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- % Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith LL.D.
- % by Dugald Stewart
- % 1793
- _from the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
- read by Mr Stewart, January 21, and March 18, 1793.
- printed in the Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, vol. 10, pp. 1- 98._
- ----
- ## Section I: From Mr. Smith's Birth till the Publication of the Theory of Moral Sentiments
- 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,[^1] 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 produced no
- unfavourable effects on his temper or his dispositions: -- and he
- enjoyed the rare satisfaction of being able to repay here 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 Scotland 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 destined, 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;[^2] 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;[^3] 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 constitution 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.
- 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[^4] 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 commenced, 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
- > inclinatione omnino ad res civiles propensum, vires eo praecipue
- > intendisse; neque de Philosophia Naturali admodum sollicitum esse;
- > nisi quatenus ad Philosophi nomen et celebritatem tuendam, et ad
- > majestatem quandam moralibus et civilibus doctrinis addendam et
- > aspergendam sufficeret.'[^5]
- The study of human nature in all its branches, more
- particularly of the political history of mankind, 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 contributing 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 advanced 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 frequently
- states his political reasonings. -- The lectures of the profound and
- eloquent Dr Hutcheson, 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.[^6]
- 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 cultivate 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 translator, 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 uncommonly 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 conversant 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.[^7] In the English language, the variety of poetical passages
- which he was not only accustomed 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 inclination, 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 preferments, 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, now Lord Loughborough, and with Mr
- William Johnstone, now Mr Pulteney.
- At what particular period his acquaintance with Mr David Hume commenced,
- does not appear 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 acquaintance 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 following, 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 remained
- thirteen years; a period he used frequently to look back to, as the most
- useful and happy of his life. 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.
- 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.[^8]
- > 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 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 metaphysics
- > 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 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 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 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 philosophy 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 students 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 distinctive character which
- > they received from their first author, and are often obscured by that
- > multiplicity 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 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 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 calculated 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 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
- > interested 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. These
- > propositions, when announced in general terms, had, from their extent,
- > not unfrequently something of the air of a paradox. 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 expression 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 science 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
- distinguished 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 the
- English Language_, and also a letter, addressed to the editors,
- containing some general observations on the state of literature in the
- different countries of Europe. In the former of these papers, 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 executed with equal care.
- 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 philosophy 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 Dissertation _on the Origin of Languages, and on the
- different Genius of those which are original and compounded_. The
- remarks I have to offer on these two discourses, I shall, for the sake
- of distinctness, 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 comprehending 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? 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.
- 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 have 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 theoretical
- 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 accordingly (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 perceived by that power of the mind, which
- distinguishes truth from falsehood. 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. 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 account 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. 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 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 conduct of our neighbour. His work accordingly includes 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 judgments
- to ourselves, we acquire a sense of duty, and a feeling of its paramount
- authority over all our other principles of action.
- 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 inquiring 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, although 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.
- 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 passion 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.
- 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 emotion 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 various circumstances, feels himself affected in the
- same manner with the person principally concerned, 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 apparent.
- > A stranger, for example, passes by us in the street with all the
- > marks of the deepest affliction: 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, without 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. 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
- > sympathy 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.
- By the propriety therefore of any affection or passion exhibited by
- another person, is to be understood 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 circumstances; 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
- degree, to what is felt by the person principally concerned. In order,
- therefore, to obtain the pleasure 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.
- 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 sympathetic 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 person 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 degrees 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 disposed, 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." Hence the imperfect degree in which we
- sympathize with such passions; 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 person who is the object
- of them. It is this redoubled sympathy which renders these affections so
- peculiarly 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 prosperity 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 instance,
- not to our own characters, but to the characters of our neighbours. In
- explaining the origin 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 object 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 punishment, 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 gratitude of one man towards another, merely because
- this other has been the cause of his good fortune, 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 affections 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 reward, 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 beneficence 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 division 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, 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 considerations, 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 lament the
- effects it has produced; I pity the unhappy sufferer whom I have
- injured; and I feel myself a just object of indignation to mankind.
- > Such, (says Mr Smith) is the nature of that sentiment which is
- > properly called remorse. It is made up of shame from the sense of the
- > impropriety 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.
- 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 occasions, 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 perceptions, 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 opposition 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 success. 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 explains 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 intimate the existence of some moral faculty
- which is not borrowed from without, our moral sentiments 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 possible, 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 tribunal 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 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 ourselves 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
- indifferent spectator much more coolly than before, yet it is so
- disagreeable to us to think ill of ourselves, 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 punishable; 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 circumstances. 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 revenges 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 sentiment 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 that holds universally; and he
- also admits, that the sentiment of approbation with which we regard
- 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 are derived from four different sources. First, we sympathize
- > 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, when we consider such
- > actions as making a part of a system of behaviour which tends to
- > promote the happiness either of the individual or of society, they
- > appear to derive a beauty from this utility, not unlike that which we
- > ascribe to any well-contrived machine.
- These different sentiments, he thinks, exhaust completely, 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.
- 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 propriety, or of the
- suitableness of the affection to the object which excites it; which
- suitableness, according 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 incomplete;
- 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 virtues 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.[^9]
- 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 singular effort of
- invention, ingenuity, and subtilty. For my own part I must confess, that
- it does not coincide 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 sometimes
- been misled by too great a desire of generalizing his principles, he has
- had the merit of directing 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 theory
- involves its striking plausibility is a sufficient proof; for, as the
- author himself has remarked, 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.
- 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
- general 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 involves the
- author's peculiar theories: But they are always presented in the most
- happy and beautiful 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 everywhere interwoven, with singular taste and
- address, the purest and most elevated maxims concerning the practical
- conduct of life; and that it abounds throughout with interesting and
- instructive delineations of characters and manners. A considerable part
- of it too is employed in collateral 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. 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
- modern origin, and which seems, in a peculiar degree, to have interested
- Mr Smith's curiosity.[^10] 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 acquirements, 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 mixture 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 recording 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 curiosity. In examining the history of mankind, as
- well as in examining the phenomena of the material 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 instance 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 unable to explain.
- To this species of philosophical investigation, which has no
- appropriated name in our language, I shall take the liberty of giving
- the title of Theoretical or Conjectutal History; an expression which
- coincides pretty nearly in its meaning with that of Natural History, as
- employed by Mr Hume[^11] and with what some French writers have called
- _Histoire Raisonnée_.
- The mathematical sciences, both pure and mixed, afford, in many of their
- branches, very favourable 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 exercising the genius of students. The
- same author points out as a model a passage in Montucla's _History of
- Mathematics_, 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 (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 manuscripts
- 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 legislators,
- or to accidental circumstances, which it is now impossible to ascertain.
- Montesquieu, on the contrary, considered laws as originating chiefly
- from the circumstances of society; and attempted to account, from the
- changes in the condition of mankind, which take place in the different
- stages of their progress, for the corresponding alterations which their
- institutions undergo. 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 combining the casual observations of illiterate
- travellers and navigators, into a philosophical commentary on the
- history of law and of manners.
- The advances made in this line of inquiry since Montesquieu's time have
- been great. Lord Kames, in his _Historical Law Tracts_, 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.
- In Mr Smith's writings, whatever be the nature of his subject, 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. I
- formerly mentioned a fragment concerning _the History of Astronomy_
- which he has left for publication; 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 disquisitions 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
- which have inverted this order in the different countries of modern
- Europe. His lectures on jurisprudence seem, from the account of them
- formerly given, to have abounded in such inquiries.
- I am informed by the same gentleman who favoured me with the account of
- Mr Smith's lectures 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 convinced
- > (says he), that the observations of Mr Smith would have suggested many
- > new and important 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 subjects; and the fanciful theories which, without the
- least affectation of ingenuity, he was continually starting upon all the
- common topics of discourse, gave to his conversation a novelty and
- variety 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 degree, 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 delineated 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 importance 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
- provision 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 after 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 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.
- > 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 delayed writing to you till I could tell you something of the
- > success of the book, and could prognosticate with some probability,
- > whether it should be finally damned to oblivion, or should be
- > registered 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 Ferguson in your eye, in case another project for procuring him
- > a place in the University of Edinburgh should fail. Ferguson has very
- > much polished and improved his treatise on Refinement[^12] and with
- > some amendments it will make an admirable book, and discovers an
- > elegant and a singular 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
- > wormwood 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 return to your
- > book, and its success in this town, I must tell you ---------.
- > A plague of interruptions! I ordered 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 vulgar.
- > > Non si quid turbida Roma,
- > > Elevet, accedas: examenve improbum in illa
- > > Castiges trutina: nec te quaesiveris extra.
- > 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. Nothing 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 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 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 serviceable to him in the Glasgow elections.
- > Lord Lyttleton says, that Robertson and Smith and Bowver 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 performance, 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 propriety 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
- > Townsend 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.
- ## Section III: From the Publication of _the Theory of Moral Sentiments_, til 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, 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.[^13]
- 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
- diffused 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 always 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 tolerably 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 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 already 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 accomplished 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.
- In this first visit to Paris, the Duke of Buccleuch and Mr Smith
- employed only ten or twelve days,[^14] 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 opportunity 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 Geneva. 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, Morellet,[^15] 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 d'Anville, the
- respectable mother of the late excellent and much lamented Duke of la
- Rochefoucauld,[^16] he received many attentions, which he always
- recollected with particular gratitude.
- 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 exists 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 biographers
- of Turgot, that after his retreat from the ministry, he occupied his
- leisure in a philosophical correspondence with some of his old friends;
- and, in particular, that various letters on important 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, because a good deal of
- curiosity has been excited by the passage in question, with respect to
- the fate of the supposed letters.
- Mr Smith was also well known to M. Quesnai, the profound and original
- author of the _Economical Table_; a man (according to Mr Smith's account
- of him) "of the greatest modesty and simplicity;" and whose system of
- political economy he has pronounced, "with all its imperfections," to be
- "the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published on
- the principles of that very important science." 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 area 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 extensive; 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 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 opinions 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; 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
- versification and of rhyme[^17] This principle Mr Smith pushed to the
- greatest possible length, and referred 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. Nay, he had gone so far as to extend the same doctrine 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; 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 intimately
- 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.
- In October 1766, the Duke of Buccleuch returned to London. His Grace,
- to whom I am indebted 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 private 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
- persuaded to leave it. During the whole of this period, (with the
- exception of a few visits to Edinburgh 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 letters," 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.
- 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 mortally sick at sea, and regard with horror
- > and a kind of hydrophobia the great gulf that lies between 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 reasons 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 controversy. 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 acceptance
- > of this defiance.
- 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.
- > 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 expectation, 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. 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 considered 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 philosopher'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 peculiarities 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_[^18]
- An historical view of the different forms under which human affairs have
- appeared in different ages and nations, 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 legislators? 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, 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 appear 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.
- 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, confined their
- attention to a comparison of the different forms of government, and to
- an examination 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, 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 scattered, 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
- equity 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."[^19] 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 completely 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 excellence 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 recommend; combined with the security
- it provides in the light and spirit of the people, for the pure and
- equal administration of justice. -- I cannot help adding, that the
- capacity of a people to exercise 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 favourable 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 enlightening 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_. 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
- interesting; 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 seditiones 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 rerumpublicarum 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.
- 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 perperam positum aut constitutum sit."
- 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 policy in respect
- to the _Wealth of Nations_.[^20] 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
- ascribed 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
- legislation 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 national
- 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 constituted
- 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 general diffusion of wealth among the lower
- orders of men, which first gave birth to the spirit of independence 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.
- 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 independence is
- necessary to inspire men with the desire of knowledge, and to afford
- them the leisure 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 refinement 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 wanting 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 artist, which, from the limited sphere of his activity, 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 improvement;
- 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 resulted, 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 republics in the ancient world, ascribes the military power of
- these states to their want of commerce 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;" -- 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. Indeed, 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 philosopher 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
- speculations of his earlier years, in which he aimed more professedly at
- the advancement of human improvement 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. 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
- increasing 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.
- 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.[^21] 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. 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 industry some share of the capital which would
- otherwise be employed in it, is, in reality, subversive of the great
- purpose which it means to promote.
- 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; 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 period; 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 directly 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 political 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; and he has considered at
- great length its two principal expedients for enriching a nation;
- restraints upon importation, and encouragements to exportation. 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. 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. By
- > such maxims as these, 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 evil, for which 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.
- 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 establishment. In what
- manner the execution of the theory should be conducted in particular
- instances, 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
- observations 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 only 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,
- > therefore, 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.
- 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 respect the established powers and privileges even
- > of individuals, and still more of the great orders 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
- > confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and will remedy, as
- > well as he can, the inconveniencies 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.
- 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 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 general 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 contemporaries, 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 particular 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[^22] ought to be considered
- merely as descriptions of the ultimate objects at which the statesman
- ought to aim. The tranquillity of his administration, and the immediate
- success of his measures, depend on his good sense and his practical
- 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."
- 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. 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 justice 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 agreeable in its arrangement to the rules of a sound logic, and
- so accessible to the examination of ordinary 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 methodical, so comprehensive, and so judicious a
- digest of all the most profound and enlightened philosophy of the
- age.[^23]
- In justice also to Mr Smith, it must be observed, that although some of
- the economical writers 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. 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, comprehending 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.[^24] 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 commercial 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 considered as paradoxical; they are since
- become common, and they will one day be adopted universally."
- 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 fundamental
- 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 particular questions, is apt
- to be led astray by first appearances; and that nothing can guard us
- effectually 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 _Political Discourses_, received a very flattering proof of M.
- Turgot's approbation, by his undertaking the task of translating them
- into the French language.[^25]
- I am aware that the evidence I have hitherto produced of Mr Smith's
- originality may be objected to as not perfectly decisive, as it rests
- entirely on the recollection of those students who attended 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; 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 apprehend, and to
- which his situation as a Professor, added to his unreserved
- communications in private companies, rendered him peculiarly liable.
- This paper is at present in my possession. It is 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 always made for those
- plagiarisms, 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. 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 human 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 requisite 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 another channel, or which
- > endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are
- > unnatural, 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 ascertain 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 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
- connection. General assertions with respect to the advantages of a free
- commerce, may be collected 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
- established 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_ exhibits 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 utility, the
- labour he has employed in connecting and methodizing their scattered
- ideas, is not less 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 attempt 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
- taxation; -- 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.[^26]
- 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.
- 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 commercial 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 preferment which, in his estimation, 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 extensive and varied to afford him any
- opportunity of indulging his taste for study. His time, however, was not
- lost to himself; for much of it was spent with some of the first names
- in English literature. 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 'em
- > In words select and terse:
- > Jones teach me modesty and Greek,
- > Smith how to think, Burke how to speak,
- > And Beauclerc to converse.[^27]
- 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
- passing 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 disposition; and the state of
- his funds at the time of his death, compared with his very moderate
- establishment, 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 simple, 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.[^28]
- The change in his habits which his removal to Edinburgh produced, was
- not equally favourable 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 career 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 materials 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
- arrangement 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 adjusted, with
- extreme difficulty, to his own taste.[^29]
- The death of his mother in 1784, which was followed by that of Miss
- Douglas in 1788, contributed, 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.[^30] He was now alone, and
- helpless; and, though he bore his loss 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 after 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 consisted, 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 Glasgow. That this irreparable injury to letters
- proceeded, in some degree, from an excessive solicitude 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 approved 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
- advanced, 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.[^31]
- The additions to the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, most of which were
- composed under severe 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. 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 consequence of being elected Rector of that
- learned body, a pleasing memorial remains of the satisfaction 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 University of Glasgow. They educated me; they sent me to
- > Oxford. Soon after my return to Scotland, 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 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.
- 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 attainments by which he
- was so eminently distinguished; -- of the originality and
- comprehensiveness 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 borrowed 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 manifest to the most
- superficial observer. but although, to those who knew him, these
- peculiarities detracted 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 present 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 appeared, 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
- circumstances, that he possessed a power, not perhaps uncommon among
- absent men, of recollecting, 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 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 appear 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 prejudice. 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 different 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
- materials 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 intimacy, 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 judgments, 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 society of those he loved, his
- features were often brightened with a smile of inexpressible benignity.
- In the company of strangers, his tendency to absence, and perhaps still
- more his consciousness of this tendency, rendered his manner somewhat
- embarrassed; -- an effect which was probably 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 expression of
- his countenance.
- His valuable library, together with the rest of his property, was
- bequeathed to his cousin Mr David Douglas, Advocate.[^32] 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 pleasure of his society), that he had sent him to study law at
- Glasgow, under the care of Mr Millar; -- 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 habits 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.)
- _"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 country. 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 possessed as a statesman 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.
- ### Note (B.)
- _"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 dispute the propriety of the
- epithet eloquent, when applied to any of his compositions; more
- particularly, 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 exactly 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 translator of Mosheim's _Ecclesiastical History_. My father,
- too, who had attended Dr Hutcheson's lectures 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."
- 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 productions of the eighteenth century.
- ### Note (C.)
- According to 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 following 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 contrary,
- > 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 faculty 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 shewing the like kindness to this benefactor,
- > endeavours at any time to destroy or hurt him; it is certain, 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 advantage 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 theory 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 principles 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 philosophers 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 particular
- question, have the curiosity to compare their own conclusions with those
- of their predecessors: And it is extremely worthy of observation, that,
- in proportion as any conclusion approaches 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
- doctrines 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 execution.
- 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.[^33] 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
- correct statement of the truth. I must not omit to add, in justice to
- the author, that his zeal to support 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.
- After the passage which I have quoted in the beginning of this note, I
- hope I shall be pardoned if I express my doubts, whether the learned and
- ingenious writer 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
- antiquity, 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
- inquiries 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.
- 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 unprejudiced
- 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.[^34]
- ### Note (D.)
- 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.
- > Dr. Adam Smith to Mr. George Baird
- > Glasgow, February 7, 1763.
- > DEAR SIR, I have read over the contents of your friend's[^35] 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 towards completing his design. I
- > approve greatly of his plan for a Rational Grammar, and 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 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, considered 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 appearing 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 substantive, 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
- > service. The grammatical articles, too, in the French _Encyclopédie_
- > have given me a good deal of entertainment. 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.
- ### Note (E.)
- I ought to have mentioned, among the number of Mr Smith's friends at
- Paris, the Abbé Morellet, 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
- > 1762; il parlait fort mal notre langue; mais _La Théorie des Sentimens
- > Moraux_, publiée en 1758, m'avait donné une grande idée de sa sagacité
- > et de sa profondeur. Et véritablement je le regarde encore aujourd'hui
- > comme un des hommes qui a fait les observations et les analyses les
- > plus complètes dans toutes les questions qu'il a traitées. M. Turgot,
- > qui aimait ainsi que moi la métaphysique, 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.)
- 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) Part I, Essay iii; Works Vol.V. p. 126.
- > 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
- > philosophy, 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 philosophy
- > of M. Regis, as well as that of Father Malebranche, are but
- > refinements on the meditations 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 systems, 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
- > English 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 mankind_, 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, written by the translator.
- ### Note (G.)
- By way of explanation of what is hinted at in the foot-note, 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 principles of Government which happened
- unfortunately at that time to agitate the public mind. 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 scrupulously 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.)
- Notwithstanding the unqualified praise I have bestowed, in the text, on
- Mr Smith's arrangement, 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 application; 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 demonstrated 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!
- ### Note (I.)[^35]
- 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 seventeenth
- 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 valuable collection of rare English Tracts relating to
- political economy. In some of these, the argument 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.[^36]
- 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 Mercantile 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 supported 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
- patriotism 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 acknowledged 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 System a degree of plausibility, against which the most
- acute reasoners of our own times are not always sufficiently on their
- guard. It was accordingly, at a considerably later period, that the
- wisdom of its maxims came to be the subject of general discussion; and,
- even at this day, the controversy 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;[^37] 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 paragraphs
- from a pamphlet published in 1734, by Jacob Vanderlint;[^38] an author
- whose name has been frequently referred to of late years, but whose book
- never seems to have attracted much notice 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 designed 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 anywise 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 obstructed, so, if this method were observed,
- > our gentry would find themselves the richer, notwithstanding their
- > consumption of such other foreign goods, as being the peculiarities of
- > other nations, 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 cannot occasion so great an expence as they would, if
- > we could shut them out by an act of parliament, 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.
- > 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 considerable 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.[^39]
- 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, anticipated 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 systematically 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 national 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.[^40]
- 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 acknowledged, 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 quotations 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.
- > 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'Europe, et en
- > particulier la nation Angloise, la plus riche de toutes en ce genre,
- > et dont il s'étoit rendu, Pour cette raison, 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
- > bienfaiteurs 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 proposoit 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 objets. 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'intendant 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 autsurs les plus estimés de ces deux
- > nations, dans l'observation attentive des causes de leur étonnante
- > prospérité, s'êtoit fait des principes qui parurent nouveaux à
- > quelques-uns des magistrats qui composoient 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 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 peuple excite toujours sa défiance. Il savoit enfin que
- > depuis un siècle toutes les Personnes éclairées, soit en Hollande,
- > 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'importancs de la liberté publique, ni su la
- > protéger des invasions de l'esprit monopoleur et de l'intérêt
- > particulier.[^41]
- > 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 auxquelles
- > 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.[^42]
- > 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 derniere
- > 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:[^43] 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 almost twenty years
- before.[^44]
- 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 principes que par occasion, dans la
- > discussion des affaires ou dans la conversation, M. Trudaine l'engagea
- > 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 escaped 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 Economists into two
- schools, that of Gournay, and that of Quesnay, he classes under the
- former denomination (among some other very illustrious names), Mr David
- Hume; whose Political Discourses, 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 Nations_, 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,
- who is here included along with Mr Smith among the eclectic disciples of
- Gournay and of Quesnay, I am enabled 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 expresses himself thus:
- > I owe to a journey I made with Mr Smith from Edinburgh to London, the
- > difference between 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 University 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 considered_; 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.)
- 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 maintained concerning the expediency
- of legal restrictions on the rate of interest. The inconclusiveness 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_; a performance to which (notwithstanding 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 operations of commerce, has pronounced (and, in my
- opinion, with great truth), to be "perfectly unanswerable."[^45] 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
- plausible objections which are apt to present themselves against this
- extension of the doctrine of commercial freedom. See, in particular,
- some observations in M. Turgot's _Reflections on the Formation 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_.[^46]
- 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 ministry), 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 opposite 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 established prejudices, from pushing
- his argument to its full extent. The passage I allude to, considering
- the period when it was written, does no small credit to Locke's
- sagacity. -- (See the folio edit. of his Works, 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 proceed 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 consequences, from
- a maxim of natural law, which (according to Lord Coke), is identified
- with the first principles of English jurisprudence. "La loi de la
- libgrté 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 commerce, lost sight of the only means by which either the
- one or the other can be effectually protected.
- ### Note (K.)
- 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 favourably 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 Volume of his Posthumous Essays was published by his
- executors and friends, Dr Black and Dr Hutton. In this volume are
- contained three _Essays on the Principles which lead and direct
- Philosophical 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
- Metaphysics_. To these are subjoined three other Essays; -- on the
- _Imitative Arts_; on the _Affinity between 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 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 suppressing, 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 Professorship), 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 affectation 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.
- <!-- Footnotes -->
- [^1]: Mr Smith, the father, was a native of Aberdeenshire, and, in the
- earlier part of his life, practised at Edinburgh as a writer of 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 keeper of the great seal), and continued in this
- situation till 1713 or 1714, when he was appointed comptroller of the
- customs at Kirkaldy. He was also clerk to the courts-martial and
- councils of war for Scotland; and 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 particulars already
- mentioned, it may be presumed that he was a man of more than common
- abilities.
- [^2]: See Note A.
- [^3]: George Drysdale. Esq. of Kirkaldy, brother of the late Dr Drysdale.
- [^4]: 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 _Statistical Account of the University
- of Glasgow_ by Dr Thomas Reid.
- [^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 Philosophy, and
- adding to moral and civil disciplines and shedding on them a kind of
- majesty.")
- [^6]: See Note B.
- [^7]: 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 the 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.
- [^8]: Mr Millar, the late celebrated Professor of Law in the University of
- Glasgow.
- [^9]: See Note C
- [^10]: See the letter quoted in Note D.
- [^11]: See his _Natural History of Religion_.
- [^12]: Published afterwards under the title of _An Essay on the History of
- Civil Society_.
- [^13]: I mention this fact on the respectable authority of James Ritchie,
- Esq. of Glasgow.
- [^14]: 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 goodness of his temper."
- 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 Professor of Moral Philosophy in
- > this University is therefore hereby declared to be vacant. The
- > University, 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 honour to this society; his
- > elegant and ingenious _Theory of Moral Sentiments_ having
- > recommended 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, distinguished him as a Professor, and at once afforded
- > the greatest pleasure and the most important instruction to the
- > youth under his care.
- [^15]: See note E.
- [^16]: The following letter, which has been very accidently preserved,
- while it serves as a memorial of Mr Smith's connection with the family
- of Rochefoucauld, is so expressive of the virtuous and liberal mind of
- the writer, that I am persuaded it will give pleasure to the Society to
- record it in their Transactions.
- > 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'occasion 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 Moroux, ne nous
- > empêche point de vous envoyer ce même ouvrage. Il s'en est même
- > fallu de pue 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 Balvet, 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. [See note F]
- > 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 certainement trop généralisés dans son ouvrage.
- > Il a pris la partie pour la 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.
- > Permittez-moi de vous demander, si nou aurons bientôt une édition
- > complette des oeuvres 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.
- > Le Duc de la Rochfoucauld.
- 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 in Paris, that in the future editions of his Theory the name of
- Rochefoucauld should no longer be 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 to the edition of them
- published at Paris in 1778.
- [^17]: See the Preface to Voltarie's _Oedipe_, edit. of 1729.
- [^18]: 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.
- [^19]: See the conclusion of his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_.
- [^20]: <!-- --> _Science de la Legislation, par le Chev. Filangieri_, Liv. i.
- chap. 13.
- [^21]: <!-- --> _Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, p. 261.
- [^22]: See Note H.
- [^23]: In proof of this, it is sufficient for me to appeal to a short
- history of the progress of political 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 on concouru en France à former la science
- de l'economie politique_.
- [^24]: See Note I.
- [^25]: See Note J.
- [^26]: See _Annual Register_ for the year 1776.
- [^27]: Some very affecting instances of Mr Smith's beneficence, in cases
- where he found it impossible 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 Innernethy. They were all on a scale much beyond what might have been
- expected from his fortune; and were accompanied with circumstances
- equally honourable to the delicacy of his feelings and the liberality of
- his heart.
- [^28]: Mr Smith observed to me, not long before his death, that after all
- his practice in writing, he composed 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 composition, he generally walked up and down
- his apartment, dictating to a secretary. All Mr Hume's works (I have
- been assured) were written in his own hand. A critical reader may, I
- think, perceive in the different styles of these two classical
- writers, the effects of their different modes of study.
- [^29]: See Note K.
- [^30]: 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
- immediately. 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 numerous 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."
- > 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
- > regretted "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.
- > Edinburgh, 16th April 1773.
- > My dear Friend,
- > 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 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.
- [^31]: Ultimately a Senator of the College of Justice, under the title of
- Lord Reston.
- [^32]: Vide, Works, vol. vii pp. 35, 36, 329, seq., 407, seq.
- [^33]: 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 Gillies) to
- 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 another 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 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? Compare the subsequent edition of Gillies's _Ethics and
- Politics of Aristotle_.
- [^34]: 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 English Language, in two
- Treatises,_ etc., 4to, 1765, which is perhaps the most philosophical
- Essay on the English language extant.
- [^35]: In regard to Adam Smith's originality on various points of Political
- Economy, I may refer in general, to Vols. VIII and IX, in which Mr
- Stewart's Lectures on this science are contained.
- [^36]: 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 birthright 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 Britain_, etc.; where also may be
- found a list of statutes containing recognitions and declarations of the
- above principle.
- [^37]: According to the statement of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the
- following doctrine was delivered in the English House of Commons by Sir
- Thomas More (then speaker), almost three centuries ago. "I say
- confidently, you need not fear this penury or scarceness of money; the
- intercourse of things being so establish'd throughout the whole world,
- that there is a perpetual derivation 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 always 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.
- [^38]: 'Money Answers all Things' etc. etc. London, 1734.
- [^39]: Lord Lauderdale has traced some hints of what are commonly
- considered as the peculiarities of the economical system, in various
- British publications now almost forgotten. The following extract, from a
- Treatise published by Mr Asgill, in 1696, breathes the very spirit of
- Quesnay'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 receiver. 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 British House of Commons in 1693, and before the
- Scottish Parliament in 1703.
- [^40]: 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.
- [^41]: 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 edition (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.)
- 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 discussion 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 somewhat pronounced to
- be 'one of the finest in legislation; -- to ascertain, 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.' 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.
- [^42]: I have endeavoured, in a former work, to vindicate, upon the very
- same principle, some of Mr Smith's political speculation 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
- sanctioned by such high authorities as M. de Gournay and M. Turgot. --
- See _Philosophy of the Human Mind_, pp. 254, 255, 256, 3d edit.
- [^43]: Ceci est, avec la liberté du commerce et du travail, un des
- principaux points sur lesquels M. de Gournay et M. Quesnay on été
- complettement d'accord.
- [^44]: 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 shewing, 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 out of 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 'produit net de la
- culture', [See the Ephémérides du Citoyen for the year 1769, T. I
- pp. 13, 25 and 26, and T. IX, p. 9.] 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 doctrine 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 cultivated by Métayers or Coloni Partiarii, cannot
- surely be considered as throwing any new light on the general
- principles of Political Economy.
- [^45]: Sir Francis Baring, _Pamphlet on the Bank of England_.
- [^46]: 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 interest; 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 Steuart'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 Inquiry.
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