoples of different tongue living together and being defeated by the intricacies (as they see them) of each other’s speech–structures: the Germanic Lombards confronted with Latin, or (Smith might have added) the invading Norse–speakers meeting the English. The simplification in question can be observed by anyone listening to a for-eigner wrestling with his elementary English. ‘Elementary’ is the right word, speech reduced to its elements, all verb–forms reduced to the infinitive. Something comparable produces the various kinds of pidgin and creole throughout the world.

The third Consideration (41–45) is an assessment of the damage wrought by this breakdown: modern analytic languages are, as compared with earlier synthetic ones, more prolix (since a mul-tiplicity of words must replace the old inflections), less agreeable to the ear (lacking the pleasing symmetries and variety of the inflections), and more rigid in their possibilities of word–ordering (differences of case–endings make for flexibility in arrangement without ambiguity).

Most of the many mid–eighteenth century investigators of the beginnings of language are interested in more superficial senses of the word ‘origin’: fruitless searches for a reason why a par-ticular sound was ever chosen to denote a particular thing or idea, as in the Traité de la formation méchanique des langues et des principes physiques de l’étymologie (1765) by Charles de Brosses, parts of which were in circulation from 1751 and found their way into articles in the Encyclopédie; or specu-lations on ‘universal grammar’ and the causes of differences among languages, like the Hermes of James Harris (1751). How simplemindedly Smith’s highly original essay could be read is illus-trated by the widely known Elements of general knowledge (1802), lectures which Henry Kett had been delivering since 1790: how did Adam Smith’s two incredible savages ever get into the situa-tion in which he imagines them inventing speech? (i. 88–9). Kett is put down by the percipient L. Davison in ‘Some account of a recent work entitled Elements of General Knowledge’ (1804: ii. 87–88), who sees that Smith assumes language and is interested simply in how it proceeds.

Smith’s connection with The Philological Miscellany (1761) in which his essay first appeared is obscure. An anonymous contributor to The European Magazine, and London Review for April 1802 (xli. 249), writing from Oxford on 10 April 1802, after a reference to an article on Smith in the previous issue and high praise for the review of Johnson’s Dictionary, goes on: ‘in 1761 was pub-

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lished, I believe by Dr. Smith, “The Philological Miscellany” ’, and in it Dr. Smith’s ‘Considera-tions concerning the first Formation of Languages’ first appeared. No authority for attributing the volume to Smith is given; and what in any case is meant—the compiling, or the translating of the French articles? Smith’s essay is the only one to be first published here. The others are almost all from the Mémoires of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, apparently specially translated for this collection of papers on historical, classical and miscellaneous learned ques-tions, such as Smith showed an interest in, in his letter to the Edinburgh Review no. 2, 1756 (EPS 242–54). The editor of the Miscellany ‘proposes to enrich his Work with a variety of Articles from the French Encyclopedie, and with curious Dissertations on Philological Subjects by foreign writers.’ But no further volumes appeared.

Note on the Text

In Adam Smith’s lifetime five authorized editions of this essay were published, for which the sigla PM, 3, 4, 5, 6 are here used:

[PM] the | Philological Miscellany; | consisting of | select essays | from the | memoirs of the Academy of | Belles Lettres at Paris, and | other foreign Academies. | Translated into Eng-lish. | with | Original Pieces by the most Eminent | Writers of our own Country. | vol. I. | [double rule] | Printed for the Editor; | And Sold by T. Beckett and P. A. Dehondt, | in the Strand. 1761. | (8vo: pp. viii + 510).

Pp. 440–79 contains: Considerations concerning the first formation of Languages, and the different genius of original and compounded Languages. By Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Univer-sity of Glasgow. Now first published.—The Table of Contents lists the essay in the same words. This volume, the only one of a projected twice–yearly series to appear, was published in May 1761. The British Library copy has on its fly–leaf the note: ‘Presented by M.rs Becket Oct.r 9. 1761.’

[3] the | theory | of | moral sentiments. | To which is added | A Dissertation on the Origin of Languages. | By Adam Smith, L.L.D. | The Third Edition. | . . MDCCLXVII.—The essay is on pp. 437–78, headed and listed in Table of Contents as in PM, but omitting ‘By . . . published’.

While this edition of TMS was going through the press in winter 1766–67 Smith wrote to his publisher William Strahan:

The Dissertation upon the Origin of Languages is to be printed at the end of Theory. There are some literal errors in the printed copy of it which I should have been glad to have corrected, but have not the opportunity, as I have no copy by me. They are of no great consequenc<e> (Letter 100).

Seven verbal changes were nevertheless made in the text. Smith, it may be noted, here gives the essay the same title as do the title–pages of the early editions of TMS, and as Dugald Stewart in his Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, I. 26, II. 44 (see EPS).

[4] the | theory | of | moral sentiments. | [as 3] The Fourth Edition . . . MDCCLXXIV. The essay is on pp. 437–76, headed as in 3.

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[5] the | theory | of | moral sentiments. | [as 3] The Fifth Edition . . . MDCCLXXXI. The essay is on pp. 437–78, headed as in 3.

[6] the | theory | of | moral sentiments. | [as 3] The Sixth Edition . . . MDCCXC. The es-say is on pp. 403–62 of vol. ii.

The present text is that of 1790, the last for which Smith was responsible. He had worked long on the ‘considerable additions and corrections’ now included in the Theory. An account of the early editions, and of Smith’s carefulness over proof correction in general, is given in the in-troduction to TMS in the present edition: especially 47–9. The ‘Considerations’ remained en-tirely unchanged in substance throughout their five editions, and only a selection of variants from before 1790 need be recorded.

4–6 replace in lower case the initial capitals which PM and 3 consistently give the following words: Philosopher, Grammarians, Adjective, Schoolmen, Green (§4), Nouns, Metaphysics, Mascu-line, Feminine, Neutral, Genders, Substantive, Termination, Prepositions, Superiority, Inferiority, Genitive, Dative, Arbor (§§13 ff.), Grammar, Languages, Nominative, Accusative, Vocative, Cases, Variations, Declensions, Numbers, Conjugations, Verb, Logicians, Citizen, Optative, Mood, Fu-ture, Aorist, Preterit, Tenses, Passive, Participle, Infinitives, Law, Court, Verse, Prose (in the order of first occurrence).

4–6 replace with what we should regard as ‘modern’ forms the following spellings in PM and 3: concret, antient, accompanyment, surprized, forestal, compleat, indispensible, acquireable.

In the matter of punctuation, only students of eighteenth century typographical usage (or whim) will be interested in omissions and insertions of commas in intermediate editions, and they will consult the original texts. In no case is the meaning affected by these variations, though the delivery of an elocutionist declaiming the text might be. No logical or grammatical principle can be seen to be uniformly dictating the many changes from edition to edition. On the whole 4–6 agree as against PM and 3; but six of 3’s changes of PM are reversed by 6 and/or 4, 5. Only variants involving points heavier than comma are here recorded. We cannot know how many are authorial.

The seventh edition (1792) follows 6 in capitals, spelling, italics, and generally in punctuation. The other early editions have not been collated. They include: 1777 (Dublin: title–page ‘the sixth edition’), 1793 (Basel), 1797 (8th), 1801 (9th), 1804 (10th), 1808 (Edinburgh: title–page ‘the elev-enth edition’), 1809 (Glasgow: title–page ‘the twelfth edition’), 1812 (11th), 1813 (Edinburgh). In The Works of Adam Smith vol. v (1811) the ‘Considerations’ are on pp. 3–48, printed as in 6. They are included in Smith’s Essays (1869, 1880). A French translation by A.M.H.B.[oulard], Considéra-tions sur la première formation des langues, et le différent génie des langues originales et composées, was published in Paris in 1796; also one appended to the third French translation of the TMS: Théorie des senti-mens moraux, trans. from ed. 7 by Sophie de Grouchy, Marquise de Condorcet (1798, revd. 1830): ‘Considérations sur l’origine et la formation des langues’, ii. 264–310.

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4. Rhetoric and literary criticism

A student of the traditional rhetoric who reads the present work as he runs (or—as Smith would put it—‘one partly asleep’), may possibly as he encounters familiar topics, concepts and terminology, conclude that this is the well–worn old story: a story so often in the past a dreary one. Smith in speaking of the many systems of rhetoric both ancient and modern observed that they were generally ‘a very silly set of books and not at all instructive’ (i. v. 59). Such a reader will have missed the motive which gives unity and direction to the lectures and the framework of thought which transforms the old discipline; above all he will be ignoring the delight which in-forms the whole and its details.

Steele remarked early in the century that ‘it is a very good service one man renders another when he tells him the manner of his being pleased’. Smith began lecturing at a time when the study of rhetoric was turning increasingly, especially in Scotland, to the study of taste. Hugh Blair opens the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres which he first delivered in 1759 by summing up their twofold aim: ‘Whatever enables genius to execute well, will enable taste to criticise justly’. Smith was a natural teacher of literature. One of his students, William Richardson, in a life of Archibald Arthur who later occupied the Glasgow Chair of Moral Philosophy (and who had himself studied under Smith), records: ‘Those who received instruction from Dr. Smith, will rec-ollect, with much satisfaction, many of these incidental and digressive illustrations, and even dis-cussions, not only in morality, but in criticism, which were delivered by him with animated and extemporaneous eloquence, as they were suggested in the course of question and answer’ (Ar-thur, Discourses on Theological and Literary Subjects, 1803: 507–8). Richardson’s words, though in the first instance about Smith’s ‘examination’ hour, are known to be true of his lecturing in general; and it is significant that in the account of the lectures on rhetoric which follows (515), ‘taste’ is the first topic to be mentioned, before ‘composition’. Arthur himself followed Smith’s method ‘and treated of fine–writing, the principles of criticism, and the pleasures of the imagination . . . in-tended by him to unfold and elucidate those processes of invention, that structure of language, and system of arrangement, which are the objects of genuine taste’. Double evidence, in effect, of Smith’s attitude to the first subject he had chosen to teach. George Jardine, another student of Smith’s who, as Professor of Logic and Rhetoric at Glasgow from 1787, continued to teach along the lines his master had laid down, likewise concentrated on ‘the principles of taste and criticism’. Thomas Reid, writing about 1791 in the Statistical Account of Scotland (vol. 21, 1799 735), describe Jardine’s current practice thus: after dealing briefly with the art of reasoning and its history, he

dedicates the greater part of his time to an illustration of the various mental op-erations, as they are expressed by the several modifications of speech and writing; which leads him to deliver a system of lectures on general grammar, rhetoric, and belles lettres. This course, accompanied with suitable exercises and specimens, on the part of the students, is properly placed at the entrance to philosophy: no subjects are likely to be more interesting to young minds, at a time when their taste and feelings are beginning to open, and have naturally disposed them to the reading of such

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authors as are necessary to supply them with facts and materials for beginning and carrying on the important habits of reflection and investigation.

It is significant that accounts of the tradition in rhetorical teaching acknowledged as stem-ming from Adam Smith so often dwell on the ‘taste and feelings’ of the students.

The title ‘Rhetoric and Belles Lettres’, which presumably (though we do not know) was Smith’s own choice to describe his course, seems to go back to Charles Rollin’s appointment to the Chair of Rhetoric at the Collège Royal in Paris in 1688. Rollin’s lectures were published in 1726–8 as De la manière d’enseigner et d’étudier les Belles–lettres, par raport à l’esprit et au coeur—later changed to Traité des études. Apart from the suggestions of the subtitle the book cannot be shown to have taught Smith anything in the field of criticism. He needed no one else’s instruction on l’esprit et le coeur.

His pleasure as a critic is in several ways that of a philosopher. He is stimulated by prose and poetry which clearly reveal the author, and his eye (and ear) are made attentive by the conception he has worked out of the relation between the writer and the man. Theories, as Pater saw, are useful as ‘points of view, instruments of criticism which may help us to gather up what might otherwise pass unregarded by us’. Rhetoric had, at least since the first century bc, always been taught with copious illustrations from writers, and students had been trained by exercises in the close analysis of texts. The opening paragraphs of Biographia Literaria show how lively, and fruit-ful, this tradition still was in Coleridge’s schooldays. For Smith there is no separation between the two instructions, in handling language and in the enjoyment of that handling by the masters of the crafts. As we might have predicted, his most characteristic method is the comparative, the pin–pointing of an author’s essential quality by putting his work alongside that of a practitioner in the same field or a kindred one: Demosthenes and Cicero, Clarendon and Burnet. This method, used systematically over a great range of examples, is his most distinctive contribution to the literary criticism of his age—especially when we remember that the values he invokes in his judgements are, not narrowly technical, but comprehensively human and humane—com-mon–sense, to use his own word. In English criticism only Dryden, e.g. in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy and the Preface to the Fables, had so far used comparison in an extensive and self–conscious way. Smith certainly knew the examples in the rhetorical treatises of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Demosthenes with Thucydides, Plato with Demosthenes, Isaeus with Lysias, etc.) and in Quintil-ian’s Institutio Oratoria Book X; but perhaps his immediate model was the series of comparisons of ancient writers published by René Rapin in 1664–81.

This was the age of collections of The Beauties of . . . Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Poetry, and so on. Many of Smith’s lectures must have delighted their audience by sounding like some such judi-ciously selected anthologies. He read extensively from the texts in class, often in his own transla-tion (an art he took great pleasure in and found instructive in its own right: Stewart I. 9): hence the variation in length in the reported lectures. The immense popularity of these lectures was the result of their offering the spectacle of Smith’s suppleness in moving easily over the whole field of ancient and modern writing and of his inventiveness in making illuminating connections.

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If we cannot number Adam Smith among the greatest critics, we need not fall into the ill–temper expressed by Wordsworth in a footnote to his Essay Supplementary to the Preface (1815); on the notion ‘that there are no fixed principles in human nature for this art [the admiration of poetry] to rest upon’, he adds: ‘This opinion seems actually to have been entertained by Adam Smith, the worst critic, David Hume not excepted, that Scotland, a soil to which this sort of weed seems natural, has produced’. The premise of this remark is so mistaken, and the quantity of Smith’s literary criticism in the printed works, especially TMS and EPS, so fragmentary and scanty, that the violence of Wordsworth’s language is difficult to explain. A clue occurs in a letter he wrote to John Wilson in June 1802, commenting on the offence given to ‘many fine ladies’ by supposedly indelicate or gross expressions in certain of the Lyrical Ballads (The Mad Mother and The Thorn), ‘and as in the instance of Adam Smith, who, we are told, could not endure the ballad of Clym of the Clough, because the author had not written like a gentleman’ (Early Letters, 1935, 296). This is a clear reference to the interview by Amicus with Smith printed in Appendix 1. The arti-cle was reprinted in The European Magazine for August 1791 (xx. 133–6), in The Whitehall Evening Post, and thence (with misprints and omissions) in a miscellany of essays dating from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries entitled Occasional Essays on Various Subjects, chiefly Political and His-torical (1809). The editorship of this last is ascribed by the B.L. Catalogue to the lawyer and mathematician Francis Maseres, the ‘Baron Maseres’ of Lamb’s essay on the Inner Temple, i.e. Cursitor Baron of Exchequer. The identity of Amicus is unknown. He has been wrongly said to be Adam Smith’s old student David Steuart Erskine, later 11th Earl of Buchan (1742–1829), who in fact, under his pen–name Ascanius, criticised the article of Amicus in The Bee of 8 June 1791 (iii. 166 f.): ‘I knew him too well to think he would have liked to have had a pisgah view of such frivolous matters obtruded on the learned world after his death’—yet he goes on: ‘He had no ear for music, nor any perception of the sublime or beautiful in composition, either in poetry or lan-guage of any kind. He was too much of a geometrician to have much taste.’ Only if we think the notorious and flamboyant eccentricity of Lord Buchan extended to writing an article under one pseudonym in order to condemn it under another can we accept him as Smith’s ‘friendly’ inter-viewer. In any case he collected all his Bee articles for 4 May 1791 to 25 December 1793 in The anonymous and fugitive essays of The Earl of Buchan, vol. 1 (1812) so that, as the preface explains, ‘no person may hereafter ascribe to him any others than are by him, in this manner, avowed, de-scribed, or enumerated’. So all we know of ‘Amicus’ is that, as the ‘we’ of his defence of Allan Ramsay shows, he was a Scot. As to Lord Buchan, though he had his own odd ways of showing his regard for ‘the reputation of my excellent preceptor and amiable friend’ and recalled ‘having had the happiness to live long and much with him’, the regard was genuine, and in some remarks on literary immortality he groups together Homer, Thucydides, Shakespeare, Adam Smith (Es-says as above, 213, 246–7, from The Bee, 29 May 1793 and 27 June 1792 respectively). Inciden-tally, his denial to Smith of a ‘perception of the sublime’ would have been rebutted by Edmund Burke (who had just written a book on The Sublime and the Beautiful): on 10 Sept. 1759 he wrote to Smith praising the ‘lively and elegant’ style of TMS and adding ‘it is often sublime too, particu-larly in that fine Picture of the Stoic Philosophy towards the end of your first part which is dressed out in all the grandeur and pomp that becomes that magnificent delusion’ (Corr. Letter 38).

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Despite the introductory assurance of authenticity by the editor of The Bee, Dr. James Ander-son, who had himself known Smith, the moral propriety of reprinting yet again the gossip of Amicus may rightly be questioned. John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century (1888: i. 468) remarks that Smith’s table–talk would be precious, ‘but the scraps of it published in the Bee do no honour ei-ther to his memory or the discretion of his friends’. Dugald Stewart (V. 15) contrasts the opinions which ‘in the thoughtlessness and confidence of his social hours, he was accustomed to hazard on books, and on questions of speculation’, though having much truth and ingenuity in them, with ‘those qualified conclusions that we admire in his writings’; and what he said as the fancy or the humour took him, ‘when retailed by those who only saw him occasionally, suggested false and contradictory ideas of his real sentiments’. But the Amicus piece has often been quoted (see Rae, Life, 365–71). Smith himself seems to approve of curiosity about the great—‘The smallest cir-cumstances, the most minute transactions of a great man are sought after with eagerness. Every-thing that is created with Grandeur seems to be important. We watch the sayings and catch the apothegms of the great ones with which we are infinitely pleased and are fond of every opportu-nity of using them . . .’ (LRBL ii. 107). We are after all publishing lectures which Smith died be-lieving he had saved from publication as not in a worthy state. Of course (there is a difference) these had in one sense been ‘published’. In 1896 Edwin Cannan sought to justify the publication of the Lectures on Jurisprudence by quoting Smith’s own words about the limits on testamentary provisions. In LJ (A) i. 165–6 they run: ‘. . . we should permit the dying person to dispose of his goods as far as he sees, that is, to settle how it shall be divided amongst those who are alive at the same time with him. For these it may be conjectured he may have contracted some affection. . . . But persons who are not born he can have no affection for. The utmost stretch of our piety can not reasonably extend to them.’ Mutatis mutandis Smith’s suppressions need not inhibit us. John-son’s remark in Rambler 60 is not inopportune: ‘If we owe regard to the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth’.

5. System and aesthetics

On 9 July 1764 Boswell wrote from Berlin to Isabella de Zuylen (Zélide): ‘Mr. Smith whose moral sentiments you admire so much, wrote to me sometime ago, “your great fault is acting upon system”, what a curious reproof to a young man from a grave philosopher’. The letter opens: ‘. . . You know I am a man of form, a man who says to himself, Thus will I act, and acts accordingly’ (Letters, ed. C. B. Tinker, 1924, 46). In the absence of Adam Smith’s letter (strange, considering what mountains of paper Boswell preserved) we cannot tell with what irony he wrote to his former student; but the incident draws attention to the two uses in the eighteenth century of the word and the concept ‘system’. While Smith was giving these lectures two of the most powerful critiques of the idea appeared: in the wittiest and subtlest of all such attacks, Tristram Shandy (1759–67), Sterne presents a hapless philosopher–father’s attempts to make his son’s up-bringing conform to theory, the Shandean system—the form of the novel itself criticises the no-

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tion of rigid form; and in 1759 Voltaire produced, in Candide, a demolition of the optimistic scheme of the universe, a series of disastrous frustrations of the illusion that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Marivaux is fond of pillorying ‘les faiseurs de systèmes’ (e.g. in Let-tres au Mercure, May 1718 etc.), who are what ‘le vulgaire’ call ‘philosophers’; and Shaftesbury had already in 1711 (Characteristics: Misc. III. ii) defined a formal philosopher as a ‘system–writer’. ‘System–monger’ comes in about the same time. On 27 Sept. 1748 we find Lord Chesterfield ad-vising his son to ‘read and hear, for your amusement, ingenious systems, nice questions, subtilely agitated with all the refinements that warm imaginations suggest’, and less sardonically he com-plains: ‘The preposterous notions of a systematical man who does not know the world tire the patience of a man who does’. Cf. Stewart’s (V. 15) ‘too systematical’ of Smith; and the ‘man of system’ apt ‘to be very wise in his own conceit’, in TMS, VI. ii. 2. 17.

‘System’ in the good sense is exemplified by Johnson’s defence of The Wealth of Nations against Sir John Pringle’s charge that Smith was not equipped to write such a work since he had never taken part in trade: ‘. . . there is nothing which requires more to be illustrated by philosophy than trade does’ (Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. Hill–Powell, ii. 430). Another example, used by James Wodrow in a letter to the Earl of Buchan (Glasgow Univ. Lib., Murray MS 506, 169) is the com-parison of Smith’s accounting for the principal phenomena in the moral world from the one gen-eral principle of sympathy, with ‘that of gravity in the natural world’. Still another is set out by Smith in a letter (30, dated 4 April 1759) to Lord Shelburne on the course of study his son Lord Fitzmaurice should pursue in his future years at Glasgow, after completing his Philosophical stud-ies. He should, says Smith, attend the lectures of the Professor of Civil Law, as the best prepara-tion for the study of English Law even though Civil Law has no authority in the English Courts:

The civil law is digested into a more regular system than the English Law has yet been, and tho’ the Principles of the former are in many respects different from those of the latter, yet there are many principles common to both, and one who has studied the civil law at least knows what a system of law is, what parts it consist of, and how these ought to be arranged: so that when he afterwards comes to study the law of any other country which is not so well digested, he carries at least the Idea of a System in his head and knows to what part of it he ought to refer everything that he reads.

Compare this with the motive underlying the system of meanings laid out in the review of Johnson’s Dictionary (EPS 232–41).

That something more than mere tidiness and intellectual coherence is involved for Smith is illustrated by a passage in Imitative Arts (II. 30, cf. section 2, above):

A well–composed concerto of instrumental Music, by the number and variety of the instruments, by the variety of the parts which are performed by them, and the perfect concord or correspondence of all these different parts; by the exact harmony or coincidence of all the different sounds which are heard at the same time, and by that happy variety of measure which regulates the succession of those which are heard at different times, presents an object so agreeable, so great, so various, and so interesting, that alone, and without suggesting any other object, either by imitation or

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otherwise, it can occupy, and as it were fill up, completely the whole capacity of the mind, so as to leave no part of its attention vacant for thinking of any thing else. In the contemplation of that immense variety of agreeable and melodious sounds, ar-ranged and digested, both in their coincidence and in their succession, into so com-plete and regular a system, the mind in reality enjoys not only a very great sensual, but a very high intellectual, pleasure, not unlike that which it derives from the con-templation of a great system in any other science.

In other words, to watch the explanation of a great diversity and multiplicity of phenomena from a single general principle is to be confronted with beauty: ‘the beauty of a systematical ar-rangement of different observations connected by a few common principles’ (WN V. i. f. 25; cf. EPS, 13 ff). We remember that Smith’s dominant interests while a student at Glasgow under Pro-fessor Robert Simson (Stewart, I. 7) were mathematics and natural philosophy; this is where he learned ‘the idea of a system’—as set out in Astronomy IV. 19.

The issue is most clearly stated in LRBL (ii. 132–4), in the lecture (24) on scientific and philo-sophical exposition, the ‘didacticall’ method. One may either explain phenomena piecemeal, us-ing a new principle for each as it is encountered, e.g. the ‘System of Husbandry’ presented in Virgil’s Georgics following Aristotle’s procedure; ‘or in the manner of Sir Isaac Newton we may lay down certain principles known or proved in the beginning, from whence we account for the sev-erall Phenomena, connecting all together by the same chain’. This enchaînement (the favourite term among French thinkers of the time) is in every branch of study—ethics, physics, criti-cism—‘vastly more ingenious and for that reason more engaging than the other. It gives us a pleasure to see the phaenomena which we reckoned the most unaccountable all deduced from some principle (commonly a wellknown one) and all united in one chain, far superior to what we feel from the unconnected method. . . .’ (Cf. TMS, VII. ii. 2. 14).

The task Smith set himself in the Rhetoric was to substitute a ‘Newtonian’ (or Cartesian, cf. ii. 134), a philosophical and ‘engaging’ explanation of beauty in writing, for the old rigmarole about figures of speech and of thought, ‘topics’ of argument, subdivisions of discourse, characters of style and the rest. In this sense his lectures constitute an anti–rhetoric; and though they could not by themselves rescue the word rhetoric, or for that matter the phrases belles lettres and polite literature, from the bad press they suffered from, they exerted a profound and revolutionary influence which has still not been properly investigated, on Hugh Blair, Kames, William Richardson, George Campbell, and those they in turn taught.

‘There is no art whatever that hath so close a connection with all the faculties and powers of the mind as eloquence, or the art of speaking.’ So George Campbell introduces The Philosophy of Rhetoric in 1776. To come closer to describing Smith’s central informing principle, the formula-tions of two French writers whose work he knew well may help. ‘Le style est l’homme même’. This famous and generally misunderstood remark was made by the naturalist Buffon on his ad-mission to the French Academy in 1753, in what came to be called his Discours sur le style. He is contrasting the inert facts of unanimated knowledge with what language does to them. ‘Ces cho-ses sont hors de l’homme’ they are non–human. But utter them, and how you utter them, is ‘very

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man’, ‘man himself ’. From a different angle Marivaux, in Le Spectateur français of 8 September 1722 (Huitième feuille), attacks the notion that you must write in the manner of this or that an-cient or modern author, and aims ‘prouver qu’écrire naturellement, qu’être naturel n’est pas écrire dans le goût de tel Ancien ni de tel Moderne, n’est pas se mouler sur personne quant à la forme de ses idées, mais au contraire, se ressembler fidèlement à soi–même . . . rester dans la sin-gularité d’esprit qui nous est échué. . . .’ Be like yourself: it was a lesson, Smith believed, the much admired Shaftesbury had never learned.

Bibliographical Note

Adam Smith’s life and thought:

John Rae: Life of Adam Smith (1895). Reprinted with ‘Guide to John Rae’s Life of Adam Smith’ by J. Viner (1965).

William R. Scott: Adam Smith as Student and Professor (1937; reprinted 1965).

R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner: Adam Smith (1982).

A. S. Skinner: A System of Social Science, Papers relating to Adam Smith (1979).

T. D. Campbell: Adam Smith’s Science of Morals (1971).

The Rhetoric:

W. S. Howell: Eighteenth–Century British Logic and Rhetoric (1971). The section on Smith, first published in 1969, was reprinted in Essays on Adam Smith, ed. Andrew S. Skinner and Thomas Wilson (1975).

V. M. Bevilacqua: ‘Adam Smith’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres’ (Studies in Scottish Literature, 3 (1965), 41–60). See also Modern Language Review, 63 (1968).

For J. M. Lothian’s edition, see Abbreviations.

R. Salvucci: ‘La retorica come teoria della comunicazione’ [on A.S.] Sociologia della comu-nicazione, 1 (1982). See also R. Salvucci, Sviluppi della problematica del linguaggio nel XVIII secolo: Condillac, Rousseau, Smith (1982).

A. S. Skinner: ‘Adam Smith: Rhetoric and the Communication of Ideas’ in Methodological Con-troversy in Economics: Historical Essays, A. W. Coats ed. (1983).

Languages:

Articles on ‘Considerations’ by C. J. Berry and S. K. Land in Journal of the History of Ideas—re-spectively 35 (1974), 130–8; and 38 (1977), 677–90.

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INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME V: LECTURES ON JURISPRU-

DENCE [R.L. MEEK, D.D. RAPHAEL, AND P.G. STEIN]

1. Adam Smith’s Lectures at Glasgow University

Adam Smith was elected to the Chair of Logic at Glasgow University on 9 January 1751, and admitted to the office on 16 January. He does not appear to have started lecturing at the Univer-sity, however, until the beginning of the next academic session, in October 1751, when he em-barked upon his first—and only—course of lectures to the Logic class.

In the well–known account of Smith’s lectures at Glasgow which John Millar supplied to Dugald Stewart, this Logic course of 1751–2 is described as follows:

In the Professorship of Logic, to which Mr Smith was appointed on his first intro-duction into this University, he soon saw the necessity of departing widely from the plan that had been followed by his predecessors, and of directing the attention of his pupils to studies of a more interesting and useful nature than the logic and metaphys-ics of the schools. Accordingly, after exhibiting a general view of the powers of the mind, and explaining so much of the ancient logic as was requisite to gratify curiosity with respect to an artificial method of reasoning, which had once occupied the uni-versal attention of the learned, he dedicated all the rest of his time to the delivery of a system of rhetoric and belles lettres.1

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This ‘system of rhetoric and belles lettres’, we may surmise, was based on the lectures on this subject which Smith had given at Edinburgh before coming to Glasgow, and was probably very similar to the course which he was later to deliver as a supplement to his Moral Philosophy course, and of which a student’s report has come down to us.2 Concerning the content of the preliminary part of the Logic course, however—that in which Smith exhibited ‘a general view of the powers of the mind’ and explained ‘so much of the ancient logic as was requisite’—we know no more than Millar here tells us.

In the 1751–2 session, Smith not only gave this course to his Logic class but also helped out in the teaching of the Moral Philosophy class. Thomas Craigie, the then Professor of Moral Phi-losophy, had fallen ill, and at a University Meeting held on 11 September 1751 it was agreed that in his absence the teaching of the Moral Philosophy class should be shared out according to the following arrangement:

The Professor of Divinity, Mr. Rosse, Mr. Moor having in presence of the meeting, and Mr. Smith by his letter voluntarily agreed to give their assistance in the teaching both the publick and private classe in the following manner viz: the Professor under-takes to teach the Theologia Naturalis, and the first book of Mr. Hutchesons Ethicks, and Mr. Smith the other two books de Jurisprudentia Naturali et Politicis, and Mr. Rosse and Mr. Moor to teach the hour allotted for the private classe, the meeting unanimouslie agreed to the said proposals . . .3

About the actual content of these lectures of Smith’s on ‘natural jurisprudence and politics’4 we know nothing, although we do know that according to the testimony of Smith himself a number of the opinions put forward in them had already been the subjects of lectures he had read at Edinburgh in the previous winter, and that they were to continue to be the ‘constant sub-jects’ of his lectures after 1751–2.5

In November 1751 Craigie died, and a few months later Smith was translated from his Chair of Logic to the now vacant Chair of Moral Philosophy. He was elected on 22 April 1752, and admitted on 29 April. His first full course of lectures to the Moral Philosophy class, therefore, was delivered in the 1752–3 session. He continued lecturing to the Moral Philosophy class until he left Glasgow, about the middle of January 1764,6 to take up the position of tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch.

In order to obtain an over–all view of the content of Smith’s course in Moral Philosophy it is still necessary to go back to the account of it given by John Millar:

About a year after his appointment to the Professorship of Logic, Mr Smith was elected to the chair of Moral Philosophy. His course of lectures on this subject was divided into four parts. The first contained Natural Theology; in which he considered the proofs of the being and attributes of God, and those principles of the human mind upon which religion is founded. The second comprehended Ethics, strictly so called, and consisted chiefly of the doctrines which he afterwards published in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. In the third part, he treated at more length of that

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branch of morality which relates to justice, and which, being susceptible of precise and accurate rules, is for that reason capable of a full and particular explanation.

Upon this subject he followed the plan that seems to be suggested by Montesquieu; endeavouring to trace the gradual progress of jurisprudence, both public and private, from the rudest to the most refined ages, and to point out the effects of those arts which contribute to subsistence, and to the accumulation of property, in producing correspondent improvements or alterations in law and government. This important branch of his labours he also intended to give to the public; but this intention, which is mentioned in the conclusion of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he did not live to fulfil.

In the last part of his lectures, he examined those political regulations which are founded, not upon the principle of justice, but that of expediency, and which are calcu-lated to increase the riches, the power, and the prosperity of a State. Under this view, he considered the political institutions relating to commerce, to finances, to ecclesias-tical and military establishments. What he delivered on these subjects contained the substance of the work he afterwards published under the title of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.7

So far as it goes, this account would seem to be accurate and perceptive, but there is one point of some importance which it does not make clear. What Millar describes in the passage just quoted is the course of lectures given by Smith, in his capacity as Professor of Moral Philosophy, to what was called the ‘public’ class in that subject. But Professors of Moral Philosophy at Glas-gow also normally gave a supplementary course of lectures, on a different subject, to what was called the ‘private’ class.8 The subjects upon which they lectured in this supplementary course, we are told,9 were not ‘necessarily connected’ with those of their ‘public’ lectures, but were ‘yet so much connected with the immediate duty of their profession, as to be very useful to those who attended them’. Hutcheson, for example, had employed these additional hours in ‘explaining and illustrating the works of Arrian, Antoninus, and other Greek philosophers’, and Reid was later to appropriate them to ‘a further illustration of those doctrines which he afterwards published in his philosophical essays’. Adam Smith employed them in delivering, once again, a course of lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. A student’s report of Smith’s ‘private’ Rhetoric course, as it was delivered in the 1762–3 session, was discovered in Aberdeen in 1958 by the late Professor John M. Lothian,10 and a newly edited transcript of this manuscript will be published in volume iv of the present edition of Smith’s Works and Correspondence.

Turning back now to Millar’s account of Smith’s ‘public’ course in Moral Philosophy, we see that this course is described as having been divided into four parts. About the content of the first of these (‘Natural Theology’) we know nothing whatever, and about the second (‘Ethics, strictly so called’) we know little more than Millar here tells us—viz., that it consisted chiefly of the doc-trines of TMS.11 About the third and fourth parts, however—at any rate in the form which they assumed in Smith’s lectures during his last years at Glasgow12 —we now know a great deal more, thanks to the discovery of the two reports of his lectures on Jurisprudence which it is the main purpose of this volume to present.

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The term ‘Jurisprudence’, it should perhaps be explained, was normally used by Smith in a sense broad enough to encompass not only the third part of the Moral Philosophy course as Mil-lar described it (‘that branch of morality which relates to justice’), but also the fourth part (‘those political regulations which are founded, not upon the principle of justice, but that of expediency’). In one of the two reports ‘Jurisprudence’ is defined as ‘the theory of the rules by which civil gov-ernments ought to be directed’,13 and in the other as ‘the theory of the general principles of law and government’.14 Now the main objects of every system of law, in Smith’s view, are the main-tenance of justice, the provision of police in order to promote opulence, the raising of revenue, and the establishment of arms for the defence of the state. These four, then, could be regarded as the main branches or divisions of ‘Jurisprudence’ as so defined; and this is the way in which the sub-ject is in fact divided up in both the reports. Clearly the treatment of justice in the reports relates to the third part of Smith’s Moral Philosophy course as Millar described it, and the treatment of police, revenue, and arms relates to the fourth and final part of it.

2. The Two Reports of Smith’s Jurisprudence Lectures

The first of the two reports relates to Smith’s Jurisprudence lectures in the 1762–3 session, and the second, in all probability, to the lectures given in the 1763–4 session. Hereafter these re-ports will usually be referred to as LJ(A) and LJ(B) respectively. It will be convenient to begin here with a description of LJ(B), which was the first of the two reports to be discovered and which will already be familiar to a large number of readers in the version published many years ago by Pro-fessor Edwin Cannan. A re–edited version of it is published below, under the title ‘Report dated 1766’.

In 1895, Cannan’s attention was drawn to the existence, in the hands of an Edinburgh advo-cate, of a bound manuscript which according to the title–page consisted of ‘JURIS PRUDENCE or Notes from the Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith Professor of Moral Philosophy’. In the edition of this manuscript which Cannan brought out in 1896,15 he described its main physical characteristics as follows:

[The] manuscript . . . forms an octavo book 9 in. high, 7½ in. broad and 1⅛ in. thick. It has a substantial calf binding, the sides of which, however, have completely parted company with the back . . . On the back there is some gilt–cross–hatching and the word JURIS PRUDENCE (thus divided between two lines) in gilt letters on a red lable. There are in all 192 leaves. Two of these are fly–leaves of dissimilar paper and have their fellows pasted on the insides of the cover, front and back. The rest all con-sist of paper of homogeneous character, water–marked ‘L.V. Gerrevink.’

The manuscript is written on both sides of the paper in a rectangular space formed by four red ink lines previously ruled, which leave a margin of about three–quarters of an inch. Besides the fly–leaves there are three blank leaves at the end and two at the beginning.

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There is nothing to show conclusively whether the writing was first executed on separate sheets subsequently bound up, or in a blank note–book afterwards rebound, or in the book as it appears at present.16

This was a careful and accurate description of the document, and not very much needs to be added to it today. The back of the binding was repaired in 1897, and the volume was rebound again (and the spine relettered) in 1969. As a result of these operations the two original end–pa-pers and one if not both of the two original fly–leaves have disappeared.17 Discounting these, there are two blank leaves at the beginning of the volume; then one leaf on the recto of which the title is written; then 179 leaves (with the pages numbered consecutively from 1 to 358) on which the main text is written; then one leaf containing no writing (but with the usual margins ruled); then four leaves, with the pages unnumbered, on which the index is written (taking up seven of the eight pages); then finally three blank leaves—making a total of 190 leaves in all. The new binding is very tight, and full particulars of the format of the volume could not be obtained without taking it apart.

Cannan had no doubt that this document, as suggested on its title–page, did in fact owe its origin to notes of Adam Smith’s lectures on Juris–prudence at Glasgow University. The close cor-respondence between the text of the document and Millar’s description of the third and fourth parts of Smith’s Moral Philosophy course, together with the existence of many parallel passages in WN,18 put this in Cannan’s opinion beyond question; and his judgement in this respect has been abundantly confirmed by everything that has happened in the field of Smith scholarship since his day—not least by the recent discovery of LJ(A).

The title–page of LJ(B) bears the date ‘MDCCLXVI’ (whereas Adam Smith left Glasgow in January 1764); the handwriting is ornate and elaborate; there are very few abbreviations; and some of the mistakes that are to be found would seem to have been more probably caused by misreading than by mishearing. These considerations led Cannan to the conclusion—once again abundantly justified—that the manuscript was a fair copy made (presumably in 1766) by a profes-sional copyist, and not the original notes taken at the lectures.19 The only question which wor-ried Cannan in this connection was whether the copyist had copied directly from the original lec-ture–notes or from a rewritten version of these notes made later by the original note–taker. The scarcity of abbreviations, the relatively small number of obvious blunders, and the comparatively smooth flow of the English, strongly suggested the latter. Cannan was worried, however, by the facts (a) that the copyist had clearly taken great pains to make his pages correspond with the pages from which he was copying (presumably because the index already existed), and (b) that the amounts of material contained in a page were very unequal. These two facts taken together sug-gested to Cannan that it was at least possible that the copyist had copied directly from the origi-nal lecture–notes rather than from a rewritten version of them.20 In actual fact, however, the de-gree of inequality in the amount of material in a page is not quite as great as Cannan suggests, and certainly no greater than one would reasonably expect to find in a student’s rewritten version of his lecture–notes.21 It seems very probable, then, that the copy was in fact made from a re-written version.

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The question of the purpose for which this rewritten version was made, however, is a rather more difficult one. Was it made by the original note–taker for his own use, or was it made (whether by him or by someone else at another remove) for sale? In those days, we know, ‘manu-script copies of a popular professor’s lectures, transcribed from his students’ notebooks, were of-ten kept for sale in the booksellers’ shops.’22 An interesting comparison may be made here be-tween LJ(A)—a rewritten version almost certainly made by the original note–taker for his own use and not for sale—and LJ(B). LJ(A), although so far as it goes it is much fuller than LJ(B), is very much less polished, in the sense that it contains many more abbreviations, grammatical and spelling errors, blank spaces, etc. LJ(A), again, faithfully reproduces many of the summaries of previous lectures which Smith seems normally to have given at the beginning of each new one, and often notes the specific date on which the relevant lecture was delivered—features which are completely lacking in LJ(B). Nor is there in LJ(A) anything like the elaborate (and on the whole accurate) index which appears at the end of LJ(B). Considerations such as these, although not conclusive, do suggest the possibility that the rewritten version from which LJ(B) was copied had been prepared for sale, and therefore also the possibility that there were two or three steps be-tween the original lecture–notes and the manuscript of LJ(B) itself. But what really matters, of course, is the reliability of the document: does it or does it not give a reasonably accurate report of what was actually said in the lectures at which the original notes were taken? Now that we have another set of notes to compare it with, we can answer this question with a fairly unqualified af-firmative. LJ(B) is not quite as accurate and reliable as Cannan believed it to be; but if we make due allowance for its more summary character it is probably not much inferior to LJ(A) as a re-cord of what may be assumed actually to have been said in the lectures.23

In which session, then, were the lectures delivered from which LJ(B) was ultimately de-rived?24 Cannan, in his perceptive comments on this question,25 declined to lay too much weight on the frequent references to the Seven Years War as ‘the late’ or ‘the last’ war, on the per-fectly valid ground that ‘it would be natural after the conclusion of peace for the reporter or the transcriber to alter “the war” or “the present war” into “the late war” ’. The reference to the ran-som of the crew of the Litchfield,26 however, which took place in April 1760, clearly meant that it was almost certain that the lectures were not delivered before 1761–2. They could conceivably have been delivered in that session, but Cannan thought it more probable that they were deliv-ered ‘either in the portion of the academical session of 1763–4 which preceded Adam Smith’s departure, or in the session of 1762–3 . . .’

More light can now be thrown on this question as a result of the discovery of LJ(A), which relates without any doubt (since many of the lectures are specifically dated) to the 1762–3 session. The crucial point here is that in LJ(A) the order of treatment of the main subjects is radically dif-ferent from that in LJ(B). ‘The civilians’, Smith is reported in LJ(B) as saying,27

begin with considering government and then treat of property and other rights. Others who have written on this subject begin with the latter and then consider fam-ily and civil government. There are several advantages peculiar to each of these methods, tho’ that of the civil law seems upon the whole preferable.

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In LJ(B), then, Smith adopts the method of ‘the civilians’, beginning with government and then going on to deal with ‘property and other rights’. In LJ(A), by way of contrast, he adopts the method of the ‘others who have written on this subject’, beginning with ‘property and other rights’ and then going on to deal with ‘family and civil government’. LJ(B), therefore, cannot pos-sibly relate to the same year as LJ(A), whence it follows (given the decisive Litchfield reference) that it must relate either to 1761–2 or to 1763–4. And it can now fairly readily be shown that it is very unlikely to relate to 1761–2. There is a reference in LJ(B) to Florida being ‘put into our hands’;28 and a comparison of the passage in which this reference occurs with the corresponding passage (a much more extensive one) in LJ(A)29 shows that it must refer to the cession of Florida at the end of the Seven Years War by the Treaty of Paris in February 1763. This event, therefore, could not have been remarked upon in the 1761–2 session; and it thus seems almost certain that LJ(B) relates to 1763–4.

Cannan, when speaking of the possibility that LJ(B) might relate to 1763–4, seemed to sug-gest that if this were so the lectures from which the notes were taken would have had to be deliv-ered in the portion of that session which ‘preceded Adam Smith’s departure’ from Glasgow.30 But this is surely to take the words ‘delivered . . . by Adam Smith’ on the titlepage of LJ(B) much too literally. After Smith left Glasgow, his ‘usual course of lectures’ was carried on by one Tho-mas Young, with whom (at any rate according to Tytler’s account) Smith left ‘the notes from which he had been in use to deliver his prelections’.31 Assuming, as would seem probable, that Young was in fact furnished by Smith with these notes and that he kept fairly closely to them in his lectures, it would have been perfectly possible for a student to take down, in the 1763–4 ses-sion, a set of lecture–notes from which a document possessing all the characteristics of LJ(B) could quite plausibly be derived.

We turn now to LJ(A), an edited version of which is published for the first time below, under the title ‘Report of 1762–3’. ‘At various dates in the autumn of 1958’, wrote the discover of the document, the late Professor John M. Lothian, ‘remnants of what had once been the consider-able country–house library of Whitehaugh were dispersed by auction in Aberdeen.’ In the eight-eenth century Whitehaugh belonged to the Leith and later the Forbes–Leith families. Among a number of Whitehaugh books and papers purchased by Professor Lothian at various dates at these sales were two sets of lecture–notes, apparently made by students. One of these (hereafter called LRBL) clearly related to Smith’s lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, as delivered in the 1762–3 session. The other set, upon closer examination, proved to relate to Smith’s lectures on Jurisprudence, as delivered in the same session.32

The manuscript of LJ(A) is in six volumes, each measuring approximately 120 × 195 mm., bound in a contemporary binding of quarter calf with marbled paper sides and vellum tips. On the spine of each volume its number—‘Vol. 1’, ‘Vol. 2’, etc.—has been inscribed in gilt letters on a red label. The make–up of the volumes is as follows:

Volume i: This volume begins with a gathering of 4 sheets (i.e. 8 leaves and 16 pages) watermarked ‘C. & I. Honig’. The first leaf is pasted to the inside front cover as an end–paper; the second forms a fly–leaf; both these are blank. The recto page of

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the third leaf contains a list of contents of vol. i (only partially completed); the verso page of the third leaf and the remaining five leaves of the gathering are blank. There follow 170 leaves (three of which have been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Ger-revink’, upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.

Volume ii: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 181 leaves (one of which has been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Ger-revink’, upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.

Volume iii: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 150 leaves (the last two and one other of which have been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. Then comes a gathering of 8 sheets (i.e. 16 leaves and 32 pages), watermarked ‘C. & I. Honig’, all of which are blank. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.

Volume iv: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 179 leaves (none of which have been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.

Volume v: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 151 leaves (the last two of which have been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.

Volume vi: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 172 leaves (the last of which has been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. Then comes a gathering of 8 sheets (i.e. 16 leaves and 32 pages), watermarked ‘C. & I. Honig’, all of which are blank. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.

The presence of the blank leaves watermarked ‘C. & I. Honig’ at the beginning of vol. i and at the end of vols. iii and vi, we believe, can be accounted for fairly simply. So far as vol. i is con-cerned, the reporter would seem to have instructed the binder to insert a few blank leaves at the beginning so as to leave space for a list of contents: the list was duly started, but left incomplete. So far as vols. iii and vi are concerned, all the indications are that the reporter still had some rele-vant material to write up when he took these volumes to be bound, and therefore instructed the binder to insert some blank leaves at the end so that he could include this material when the vol-ume came back from binding. Once again, however, the reporter apparently did not get round to using the blank leaves as he had planned.

The format of the volumes makes it clear that the reporter wrote the notes on loose sheets of paper folded up into gatherings, which were later bound up into the six volumes. Almost all of these gatherings—all except four, in fact—consist of two sheets of paper placed together and

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folded once, making four leaves (i.e. eight pages) per gathering. Each gathering was numbered in the top left–hand corner of its first page before being bound. The writing of the main text almost always appears only on the recto pages of the volume, the verso pages being either left blank or used for comments, illustrations, corrections, and various other kinds of supplementary material.

The handwriting of the manuscript varies considerably in size, character, and legibility from one place to another—to such an extent, indeed, as to give the impression, at least at first sight, that several different hands have contributed to its composition. Upon closer investigation, how-ever, it appears more likely that at any rate the great majority of these variations owe their origin to differences in the pen or ink used, in the speed of writing, and in the amount which the re-porter tried to get into the page. It seems probable, in fact, that the whole of the main text on the recto pages of LJ(A), and all or almost all of the supplementary material on the verso pages,33 was written by one and the same hand. This hand seems very similar to that in which the main text of LRBL is written;34 and this fact, particularly when taken together with certain striking similarities in the structure of the volumes,35 strongly suggests that both LJ(A) and the main text of LRBL were written by the same person.

The main text of LJ(A) appears to us to have been written serially, soon after (but not during) the lectures concerned, on the basis of very full notes taken down in class, probably at least partly in shorthand.36 After having been written up in the form of a more or less verbatim report, the notes were corrected and supplemented in various ways shortly to be described. We do not have the impression, however, that the report was prepared with a view to sale: it has all the hallmarks of a set of working notes prepared, primarily for his own use, by a reasonably intelligent and con-scientious student.

The question of the origin and function of the supplementary material on the verso pages is not at all an easy one, and there seems to be no single or simple answer to it. Most, if not all, of these verso notes appear to be written in the same hand as the main text; but the appreciable variations in pen, ink, letter size, etc. often make it difficult to be sure about this (particularly in the first volume of the MS., where the verso notes are very numerous), and it is at least possible that a few of them may have been written by another hand—that of a fellow student, or a later owner, or perhaps the original owner at a later date. Our over–all impression, however, is that at any rate the great majority of the verso notes were in fact made by the original owner, and made fairly soon after the text on the recto pages was written. Some of these notes, we think, may have been explanatory glosses added from memory, or perhaps as a result of private reading. Others were very probably the result of collation with at least one other set of notes. And others still, we feel, may possibly have been added as a result of the reporter’s attendance at Smith’s daily ‘ex-amination’ session—at which, we are told, lecturers had the opportunity of ‘explaining more clearly any part of the lecture which may not have been fully understood’, and at which Smith apparently delivered many ‘incidental and digressive illustrations, and even discussions’.37 Some of the longer verso notes in LJ(A) have a distinctly digressive quality,38 and may quite possibly have had this origin.39

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The frequency of the verso notes begins to decline after the first volume, with a particularly sharp fall occurring about two–thirds of the way through the third volume. In the first volume, there are verso notes on 64 leaves (out of 170); in the second volume, on 44 leaves (out of 181); in the third volume, on 20 leaves (out of 150), with only one note in the last 50 leaves; in the fourth, on 14 leaves (out of 179); in the fifth, on 5 leaves (out of 151); and in the sixth, on 5 leaves (out of 172). Hand in hand with this decline in the frequency of the verso notes goes a decline in their average length: in the last three volumes the great majority of the notes are very short (there be-ing in fact only three which are more than six lines long), and most of them appear more likely to be glosses added from memory than anything else. There are various possible explanations of these characteristics of the MS., but since no one explanation appears to be more probable than any other there would seem to be little value in speculating about them.

Only one other point about LJ(A) needs to be made at this juncture. Although the treatment of individual topics is usually much more extensive in LJ(A) than in LJ(B), the actual range of subjects covered is more extensive in LJ(B) than in LJ(A). Of particular importance here is the fact that whereas LJ(B) continues right through to the end of the course, LJ(A) stops short about two–thirds of the way through the ‘police’ section of Smith’s lectures. The most likely explana-tion of this is that LJ(A) originally included a seventh volume which somehow became separated from the others and has not yet come to light; but there are obviously other possible explanations—e.g. that the reporter ceased attending the course at this point.

3. Adam Smith’s Lecture Timetable in 1762–3

The fact that a large number of the lectures in LJ(A), and all (or almost all) of the lectures in LRBL, were specifically dated by the reporter, means that it is possible up to a point to recon-struct Smith’s lecture timetable for the 1762–3 session. Where the dates are missing, of course, guesses have to be made, and the conclusions sometimes become very conjectural. The exercise seems well worth carrying out, however: it is of some interest in itself, and it provides us with cer-tain information which will be useful when we turn, in the next section of this Introduction, to the problems involved in the collation of LJ(A) and LJ(B).

In Thomas Reid’s Statistical Account of the University of Glasgow, which was apparently drawn up about 1794, the following remarks appear under the heading ‘Time of Lecturing, &c.’:

The annual session for teaching, in the university, begins, in the ordinary curricu-lum,40 on the tenth of October; and ends, in some of the classes, about the middle of May, and in others continues to the tenth of June . . .

During this period, the business of the College continues without interruption.41 The Professors of Humanity, or Latin, and of Greek, lecture and examine their stu-dents, receive and correct exercises, three hours every day, and four hours for two days every week; the Professors of Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy, two hours every day, and three hours during a part of the session; excepting on Sat-

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urdays, when, on account of a general meeting of the public students, there is only one lecture given.42

At any rate in the early 1790s, then, it was the normal practice in the teaching of Moral Phi-losophy at Glasgow for the Professor of that subject to ‘lecture and examine’ his students for ‘two hours every day, and three hours during a part of the session’.43 The question we must now ask is whether this was also the normal practice thirty years earlier, during the last two or three years of Smith’s period in Glasgow, and if so how the hours concerned were divided up in his particu-lar case.

Curiously enough, it is once again Thomas Reid who provides the crucial piece of evidence here, in the shape of a letter he wrote to a friend on 14 November 1764, a month or so after the beginning of the session in which he took over the Moral Philosophy Chair from Smith. In this letter he describes his lecture timetable as follows:

I must launch forth in the morning, so as to be at the College . . . half an hour af-ter seven, when I speak for an hour, without interruption, to an audience of about a hundred. At eleven I examine for an hour upon my morning prelection; but my audi-ence is little more than a third part of what it was in the morning. In a week or two, I must, for three days in the week, have a second prelection at twelve, upon a different subject, where my audience will be made up of those who hear me in the morning, but do not attend at eleven. My hearers commonly attend my class two years at least. The first session they attend the morning prelection, and the hour of examination at eleven; the second and subsequent years they attend the two prelections, but not the hour of examination.44

There is no suggestion in this letter (or, so far as we are aware, anywhere else) that Reid’s ac-cession to the Moral Philosophy Chair was marked by any change of practice so far as the lectur-ing arrangements were concerned; and all the indications are that Smith, at any rate in his last years at Glasgow, had followed the same routine: a lecture from 7.30 to 8.30 each morning (ex-cept Saturday); an ‘examination’ on this ‘morning prelection’ from 11 a.m. to noon; and in addi-tion, on certain days during a part of the session, a ‘second prelection . . . upon a different sub-ject’ from noon to 1 p.m. Smith’s ‘morning prelection’ at 7.30 was of course his ‘public’ lecture on Moral Philosophy; the ‘examination’ at 11 a.m. (at which, as we already know from Richard-son’s account,45 Smith delivered many ‘incidental and digressive illustrations’) related directly to this ‘morning prelection’; and his ‘second prelection . . . upon a different subject’ at noon was his ‘private’ lecture on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres.

In our attempt to reconstruct Smith’s actual lecture timetable in 1762–3 it will be convenient to begin with the Rhetoric course, since its reconstruction involves far fewer difficulties than does that of the Jurisprudence course. The first lecture in the Rhetoric notes is headed ‘Lecture 2d’ and dated Friday, 19 November. From the ‘2d’ in the heading, and from the fact that the argu-ment of this lecture appears to start in midstream, we may reasonably assume that at some time before 19 November Smith had already given a preliminary lecture in the Rhetoric course, which for some reason or other was not reported in this set of notes. Judging from the subsequent pat-

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tern of lecture–dates, it would seem probable that this preliminary lecture was given on Wednes-day, 17 November. Starting with this latter date, then, the timetable of Smith’s Rhetoric course in 1762–3 would appear to have been as follows:46

Number of Lecture Date of Lecture[1] [Wednesday, 17 November 1762]2 Friday, 19 November 17623 Monday, 22 November 17624 Wednesday, 24 November 17624 [47] Friday, 26 November 17625 Monday, 29 November 17626 Wednesday, 1 December 17627 Friday, 3 December 17628 Monday, 6 December 1762489 Monday, 13 December 176210 Wednesday, 15 December 176211 Friday, 17 December 176212 Monday, 20 December 176213 Wednesday, 22 December 176214 Friday, 24 December 176215 Monday, 2749 December 17625016 Wednesday, 5 January 176317 Friday, 7 January 176318 Monday, 10 January 176319 Wednesday, 12 January 176320 Friday, 14 January 17635121 Monday, 17 January 176322 Friday, 21 January 176323 Monday, 24 January 176324 Wednesday, 26 January 17635225 Monday, 31 January 176326 Friday, 4 February 176327 Monday, 7 February 17635328 Monday, 14 February 176329 Friday, 18 February 176354[30] [Monday, 21 February 1763]

Smith’s Rhetoric course in 1762–3, then, started in the third week in November—round about the same time, it would seem, as Reid’s course in the ‘different subject’ two years later55 —and probably finished towards the end of February.56 In so far as a normal pattern is discernible, it would seem to be one involving the delivery of three lectures per week up to the middle of Janu-ary, and two per week thereafter. This may help to explain the apparent contradiction between

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Reid’s statement that three lectures per week were devoted to the ‘different subject’57 and Rich-ardson’s statement that only two were so devoted.58

Let us turn now to the Jurisprudence course, the timetable for which is more difficult to re-construct because the specific lecture–dates noted by the student are fewer and farther between, particularly in the first part of the course. The difficulties start right at the beginning. The first Jurisprudence lecture is dated Friday, 24 December 1762,59 but no further specific lecture–dates appear until p. 90 of the MS. of the first volume, where a new lecture is dated Thursday, 6 Janu-ary 1763. The problem is to work out (a) how many lectures were given between 24 December and 6 January; (b) where exactly each of them began and ended; and (c) on which of the available lec-turing days they were given.

Some assistance can be obtained here from the MS. itself, by trying to detect in it what we may call ‘conjectural breaks’—i.e. points at which it seems plausible to assume, from the presence of a conspicuous space, a change of ink or pen, an unusually large number of dashes, a summary of an earlier argument, or some other indication, that one lecture may have ended and another begun. For example, there would seem to be a ‘conjectural break’ of this type round about the middle of p. 9 of the MS., suggesting that a new lecture began at this point—a lecture delivered, presumably, on Monday, 27 December 1762, which was the next available lecturing day.60

The material in the notes from this first conjectural break to the next specific lecture–date (Thursday, 6 January 1763, on p. 90 of the MS.) occupies 81 MS. pages. The average length of the notes of later (specifically dated) lectures is roughly 15–16 MS. pages per lecture. It may thus be surmised that the material on pp. 9–90 of the MS. was derived from a total of five lectures—a surmise which is supported by the fact that four plausible conjectural breaks (on pp. 23, 40, 53, and 68) can be detected in the MS. between p. 9 and p. 90. So far as the actual dates of the inter-vening lectures are concerned, we are rather more in the dark. We know that Smith lectured on Rhetoric on Wednesday, 5 January 1763, so we may perhaps assume that on this date he lectured on Jurisprudence as well. We also know that he did not lecture on Rhetoric on Monday, 3 January 1763, so we may perhaps assume that on this date he did not lecture on Jurisprudence either, pos-sibly because it was a holiday. We may also assume that he did not lecture at all on Friday, 31 De-cember 1762, which would certainly have been a holiday.61 But this still leaves us with more available lecturing days than we have lectures to fit into them, so we must necessarily fall back up to a point on guesswork.

All these factors being taken into account, the best guesses we can perhaps hazard about the dates of Smith’s Jurisprudence lectures from Friday, 24 December 1762 to Thursday, 6 January 1763, and about the specific points in the MS. at which these dates should be inserted, are as follows:62

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Volume and Page of MS. on which Lecture Begins

Date of Lecture

i.1 Friday, 24 December 1762[i.9] [Monday, 27 December 1762][i.23] [Tuesday, 28 December 1762][i.40] [Wednesday, 29 December 1762][i.53] [Tuesday, 4 January 1763][i.68] [Wednesday, 5 January 1763]i.90 Thursday, 6 January 1763

The timetable for the week beginning Monday, 3 January 1763 may then be (conjecturally) completed by adding

[i.104] [Friday, 7 January 1763]

We may now proceed on a similar basis (but relegating the ‘working’ to footnotes) to recon-struct Smith’s lecture timetable for the remainder of the Jurisprudence course up to the point where the reporter’s notes break off. The result is as follows:

Volume and Page of MS. on which Lecture Begins

Date of Lecture

i.115 Monday, 10 January 1763[i.129] [Wednesday, 12 January 1763][i.143] [Thursday, 13 January 1763][i.146] [Friday, 14 January 1763]63ii.1 Monday, 17 January 1763[ii.13] [Tuesday, 18 January 1763][ii.26] [Wednesday, 19 January 1763][ii.41] [Thursday, 20 January 1763]ii.56 Friday, 21 January 176364[ii.71] [Monday, 24 January 1763]ii.87 Wednesday, 26 January 176365[ii.105] [Monday, 31 January 1763][ii.121] [Tuesday, 1 February 1763][ii.131] [Wednesday, 2 February 1763]ii.144 Thursday, 3 February 1763[ii.162] [Friday, 4 February 1763]iii.1 Monday, 7 February 176366iii.6 Tuesday, 8 February 1763[iii.23]67 [Wednesday, 9 February 1763]iii.48 Thursday, 10 February 1763iii.65 Friday, 11 February 1763iii.76 Monday, 14 February 1763

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iii.87 Tuesday, 15 February 1763iii.105 Wednesday, 16 February 176368[iii.131] [Thursday, 17 February 1763]69— [Friday, 18 February 1763]69iv.1 Monday, 21 February 1763iv.19 Tuesday, 22 February 1763iv.41 Wednesday, 23 February 1763iv.60 Thursday, 24 February 176370iv.74 Monday, 28 February 1763iv.91 Tuesday, 1 March 1763iv.104 Wednesday, 2 March 1763iv.121 Thursday, 3 March 1763iv.134 Friday, 4 March 1763iv.149 Monday, 7 March 1763iv.164 Tuesday, 8 March 1763v.1 Wednesday, 9 March 1763v.15 Thursday, 10 March 1763v.31 Friday, 11 March 1763v.44 Monday, 14 March 1763v.58 Tuesday, 15 March 1763v.72 Wednesday, 16 March 1763v.84 [Thursday, 17 March 1763]71v.99 Monday, 21 March 1763v.111 Tuesday, 22 March 1763v.127 Wednesday, 23 March 1763v.140 Thursday, 24 March 176372vi.1 Monday, 28 March 1763vi.24 Tuesday, 29 March 1763vi.50 Wednesday, 30 March 176373vi.63 Tuesday, 5 April 1763vi.81 Wednesday, 6 April 1763vi.101 Thursday, 7 April 1763vi.117 Friday, 8 April 1763— [Monday, 11 April 1763]74vi.135 Tuesday, 12 April 1763vi.155 Wednesday, 13 April 1763

At the end of vol. vi of the MS., sixteen pages later, the student’s report ends, and there is no way of reconstructing Smith’s lecture timetable for the remainder of the Jurisprudence course. It seems reasonable to assume, however, that the pattern which is fairly consistently revealed in the lectures up to this point was continued until the course was concluded at or near the end of the session.

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4. The Collation of LJ(A) and LJ(B)

As we have seen,75 LJ(A) owes its origin to Adam Smith’s Jurisprudence course as it was de-livered in 1762–3, and LJ(B), in all probability, to that course as it was delivered in 1763–4. The collation of two sets of student’s notes relating to the same course of lectures as it was delivered in two successive sessions would not normally involve any special difficulties. In the present case, however, there are certain complications, arising out of three features of the documents which we have already noted above.

In the first place, although the difference in the content of the actual lectures (taking them as a whole) may not have been very great as between the two sessions concerned, there was, as we have seen,76 an appreciable difference in the order in which the main subjects of the lectures were presented. In LJ(A) the order of treatment is property and other rights, domestic law, govern-ment, police; whereas in LJ(B) it is government, domestic law, property and other rights, police.

In the second place, there is a difference in the origin of the reports. LJ(A), if our view of it is correct, is a rewritten version of notes of Smith’s lectures taken down (probably for the most part in shorthand) by a student in class, and was intended primarily as a working document for use by the student himself. The notes are relatively extensive, and the student has usually (although not always) taken some care to fill in gaps, correct errors, and add supplementary material. LJ(B), by way of contrast, would seem to be a fair copy, made by a professional copyist, of a much more summary report of Smith’s lectures—for the most part owing its origin, one may perhaps conjec-ture, to longhand notes taken down in class.77

In the third place, there is a difference in the range of subjects covered in the reports, which is generally speaking more complete in LJ(B) than in LJ(A). On several occasions the writer of LJ(A), either because he has missed a lecture or for some other reason, fails to report Smith’s dis-cussion of a particular subject which is duly reported upon in LJ(B). And, much more impor-tantly, LJ(A) as we have seen78 stops short about two–thirds of the way through the ‘police’ sec-tion of Smith’s lectures, whereas LJ(B) continues right through to the end of the course.

These considerations have largely dictated the particular method of collation which we have adopted below. What we have done is to take the subject–matter of LJ(B) as the starting–point, dividing it up in the first instance in accordance with the successive sectional headings supplied by Cannan in his edition of LJ(B), and then refining and extending these headings in a number of cases where further subdivision makes the task of collation easier. The particular pages of the MS. of LJ(B) on which these topics are dealt with are noted in the second column; and side by side with these, in the third column, we have noted the pages of the manuscript of LJ(A) on which parallel passages dealing with the same topics are to be found. In cases where there seem to us to be significant differences in the treatment of a topic as between the two texts, these dif-ferences are described in a note in the ‘Notes on the Collation’ which appear at the end of this section of the Introduction, a reference to the appropriate note being given in the fourth column of the collation itself. In the other cases, where there is no note–reference in the fourth column, it may be assumed that the two texts deal with the topic concerned in roughly the same manner—i.e.

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that even if (as is generally the case) the treatment in LJ(A) is more extensive than it is in LJ(B), both texts broadly speaking make much the same points in much the same order.

TOPICS DISCUSSED LJ(B) LJ(A) NOTEINTRODUCTION1. Of Works on Natural Jurisprudence 1–4 — -12. Of the Division of the Subject 5–6 i.1–9 —

PART I: OF JUSTICEIntroduction 6–11 i.9–25 -2Divn. I: Of Public Jurisprudence1. Of the Original Principles of Government(a) Utility and Authority 12–15 v.119–124 & 129–132 -3(b) Doctrine of an Original Contract 15–18 v.114–119 & 127–1292. Of the Nature of Government and its Pro-gress in the first Ages of Society(a) Forms of Government 18–19 iv.1–3 —(b) Early Progress of Government 19–30 iv.3–55 -43. How Republican Governments were intro-duced

30–36 iv.55–74 & 109–110 —

4. How Liberty was lost 36–43 iv.74–95 —5. Of Military Monarchy 43–46 iv.95–99 & 104–109 -56. How Military Monarchy was dissolved 46–49 iv.99–104 & 109–113 -67. Of the Allodial Government 49–52 iv.113–124 —8. Of the Feudal System 52–57 iv.124–145 & 149–151 —9. Of the English Parliament 58–59 iv.145–148 & 151–157 —10. How the Government of England became Absolute

59–61 iv.157–167 —

11. How Liberty was restored 61–64 iv.167–179 & v.1–12 -712. Of the English Courts of Justice 64–75 v.12–45 —13. Of the little Republics in Europe(a) Origin of these Republics 77–78 v.45–50 —(b) Manner of Voting 78 v.51–53 —14. Of the Rights of Sovereigns 78–86 v.54–86 —15. Of Citizenship 86–91 v.86–102 -816. Of the Rights of Subjects 91–99 v.102–114, 124–127, & 132–149 -9Divn. II: Domestic Law1. Husband and Wife(a) Introduction 101–102iii.1–5 —(b) Fidelity and Infidelity 102–105— -10(c) Marriage and Divorce 105–111iii.6–23 -11(d) Polygamy 111–118iii.23–52 -12(e) Property Interests 118–120iii.52–58 -13(f) Prohibited Degrees 120–123iii.58–69 -14(g) Illegitimacy 123–126iii.69–77 —

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2. Parent and Child 126–130iii.78–87 —3. Master and Servant(a) Condition of the Slaves 130–133iii.87–101 -15(b) Slavery in Different Types of Society 134–138iii.101–111 -16(c) Further Inconveniences of Slavery 138–140iii.111–114, 126–130, & 134–141-17(d) Causes of Abolition of Slavery 140–142iii.114–126 -18(e) Acquisition of Slaves 142–145iii.141–147 -19(f) State of Servants 145–146—4. Guardian and Ward 146–148— -205. Domestic Offences and their Punishments 148 —Divn. III: Private Law1. Occupation 149–152i.25–63 -212. Accession 152–154i.63–76 -223. Prescription 154–155i.76–90 —4. Succession(a) Legal Succession among the Romans 155–158i.90–104 -23(b) Succession to Movables in Modern Coun-tries

158–159i.104–114 -24

(c) Succession to Immovables 159–164i.114–148 -25(d) Testamentary Succession 164–169i.149–167 & ii.1 —5. Voluntary Transference 169–171ii.1–13 -266. Of Servitudes 172–173ii.13–19 —7. Of Pledges and Mortgages 173–174ii.19–26 —8. Of Exclusive Privileges 174–175ii.26–41 -279. Of Contract 175–180ii.41–84 -2810. Of Quasi–Contract 180–181ii.85–88 -2911. Of Delinquency(a) Foundation of Punishment 181–182ii.88–94 —(b) Murder and Homicide 182–189ii.94–121 -30(c) Other Offences against the Person 189–192ii.121–135 -31(d) Injuries to Reputation 192–194ii.135–144 —(e) Injuries to Estate 194–199ii.144–161 -32(f) Expiration of Personal Rights 199–200ii.162–174 —(g) General Observations 200–201ii.174–180 —

PART II: OF POLICEDivn. I: Cleanliness and Security 203–205vi.1–7 —Divn. II: Cheapness or Plenty1. Of the Natural Wants of Mankind 205–209vi.7–16 —2. That all the Arts are subservient to the Natural Wants of Mankind

209–211vi.16–21 —

3. That Opulence arises from the Division of Labour

211–213vi.21–28 -33

4. How the Division of Labour multiplies the Product

213–218vi.28–43 -34

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5. What gives Occasion to the Division of La-bour

218–222vi.44–57 -35

6. That the Division of Labour must be pro-portioned to the Extent of Commerce

222–223vi.63–66 -36

7. What Circumstances regulate the Price of Commodities(a) Natural Price of Commodities 223–227vi.58–63 & 67–69 -37(b) Market Price of Commodities 227–229vi.70–75 —(c) Relation between Natural Price and Market Price

229–235vi.75–97 -38

8. Of Money as the Measure of Value and Medium of Exchange(a) Measure of Value 235–237vi.97–103 —(b) Medium of Exchange 237–244vi.103–126 -399. That National Opulence does not consist in Money(a) Circulation, Banks, and Paper Money 244–247vi.127–132 -40(b) Further Comments on Banks 248–251—

-40

(c) Opulence does not consist in Money 251–256vi.133–146

-40

10. Of Prohibiting the Exportation of Coin 256–260vi.146–158 -4111. Of the Balance of Trade 261–266vi.158–168 —12. Of the Opinion that no Expense at Home can be hurtful

266–270vi.169–171 -42

Notes on the collation

(1) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the remarks about works on natural jurisprudence which are reported on pp. 1–4 of LJ(B). One possible explanation of this, of course, is that in 1762 Smith did not in fact make any such remarks at the beginning of his Jurisprudence lectures. Another possible explanation is that he did do so, but that the student, regarding them merely as a kind of historical prolegomenon, did not think fit to include them in his report of Smith’s lec-tures proper. A relevant indication here, perhaps, is that (as we have already seen above) there appears to be a fairly definite ‘conjectural break’ half way down p. 9 of the MS., which means that the reporter’s notes of the lecture concerned occupy not much more than half the average space occupied by his notes of subsequent lectures.

There is another point of interest in this connection. Georg Sacke, in an article published in Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie in 1939 (Bd. IX, pp. 351–6), has drawn attention to the fact that the celebrated Russian jurist S. E. Desnitsky, who had been a student at Glasgow University from 1761 to 1767, gave a lecture at Moscow University on 30 June 1768 in which there is a long pas-sage corresponding almost word for word with Smith’s remarks about works on natural jurispru-dence as reported on pp. 1–4 of LJ(B). Desnitsky may well have been making use either of a set of lecture–notes identical with that from which LJ(B) was copied, or (as appears from his inclu-

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sion of some statements, not to be found in LJ(B), about Richard Cumberland, author of a sev-enteenth–century treatise on natural law) of a very close variant of it.

(2) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the last five sentences on p. 11 of LJ(B), in which Smith makes the important statement that ‘property and civil government very much depend on one another’, and proceeds to consider the two possible methods of presenting the subject of Ju-risprudence.

(3) In LJ(A), these two topics are discussed near the end of the government section, in the con-text of the problem of the extent of the limits to the power of the sovereign. In LJ(B), they are discussed at the beginning of the government section; the order in which they are treated is re-versed; and the context in which they appear is a much wider one. Another matter which perhaps deserves comment is that whereas in LJ(B) there is a fair amount of emphasis on the point that ‘superior wealth’ contributes to ‘confer authority’, this point is mentioned in LJ(A) only in pass-ing, in a summary of the previous lecture (vol. v, p. 129).

(4) Both texts deal with roughly the same points under this heading, but the order in which they are dealt with is rather different. LJ(A) is generally much more extensive in its treatment than LJ(B), and contains many more historical illustrations of the points made.

(5) There is no trace on pp. 95–99 of LJ(A) of the point made on pp. 45–46 of LJ(B) about the difference between military government in Rome and in Asia. There is, however, an extended discussion of this point at the end of the summary of the lecture concerned which Smith appar-ently gave at the beginning of his next lecture (see LJ(A), pp. 107–109).

(6) The passages on pp. 109–113 of LJ(A) contain certain points of which there is little or no trace in the corresponding section of LJ(B).

(7) The treatment of this topic in LJ(A) is much more extensive than it is in LJ(B). See, for ex-ample, the discussion on pp. 167–170 of vol. iv of LJ(A) of ‘the situation and circumstances of England’, and compare the very brief reference to this on p. 62 of LJ(B). It is also worth noting, perhaps, that there is no reference in LJ(B) to the dangers to liberty (as distinct from the ‘securi-ties’), whereas the dangers are specifically referred to on three occasions in LJ(A). See LJ(A), vol. iv, p. 179, and vol. v, pp. 5 and 12.

(8) The two texts make roughly the same points under this head, but they do not always make them in quite the same order.

(9) In LJ(A), on pp. 114–124 and 127–132, there is a discussion of the doctrine of an original contract and the principles of utility and authority. As already stated in note (3) above, the corre-sponding passages in LJ(B) appear at the beginning of the government section rather than near the end of it. There is a reference back to these passages on p. 93 of LJ(B).

(10) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the passages dealing with fidelity and infidelity on pp. 102–105 of LJ(B). The indications (cf. above, p. 20, note 66) are that the LJ(A) reporter either left the relevant lecture early or for some other reason failed to get the latter part of it down, so that there is no record in his notes of Smith’s discussion of fidelity and infidelity. He would also seem

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to have missed the first part of Smith’s discussion of the next topic, marriage and divorce, corre-sponding to pp. 105–106 of LJ(B). A report of a summary by Smith of some of the missing parts (but not of his discussion of fidelity and infidelity) will be found on pp. 6–7 of vol. iii of LJ(A).

(11) Subject to the qualification in note (10), both texts make roughly the same points, but do not always make them in quite the same order. In places, particularly round about the middle of the section, it is difficult to keep track of the correspondences.

(12) LJ(A) includes, on pp. 48–52, a report of a summary by Smith of all his previous lectures about the different types of marriage. This summary would seem to correspond to a passage on pp. 117–118 of LJ(B).

(13) Both texts make roughly the same points in roughly the same order, but towards the end, judging from the gaps in the MS., the LJ(A) reporter had difficulty in getting down all the points concerning the differences between the Scots and the English law. The very short summary in LJ(B) is of little help here.

(14) Both texts make roughly the same points, but they do not always make them in quite the same order. The summing–up on pp. 65–66 of LJ(A) is in effect a short summary of all the pre-ceding lectures on the family. The computations reported on p. 123 of LJ(B) were apparently not included in the relevant lecture in 1762–3: see the footnote on p. 64 of LJ(A).

(15) Both texts make roughly the same points in the same order, but there are some differ-ences. In particular, the Pollio story and the Ovid citations which appear on pp. 92–93 and 100 of LJ(A) do not appear in LJ(B) until the following section (pp. 135 and 136).

(16) Some of the emphases are different as between the two texts. In particular, in LJ(B) the Pollio story (see note (15) above) is used to illustrate the readiness of the monarch to be influenced in the slave’s favour rather than (as in LJ(A)) as an illustration of how badly the slaves were treated. See also the penultimate sentence of note (18) below.

(17) There are some quite substantial differences between the two texts here. Both LJ(A) and LJ(B) begin with the same point—that slavery is not only bad for the slave but is also economi-cally disadvantageous. After this, however, the two texts begin to diverge. LJ(B) goes on to discuss the case of the colliers and salters, in order to demonstrate once again that ‘slavery is a disadvan-tage’. LJ(A), by way of contrast, does not bring the colliers and salters into the picture until pp. 126–130, after the question of the abolition of slavery has been dealt with. LJ(B), after dealing with the colliers and salters, proceeds to discuss the point that slavery ‘diminishes the number of free men’. LJ(A), however, does not discuss this point until later, on pp. 134–141. On pp. 131–134 of LJ(A) there is a discussion of the point that slavery is ‘very detrimentall to population’ of which there is no distinct counterpart in LJ(B).

(18) In this section, LJ(B) embarks immediately upon a discussion of the transition from ad-scripti glebae to tenants by steelbow. The corresponding part of LJ(A) begins with a longish discus-sion (on pp. 114–117) of the reasons why the abolition of slavery has been very limited in most parts of the world. The main emphasis in the discussion in LJ(A) is partly on man’s alleged ‘love of domination and tyrannizing’ and partly on the fact that the abolition of slavery would be hurt-

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ful to the slave–owners. This discussion would appear to be, in effect, an elaboration of two themes which are briefly announced in LJ(B) on p. 134. After this, the points made by LJ(A) in the following pages, and the general drift of the argument, are much the same as they are in LJ(B), but the order in which the points are dealt with is often different.

(19) There are some marked differences between the two texts here. LJ(B) begins by listing the five methods of acquiring slaves, and in the course of its discussion of the fifth method considers the state of affairs in ancient Rome where many citizens had no means of subsistence except ‘what they received from candidates for their votes’. It then goes on to talk about slavery in the West Indies. LJ(A) discusses the payment of money for votes in ancient Rome on pp. 141–144, before getting on to the methods of acquiring slaves, and in the context of a different prob-lem—that of the reasons for the people’s demand at that time for an abolition of debts. LJ(A)’s discussion of the methods of acquiring slaves is relatively short, and is cut off in mid sentence (at the end of vol. iii) with a reference to the West Indies. Cf. above, pp. 20–1, note 69.

(20) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the discussion of these three topics in LJ(B). The in-dications are that Smith did in fact lecture on them in 1762–3, but that the student for some rea-son failed to get, or to write up, any notes of the lectures. Cf. above, pp. 20–1, note 69.

(21) Both texts begin by listing the five ways of acquiring property (LJ(A) on pp. 25–26, and LJ(B) on p. 149), and then proceed to outline the four stages theory—i.e. the theory that society normally tends to develop through four successive stages based on hunting, pasturage, agricul-ture, and commerce (LJ(A) on pp. 27–35, and LJ(B) on pp. 149–150). But whereas in LJ(B) the context of this outline of the four stages theory is the way in which the laws of occupation vary as one stage succeeds another, in LJ(A) the context appears to be a rather more general one—the way in which the laws and regulations with regard to acquisition of property in general vary as one stage succeeds another. After this, both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but the discussion in LJ(A) is much more extensive than it is in LJ(B).

(22) Both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but LJ(A) brings out more clearly than LJ(B) the ‘four stages’ framework of the discussion.

(23) LJ(A) goes into much more detail than LJ(B), and it is not always easy to keep track of the correspondences.

(24) In both texts the general theme is the same, but LJ(A) goes into so much more detail than LJ(B) that the correspondences appear rather sporadic.

(25) Both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but the treatment in LJ(A) is much more extensive and it is by no means easy to keep track of the correspondences. No counterpart can be found in LJ(A) of some of the passages on pp. 163–164 of LJ(B): it seems likely, judging from the mysterious note on p. 145 of LJ(A) and the 3½ blank pages which follow it, that the student for some reason failed to get a part of the relevant lecture down. The account in LJ(A) includes near the end (pp. 146–147) a summary of some of Smith’s earlier lectures on the subject.

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(26) Although the two texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, LJ(A) be-comes much more detailed at the end than LJ(B).

(27) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, but the order of treatment is a little differ-ent (e.g. in the case of the discussion of inventions), and there is little trace in LJ(B) of the inter-esting discussion of thirlage, etc., on pp. 37–41 of LJ(A).

(28) The general tenor of the argument is the same in both texts, but the order in which cer-tain points are dealt with is different and the treatment in LJ(A) is much more extensive, so that it is not easy to keep track of the correspondences. In addition, LJ(A) contains (on pp. 56 ff.) a very extended summary in which a number of points in earlier lectures are elaborated; and LJ(A) also contains discussions of at least three points (the role of the clergy, the effect of the rise of com-merce, and culpa) of which there is little trace in LJ(B).

(29) Although the general tenor of the argument is the same in both texts, the illustrations employed are not always the same, and there is no trace in LJ(A) of the point about bankruptcy discussed on p. 181 of LJ(B).

(30) Both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but towards the end LJ(A)’s treatment of some points is much more extensive than LJ(B)’s.

(31) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the passage dealing with bonds on p. 192 of LJ(B). The fact that there is a gap in the MS. of LJ(A) at about this point suggests that for some reason the reporter did not get the relevant material down. Otherwise, the points dealt with are roughly the same in both texts, and with one or two exceptions they appear in roughly the same order.

(32) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, but the order of treatment is not always the same, particularly towards the end.

(33) LJ(A) includes, on pp. 24–27, a summary of the main points of the previous lecture.

(34) Details of some of the calculations which appear in LJ(A) are omitted, or drastically summarized, in LJ(B), and on some occasions the figures employed differ as between the two texts.

(35) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, and more or less in the same order—except that the points about the ‘law by Sesostratis’ on pp. 218–219 of LJ(B) have their counterpart in LJ(A) much later (on pp. 54–55), in the course of a summary of the previous lecture.

(36) The main points dealt with in LJ(B) under this heading do not have their counterpart in LJ(A) until later in the story. The parallel passages in LJ(A) in fact occur at the beginning of a new lecture (apparently as a kind of afterthought on Smith’s part), at a point in the course where he has in the previous lecture already embarked upon the next topic, the price of commodities.

(37) Both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but in LJ(A) there is a break in continuity (see previous note). LJ(A) includes a summary of the previous lecture.

(38) LJ(A) includes a summary of the previous lecture.

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(39) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, but not always in quite the same order. LJ(A) contains a summary of the previous lecture.

(40) The discussion of circulation, banks, and paper money on pp. 127–132 of LJ(A) breaks off suddenly at the foot of p. 132, at a point in the argument roughly corresponding to the end of the sentence ‘That this has a tendency . . . opulence of the country’ near the foot of p. 246 of LJ(B). There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of any of the material which appears in LJ(B) between this point and the point on p. 253 where a new paragraph begins. It is at the latter point that LJ(A) takes up the argument again, at the top of p. 133 of the MS., and from there to p. 146 the points covered in LJ(A) are roughly the same as those covered in LJ(B) from p. 253 to p. 256 (ex-cept that LJ(A) includes a long statistical discussion of which there are only faint echoes in LJ(B)). For a possible explanation of the omission from LJ(A) of what was evidently a large amount of material, see p. 380, note 53, below.

(41) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, but not always in quite the same order. LJ(A) contains a summary of the previous lecture.

(42) Both texts deal with roughly the same topics in the same order, up to the point near the foot of p. 268 of LJ(B) where the last sentence on that page begins. At a point corresponding to this LJ(A) ceases.

5. Some Particular Aspects of the Report of 1762–3

We do not regard it as any part of our purpose, in this Introduction, to present our personal views and interpretations of the actual thought of Adam Smith, as it is reported in the docu-ments we have edited. Since LJ(A) is published here for the first time, however, it might be con-sidered appropriate for us briefly to list some of the ways in which, in our opinion, the discovery of this document may enable new light to be thrown on the development of Smith’s ideas during the crucial Glasgow period.

Let us begin with three general considerations, arising from the fact that the treatment of in-dividual topics is usually much more extensive in LJ(A) than it is in LJ(B). This fact means, first, that in quite a large number of places (some but not all of which are specifically referred to in our editorial footnotes) where the text of LJ(B) is unclear or corrupt, Smith’s real meaning can now be ascertained by looking at the corresponding passage in LJ(A). It means, second, that in certain places (e.g. the section on occupation and that on contract) where the additional material in LJ(A) is very extensive indeed, some of the major emphases are altered—to such an extent, on occasion, as to make it appear at first sight that a quite different story is being told. And it means, third, that in some places we have been able to go farther than Cannan in our detection of the probable sources upon which Smith drew—not, we hasten to say, because Cannan’s editorial work was in any way unscholarly, but simply because there happens to be more material in LJ(A) than in LJ(B), and therefore more clues as to sources. For example, whereas Smith’s use of Mon-

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tesquieu is clear from LJ(B), his dependence on Hume’s History and Essays is more pronounced in LJ(A).

Turning now, more specifically, to vols. i–v of LJ(A), one of the most important points which emerges from them concerns the relation between the way in which Smith dealt with the latter part of the Moral Philosophy course in his Glasgow lectures, and the way in which Francis Hutcheson, Smith’s teacher, had dealt with it in his Glasgow lectures some time before. After the discovery of LJ(B), a number of scholars (notably Cannan and Scott) drew attention to certain interesting parallels between Hutcheson’s treatment of the subject and Smith’s. If we now com-pare Hutcheson’s treatment with that of Smith as reported in LJ(A) the parallels become more strik-ing, since the order of treatment of the main subjects in LJ(A) is much closer to Hutcheson’s than the order of treatment in LJ(B).79 Another point of almost equal importance is that Smith’s use of the four stages theory as a kind of conceptual framework within which much of the discussion is set, and his conscious acceptance of the more general ‘environmental’ or ‘materialist’ approach which underlay the four stages theory, are more clearly evident in LJ(A) than they are in LJ(B).80

There are various other points of a less general nature which emerge from a comparison be-tween vols. i–v of LJ(A) and the corresponding sections of LJ(B). Of these, we may select four of the more interesting ones as examples. First, LJ(A) elaborates Smith’s explanation of the natural right to property by occupation, given very summarily in LJ(B).81 The account follows Smith’s theory of the impartial spectator in TMS and is evidently intended to be an alternative to a cele-brated argument of Locke. Second, it is perhaps significant that in LJ(A) the dangers to liberty im-plicit in certain features of ‘the situation and circumstances of England’ are referred to, whereas in LJ(B), broadly speaking, it is only the safeguards which are mentioned.82 Third, as has already been stated above,83 there is no distinct counterpart in LJ(B) of the interesting discussion in LJ(A) of the fact that slavery is ‘very detrimentall to population’. On the other hand, LJ(B) contains a paragraph about the status in Britain of Negroes who had been slaves in America, an addition apparently prompted by an important court judgement of 1762.84 Fourth, the discussion of ex-clusive privileges in LJ(A) contains some important passages, of which there is virtually no coun-terpart in LJ(B), where Smith in effect generalizes the idea that institutions which are harmful to society today may very well in their origin have been convenient and in a sense necessary to society.85

Turning now to vol. vi of LJ(A), which contains the report of Smith’s lectures on ‘police’, this does not appear, at any rate at first sight, to cast quite as much new light on Smith’s economic thought as we might perhaps have hoped. LJ(A), after all, stops short about two–thirds of the way through the ‘police’ section, so that LJ(B) is still our sole source of information concerning the remaining part of this section.86 LJ(A), again, does not in most of this section (so far as it goes) contain as much additional material—as compared with that in LJ(B)—as it does in the ‘justice’ section. And last but not least, at a crucial point where the text of LJ(B) obviously embodies a se-rious misinterpretation of Smith’s argument, the LJ(A) reporter, as if with a design to thwart us, has omitted to include a report of the relevant part of the lectures.87

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Yet when one looks into the matter a little more closely, certain quite interesting points do emerge. For example, it is perhaps significant that there is no trace in LJ(A) of the statement in LJ(B) that ‘labour, not money, is the true measure of value’.88 The more extensive treatment in LJ(A) of the effects of the prohibition on the export of bullion makes Smith’s reliance on Hume’s theory of specie–flow adjustment clearer than it is in LJ(B).89 The inclusion in LJ(A) of the sen-tence beginning ‘In what manner then . . . ’ at the end of Smith’s account of the relatively poor position of peasants and labourers in the modern state90 may perhaps be regarded as giving an emphasis to these passages rather different from that in LJ(B). The treatment of the division of labour in LJ(A) provides some suggestive evidence relating to the development of Smith’s ideas on this subject.91 And the inclusion in LJ(A) of a number of detailed calculations of the cost of production of a pin (which are either omitted or summarized very briefly in LJ(B)) makes the burden of Smith’s argument much clearer.

Another point which emerges is perhaps of sufficient importance to deserve a paragraph to itself. A number of scholars, basing themselves on LJ(B), have argued that in Smith’s Glasgow lectures capital and the accumulation of capital did not yet play anything like the central role which they were later to do in WN; that the concept of profit on capital as a basic category of class income was still missing; and that the concept of a normal rate of profit on capital was also missing. Now that we have another, and more extensive, report of Smith’s Glasgow lectures to turn to, it is possible that these judgements may require some—although perhaps not very much—modification. In relation to the question of the role of capital, scholars interested in this problem will probably see some significance in a passage where Smith tries to calculate the value of ‘the stock of the whole kingdom’.92 In relation to the question of the concept of profit as a category of class income, they may wish to refer to a passage where he talks of the capacity of industry, when improved, to ‘give considerable profit of the great men’.93 And in relation to the question of the rate of profit, they will certainly be interested in a passage where Smith says that the price of a commodity must be sufficient to repay the costs of education and the apprentice fee ‘not only in principall but with the interest and profit which I might have made of it’,94 and also per-haps in another where he describes what happens in a competitive market when a trade is ‘overprofitable’.95

6. The Principles Adopted in the Transcription of the Texts

The preparation of LJ(A) and LJ(B) for publication has involved a number of serious difficul-ties, arising in large part from the particular way in which LJ(A) appears to have been originally compiled.

As stated above,96 the main text on the recto pages of LJ(A) would seem to have been written serially, soon after (but not during) the lectures concerned, on the basis of very full notes taken down in class, probably in shorthand. The reporter evidently took some care, when writing up the notes, to ensure that they were as accurate as possible a representation of what Smith had actually said. But the degree of the reporter’s care varied appreciably from place to place; and

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since the notes were intended merely as working notes he was not overmuch concerned with legi-bility, grammar, and the niceties of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing. The handwriting varies from perfectly legible copper–plate to a hurried scrawl which is very difficult to decipher, and there is a large number of abbreviations, overwritings, deletions, and interlinea-tions. The spelling is often careless and wildly inconsistent; punctuation and capitalization are usually very arbitrary; and paragraphing is minimal.

The editors of LJ(A) were thus faced right at the outset with a difficult problem: to what ex-tent, if at all, should these ubiquitous imperfections be cleaned up in the interests of readability? On the one hand, it could be argued that the published text should be in effect the editors’ recon-struction of what Smith might be presumed actually to have said in the lectures concern-ed—which would mean, of course, that the published text would deviate appreciably from the reporter’s imperfect notes. On the other hand, it could be argued that the text should properly be no more than a reproduction, as exact as possible, of the reporter’s manuscript notes as they stood, with all their manifest blemishes.

In the end, we decided that some kind of compromise between these two extreme views would have to be arrived at. The adoption of the first method would have allowed too much room for the editors’ own subjective judgements, and would have largely deprived the reader of the opportunity to make up his own mind about the exact circumstances in which LJ(A) origi-nated. The second method, as a number of experiments eventually showed, would have necessi-tated an impossibly extensive apparatus of footnotes, and would have succeeded only in making the text in many places virtually unreadable.

An important constraint here was that the principles adopted in transcribing LJ(A) should as far as possible be the same as those adopted in transcribing LJ(B), in order that the comparison of the two documents should be facilitated. LJ(B), generally speaking, is much more readable as it stands than LJ(A): there are very few corrections and additions; the writing is almost always per-fectly legible; and spelling and paragraphing are on the whole quite rational and consistent. The capitalization, however, is just as arbitrary in LJ(B) as it is in LJ(A); and the punctuation, although less arbitrary, would often hamper the reader if left unaltered.

The basis of the set of principles eventually arrived at was the drawing of a distinction be-tween two more or less separate groups of imperfections in the manuscripts—first, those which it was thought could justifiably be corrected in the published text without (in normal cases) any spe-cific footnote reference; and, second, those others which it was felt ought to be allowed to remain in the published text, either with or without a specific footnote reference. After much experimen-tation, we decided to place in the first group (a) punctuation and capitalization, which we felt should up to a certain point be modernized; (b) straightforward overwritings and interlineations, which we decided need not (in normal cases) be specifically noted; and (c) contractions, most (but not all) of which we thought should be spelt out. In the second group, we decided to place all the remaining imperfections—notably spelling errors, omissions, inadequate paragraphing, deletions, replacements, etc.—feeling that these should be allowed to remain in the text, with specific foot-note references (or other indications) wherever necessary. This distinction was, and was bound to

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be, to some extent arbitrary,97 but experience showed that it offered the best basis for a text which would satisfy as fully as possible the demands both of the general reader and of the Smith scholar.

Another and related set of decisions had then to be made concerning the number and char-acter of the symbols and conventions to be used in the critical apparatus. From the nature of the case, it was clear that this apparatus would inevitably have to be somewhat complex; and the edi-tors were therefore very conscious of the fact that unless they made a special effort to reduce the number of symbols and conventions to the absolute minimum it might be very difficult for read-ers—specialist as well as non–specialist—to find their way through the text. Three basic decisions were accordingly made:

(a) The main symbolic apparatus should consist of three different types of brackets—square brackets [] for superfluous words or letters; angle brackets <> for words or letters supplied to rectify omissions; and braces {} for the verso notes in LJ(A).98

(b) A set of conventions, as simple as possible, should be adopted for the keying–in of foot-note references to deletions, replacements, illegible words, and doubtful readings.

(c) There should be only two categories of footnotes—textual and editorial, indicated respec-tively by italic letters and by arabic numerals in roman type. The footnotes themselves should throughout be in plain English, unencumbered by any further symbols for the reader to memo-rize.

These three basic decisions were eventually crystallized in a number of specific principles re-lating to the presentation of the text and the critical apparatus, the most important of which are the following:

i. Numbering of Pages

At the beginning of vol. i of the original MS. of LJ(A), the recto pages upon which the main text is written have been numbered by the reporter 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. up to 39, when this numbering ceases. The first pages of the gatherings on which the report is written are also numbered. All these numbers have been ignored in our text, and in the case of each volume the recto pages upon which writing appears have been numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. right through to the end of the volume concerned. Thus each volume is numbered separately, and the verso pages (together with any blank recto pages) are left unnumbered.99 In the text, the point at which one (recto) page of a particular volume of the MS. ends and the next page begins is marked by the insertion of a verti-cal rule in the text and the placing of the relevant page number (in ordinary arabic figures) in the margin. For example, 23 in the margin indicates that at the point in the line level with this num-ber where a vertical rule is inserted, p. 22 of the MS. ends and p. 23 begins.100 If one or two words at the end of one page of the MS. are repeated at the beginning of the next, as frequently happens in LJ(A), the repetition is as it were credited to the next. At the point where one volume of LJ(A) ends and another volume begins (but only at that point), the number of the new volume

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is also stated. For example, iii.1 in the margin indicates that at the point in the line level with this number where a vertical rule is inserted, vol. ii of the MS. ends and vol. iii begins.

In the case of LJ(B) the position is less complex, since the main text is written on both the recto and the verso pages of the MS.; all the material is contained in one volume; and the pages of the MS. (although not of the index), whether writing appears on them or not, have all been num-bered successively by the copyist. These page numbers are those which are referred to in our text. The conventions adopted for indicating where one page ends and another begins are the same (mutatis mutandis) as those adopted in the case of LJ(A). The few cases in which words at the end of one page are repeated at the beginning of the next, however, are specifically noted.

In our footnotes to the texts, page references to LJ(A) and LJ(B), if the number is not pre-ceded by ‘p.’, are to pages of the MSS. If the number is preceded by ‘p.’ it refers to a page of this edition.

ii. Punctuation

As indicated above, the punctuation in LJ(A) is often arbitrary and irrational (or non–exis-tent); and that in LJ(B) is not much better. In the interests of readability, therefore, the punctua-tion in both texts has to a certain extent been cleaned up. In particular, full points have normally been inserted between sentences where they are lacking in the MSS., and in a large number of cases where a sentence requires more (or less) breaking–up for full comprehensibility, semicolons or commas have been inserted (or deleted). We have not attempted to secure complete rationality or consistency in punctuation, however; and in a few cases where the interpretation of a particular passage may depend upon the punctuation no alterations have been made.

iii. Capitalization

The profusion of capital letters in both MSS. raises a special problem. Not only are capital letters used very frequently, but they are also used very inconsistently; and in a great number of cases it is quite uncertain whether or not a capital letter was in fact intended. In the interests of readability, therefore, a more modern system of capitalization has been employed, and an at-tempt made to secure a reasonable degree of consistency both within and between each of the two texts. In a few cases where the use of a capital letter in the MS. can reasonably be regarded as serving some special purpose (e.g. the emphasis of a key word, or of a new concept on the oc-casion of its first introduction) we have retained it.

iv. Straightforward Overwritings and Interlineations

In very many cases in LJ(A), and occasionally in LJ(B), a word (or series of words) has been changed to another simply by overwriting: e.g. the scribe has begun by writing ‘then’ and has changed it to ‘there’ (the correct word) by overwriting ‘there’ in the space occupied by ‘then’. As stated above,101 in many of these cases the overwritten word is illegible, and since to note them

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all would have meant a tremendous expansion of the apparatus of footnotes and greatly hin-dered readability, they have not in fact been specifically indicated in the text, except where some special point is involved. Similarly, straightforward interlineations—i.e. those clearly intended to form part of the text and not involving the replacement of deleted words—have also not been specifically indicated, except where some special point is involved.

v. Contractions

The contractions used in the MS. of LJ(A) for the words ‘the’, ‘against’, ‘with’, ‘that’, ‘than’, ‘neither’, ‘either’, ‘betwixt’, ‘which’, and ‘brother’ are not reproduced in the text, all these words being spelt out. So far as other contracted words (in both MSS.) are concerned, the general rule adopted is that all contractions which are raised, and all those above which a contraction symbol is placed, are spelt out, with the exception of ‘1st’, ‘2nd’, etc., which are reproduced in the text ex-actly as they appear in the MS. ‘Mr’, ‘Dr’, and ‘Sr’ are rendered as ‘Mr.’, ‘Dr.’, and ‘Sir’. All am-persands are spelt out, and ‘&c.’ (or ‘&ca.’) is rendered as ‘etc.’ (or ‘etca.’). The different signs used for the pound sterling are all rendered as ‘£’. All other contracted words, monetary symbols, measures, numbers, etc. are reproduced in the text exactly as they appear in the MS.

vi. Spelling Errors, Omissions, etc.

The spelling in the MSS. has normally been retained in the text, even when it is clearly wrong, and no attempt has been made to secure consistency. When the spelling of a word in the MS. is doubtful, the spelling used in the text is that which is normally used elsewhere in the MS., or (in cases where this criterion cannot be applied) the correct modern spelling. Similarly, gram-matical errors, unconscious omissions or repetitions of words, etc. in both MSS. have normally been reproduced in the text.

Where such errors, omissions, etc. seem likely to interfere seriously with readability, however, the following devices are used:

(a) Words or letters in the MS. which quite clearly ought not to be there are enclosed in square brackets. Example: MS.: the spirit of the of the Roman LawText: the spirit of the [of the] Roman Law

(b) Words or letters which quite clearly ought to be in the MS., but are not, are inserted and enclosed in angle brackets. Example: MS.: this vioated the constitutionText: this vio<l>ated the constitution

(c) In cases where a word (or words) is obviously omitted from the MS., and a reasonable guess can be made of what was intended, the probable word (or words) omitted is inserted in the text, preceded by a question mark and enclosed in angle brackets. Example: MS.: the laws of Scotland and were differentText: the laws of Scotland and <?England> were different

(d) In cases where a word (or words) is obviously omitted from the MS., but a reasonable guess cannot be made of what was intended, a pair of angle brackets enclosing a question mark

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is inserted in the text. Example: MS.: when the king was he summoned hisText: when the king was <?> he summoned his

(e) In cases which cannot be dealt with by the above devices, a footnote is normally inserted indicating what was probably intended.

vii. Paragraphing

The paragraphing in LJ(A) is minimal, and often very conjectural, if only because the first lines of new paragraphs are not indented. Sometimes the beginning of a new paragraph is marked in the MS. by a dash (or series of dashes) immediately following the preceding sentence; but such dashes, unfortunately, also frequently occur at the end of a sentence which is obviously not intended to be the last in a paragraph.102 Sometimes a change in ink and/or the style of the handwriting in the MS., coupled with a change in the subject–matter, indicates that a new para-graph was probably intended. In the text, new paragraphs have normally been formed only in those cases where the indication in the MS. is reasonably unambiguous, or where the absence of a new paragraph would interfere seriously with readability.

The paragraphing in LJ(B) is reasonably clear and rational, and with very few exceptions has simply been reproduced in our text.

When a new paragraph starts on a new page, the vertical rule indicating the change of page is inserted at the beginning of the new paragraph and not at the end of the preceding paragraph.

viii. Deletions, Replacements, etc.

(a) Where a word (or words) in a line is deleted, and not replaced by an interlined word (or words), a footnote reference is keyed in at the end of the word immediately preceding the dele-tion. Example: MS.: from what he had for a long timeText: from whata had for a long time

(b) Where a word (or words) at the beginning of a new paragraph is deleted, and not replaced by an interlined word (or words), a footnote reference is keyed in at the beginning of the first word of the paragraph. Example: MS.:Thus Contracts, when they were firstText:b Contracts, when they were first

(c) Where a word (or words) in a line is deleted, and replaced by a word interlined above it, a footnote reference is keyed in at the end of the replacing word. Example: MS.: the balance of property has confers so small aText: the balance of property confersc so small a

(d) Where a word (or words) in a line is deleted, and replaced by several words interlined above it, a footnote reference is keyed in at the end of the last of the replacing words. Example: MS.:with about their land themselves and multiply theirText: about their landd themselves and multiply their

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ix. Doubtful Readings, Illegible Words, Blanks in MS., etc.

The footnotes ‘Reading doubtful’, ‘Reading of last two words doubtful’, etc., indicate that the editors are more than usually dubious about the reading of the word or words concerned which they have given in the text. The relevant footnote references are keyed in at the end of the word or words.

In cases of complete illegibility, a blank space of approximately the same length as the illegi-ble word or words is left in the text, a footnote reference is keyed in at the beginning of the fol-lowing word, and an appropriate footnote inserted. If the editors wish merely to note the illegibil-ity, without making any comment, the footnote is a textual one, indicated by an italic letter and in most cases reading simply ‘Illegible word’. If the editors wish not only to note the illegibility but also to make a comment, the footnote is an editorial one, indicated by an arabic numeral in ro-man type.

When a blank space has been left in the MS., a similar procedure is normally adopted.103 A space of roughly the same length as the space in the MS. is left in the text, a footnote reference is keyed in at the beginning of the following word, and an appropriate footnote inserted. This foot-note is a textual one if the editors wish merely to note that a blank space has been left in the MS. at this point, and an editorial one if they wish also to make a comment.

In cases where the degree of illegibility is such that the number of illegible words cannot be exactly ascertained, an attempt is made in the relevant footnote to give an approximate indication of the number of words concerned—e.g. ‘Two or three illegible words’. Cases in which it appears possible that it is only part of a word which is illegible are not separately delineated—e.g. the footnote ‘Illegible word deleted’ must be taken to include the possibility that it is only part of a word which has been deleted at the relevant point in the MS.

x. Treatment of the Verso Notes in LJ(A)

The verso notes in LJ(A) are incorporated in the main text, at what appears to be the appro-priate place, within braces. It is to be assumed, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, that the note concerned is written on the verso of the previous (recto) page. Thus if a passage appears within braces on (recto) page 28, and no contrary indication is given, it can be taken that in the MS. it is written on the verso of (recto) page 27. If a verso note continues on to the next verso page, as sometimes happens, an indication of this is given in square brackets at the appro-priate point. Thus if a passage in braces appears on (recto) page 64 of the text, and at a certain point in this passage the indication [v.64] appears, this denotes the fact that the note in question, although starting on the verso of (recto) page 63, is carried over at the indicated point to the verso of (recto) page 64.

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xi. Cross–references

In view of the fact that a detailed collation of LJ(A) and LJ(B) has been included in this In-troduction, cross–references between the two documents have been provided only in special cases. The scope of our cross–references to other works of Smith has also been deliberately re-stricted, in the light of a general policy decision by the Board of Editors of the Glasgow edition to the effect that in each of the volumes of Smith’s works cross–references should normally be provided only to work of an earlier date. One of the results of this policy is that in the present volume there are virtually no references forward to WN. In WN itself, however, there are very many references back to the documents published in the present volume,104 to which readers are referred for the relation between Smith’s earlier and later ideas in the relevant fields.

Endnotes

[1] Stewart, I.16. The original version of Stewart’s ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith’, in which these remarks of Millar’s were incorporated, was read by Stewart to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 21 January and 18 March 1793.

[2] See below, pp. 4, 9, 11, and 15–17.

[3] Minutes of University Meeting of 11 September 1751 (Glasgow University Archives).

[4] In the letter from Smith mentioned in the extract just quoted (Corr., Letter 9 addressed to William Cullen, dated 3 Sept. 1751), Smith wrote: ‘I shall, with great pleasure, do what I can to relieve him [Professor Craigie] of the burden of his class. You mention natural jurisprudence and politics as the parts of his lectures which it would be most agreeable for me to take upon me to teach. I shall very willingly undertake both.’

[5] See Stewart, IV.25. Stewart is referring here to a document drawn up by Smith in 1755 which apparently contained ‘a pretty long enumeration . . . of certain leading principles, both political and literary, to which he was anxious to establish his exclusive right; in order to prevent the possibility of some rival claims which he thought he had reason to apprehend’. From this document Stewart quotes (apparently verbatim) the following statement by Smith: ‘A great part of the opinions enumerated in this paper is treated of at length in some lectures which I have still by me, and which were written in the hand of a clerk who left my service six years ago. They have all of them been the constant subjects of my lectures since I first taught Mr Craigie’s class, the first winter I spent in Glasgow, down to this day, without any considerable variation. They had all of them been the subjects of lectures which I read at Edinburgh the winter before I left it, and I can adduce innumerable witnesses, both from that place and from this, who will ascertain them sufficiently to be mine.’

[6] The exact date on which Smith left Glasgow is not known. The fact that he was probably going to leave the University was publicly announced for the first time at a Dean of Faculty’s Meeting on 8 November 1763. Two months later, at a Faculty Meeting on 9 January 1764, Smith

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stated that ‘he was soon to leave this place’ and that ‘he had returned to the students all the fees he had received this session’. The previous Faculty Meeting (at which Smith had also been pre-sent) was held on 4 January 1764, so it may reasonably be assumed that his last lecture to the Moral Philosophy class (at which, according to Tytler’s account, the fees were returned) was de-livered at some time during the period between these two Faculty Meetings. The last meeting at Glasgow University which Smith attended in his capacity as a member of the teaching staff was a University Meeting on 10 January 1764, and all the indications are that he left Glasgow within a few days of this date. Cf. Rae, 169–70; Scott, 97; and A. F. Tytler, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Kames (2nd edn., Edinburgh, 1814), i.272–3.

[7] Stewart, I.18–20.

[8] Cf. Rae, 51; David Murray, Memories of the Old College of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1927), 516; and Discourses on Theological & Literary Subjects, by the late Rev. Archibald Arthur . . . with an Account of some Particulars of his Life and Character, by William Richardson (Glasgow, 1803), 514–15.

[9] By William Richardson, loc. cit.

[10] See John M. Lothian (ed.), Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres delivered . . . by Adam Smith (1963).

[11] What appears to be part of one of Smith’s lectures on ethics is reprinted and discussed in Appendix II of the Glasgow edition of TMS. The Introduction, 1(a), to that volume considers further evidence about the character of these lectures.

[12] Little direct information is available about the form which they assumed during Smith’s first years at Glasgow. A certain amount can be conjectured, however, from the Anderson Notes. For the full text of these notes, and a commentary establishing their connection with Smith’s lec-tures, see R. L. Meek, ‘New Light on Adam Smith’s Glasgow Lectures on Jurisprudence’ (History of Political Economy, vol. 8, Winter 1976).

[13] Below, p. 5.

[14] Below, p. 398. Cf. TMS VII.iv.37.

[15] Edwin Cannan (ed.), Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms, delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith (Oxford, 1896).

[16] Ibid., xv–xvi.

[17] One of the leaves at the beginning of the book looks as if it may have been the original fly–leaf, but a letter has been mounted on it and it is difficult to be sure about this.

[18] Cannan, op. cit., xxxv–ix.

[19] Ibid., xvii–xviii. W. R. Scott, in an article printed as Appendix V to the 2nd edn. of James Bonar’s Catalogue of the Library of Adam Smith (London, 1932), deduced from the remnants of a book–plate which was formerly pasted inside the front cover that the volume originally be-longed to Alexander Murray of Murrayfield—for whom, Scott surmised, the copy was made.

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[20] Cannan, op. cit., xviii–xix.

[21] It is certainly no greater than that found in LJ(A) and in the report of the Rhetoric lec-tures.

[22] Rae, 64.

[23] The beginning of LJ(B), which repeats almost verbatim some phrases from the end of TMS, appears to be a highly accurate record.

[24] We are assuming that these lectures were all of a piece—i.e. that the original notes of them were all taken down in one and the same session. We have found no evidence which sug-gests the contrary.

[25] Op. cit., xix–xx.

[26] Below, p. 432.

[27] Below, p. 401.

[28] Below, p. 435.

[29] Below, p. 324.

[30] Above, p. 8. Cf. Scott, 319.

[31] Tytler, op. cit., i.272. Not very much is known about Thomas Young. At a Dean of Fac-ulty’s Meeting on 26 June 1762 we find his name heading a list of six students of Divinity which was to be presented to the Barons of Exchequer with a view to the selection of one of them ‘to study Divinity three years upon King Williams mortification from the 10th October next’. At a University Meeting on 24 June 1763 ‘a presentation was given in and read from the Barons of Exchequer in favour of Mr. Thomas Young to study Theology three years commencing at Mar-tinmass last’. The decision to appoint Young to carry on Smith’s Moral Philosophy course was taken at the Faculty Meeting on 9 January 1764 to which reference has already been made in note 6 above. According to the minutes, ‘the Meeting desired Dr. Smiths advice in the choice of a proper person to teach in his absence and he recommended Mr. Thomas Young, student of Di-vinity who was agreed to’. Young was a candidate for the Moral Philosophy Chair which Smith vacated, and was supported by Black and Millar. Black reported to Smith on 23 January 1764 that ‘T. Young performs admirably well and is much respected by the students’; and Millar, in similar vein, reported to him on 2 February 1764 that Young ‘has taught the class hitherto with great and universal applause; and by all accounts discovers an ease and fluency in speaking, which, I own, I scarce expected’. See Scott, 256–7; also Corr., Letter 79 from Joseph Black, dated 23 Jan. 1764, and Letter 80 from John Millar, dated 2 Feb. 1764. Young did not obtain the Chair (which was given to Thomas Reid), and nothing is known of his later career.

[32] John M. Lothian, op. cit., xi–xii.

[33] There are a few corrections and collations on the verso pages of vol. i which may possi-bly be in a second hand, although this is by no means certain. Such cases are rarely if ever to be found in the later volumes.

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[34] We speak here only of the ‘main text’ of LRBL, rather than of the MS. as a whole, be-cause in this MS. a large number of corrections and collations were in fact made, without any doubt at all, by a second hand.

[35] Cf. the description of LJ(A) given above with that of the MS. of LRBL given in the Ap-pendix (by T. I. Rae) to John M. Lothian, op. cit., 195. Another possibly significant similarity is that the average number of pages of MS. devoted to a lecture is almost the same in both cas-es—roughly 15.5 in LJ(A) and 15.3 in LRBL. The bindings of the two MSS., it is true, do differ in certain respects, but even here the differences are not very significant, and according to the opinion of the Glasgow University binder both of them could quite possibly have come from the same bindery.

[36] Our suggestion that the original notes were probably taken down at least partly in short-hand is based mainly on the sheer length of the reports of a large number of the specifically dated lectures. Take, for example, the reports of the lectures delivered on 5, 6, and 7 April 1763 (below, pp. 355–74), which occupy respectively 18, 20, and 16½ pages of the MS. There is little padding in these reports; they contain a great deal of quite intricate detail; and there is every reason to think that they are on the whole reliable and accurate accounts of what Smith actually said. It is difficult to believe that these reports could have been as full and accurate as this if the original notes had been taken down entirely in longhand.

[37] Our authority here is once again William Richardson in his Life of Arthur (op. cit., 507–8). The complete statement reads as follows: ‘The professors of Ethics, or Moral Philosophy, in the University of Glasgow, employ two hours every day in instructing their pupils. In the first of these, they deliver lectures; and devote the second, after a proper interval, to regular and stated examinations. Such examinations are reckoned of great utility to those who study, as tending to insure their attention, to ascertain their proficiency, and give the teacher an opportunity of ex-plaining more clearly any part of the lecture which may not have been fully understood. Those who received instruction from Dr. Smith, will recollect, with much satisfaction, many of those incidental and digressive illustrations, and even discussions, not only in morality, but in criticism, which were delivered by him with animated and extemporaneous eloquence, as they were sug-gested in the course of question and answer. They occurred likewise, with much display of learn-ing and knowledge, in his occasional explanations of those philosophical works of Cicero, which are also a very useful and important subject of examination in the class of Moral Philosophy.’

[38] See, for example, the verso notes reproduced on pp. 20–1, 128–9, and 153–4 below.

[39] It would appear, however, from a statement made by Thomas Reid (quoted below, p. 14), that it would be unusual for a student to attend the Moral Philosophy lectures, the Rhetoric lec-tures, and the daily examination session in one and the same academic year. But the writer of LJ(A) may of course have collated his notes with those of another student who did attend the ex-amination session.

[40] According to Reid’s account, ‘what is called the curriculum, or ordinary course of public education, comprehends at present five branches—the Latin and Greek languages, Logic, Moral

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Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy. These branches are understood to require the study of five separate sessions.’ See The Works of Thomas Reid, ed. Sir William Hamilton (Edinburgh, 1846), 732.

[41] In other words there were no terminal vacations as there are today. There were, however, holidays on a number of specific days during the session. Cf. David Murray, Memories of the Old College of Glasgow, 461–2.

[42] The Works of Thomas Reid, 773–4.

[43] Reid describes this as the daily programme ‘excepting on Saturdays, when . . . there is only one lecture given’. Whatever the situation may have been in the 1790s, there is no evidence that Smith ever lectured on a Saturday in 1762–3.

[44] The Works of Thomas Reid, 39.

[45] Above, p. 12, note 37.

[46] The ‘Number of Lecture’ in the first column is the ordinal number actually ascribed to each lecture by the reporter, except in the case of the first and the last lecture where the number is conjectural (this being indicated by enclosing it in square brackets). The ‘Date of Lecture’ in the second column is the date actually ascribed to each lecture by the reporter, with the dates of the first and the last lecture being enclosed in square brackets to indicate their conjectural charac-ter. The course is divided up on a week–by–week basis, with a ruled line being inserted under the last lecture given in each particular week.

[47] The student has incorrectly ascribed the number ‘4’ to two successive lectures.

[48] The argument of lecture 9 appears to follow on logically from that of lecture 8. It would therefore seem probable that Smith did not lecture on Rhetoric on either the Wednesday or the Friday in the week beginning Monday, 6 December.

[49] In the MS. ‘26’—an obvious error.

[50] There is no obvious break in continuity between lecture 15 and lecture 16, which sug-gests that Smith did not lecture on Rhetoric during the period between Monday, 27 December 1762 and Wednesday, 5 January 1763. It should be noted, however, that although he may not have lectured on Rhetoric during this period, it seems fairly clear from LJ(A) that he did lecture on Jurisprudence during this period, probably on three occasions. See below, p. 18.

[51] From this point onwards, the ‘normal’ number of lectures given per week in the Rheto-ric course would seem to have been reduced from three to two, the Wednesday lecture usually being the one cut out.

[52] In this week, apparently by way of exception, the second Rhetoric lecture was given on Wednesday rather than on Friday. A possible reason is that Smith transferred the lecture from Fri-day to Wednesday because the Friday concerned (the last Friday in January) was a holiday.

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[53] The argument of lecture 28 seems to follow on logically from that of lecture 27. Smith lectured on Jurisprudence on Friday, 11 February 1763, but it seems probable that for some rea-son the Rhetoric lecture scheduled for that date was cancelled.

[54] The reporter’s notes under this date–heading are unusually extensive, and it seems likely that they in fact summarized the subject–matter of two lectures rather than one. We may there-fore plausibly conjecture that the last lecture in the Rhetoric course (or, more strictly speaking, the last lecture in that course which is reported in this set of notes) was given on Monday, 21 Feb-ruary 1763.

[55] In the letter cited on p. 14 above, which is dated 14 November 1764, Reid says that the course in the ‘different subject’ is due to commence ‘in a week or two’.

[56] We do not know for certain that it finished in February. It is at least possible that it went on longer, but that the remaining lectures were not reported in the set of notes which has come down to us.

[57] Above, p. 14.

[58] William Richardson, op. cit., 514.

[59] From October to December Smith will have lectured on Natural Theology and Ethics. Stewart (III.1) tells us that after the publication of TMS Smith dealt with Ethics much more briefly than before.

[60] Smith lectured on Rhetoric on Monday, 27 December 1762, so we may reasonably as-sume that he also lectured on Jurisprudence on that day.

[61] Christmas Day and New Year’s Day were also holidays, but in 1762–3 they fell on Sat-urday, when Moral Philosophy lectures were not given anyway.

[62] As before, numbers and dates in square brackets are conjectural; those without square brackets are as given by the reporter.

[63] The timetable for this week is very conjectural indeed. The only certain date is Monday, 10 January 1763; but we do know that Smith lectured on Rhetoric on Wednesday, 12 January and Friday, 14 January 1763, and we have therefore assumed that he also lectured on Jurispru-dence on those two days. The main difficulty is that there is not really enough material in the MS.—even taking into account the possible implications of the mysterious note on p. 145 and the gap of 3½ pages in the MS. which follows it—to represent the summaries of a full five days’ lec-turing. It rather looks as if either Tuesday’s or Thursday’s lecture was cancelled: we have as-sumed, at a venture, that it was in fact Tuesday’s. P. 146 of the MS. (the point at which we have assumed that the lecture on Friday, 14 January 1763 began) does seem to mark a real ‘break’, since at this point Smith embarks upon a summary of ‘some of the last lectures’—something which he seems normally to have done only at the beginning of a new lecture.

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[64] There is a certain element of conjecture in our ascription of the three mid–week dates to specific points in the MS., but everything fits in and on the whole the ascription seems fairly plau-sible.

[65] Apart from the certain dates of Wednesday, 26 January 1763 and Thursday, 3 February 1763, the timetables for this week and the next are very conjectural indeed. The first difficulty is that there are only thirty–one pages of MS. between the beginning of the lecture on Friday, 21 January 1763 and the beginning of that on Wednesday, 26 January 1763—not enough to repre-sent a full three days’ lecturing. We have dealt with this by assuming that Smith lectured on Juris-prudence on Monday, 24 January 1763 (when we know that he lectured on Rhetoric), but that for some reason the Jurisprudence lecture scheduled for Tuesday, 25 January 1763 was not in fact delivered. The second difficulty is that there are only fifty–seven pages of MS. between the be-ginning of the lecture on Wednesday, 26 January 1763 and the beginning of that on Thursday, 3 February 1763—not nearly enough to represent a full six days’ lecturing. There are, it is true, several longish gaps in this section of the MS. of LJ(A), but a comparison with LJ(B) suggests that there was not in fact all that much which the reporter failed to get down. The most plausible con-jectural breaks in these fifty–seven pages are on pp. 105, 121, and 131 of the MS. If we assume that there were in fact three lectures between Wednesday, 26 January 1763 and Thursday, 3 Feb-ruary 1763; that one of these was given on Monday, 31 January 1763 (when we know that Smith lectured on Rhetoric); and that Friday, 28 January 1763 was a holiday (as the last Friday in Janu-ary apparently then was), then the three lectures must have been given either on Thursday, Mon-day, and Tuesday, or on Thursday, Monday, and Wednesday, or on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. In the timetable in the text we have opted for the third of these alternatives, but we would not claim that it is really much more plausible than either of the other two.

[66] The small amount of material in the MS. notes relating to this lecture, coupled with the fact that they appear to end in mid sentence and are followed by a blank page, suggests that the student either left the lecture early or for some other reason failed to get notes of the rest of it down. A comparison with LJ(B), which at this point contains some passages of which there is no counterpart in LJ(A), tends to confirm this hypothesis. Cf. below, p. 28, note 10.

[67] It is not at all certain that the break in fact came at this point, but all things considered it seems to be the most likely place.

[68] The most likely point of conclusion to the notes of the lecture of Wednesday, 16 Febru-ary 1763, we have assumed, is at the foot of p. 130 of the MS., where several dashes appear. This would make it a very long set of notes for a single lecture, but there is one other case (Tuesday, 29 March 1763) where the report of a dated lecture is of similar length.

[69] The report of the lecture which we have dated (conjecturally) Thursday, 17 February 1763 is cut off abruptly in mid sentence, at the end of vol. iii of the MS., and the discussion of the acquisition of slaves which is being dealt with is never completed. Nor is there any counter-part in LJ(A) of the discussion of servants, guardian and ward, and domestic offences which in LJ(B) follows the treatment of the acquisition of slaves. All the indications are that the same order of treatment was in fact followed by Smith in 1762–3, but that the student for some reason failed

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to get, or to write up, any notes of this material. Certainly, at any rate, he took some pains to make room at the end of vol. iii for a substantial quantity of additional notes. The third and fourth leaves of the final gathering in the volume have been left blank, and, as already noted above (p. 10), sixteen extra leaves have been inserted, probably by the binder at the student’s re-quest. The final gathering of vol. iii is numbered 126, and the first gathering in vol. iv is num-bered 129. In the light of all these circumstances, it seems reasonable to assume that Smith did in fact lecture on servants, guardian and ward, etc., in 1763, and that this lecture was given on Fri-day, 18 February, when we know that he lectured on Rhetoric. Cf. below, pp. 29–30, notes 19 and 20.

[70] There is no trace of any lecture having been given on Friday, 25 February 1763, which, being the last Friday in February, was in all probability a holiday.

[71] In the actual date–heading on p. 84 of the MS., the day of the week appears as ‘Friday’, and the figure for the day of the month looks like an ‘18’ which has been altered to a ‘17’. It ap-pears that the penultimate Friday in March may have been a holiday (see David Murray, op. cit., 462), so we have assumed that the lecture was in fact delivered on Thursday, 17 March 1763.

[72] There is no sign of the student’s having missed a lecture at this point. Friday’s lecture was probably cancelled.

[73] There is no trace of any lecture having been given on Thursday, 31 March, Friday, 1 April, or Monday, 4 April 1763. Since Easter Day in 1763 fell on 3 April, it seems probable that the Thursday, Friday, and Monday were holidays.

[74] As shown below (p. 31, note 40, and p. 380, note 53), it seems very likely that quite a large amount of material (relating to a lecture which Smith must have given on this date) was omitted from vol. vi, probably by accident.

[75] Above, pp. 7–9.

[76] Above, p. 8.

[77] On the other hand, the close similarity which is quite often to be observed between the actual words used in LJ(B) and in corresponding passages in TMS and WN suggests a degree of accuracy in the original lecture–notes which might be regarded as inconsistent with this hypothe-sis about the origin of LJ(B)—unless, of course, we assume that Smith (or Young) was dictating at the particular points concerned. Another possibility is that LJ(B) is a copy of a summary (perhaps made for sale) of what was originally a much longer set of notes.

[78] Above, p. 13.

[79] Cf. R. L. Meek, ‘New Light on Adam Smith’s Glasgow Lectures on Jurisprudence’, 452–3 and 461–2.

[80] Cf. R. L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge, 1976), 116 ff.

[81] Below, pp. 16–17 and 459.

[82] Cf. above, p. 28, note 7.

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[83] p. 29, note 17.

[84] Below, p. 456.

[85] Below, pp. 85–6. This section also contains, on p. 86, a brief discussion of ‘the separa-tion of trades’ which heralds the later discussion of the division of labour in vol. vi.

[86] And also, of course, concerning the whole of the ‘revenue’ and ‘arms’ sections.

[87] Above, p. 31, note 40.

[88] Below, p. 503.

[89] Below, pp. 385–9.

[90] Below, p. 341.

[91] Cf. R. L. Meek and A. S. Skinner, ‘The Development of Adam Smith’s Ideas on the Di-vision of Labour’ (Economic Journal, vol. 83, Dec. 1973).

[92] Below, pp. 381–3.

[93] Below, p. 343.

[94] Below, p. 357.

[95] Below, p. 363.

[96] p. 11.

[97] For example, it is obvious that no clear logical line can be drawn between overwritings (at any rate those of a more radical kind) and replacements. To note all the overwritings in LJ(A), however, would have been a virtually impossible task: there are literally hundreds of them, many of which are uncertain or illegible and most of which are of little importance. Many of the re-placements in LJ(A), on the other hand, are of much greater importance, representing as they do attempts by the reporter to alter his original formulations so as to make them more consonant with what Smith actually said, or to improve the flow of the argument.

[98] Square brackets are also used to enclose certain manuscript page numbers, and are some-times employed in footnotes for other (self–explanatory) purposes. In LJ(B), where the main text is written on both the recto and the verso pages of the MS., braces merely reproduce braces used in the text as a form of brackets.

[99] The page containing the incomplete table of contents at the beginning of vol. i has also been left unnumbered.

[100] For the conventions relating to the pagination of the notes on the verso pages of LJ(A), see p. 42 below.

[101] p. 36, note.

[102] Dashes occurring in the middle of a paragraph are normally reproduced in the text; single dashes occurring at what is construed as the end of a paragraph are normally omitted.

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When several dashes occur at the end of a paragraph, however, they are normally reproduced, since they may indicate a break of some kind (e.g. the end of a lecture).

[a]‘he’ deleted

[b]‘Thus’ deleted

[c]Replaces ‘has’

[d]The last three words replace ‘with’

[103] In some cases, however (e.g. where a large part of a page, or a number of pages, has been left blank), a note of this fact is inserted in the text in italics.

[104] WN also contains a number of references back to the Anderson Notes, in the version presented in the article referred to above, p. 4, note 12.

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