The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Key to Abbreviations and References
• Introduction
• 1.: The Manuscript
• 2.: The Lectures
• 3.: Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages
• 4.: Rhetoric and Literary Criticism
• 5.: System and Aesthetics
• Bibliographical Note
• Lectures On Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: Lecture 2D.
• Lecture 3D.: Of the Origin and Progress of Language 1
• Lecture 4tha
• Lecture 5. A
• Lecture 6.THA: Of What Is Called the Tropes and Figures of Speech. B
• Lecture. 7. A
• Lecture. 8. A
• Lecture. 9tha
• Lecture. 10tha
• Lecture. 11 a
• Lecture. 12.THA: Of Composition
• Lecture. 13 a
• | Lecture. 14 a
• Lecture 15tha
• Lecture. 16th. a
• Lecture XVII. A
• Lecture Xviii a
• Lecture. Xixth. a
• Lecture. XX.THA
• Lecture Xxist. a
• Lecture Xxiida
• Lecture Xxiiida
• Lecture Xxivtha
• Lecture XXV. A
• Lecture Xxvitha
• Lecture Xxvii a
• Lecture Xxviiitha
• Lecture Xxix a
• Lecture. Xxx a
• Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages,&c. &c.1
• Appendix 1 (see P. 32) the Bee, Or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, For Wednesday, May 11, 1791.
• Appendix 2 Table of Corresponding Passages

Bibliographical Note

Adam Smith’s life and thought:

John Rae: Life of Adam Smith (1895). Reprinted with ‘Guide to John Rae’s Life of Adam Smith’ by J. Viner (1965).

William R. Scott: Adam Smith as Student and Professor (1937; reprinted 1965).

R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner: Adam Smith (1982).

A. S. Skinner: A System of Social Science, Papers relating to Adam Smith (1979).

T. D. Campbell: Adam Smith’s Science of Morals (1971).

The Rhetoric:

W. S. Howell: Eighteenth–Century British Logic and Rhetoric (1971). The section on Smith, first published in 1969, was reprinted in Essays on Adam Smith, ed. Andrew S. Skinner and Thomas Wilson (1975).

V. M. Bevilacqua: ‘Adam Smith’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres’ (Studies in Scottish Literature, 3 (1965), 41–60). See also Modern Language Review, 63 (1968).

For J. M. Lothian’s edition, see Abbreviations.

R. Salvucci: ‘La retorica come teoria della comunicazione’ [on A.S.] Sociologia della comunicazione, 1 (1982). See also R. Salvucci, Sviluppi della problematica del linguaggio nel XVIII secolo: Condillac, Rousseau, Smith (1982).

A. S. Skinner: ‘Adam Smith: Rhetoric and the Communication of Ideas’ in Methodological Controversy in Economics: Historical Essays, A. W. Coats ed. (1983).

Languages:

Articles on ‘Considerations’ by C. J. Berry and S. K. Land in Journal of the History of Ideas—respectively 35 (1974), 130–8; and 38 (1977), 677–90.

Lecture 2^d.

Friday. Nov.^r 19

Perspicuity of stile requires not only that the expressions ^a we use should be free from all ambiguity proceeding from synonimous words but that the ^b words should be natives if I may <say> so of the language we speak in. Foreigners though they may signify the same thing never convey the idea with such strength as those we are acquainted with and whose origin we can trace.—We may see an instance of this in the word Unfold; a good old English word derived from an English Root; and consequently its meaning must be easily perceived ^c . This word however has within these few years been most unaccountably thrust out of common use by a French word of not half the strength or significance, to wit Develope. 1 This word tho of the same signification | 2 with unfold can never convey the idea so strongly to an English reader. {In the same manner unravell is thrown out to make room for Explicate ^d .} The words of another Language may however be naturalized by time and be as familiar to us as those which are originally our own, and may then be used with as great freedom; but here liquewise we may see the effect of the words being well known to us or not; for instance, the words unsufferable and intollerable which are both borrowed of the Latin language and compounded of words of the same meaning are of very unequall strength. The reason is that the word Untollerable has not been so long introduced amongst us and therefore does not carry the same power along with it. We say that the cruelty and oppress<ion> | 3 of a tyrant is unsufferable, but the heat of a summers day is untollerable. Insufferable ^e expresses our emotion and indignation at the behaviour of the Tyrant, whereas intollerable ^f means only that their is some difficulty and uneasiness in supporting the heat of the Sun.

The English language perhaps needs our care in this respect more than any other. New words are continually pushing out our own originall ones; so that the stock of our own is now become but very small and is still diminishing. This perhaps is owing to a ^g defect which our language labours much under, of being compounded of a great number of others. | 4 {No author has been more attentive to this point than Swift; we may say his language is more English than any other writer that we have.} Most terms of art and most compounded words are borrowed from other languages, so that the lower sort of People, and those who are not acquainted with those languages from whence they are taken ^h can hardly understand many of the words of their own tongue. Hence it is that we see this sort of people are continually using these words in meanings altogether foreign to their proper ones ⁱ . The Greeks used compounded words but then they were formed from words of their own language; by this means their language was so plain that the meanest person would perfectly understand the terms of art and expressions of any | 5 artist or philosopher. The word Triangle would not be understood by an Englishman who had not learned Latin, but an Italian would at the first understand their triangulo or a Dutchman their thrienuik. 2

Our words must not only be English and agreable to the custom of the country but likewise to the custom of some particular part ^j of the nation. This part undoubtedly is formed of the men of rank and breeding. The easiness of those persons behaviour is so agreable and taking that ^k whatever is connected with it pleases us. {It is commonly said also that in France and England the conversation of the Ladies is the best standar<d> of Language, as there is a certain delicacy and agreableness ^l in their behaviour and adress, and in generall we find that whatever is agreable makes what accompanies it have the deeper impression and convey the notion of agreableness along with.} For this reason we love both their dress and their manner of language. On the other hand many words as well as | 6 gestures or peculiarities of dress give us an idea of some thing mean and Low in those in whom we find them. Hence it is that words equally expressive and more commonly used would appear very absurd if used in common conversation by one in the character of a gentleman. Thus perhaps 9/10 of the people of England say, Is’e dot, instead of I will do it, but no gentleman would use ^m that expression without the imputation of vulgarity. We may indeed naturally expect that the better sort will often exceed the vulgar in the propriety of their language but where there is no such excellence we are apt to prefer those in use amongst them, by the association we form betwixt their words and the behaviour | 7 we admire in them. It is the custom ⁿ of the people that forms what we call propri<e>ty, and the custom of the better sort from whence the rules of purity of stile are to be drawn. {As those of the higher rank generally frequent the court, the standard of our language is therefore chiefly to be met with there ^o . In countries therefore which are divided into a number of sovereignties we cannot expe<c>t to meet with any generall standard, as the better sort are scattered into different places ^p . Accordingly we find that in Greece and Modern Italy each State sticks by its own dialect without yielding the preference to any other, even though superior in other respects as the Athenians were.}

Our words must ^q also be put in such order that the meaning of the sentence shall ^r be quite plain and not depend on the accuracy of the printer in placing the points, or of the readers ^s in laying the emphasis on any certain word ^t . Mr. Pope often errs in both these respects; as 1^st In that line, Born but to die, and reasoning but to err. 3 The sense of this line is very different in these two cases, when we put the accent in both members on but, or in the one on born and in the other on Reasoning. | v.7 {The former I imagine was Mr Pope’s own meaning tho Mr Warburton gives it a different turn. But if that had been Mr Popes meaning ^u Mr Pope had more properly have used though for but and then there had been no ambiguity, though the line would not have been so strong as in the way it stands at present if taken in the common and apparent meaning} | 8 ^v We have an example of the latter sort, when it is not easy to know what member of the sentence a word belongs to in this line

great master death and god adore 4 .

Here we will find the meaning ^w altogether different if we place the pause before or after the word death.

{We may here observe that it is almost always improper to ^x place and in the beginning of a member of a ^y sentence, tho it may be some times tho rarely proper to begin a sentence in that manner, and then there is no danger of ambiguity.} ^v

Another ambiguity also to be avoided is that where it is difficult to know what verb the nominative case belongs to, or what noun an adjective agrees with. The Antient languages were much more liable to this ambiguity than the modern ones, as they admitted of a greater freedom in the arrangement of the words. As an example | 9 of this we take that line of Juvenal, Nobilitas sola atque unica Virtus, 5 where the ambiguity is owing to the not distinguishing whether sola agrees with virtus or Nobilitas.

This line ^z may serve as an instance of the ambiguity proceeding from the Verb not being ascertain’d to belong to one substant<ive> more than ^a another:

In this alone beasts do the men excel 6 ,

where one would be apt to think the author meant that the beasts excelled men <in> this alone, whereas the conterary is certainly the meaning. — — —

{The best authors very seldom fall into this error, as Thucidides, Xenophon and severall others; nay Dr Clerk 7 says he has found but one instance in all Homer. This indeed may be turned in very different ways; but as the rest is so exact this one probably proceeds from the error of some transcriber ^b ; It is ^c wonderfull no more errors of this sort have crept in during so long a tract of time, and may serve to shew the surprising ^d accuracy of that writer.

Mr Waller again is a remarkable instance of the defect of this quality, and as he pays very little regard to grammaticall rules his sense is sometimes hardly to be come at, tho this method will often serve to discover the meaning of other obscure writers. The characterists 8 are extremely free from this, and would be the book most easily construd.}

A naturall order of expression free of parentheses and superfluous words is likewise a great help | 10 towards perspicuity; In this consists what we call easy writing which makes the sense of the author flow naturally upon our mind without our being obliged to hunt backwards and forwards in order to find it. {When there are no words that are superfluous but all tend to express something by themselves which was not said before and in a plain manner ^e , we may call it precision; tho this word is often taken to mean a stiff and affected stile such as that [as that] of Prim 9 and others of the puritan writers.}

Bolingbroke especially ^f and Swift have excelled most in this respect ^g ; accordingly we find that their writings are so plain that one half asleep may carry the sense along with him, {even tho the sentence be very long ^h , as in that in the end of his essay on virtue. 10 } Nay if we happen to lose a word or two, the rest of the senten<c>e is so naturally connected with it as that it comes into our mind of its own accord.

| v.10 On the other hand Writers who do not observe this rule often become so obscure that their meaning is not to be discovered without great attention and being altogether awake. Shaftesbury sometimes runs into this error by endeavouring to throw a great deal together before us ⁱ .

Writings of this sort have a great deal of the air of translations from an other language, where a certain stiffness of expression and repetition of synonymous words is very apt to be gone into.

Short sentences are generally more perspicuous than long ones as they are more easily comprehended | 11 in one view; but when we intend to study conciseness we should avoid the unconnected way of writing which we are then very apt to run into, and at the same time is of all ^j the most obscure. The reason of this is that when we study short sentences we are apt also to throw out the connecting words and render our expressions concise as well as our sentences. But precision and a close adherence to a just expression are very consistent with a long sentence, and a short sentence may very possibly. want both. Sallust, Tacitus and Thucydides are the most remarkable in this | 12 way; and it is proper to observe that concise expressions and short turned periods are proper only for historians who narrate facts barely as they are, or those who write in the didactick stile. The 3 historians we mention’d are accordingly the chief ^k who have followed this manner of writing. It is ^l very improper for Orators or publick speakers, as there design is to rouse the passions, which are not affected by a plain simple stile, but require the attacks ^m of strong and perhaps exagerated expressions. No didactick writer has invariably adhered to this stile tho it be proper | 13 to them, unless Aristotle, who never once deviates from it in his whole works, whereas others often run out into oratoricall declamation.

What are generally called ornaments or flowers in language, as allegoricall, metaphoricall and such like expressions are very apt to make ones stile dark and perplex’d. Studying much to vary the expression leads one also frequently into a dungeon of metaphorical ⁿ obscurity. The Lord Shaftesbury is of all authors I know the most liable to this error. In the third volume of his works, 11 talking of meditating and reflecting within one–self he contrives an innu| 14merable number of names for it each more dark than another as, Self conversation, forming a plurality in the same person etc. In an other place he says that his head was the dupe of his heart, where another would have said that he was so intent on obtaining a certain ^o that he could not help thinking he would obtain it. But it is plain this author had it greatly in view to go out of the common road in his writings and to dignify his stile by never using common phrases or even names for things, and we see hardly any expression in his works | 15 but what would appear absurd in common conversation. To such a length does he carry this that he wont even call men by their own names. Moses is the Jewish lawgiver, Xenophon the young warrior, Plato the Philo<sopher> of noble birt<h>; and in his treatise 12 written expressly to prove the being of God he never almost uses that word but the supreme being or mind, or he that knows all things etc.

{The frequent use of Pronouns is also not agreable to perspicuity, as it makes <us> look to what they refer to: They are however proper where the noun whose place they supply is not the chief or emphaticall one in the sentence. But in that case the repetition of the word itself gives greater strength and energy to the sentence.}

We might here insist on this as well as proper variation of the form of a sentence and how far our language could admit of it; but this as | 16 well as many other grammaticall parts we must altogether pass over as taedious and unentertaining, and proceed to give an estimate of our own language compared with others. In order to this it will be proper to premise somewhat with regard to the origin and design of language in the gen<erall>.

[a]replaces word

[b]MS they, y deleted and words written above

[c]MS perceeived

[1 ]OED gives these dates of first use in the relevant senses: develop, 1742; explicate, 1628; insufferable, 1533, but unsufferable, 1340; intolerable, 1435, and as an intensive (like awful or terrible), 1544. Smith is a sensitive witness to a contemporary trend or fashion; but his distinction between insufferable and intolerable is not clearly confirmed by OED; it is a deduction from suffer and support.

[d]after for Hand B(?) supplied Develope, which Hand C deleted and replaced with perhaps Explicate in dark ink

[e]replaces The one

[f]replaces the other

[g]replaces one

[h]must be at a great loss deleted

[i]proper ones replaces own

[2 ]No doubt a Scot’s mishearing (for ‘three–corner’) of driehoek.

[j]part added by Hand C in margin

[k]it carries alon deleted

[l]ness added by Hand C

[m]replaces say

[n]replaces common use

[o]original order to be . . . chiefly changed by numbers written above

[p]last four words replace divided and do not live better

[q]only be free deleted

[r]shall added by Hand C above line

[s]original order reader or of the printer changed by numbers written above

[t]MS words, s deleted

[3 ]Essay on Man, ii.10. Cf. Smith’s discussion of but in his review of Johnson’s Dictionary, §3 (EPS 236–8).

[u]last eight words replace in which case

[v–v]line across page, and catch–phrase We have an to lead in p. 8; rest of v.7 consists of the interpolation We may . . . ambiguity, keyed in on p. 8 by marginal We may after death

[4 ]Essay on Man, i.92; Pope wrote ‘teacher Death’.

[w]the meaning added above line by Hand C (?)

[x]begin a sentence with deleted

[y]changed from the by Hand C

[   ][[see note v–vabove]]

[5 ]viii.20; Juvenal wrote ‘sola est atque . . . .

[z]of inserted above line: sc. Juvenal

[a]more than replaces or

[6 ]Not traced.

[7 ]The philosopher Samuel Clarke (1675–1729) edited the Iliad in 1729.

[b]and deleted

[c]more deleted

[d]is before surprising, instances of the after it, both deleted

[8 ]This might refer to writers of ‘Characters’ (see Introduction, p. 17), but is probably an error for Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711), the collection of treatises by Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), so often discussed by Smith.

[e]last five words written upwards in margin replace and no part any decorant (?deliberate) trope

[9 ]William Prynne (1600–69), Puritan author of Histrio–Mastix (1633) and some twenty politico–legal works; cf. ii.253 below.

[f]lines above and below especially perhaps intend its placing after and

[g]and deleted

[h]tho the sentence be very long written above line, deleted, and written on opposite page

[10 ]Not Bolingbroke but Shaftesbury: An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit (1699; Treatise iv in Characteristicks, 1711).

[i]Short sentences are for the most deleted

[j]others deleted

[k]in that way deleted (or? this)

[l]very im replaces not

[m]replaces aid

[n]written above, with a long line under it

[11 ]Soliloquy or Advice to an Author, parts I and III (1710; Treatise iii in Characteristicks, 1711; cf. Miscellany iv, chap. 1, in Miscellaneous Reflections, i.e. Treatise vi).

[o]blank of five letters in MS

[12 ]A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, sections iv–v (1708; Treatise i in Characteristicks, 1711); cf. Inquiry Concerning Virtue, Bk I. pt iii).