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Readings on Adam Smith

Adam Smith (1723-1790) is commonly regarded as the first modern economist with the publication in 1776 of The Wealth of Nations. He wrote in a wide range of disciplines: moral philosophy, jurisprudence, rhetoric and literature, and the history of science. He was one of the leading figures in the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith also studied the social forces giving rise to competition, trade, and markets. While professor of logic, and later professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow University, he also had the opportunity to travel to France, where he met François Quesnay and the physiocrats; he had friends in business and the government, and drew broadly on his observations of life as well as careful statistical work summarizing his findings in tabular form. He is viewed as the founder of modern economic thought, and his work inspires economists to this day. The economic phrase for which he is most famous, the “invisible hand” of economic incentives, was only one of his many contributions to the modern-day teaching of economics. [The image comes from “The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.”]

This Reading List contains a number of resources which the OLL has on the ideas of Adam Smith:

• Glasgow Editors’ Intro to Astronomy & Literature
• Glasgow Editors’ Intro to Jurisprudence
• Glasgow Editors’ Intro to Rhetoric & Belles Lettres
• Glasgow Editors’ Intro to TMS
• Glasgow Editors’ Intro to Wealth of Nation
• Cannan’s Introduction to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations
• Ingram on Smith and his followers
• McCulloch: Sketch of Adam Smith
• Rae on the publication of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
• Rogge on Adam Smith
• Timeline of the Life of Adam Smith

JPEG version of Smith Timeline

PDF version of Smith Timeline

For additional information about Adam Smith see the following:

• in the Library: Adam Smith’s list of works online
• in the Library: the classic Life of Adam Smith by John Rae
• at our sister website Econlib: the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics entry on Adam Smith
• in the Goodrich Seminar Room: Adam Smith

• Back to Top

  1: Glasgow Editors’ Introduction to the Theory of Moral Sentiments

  Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, vol. I of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). Chapter: Introduction

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/192/200026 on 2009-10-16

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

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

  ---

  Introduction

  1.

  formation ofThe Theory of Moral Sentiments

  (a)

  Adam Smith’s lectures on ethics

  The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith’s first book, was published in 1759 during his tenure of the Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. A second, revised edition appeared in 1761. Smith left Glasgow at the beginning of 1764. Editions 3 (1767), 4 (1774), and 5 (1781) of TMS differ little from edition 2. Edition 6, however, published shortly before Smith’s death in 1790, contains very extensive additions and other significant changes. The original work arose from Smith’s lectures to students. The revisions in edition 2 were largely the result of criticism from philosophically minded friends. The new material in edition 6 was the fruit of long reflection by Smith on his wide knowledge of public affairs and his equally wide reading of history.

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

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

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

  Upon this subject he followed the plan that seems to be suggested by Montesquieu; endeavouring to trace the gradual progress of jurisprudence, both public and private, from the rudest to the most refined ages, . . . This important branch of his labours he 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. . . . 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.5

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

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

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

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

  It seems, then, that the first published version of TMS was prepared or worked up from the final form of the second part of Smith’s lectures on Moral Philosophy. No doubt there was steady development between 1752 and 1758. Although no copy of a student’s notes of Smith’s lectures on ethics has as yet appeared, there is some evidence from which we can reconstruct his method of improving what he had written. In Appendix II we give reasons for thinking that a fragmentary manuscript of philosophical considerations on justice is a part of Smith’s lectures on ethics. Revisions within the manuscript itself and detailed comparison with corresponding passages in TMS show that Smith tended to work over previous composition rather than write a new version. He made minor corrections both of style and of content, he inserted substantial additions, and (when it came to preparing a text for publication) he shuffled passages about like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Exactly the same methods of development can be seen in the changes that Smith made when revising the printed book for edition 2 and for edition 6. There is far more evidence for tracing the genesis of The Wealth of Nations; we have two Reports by students, apparently from successive sessions, of Smith’s lectures on jurisprudence, a fairly long manuscript that has been called ‘An early draft of part of The Wealth of Nations’, and two fragmentary manuscripts that come much nearer to the text of WN itself. From this material Professor Ronald L. Meek and Mr. Andrew S. Skinner have been able to give an extraordinarily precise account of the development of Smith’s thought on a central topic of his economic theory.7 The picture of Smith’s working methods that emerges from a comparison of these documents with one another and with WN is similar to that gathered from the more limited evidence for TMS.

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

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

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

  An examination of changes in style might perhaps give some guidance about alterations from the original lecture notes. There is a clear difference in style between much of what Smith wrote for edition 1 and the considerable additions, including the whole of Part VI, which he composed late in life for edition 6. The earlier matter tends to be rhetorical, in tune with the style accepted for lectures in the mid–eighteenth century, while the later writing is in the more urbane style of WN. Both WN and the additions to TMS were of course written with a direct view to publication. When one remembers the type of classes that Smith addressed as a Professor in Glasgow, the style of the original material can be better understood. Most of the students were of the age of secondary schoolboys today. The number attending the class of public lectures on Moral Philosophy in Smith’s time was probably about eighty, many of them being destined for the Church. To hold the attention of his class Smith used rhetorical language and made humorous references to manners of the day in a way likely to interest young people.

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

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

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

  (b)

  Influence of Stoic philosophy

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

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

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

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

  (I.i.5.5)

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

  When Smith sets Stoic self–command beside Christian love in the first of the quotations given above, he calls it ‘the great precept of nature’. Life according to nature was the basic tenet of Stoic ethics, and a Stoic idea of nature and the natural forms a major part of the philosophical foundations of TMS and WN alike. The Stoic doctrine went along with a view of nature as a cosmic harmony. Phrases that occur in Smith’s account of this Stoic conception are echoed when he expresses his own opinions. The correspondence is most striking in the chapter on universal benevolence, where Marcus Aurelius is recalled by name as well as in phrase: ‘the great Conductor’ whose ‘benevolence and wisdom have . . . contrived and conducted the immense machine of the universe’ (in the new material of edition 6 at VI.ii.3.4–5) is a recollection of the ‘all–wise Architect and Conductor’ of ‘one immense and connected system’, ‘the whole machine of the world’, (quoted from Marcus Aurelius in VII.ii.1.37). Essentially similar turns of speech are to be found in a number of passages, both early and late, of TMS. Indeed, the frequency of such phrases leads one to think that commentators have laid too much stress on the ‘invisible hand’, which appears only once in each of Smith’s two books. On both occasions the context is the Stoic idea of harmonious system, seen in the working of society.

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

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

  (III.3.11)

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

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

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

  (I.ii.3.4)

  This doctrine anticipates the better–known statement of Smith’s own opinion that the selfish rich ‘are led by an invisible hand’ to help the poor and to serve the interest of society at large (IV.1.10). Smith has added the idea of a ‘deception’ by nature and the phrase ‘an invisible hand’. The famous phrase may have sprung from an uneasiness about the reconciliation of selfishness with the perfection of the system. In itself the idea of deception by an invisible hand is unconvincing. It gains its plausibility from the preceding account of aesthetic pleasure afforded by power and riches, a pleasure that is reinforced by the admiration of spectators. Smith himself clearly set most store by the psychological explanation. But the invisible hand, through its reappearance in WN, has captured the attention, especially of economists.

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

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

  The consistency and the Stoic character of Smith’s views of prudence may be brought out by comparing two passages, one written for edition 6, the other for edition 1. In VI.i.11 Smith says: ‘In the steadiness of his industry and frugality, in his steadily sacrificing the ease and enjoyment of the present moment for the probable expectation of the still greater ease and enjoyment of a more distant but more lasting period of time, the prudent man is always both supported and rewarded by the entire approbation of the impartial spectator. . . .’ The reference to industry and frugality immediately recalls WN. The other passage, in IV.2.8, written thirty years earlier, contains a similar reference when discussing self–command: from the spectator’s approval of self–command ‘arises that eminent esteem with which all men naturally regard a steady perseverance in the practice of frugality, industry, and application, though directed to no other purpose than the acquisition of fortune’. The passage in Part VI appears to take a more charitable view of prudence as such, but in fact there is no real change of doctrine, for in the Part VI passage Smith goes on to explain that the approval of the impartial spectator is really directed at ‘that proper exertion of self–command’ which enables the prudent man to attach almost as much importance to future enjoyment as to present. There is no reason to suppose that Smith departs in any way from this view when he gives similar praise to industry and frugality in WN. The moral quality of prudence depends on its association with the Stoic virtue of self–command.

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

  (c)

  Influence of contemporary thinkers

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

  The relation of Smith’s ethics to the thought of Hutcheson and Hume needs to be described in some detail, but first let us note the extent to which Smith was influenced by other moral philosophers of his time. It is remarkably small. Smith was well informed about ancient philosophy, keenly interested in the history of science and the evolution of society, and widely read in the culture of his own time, especially its literature, history, and nascent social science. He was anything but insular: his reading of recent books was almost as extensive in French as in English, and it was not negligible in Italian. Yet he was not closely acquainted with much of the ethical theory of the eighteenth century. Perhaps the very breadth of his interests and outlook was responsible for this. In his ‘Letter to the Editors of the Edinburgh Review’, July 1755, Smith could describe, from his own reading, not only Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality but also ‘the Theory of agreeable sentiments by Mr. De Pouilly’; yet his ignorance of recent works in English comparable with the latter is shown by his remark that the characteristic English approach to philosophy, taken over by France, ‘now seems to be intirely neglected by the English themselves’. In fact there were several English contributions to mental and moral philosophy in the 1740s and early 1750s at least as valuable as Lévesque de Pouilly’s little book on the psychology of pleasure. Smith’s statement in the ‘Letter’ that England had until then been pre–eminent for originality in philosophy is simply a repetition of what Hume had said in the Introduction to the Treatise of Human Nature, and Smith’s list of ‘English’ thinkers (Hobbes, Locke, Mandeville, Shaftesbury, Butler, Clarke, Hutcheson) differs little from Hume’s. It follows Hume in including Hutcheson, although the point of the ‘Letter’, unlike that of Hume’s Introduction, is to urge the Edinburgh Review to look beyond Scotland.

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

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

  The ethical writings of both Hutcheson and Hume contain important criticism of opposing views. Hutcheson attacked egoistic theory, notably as expounded by Mandeville, and theories of ethical rationalism, especially those of Samuel Clarke and William Wollaston. Hume redoubled the assault on rationalism with a veritable barrage of subtle argument, but he did not repeat Hutcheson’s criticism of egoism, doubtless thinking that this was now dead. Adam Smith evidently felt the same about ethical rationalism. His chapter on the rationalists (VII.iii.2) is brief and summary. He takes it for granted that moral rules are inductive generalizations and that moral concepts must arise in the first place from feeling. In the last paragraph of the chapter he refers to Hutcheson’s criticism of ethical rationalism in Illustrations upon the Moral Sense as being quite decisive. (It is noteworthy that he does not explicitly mention Hume’s more finely directed series of arguments in the Treatise of Human Nature, though there is presumably an implicit reference to Hume in the statement that Hutcheson was ‘the first’ to distinguish ‘with any degree of precision’ the respective roles of reason and feeling in morals.) Smith writes as if he had little knowledge or appreciation of the carefully argued counter–attacks on Hutcheson in writers such as John Balguy and Richard Price. Unlike Hume, however, Smith evidently thought that egoistic theory was still a force to be reckoned with, as is shown by the length of his chapter on Mandeville. Perhaps this was because he had seen the strength of Mandeville’s position in economic affairs. At any rate he treats it more seriously than ethical rationalism. Mandeville’s system, he says, could not have ‘imposed upon’ so many people or have caused ‘alarm’ to so many others ‘had it not in some respects bordered upon the truth’ (VII.ii.4.14).

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

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

  Hume’s theory is superior to Hutcheson’s in explaining more. It recognizes a complexity in moral motivation and tries to account for our adherence to moral rules. It is not satisfied with the bare existence of disinterested approval and gives an explanation in terms of sympathy. Adam Smith follows up Hume’s advance by pointing out a greater complexity and offering different explanations. Sympathy is central in Smith’s account but is itself more complex than Hume’s concept of sympathy. For Hume, sympathy is a sharing of the pleasure or pain produced in a person affected by an action. For Smith, sympathy can be a sharing of any feeling and its first role in moral approbation concerns the motive of the agent. The spectator who sympathizes with the agent’s motive approves of the action as proper. Sympathy with the feelings of the person affected by the action comes in to help form the more complex judgement of merit. A benevolent action is not only proper but meritorious. The judgement of merit expresses a double sympathy, both with the benevolent motive of the agent and with the gratitude felt by the person benefited. The second element in double sympathy has some affinity with Hume’s concept but is not quite the same. Hume thinks of the spectator as sharing by sympathy the pleasure of the benefit itself; Smith thinks of the spectator as sharing by sympathy the gratitude that the benefit evokes.

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

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

  It seems likely that the title of Lévesque de Pouilly’s book, Théorie des sentiments agréables, suggested to Smith that a suitable name for the philosophy of morals, as he understood it, would be the theory of moral sentiments. This is a description of the subject, not of Smith’s individual theory (for which the word ‘sympathy’ is virtually essential). Smith took it as established by Hutcheson and Hume that morals depend on ‘sentiment’ or feeling. He differed from them, however, in insisting upon the plurality of moral feelings. Hutcheson postulated a single ‘moral sense’ or capacity to feel approval, analogous to the sense of beauty and the sense of honour. Hume likewise wrote in the Treatise of Human Nature (III.i.2) of approbation as a ‘particular’ or ‘peculiar’ kind of pleasant feeling, but in the Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (appendix iv) he distinguished different kinds of approbation for different kinds of virtue. Smith followed the distinction drawn by Hume in the Enquiry between the ‘amiable’ and the ‘awful’ virtues, each arousing a different type of approval. For Smith this meant that there are different forms of the ‘sense of propriety’. He then further distinguished the sense of propriety from the sense of merit and the sense of duty. Smith accordingly took the view that there are several kinds of moral approbation, a variety of moral feelings or sentiments. The philosophy of morals may therefore be called the theory of moral sentiments. Nothing of all this can be found in Lévesque de Pouilly’s book, which is mainly concerned with the psychology of pleasant feeling in general. The content of TMS owes nothing to it, but Smith seems to have adapted Lévesque de Pouilly’s title to suit his own more specific subject. Lévesque de Pouilly’s book appeared in English translation in 1749 as The Theory of Agreeable Sensations, but Smith’s reference to it as the ‘Theory of agreeable sentiments’ shows that he had read the original French version, first published in 1747 and then reprinted in 1749 and 1750 (the 1750 edition in London). His use of the phrase ‘the Theory of moral Sentiments’ as a name for the subject of ethics appears already in the manuscript fragment of his lecture on justice, presumably written in the early 1750s (see Appendix II).

  2.

  evolution

  (a)

  Development between editions

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Although Smith’s special concept of the impartial spectator was developed to explain a man’s moral judgements about himself, the general idea is of course used for other moral judgements too. In Smith’s view, the main stream of ethical theory, which holds that virtue consists in ‘propriety’, has offered only two suggestions for a firm criterion of right action; one is utility, the other is the impartial spectator. Throughout the work he gives reasons for preferring the second. Its central importance for him is underlined by his adding to edition 6 a short paragraph in criticism of modern theories of propriety (VII.ii.1.49).

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

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

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

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

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

  In his strictures on civil faction and the spirit of system (VI.ii.2.12–18), Smith appears to be reacting to the French Revolution. This has led Walther Eckstein, in the Introduction (xlii f.) to his edition of TMS, to attribute to Smith’s old age a conservatism that was not there before. If we did not know from other evidence that Smith was a lifelong Whig, Eckstein says, we might suppose from this section of TMS that he was a Tory. It seems to us, however, that Eckstein’s interpretation is dubious. Most men grow more cautious with advancing years, and Smith was no exception. But his general position in politics does not seem to have changed substantially. He was always a staunch republican in spirit (as Eckstein agrees). There is at first sight some substance in a specific point made by Eckstein. In VI.ii.2.16 Smith commends ‘the divine maxim of Plato’ that a man should not ‘use violence’ against his country any more than against his parents. Eckstein notes (xliii) that this is recalled in LJ(B) 15 (Cannan ed., 11), where Smith says the Tory principle of authority declares that ‘to offend’ against government is as bad as ‘to rebel’ against a parent. (LJ(A) v.124 contains a similar statement.) There is, however, a difference between the two formulations; one does not have to be a Tory to take the TMS view that it is wrong to use ‘violence’ against the state. Eckstein also cites as evidence Smith’s view in VI.ii.1.20 that respect for rank contributes to social stability, and his comparable statements in VI.ii.2.9–10 that attachment to one’s own particular order also helps stability and ‘checks the spirit of innovation’. But such support for the existing social structure is nothing new in Smith. We have already noted that he approved of the respect for rank even more warmly (i.e. without qualification) in edition 1. Further, his approval is on grounds of utility, which in the LJ passage is said to be the principle of Whig, as contrasted with Tory, politics. Smith believed in a careful balance between order and innovation. There is a strong conservative strain in his thinking, but it is not markedly stronger in the edition 6 material of TMS than in the earlier writing. That he should be shocked by the events of 1789 is entirely what we would expect.

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

  (b)

  Relation of TMS to WN

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

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

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

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

  (432–3)

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

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

  (437)

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Although Skarżyński did not have access to the manuscripts known today, he could have informed himself more adequately of facts that were available. He says on p. 166 of his book, truly enough, that Smith did not publish anything on political economy before 1776, but he then goes on to assert, in defiance of the testimony of Dugald Stewart, that Smith had ‘probably not once applied himself definitely to the study of political economy’ before his visit to France. Skarżyński evidently had no notion that lectures on economic matters were a recognized part of Moral Philosophy as taught in the Scottish Universities at that time. The tradition stemmed from the treatment of natural law by Roman and medieval writers, and more immediately from the jurisprudence of Grotius and Pufendorf. At Glasgow, Hutcheson’s predecessor in the Chair of Moral Philosophy, Gerschom Carmichael, used his own annotated edition of Pufendorf’s De Officio Hominis et Civis. Hutcheson continued the practice. Smith draws on Grotius in TMS (and on both Grotius and Pufendorf in LJ, though Skarżyński could not have known that). The tradition is common to all the Scottish teachers of Moral Philosophy in the eighteenth century. Skarżyński’s study of TMS seems to have been concentrated on noting Smith’s indebtedness to Hume. He treats the book as merely reproducing from Hume and at times doing it badly (76–7, 94–5). He even says (88) that Smith’s ‘twists and turns’, ‘sophistries and confusions’, could serve very well to obtain for TMS ‘the approval of three bishops and numerous literati’ (Schöngeister), an ironic reference to Hume’s teasing account (Letter 31, dated 12 April 1759) of the success of the book. If Skarżyński had studied TMS more thoroughly, he might have learned that Smith’s ethical theory differs substantially from Hume’s, despite indebtedness. He might even have come to see that Buckle’s interpretation of it was mistaken.

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

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

  3.

  reception

  (a)

  Early comment and foreign translations

  Smith’s reputation in Scotland was already established before 1759. The publication of TMS made him known and esteemed both in England and abroad. The immediate success of the book is delightfully described by Hume, writing from London in Letter 31, dated 12 April 1759. After a teasing tale of alleged interruptions to his letter, he finally reaches the point, prefacing it with a reminder that popular opinion is worthless, as if to console Smith for a coming disappointment.

  Supposing, therefore, that you have duely prepard yourself for the worst by all these Reflections; I proceed to tell you the melancholy News, that your Book has been very unfortunate: For the Public seem disposed to applaud it extremely. It was looked for by the foolish People with some Impatience; and the Mob of Literati are beginning already to be very loud in its Praises. Three Bishops calld yesterday at Millar’s14 Shop in order to buy Copies, and to ask Questions about the Author: The Bishop of Peterborough said he had passed the Evening in a Company, where he heard it extolld above all Books in the World. You may conclude what Opinion true Philosophers will entertain of it, when these Retainers to Superstition praise it so highly. The Duke of Argyle is more decisive than he uses to be in its Favour: . . . Lord Lyttleton says, that Robertson and Smith and Bower are the Glories of English Literature. Oswald15 protests he does not know whether he has reap’d more Instruction or Entertainment from it: . . . Millar exults and brags that two thirds of the Edition are already sold, and that he is now sure of Success. . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The last part of the Theory will be peculiarly agreeable to the learned reader, who will there find a clear and distinct view of the several systems of moral philosophy, which have gained any considerable degree of reputation either in antient or modern times; with many pertinent and ingenious reflections upon them. The whole work, indeed, shews a delicacy of sentiment, and acuteness of understanding, that are seldom to be met with; and what ought particularly to be mentioned, there is the strictest regard preserved, throughout, to the principles of religion, so that the serious reader will find nothing that can give him any just ground of offence.—In a word, without any partiality to the author, he is one of the most elegant and agreeable writers, upon morals, that we are acquainted with.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The international reputation of TMS is borne out by part of the resolution adopted by the University of Glasgow on 1 March 1764 accepting the resignation of Adam Smith, ‘whose 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 thro’out Europe’.20 The last two words are a pardonable exaggeration, but certainly in France the book was soon applauded.

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

  Cet Ouvrage Nous a paru recommandable par la force et la chaleur de son style, par la beauté et la noblesse des sentimens, par la nouveauté et la justesse des reflexions, par le ton imposant des raisonnemens; mais ce qui le rend encore plus précieux, c’est que tout y respire la vertu la plus pure, et que la Religion y est par–tout respectée.21

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

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

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

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

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

  It seems that Kant knew and valued TMS, judging from a letter of 1771 written to him by one Markus Herz. A passage in this letter speaks of ‘the Englishman Smith, who, Mr. Friedländer tells me, is your favourite’ (Liebling), and then goes on to compare the work of Smith with ‘the first part’ of ‘Home, Kritik’, no doubt meaning Elements of Criticism by Henry Home, Lord Kames. As Eckstein points out, the date of 1771 (too early for WN and one year after the publication of the first German translation of TMS) and the comparison with Kames show that the writer must have had TMS in mind. The passage also suggests that Herz at least, like Lessing and Herder, was interested in the relevance of TMS to aesthetics. It is unlikely, however, that Kant’s own regard for the work will have been thus confined. Eckstein goes on to note that there is a passage in Kant’s Reflections on Anthropology where Kant writes of ‘the man who goes to the root of things’ and who looks at every subject ‘not just from his own point of view but from that of the community’ and then adds, in brackets, ‘the Impartial Spectator’ (der Unpartheyische Zuschauer).

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

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

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

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

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

  (b)

  Select bibliography

  1. Editions of TMS

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

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

  Other editions (this list is almost certainly incomplete):

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

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

  2. Translations

  French:

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

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

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

  German:

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

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

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

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

  Russian:

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

  Spanish:

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

  Japanese:

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

  3. Discussion

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

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

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

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

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

  Witold von Skarżyński, Adam Smith als Moralphilosoph und Schoepfer der Nationaloekonomie; Berlin, 1878.

  James Anson Farrer, Adam Smith; London, 1881.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4.

  the text

  (a)

  Account of editions 1–7

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

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

  The second edition of the Theory, which Hume was anticipating immediately in 1759, did not appear till 1761, and it contained none of the alterations or additions he expected; but the Dissertation on the Origin of Languages was for the first time published along with it. The reason for the omission of the other additions is difficult to discover, for the author had not only prepared them, but gone the length of placing them in the printer’s hands in 1760, as appears from the following letter [Letter 50 addressed to William Strahan, the printer, dated 4 April 1760]. They did not appear either in the third edition in 1767, or the fourth in 1774, or the fifth in 1781; nor till the sixth, which was published, with considerable additions and corrections, immediately before the author’s death in 1790.

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

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

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

  My Dear Strahan

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

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

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

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

  I sent up to Mr Millar four or five Posts ago the same additions, which I had formerly sent to you, with a good many corrections and improvements which occurred to me since. If there are any typographical errors remaining in the last edition which had escaped me, I hope you will correct them. In other respects I could wish it was printed pretty exactly according to the copy which I delivered to you. . . . To desire you to read my book over and mark all the corrections you would wish me to make upon a sheet of paper and send it to me, would, I fear, be giving you too much trouble. If, however, you could induce yourself to take this trouble, you would oblige me greatly: I know how much I shall be benefitted and I shall at the same time preserve the pretious right of private judgement for the sake of which our forefathers kicked out the Pope and the Pretender. I believe you to be much more infallible than the Pope, but as I am a Protestant my conscience makes me scruple to submit to any unscriptural authority.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  We have used two copies of edition 5, both belonging to Glasgow University Library, and have found no differences between them. Edition 5 is, like edition 4, a single octavo volume of [viii] + 478 pages together with the same two pages of advertisement. The title–page follows that of its predecessor. Edition 5 was published in 1781 at London and Edinburgh. It contains a fair number of revisions of accidentals, chiefly in punctuation, but occasionally in spelling; e.g. it reverts from the spelling ‘blamable’ of edition 4 to the spelling ‘blameable’ of editions 1–3. Nevertheless it must have been set up from a copy of edition 4 and not from one of the earlier editions, since it includes all the revisions of substantives, and most of the revisions of accidentals, that were made in edition 4. It also includes a few further revisions in substantives, of a minor character.

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

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

  Most of the revisions of accidentals which are carried over from edition 5 to edition 6 are in fact of a kind that one could expect to be reintroduced in a later revision of edition 4. There is, however, one place (VII.ii.1.16–18) where, for a few pages, edition 6 follows the accidentals of edition 5, as against those of edition 4, to an extent that suggests more than coincidence. It looks as if the printer were using, at this point, printed copy from pages of edition 5. Significantly, the passage is one (on the Stoics) that has been transposed from Part I, with some cancellation. It seems probable that the particular circumstances of revision of this passage made it necessary for Smith to use a second set of the printed pages, and that he took these from a copy of edition 5.

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

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

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

  Edition 6 is in two volumes octavo. Volume I has xvi + 488 pages, and contains Parts I–IV of TMS. Volume II has viii + 462 pages; it contains Parts V–VII of TMS, which ends on p. 399, and the Dissertation on Languages, which occupies pp. 401–62. Edition 6 is of course completely reset and is quite different typographically from its predecessors. The actual type is of the same size as that used for editions 2–5, but there is more space between the lines, as there was in edition 1. But since edition 1 also had slightly larger type, edition 6 has the neatest appearance of all and is the easiest to read. There are line spaces between the paragraphs in edition 6, but not in any of the earlier editions. The title–page of each volume of edition 6 follows editions 4 and 5 in its description of the contents, but the author is now called ‘Adam Smith, LL.D. Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh; One of the Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs in Scotland; and formerly Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow’. The title–pages also state that edition 6 is ‘with considerable additions and corrections’. The edition was published in 1790 at London and Edinburgh.

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

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

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

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

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

  Edition 6 begins with an added Advertisement, which appears to say that the revisions had been contemplated over a long period, and briefly mentions the main changes made. A more detailed account of the major changes is as follows. In the footnote to I.iii.1.9, which had been added in edition 2, edition 6 omits the final sentence. At I.iii.2.9, editions 1–5 began a fresh chapter on the Stoical Philosophy; in edition 6, part of the material is transferred to VII.ii.1.23 and 20, part is withdrawn, and a sentence is added at the beginning of I.iii.2.9 so as to connect the preceding discussion with what follows. I.iii.3 is a new chapter, in which the social advantages of admiration for ‘the rich and the great’ are qualified by its corrupting effect on moral approbation. At the conclusion of II.ii.3.12, a sentence is added to replace a paragraph which had previously followed § 12 and which is now withdrawn; this particular revision, as we have already mentioned in our account of edition 3, was later the subject of controversy; we discuss it in Appendix II, where we also give new information about a manuscript fragment that has been supposed to be connected with Smith’s revision of the passage. At II.iii.3.4–5, one and a half paragraphs are added on the concept of ‘piacular’ guilt, a topic referred to again in new material at VII.iv.30. At III.1.2, the major part of what was Chapter 1 in editions 2–5 (Section i in edition 1) is transferred to become part of Chapter 2, and what was formerly Chapter 2 (Section ii in edition 1) becomes Chapter 1, with a few linking sentences. Most of III.2 is new, but three paragraphs (§§ 4, 5, and the major part of § 9) have been transferred from what was III.1 in editions 2–5; the new material includes a further development of the theory of conscience so as to distinguish the sense of praiseworthiness from the consciousness of being actually praised by others; at the same time some caution is introduced about the reliability and the efficacy of the judgements of conscience in the face of erroneous judgement by the outside world. At III.3, a fresh chapter, with an addition to the beginning of § 1, is begun, taking up material which in editions 2–5 was part of III.2; one and a half paragraphs are added at §§ 5–6; § 10 is new; one and a half paragraphs are withdrawn at § 11; and there is a lengthy addition at §§ 12–45, mainly on self–command, with some further development again of the theory of the impartial spectator and conscience. III.4 is largely a revised version of what was the latter part of III.2 in editions 2–5. The whole of Part VI is new; it deals with certain practical and political applications of moral theory, and especially with the virtues of prudence, benevolence, and self–command (already the subject of new material in III.3), and the vices of pride and vanity. In VII.ii.1, there is rearrangement and development of Smith’s account of Stoicism: at § 17, a passage is withdrawn; at the end of § 18, a sentence is added; after § 19, one paragraph is withdrawn, § 20 has been transferred from Part I, §§ 21–2 are added, and § 23 is another insertion of a passage formerly in Part I; §§ 24–47 are new, dealing mainly with the Stoic view of suicide. Edition 6 then reverts to the text of editions 1–5 at § 48, but adds a short paragraph at § 49. At VII.ii.4, where the earlier editions had linked La Rochefoucauld with Mandeville as the authors of ‘licentious systems’, all references to La Rochefoucauld are withdrawn. In VII.4, a new passage is added at §§ 23–7 and the beginning of § 28, developing Smith’s views on veracity and deceit; a passage that had formed the latter part of § 28 is withdrawn; and three new paragraphs are added at §§ 29–31, again on deceit and with a further reference to ‘piacular’ guilt.

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

  We have already given, in our account of edition 5, the evidence for believing that both author and printer used a revised copy of edition 4 in preparing most of the older material for incorporation in edition 6. In matters of spelling and the use of initial capital letters, edition 6 generally follows and takes farther the revisions of edition 4, which had made fairly radical changes from the practice of the earlier editions. There are some exceptions. For example, editions 1–3 tended, though not uniformly, to print the word ‘nature’ with a lower–case initial letter, even when Smith personifies nature, as he frequently does. Edition 4 uses a capital letter for most instances of personification or near–personification. Edition 6 follows edition 4 in the old material, but in the new material it sometimes uses a capital letter, more commonly a lower–case. Another example is the use of a capital initial letter for the word ‘gods’ when referring to pagan deities. Editions 1–3 had done this at times. Edition 4 changed the capital letter to lower–case. Edition 6 prints a capital letter both in old and in new material, but a lower–case initial for the one instance of ‘goddess’. This simply means that the printers were accustomed to use the capital letter for the word ‘God’ and did not stop to distinguish, as the reviser for edition 4 did, between the Christian God and pagan gods.

  We have used two copies of edition 7, one from Glasgow University Library, the other from the Bodleian, and have found no differences between them. Edition 7 resembles edition 6 very closely. Like its predecessor, it is in two octavo volumes, the first of xvi + 488 pages, the second of viii + 462 pages. The title–pages follow those of edition 6, except that the words ‘with considerable additions and corrections’ are properly omitted since the revisions are not new in this edition. The Advertisement, however, is repeated without any indication that it was written for edition 6, and in consequence some of its words appear incongruous in 1792, the year in which edition 7 was published at London and Edinburgh.

  Edition 7 has the same pagination, and generally the same division of lines, as edition 6. It is not a reprint, but has been set up so as to follow edition 6 line by line, in the same way as editions 3–5 were each set up to follow their predecessors. The tests that establish this for editions 3–5 show it to be true of edition 7 also. Edition 7 corrects a few misprints of edition 6, introduces some new misprints or other errors, and resets a few lines so as to improve spacing. There are some changes in accidentals, chiefly punctuation. For the reasons given at the beginning of this section, it is practically certain that the compositors of edition 7 did not have any author’s corrections of edition 6 to guide them.

  An unauthorized edition of TMS was published in Dublin, bearing the date 1777 and calling itself ‘the sixth edition’. The Library of Trinity College, Dublin, possesses a copy (another is in the Goldsmiths’ Library, London) and we have examined a Xerox of it. The Dublin edition seems clearly to have been set up from a copy of edition 4 but it is quite different from editions 3, 4, and 5 in format, pagination, and division of lines. It is a single octavo volume of [viii] + 426 pages. The text of TMS occupies pp. 1–388, and the Dissertation on Languages pp. 389–426. On the titlepage the account of the contents is the same as in editions 4 and 5, but the author is differently described as ‘Adam Smith, L.L.D. F.R.S. Formerly Professor of Philosophy in the University of Glasgow; and Author of the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations’. The date of 1777 is consonant with the mention, albeit incorrect (‘Cause’ instead of ‘Causes’), of the title of WN, which first appeared in 1776 and named its author as ‘Adam Smith, LL.D. and F.R.S. Formerly Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow’. The text of the Dublin edition departs at times from that of editions 4 and 5 in accidentals. It commonly agrees with edition 4 where that differs from edition 5, so there is little doubt that the Dublin printer followed edition 4 (1774) and not edition 5 (1781), and this again fits the date of 1777. There is no reason to suppose that Adam Smith consented to, or even knew of, the publication of the Dublin edition, and therefore we have ignored it in our collation of variants.

  (b)

  [1] Corr., Letter 9 addressed to William Cullen, dated 3 September 1751.

  [2] Dugald Stewart, ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.’ (1793; reprinted in EPS), I.12; A. F. Tytler, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Henry Home of Kames (Edinburgh, 1807), i.190.

  [3] W. R. Scott, Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow, 1937), 50, 54–5, cites evidence for lectures on civil law.

  [4] Stewart, I.16. Stewart identifies his informant as Millar in a note added to the reprint of the ‘Account’ included in Works of Adam Smith (London, 1811), v.412.

  [5] Stewart, I.18–20.

  [6] Taken from transcription in Glasgow Univ. Library, Murray MS. 506, pp. 169 ff.

  [7] ‘The Development of Adam Smith’s Ideas on the Division of Labour’, Economic Journal, lxxxiii (1973), 1094–1116.

  [8] Stewart, I.21.

  [9] Cf. also WN III.iii.12; IV.v.b.43; IV.ix.28.

  [10]Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, III.viii; D. D. Raphael, British Moralists 1650–1800, § 333.

  [11] It may have been suggested to Smith by Addison’s dedication of vol. i of The Spectator, which begins: ‘I should not act the part of an impartial spectator, if I directed the following papers to one who is not of the most consummate and most acknowledged merit.’

  [12] Corr., Letter 40, dated 10 October 1759.

  [13] Ronald L. Meek and Andrew S. Skinner, ‘The Development of Adam Smith’s Ideas on the Division of Labour’, Economic Journal, lxxxiii (1973), 1103.

  [14] Andrew Millar, the publisher.

  [15] James Oswald, a friend of Smith’s from boyhood.

  [16] Benjamin C. Nangle, The Monthly Review, First Series, 1749 1789, Indexes of Contributors and Articles (Oxford, 1934), 199.

  [17] Cf. John Rac, Life of Adam Smith (London, 1895), 51–2. Rae is, however, mistaken when he says (58) that admiration for TMS induced the future Earl of Shelburne (Lord Fitzmaurice) to send his brother Thomas to study under Smith. Lord Fitzmaurice advised his father to do this in 1758 on the suggestion of Sir Gilbert Elliot, and Thomas Fitzmaurice was in residence at Glasgow early in 1759 before TMS appeared (see Letter 27 to Smith from Elliot, dated 14 November 1758, and Letter 28 from Smith to Lord Fitzmaurice, dated 21 February 1759).

  [18] Scott, ASSP, 68, 293 n.3.

  [19] Rae, Life, 59.

  [20] Scott, ASSP, 221.

  [21] Quoted by the Abbé Blavet in the preface (vii–viii) of his translation of TMS.

  [22] Eckstein, intro. xxi n. 1; cf. Rae, Life, 196.

  [23] Rae, Life, 197.

  [24] J. H. Burton (ed.), Letters of Eminent Persons addressed to David Hume (Edinburgh and London, 1849), 237–8; cf. Rae, Life, 198.

  [25] Countess of Minto, A Memoir of Hugh Elliot (Edinburgh, 1868), 13; cf. Rae, Life, 199. The report of Hume’s marriage was an unfounded rumour.

  [26] Corr., Letter 194 from the Duc de La Rochefoucauld to Smith, dated 3 March 1778.

  [27] A. H. Brown, ‘Adam Smith’s First Russian Followers’, in the volume of Essays on Adam Smith (edited by Andrew S. Skinner and Thomas Wilson) accompanying the present edition of Smith’s Works.

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  2: Glasgow Editors’ Introduction to the Wealth of Nations

  Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. I ed. R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, vol. II of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981). Chapter: Preface

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/220/111821 on 2009-10-16

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

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

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  3: Glasgow Editors’ Introduction to Lectures on Astronomy & Literature I

  Adam Smith, Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W. P. D. Wightman and J. C. Bryce, vol. III of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). Chapter: General Introduction

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/201/56000 on 2009-10-16

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

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

  ---

  General Introduction1

  I

  Most of the essays contained in this book were not prepared for the press by Smith. They are fragments in fact—perhaps, as Black and Hutton suggested in the ‘Advertisement’ to EPS, parts of ‘a plan he had once formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts’. The essays are also diverse both in terms of subject–matter and in the degree of finish they had acquired at the time of Smith’s death. Yet, at the same time, there are some common elements.

  To begin with, the more important of the essays plainly have a ‘philosophical’ character, which conforms to Smith’s own recommendations regarding the organization of scientific discourse. Smith believed that writers of ‘didactical’ discourse ought ideally to deliver a system of science by laying down ‘certain principles, known or proved, in the beginning, from whence we account for the several phaenomena, connecting all together by the same chain’ (LRBL ii.133, ed. Lothian, 140). Smith described this as the ‘Newtonian’ method, while well aware that it had been used before Newton—most notably by Descartes. This point in itself is an important reminder that Smith drew an implicit distinction between the method used in expounding a system of thought and that employed in establishing such a system: in the former case, he was able to point out that Descartes and Newton shared a common approach; in the latter, he insisted that the Cartesian system was ‘fanciful’, ‘ingenious and elegant, tho’ fallacious’ (Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review, § 5).2 In short, the task of establishing a system of thought must be conducted in terms of the combination of reason and experience—although even here he was quick to associate this definition of the term ‘method’ with Galileo rather than Newton (Astronomy, IV.44).

  Secondly, it is at least broadly true that many of the essays provide evidence of Smith’s concern with the principles of human nature, again, a wide–ranging interest. For example, Smith himself was to point out that under some conditions the study of grammar could provide the ‘best History of the natural progress of the Human mind in forming the most important abstractions upon which all reasoning depends’,3 and John Millar explained his teacher’s choice of emphasis in the LRBL by reference to Smith’s belief that: ‘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.’ (Stewart, I.16.) In the same vein, Dugald Stewart suggested that Smith’s cultivation of the Fine Arts was developed: ‘less, it is probable, with a view to the peculiar enjoyments they 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’ (Stewart, III.13).

  Finally, we should recall Smith’s overriding interest in historical questions and the fact that he: ‘seldom misses an opportunity of indulging his curiosity, in tracing from the principles of human nature, or from the circumstances of society, the origin of the opinions and the institutions which he describes’ (Stewart, II.52). Earlier, Stewart had commented on Smith’s youthful interest in mathematics4 and the natural sciences, together with the principles of human nature, both of which: ‘enabled him to exemplify some of his favourite theories concerning the natural progress of the mind in the investigation of truth, by the history of those sciences in which the connection and succession of discoveries may be traced with the greatest advantage’ (Stewart, I.8).

  While the features outlined above are all characteristic of the major essays in this volume, they are combined in one of them to greatest effect—the Astronomy, once described by J. A. Schumpeter as ‘the pearl of the collection’.5 While the essay is one of the best examples of theoretical history, it is perhaps most remarkable as a study of those principles of human nature which ‘lead and direct’ philosophical inquiry.

  II

  One of the characteristics of theoretical history is that it may be applied to situations where direct evidence is lacking. As Stewart put it: ‘In this want of direct evidence, we are under a 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.’ (II.46.) In the context of the discussion of the origin of philosophy, Smith had comparatively little to say about man’s external situation, but he did note that philosophical effort could only take place under conditions where subsistence was no longer precarious and where social order and a regular subordination of ranks were established (Astronomy, III.1,5).6 Elsewhere he also noted the importance of language as a means of expressing ideas while pointing out that language7 itself developed by virtue of man’s intellectual capabilities—for example, his capacity for abstraction and generalization in addition to speech itself.

  Given the above conditions, the assumptions employed are fundamentally simple: Smith assumes that all men are endowed with certain faculties and propensities such as reason, reflection, and imagination, and that they are motivated by a desire to acquire the sources of pleasure and avoid those of pain. In this context pleasure relates to a state of the imagination: the ‘state of . . . tranquillity, and composure’ (Imitative Arts, II.20). Such a state, Smith suggested, may be attained even where the objects contemplated are unlike or the processes involved are complex—provided only that the connection is a customary one. He added that the ‘indolent’ imagination finds satisfaction but no stimulus to thought under such circumstances and duly noted that ‘the bulk of mankind’ often express no interest in the common–place. For example, the conversion of food into flesh and bone (Astronomy, II.11), even looking–glasses, become ‘so familiar’ that men typically do not think that ‘their effects require any explication’ (Imitative Arts, I.17). In the same way, Smith cited the example of the skilled artisan (such as a brewer, dyer, or distiller) who effects the most remarkable transformations in the materials that he uses and yet ‘cannot conceive what occasion there is for any connecting events to unite those appearances, which seem to him to succeed each other very naturally. It is their nature, he tells us, to follow one another in this order, and that accordingly they always do so.’ (Astronomy, II.11.)

  Three points are worth emphasizing before going further: first, Smith places a good deal of weight on ‘conventional’ knowledge8 (i.e. that kind of ‘knowledge’ which is based on customary connection), and on the fact that the imagination is ‘indolent’. As Smith put it, men ‘have seldom had the curiosity to inquire by what process of intermediate events’ a given change is brought about, where ‘the passage of the thought from . . . one object to the other is by custom become quite smooth and easy’ (Astronomy, II.11). In fact Smith had very little more to say about the origin and nature of ‘knowledge’ of this kind.

  Secondly, Smith stressed the difference between the philosopher and the ordinary man, while being careful to add that these differences arise ‘not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education’ (WN I.ii.4). But habit, custom, and education can make the philosopher more perceptive, so that just as the botanist differs from the casual gardener, or the musician from the generality of his auditors, so he ‘who has spent his whole life in the study of the connecting principles of nature, will often feel an interval betwixt two objects, which, to more careless observers, seem very strictly conjoined’ (Astronomy, II.11).

  Finally, it must be emphasized that in the Astronomy Smith was not so much concerned with the state of ‘composure’ per se, as with the sources of its disturbance, and the nature of those processes by virtue of which that state could be re–established. In fact, Smith was largely concerned with a very specific aspect of the problem of ‘knowledge’, namely, the stimulus given to the undertanding by ‘sentiments’ such as surprise, wonder, or admiration. The limited objective of the Astronomy was clearly stated at the outset: ‘It is the design of this Essay to consider particularly the nature and causes of each of these sentiments, whose influence is of far wider extent than we should be apt upon a careless view to imagine.’ (Introduction, 7.)

  Smith’s initial argument then is to the effect that when certain objects or events follow in a particular order, ‘they come to be so connected together in the fancy, that the idea of the one seems, of its own accord, to call up and introduce that of the other’. But, while the imagination finds no stimulus to thought under such conditions, Smith went on to argue that this would not be the case where the ‘appearances’ studied were in any way unexpected: ‘We are at first surprised by the unexpectedness of the new appearance, and when that momentary emotion is over, we still wonder how it came to occur in that place.’ (II.8.) In other words, we feel surprise when some object (or number of objects) is drawn to our attention which does not fall into a recognized pattern; a sentiment which is quickly followed by that of wonder, where the latter is defined in these terms: ‘The stop which is thereby given to the career of the imagination, the difficulty which it finds in passing along such disjointed objects, and the feeling of something like a gap or interval betwixt them, constitute the whole essence of this emotion.’ (II.9.) Wonder, in short, involves a source of pain (a disutility); a feeling of discomfort which gives rise to uncertainty and ‘anxious curiosity’ and even to ‘giddiness and confusion’. On the other hand, the response to this situation involves the pursuit of some explanation, with a view to relieving the mind from a state of disequilibrium (i.e. lack of ‘composure’); a natural reaction, given Smith’s assumptions, designed to eliminate the sense of wonder by providing some appropriate ordering of the phenomena in question, or some plausible account of the links between different objects. Finally, Smith suggested that once we have succeeded in providing an acceptable and coherent account of a particular problem, the very existence of that explanation may ‘heighten’ our appreciation of the ‘appearances’ in question. In this way, for example, we learn to admire a complex social structure once its ‘hidden springs’ have been exposed, while in the same way a theory of astronomy may help us to admire the heavens through presenting the ‘theatre of nature’ as a coherent ‘and therefore a more magnificent spectacle’ (II.12).

  Surprise, wonder, and admiration are, therefore, the three sequential sentiments on which Smith’s account of mental stimulus depends.9

  Once again, there are a number of points which deserve notice: First, it will be observed, that man is impelled to seek an explanation for observed ‘appearances’ as a result of a subjective feeling of discomfort, and that the resulting explanation or theory is therefore designed to meet some psychological need. Nature as a whole, Smith suggests, ‘seems to abound with events which appear solitary and incoherent’ and which therefore ‘disturb the easy movement of the imagination’ (II.12). Under these circumstances, the philosopher feels the disutility involved in the sentiment of wonder; a sentiment which thus emerges as ‘the first principle which prompts mankind to the study of Philosophy, of that science which pretends to lay open the concealed connections that unite the various appearances of nature’ (III.3). It follows from this that the explanation offered can only satisfy the mind if it is coherent, capable of accounting for observed appearances, and stated in terms of principles which are at least plausible.10

  Secondly, it will be noted that wonder is the first, but not the only principle featured and Smith duly went on to emphasize that philosophical effort involved not only an escape from the contemplation of ‘jarring and discordant appearances’ but also a source of pleasure in its own right; a point made by him in suggesting that men: ‘pursue this study for its own sake, as an original pleasure or good in itself, without regarding its tendency to procure them the means of many other pleasures’ (III.3). In fact Smith provided many examples of the kinds of pleasure which might be involved in philosophical work. In the LRBL, for example, he noted that ‘It gives us a pleasure to see the phaenomena which we reckoned the most unaccountable, all deduced from some principle (commonly a well known one) and all united in one chain’ (ii.133–4, ed. Lothian, 140). Likewise, in WN he referred to the beauty of a ‘systematical arrangement of different observations connected by a few common principles’ (V.i.f.25), and in the Imitative Arts (II.30), likened the pleasure to be derived from the contemplation of a great system of thought to the intellectual and even sensual delights of a ‘well composed concerto of instrumental music’.11

  But, perhaps characteristically, Smith noted that such sources of pleasure were not equally accessible even to those of philosophical pretensions; that scientific thought also involved a discipline of which not all were capable and that this discipline could sometimes put too great a strain (i.e. a disutility) on the mind even where presented with an organized body of thought. Under some circumstances at least, ‘too severe an application to study sometimes brings on lunacy and frenzy, in those especially who are somewhat advanced in life, but whose imaginations, from being too late in applying, have not got those habits which dispose them to follow easily the reasonings in the abstract sciences’ (Astronomy, II.10).

  III

  Most of these points find further illustration in the History of Astronomy itself, where Smith reviewed four main systems of thought, not with a view to judging their ‘absurdity or probability, their agreement or inconsistency with truth and reality’, but rather with a view to considering how far each of them was fitted to ‘sooth(e) the imagination’—‘that particular point of view which belongs to our subject’ (II.12). Looked at in this way, the analysis has a ‘static’ aspect at least in so far as it is designed to show the extent to which each of the four main astronomical systems reviewed does in fact ‘soothe’ the imagination, isolating by this means the characteristics which they have in common. But Smith goes further than his stated object in noting that the systems of astronomy reviewed followed each other in a certain historical sequence, and in exposing the causal links which, he felt, might explain that sequence. The essence of Smith’s argument would seem to be that each system at the time of its original appearance did satisfy the needs of the imagination, but that each was subject to a process of modification as new problems came to light; a process of modification which resulted in a degree of complexity which ultimately became unacceptable to the imagination. This in turn paves the way for a new kind of response—the production not just of an account, but of an alternative account (in this case of the heavens); a new thought–system designed to explain the same problems as the first, at least in its most complex form.

  From one point of view this is the classic pattern of cultural history—human activity released within a given environment ultimately causing a qualitative change in that environment—as illustrated, say, by the development of language or the transition from feudalism to the commercial stage (WN III). But there is a difference, partly because ‘environment’ here relates to a state of ‘knowledge’ and partly because the reactions of individuals are now described as self–conscious—i.e. designed deliberately to modify an existing thought–system or to replace it with a more acceptable alternative.

  As a means of illustrating the burden of the argument, it may be helpful to review the origin, development, and decline of the first astronomical system before going on to say something of those which followed it. Specialist comment on the astronomical content (e.g. as to its accuracy) of Smith’s treatment is outwith the competence of the general editors, and must be left to the historian of science.

  On Smith’s argument, the first astronomers were faced with the need to explain the movements of the Stars, Sun, Moon, and five known planets; a task which was fulfilled in terms of a theory of Solid Spheres each of which was thought to have a circular but regular motion.12 The Stars for example, being fixed in their positions relative to one another, while changing with reference to the observer, ‘were naturally thought to have all the marks of being fixed, like so many gems, in the concave side of the firmament, and of being carried round by the diurnal revolutions of that solid body’ (IV.1). Additional Spheres were used to account for the movements of the Sun and Moon (one inside the other to explain the eclipse) with five more for the planets or ‘wandering stars’. The astronomical system which emerged thus represented the Earth as: ‘self balanced and suspended in the centre of the universe, surrounded by the elements of Air and Ether, and covered by eight polished and cristalline Spheres, each of which was distinguished by one or more beautiful and luminous bodies, and all of which revolved round their common centre, by varied, but by equable and proportionable motions’ (IV.5).

  Such a system of thought apparently met the needs of the imagination by providing a coherent and plausible explanation for observed phenomena, and, in connecting by simple and familiar processes the ‘grandest and most seemingly disjointed appearances in the heavens’, added to man’s admiration for them (IV.4).

  Indeed, even if some contemporaries recognized that such a system did not account for all appearances, the degree of completeness was such that the generality of men would be tempted to ‘slur over’ (IV.6) such problems rather than qualify in any degree the satisfaction derived from the theory itself. In fact, Smith went on to suggest that this beautiful and appealing construction of the intellect might ‘have stood the examination of all ages, and have gone down triumphant to the remotest posterity’ had there been ‘no other bodies discoverable in the heavens’ (IV.4).

  But additional bodies were discovered, and this together with the fact that Eudoxus was not one of the ‘generality of men’ led to the need to modify the existing system and to the addition of more spheres, as a means of accounting for changes in the relative positions of the planets. As a result Eudoxus raised the total number of spheres to 27, Callippus to 34, and Aristotle ‘upon a yet more attentive observation’ to 56 (until Fracastoro, ‘smit with the eloquence of Plato and Aristotle and with the regularity and harmony of their system’, felt it necessary to raise the number of spheres to 72, IV.7). In this way the relatively simple system of Eudoxus was gradually modified in order to meet the needs of the imagination when faced with new problems to be explained, until a situation was reached where the explanation offered actually violated the basic prerequisite of simplicity (IV.8).

  In consequence, Smith suggests, a second major system was developed—by Apollonius (subsequently refined by Hipparchus and Ptolemy)—that of Eccentric Spheres and Epicycles. Once again, therefore, we are presented with a system which was designed to ‘introduce harmony and order into the mind’s conception of the movements’ of the heavenly bodies and which succeeded in so doing at least at one stage of its development. However, the same argument is advanced by Smith; namely, that a gradual process of modification followed as adherents of the new system came to terms with new observations, or newly perceived problems, until a situation was once more reached where this intellectual system or ‘imaginary machine’: ‘though, perhaps, more simple, and certainly better adapted, to the phaenomena than the Fifty–six Planetary Spheres of Aristotle, was still too intricate and complex for the imagination to rest in it with complete tranquillity and satisfaction’ (IV.19). Indeed, Smith considered that the situation became even more complex and thus unsatisfactory as a result of the efforts of the Schoolmen, and especially those of Peurbach, who laboured with perverse ingenuity to reconcile the first astronomical system (of Concentric Spheres) with the second which had been designed to replace it (IV.25).

  The response to this situation was the system of Copernicus: a system prompted, ‘he tells us’, by the confusion ‘in which the old hypothesis represented the motions of the heavenly bodies’ (IV.28).

  Like the system which it was to replace, the Copernican managed to account for observed appearances in the manner of a simpler ‘machine’, requiring ‘fewer movements’ and by representing: ‘the Sun, the great enlightener of the universe, whose body was alone larger than all the Planets taken together, as established immoveable in the center, shedding light and heat on all the worlds that circulated around him in one uniform direction, but in longer or shorter periods, according to their different distances’ (IV.32). This was to prove an attractive hypothesis to some, not merely because of the beauty and coherence of the system, but also because of the novelty of the view of nature which it suggested—emphatically the case with an account which ‘moved the Earth from its foundations, stopt the revolution of the Firmament, made the Sun stand still’ (IV.33).

  Yet at the same time, Smith argued that the system was by no means acceptable to all or even to those who confined their attention to astronomical matters, the difficulty being that Copernicus had invested the earth with a velocity which was ‘unfamiliar’, i.e. which ran counter to normal experience. The imagination tended to think of the earth as ponderous ‘and even averse to motion’ (IV.38), and it was this difficulty which led to the formulation of the alternative system of Tycho Brahe—a system partly prompted by jealousy of Copernicus, but none the less a system to some extent compounded of those of the latter and of Ptolemy. In this system, ‘the Earth continued to be, as in the old account, the immoveable center of the universe’ (IV.42). Smith added that Brahe’s account was ‘more complex and more incoherent than that of Copernicus. Such, however, was the difficulty that mankind felt in conceiving the motion of the Earth, that it long balanced the reputation of that otherwise more beautiful system’ (IV.43).

  In other words, the coherence and simplicity of the Copernican system was qualified by the unfamiliarity of one of its central principles; a problem which was so important as to render a more complex account more acceptable to some than it could otherwise have been. Interestingly enough, Smith represents subsequent developments as involving an attempt to make the more elegant system (of Copernicus) acceptable to the imagination by removing the basic difficulty—i.e. by providing a plausible explanation for the movement of the Earth. In this connection Smith argued that the astronomical work done by Kepler contributed to the completion of the system, while research on the problem of motion by Galileo helped to remove some of the more telling objections to the idea of a moving Earth. But in terms of the general acceptance of the idea of the Earth spinning at high velocity Smith gave most emphasis to the work of Descartes, who had represented the planets as floating in an immense ocean of ether containing ‘at all times, an infinite number of greater and smaller vortices, or circular streams’ (IV.62). Once the imagination accepted a hypothesis based on the familiar principle of motion after impulse, it was a short step to the elimination of the central difficulty since ‘it was quite agreeable to its usual habits to conceive’ that the planets ‘should follow the stream of this ocean, how rapid soever’ (IV.65). He added, in a significant passage, that under such circumstances: ‘the imaginations of mankind could no longer refuse themselves the pleasure of going along with so harmonious an account of things. The system of Tycho Brahe was every day less and less talked of, till at last it was forgotten altogether’ (Ibid.).

  Yet, as Smith went on to note, the modifications introduced by Descartes were not prompted by astronomical knowledge so much as by a desire to produce a plausible explanation for the Copernican thesis. Moreover, he noted that further observations, especially those of Cassini, supported the authority of laws first discovered by Kepler for which the Cartesian ‘theory’ could provide no explanation. Under such circumstances, the latter system while it ‘might continue to amuse the learned in other sciences . . . could no longer satisfy those that were skilled in Astronomy’ (IV.67).

  The Cartesian system was to give way to the Newtonian; a theory which was capable of accounting for observed phenomena in terms of a small number of basic and familiar principles, and of successfully predicting their future movements. Smith wrote of the Newtonian system with real enthusiasm and in his Letter to the Edinburgh Review rejoiced as a ‘Briton’ to find the contributors to the Encyclopédie acknowledge its authority as compared to that of Descartes. Characteristically, however, he left readers of the Astronomy with the reminder that ‘all philosophical systems’ are ‘mere inventions of the imagination’, even though he had ‘insensibly been drawn in’ to write as if Newton’s system was objectively true (IV.76; cf. Section V below).

  IV

  While the papers in this volume help to illustrate Smith’s wide range of interests, they also confirm that he had an extensive knowledge of literature of a broadly scientific kind. The Astronomy, for example, suggests a very close knowledge of the works of classical authors, together with more modern writers such as Cassini, Kepler, Descartes, Copernicus, and Newton. Other essays extend the list to include Franklin and Linnaeus, while the Letter to the Edinburgh Review calls attention to Boyle and Bacon, together with Continental authors such as d’Alembert, Buffon, Daubenton, and Réaumur.13 It is worth observing in this connection that Dugald Stewart called attention to Smith’s unusual knowledge of Continental scientific work (I.25) and considered the ‘mathematical sciences’ to be ‘very favourable subjects for theoretical history’—a fact which may have prompted Smith to undertake ‘perfectly analogous’ inquiries into the wider fields of language and jurisprudence (II.49,50).14

  There can be no doubt that Smith regarded such exercises in theoretical history as having a serious scientific purpose or that an essay such as the Astronomy conforms in terms of structure to the general requirements of didactical discourse as set out in LRBL. At the same time, the argument of the Astronomy appears to rely on the use of both reason and experience—partly by virtue of passing in review a series of models which had a historical existence, and partly by explaining their appearance, development, and replacement by reference to a number of principles of human nature whose manifestations could be empirically verified. In this sense, Smith’s methodology would seem to conform to the requirements of the Newtonian method properly so called in that he used the techniques of analysis and synthesis in the appropriate order. For, as Colin Maclaurin pointed out: ‘in any other way, we can never be sure that we assume the principles that really obtain in nature; and that our system, after we have composed it with great labour, is not mere dream and illusion’.15

  ‘Dream and illusion’ . . . yet it is one thing to suggest that the (‘first order’) activities of individuals in the field of philosophy or science can be studied in a ‘scientific way’ (the ‘second order’ enterprise on which Smith was engaged) and another to argue that activity of either kind can always be said to be scientific in the sense of conforming to the ideal of objectivity. Moreover, Smith’s discussion of the principles which lead and direct philosophical inquiries concentrates, as we have seen, on the needs of the imagination—on broadly psychological needs—so that, as Richard Olson has recently pointed out:

  The great significance of Smith’s doctrine is that since it measures the value of philosophical systems solely in relation to their satisfaction of the human craving for order, it sets up a human rather than an absolute or natural standard for science, and it leaves all science essentially hypothetical. Furthermore, Smith implied that unceasing change rather than permanence must be the characteristic of philosophy.16

  While this position does seem accurately to express the burden of Smith’s argument as contained in the Astronomy, two points might be suggested by way of qualification. First, it should be noted that Smith did not claim an exclusive role for the central principles of surprise, wonder, and admiration, but rather asserted that the part played by these sentiments was ‘of far wider extent than we should be apt upon a careless view to imagine’. Secondly, it is worth remarking that while Smith regarded all theoretical constructions as products of the imagination designed to meet its needs, he also indicated that there was a difference between the natural and moral sciences. As he put the point in the TMS (VII.ii.4.14):

  A system of natural philosophy may appear very plausible, and be for a long time very generally received in the world, and yet have no foundation in nature, nor any sort of resemblance to the truth. The vortices of Des Cartes were regarded by a very ingenious nation, for near a century together, as a most satisfactory account of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. Yet it has been demonstrated, to the conviction of all mankind, that these pretended causes of those wonderful effects, not only do not actually exist, but are utterly impossible, and if they did exist, could produce no such effects as are ascribed to them. But it is otherwise with systems of moral philosophy, and an author who pretends to account for the origin of our moral sentiments, cannot deceive us so grossly, nor depart so very far from all resemblance to the truth.

  And yet by way of qualification almost, Smith had earlier remarked that some philosophers, notably mathematicians, ‘are frequently very indifferent about the reception which they may meet with from the public’, enjoying as they do ‘the most perfect assurance, both of the truth and of the importance of their discoveries’. He added: ‘Natural philosophers, in their independency upon the public opinion, approach nearly to mathematicians, and, in their judgments concerning the merit of their own discoveries and observations, enjoy some degree of the same security and tranquillity.’ (TMS III.2.20.) Passages such as these suggest that ‘truth’ is attainable while at the same time reminding us of the importance of opinion.

  But there can be no doubt that Smith did as a matter of fact draw attention to the importance of the subjective side of science both in emphasizing the role of the imagination when reviewing his basic principles, and in illustrating the working of these principles by reference to the history of astronomy. For example, when speaking of the introduction of the ingenious ‘equalizing circle’ in the system of eccentric spheres, he noted that ‘Nothing can more evidently show, how much the repose and tranquillity of the imagination is the ultimate end of philosophy’ (Astronomy, IV.13), than this device, and later commented on the ease with which ‘the learned give up the evidence of their senses to preserve the coherence of the ideas of their imagination’ (IV.35). In the same way, he emphasized the pleasure to be derived from simplicity, order, coherence, and indicated that because men find beauty to be a source of pleasure they may unwittingly give the products of the intellect a form which satisfies purely aesthetic criteria. Hence the Newtonian ‘method’ as described in LRBL may be used because it is ‘more ingenious and for that reason more engaging’ than any other.

  Smith also recognized the importance of analogy in suggesting that philosophers, in attempting to explain unusual ‘appearances’, often did so in terms of knowledge gained in unrelated fields. It was suggested that reasoning by analogy might affect the nature of the work done, in the manner of the Pythagoreans who first studied arithmetic and then explained ‘all things by the properties of numbers’—or the modern physician who ‘lately gave a system of moral philosophy upon the principles of his own art’ (Astronomy, II.12): ‘In the same manner also, others have written parallels of painting and poetry, of poetry and music, of music and architecture, of beauty and virtue, of all the fine arts; systems which have universally owed their origin to the lucubrations of those who were acuainted with the one art, but ignorant of the other’. Indeed, Smith went further in noting that in some cases the analogy chosen could become not just a source of ‘ingenious similitudes’ but even ‘the great hinge upon which every thing turned’ (ibid.).

  This leads on to the discussion of another side of the problem, again illustrated by the Astronomy, namely that different types of philosopher may produce conflicting accounts of the same phenomena. We have already noted that while at a certain stage of development the Cartesian system ‘might continue to amuse the learned in other sciences’ it could no longer satisfy those who were skilled in Astronomy (IV.67). But Smith also observed that the Copernican system had been adopted by astronomers even though inconsistent with the systems of physics as then known (IV.35), and that the system of eccentric spheres had been accepted by astronomers and mathematicians, but not by philosophers in general: ‘Each party of them too, had . . . completed their peculiar system or theory of the universe, and no human consideration could then have induced them to give up any part of it.’ (IV.18.) As this implies, there may be a certain unwillingness to accept ideas formulated in a particular way, and even resistance to the reception of new ones as a result of certain ’prejudices’. Some of these are obvious: for example, the ‘natural prejudices of the imagination’ (IV.52), which partly explained the original resistance to the idea of a moving earth. Others are more complex, especially those which Smith described as prejudices of education.17 For example, Smith pointed out that resistance to the acceptance of Copernican ideas was partly explained by the ’Peripatetic Philosophy, the only philosophy then known in the world’ (IV.38) and added, with reference to the system as a whole that: ‘When it appeared in the world, it was almost universally disapproved of, by the learned as well as by the ignorant. The natural prejudices of sense, confirmed by education, prevailed too much with both, to allow them to give it a fair examination.’ (IV.35.) In the same way, the immediate followers of Copernicus were held to have faced objections which were ‘necessarily connected with that way of conceiving things, which then prevailed universally in the learned world’ (IV.39).

  Smith also noted the constraint on the development of new knowledge represented by reverence for the past (IV.20, 28) and made a good deal of national prejudice in the Letter to the Edinburgh Review, observing that the attachment of French philosophers to the system of Descartes had for a time ‘retarded and incumbered the real advancement of the science of nature’ (§ 5).

  Points such as these seem to have been ‘confirmed’ by those whose business it has been to examine the behaviour of philosophers (in Smith’s sense of the term). To go no further than the recent past, it is noteworthy that T. S. Kuhn’s work on scientific revolutions also emphasized the problems of communication which exist between proponents of different theories (Smith’s ‘prejudices of education’) while explaining the development of ideas in terms of systems (paradigms) each of which was doomed to destruction.18 Indeed, Kuhn’s argument taken as a whole may seem to suggest broad agreement with Smith’s assessment of the principles of human nature and to support his belief that these principles were constant through time. It was, of course, this thesis that made it possible for the thinker of Smith’s period to conceive of the social sciences as being on a par with the natural, thus matching the achievements of Newton in this field. For Dugald Stewart, the application of this ‘fundamental and leading idea’ to the various branches of theoretical history was to become ‘the peculiar glory of the latter half of the eighteenth century’.19 What Smith does is to leave the reader of these essays in some doubt as to wherein exactly ‘glory’ is to be found: in a contribution to knowledge, or to the composure of the imagination, or both.

  V

  It remains to note the influence of Hume on Adam Smith’s philosophy of science. In his youth Smith evidently shared the usual interest of philosophers in the theory of knowledge. His essay on the External Senses is just the kind of thing one would expect from an able young philosopher. Typically, and for this subject very properly, Smith brings together evidence from scientists and arguments from philosophers in order to reach his views. A prominent feature of the essay is his acknowledgement of indebtedness to Berkeley’s New Theory of Vision, from which he is ready to accept much and to criticize a little. There is no reference to the more radical use that Berkeley made of the self–same arguments in the wider theory of his Principles of Human Knowledge. Whether or not Smith ever read the latter work, he must surely have learned something of Berkeley’s idealist philosophy from Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature. It therefore seems likely, as Dr. Wightman suggests (133 below), that the essay on the External Senses is a very early piece, written before Smith had read Hume.

  If so, the History of Astronomy will have come later. Although it does not mention Hume by name, it shows unmistakable signs of influence from the Treatise of Human Nature. Apart from Humean language about the association of ideas and about degrees of vivacity in sensations, Smith’s account of the imagination seems to be an adaptation of Hume. He does not simply follow Hume, however, as he largely followed Berkeley when writing of vision in the essay on the External Senses. His view of the imagination in the History of Astronomy adds a significant element of originality by applying to the hypotheses of science a notion which Hume had used to explain the beliefs of common sense. That is one point of historical interest in Smith’s account of the imagination here.

  Another is that it shows Smith’s appreciation of the positive side of Hume’s epistemology. Scholars have tended to assume that Hume’s contemporaries, like the thinkers of the nineteenth century, saw him as simply a sceptic—in the theory of knowledge at any rate. This was certainly true of his most severe critics, Thomas Reid and James Beattie. Hume’s constructive philosophy of human nature, brought out by such twentieth–century scholars as N. Kemp Smith and H. H. Price, was unperceived by Reid and Beattie, and so by the later critics who took their cue from Reid and Beattie.

  There is evidence, however, that some of Hume’s contemporaries in Scotland, Adam Smith among them, did not share this blind spot. After Smith’s death, his heir, David Douglas, evidently wrote to John Millar about the manuscripts which Smith had allowed to remain understroyed. We know of this letter from the reply which it evoked. After referring to the essay on the Imitative Arts, Millar continues: ‘Of all his writings, I have most curiosity about the metaphysical work you mention. I should like to see his powers of illustration employed upon the true old Humean philosophy.’ The last words imply that Douglas, in his letter, had seen a connection between a work of Smith and the philosophy of Hume. They do not necessarily imply that Douglas would have agreed with Millar in regarding Hume’s philosophy (or the relevant part of Hume’s philosophy) as ‘true’, but they do at least suggest that he would not think the judgement novel or bizarre.

  The letter was printed by W. R. Scott in ASSP, 311–13. Scott was not sure whether ‘the metaphysical work’ of Adam Smith that is referred to could be identified. In a note on p. 313 he said there was no trace of thhe manuscript so described, but in an earlier part of the book (p. 115, note 3) he suggested that it might be either an unknown manuscript or the work entitled ‘The Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Enquiries’ that was printed in Smith’s posthumous Essays on Philosophical Subjects. There can be little doubt that this work is what David Douglas was talking about. Each of its three parts carries a title beginning ‘The Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Enquiries; illustrated by . . .’. The term ‘illustrated by’ is picked up in John Millar’s phrase, ‘I should like to see his powers of illustration employed . . .’. In fact the ‘metaphysical’ discussion, on Humean lines, occurs only at the beginning of the first and longest essay, the History of Astronomy, but the initial sections of that essay are intended to be a general introduction to the work as a whole. It is these introductory sections that David Douglas must have had in mind when he talked of a ‘metaphysical work’ in the spirit of Hume.

  What, then, is particularly Humean about Adam Smith’s view of the history of science and philosophy? Smith follows the dictum of Plato and Aristotle that philosophy begins in wonder, but he gives this a Humean twist. Wonder arises when the smooth course of the imagination is disturbed by an unusual sequence of events. It is assuaged when philosophy (meaning science) shows the unusual event to be part of a system, a customary order, and so enables the imagination to resume an easy passage. Smith describes the work of the imagination in words that recall the doctrine of Hume’s Treatise:

  When two objects, however, unlike, have often been observed to follow each other, and have constantly presented themselves to the senses in that order, they come to be so connected together in the fancy, that the idea of the one seems, of its own accord, to call up and introduce that of the other. If the objects are still observed to succeed each other as before, this connection, or, as it has been called, this association of their ideas, becomes stricter and stricter, and the habit of the imagination to pass from the conception of the one to that of the other, grows more and more rivetted and confirmed. . . . When objects succeed each other in the same train in which the ideas of the imagination have thus been accustomed to move, . . . such objects appear all closely connected with one another, and the thought glides easily along them, without effort and without interruption. . . . There is no break, no stop, no gap, no interval. The ideas excited by so coherent a chain of things seem, as it were, to float through the mind of their own accord, without obliging it to exert itself, or to make any effort in order to pass from one of them to another.

  But if this customary connection be interrupted, if one or more objects appear in an order quite different from that to which the imagination has been accustomed, and for which it is prepared, the contrary of all this happens. . . . The imagination no longer feels the usual facility of passing from the event which goes before to that which comes after. . . . The fancy is stopped and interrupted in that natural movement or career, according to which it was proceeding. Those two events seem to stand at a distance from each other; it endeavours to bring them together, but they refuse to unite; and it feels, or imagines it feels, something like a gap or interval betwixt them. It . . . endeavours to find out something which may fill up the gap, which like a bridge, may so far at least unite those seemingly distant objects, as to render the passage of the thought betwixt them smooth, and natural, and easy. The supposition of a chain of intermediate, though invisible, events, which succeed each other in a train similar to that in which the imagination has been accustomed to move, and which link together those two disjointed appearances, is the only means by which the imagination can fill up this interval, is the only bridge which, if one may say so, can smooth its passage from the one object to the other.

  (Astronomy, II.7–8)

  Smith is drawing here on Hume’s account both of causation and of our belief in an external world. He writes not only of constant conjunction but also of coherence in our experience. When he describes the ‘interruption’ of customary connections and of the ‘smooth passage’ of the imagination (or ‘the fancy’ or ‘the thought’), and when he proceeds to say that the imagination fills up the gap by supposing a chain of intermediate though invisible events, he is making use of Hume’s doctrine in Treatise, I.iv.2, the section entitled ‘Of scepticism with regard to the senses’. Smith is not simply taking over Hume’s theory, for Hume deals with our belief in the continued existence of material things while Smith talks about scientific theory. But Smith is adapting Hume’s account of the imagination from the one subject to the other. Smith thinks that philosophy or science is an enlargement of commonsense belief as represented by Hume. Philosophy, ‘the science of the connecting principles of nature . . . may be regarded as one of those arts which address themselves to the imagination’ (§ 12). Of course Hume himself says that systems of philosophy are also a product of the imagination, but his description of the processes of the imagination in filling up gaps comes into his account of our ordinary belief in an external world, and that is what Adam Smith uses in his account of scientific theory.

  The Humean character of this section of Smith’s History of Astronomy immediately strikes the modern scholar who is familiar with H. H. Price’s book, Hume’s Theory of the External World (1940). It seems that David Douglas saw it in the same sort of way and that his conception of Hume’s philosophy included the role of the imagination in building up our beliefs about the world. There can be little doubt that Adam Smith himself appreciated this side of Hume. Although his debt to Hume is not explicitly acknowledged in the Astronomy, the phrases from the Treatise are unmistakable.

  Smith takes seriously his conclusion that scientific theory is the work of the imagination. His History of Astronomy leads up to a detailed account of the theory of Newton. While Smith writes in more than one place of the attractions of the Newtonian system to the imagination, his description of it very naturally uses at times the language of objective fact. So he ends by recognizing that a work of imagination can seem to be the discovery of truth.

  And even we, while we have been endeavouring to represent all philosophical systems as mere inventions of the imagination, to connect together the otherwise disjointed and discordant phaenomena of nature, have insensibly been drawn in, to make use of language expressing the connecting principles of this one, as if they were the real chains which Nature makes use of to bind together her several operations. Can we wonder then, that it should have gained the general and complete approbation of mankind, and that it should now be considered, not as an attempt to connect in the imagination the phaenomena of the Heavens, but as the greatest discovery that ever was made by man, the discovery of an immense chain of the most important and sublime truths, all closely connected together, by one capital fact, of the reality of which we have daily experience.

  (IV.76)

  Smith seems to be implying here that it is in fact a mistake, though a natural one, to think of Newton’s system as the discovery of objective truths and to think of gravity as a ‘real chain’ that binds operations in nature. This belief is an ‘illusion of the imagination’, to use a Humean phrase that Smith borrows in The Theory of Moral Sentiments,20 composed a little later than the History of Astronomy. The Moral Sentiments is much concerned with the role of the imagination in moral judgement, but there is one place where Smith also relates it to economics. This comes at the beginning of Part IV. Again Smith builds on a doctrine of Hume. Hume, he says, has explained the beauty of utility. The owner of a useful object receives aesthetic pleasure from it by being reminded of its convenience. A spectator receives similar pleasure by sympathy. We find ‘the palaces of the great’ beautiful because we imagine the satisfaction we would get if we owned and used them. Smith then adds his own contribution, that we often come to set a greater value on the convenient means than on the end which they were designed to promote. ‘The poor man’s son, whom heaven in its anger has visited with ambition,’ goes beyond admiration of palaces to envy. He labours all his life to outdo his competitors, only to find in the end that the rich are no happier than the poor in the things that really matter. ‘And it is well that nature imposes on us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.’ The individual does not reap for himself the full benefit of his exertions; there is a benefit to society at large, for the rich ‘are led by an invisible hand’ to distribute much of their substance among a circle of retainers, and so, ‘without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species’ (TMS IV.1.8–10).

  Smith has an ambivalent attitude to this ‘deception’ by nature or the imagination. On the one hand, he says it is a deception; the ambition of the poor man’s son is unfortunate, a visitation of the anger of heaven, and is succeeded in the end by the discovery that power and riches afford little satisfaction and are dangerous. On the other hand, this realization of the truth is a ‘splenetic philosophy’ that comes to us only ‘in the languour of disease and the weariness of old age’. In a normal healthy state we let our imagination run away with us, and this is just as well because the deception is useful to society and mankind. At any rate Smith is clear that it is a deception and that there is an alternative view which is true, though apparently less preferable.

  Would he say quite the same of Newton’s scientific theory? He does imply that we are deceived in thinking the theory to be a discovery of truth and not just an ‘invention’ of the imagination. But would he be ready to add that it is therefore false and that there is, or could be, an alternative theory which is true? Apparently not, for he puts all scientific theories in the same boat. Are there then no objective truths of astronomy to be discovered, or is the position rather that there are truths of nature but they cannot be discovered by man because he has to rely on his imagination?

  There is one important difference between Hume’s view of the external world and Adam Smith’s view of Newtonian mechanics. Hume began his discussion by distinguishing two questions. ‘We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but ’tis in vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.’ Smith has endeavoured to answer the Humean question. ‘What causes induce us to believe in the existence of gravity?’ He would not, however, have added: ‘But ’tis in vain to ask, Whether there be gravity or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.’ Earlier theories of astronomy did not include a belief in gravity; and if anyone had suggested to Smith that a later theory might abandon Newton’s concept of gravity and explain the observed facts in a different way, Smith would have agreed that this was quite possible. So although he is following Hume in the type of explanation that he gives, there is an important difference in their conclusions. In Smith’s time it was a bold thing to say that Newton’s mechanics was an ‘invention of the imagination’ rather than a discovery of truth, but it was far less bold than Hume’s theory that belief in a continuing material world is due to ‘fiction’ by the imagination. Since past systems of astronomy had done without gravity, one could conceive that future systems might dispense with it. There is no analogue in a history of different systems of ordering common experience. The belief in continuing material bodies has not been preceded by one or more different ways of interpreting sense experience, in consequence of which we could conceive of yet another interpretation becoming standard at some future time.

  When Smith writes that scientists have imagined inventions he does not say they have invented science fiction—or any other sort of fiction. But he does contrast an invention by the imagination with a discovery of truth, and so he implies that scientific theory cannot be true. The constructions of scientific theory are like the constructions of perceptual belief in Hume’s theory of the external world because both are intended to render coherent the data of experience. But they are also unlike in that one scientific theory is succeeded by another; and today we should be more ready than Adam Smith to think that the replacement of the currently favoured theory of physics or astronomy is not just possible but probable. The replacement of one theory by another is not always in order to accommodate new empirical facts. The new facts could often be accommodated within a revised, but more complicated, version of the old theory. The new theory may be preferred because it is simpler or because it can be connected more directly with the theory of a related branch of science. If so, the criteria for preference are quasi–logical and aesthetic, like the criteria that shape the course of the imagination in Hume’s theory of the external world. Is it then proper to claim that the preferred theory is more true than its rival? In these days of relativity theory, physics itself seems to cast doubt on any idea of strictly objective truths in nature independent of observers at different points of space and time. Adam Smith’s view of science appears more perceptive today than it will have done in the eighteenth century.

  The History of Astronomy
  The History of the Ancient Physics
  The History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics

  [1 ]For a related account of the views expressed in Sections I–IV of this Introduction, see A. S. Skinner, ‘Adam Smith: Science and the Role of the Imagination’, in W. B. Todd, ed., Hume and the Enlightenment (1974). Much of Section V is drawn from part of a paper by D. D. Raphael previously printed (under the title ‘ “The true old Humean philosophy” and its influence on Adam Smith’) in G. P. Morice, ed., David Hume: Bicentenary Papers (1977) and now reproduced by permission of the Edinburgh University Press.

  [2 ]Smith has been seen by some commentators to have had something of a preoccupation with Descartes. See, for example, S. Moscovici, ‘A propos de quelque travaux d’Adam Smith sur l’histoire et la philosophie des sciences’ in Revue d’Histoire des Sciences et de leurs Applications, ix (1956), section 3.

  [3 ]Letter 69 addressed to George Baird, dated Glasgow, 7 February 1763.

  [4 ]Interestingly enough, it is remarked in TMS IV.2.7 that: ‘It is in the abstruser sciences, particularly in the higher parts of mathematics, that the greatest and most admired exertions of human reason have been displayed.’

  [5 ]History of Economic Analysis (1954), 182.

  [6 ]This point is emphasized by Moscovici, op. cit., 5.

  [7 ]See J. F. Becker, ‘Adam Smith’s Theory of Social Science’, Southern Economic Journal, xxviii (1961–2).

  [8 ]J. R. Lindgren considers that this point has often been given less than its due weight: The Social Philosophy of Adam Smith (1973), 6, and see generally chapter 1 together with the same author’s ‘Adam Smith’s Theory of Inquiry’, Journal of Political Economy, lxxvii (1969).

  [9 ]Vernard Foley has emphasized the importance of classical sources, especially that of Aristotle, in this connection. The Social Physics of Adam Smith (1976), chap. 2.

  [10 ]For comment, see T. D. Campbell, Adam Smith’s Science of Morals (1971), chap. 1.

  [11 ]The importance of aesthetic considerations is particularly noted by H. F. Thomson, ‘Adam Smith’s Philosophy of Science’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, lxxix (1965).

  [12 ]Much later in the argument Smith provided an interesting explanation for such choices. The circle was used, he suggests, because it ‘is of all curve lines the simplest and the most easily conceived’ (IV.51) while ‘an equal motion can be more easily attended to, than one that is continually either accelerated or retarded’ (IV.52).

  [13 ]It is conceivable that Smith’s knowledge of contemporary work in biology may have influenced his historical outlook. See Skinner, op. cit., 181–2.

  [14 ]A major direct influence was probably Rousseau, whose work features in the Letter to the Edinburgh Review.

  [15 ]An Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries (1748, ed. 3, 1775), 9.

  [16 ]Scottish Philosophy and British Physics, 1750–1880 (1975), 123. The hypothetical element in Smith’s thought is also noted by Moscovici, op. cit.

  [17 ]Cf. Home, A Treatise of Human Nature, I.iii.x.1: ‘But tho’ education be disclaim’d by philosophy, as a fallacious ground of assent to any opinion, it prevails nevertheless in the world, and is the cause why all systems are apt to be rejected at first as new and unusual.’ Hume’s influence on Smith is the subject of the following section.

  [18 ]The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).

  [19 ]Works, ed. Hamilton (1854), i.70.

  [20 ]Hume, Treatise (ed. Selby–Bigge), 267; cf. 200, and ‘illusion of the fancy’, 314, 360: Smith, TMS III.2.4; cf. I.iii.2.2, II.i.5.11, IV.1.9.

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  4: Glasgow Editors’ Introduction to Lectures on Astronomy & Literature II

  Adam Smith, Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W. P. D. Wightman and J. C. Bryce, vol. III of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). Chapter: Introduction

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/201/56006 on 2009-10-16

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

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

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  Introduction

  To the inquiring layman, Adam Smith was the author of the Wealth of Nations; to the philosopher, of a comparable classic, the Theory of Moral Sentiments; these were the only books published in his lifetime. Within five years of his death (1790), however, appeared under the editorship of his two friends, Joseph Black and James Hutton, a substantial volume entitled Essays on Philosophical Subjects . . . to which is prefixed an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author by Dugald Stewart. Though far less celebrated than the two major works the EPS nevertheless appeared during the next hundred years in at least eight editions, including one from Revolutionary Paris and one from Basel (see Bibliographical Note, Nos. 3, 4). In the present century the book has acquired a renewed interest, attention having been drawn principally to the first three essays, consideration of which has formed the basis of a significant secondary literature. The subject of each of these essays is the history of a branch of science, namely, of Astronomy, of the Ancient Physics, and of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics. Of these the first alone is of any considerable length; the other two are hardly more than fragments. To none of them would a modern scholar turn for enlightenment on the history of the sciences; at most he could expect to discover what an outstanding mind living in the second half of the eighteenth century believed to represent the histories of these subjects. Wherein then lies the attraction to writers during recent decades? It lies in the full titles of the three essays: The Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Enquiries; illustrated by the History of Astronomy; the preamble is repeated before each of the other two histories. It might be conjectured from this that the first three essays are to be taken rather as chapters in a book than as separate pieces; that such a conjecture might be correct is supported by the Advertisement of the editors in which they emphasize that though immediately before his death Smith had destroyed many other manuscripts, he had left these ‘in the hands of his friends to be disposed of as they thought proper’, and that on inspection ‘the greater number of them appeared to be parts of a plan he once had formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts’ but that he had long since ‘found it necessary to abandon that plan as far too extensive’. Though there is now no trace of the manuscripts on which the collection was based, we know from other sources that this is hardly an adequate account. of the allegedly projected history was to embrace the ‘elegant arts’ why was the telling preamble to the first three essays omitted from the remainder? To the modern reader it seems evident that whereas the former, inadequate though they may now appear, do conform to a unitary and highly significant plan, the remainder, though not without their interesting features, are neither treated historically nor do they illustrate the ‘principles which lead and direct philosophical enquiry’. The editors, though in other respects men of high eminence, were not noted for scholarship as such. We must turn to other sources to discover what part the composition of these essays played in the author’s intellectual scheme of things.

  Fortunately we do not have to look beyond the volume itself: the Essays were preceded by a long and detailed ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith’, read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1793 and subsequently published in their Transactions. The author was Dugald Stewart, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh from 1785 to 1810, and the editor of the first Collected Works of Smith published in 1811–12. Towards the end of this ‘Account’ is cited Smith’s earliest reference to the EPS of which we have any knowledge; it was contained in letter (137) to David Hume dated ‘Edinburgh, 16th. April 1773’ when Smith was preparing to go to London where he expected to remain some time. In the expectation that Hume would in the event of his own earlier death act as his literary executor, Smith insisted that of all the papers he was about to leave behind ‘there are none worth the publishing but a fragment of a great work which contains a history of the Astronomical Systems that were successively in fashion down to the time of Des Cartes. Whether that might not be published as a fragment of an intended juvenile work, I leave entirely to your judgment; tho I begin to suspect myself that there is more refinement than solidity in some parts of it.’ There is neither here nor anywhere else reference to other ‘fragments’ such as the Ancient Physics and Ancient Logics that ultimately came to be published in the same volume as the Astronomy; the possible significance of this omission will be discussed later (below, 26–7).

  In 1773 Smith was already fifty; it is unlikely, therefore, that he would have referred to any work as ‘juvenile’ except such as had been written many years earlier. This supposition receives some support from his asking (Astronomy, II.12) ‘Why has the chemical philosophy in all ages crept along in obscurity, and been so disregarded by the generality of mankind . . . ?’ How Smith could have formed such a judgement nearly a century after the prominence of Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke at the Royal Society it is difficult to understand; but such an opinion would surely have been modified by intercourse with William Cullen with whom Smith is known1 to have been on intimate terms after he assumed the Glasgow Chair of Logic in 1751. Since by 1748, almost two years after relinquishing the Snell Exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford, he must have been heavily engaged in the preparation and reading of his lectures on belles–lettres at Edinburgh, it has been fairly generally assumed that he at least laid the foundation of the History of Astronomy at Oxford; but from further internal evidence it may be inferred that he did not finish it there. Towards the end of the Astronomy Smith wrote that ‘the observations of Astronomers at Lapland and Peru have fully confirmed Sir Isaac’s system’ (IV.72); Bouguer’s account of his observations in Peru confirming Newton’s model of the figure of the Earth was published in 1749—three years after Smith left Balliol.

  The reader may have noticed a discrepancy between this reference to ‘Sir Isaac’s [Newton] system’ and (in the letter to David Hume) the description of the History as being of the astronomical systems that were successively in fashion down to the time of Descartes: the last ten pages of the original printed text are in fact devoted to establishing ‘the superior genius and sagacity of Sir Isaac Newton’. Relevant to this question is the editors’ terminal note: ‘The Author, at the end of this Essay, left some Notes and Memorandums, from which it appears, that he considered this last part of his History of Astronomy as imperfect, and needing several additions. The Editors, however, chose rather to publish than to suppress it. It must be viewed, not as a History or Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Astronomy, but chiefly as an additional illustration of those Principles in the Human Mind which Mr. Smith has pointed out to be the universal motives of Philosophical Researches.’

  This is consistent with the view put forward above that though the Astronomy may well have been largely composed in Oxford the ‘last part’ of it could have been added after Smith’s return to Scotland. That even this ‘last part’ was written before 1758 appears from his statement (Astronomy, IV.74) that Newton’s ‘followers have, from his principles, ventured even to predict the returns of several of them [sc. comets], particularly of one which is to make its appearance in 1758. We must wait for that time . . .’. Thus the text; a footnote on the same page reads: ‘It must be observed, that the whole of this Essay was written previous to the date here mentioned; and that the return of the comet happened agreeably to the prediction.’ There is in the original text no indication as to who added this note; but P. Prevost, the translator of the French edition (see Bibliographical Note 3), describes the note as ‘de l’editeur anglais’. Since Prevost was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and claimed to be personally acquainted with Dugald Stewart he may have had first–hand information.

  The apparent discrepancy in the letter to Hume disappears if it is recalled that Smith was expressing an opinion as to what of his literary remains might be worthy of publication: the ‘Notes and Memorandums’ referred to in the editors’ final note to the Astronomy, suggest that Smith was more than doubtful as to whether the ‘last part’ should qualify.

  The period 1746–8 when Smith was residing at Kirkcaldy with his mother and before he was committed to the reading of lectures on Rhetoric and Belles–Lettres at Edinburgh would seem as likely as any for laying the foundation of a project on the scale that he is known to have envisaged. Whether the other two ‘fragments’ were composed during that period is a matter of no special consequence; there would, at any rate, be no inconsistency in his having spoken more than once [and presumably much later] to Dugald Stewart of having ‘projected, in the earlier part of his life, a history of the other sciences on the same plan’ (Stewart, II.52) and of his editors having referred to a ‘plan he had once formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts’. There were, of course, neither then nor for a long time afterwards, any Faculties of Science in the Scottish universities and the boundary between ‘arts’ and ‘sciences’ was hardly, if at all, clearly drawn. ‘Logics and Metaphysics’ are still mainly the concern of Faculties of Arts, as would also be the sort of ‘ancient physics’ that Smith was describing in the essay so entitled.

  There is extant one other allusion by Smith which, though somewhat inconsistent with those that have been referred to, cannot be ignored in any attempt to date the composition of the EPS. It occurs in a letter (248) to the Duc de La Rochefoucauld written from Edinburgh in November 1785 but not published until 1895; the relevant section runs as follows:

  I have likewise two other great works upon the anvil; the one is a sort of Philosophical History of all the different branches of Literature, of Philosophy, Poetry and Eloquence; the other is a sort of theory and History of Law and Government. The materials of both are in a great measure collected, and some Part of both is put into tollerable good order. But the indolence of old age, tho’ I struggle violently against it, I feel coming fast upon me, and whether I shall ever be able to finish either is extremely uncertain.

  Now whereas the description of the former of these ‘other great works’ could well refer to the Histories of Astronomy, Ancient Physics, and Logics and Metaphysics included in the Essays on Philosophical Subjects, the remaining essays, though falling under the generous heading of ‘Literature, Philosophy, Poetry and Eloquence’, are almost wholly devoid of any reference to any historical development. Moreover, the limited range of topics hardly warrants the claim that the ‘materials’ were ‘in a great measure collected’. In the fitful light of such evidence as is now available it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that after the exacting labour of the Wealth of Nations with its successive revisions Smith’s ‘great work on a sort of philosophical history’ existed more in the hope of realizing a youthful ambition than in any adequate progress towards its achievement.2 Fortunately the impossibility of any precise dating of its components does not preclude further fruitful consideration of the part this ambition continued to play in Smith’s intellectual development.

  In 1755, four years after Smith had been appointed to the Glasgow Chair, he wrote the two well–known letters to the Edinburgh Review. In the second of these letters Smith evidently considered himself so much a master of the state of the sciences in Europe as to include a critical review of ‘the new French Encyclopedia’ (below, 245–8); and though the modern reader will detect a certain degree of superficiality—not to say even contradiction—in his judgements he had clearly a wide–ranging knowledge relevant to the task. Among the contributors he refers to—‘many of them already known to foreign nations by the valuable works which they have published’ (Letter, §6)—he singles out ‘Mr. Alembert’ and ‘Mr. Diderot’ and refers to the former’s famous Discours préliminaire.

  A perusal of d’Alembert’s Discours reveals a strong resemblance to Smith’s approach to the ‘principles which lead and direct philosophical enquiries’. In his stress on what he called Smith’s ‘Theoretical or Conjectural History’ Dugald Stewart (II.49) expressed the view that the ‘mathematical sciences, both pure and mixed, afford, in many of their branches, very favourable subjects for theoretical history’; and he went on to note d’Alembert’s recommendation of this historical approach for teaching. More striking still, he follows this reference by instancing a passage in Montucla’s Histoire des mathématiques (Paris, 1758) which included long sections on ‘mixed’ mathematics (viz. astronomy, mechanics, optics, and their applications) where an attempt is made to ‘exhibit the gradual progress of philosophical speculation, from the first conclusions suggested by a general survey of the heavens, to the doctrines of Copernicus. It is somewhat remarkable, that a theoretical history of this very science . . . was one of Mr. Smith’s earliest compositions’. Since Stewart shared with Smith the habit of almost total lack of significant documentation, we do not know where he read d’Alembert’s reference to Montucla, but it obviously could not have been in the first (1751) edition of the Encyclopédie, which we know to have been in Smith’s hands before 1755.

  Although we can beyond all reasonable doubt reject any charge of plagiarism, there is nevertheless one feature in Smith’s appreciation of the Encyclopédie that must strike us as rather odd: in acclaiming the outstanding quality of d’Alembert’s contributions he makes no mention of the strong affinity between the latter’s views on the nature, significance, and enlargement of ‘philosophy’ and those we believe he had already set forth in the ‘historical’ essays. Smith’s review of the Encyclopédie was part of the evidence he submitted to the ‘Authors’ of the newly founded Edinburgh Review in support of the proposal that they should enlarge the scope of their Review to include not only English but also European letters. Is it not a matter for some surprise that a young man, little more than thirty, recently established as the leading philosophical teacher in a small but ancient university, should not in such circumstances have at least briefly impressed upon the Review the universal significance of the Discours préliminaire? D’Alembert, though only six years older than Smith, was already accepted as one of the most brilliant analytical and comprehensive of European minds: a mathematician of the first rank, who appreciated both the power of mathematics and its limitations as a mode for ‘philosophy’ in general, and whose concern for this ‘philosophy’ was primarily in its significance for human welfare. The broad agreement of the views of such an authority with this ‘juvenile’ plan would, one might have supposed, have prompted Smith to a more enthusiastic welcome to the Discours than that ‘Mr. Alembert gives an account of the connection of the different arts and sciences, their genealogy and filiation, as he calls it; which, a few alterations and corrections excepted, is nearly the same with that of my Lord Bacon’ (Letter, §6). It is perhaps necessary to emphasize that the ‘broad agreement’ in the views of Smith and d’Alembert was mainly (as noted above) in respect of their approach. A review of the details of their argument would here be out of place; but one especially marked difference in their emphasis may be the clue to the puzzle: it is that whereas Smith sets so much store on ‘wonder’ and ‘surprise’ (below, 13–14), d’Alembert, following Bacon, stresses the greater significance of ‘need and use’ in discovery—a position that the author of the Wealth of Nations as dogmatically rejects (Astronomy, III.3). Could it have been that the ‘juvenile’ author of the Essays on Philosophical Subjects held his horses in the hope that an opportunity would later present itself for the systematic refutation of a theory whose wrong–headedness he evidently deplored?

  Though this account of the circumstances of time, place, and purpose of the composition of the EPS has been if not wholly negative at least mainly ‘conjectural’, it may have given some insight into the nature of the undertaking and the reason for its continued interest to scholars. Reference to d’Alembert’s Discours has shown that Smith’s attempt at ‘conjectural history’ was no isolated phenomenon; Dugald Stewart claims that the ‘expression . . . coincides pretty nearly in its meaning with that of Natural History, as employed by Mr. Hume [i.e. The Natural History of Religion, 1757], and with what some French writers have called Histoire Raisonnée’ (Stewart, II.48). Among examples of the latter he names Montesquieu’s Esprit des lois (1748). The title of that great work is itself indicative of what many writers were doing at that time: Paul Hazard reminds us of the numerous attempts to distil the Esprit of this, that, and the other; frequently by means of a search for the origin and growth of the ‘science’ or ‘art’ concerned. The Encyclopédie was not the first to envisage this task: something of the same sort had appeared in Ephraim Chambers’s relatively concise Cyclopaedia; or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1728), but never before had it been accomplished in such a penetrating manner or on such an immense scale.

  The History of Astronomy

  The importance of this essay to modern scholars lies mainly in the preamble and the first three sections; these contain a statement and elaboration of the chief ‘principles’ that Smith believed to ‘lead and direct philosophical enquiries’. The History of Astronomy sensu stricto, that begins only in Section IV, is of interest partly as an indication of contemporary knowledge of the subject, but mainly for the incidental remarks made by the author in pursuance of his central aim. Though acceptable to a modern historian in its main lines, it contains so many errors of detail and not a few serious omissions as to be no longer more than a museum specimen of its kind. This is not to deny its high merit for an age when systematic study of the history of the sciences was in its infancy. But by 1758 a student would have been better advised to read Jean–Étienne Montucla’s Histoire des mathématiques (written incidentally in the enlightened spirit characteristic of the young Adam Smith) which by 1802 had been revised and extended by Jérôme de Lalande. The first history of astronomy still used as an important work of reference was completed by Jean–Baptiste–Joseph Delambre in 1827.

  In any attempt to assess the success of Smith’s enterprise we are met at the outset by his inconsistent and ill–defined terminology ‘philosophy is the science . . . Philosophy . . . may be regarded as one of those arts . . .’ (both in Astronomy, II.12). In fact the terms philosophy, physics, arts, sciences, and natural philosophy are used almost indiscriminately. In this of course he was not alone: Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, Introduction) speaks of ‘philosophy and the sciences’, which seems to promise a distinction more in line with modern usage; but by including Natural Religion and Criticism among the ‘sciences’ he introduced a possible source of confusion. The actual words ‘natural science’ in the sense of an ‘inquiry by reason alone into all things in the natural kingdom of God’ were first used by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan; but ‘natural philosophy’ was preferred (though not in the restricted sense still current in the Scottish universities) throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first demarcation between ‘science’ and ‘art’ is attributed by the Oxford English Dictionary to Richard Kirwan: ‘Previous to the year 1780 mineralogy tho’ tolerably understood as an art could scarcely be termed a science’ (1796). James Hutton about the same time wrote that ‘philosophy must proceed in generalising those truths which are the objects of particular sciences’. In respect of the recent blossoming of the so–called ‘social sciences’ the failure of English to distinguish the species Naturwissenschaft from the genus Wissenschaft has become even more embarrassing than heretofore.

  Had Smith consistently used ‘philosophy’ to include natural philosophy, leaving it to the context to indicate whether the general term or the specific application was concerned, there could, in relation to the period, be no quarrel. When he writes (Astronomy, IV.18) ‘Philosophers, long before the days of Hipparchus [c. 140 b.c.], seem to have abandoned the study of nature . . .’ and to have regarded ‘all mathematicians, among whom they counted astronomers’ with ‘supercilious and ignorant contempt’ his usage (whatever we may think of his judgement) was in general accord with ancient and medieval practice.

  In the Middle Ages the interpretation of ‘philosophy’ varied from one university to another. Roughly speaking when the trivium was enlarged under the term studia humanitatis (and in many cases the quadrivium, as such, disappeared in practice), ‘philosophy’ meant moral philosophy. Mathematics and astronomy, together with ‘natural philosophy’ (more often called ‘physics’), became mainly the concern of the Faculty of Medicine; this was especially the case in the Italian universities. But Smith’s judgement cited above follows a brief account of the epicyclic and eccentric systems of planetary motion by which ‘those philosophers (IV.9) imagined they could account for the apparently unequal velocities of all those bodies’. Who are ‘those philosophers’? It was, we are told, Apollonius (IV.8) who ‘invented’ the system and Hipparchus who ‘afterwards perfected’ it. Apollonius was a mathematician of the calibre of Eudoxus and Euclid; Hipparchus pioneered the branch of mathematics that came long afterwards to be known as spherical trigonometry and he was also among the greatest observers of all time. Most of the astronomical works of each were irretrievably lost; but to neither is any interest in ‘philosophy’ attributed—a fact at which Smith himself hints in another context (Astronomy, IV.25) where he speaks of ‘the philosophy of Aristotle, and the astronomy of Hipparchus’. The precise distinction made by the Greeks themselves will be cited in the Introduction to the essay on ‘The Ancient Physics’.

  It would of course be absurd to demand precisely demarcated categories which would only stifle attempts to reveal latent relationships. But that in relation to the age of Adam Smith there are traps easily fallen into is shown by a recent comment3 that Smith referred to Isaac Newton ‘as a philosopher not scientist’. From Smith’s use of the term in this context nothing can be inferred, since the word ‘scientist’ did not exist before 1839. The use of such expressions as ‘Adam Smith’s philosophy of science’ may similarly be a source of confusion; better to risk a charge of repetitiveness and pedantry than that of circularity; each reference must be explicated on its own merits.

  This caveat has an indirect bearing on the introductory sections of the Astronomy. Smith’s aim in this and the succeeding essays was to show how these histories illustrate ‘the principles which lead and direct philosophical enquiries’. Having in the first three paragraphs given the barest hint of the relevance of ‘surprise’ and ‘wonder’ to these ‘principles’ he reviews at what may seem inordinate length the influence of the sentiments of surprise and wonder on the emotions of joy, grief, panic, frenzy, etc. The modern reader, especially one unfamiliar with the pervasive significance accorded to the ‘passions’ by Smith and his contemporaries, may feel puzzled to know what all this has to do with the clearly expressed aim of the essays. Smith might have been wise to recall Bacon’s words that such observations are ‘well inquired and collected in metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent’ (Advancement of Learning II.vii.7). But after a dozen pages the rhetorical fog lifts: the ‘surprise’ excited in the observer by the motion of a piece of iron ‘without any visible impulse, in consequence of the motion of a loadstone at some little distance from it’ and the ‘wonder’ how it came to be ‘conjoined to an event with which, according to the ordinary train of things, he could have so little suspected it to have any connection’ (II.6) establish the thesis in the clearest possible manner. The further deployment of the thesis, even if unnecessarily prolonged, displays Smith’s elegant and imaginative style at its best. Had he but set his own words ‘philosophy is the science of the connecting principles of nature’ at the beginning instead of near the end, and then avoided the trap in the ill–defined term ‘philosophy’, this section might well have ranked as the most fundamental in the whole work. Though not free from confusion, the concluding pages of this section reveal in greater emphasis Smith’s ‘principles of philosophical enquiries’. Central among these is an interpretation of causal investigation as a search for a ‘bridge’; the examples here are much more convincing. The special characteristics of this ‘bridge’ or ‘chain’ are analogy to more familiar objects, coherence, and—of special significance for the modern scholar—‘without regarding their absurdity or probability, their agreement or inconsistency with truth and reality’ (II.12). This remarkable passage is our justification for caution in speaking about what has been called ‘Smith’s philosophy of science’. For Smith himself who, as we have seen, defines ‘philosophy’ as ‘the science of the connecting principles of nature’ the term could have no clear connotation; nor could it for anyone until the term ‘science’ was restricted to what Smith is here calling ‘philosophy’. There is still no general agreement as to the range of the ‘philosophy of science’; but that it is essentially meta–science, or talk about science, would probably not be contested. Of this there could not in Smith’s time be any explicit recognition. No doubt the study of his enterprise will shed light on the nature of the problems to be talked about; but in respect of its ‘systems’ his inquiry was less about their truth than about ‘how far each of them was fitted to sooth(e) the imagination, and to render the theatre of nature a more coherent, and therefore a more magnificent spectacle, than otherwise it would have appeared to be’ (ibid.). This has certainly a modern ring about it; but a modern ‘philosophy of science’ that thus ignored the problem of truth would get rather a cold reception. It is thus less the philosophy of science than the history of the idea of the ‘philosophy of science’ that Smith’s enterprise is likely to illuminate.4

  The dubious historiography and scrappy exposition of Section III—‘Of the Origin of Philosophy’—are characteristic of the ‘Age of Reason’: imaginative liveliness creates a colourful stage upon which the drama of Western culture is to take its rise. Regrettably ‘imagination’5 aided and abetted but not controlled by ‘reason’ takes command; and what was in the circumstances inevitably no more than a ‘likely story’ is presented with a degree of naïve dogmatism and assurance that would be beguiling if it had not engendered distorted attitudes in the long shadows of which we are still living. The danger of ‘conjectural history’ is thus made only too plain; justification of this rather critical assessment may most suitably wait on textual commentary.

  In Section IV we are plunged rather abruptly into ‘The History of Astronomy’ proper: abruptly, since Smith has already stated that it is from Plato and Aristotle that he will ‘begin to give her history in any detail’. The highly complex and mathematically beautiful system of Eudoxus is thus made to appear fully formed like Pallas from the head of Zeus. For his purpose Smith is perhaps justified in thus proceeding; but not to emphasize the extreme unlikelihood of such a creation without a long preparation of accurate observation and critical correlation is to risk begging the whole question of the genesis of philosophical inquiry. Once launched, however, on the exposition of the ‘first regular system of Astronomy’ (Astronomy, IV.4) he moves, not indeed with complete mastery, but with a remarkable degree of precision and understanding. Since among the readers of this edition there may be some wholly unfamiliar with the rationale of this system it may be as well to give a necessarily somewhat simplified but also more concise account of it than Smith provides; to facilitate cross–reference this will be set out in a somewhat schematic form.

  The celestial phenomena (appearances) were either relatively transitory (e.g. meteors) or eternal; comets, remaining visible for months, were the subjects of some controversy.

  The ‘eternal’ bodies, with seven notable exceptions, were fixed in space relative to each other. The exceptions—Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn (to give them their Latinized names)—were all called ‘planets’ or ‘wandering stars’, since their positions varied continuously both with respect to each other and to the pattern of the ‘fixed’ stars.

  All the visible objects were seen to move in circles round the Earth in a time constituting a ‘day’. The various minor discrepancies among the planets were accounted for by assuming additional circular motions superimposed upon the uniform daily rotation. The ‘fixed’ stars were thus regarded as being carried round by the rotation of the ‘celestial sphere’ whose axis, since many of them periodically ‘rose’ in the east and ‘set’ in the west, was held to be variously inclined to the surface of the Earth. Contrary to the belief still held in some quarters, the ‘flat Earth’ had been generally abandoned about a century earlier, and, though reintroduced to conform to biblical cosmology, was probably never again seriously considered among men having any pretension to astronomical knowledge.

  Since the Sun and Moon are seen to make a circuit of the stellar sphere once in roughly 365 and 29 days respectively, the motion of each was regarded as being compounded of that of the stellar sphere and that of a second sphere whose axis was inclined to that of the steller; in the case of the Sun the ‘equator’ of the second sphere was called the ‘ecliptic’, and the latter’s ‘obliquity’ represents the observed progressive changes in the Sun’s altitude in the course of the year. A third sphere had to be added to account for a further minor irregularity in the observed motion. The Moon’s observed motion resisted any adequate representation; it was one of the few problems that gave Newton a headache 2,000 years later.

  The motions of the remaining ‘planets’ were partially accounted for by supposing them to share the daily and (approximate) annual motion of the Sun’s two spheres—the third was peculiar to the Sun. But these five bodies—and very obviously those that were believed to be always further from the Earth than is the Sun—possessed a characteristic irregularity of apparently coming to a halt, and then roughly retracing their paths to a second point before once more proceeding in the general direction. These meaningless ‘stations’ and ‘retrogradations’ of each of these planets were ‘saved’ by the ingenious device of ‘fixing’ each planet on a sphere, the poles of whose axis were also ‘fixed’ on the surface of the surrounding sphere to whose axis their axes were inclined; and at the same time supposing them to rotate in the opposite sense, each at a characteristic rate different from that of the surrounding sphere. The process could be repeated, and the inclinations and relative rates of rotation varied, to give the closest possible approximation to the ‘appearances’.

  All this is set out by Smith with only relatively minor historical inaccuracies; but he does not here make clear that the ‘constant and equable motions’ reported by reliable commentators to have been demanded by Plato were in fact uniform angular motion in perfectly circular paths. Nor, though he has his own view as to the human urge to see coherence and a continuous chain in natural phenomena, does he comment on Plato’s postulates in flat opposition to the evidence of the senses, except in respect of the daily revolution. Plato discussed these questions in several dialogues, and his final ‘vision’ of the cosmos (if he did in fact ever arrive at one) is still a matter of controversy. But his guiding principle, from which he made no fundamental departure, was that the ‘visible’ heavens have the same relation to ‘things divine’ as they really exist as do geometrical figures to those ‘truths of reason’ that they are made to represent.

  In proceeding from the concentric systems of Eudoxus to the excentric (and epicyclic) systems that permanently superseded it among the Greeks, Smith missed two points of fundamental importance to his ‘principles that lead and direct’ philosophical investigation. The first was that Aristotle’s addition of twenty–two spheres had nothing to do with the ‘insufficiency’ of the spheres to represent the motions; the reason was what we should call a philosophical demand for a physical coherence: the additional spheres were so intercalated as to prevent the characteristic motion of each of the planets from being transmitted to the remainder. Another serious physical discrepancy apparently first observed by Autolycus of Pitane but not by Aristotle, was the fact that no system of spheres concentric with the Earth could conceivably account for the marked changes in the apparent size of e.g. Mars and Venus, implying variation in their distances from the Earth. The contrast between ‘astronomy’ and ‘physics’ sketched by Aristotle, well known to the Middle Ages and Renaissance through the Commentaries of Simplicius, but apparently lost sight of later until stressed by Paul Duhem in his Σώζειν τὰ φαινόμενα, will be discussed more at large in the Introduction to the Ancient Physics.

  The first step towards the epicyclic (and incidentally towards the Copernican) theory of planetary motion was taken by Heracleides of Pontus, who, noting the fact that neither Mercury nor Venus is ever seen far from the Sun as the latter makes its annual circuit of the heavens, put forward the hypothesis that the circular paths of the former bodies were centred at the Sun, not the Earth. A century later, when Alexandria had replaced Athens as the centre of ‘Greek’ culture, this hypothesis was extended by Aristarchus of Samos to include all the planets, of which he regarded the Earth instead of the Sun to be one. This revolutionary hypothesis, in which the diurnal rotation of the Earth (already assumed by Heracleides) was also adopted, was summarily rejected by his contemporaries. Nevertheless, since their imaginative leaps achieved the essential basis of that of Copernicus, the omission by Smith of any mention of these two men is quite unaccountable.

  Though no motion of the Earth was acceptable to astronomers until the time of Copernicus, and even then but tardily, the concept of epicyclic motion (i.e. the circular motion of a body about another body itself describing a circle about a third) rapidly achieved a dominating influence and received a definitive form in the Almagest of Ptolemy (c.a.d. 150). Stripped down to the barest essentials this system was based on the following postulates:

  • (i) The Earth is the ‘centre’ of the world.
  • (ii) The Sun moves at a uniform rate on a circle (the ‘eccentric’) whose centre is somewhat distant from the Earth.
  • (iii) The remaining planets (except the Moon) move on circles (epicycles) whose centres move on larger circles (‘deferents’) centred at the eccentric; but the planets themselves are represented as moving at a uniform rate round a separate point (‘equant’) on the side of the eccentric remote from the Earth.
  • (iv) The Moon’s motion is especially anomalous.

  The eccentric and epicycle had been elaborated by earlier astronomers, notably Hipparchus (c. 170 b.c.), but the equant point, concerned not with the shape but with the rate of planetary movement, was the creation of Ptolemy himself. Since their concern was to provide a mathematical model for forecasting celestial events, the Alexandrian (Hellenistic) astronomers took no account of the existence of ‘spheres’. The later Islamic astronomers, strongly influenced by Aristotelian and later ‘physics’, devised means of harmonizing epicyclic and eccentric motion with concentric celestial spheres. This mode of thought achieved its ultimate refinement in the theory of Georg (of) Peurbach. The so–called ‘Copernican Revolution’ was in fact a retrogression to ‘ancient’ principles buttressed by superior mathematical technique and the less ‘parochial’ world–view characteristic of the Renaissance. Far from being technically ‘modern’, the system of Copernicus was in some respects retrograde in the pejorative sense; this judgement does not detract from the dedication and intellectual courage of the man himself.

  By one of those paradoxes that the history of science displays from time to time, Tycho Brahe, ‘the great restorer of the science of the heavens’ as Smith describes him, spent his life and fortune (aided by royal patronage on a lavish scale) in assembling the data enabling Ioannes Kepler to demolish both his own extension of the system of Heracleides and the details of the Copernican system. Tycho’s model, postulating a heliocentric system of all the planets, the Sun and Moon alone describing circles about the Earth, was mathematically equivalent to that of Copernicus, at the same time avoiding any affront to the physical prejudices of the age, still predominantly Aristotelian. Endowed with a spirit in which intense religious feeling, high poetic fancy, and unswerving intellectual integrity were combined to a degree probably unsurpassed in any man before or since, Kepler made the first and final break with the Platonic postulates of ‘equable circular motion’ for celestial bodies. It is the Sun, not the Earth, around which the planets describe the only discoverable simple curve—not a circle, but an ellipse; and it is the Sun that determines, in a degree corresponding to the harmonics of the diatonic scale, the speed with which they move in the paths appointed by God. Stripped of the overtones that Kepler himself regarded as his supreme act of praise to the living God, his three6 ‘laws’ are the basis of the modern astronomy of the solar system.

  Within the limits of the available knowledge Smith’s account of the revolution in astronomical thought effected by Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler displays remarkable understanding; there is however one misleading feature in his exposition—the statements (Astronomy, IV.29,32) that the Copernican system has no need of epicycles. It is indeed true that each of these statements is made in the context of the apparent shape of the planetary motions, but not many paragraphs later it is made clear that in order to rid his system of the ‘incoherence’ of the equant point (IV.53) Copernicus had in fact been compelled to employ a number of epicycles. One of Kepler’s earliest discoveries was that the motion of the Earth demanded just such an equant point: it is of course a mathematical dodge to represent the hitherto ‘unthinkable’ fact that the planets move faster when near the Sun than when more remote. Smith’s account is further notable for having stressed the possibly decisive nature of Galileo’s telescopic observations—the ‘rough’ surface of the Moon, the satellites of Jupiter, sunspots, and the phases of Venus—all phenomena that could ‘appeal to a wide audience’, thus enlisting a wider support for the Copernican hypothesis than Copernicus’s own dry mathematical exposition would have done. Smith’s claim that the latter ‘was adopted . . . by astronomers only’ (IV.36), though qualified on the next page, gives a misleading impression of the situation. This and some relatively minor points are more conveniently dealt with in footnotes to the text.

  The confused state of astronomy during the first half of the seventeenth century was just such as to give point to Smith’s ‘principle’ that discovery is the fruit of a search for a ‘connecting chain of intermediate objects to link together . . . discordant qualities’ (IV.60)—in this case the immensity of the celestial bodies and the hardly conceivable speeds with which they are hurled round the Sun. The ‘gap’ left in the ‘imagination’ by a purely mathematical model, however subtle and however accurately representative of the facts, received expression in the full title of Kepler’s Astronomia Nova. The ‘physical or if you will metaphysical’ element in his system was supplied by a supposed magnetic ‘radiation’ emitted by the Sun as it rotated, thus maintaining the revolutions of the planets at varying speeds. ‘That doctrine,’ wrote Smith, ‘like almost all those of the philosophy in fashion during his time, bestowed a name upon this invisible chain, called it an immaterial virtue, but afforded no determinate idea of what was its nature.’ (Astronomy, IV.60.) In an age dominated by Newton’s proper rejection of ‘occult causes’ such a reaction was inevitable. But it is not the whole story. Kepler’s ‘magnetic virtue’ was more than a name; in fact magnetism was not, in the distinction made by Newton, an ‘occult’ but a ‘manifest’ quality. The fact that it is a different ‘manifest’ quality—gravitation—that was later shown to be the controlling factor between Sun and planets does not detract from Kepler’s recognition that a ‘chain’ must exist. In his second letter to Richard Bentley, Newton emphasized that ‘the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know’. Smith and his clear–sighted contemporaries failed to realize that the greatest creative advances in the search for the ‘invisible chain’ have seldom been free from the wildest guesses.

  The ‘first who attempted to ascertain, precisely, wherein this invisible chain consisted, and to afford the imagination a train of intermediate events, . . .’ was, Smith justly states, Descartes (Astronomy, IV.61). The details of the Cartesian system fortunately do not concern us. But Smith shows remarkable sagacity in emphasizing that it was he (and not, as is still occasionally stated, Galileo) who stated three propositions that jointly imply ‘Newton’s’ First Law of Motion; that his notion of God’s conservation of the quantity of motion in the universe (IV. 61) made a notable advance towards Newton’s Second Law; and that he was ‘among the first of the moderns, who . . . took away the boundaries of the Universe’. Not surprisingly Smith nowhere shows any knowledge of the wide–ranging mathematical speculation of the fifteenth–century Cardinal Nicholas of Cues (whom Kepler called ‘divine’), nor of the limited publication of Thomas Digges’s theory of stellar distribution in depth; but his omission of any reference to the ill–supported but widely publicized ‘plurality of worlds’ affirmed by Giordano Bruno is less easy to excuse.

  His lengthy treatment of Descartes in a history of astronomy, Smith claims, is justified less by his theory of the heavens that by the time Smith was writing was almost entirely abandoned, than by his demonstration that a coherent ‘system of the world’ could be based on simple mechanical principles applicable to both celestial and terrestrial bodies. This was a radical departure from the ‘natural philosophy’ still dominant in the schools: Samuel Pepys was so ‘vexed’ to discover that his younger brother, John’s, knowledge of ‘physiques’ was based on Descartes instead of Aristotle that he decided to find out ‘what it is that he has studied since his going to the University’. So far as ‘physiques’ were concerned both Samuel and John were wasting their time; for in the same year a young sizar of Trinity College in the same university of Cambridge was also giving less than satisfaction in his undergraduate studies. But within three years he was to think of ‘extending gravity to the orbe of the Moon’. Cambridge was slow to appreciate the tremendous revolution that the young Lucasian Professor of Mathematics proceeded to hatch within its walls; but a few years after its publication (1687—under the imprimatur of Samuel Pepys P.R.S.!) the elements of Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica were being introduced to the students of the University of Edinburgh by David Gregory.

  Despite the lack of any break in the narrative, it seems most probable that it was at this point (Astronomy, IV.67) that Smith’s original manuscript ended and the remainder was added at some later date (above, 7–8).

  About Smith’s account of the Newtonian system, which, despite his doubts, stands least in need of correction at the present day, little need be said. It is clearly written and includes all the ‘verifications’ available by the middle of the eighteenth century. It is doubtful whether he had ever studied the Principia at that time. Voltaire’s Elemens de la philosophie de Neuton had been published in London by 1737, and, if this section was in fact written some years after the rest of the essay, Colin Maclaurin’s Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries would have been available to him after 1748; of course he may have been sufficiently well grounded in the qualitative aspects before leaving Glasgow. The only disconcerting feature of his account, taken as a contribution to the ‘principles of philosophical investigation’, is the facile manner in which he accepts gravitation as an adequate explanation of the mutually determined motions of the celestial bodies, simply on the grounds that it has always been ‘familiar’ to men on the Earth. Taken in conjunction with his remarks (Astronomy, IV.61) in hailing Descartes as having been the first to attempt to ‘ascertain, precisely, wherein this invisible chain consisted’, this must be regarded as a serious deficiency. It betrays a strange lack of awareness of the fact that what he saw as ‘so familiar a principle of connection, which completely removed all the difficulties the imagination had hitherto felt in attending to them [sc. planetary motions]’ (IV.67), many continental ‘philosophers’, notably Leibniz, regarded as either a miracle or a blasphemy. The root of their objections was that celestial gravitation, unlike the ‘familiar’ form, must be held to act instantaneously across immense distances. Moreover, since the planets showed no sign of slowing down as a result of external resistance, there could be no material medium to transmit the gravitational influence. Such an ‘action at a distance’ must be regarded as either an inexplicable miracle or an ‘occult’ property of matter itself. Neither ‘solution’ was acceptable: not the former, since it removed the question entirely from the realm of natural philosophy; nor the latter, since it reintroduced the ‘specific occult qualities’ postulated by the Aristotelians, which as Newton himself later remarked ‘put a stop to the improvement of natural philosophy’ (Opticks, Q.30). This fundamental dilemma, and much else of a more technical nature, was ventilated in the famous Leibniz–Clarke Correspondence first published in 1707. Newton, on whose behalf (and at the instigation of Princess Caroline) Clarke replied to Leibniz, showed his recognition of the difficulties by adding to the second edition of the Principia (1713) the famous General Scholium containing the even more famous (and misunderstood) phrase ‘Hypotheses non fingo’, and by his letters to the Master of Trinity, Richard Bentley, in one of which he explicitly denied that gravity is ‘essential and inherent to matter’. Newton was fully aware of the lack of finality in his ‘System of the World’ and returned to the question several times; but since Smith was apparently unaware of this, it would be inappropriate to enter into the inevitably long and difficult discussion here.

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

  The History of Astronomy, though naturally imperfect, was in a sense complete. After the second edition of Newton’s Principia there was no fundamental change or addition to the ‘system of the world’, that was Smith’s main concern, until long after his death. The mathematical theory was under constant refinement; and Smith shows his continuing interest in the progress of physical astronomy when in the Edinburgh Review article he refers to James Bradley’s important discovery of the aberration of light. But the titles of the two subsequent essays suggest that the restriction to the ‘ancient’ period expressed the fact that he had said all that he intended to say.

  The two essays now to be considered, though like that on the History of Astronomy both written with an eye to ‘philosophical investigation’, are in a different class from the first. The title of each reveals a subtle change of aim: the histories of these ‘sciences’ are to be restricted to their ‘ancient’ development. For this and other reasons that will appear during the discussion it is convenient to introduce them under a single heading. To a greater extent than in the ‘history’ of astronomy his account of the ‘facts’ of pre–Socratic ‘physics’ is not only without adequate historical foundation but lacks any historical coherence other than that imposed by Smith’s own ‘likely story’, namely that ‘from arranging and methodizing the System of the Heavens, Philosophy descended to the consideration of the inferior parts of Nature’ (Ancient Physics, 1). There neither is, nor ever was, as far as we know, any evidence for this order of inquiry; on the contrary, Aristotle rightly referred to his predecessors as φυσιολόγοι—those who strove to ‘account for nature’, which for them was the whole cosmos. Their speculations about the objects above the Earth in fact lacked any ‘arrangement or methodizing’: they remained crude and ill–supported by reason. The views on the ‘elements’ (ἀρχαί, Aristotle calls them), on the other hand, put forward separately by the Ionian pioneers embodied a profound insight into the problem of the relation between change and the permanent ground of being. Only later did the Italian, Empedocles, order the elements in such a manner as to make possible the even later ‘square of opposite properties’ introduced by Aristotle.

  As has been hinted already, Smith never made explicit the cardinal distinction between ‘physics’ and ‘astronomy’—a distinction that in fact ‘guided and directed philosophical enquiry’ from Aristotle onwards, and which, in somewhat altered terms, is still a living issue in the philosophy of science, notably in the interpretation of quantum mechanics. The basic formulation has never been more clearly put than by the sixth–century Neoplatonist, Simplicius, in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, and in which he claims to be quoting the actual words of Geminus summarizing the views of the Stoic Poseidonius, both of them having lived much nearer to the time of Aristotle. After a long and detailed preamble he emphasized that while ‘the physicist will in many cases, reach the cause by looking to creative force’, ‘it is no part of the business of the astronomer to know what is by nature suited to a position of rest and what sort of bodies are apt to move, but he introduces hypotheses under which some bodies remain fixed while others move, and then considers to which hypotheses the phenomena actually observed in the heaven will correspond’.7 The astronomer, in other words, is satisfied if, given certain physical postulates, such as ‘equable motion’, he can devise a mathematical scheme from which the motions of the heavenly bodies can be deduced; the question of ‘truth’ has for him, qua astronomer, no relevance. In the History of Astronomy (notably in the introductory Section II) Smith shows his appreciation of this aspect of ‘philosophical investigation’. But his failure to explicate the notion of cause, latent in the various pre–Socratic speculations and dominating Aristotle’s whole philosophy, reduces his Ancient Physics, despite its elegant and persuasive presentation of certain aspects, to a much lower level of cogency. Detailed justification for this judgement would here be out of place; suffice it to say that the reader of the text will find no hint of the pervasive notion of final causation and the grades of ‘animation’ (the Latin anima replaced ψυχή in the transmission of the Aristotelian corpus) in living beings.

  Having momentarily forgotten his most promising hypothesis that ‘philosophical enquiries’ stem from ‘surprise and wonder’ Smith opens the essay on the ‘History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics’ with a liberal application of the term ‘evident’ to assumptions that to thinkers in another tradition seem far from evident. This apart, however, he rightly insists that ‘philosophy, . . . in considering the general nature of Water, takes no notice of those particularities which are peculiar to this Water, but confines itself to those things which are common to all water’. From which it follows that ‘Species, or Universals, and not Individuals, are the objects of Philosophy’ (§ 1). In the succeeding passage, amounting to little more than twenty lines, Smith condenses all that he has to say on the relation between the ‘ancient’ sciences of ‘logics’ and ‘metaphysics’. Restricted to such a compass his account of what came to be regarded as ‘logic’ and ‘metaphysics’ might do well enough, though the exclusive emphasis on classification is hardly warranted. But viewed as a stage in the achievement of his historical aim it is quite inadequate. In claiming with some justice that these two sciences ‘seem, before the time of Aristotle, to have been regarded as one’ and, with less justice, ‘to have made up between them that ancient Dialectic of which we hear so much, and of which we understand so little’ (Ancient Logics, 1) Smith gives no hint that λογική and its derivatives covered a huge range of meaning as much to do with ‘words’ as with ‘reasoning’; nor that the term ‘metaphysics’ came only long after Aristotle’s death to refer to those of his books which embodied a consideration of ‘those causes and principles the knowledge of which constitutes Wisdom’—‘First philosophy’ as Aristotle himself described it. The throw–away comment on the ‘ancient Dialectic’ may have been prompted by Smith’s native caution: the subtle and even inconsistent use of the term by Plato and Aristotle is still the subject of scholarly debate. The inappropriateness of the remark becomes even more remarkable in the light of the following definition proposed by the Stranger from Elea: ‘Dividing according to kinds, not taking the same Form for a difference or a different one for the same—is not that the business of the science of Dialectic?’ (Plato, Sophist, 253 D.) This ‘division by kinds’ is precisely the method that Smith himself regarded as being the essence of the ‘ancient logics’ and one of which he himself makes frequent use. This account of dialectic differs from the more basic requirement stipulated by Socrates (i.e. the effort to attain truth by correction of agreed hypotheses rather than the confutation of an adversary) but is not inconsistent with it. Equally regrettable is Smith’s failure to make clear, as Aristotle had, that the pre–Socratic φυσιολόγοι (as Aristotle calls them) were asking ‘metaphysical’ questions but for the most part (Parmenides being clearly an exception) giving ‘physical’ answers.

  The part of the essay devoted to an exposition of Plato’s attitude to Nature and its relation to the general theory of ‘Ideas’, though disproportionately long, is almost the only part that carries conviction that the author had adequately prepared himself for the ambitious task he had undertaken. But even here he fails to drive home the lesson, so important for his own thesis, that what Plato was for the most part concerned with, even in the dialogue that looks like natural philosophy, the Timaeus, is perhaps not even metaphysics, but rather natural theology as it was perhaps understood in the original scheme for the Gifford Lectures. This was far from being without influence on the development of natural philosophy and subsequently of the natural sciences; but by placing ‘cause and principle’ of nature as it were outwith nature and providing only a ‘likely story’ of how it (δημιουργός) might have operated, Plato effectively closed the door on further investigation on the lines initiated by the φυσιολόγοι. Or rather he would have closed it, had not his independent–minded pupil, Aristotle, put his foot in the doorway—at least for the sublunary world!

  At this stage some readers may reasonably protest that it is an editor’s function at most to comment on the text and not to argue with its author. To leave without qualification the rather disparaging remarks which this editor has felt it necessary to make would amount to a failure to view the matter in that historical perspective for the lack of which Smith has been censured. Well versed in the classical tongues as the young Adam Smith undoubtedly was, he cannot be blamed for having failed to transcend the limitations set by the materials available to him. And these were meagre indeed, for though we may think of the eighteenth century as one in which classical scholarship was most highly appreciated and familiarity with the classical authors more widely spread than perhaps at any other time, it is apt to be forgotten that both scholarship and familiarity were almost wholly restricted to grammatical and stylistic aspects; it is probable that Smith’s contemporaries were far less conversant with the matter of the Greek classics than had been the humanists of three centuries earlier. In his valuable Greek Studies in England, 1700–1830 (1945) (which in fact includes a knowledgeable chapter on Scotland) M. L. Clarke states that ‘the undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge read only a few isolated dialogues of Plato and learned nothing of his philosophical theories’. Before 1759 there was no English translation, except of the Phaedo, to which the Scottish scholar, Spens, added the Republic only in 1763. Aristotle was in like case. Smith’s dismissal (Astronomy, III.6) of the Ionian φυσιολόγοι on the ground that the extant accounts ‘represent the doctrines of those sages as full of the most inextricable confusion’ is of a piece with Clarke’s judgment that ‘of the remarkable speculations of the pre–Socratics there was no appreciation’ (op. cit., 114); he would have had to rely upon Aristotle’s biased views put forward in the Metaphysics. In respect of ‘Logics’ he was presumably the victim of the ‘trivialization’ of Aristotle’s logic, unavoidable if it was to be taught to the lower end of the teenage stream! His point of view (putting ‘objects’ into the ‘right’ classes) seems to be based on the Topics, even perhaps mediated through Ramism; but of the structure of inference as expounded by Aristotle himself in the two Analytics he gives no hint. If this ‘conditioning’ was effected at Glasgow it would not have been unique; it is only in our time (by Jan Lukasiewicz and others) that the ‘modernity’ of Aristotle’s canon has been made generally known. Smith was also unlucky in setting forth on this immensely ambitious endeavour at a time when Giambattista Vico’s principles of critical historiography based on critical philology (Scienza Nuova, 1725–44) were still wholly unappreciated outside Italy. Nevertheless, when all allowance has been made for the handicaps under which Smith must have laboured when composing these ‘juvenile’ historical pieces, there remains an air of brashness about the two (presumably) later ones that provokes the question whether the author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations would have countenanced their publication in the form in which he had left them. It is true that as late as November 1785, in the letter (248) to Rochefoucauld referred to above, the ‘sort of Philosophical History’ he mentions as still being ‘upon the anvil’ must have been at least based on the ‘great work’ mentioned in the letter to Hume twelve years earlier. But in that letter he expressly stated that none of his papers were worth publishing except a fragment—the history of the astronomical systems—and even that one he suspected contained ‘more refinement than solidity’. How much more apposite would this judgment be of the two subsequent essays! In view of his repeated request—as he neared his end—for assurance that his papers had been destroyed, it seems more than a little doubtful whether his editors were not doing his memory a disservice in making public these two essays without a more extensive caveat than the rather fulsome and misleading last sentence of their Advertisement.

  Bibliographical Note

  The survey on which this Note has been based was restricted to the following institutions: British Library (BL), National Library of Scotland (NLS), Bodleian (O), Cambridge University (C), Trinity College, Dublin (D), and the four Scottish universities existing before the recent expansion: St. Andrews (StA), Glasgow (G), Aberdeen (A—see, however, No. 6 below), Edinburgh (E). Eight editions prior to 1900 have been established, at least one copy of each having been examined. Only NLS has a copy of every edition, two of these being accessions from the library of Lauriston Castle near Edinburgh. Thanks are due to members of the library staff at NLS, C, StA, and D for information about their holdings.

  The full title–page of the First Edition is provided together with brief descriptions of the remaining editions. Only ‘sample’ collations have been carried out; no substantial differences in the texts have been discovered.

  • 1. London 1795 4to. First edition. BL, NLS, O, C. StA, G, A, E.
  • 2. Dublin 1795 8vo. Some spelling mistakes have been corrected. BL, NLS, O, C, D. Mr. M. Pollard of Trinity College Library states that the copy of this edition was purchased only in 1962; it contains the bookplate of Eliz. Anne Levinge with the signature ‘Elizth. Anne Parkyns 1808’ on the title–page. Mr. Pollard emphasizes that reprint by Dublin printers was perfectly legal provided that the books were not offered for sale in England.
  • 3. Essais philosophiques; par feu ADAM SMITH, Docteur en droit, de la société royale de Londres, de celle d’Edimbourg, etc. etc. Précédés d’un précis de sa vie et de ses écrits; Par DUGALD STEWART, de la société royale d’Edimbourg. Traduits de l’anglais par P. Prevost, professeur de philosophie à Genève de l’académie de Berlin, de la société des Curieux de la Nature, et de la société royale d’Edimbourg. PREMIERE PARTIE. A Paris, Chez H. AGASSE, imprimeur–librairie, rue des Poitevins, no^o 18. An V de la République (1797, vieux style.) Fine portrait bust of Adam Smith (‘B.L. Prevost sculp.’) opposite title–page.Of this, in some respects the most adequate, edition a rather fuller description seems to be justified. It is unique among editions before 1900 in containing Adam Smith’s long letter to the Edinburgh Review (1756), here in French translation, numerous notes of varying lengths by the translator and mainly relating to the later essays, also a fairly detailed Table of Contents of the whole, the Seconde Partie of which is separately signed and paged. The Notes are described (presumably by the publisher) as ‘très intéressantes’ (ii.316). Of special interest is the translator’s statement (i.277) that the note on Halley’s comet is de ‘l’editeur anglais’ (sic). BL, NLS.
  • 4. Basel 1799 8vo. Essays on Philosophical Subjects by the late ADAM SMITH LL.D. . . . To which is affixed an account of the Life and Writings of the Author by DUGALD STEWART F.R.S.E. Basil: printed for the Editor of the Collection of English Classics sold by James Decker, Printer and Bookseller 1799. BL, NLS.The only point of interest in this edition is the omission of any reference to the original editors, Joseph Black and James Hutton.
  • 5. Volume v of Adam Smith’s Works edited by Dugald Stewart and dated 1811 (as is vol. iv, vols. i–iii being 1812). Vol. v also contains the essay entitled Considerations concerning the first Formation of Languages. BL, NLS, O.
  • 6. Essays on Philosophical Subjects by Adam Smith LL.D., F.R.S. etc. London 1822. A new edition. This apparently very rare edition was printed (title–page verso) by A. Allardice, Leith, for Allardice, Edinburgh; R. Griffin, Glasgow; and several London houses. The copy examined is inscribed ‘Biblioth. Classis Physicae in Acad. Mariscallana’ and stamped ‘Nat. Phil. Clas. Library 1860 University of Aberdeen’, i.e. on the union of King’s and Marischal Colleges, previously separate universities. NLS. A.
  • 7. London 1869 8vo. Essays. The volume is in fact a reprint of both TMS (followed, as usual, by Languages) and EPS. The ‘Biographical Notice’ is drastically abridged. BL, O, C, StA.
  • 8. London 1880 8vo. Essays Philosophical and Literary. Stated in BL catalogue to be a ‘duplicate’ of No. 7. BL, NLS, O, C, StA.
  • 9. The Essays are included in The Early Writings of Adam Smith edited by J. R. Lindgren (Augustus M. Kelley, New York 1967). This edition includes the Edinburgh Review articles, the Preface to William Hamilton’s Poems on Several Occasions (1748), and the Languages. It is not introduced or annotated.

  Note on the Text

  The present volume follows the text of the first edition (published by Cadell and Davies in 1795, five years after Smith’s death), but with printer’s errors corrected. Since the essay is designed to illustrate ‘the principles which lead and direct philosophical enquiries’ rather than to provide a history of astronomy per se, no attempt has been made to achieve that completeness of documentation which would be appropriate in a definitive classic.

  the PRINCIPLES which lead and direct PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRIES;
  illustrated by the HISTORY of ASTRONOMY

  ADVERTISEMENT By the EDITORS

  The much lamented Author of these Essays left them in the hands of his friends to be disposed of as they thought proper, having immediately before his death destroyed many other manuscripts which he thought unfit for being made public.1 When these were inspected, the greater number of them appeared to be parts of a plan he once had formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts. It is long since he found it necessary to abandon that plan as far too extensive; and these parts of it lay beside him neglected until his death. His friends are persuaded however, that the reader will find in them that happy connection, that full and accurate expression, and that clear illustration which are conspicuous in the rest of his works; and that though it is difficult to add much to the great fame he so justly acquired by his other writings, these will be read with satisfaction and pleasure.

  JOSEPH BLACK

  JAMES HUTTON

  [1 ]Rae, Life, 44, states that before the middle of November [1751] he [Smith] and Cullen were ‘already deeply immersed in quite a number of little schemes for the equipment of the College’ [Glasgow].

  [2 ]That Smith himself was far from being consistent in referring to his literary achievements and aims will appear in connection with the dating of the Imitative Arts (172 below).

  [3 ]H. F. Thomson, ‘Adam Smith’s Philosophy of Science’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, lxxix (1965), 218.

  [4 ]For a further elaboration, see the present writer’s ‘Adam Smith and the History of Ideas’ in Essays on Adam Smith. The essay was designed to be read in conjunction with this introduction.

  [5 ]On Smith’s attitude to the ‘faculty’ of imagination see below, 20.

  [6 ]Really four: the first, the demonstration that the planets’ orbits, including the Earth’s, are coplanar with the Sun is unaccountably omitted from the ‘text–books’. Kepler himself never set out the laws in any systematic form.

  [7 ]Quoted from T. Heath, Greek Astronomy (1932), 124–5.

  [1 ]Details of the executry are given in Stewart, V.8 and note; Rae, Life, chap. 32.

• Back to Top

  5: Glasgow Editors’ Introduction to Rhetoric & Belles Lettres

  Adam Smith, Lectures On Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, ed. J. C. Bryce, vol. IV of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985). Chapter: Introduction

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/202/55500 on 2009-10-16

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

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

  ---

  Introduction

  1.

  The Manuscript

  In The Scotsman newspaper of 1 and 2 November 1961 John M. Lothian, Reader (later titular Professor) in English in the University of Aberdeen announced his discovery and purchase, at the sale of an Aberdeenshire manor–house library in the late summer of 1958, of two volumes of manuscript ‘Notes of Dr. Smith’s Rhetorick Lectures’. They had been part of the remainder of a once extensive collection begun in the sixteenth century by William Forbes of Tolquhoun Castle, and in the late eighteenth century the property of the Forbes–Leith family of Whitehaugh, an estate brought to the Forbeses by the marriage of Anne Leith. In September 1963 Lothian published an edition of the notes as Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres Delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith, Reported by a Student in 1762–63 (Nelson).

  Identification of the lecturer was easy. It had always been known that Smith gave lectures on rhetoric; his manuscript of these (Stewart, I. 17) was among those destroyed in the week before his death in obedience to the strict instructions he had given, first to Hume in 1773, then in 1787 to his literary executors Joseph Black and James Hutton. Lecture 3 of the discovered report is a shortened version of the essay on the First Formation of Languages published by Smith in 1761. Further, Lothian found later in the 1958 sale volumes 2–6 of manuscript notes of lectures on Jurisprudence, and though they bore no name they turned out to be a more elaborate version of the lectures by Smith reported in notes discovered in 1876 and published by Edwin Cannan in 1896. A search in Aberdeen junk–shops was rewarded, thanks to the extraordinary serendipity which Lothian’s friends always envied him, by the finding of the missing volume 1. These volumes have the same format and paper as the Rhetoric and the same hand as its main text.

  When the Whitehaugh family acquired these manuscripts is not known. Absence of mention of them in three successive catalogues of the collection now in Aberdeen University Library has probably no significance; these are lists of printed books. No link between the Forbes–Leiths and the University of Glasgow has come to light. The most probable one is that at some point they engaged as a private tutor a youth who had been one of Adam Smith’s students and who knew that he would endear himself to his notably bookish employers by bringing them this otherwise unavailable work by a philosopher already enjoying an international reputation as the author of the Moral Sentiments. Such private tutorships were among the most usual first employments of products of the Scottish universities in the eighteenth century; and of Smith himself we learn from the obituary notice in the Gentleman’s Magazine of August 1790 (lx. 761) that ‘his friends wished to send him abroad as a travelling tutor’ when he came down from Oxford in 1746 after six years as Snell Exhibitioner at Balliol—though WN V. f. i 45 suggests that even after his happy travels with the young Duke of Buccleuch in 1764–66 he had doubts about the value of such posts. Still, both his successors in the Chair of Logic at Glasgow had held them. Of course the discovery of a Whitehaugh tutor among the graduates of, say, 1763–64 would not necessarily bring us nearer to identifying the note–taker, who may have been another student. Such notes circulated very widely at the time. Indeed, given the celebrity of this lecturer it is surprising that the Rhetoric should have turned up so far in only one version. The attempt to match the handwriting of the manuscript with a signature in the Matriculation Album of the relevant period has been thwarted by the depressing uniformity of these signatures; entrants were calligraphically on their best behaviour.

  In the matter of provenance an interesting possibility is opened up by a letter from John Forbes–Leith to James Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen in 1779 about his family’s library (JML xi, quoting Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland LXXII, 1938, 252). The Rhetoric is not mentioned, but its subjectmatter lay so much in Beattie’s field of interest that one is tempted to wonder whether he was in some way instrumental in acquiring the manuscript. A similar possibility is that Smith’s successor as Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1764, Thomas Reid, who maintained his contacts with friends in Aberdeen long after his move to Glasgow, may have obtained the notes and handed them on to Whitehaugh. Reid is known to have been anxious to see notes of his predecessor’s lectures: ‘I shall be much obliged to any of you Gentlemen or to any other, who can furnish me with Notes of his Prelections whether in Morals, Jurisprudence, Police, or in Rhetorick’—so he said in his Inaugural Lecture on 10 October 1764 as preserved in Birkwood MS 2131/4/II in Aberdeen University Library.

  The manuscript of the Rhetoric, now Glasgow University Library MS Gen. 95. 1 and 2, is bound in half–calf (i.e. with leather tips) and marbled boards. In the top three of the six panels of the spine is incised blind in cursive: ‘Notes of Dr. Smith’s Rhetorick Lectures: Vol. 1st.’ and ‘. . . Vol. 2nd’. The pages are not numbered; the present edition supplies numbering in the margin. The gatherings, normally of four leaves each, have been numbered on the top left corner of each first page, apparently in the same (varying) ink as the text at that point. Volume 1 has 51 gatherings, of which the 14th is a bifolium, here given the page–numbers 52a, v.52a, 53b, v.53b, to indicate that it is an insertion. Volume 2 consists of gatherings 52–114; 94 has six leaves; and 74 has a bifolium of different paper stuck in loosely between the first and second leaves with no break in the continuity of the text, and a partially erased ‘My Dear Dory’ written vertically on the inner left page, i.e. ii. v. 90 under the note about Sancho Panca. The pages measure 195 × 118 mm, but gatherings 1–4 only 168 × 106 mm (of stouter paper than the rest), and 5–15 185 × 115 mm. The watermark is LVG accompanied by a crown of varying size and a loop below it, and in some of the gatherings GR under the crown. This is the L. V. Gerrevink paper commonly used throughout much of the eighteenth century. The chain lines are vertical in all gatherings. The first page of each of the earlier gatherings is much faded, as though having lain exposed for a time before the binding was done.

  Three hands, here designated A, B, and C, can be distinguished. Hand C, using a dark ink, appears in only a few places in the earlier pages, and may be that of a later owner of the manuscript: sometimes merely touching up faded letters. An appreciation of the nature and authority of the notes depends on an understanding of the activities of scribes A and B, who (especially A) were responsible for transcribing them from the jottings made in class. The scribal habits, of which the textual apparatus will furnish the evidence, rule out the possibility that the pages we have were written while the students listened.

  There is an apparent contradiction between two reports of Adam Smith’s attitude to note–taking. According to his student John Millar, later Professor of Law: ‘From the permission given to students of taking notes, many observations and opinions contained in these lectures (on rhetoric) have either been detailed in separate dissertations, or engrossed in general collections, which have since been given to the public’ (Stewart I. 17). The Gentleman’s Magazine obituary (lx. 762) records that ‘the Doctor was in general extremely jealous of the property of his lectures . . . and, fearful lest they should be transcribed and published, used often to repeat, when he saw any one taking notes, that “he hated scribblers”.’ The paradox is resolved if we remember the advice given by Thomas Reid, and by many a university teacher before and since, that those who write most in class understand least, ‘but those who write at home after carefull recollection, understand most, and write to the best Purpose’, and that this reflective reconstruction of what has been heard is precisely what a philosophical discourse requires (Birkwood MS 2131/8/III). The general success with which our scribes grasped the structure and tenor of Smith’s course, as well as much of the detail, exemplifies what Reid had in mind. Even the exasperated admissions of failure—‘I could almost say damn it’, ‘Not a word more can I remember’ (ii. 38, 44)—confirm the method by which they are working. In some cases the scribe begins his transcription with a heading which will recall the occasion as well as the matter, as when he notes that Smith delivered Lectures 21 and 24 ‘without Book’ or ‘sine Libro’; and he is careful to give Lecture 12, the hinge between the two halves of the course, the title ‘Of Composition’ because it begins the discussion of the various species of writing.

  Our manuscript is the result of a continuous collaboration between two students intent on making the notes as full and accurate a record of Smith’s words as their combined resources can produce. The many slips and gaps which remain should not blind us to the great pains taken. Working from fairly full jottings, Scribe A writes the basic text on the recto pages (except, oddly, i. 18–68 when he uses the verso pages), and thereafter two kinds of revision take place. He corrects and expands the text, writing the revision above the line when only a word or two are involved. Unfortunately the additions of this kind are far too numerous to be specially signalized without overburdening the textual apparatus, and they have been silently incorporated in the text. In any case it is impossible to distinguish those added currente calamo from those added later, except of course where the interlined words replace a deletion (and these are always noted here). When the addition is too lengthy to be inserted between lines, Scribe A writes them on the facing page (i.e. a verso page, except at i. 18–68) at the appropriate point, and often keys them in with x or some other symbol. All such additions on the facing page are, in this edition, enclosed in brace brackets { }. Scribe A’s sources for his additional materials no doubt varied; some of it was certainly ‘recollected in tranquillity’ as Reid would have recommended; some of it such a tirelessly conscientious student would acquire by consultation with a fellow–student, or perhaps one of the sets of notes in circulation from a previous year. There is reason to think that some of the material had simply been inadvertently omitted at the first transcription.

  The second revision, much less extensive but very useful, is Scribe B’s. Apart from a few corrections of A’s words, B makes two sorts of contribution. He fills in a good many of the blanks clearly left by A with this in view—alas, not enough, though he is obviously in many ways better informed than A. This comes out also in the sometimes substantial notes he writes on the verso page facing A’s text, with supplementary illustration and explanation of the points there treated. These are enclosed in { }, with a footnote assigning them to Hand B. They raise the same question of source as A’s notes. From the fact that B never himself deletes or alters what he has written and generally arranges his lines so as to end exactly within a certain space, e.g. opposite the end of a lecture (i. v. 116; ii. v. 18), we may deduce that he is working from a tidy original or fair copy: another set of notes? The order in which A and B wrote their inserted matter varied: at i. 46 A’s note is squeezed into space left by B’s, and similarly at ii. v. 30 and elsewhere: but normally B’s notes are clearly later than A’s, as at i. v. 146, and at ii. v. 101 B’s note is squeezed between two of A’s although the second of these was written (in different ink) later than the first.

  There is a noticeable falling–off in verso–page notes from about Lecture 16 onwards: inexplicable, unless Scribe A was becoming more adept in transcription. Certainly the report of the last lecture is much the longest of them all, but Smith probably, like most lecturers, used more than the hour this time in order to finish his course. Scribe A relieved the tedium of transcription by occasional lightheartedness. There is the doodled caricature of a face (meant to resemble Smith’s?) ‘This is a picture of uncertainty’, at ii. 67: at ii. 166 ‘WFL’, i.e. ‘wait for laugh’, is inserted then deleted; at ii. 224 the habitual spelling ‘tho’ is for once expanded by the addition of ‘ugh’ below the line. Of special interest is the added note at i. 196 recording the witticism of ‘Mr Herbert’ about Adam Smith’s notorious absent–mindedness. The joke about Smith must have been made just after the lecture and the note added shortly after the transcription in this case.

  Henry Herbert (1741–1811), later Baron Porchester and Earl of Carnarvon, was a gentleman–boarder in Smith’s house throughout the session 1762–3. On 22 February 1763 Smith wrote to Hume introducing him as ‘very well acquainted with your works’ and anxious to meet Hume in Edinburgh (Letter 70). Hume (71) found him ‘a very promising young man’, but refers to him on 13 September 1763 (75) as ‘that severe Critic, Mr Herbert’. There is a letter from Herbert to Smith (74) dated 11 September 1763.

  To suggest that Herbert may have been the source of at least some of the additional notes would be an unwarranted use of Occam’s razor. No one enjoying this degree of familiarity with the lecturer and consulting him on the content of the lectures would have left so many blanks unfilled; and Smith would certainly not knowingly have helped to compile notes of his talks. It is also worth noting that the Rhetoric lectures, unlike those on Jurisprudence etc. (see LJ 14–15), were not followed by an ‘examination’ hour in which additional points might be picked up.

  The well–marked scribal habits of Scribe A point to his having suffered from a defect of eyesight, some sort of stenopia or tunnelvision. He is prone to various forms of haplography, omission of a word or syllable which resembled its predecessor: ‘if I may so’ (say omitted), ‘coing’ (coining), ‘possed’ (possessed). He writes ‘on the hand’, adds r to the, and imagines he has written ‘other’. Angle brackets < > have been used for omissions here supplied. There are frequent repetitions of word or phrase; these have been enclosed in square brackets [ ]. There are innumerable instances of anticipation of words or phrases lying ahead: most of these have been corrected by the scribe when his eye returns to his original jottings. In one case he anticipates a phrase from the beginning of the following lecture (i. 116, 117), showing that on this occasion he had allowed a weekend to pass before transcribing Lectures 8 and 9—Friday and Monday, 3 and 6 December. He often tries to hold in his mind too long a passage, writing words that convey the sense and having to change them, when on going back to his jottings he finds the proper words. He starts to write ‘object’ and has to change it to ‘design’. Most of the many overwritten words in the manuscript are examples of this, and unfortunately it is seldom possible to decipher the original word; where it is, it has been noted. The scribe’s memory of the drift of Smith’s meaning no doubt played a part; but here as elsewhere he is eager to record the master’s ipsissima verba. He frequently reverses the order of words and phrases and restores the proper order by writing numbers above them.

  The aim of the present edition has been to allow the reader to judge for himself the nature of the manuscript by presenting it as fully as print will allow; but in the interests of legibility several compromises have been made. Where the punctuation is erratic or accidental it has been normalized: e.g. commas separating subject from verb, ‘is’ from its complement, a conjunction from its clause, and the like. The original paragraphing has been retained where it clearly exists and is intended. Not all initial capitals have been retained. The scribe usually employs them for emphasis or to convey an impression of a technical or special use of a word; but in ‘Some’, ‘Same’, ‘Such’, ‘with Regard to’, ‘in Respect to’, ‘for my Part’, ‘for this Reason’, etc., the capital has been ignored. Frequently used abbreviations have been silently expanded: such are y^s (this), y^m (them), y^r (their), yⁿ (than), y^se (those), nëyr (neither), oy^r (other), Bröy^r (Brother), p̈t (part), ag̈st (against), figs (figures), dïs (divisions), nom̈ve (nominative), and others of similar type. It has not been possible to record the many changes of ink, pen, and style of writing (from copperplate to hurried), though these are no doubt indicative of the circumstances in which Scribe A was working. The misnumbering of Lecture 5 onwards has been corrected, and noted.

  To sum up the textual notation used:

  { }	notes on page facing main text—‘Hand B’ if relevant
  < >	omissions supplied conjecturally
  [ ]	erroneous repetitions
  deleted	deleted words not replaced above line
  replaces:	words corrected in line above a deletion
  changed from:	original word decipherable beneath over–writing
  superscript indicators:	normally refer to the preceding word or words, to which reference is made.

  2.

  The Lectures

  The notes we have date from what was apparently the fifteenth winter in which Adam Smith lectured on rhetoric. Disappointed of a travelling tutorship on coming down from Balliol, and after two years at home in Kirkcaldy in 1746–8, he ‘opened a class for teaching rhetorick at Edinburgh’, as the obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine (Aug. 1790, lx. 762) puts it; and it goes on to remark on an advantage enjoyed by Smith and frequently to be noticed in later years: ‘His pronunciation and his style were much superior to what could, at that time, be acquired in Scotland only’. The superiority was often (as by Sir James Mackintosh in introducing the second edition of the 1755–6 Edinburgh Review in 1818) ascribed to the influence of the speech of his Glasgow Professor Francis Hutcheson, as well as to his six Oxford years. His awareness of language as an activity had certainly been sharpened by both experiences of different modes—differences so often embarrassing to his fellow–countrymen, speakers and writers alike, in the mid–century. The Edinburgh Review no. 1 named as one of the obstacles to the progress of science in Scotland ‘the difficulty of a proper expression in a country where there is no standard of language, or at least one very remote’ (EPS 229); and two years later, on 2 July 1757, Hume observes in a letter to Gilbert Elliott of Minto (Letter 135, ed. J. Y. T. Greig, 1932) that we ‘are unhappy, in our Accent and Pronunciation, speak a very corrupt Dialect of the Tongue which we make use of’. The background of desire for ‘self–improvement’ and the part played by the many societies in Edinburgh and elsewhere are described in JML xxiii–xxxix, and D. D. McElroy, Scotland’s Age of Improvement (1969). Smith ‘teaching rhetorick’ in 1748 was the right man at the right moment.

  In the absence of advertisement or notice of the lectures in the Scots Magazine (these would have been unusual at this time: not so ten years later) we do not know exact dates; but A. F. Tytler in his Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames, containing sketches of the Progress of Literature and General Improvement in Scotland during the greater part of the eighteenth century (1807: i. 190) gives this account:

  It was by his [sc. Kames’s] persuasion and encouragement, that Mr Adam Smith, soon after his return from Oxford, and when he had abandoned all views towards the Church, for which he had been originally destined, was induced to turn his early studies to the benefit of the public, by reading a course of Lectures on Rhetoric and the Belles Lettres. He delivered those lectures at Edinburgh in 1748, and the two following years, to a respectable auditory, chiefly composed of students in law and theology; till called to Glasgow. . . .

  The ‘auditory’ included Alexander Wedderburn (who edited The Edinburgh Review 1755–6), William Johnston (who became Sir William Pulteney), James Oswald of Dunnikeir (a boyhood friend of Smith’s from Kirkcaldy), John Millar, Hugh Blair, ‘and others, who made a distinguished figure both in the department of literature and in public life’. When on 10 January 1751 Smith wrote (Letter 8) to the Clerk of Senate at Glasgow accepting appointment to the Chair of Logic there and explaining that he could not immediately take up his duties because of his commitments to his ‘friends here’, i.e. in Edinburgh, the plural shows that he had sponsors for his lectures besides Kames, and it has been supposed that these were James Oswald and Robert Craigie of Glendoick. There is independent evidence that at least in his last year at Edinburgh if not earlier he also lectured on jurisprudence; but Tytler is quite clear on the duration of the rhetoric course; and after Smith’s departure for Glasgow a rhetoric course continued to be given by Robert Watson till his departure for the Chair of Logic at St Andrews in 1756. This was only the beginning: one of Smith’s first ‘auditory’, Hugh Blair, on 11 December 1759, began a course on the same subject in the University of Edinburgh, which conferred the title of Professor on him in August 1760 and appointed him to a new Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (destined to become in effect the first Chair of English Literature in the world) on 7 April 1762. Smith’s original lectures were presumably delivered in one of the Societies, the Philosophical being the most likely because since the ’45 its ordinary activities had been suspended, and Kames would have seen the courses as a way of keeping it alive. In 1737 Colin Maclaurin, Professor of Mathematics (see Astronomy IV. 58), was instrumental in broadening the Society’s scope to include literature and science.

  When Adam Smith arrived in Glasgow in October 1751 to begin teaching as Professor of Logic and Rhetoric he found his duties augmented owing to the illness of Thomas Craigie, the Professor of Moral Philosophy, the work of whose classes was to be shared by Smith and three other professors. We hardly need evidence to prove that, hard–pressed as he was, he would fall back on his Edinburgh materials, including the Rhetoric, which it was his statutory duty to teach. Craigie died in November and his Chair was filled by the translation to it of Smith in April 1752. Throughout the eighteenth century the ordinary or ‘public’ class of Moral Philosophy met at 7.30 a.m. for lectures on ethics, politics, jurisprudence, natural theology, and then at 11 a.m. for an ‘examination’ hour to ensure that the lecture had been understood. A ‘private’ class, sometimes called a ‘college’, attended by those who had already in the previous year taken the public class and were now attending that for the second time—or even third—but not the examination class, met at noon, normally three days a week. Each professor used the private class for a course on a subject of special interest to himself. Hutcheson had lectured on Arrian, Antoninus (Marcus Aurelius), and other Greek philosophers; Thomas Reid on the powers of the mind.

  Adam Smith chose for his private class the first subject he had ever taught, Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. Here a question arises. Rhetoric was now in the domain of his successor in the Chair of Logic, James Clow. There is no record of a protest from Clow, as there was in Edinburgh from John Stevenson, who had been teaching logic and rhetoric for thirty–two years when Blair’s Chair was founded. Several explanations suggest themselves, apart from personal good–will. The phrase ‘Belles Lettres’, though it did not mollify Stevenson, differentiated in a decisive way the two Glasgow courses. Clow’s emphasis seems to have rested on rhetorical analysis of passages, in keeping with the discipline of logic (see JML xxx quoting Edinburgh Univ. Lib. MS DC 8, 13). More important, at Glasgow a public class was not the offender. In any case Smith’s rhetoric students had attended Clow’s class two years before, and the opportunity (which Smith knew they enjoyed) of making correlations can only have been philosophically beneficial. Similar opportunities were opened by their hearing at the same time—and having already heard—Smith’s discourses on ethics and jurisprudence. The lectures on history and on judicial eloquence would be illustrated by those on public and private law. And we must not forget that these students were simultaneously studying natural philosophy, theoretical and practical, the fifth year subjects of the Glasgow Arts curriculum. Such juxtapositions were then as now among the great benefits of the Scottish University system, and without them Scotland would not have made the mark she did in philosophy in Adam Smith’s century. In particular, Smith’s students must have noted the multi–faceted relationship between the ethics and rhetoric, in three broad areas. First, Smith employed many of the general principles stated in TMS in illustrating the different forms of communication: for example, our admiration for the great (ii. 107 and below, section 4), or for hardships undergone with firmness and constancy (ii. 100). Smith also drew attention to the influence of environment on forms and modes of expression (ii. 113–16, 142 ff., 152 ff.) in a manner which would be familiar to those who had already heard his treatment of the rules of conduct. Secondly, Smith’s students would note the points at which the rhetoric elaborated on the discussion of the role of sympathy and the nature of moral judgement and persuasion (cf. TMS I. i. 3–4; cf. 18–19 below). The character of the man of sensibility is strikingly developed in Lecture XXX (ii. 234 ff.) while the argument as a whole implies that the spoken discourse could on some occasions affect moral judgement. Thirdly, Smith’s students would perceive that the arguments developed in the lectures on rhetoric complement the analysis of TMS, where it is remarked that:

  We may judge of the propriety or impropriety of the sentiments of another person by their correspondence or disagreement with our own, upon two different occasions; either, first, when the objects which excite them are considered without any peculiar relation, either to ourselves or to the person whose sentiments we judge of; or, secondly, when they are considered as peculiarly affecting one or other of us’

  (TMS, I.i.4.1).

  Objects which lack a peculiar relation include ‘the expression of a picture, the composition of a discourse . . . all the general subjects of science and taste’.

  Smith’s lecturing timetable is set out in LJ 13–22, with references to the sources of our information. On the Rhetoric lectures, two accounts by men who had heard them show with what clarity they were remembered more than thirty years later. The first was given by John Millar, Professor of Law, who had heard them both in Edinburgh and Glasgow, to Dugald Stewart for a memoir of Smith to be delivered at the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1793 (Stewart I. 16):

  In the Professorship of Logic, to which Mr. Smith was appointed on his first 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.

  The second report, written after 1776 in a letter from James Wodrow, Library Keeper at the University of Glasgow from 1750 to 1755, to the Earl of Buchan and preserved in Glasgow Univ. Lib. Murray Collection (Buchan Correspondence, ii. 171), reads:

  Adam Smith delivered a set of admirable lectures on language (not as a grammarian but as a rhetorician) on the different kinds or characteristics of style suited to different subjects, simple, nervous, etc., the structure, the natural order, the proper arrangement of the different members of the sentence etc. He characterised the style and the genius of some of the best of the ancient writers and poets, but especially historians, Thucydides, Polybius etc. translating long passages of them, also the style of the best English classics, Lord Clarendon, Addison, Swift, Pope, etc; and, though his own didactic style in his last famous book (however suited to the subject) — the style of the former book was much superior—was certainly not a model for good writing, yet his remarks and rules given in the lectures I speak of, were the result of a fine taste and sound judgement, well calculated to be exceedingly useful to young composers, so that I have often regretted that some part of them has never been published.

  With this stricture on the style of WN, incidentally, may be compared the remark made by Lord Monboddo to Boswell that though Smith came down from Oxford a good Greek and Latin scholar, from the style of WN ‘one would think that he had never read any of the Writers of Greece or Rome’ (Boswell, Private Papers, ed. Scott and Pottle, xiii. 92); and even his friends Hume, Millar and Blair took this view. On the other hand John Ramsay of Ochtertyre (Scotland and Scotsmen in the eighteenth Century, published 1888, i. 462) thought that in view of the purity and elegance with which he ordinarily wrote it was ‘no wonder, then, that his lectures should be regarded as models of composition’. A kindred activity of Smith’s in his Glasgow days is recorded in the Foulis Press Papers, extracted by W. J. Duncan in Notes and Documents illustrative of the Literary History of Glasgow (Maitland Club 1831, 16): in January 1752 he had helped to found a Literary Society in the University, and ‘he read papers to this society on Taste, Composition and the History of Philosophy which he had previously delivered while a lecturer on rhetoric in Edinburgh’. Of these, two were parts I and II of the essay on the Imitative Arts—this on the evidence of John Millar who was a member of the Society (EPS 172)—an essay which Smith told Reynolds he intended publishing ‘this winter’, i.e. 1782–3 (Reynolds, letter of 12 September 1782, in Correspondence of James Boswell, ed. C. N. Fifer, Yale UP 1976, 126).

  What modifications the lectures on rhetoric underwent between 1748 and the session in which our notes were taken it is almost impossible to determine. There are few datable post–1748 references. Macpherson’s Ossian imitations, ‘lately published’ (ii. 113), appeared in 1760, 1762, 1763. Gray’s two Pindaric odes, if the reference at ii. 96 includes them, belong to 1757; the Elegy in a Country Churchyard, of which Smith became so fond, to 1751; Shenstone’s Pastoral Ballad to 1755. Rousseau’s Discours (i. 19) appeared in 1755 and was discussed by Smith in the Edinburgh Review no. 2 (EPS 250–4). All of these references, except perhaps the last, could easily have been inserted without radical revision of the text. The unmistakable reference to Hume’s History of England at ii. 73, whether we read ‘so’ or (‘10’ in the added marginal note, raises a complex question. The History appeared in instalments, working backwards chronologically, in 1754, 1757, 1759, and was completed in 1762, after which date the reference becomes relevant. On 12 January 1763 Smith must have read out what had stood in his manuscript for some years, and then in the last moments of the lecture made an impromptu correction when recollecting a friend’s very recent publication. Why this afterthought is also recorded by Scribe A in an afterthought is perhaps not in the circumstances all that mysterious.

  The general continuity of the lecture–course from 1748 to 1763, details apart, is established by its structure and by the set of central principles which inform all twentynine reported lectures and which could not have been added or superimposed on the argument at some intermediate stage of its development. Basic to the whole is the division into ‘an examination of the several ways of communicating our thoughts by speech’ and ‘an attention to the principles of those literary compositions which contribute to persuasion or entertainment’.

  To set this out in summary: first section, linguistic: (a) Language, communication, expression (Lectures 2–7, i. 85); (b) Style and character (Lectures 7–11).—Second section, the species of composition: (a) Descriptive (Lectures 12–16); (b) Narrative or historical (Lectures 17–20); (c) Poetry (Lecture 21); (d) Demonstrative oratory, i.e. panegyric (Lectures 22–23); (e) Didactic or scientific (Lecture 24); (f) Deliberative oratory (Lectures 25–27); (g) Judicial or forensic oratory (Lectures 28–30).

  Two features of the course enable us to make a plausible guess at the contents of the introductory lecture—whose absence, by the way, tends to prove that this set of notes was not prepared with a view to sale. At the heart of Smith’s thinking, his doctrine, and his method of presentation (the three are always related) is the notion of the chain (see ii. 133 and cf. Astronomy II. 8–9)—articulated continuity, sequence of relations leading to illumination. Leave no chasm or gap in the thread: ‘the very notion of a gap makes us uneasy’ (ii. 36). The orator ‘puts the whole story into a connected narration’; the great art of an orator is to throw his argument ‘into a sort of a narration, filling up in the manner most suitable . . .’ (ii. 206, 197). The art of transition is a vital matter (i. 146). Smith is concerned with this on the strategic level just as contemporary writers on Milton and Thomson were on the imaginative. As a lecturer, giving an exhibition of the very craft he is discussing, he insists that his listeners know where they have been and where they are going. Dugald Stewart notes in his Life of Thomas Reid that ‘neither he nor his immediate predecessor ever published any general prospectus of their respective plans; nor any heads or outlines to assist their students in tracing the trains of thought which suggested their various transitions’ (1802: 38–9). In Smith’s case the frequent signposts would have made such a prospectus superfluous, and readers of the lectures are more likely to complain of being led by the hand than of bafflement. What all this amounts to is that the opening themephrase ‘Perspicuity of stile’ must have been clearly led up to.

  The other habit of Smith’s gives a clue to how this may have been done. He often shows his impatience with intricate subdivisions and classifications of his subject, such as had long made rhetoric a notoriously scholastic game. La Bruyère speaks of ‘un beau sermon’ made according to all the rules of the rhetoricians, with the cognoscenti in the preacher’s audience following with admiration ‘toutes les énumérations où il se promène’. But though Smith thinks it all very silly and refers anyone so inclined to read about it in Quintilian, his teacherly conscience compels him to ensure that his students have heard of the old terms. Lecture 1 no doubt defined the scope of this course by saying what it was not going to include. At least since the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium early in the first century B.C. the orator’s art had been divided into invention, arrangement, expression, memory, and delivery; Quintilian’s words (Institutio Oratoria III. iii. 1; and passim) are inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, and pronuntiatio or actio. Smith in effect sees only the second and third as important, the third (style) occupying Lectures 2–11, the second underlying virtually all that Lectures 12–30 discuss.

  It is to be hoped that for the sake of clarity one other traditional division was at least mentioned. As early as i. 12 ‘the didactick stile’ is compared with that of historians and orators, and the phrase and the comparison occur repeatedly throughout the lectures as if their meaning was already known. The central place occupied in Smith’s whole conception of discourse by the ‘didactick stile’ becomes clear in the lecture (24) devoted to it, where it emerges as not only a mode of expression but as a procedure of thought: the scientific (ii. 132–5), that concerned with the exposition of a system, the clarification of a multitude of phenomena by one known or proved principle. Perhaps this was too early in the course; but the analogy with music set out in Imitative Arts II. 29 (see below, section 5) by which many notes are related both to a leading or key–note and a succession of notes or ‘song’, and the observation that this is like ‘what order and method are to discourse’, would have proved helpful to the many who, then as later, find it harder to apprehend pattern in language than in sound or colour. Smith makes things harder by equating, at i. 152, the ancient (indeed Aristotelian) division of speeches into Demonstrative, Deliberative, Judicial, with his own philosophical division into narrative, didactic, rhetorical (i. 149). This, it must be admitted, involves some straining. ‘It is rather reverence for antiquity than any great regard for the Beauty or usefullness of the thing itself which makes me mention the Antient divisions of Rhetorick’ (i. 152); but in this case he could have been less scrupulous, since Quintilian (III. iv) asks ‘why three?’ rather than a score of others. He is echoing Cicero; and Jean–François Marmontel, author of the literary articles in the Encyclopédie vols 3–7 and Supplément (collected in Eléments de Littérature, 1787) pours scorn on the terms themselves: Deliberative speech, where the orator exerts all his energy to proving to the meeting that there is nothing at all to deliberate; Demonstrative, which demonstrates nothing but flattery or hatred (and, he should have added, the orator’s virtuosity—not showing but showing off); Judicial, aiming at demonstrating, and leaving it all to the judges’ deliberation. In any case Smith in the end does not scrap the ancient divison but simply adds the Didactic to it: Lectures 22–30.

  By chance our notes begin at what Smith thought of first importance: style, language. ‘Nobis prima sit virtus perspicuitas’ said Quintilian (VIII. ii. 22, echoing Aristotle’s σαϕὴς λέξις, Rhetoric III. ii. 1), and defined the main ingredient in perspicuity as proprietas, each thing called by its own, its properly belonging name. The root meaning of perspicuity is the quality of being seen through, and the subject of Smith’s lectures may be said to be what it is that language allows to show through it, and how. For Smith there is much more to this transparence than the handing over of facts or feelings, and the first paragraph introduces some of this. Words are no mere convenience; they are natives of a community, as citizens are—and as i. 5–6 shows, of a particular part of the community. The Abbé du Bos devoted I. xxxvii of Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (1719) to showing the kind of force the words of our own language have on our minds. When an English–reading Frenchman meets the word God it is to the word Dieu and all its associations that his emotions respond.

  A more immediate motive for this paragraph can best be indicated by a well–known story about the poet of the Seasons. After completing his Arts course at Edinburgh, James Thomson’s first exercise in the Faculty of Divinity was the preparation of a sermon on the Jod section of Psalm cxix. When he read it to his class on 27 October 1724 it was severely criticised by his professor, William Hamilton, for its grandiloquence of style, quite unsuitable for any congregation. Thomson, discouraged, gave up his studies, went off to London, and spent his life writing poems whose highly Latinate diction has often been remarked on: as was that of his fellow–countrymen in his own century. The Scoticisms against which Scottish writers were put on their guard, as by Hume and Beattie, were partly of this kind, and have been attributed to the Latin base of Scots Law as well as of Scottish education. Hutcheson was the first professor at Glasgow to lecture in English, and this, quite apart from his teaching, was seen as a help to the students in unlearning their linguistic tendencies. A. F. Tytler (Kames, i. 163) emphasises the influence of another Scottish professor in the same direction, that of the Edinburgh mathematician Colin Maclaurin, his ‘pure, correct and simple style inducing a taste for chasteness of expression . . . a disrelish of affected ornaments’. Scots youths were encouraged towards ‘an ease and elegance of composition as a more engaging vehicle for subjects of taste, in the room of the dry scholastic style in which they had hitherto been treated’. They were ‘attracted to the more pleasing topics of criticism and the belles lettres. The cultivation of style became an object of study’, replacing the ancient school dialectics. This, if only Tytler had provided evidence and illustration, would parallel the linguistic programme of the Royal Society as outlined by Sprat in its History in 1667: ‘this trick of Metaphors’, ‘those specious Tropes and Figures’, to be replaced by positive expressions ‘bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness as they can’.

  A much wider context for Smith’s lectures is thus created, though we must not forget the immediate one suggested by i. 103: ‘We in this country are most of us very sensible that the perfection of language is very different from that we commonly speak in’. Periodically throughout the history of style there occur combats between the respective upholders of the plain and the elaborate: Plato versus the sophist Gorgias; Calvus charging Cicero with ‘Asianic’ writing as opposed to Attic purity. Smith’s teaching comes at such a moment. While he was a student John Constable’s Reflections upon accuracy of style enjoyed something of a vogue. Not published till 1734 (reprinted 1738), this attack on the highly figurative language of Jeremy Collier’s Essays (1697) had been written in 1701; and in the meantime Collier’s ‘huddle of metaphors’ and conceits had been sharply criticized in John Oldmixon’s adaptation of the influential La manière de bien penser dans les ouvrages d’esprit (1687) by Dominique Bouhours—The arts of Logick and Rhetorick (1728). Behind all of them lies another combat: the Chevalier de Méré’s strictures on the verbal extravagances of Voiture in De la Justesse (1671), which gave Constable his title. These oppositions are of many kinds, and all differ from the one Smith sets up between the lucidity of Swift and the ‘pompousness’ of Shaftesbury—the shaping motive of much of Lectures 7–11. This is perhaps the earliest appreciation of Swift as writer; political and quasi–moral objections prevented his critical recognition till late in the century. Smith’s admiration rests on something central in the Rhetoric: ‘All his works show a complete knowledge of his Subject . . . One who has such a complete knowledge of what he treats will naturally arange it in the most proper order’ (i. 105–6). Shaftesbury is a dilettante and does not know enough. Above all he has not kept up with modern scientific advances; he makes up for superficiality and ignorance by ornament (i. 140–1, 144). That his letters ‘have no marks of the circumstances the writer was in at the time he wrote. Nor any reflections peculiarly suited to the times and circumstances’ is the most telling fault. The writing does not belong anywhere or to any one.

  It is his criticism of the reverence paid to the figures of speech (whether departures from normal use of word, figurae verborum; or unusual modes of presentation, figurae sententiarum—Cicero, Orator xxxix–xl; Quintilian IX. i–iii; Rhetorica ad Herennium Book IV) that leads Smith to his decisive formulations of beauty of language. ‘When the sentiment of the speaker is expressed in a neat, clear, plain and clever manner, and the passion or affection he is possessed of and intends, by sympathy, to communicate to his hearer, is plainly and cleverly hit off, then and then only the expression has all the force and beauty that language can give it’. Figures of speech may or may not do the job. See i. 56, 73, 79. ‘The expression ought to be suited to the mind of the author, for this is chiefly governed by the circumstances he is placed in’. Language is organically related not merely to thought in the abstract (see section 3 below); it bears ‘the same stamp’ as the speaker’s nature. Ben Jonson, writing about 1622 (Timber or Discoveries), observed: ‘Language most shewes a man: speake, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the Image of the Parent of it, the mind. No glasse renders a mans forme or likeness so true as his speech’.

  The discussion of this relationship is introduced by a nice piece of Smithian economy. The character–sketches of the plain and the simple man not only illustrate two styles and lead on to Swift and Temple (i. 85–95); they offer the student models of ethologia, the form prescribed (according to Quintilian I. ix. 3) to pupils in rhetoric as an exercise, and they prepare for the instruction in character–drawing in Lecture 15 and the discussion of the Character as a genre—invented by Theophrastus, edited by Isaac Casaubon in 1592, introduced in England by Joseph Hall in 1608, and practised by La Bruyere, who is Smith’s favourite because his collection is a microcosm of society and of mankind. When Hugh Blair, as he tells us, was lent the manuscript of Smith’s lectures (he no doubt remembered hearing this passage) when preparing his own, it was from these ethologiae that he drew hints: ‘On this head, of the General Characters of Style, particularly, the Plain and the Simple, and the characters of those English authors who are classed under them, in this, and the following Lecture, several ideas have been taken from a manuscript treatise on rhetoric, part of which was shown to me, many years ago, by the learned and ingenious author, Dr Adam Smith; and which, it is hoped, will be given by him to the Public’ (Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 1783, i. 381). The Theophrastan form influenced the historians; see the collection Characters of the Seventeenth Century, ed. D. Nichol Smith (1920). It is significant that the first critic to publish a series of studies of Shakespeare’s characters, William Richardson, the Glasgow Professor of Humanity from 1773, was a student of Adam Smith’s; his A philosophical analysis and illustration of some of Shakespeare’s remarkable characters appeared in 1774, and two more volumes in 1784 and 1788.

  Boswell, another student who heard the Rhetoric lectures (in 1759), was struck by Smith’s emphasis on the personal aspects of writers, and he twice recalled the remark about Milton’s shoes (absent from our report; it should have come at ii. 107): ‘I remember Dr. Adam Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to know that Milton wore latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles’ (Journal of a tour to the Hebrides §9). ‘I have a pleasure in hearing every story, tho’ never so little, of so distinguished a Man. I remember Smith took notice of this pleasure in his lectures upon Rhetoric, and said that he felt it when he read that Milton never wore buckles but strings in his shoes’ (Boswell Papers i. 107). Such was the training of the future author of the greatest of all biographies of a man of letters. In no. 1 of the Spectator (1 March 1711) Addison ‘observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure ’till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of a like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author’. John Harvey included in his Collection of Miscellany Poems and Letters (1726: 84–88) a parody of this Spectator, with a fictitious life of himself.

  Beauty of style, then, is propriety in the exact sense of the word: language which embodies and exhibits to the reader that distinctive turn and quality of spirit in the author ‘qui lui est propre’, as Marivaux insisted in the Spectateur français, 8e feuille (8 September 1722). Our pleasure is, as Hutcheson noted in his Inquiry into the original of our ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725: I. sec. IV. vii), in recognizing a perfect correspondence or aptness in a curious mechanism for the execution of a design. It is characteristic of Smith that his aesthetics should thus centre on correspondence, relation, affinity. What he finds wrong with Shaftesbury’s style is that he arbitrarily made it up; it has nothing to do with his own character (i. 137–8). When the principle is extended from persons to societies—‘all languages . . . are equally ductile and equally accommodated to all different tempers’—very wide and illuminating prospects open up. Good examples are Trajan’s Rome as formative background for Tacitus (Lecture 20), the comparison of Athens and Rome as contexts for Demosthenes and Cicero (Lecture 26), and the association of the rise of prose with the growth of commerce and wealth (ii. 144 ff.). Indeed the accounts of historical writing and of the three types of oratory are made the occasions for elaborate excursus on different kinds of social and political organization, ancient and modern.

  ‘By sympathy’ (i. v. 56): this phrase in the formulation of the highest beauty language can attain is one of the very few which Scribe A underlines, and pains had clearly been taken by Smith to bring out the parallel between his ethical and rhetorical principles. Just as we act under the eye of an impartial spectator within ourselves, the creation of an imaginative self–projection into an outsider whose standards and responses we reconstruct by sympathy or ability to feel as he does, so our language is enabled to communicate our thoughts and ‘affections’ (i.e. inclinations) by our ability to predict its effect on our hearer. This is what is meant by seeing the Rhetoric and TMS as two halves of one system, and not merely at occasional points of contact. The connection of ‘sympathy’ as a rhetorical instrument with the vision of speech and personality as an organic unity need not be laboured. Again, it should be obvious how often Smith’s concern is with the sharing of sentiments and attitudes rather than mere ideas or facts. The arts of persuasion are close to his heart for this reason. The opening of Lecture 11 is a key passage. The conveying to a hearer of ‘the sentiment, passion or affection with which [his thought] affects him’—‘the perfection of stile’—is regulated by a ‘Rule, which is equally applicable to conversation and behaviour as writing’; ‘all the Rules of Criticism and morality when traced to their foundation, turn out to be some Principles of Common Sence which every one assents to’. One of the most frequent terms of critical praise in the Rhetoric is ‘interesting’, bearing its original and normal eighteenth century sense of involving, engaging, as at ii. 27 where, thanks to Livy’s skill, ‘we enter into all the concerns of the parties’ and are as affected as if we had been there. The reason why history is enjoyed is that events which befall mankind ‘interest us greatly by the Sympatheticall affections they raise in us’ (ii. 16). The good historian shows the effects wrought on those who were actors or spectators of the events (ii. 5; cf. ii. 62–3). Knowledge of the plot of a tragedy is an advantage since it leaves us ‘free to attend to the Sentiments’ (ii. 30). A variation on this is acutely described in dealing with the picture of Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigenia, by Timanthes (ii. 8); cf. i. 180, Addison on St Peter’s. Indeed the entire treatment of the art of description in Lectures 12–16 is profoundly instructive of Smith’s main interests. Even minutiae such as the arrangement of words in a sentence (i. v. 42–v. 52b) repay an attention beyond the merely grammatical.

  The species of writing are so intimately bound up with each other that Smith finds it difficult in Lectures 12–30 to demarcate them sharply. By instinct, as already noted, he is a historian in the sense that he sees narrative as the very type of human thought–procedure; but his interest in it is also that suggested by Hume’s description of history’s records as ‘so many collections of experiments by which the moral philosopher fixes the principles of his science’. (William Richardson used similar terms about his studies of Shakespeare’s characters in 1784). The first paper read to the Literary Society in the University, on 6 February 1752, was ‘An essay on historical composition’ by James Moor, the Professor of Greek (Essays, 1759). Moor’s elaboration of the kinship of history and poetry, the unified pattern which both exhibit in events, throws interesting light on the position occupied by Lecture 21 in Smith’s progression. Bolingbroke compared history and drama; and Voltaire wrote to the Marquis d’Argenson on 26 January 1740 (Correspondence ed. T. Besterman, xxxv. 373): ‘Il faut, dans une histoire, comme dans une pièce de théâtre, exposition, noeud, et dénouement’. There may be an echo of the ancient assimilation of history and poetry in ‘the Poeticall method’ of keeping up the connection between events, other than the causal (ii. 36); and history, like poetry, is said to ‘amuse’ (ii. 62), and to have originated with the poets. Leonard Welsted expounded this view fully in his Dissertation concerning the perfection of the English Language (1724). For Quintilian (X. i. 31) a history is a poem: ‘Est enim proxima poetis et quodammodo carmen solutum’. There was indeed much collocation by the ancient rhetoricians of all these genres—history, poetry, rhetoric, philosophical exposition—as in Cicero’s Orator XX. 66–7. The Muses are said to have spoken in Xenophon’s voice (Orator XIX. 62). They are all combined by Fénelon in the educational project he outlined to the French Academy, first in 1716. That panegyrical eloquence ‘tient un peu de la poésie’ as Voltaire maintained in the Encyclopédie article on Eloquence is also Smith’s view (ii. 111–2).

  The lecture on poetry (21), delivered extemporaneously, is both instructive and disappointing. The post–Coleridge student looks for more analysis of short poems; these are of little interest, naturally, to the philosopher. More important, why does not Smith of all critics tackle the problem of the pleasure afforded us by tragedy? This is specially strange since Hume, who had offered a highly ingenious answer in his essay on tragedy in 1757, expressed dissatisfaction with the treatment of sympathy in this context in TMS I. iii. 1. 9 (Corr. Letter 36, 28 July 1759), and the second edition of TMS contained a footnote on the question. The insistence in the lecture (ii. 82) on the tragic writer’s heightening of the painful nature of his story in order to lead to a satisfying ‘catastrophe’ is an oblique solution of the problem and one frequently given: the difference between suffering on the stage and in real life resides in the artifice of the former. ‘The delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction’, said Johnson in the Preface to Shakespeare (1765)—though Burke in 1757 took the opposite view, because ‘we enter into the concerns of others’. Kames in The Elements of Criticism (1762: I. ii. 1 sec. 7) discusses ‘the emotions caused by Fiction’. The function of Lecture 21 is to prepare for the arts of persuasion used by the orator, playing down or exaggerating as the need demands, by describing the similar arts of the good story–teller. Tragedy and Comedy both arrange events so as to culminate in true conclusiveness. Note that Smith’s imagination is as tuned to good cadence as is his ear.

  That is why he delights in rhyme. Boswell reports that when Johnson was extolling rhyme over blank verse, ‘I mentioned to him that Dr. Adam Smith, in his lectures upon composition, when I studied under him in the College of Glasgow, had maintained the same opinion strenuously, and I repeated some of his arguments’. Johnson had no love for Smith, but—‘had I known that he loved rhyme as much as you tell me he does, I should have HUGGED him’ (Life of Johnson, ed. Hill–Powell, i. 427–8). Dugald Stewart associates this bias with Smith’s ascription of our pleasure in the Imitative Arts (e.g. I. 16, III. 2) to admiration of difficulté surmontée (Stewart III. 14–15). The phrase is by Antoine Houdar de La Motte in his controversy with Voltaire over Œdipe (1730). La Motte opposed both the Unities and Rhyme in drama: ‘toutes ces puérilités n’ont d’autre mérite que celui de la difficulté surmontée’. Both Voltaire and Smith counter this argument by pointing to the observed triumph over observed obstacles, as a source of our surprised delight in all the arts, both plastic and literary. Stewart (III. 15) wonders whether Smith’s ‘love of system, added to his partiality for the French drama’, may have led him to generalize too much in this. Rhyme is not in fact explicitly mentioned in our manuscript at ii. 74 ff., but it is implicit in couplet and reference to Pope. Cf. TMS V. i. 7.

  ‘The principles of dramatic composition had more particularly attracted his attention’ (Stewart III. 15); and though the dogmas about unity of Time and Place had often been attacked since Corneille’s Discours in 1660—in Farquhar’s Discourse upon Comedy (1702) and Kames’s Elements of Criticism (1762: chap. xxiii)—it is pleasant to find Smith transferring the question to ‘Unity of Interest’ (ii. 81). This time he is on La Motte’s side. In the first of his Discours sur la Tragédie (1730) this is made the supreme law of dramatic art: but, as Smith remarks, the phrase is susceptible of many interpretations, and it is a little surprising to find him not following La Motte’s thesis that concentration of the audience’s sympathy on a group of characters—always present, always acting, animating and vivifying the action of the piece—is what constitutes ‘unité d’intérêt’, as they are ‘tous dignes que j’entre dans leurs passions’. ‘That every part of the Story should tend to some one end, whatever that be’ is of course also a typically Smithian formulation.

  Beside the remark on Comedy (ii. 82) we must place the full account of the comic at i. 107–v.116. Smith’s interest in the laughter–provoking (we must remember that that is simply what the eighteenth century words ridicule and ridiculous mean) was no doubt kindled early by Hutcheson, whose criticism of Hobbes’s view—‘the passion of laughter is nothing but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves’ (Leviathan vi)—first appeared in the Dublin Journal 10–12 (June 1725), collected as Reflections on Laughter (1750). Smith’s approach is proper to someone preoccupied with comparison: unexpected incongruities arising from the aggrandisement of the little (as in mock–heroic) or diminution of the grand. At i. 112 he seems to allude to Leibnitz: ‘All raillery includes a little contempt, and it is not just to try to make contemptible what does not deserve it’ (Remarks on Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks, 1711; printed in Masson’s Histoire critique de la République des Lettres, 1715). He does not accept therefore Shaftesbury’s notion of laughter as a ‘test of truth’. For Smith on wit and humour cf. the review of Johnson’s Dictionary (EPS 240–1).

  Johnson would not have ‘hugged’ Smith for his words on tragi–comedy (ii. 83–4). This ‘mixed’ kind, described in Spectator 40 as monstrous, was several times vigorously defended by Johnson for its truth to life: e.g. Rambler 156 (14 Sept. 1751), as well as the Preface to Shakespeare in 1765.

  To one tradition of rhetorical instruction Smith is faithful, in the readiness with which he quotes poetic examples side by side with prose. At i. 9 he refers to Samuel Clarke’s preface to his edition of the Iliad (1729) in praise of Homer’s perspicuity—such, says Clarke, that no prose writer has ever equalled him in this his ‘perpetua et singularis virtus’. Clarke also makes an interesting distinction between the poet’s ars and his oratio; so in our day Ezra Pound has insisted that poetry must have the qualities of good prose.

  Like that later polymath Coleridge, Adam Smith nursed till his last days the hope of producing a magnum opus of immense scope. ‘I have likewise two other great works upon the anvil; the one is a sort of Philosophical History of all the different branches of Literature, of Philosophy, Poetry and Eloquence’ (the other being his Jurisprudence); ‘The materials of both are in a great measure collected, and some Part of both is put into tollerable good order’. So he wrote to the Duc de La Rochefoucauld on 1 Nov. 1785 (Corr., Letter 248). This was no doubt why in 1755, in a paper read to Cochrane’s Political Economy Club, he gave ‘a pretty long enumeration . . . of certain leading principles, both political and literary, to which he was anxious to establish his exclusive right; in order to prevent the possibility of some rival claims . . .’ (Stewart IV. 25). Unfortunately Stewart does not tell us which ‘literary’ principles were listed. Smith describes the opinions as having formed the subjects of his lectures since he first taught Mr Craigie’s class ‘down to this day, without any considerable variation’.

  One envies the eighteenth century the freedom and width of vision made possible to them by their not circumscribing the word literature and narrowing the scope of its study as we have since done. Our two scribes enable us to glimpse that first work which would have become the foundation of the tantalizing ‘Philosophical History’ of all literature.

  3.

  Considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages

  It may be worth remembering that the dissertation Adam Smith delivered, as by statute required, on 16 January 1751 to justify his induction into the Chair of Logic and Rhetoric at the University of Glasgow was entitled De origine idearum. In the absence of the text of this we cannot know in what sense idea was used. His first published essay was on a semantic subject. For the first number of the Edinburgh Review which he had helped to found in 1755 he chose to review Johnson’s newly issued Dictionary, and he made his review an exercise in the systematic distinction and arrangement of the meanings of words: but and humour as examples. He found Johnson’s treatment insufficiently ‘grammatical’, i.e. philosophically analytic (EPS 232–41) and offers an alternative plan. There is evidence to support the statement of A. F. Tytler in his Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames . . . containing sketches of the Progress and General Improvement in Scotland during the greater part of the eighteenth century (1807: i. 168) that of all the articles in the two numbers of the magazine this was the one which attracted most attention—and the implications of Tytler’s long sub–title help us to understand why. Tytler admits that though Smith’s article ‘displays the same philosophic views of universal grammar, which distinguish his Essay on the formation of Languages’ his metaphysical discrimination and ingenuity were less suitable than Johnson’s method ‘for conveying a critical knowledge of the English language’ (170).

  Light is thrown on the beginnings of Smith’s interest in language in a letter which he wrote on 7 February 1763 to George Baird who had sent him an Abstract of An Essay on Grammar as it may be applied to the English Language (1765) by his friend William Ward. The letter (69), which was printed by Nichols in Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century (iii, 1818, 515–16), expresses surprise that Ward, mentioning various definitions of nouns, ‘takes no notice of that of the Abbé Girard, the author of a book, called, ‘Les vrais Principes de la Langue Françoise’. . . . It is the book which first set me a thinking upon these subjects, and I have received more instruction from it than from any other I have yet seen upon them. . . . The grammatical articles, too, in the French Encyclopedie have given me a good deal of entertainment.’ The comments on Ward’s design offer a useful introduction to Smith’s own thinking.

  I approve greatly of his plan for a Rational Grammar, and I am convinced that a work of this kind, executed with his abilities and industry, may prove not only the best system of grammar, but the best system of logic in any language, as well as the best history of the natural progress of the human mind in forming the most important abstractions upon which all reasoning depends. . . . If I was to treat the same subject, I should endeavour to begin with the consideration of verbs; these being, in my apprehension, the original parts of speech, first invented to express in one word a complete event: I should then have endeavoured to shew how the subject was divided from the attribute; and afterwards, how the object was distinguished from both; and in this manner I should have tried to investigate the origin and use of all the different parts of speech, and of all their different modifications, considered as necessary to express all the different qualifications and relations of any single event.

  Smith is too modest to say that all this—‘taken in a general view, which is the only view that I can pretend to have taken of them’—he did in fact set out in an essay published two years earlier, but, as Stewart tells us (II. 44), he was proud of the ‘considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages’: ‘It is an essay of great ingenuity, and on which the author himself set a high value’ and justly—it is a masterpiece of lucid exposition which any summary can only blur. Stewart’s comments (II. 44–56) are the most perceptive ever made on it. He saw that its value lies, not in the possible accuracy of the opinions, but in its being a specimen of an entirely modern kind of inquiry ‘which seems, in a peculiar degree, to have interested Mr Smith’s curiosity.’ To this Stewart applied the now famous phrase ‘Theoretical or Conjectural History’, and he finds examples of it in all Smith’s writings. In the absence of direct evidence, ‘when we are unable to ascertain how men have actually conducted themselves upon particular occasions’ we must consider ‘in what manner they are likely to have proceeded, from the principles of their nature, and the circumstances of their external situation.’ ‘The known principles of human nature’; ‘the natural succession of inventions and discoveries’; ‘the circumstances of society’—these are the foundations on which rests Smith’s thinking ‘whatever be the nature of his subject’; astronomy, politics, economics, literature, language. ‘In most cases, it is of more importance to ascertain the progress that is most simple, than the progress that is most agreeable to fact; for . . . the real progress is not always the most natural’ (56). Stewart is stressing the timelessness of Smith’s argument, which still makes sense even after the birth of comparative philology in 1786 with Sir William Jones’s demonstration before the Royal Asiatic Society of the kinship between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and the Germanic and Celtic languages. Smith instinctively uses the historical mode for his exposition of principles in this context while exhibiting the powers of the mind operating in their most fully human and characteristic activity: comparing, classifying, abstracting. The primacy he gives to language, which entails that something like Lecture 3 must have come early in his Rhetoric course right from its first delivery, rests on his vision of language as the embodiment of the mind’s striving towards the ‘metaphysical’, towards conceptualization.

  ‘Essay’, ‘Dissertation’, ‘Considerations’: the last is the appropriate title, since three (of quite different kinds) are offered. The first, ‘theoretical history’ proper, has two sections: (a) on nouns, adjectives and prepositions (1–25); (b) on verbs and pronouns (26–32). That mere chronology is not Smith’s real concern is shown by his beginning with nouns, although he believes verbs are the most ancient part of speech, which starts with the presentation of a single undifferentiated event as in the impersonal verb. He does so because the inflectional systems of the noun are well adapted to exhibiting his analysis of the process of abstraction: from classes of things, to modification by quality, gender, number, and relationship—and even within relationships, a hierarchy or range of degrees of the metaphysical, there Smith’s vision of the organic connection between thinking and speaking becomes clear. No one will attribute to him the naive notion that early man first conceived the relations by, with, or from, and then invented the device of adding –o or –e to the root of the noun to express them. Language and thought are generated together, as d’Alembert maintained in the ‘Discours préliminaire’ to the Encyclopédie in 1751. He too had learned from the Abbé Gabriel Girard’s Les vrais principes de la langue françoise, ou la parole réduite en méthode conformément aux lois de l’usage (1747) to see ‘parts of speech’, not as dead terms in school grammar, but as operations of the human intellect, and ‘grammar’ itself as the image of logic. Girard’s book is a perfect example of the beautiful unity and harmony he finds in the linguistic works of the spirit.

  The second Consideration (33–40) moves from conjectural to actual history: the breakdown of the inflectional system which results from peoples of different tongue living together and being defeated by the intricacies (as they see them) of each other’s speech–structures: the Germanic Lombards confronted with Latin, or (Smith might have added) the invading Norse–speakers meeting the English. The simplification in question can be observed by anyone listening to a foreigner wrestling with his elementary English. ‘Elementary’ is the right word, speech reduced to its elements, all verb–forms reduced to the infinitive. Something comparable produces the various kinds of pidgin and creole throughout the world.

  The third Consideration (41–45) is an assessment of the damage wrought by this breakdown: modern analytic languages are, as compared with earlier synthetic ones, more prolix (since a multiplicity of words must replace the old inflections), less agreeable to the ear (lacking the pleasing symmetries and variety of the inflections), and more rigid in their possibilities of word–ordering (differences of case–endings make for flexibility in arrangement without ambiguity).

  Most of the many mid–eighteenth century investigators of the beginnings of language are interested in more superficial senses of the word ‘origin’: fruitless searches for a reason why a particular sound was ever chosen to denote a particular thing or idea, as in the Traité de la formation méchanique des langues et des principes physiques de l’étymologie (1765) by Charles de Brosses, parts of which were in circulation from 1751 and found their way into articles in the Encyclopédie; or speculations on ‘universal grammar’ and the causes of differences among languages, like the Hermes of James Harris (1751). How simplemindedly Smith’s highly original essay could be read is illustrated by the widely known Elements of general knowledge (1802), lectures which Henry Kett had been delivering since 1790: how did Adam Smith’s two incredible savages ever get into the situation in which he imagines them inventing speech? (i. 88–9). Kett is put down by the percipient L. Davison in ‘Some account of a recent work entitled Elements of General Knowledge’ (1804: ii. 87–88), who sees that Smith assumes language and is interested simply in how it proceeds.

  Smith’s connection with The Philological Miscellany (1761) in which his essay first appeared is obscure. An anonymous contributor to The European Magazine, and London Review for April 1802 (xli. 249), writing from Oxford on 10 April 1802, after a reference to an article on Smith in the previous issue and high praise for the review of Johnson’s Dictionary, goes on: ‘in 1761 was published, I believe by Dr. Smith, “The Philological Miscellany” ’, and in it Dr. Smith’s ‘Considerations concerning the first Formation of Languages’ first appeared. No authority for attributing the volume to Smith is given; and what in any case is meant—the compiling, or the translating of the French articles? Smith’s essay is the only one to be first published here. The others are almost all from the Mémoires of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, apparently specially translated for this collection of papers on historical, classical and miscellaneous learned questions, such as Smith showed an interest in, in his letter to the Edinburgh Review no. 2, 1756 (EPS 242–54). The editor of the Miscellany ‘proposes to enrich his Work with a variety of Articles from the French Encyclopedie, and with curious Dissertations on Philological Subjects by foreign writers.’ But no further volumes appeared.

  Note on the Text

  In Adam Smith’s lifetime five authorized editions of this essay were published, for which the sigla PM, 3, 4, 5, 6 are here used:

  [PM] the | Philological Miscellany; | consisting of | select essays | from the | memoirs of the Academy of | Belles Lettres at Paris, and | other foreign Academies. | Translated into English. | with | Original Pieces by the most Eminent | Writers of our own Country. | vol. I. | [double rule] | Printed for the Editor; | And Sold by T. Beckett and P. A. Dehondt, | in the Strand. 1761. | (8vo: pp. viii + 510).

  Pp. 440–79 contains: Considerations concerning the first formation of Languages, and the different genius of original and compounded Languages. By Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. Now first published.—The Table of Contents lists the essay in the same words. This volume, the only one of a projected twice–yearly series to appear, was published in May 1761. The British Library copy has on its fly–leaf the note: ‘Presented by M.^rs Becket Oct.^r 9. 1761.’

  [3] the | theory | of | moral sentiments. | To which is added | A Dissertation on the Origin of Languages. | By Adam Smith, L.L.D. | The Third Edition. | . . MDCCLXVII.—The essay is on pp. 437–78, headed and listed in Table of Contents as in PM, but omitting ‘By . . . published’.

  While this edition of TMS was going through the press in winter 1766–67 Smith wrote to his publisher William Strahan:

  The Dissertation upon the Origin of Languages is to be printed at the end of Theory. There are some literal errors in the printed copy of it which I should have been glad to have corrected, but have not the opportunity, as I have no copy by me. They are of no great consequenc<e>

  (Letter 100).

  Seven verbal changes were nevertheless made in the text. Smith, it may be noted, here gives the essay the same title as do the title–pages of the early editions of TMS, and as Dugald Stewart in his Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, I. 26, II. 44 (see EPS).

  [4] the | theory | of | moral sentiments. | [as 3] The Fourth Edition . . . MDCCLXXIV. The essay is on pp. 437–76, headed as in 3.

  [5] the | theory | of | moral sentiments. | [as 3] The Fifth Edition . . . MDCCLXXXI. The essay is on pp. 437–78, headed as in 3.

  [6] the | theory | of | moral sentiments. | [as 3] The Sixth Edition . . . MDCCXC. The essay is on pp. 403–62 of vol. ii.

  The present text is that of 1790, the last for which Smith was responsible. He had worked long on the ‘considerable additions and corrections’ now included in the Theory. An account of the early editions, and of Smith’s carefulness over proof correction in general, is given in the introduction to TMS in the present edition: especially 47–9. The ‘Considerations’ remained entirely unchanged in substance throughout their five editions, and only a selection of variants from before 1790 need be recorded.

  4–6 replace in lower case the initial capitals which PM and 3 consistently give the following words: Philosopher, Grammarians, Adjective, Schoolmen, Green (§4), Nouns, Metaphysics, Masculine, Feminine, Neutral, Genders, Substantive, Termination, Prepositions, Superiority, Inferiority, Genitive, Dative, Arbor (§§13 ff.), Grammar, Languages, Nominative, Accusative, Vocative, Cases, Variations, Declensions, Numbers, Conjugations, Verb, Logicians, Citizen, Optative, Mood, Future, Aorist, Preterit, Tenses, Passive, Participle, Infinitives, Law, Court, Verse, Prose (in the order of first occurrence).

  4–6 replace with what we should regard as ‘modern’ forms the following spellings in PM and 3: concret, antient, accompanyment, surprized, forestal, compleat, indispensible, acquireable.

  In the matter of punctuation, only students of eighteenth century typographical usage (or whim) will be interested in omissions and insertions of commas in intermediate editions, and they will consult the original texts. In no case is the meaning affected by these variations, though the delivery of an elocutionist declaiming the text might be. No logical or grammatical principle can be seen to be uniformly dictating the many changes from edition to edition. On the whole 4–6 agree as against PM and 3; but six of 3’s changes of PM are reversed by 6 and/or 4, 5. Only variants involving points heavier than comma are here recorded. We cannot know how many are authorial.

  The seventh edition (1792) follows 6 in capitals, spelling, italics, and generally in punctuation. The other early editions have not been collated. They include: 1777 (Dublin: title–page ‘the sixth edition’), 1793 (Basel), 1797 (8th), 1801 (9th), 1804 (10th), 1808 (Edinburgh: title–page ‘the eleventh edition’), 1809 (Glasgow: title–page ‘the twelfth edition’), 1812 (11th), 1813 (Edinburgh). In The Works of Adam Smith vol. v (1811) the ‘Considerations’ are on pp. 3–48, printed as in 6. They are included in Smith’s Essays (1869, 1880). A French translation by A.M.H.B.[oulard], Considérations sur la première formation des langues, et le différent génie des langues originales et composées, was published in Paris in 1796; also one appended to the third French translation of the TMS: Théorie des sentimens moraux, trans. from ed. 7 by Sophie de Grouchy, Marquise de Condorcet (1798, revd. 1830): ‘Considérations sur l’origine et la formation des langues’, ii. 264–310.

  4.

  Rhetoric and literary criticism

  A student of the traditional rhetoric who reads the present work as he runs (or—as Smith would put it—‘one partly asleep’), may possibly as he encounters familiar topics, concepts and terminology, conclude that this is the well–worn old story: a story so often in the past a dreary one. Smith in speaking of the many systems of rhetoric both ancient and modern observed that they were generally ‘a very silly set of books and not at all instructive’ (i. v. 59). Such a reader will have missed the motive which gives unity and direction to the lectures and the framework of thought which transforms the old discipline; above all he will be ignoring the delight which informs the whole and its details.

  Steele remarked early in the century that ‘it is a very good service one man renders another when he tells him the manner of his being pleased’. Smith began lecturing at a time when the study of rhetoric was turning increasingly, especially in Scotland, to the study of taste. Hugh Blair opens the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres which he first delivered in 1759 by summing up their twofold aim: ‘Whatever enables genius to execute well, will enable taste to criticise justly’. Smith was a natural teacher of literature. One of his students, William Richardson, in a life of Archibald Arthur who later occupied the Glasgow Chair of Moral Philosophy (and who had himself studied under Smith), records: ‘Those who received instruction from Dr. Smith, will recollect, with much satisfaction, many of these incidental and digressive illustrations, and even discussions, not only in morality, but in criticism, which were delivered by him with animated and extemporaneous eloquence, as they were suggested in the course of question and answer’ (Arthur, Discourses on Theological and Literary Subjects, 1803: 507–8). Richardson’s words, though in the first instance about Smith’s ‘examination’ hour, are known to be true of his lecturing in general; and it is significant that in the account of the lectures on rhetoric which follows (515), ‘taste’ is the first topic to be mentioned, before ‘composition’. Arthur himself followed Smith’s method ‘and treated of fine–writing, the principles of criticism, and the pleasures of the imagination . . . intended by him to unfold and elucidate those processes of invention, that structure of language, and system of arrangement, which are the objects of genuine taste’. Double evidence, in effect, of Smith’s attitude to the first subject he had chosen to teach. George Jardine, another student of Smith’s who, as Professor of Logic and Rhetoric at Glasgow from 1787, continued to teach along the lines his master had laid down, likewise concentrated on ‘the principles of taste and criticism’. Thomas Reid, writing about 1791 in the Statistical Account of Scotland (vol. 21, 1799 735), describe Jardine’s current practice thus: after dealing briefly with the art of reasoning and its history, he

  dedicates the greater part of his time to an illustration of the various mental operations, as they are expressed by the several modifications of speech and writing; which leads him to deliver a system of lectures on general grammar, rhetoric, and belles lettres. This course, accompanied with suitable exercises and specimens, on the part of the students, is properly placed at the entrance to philosophy: no subjects are likely to be more interesting to young minds, at a time when their taste and feelings are beginning to open, and have naturally disposed them to the reading of such authors as are necessary to supply them with facts and materials for beginning and carrying on the important habits of reflection and investigation.

  It is significant that accounts of the tradition in rhetorical teaching acknowledged as stemming from Adam Smith so often dwell on the ‘taste and feelings’ of the students.

  The title ‘Rhetoric and Belles Lettres’, which presumably (though we do not know) was Smith’s own choice to describe his course, seems to go back to Charles Rollin’s appointment to the Chair of Rhetoric at the Collège Royal in Paris in 1688. Rollin’s lectures were published in 1726–8 as De la manière d’enseigner et d’étudier les Belles–lettres, par raport à l’esprit et au coeur—later changed to Traité des études. Apart from the suggestions of the subtitle the book cannot be shown to have taught Smith anything in the field of criticism. He needed no one else’s instruction on l’esprit et le coeur.

  His pleasure as a critic is in several ways that of a philosopher. He is stimulated by prose and poetry which clearly reveal the author, and his eye (and ear) are made attentive by the conception he has worked out of the relation between the writer and the man. Theories, as Pater saw, are useful as ‘points of view, instruments of criticism which may help us to gather up what might otherwise pass unregarded by us’. Rhetoric had, at least since the first century bc, always been taught with copious illustrations from writers, and students had been trained by exercises in the close analysis of texts. The opening paragraphs of Biographia Literaria show how lively, and fruitful, this tradition still was in Coleridge’s schooldays. For Smith there is no separation between the two instructions, in handling language and in the enjoyment of that handling by the masters of the crafts. As we might have predicted, his most characteristic method is the comparative, the pin–pointing of an author’s essential quality by putting his work alongside that of a practitioner in the same field or a kindred one: Demosthenes and Cicero, Clarendon and Burnet. This method, used systematically over a great range of examples, is his most distinctive contribution to the literary criticism of his age—especially when we remember that the values he invokes in his judgements are, not narrowly technical, but comprehensively human and humane—common–sense, to use his own word. In English criticism only Dryden, e.g. in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy and the Preface to the Fables, had so far used comparison in an extensive and self–conscious way. Smith certainly knew the examples in the rhetorical treatises of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Demosthenes with Thucydides, Plato with Demosthenes, Isaeus with Lysias, etc.) and in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria Book X; but perhaps his immediate model was the series of comparisons of ancient writers published by René Rapin in 1664–81.

  This was the age of collections of The Beauties of . . . Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Poetry, and so on. Many of Smith’s lectures must have delighted their audience by sounding like some such judiciously selected anthologies. He read extensively from the texts in class, often in his own translation (an art he took great pleasure in and found instructive in its own right: Stewart I. 9): hence the variation in length in the reported lectures. The immense popularity of these lectures was the result of their offering the spectacle of Smith’s suppleness in moving easily over the whole field of ancient and modern writing and of his inventiveness in making illuminating connections.

  If we cannot number Adam Smith among the greatest critics, we need not fall into the ill–temper expressed by Wordsworth in a footnote to his Essay Supplementary to the Preface (1815); on the notion ‘that there are no fixed principles in human nature for this art [the admiration of poetry] to rest upon’, he adds: ‘This opinion seems actually to have been entertained by Adam Smith, the worst critic, David Hume not excepted, that Scotland, a soil to which this sort of weed seems natural, has produced’. The premise of this remark is so mistaken, and the quantity of Smith’s literary criticism in the printed works, especially TMS and EPS, so fragmentary and scanty, that the violence of Wordsworth’s language is difficult to explain. A clue occurs in a letter he wrote to John Wilson in June 1802, commenting on the offence given to ‘many fine ladies’ by supposedly indelicate or gross expressions in certain of the Lyrical Ballads (The Mad Mother and The Thorn), ‘and as in the instance of Adam Smith, who, we are told, could not endure the ballad of Clym of the Clough, because the author had not written like a gentleman’ (Early Letters, 1935, 296). This is a clear reference to the interview by Amicus with Smith printed in Appendix 1. The article was reprinted in The European Magazine for August 1791 (xx. 133–6), in The Whitehall Evening Post, and thence (with misprints and omissions) in a miscellany of essays dating from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries entitled Occasional Essays on Various Subjects, chiefly Political and Historical (1809). The editorship of this last is ascribed by the B.L. Catalogue to the lawyer and mathematician Francis Maseres, the ‘Baron Maseres’ of Lamb’s essay on the Inner Temple, i.e. Cursitor Baron of Exchequer. The identity of Amicus is unknown. He has been wrongly said to be Adam Smith’s old student David Steuart Erskine, later 11th Earl of Buchan (1742–1829), who in fact, under his pen–name Ascanius, criticised the article of Amicus in The Bee of 8 June 1791 (iii. 166 f.): ‘I knew him too well to think he would have liked to have had a pisgah view of such frivolous matters obtruded on the learned world after his death’—yet he goes on: ‘He had no ear for music, nor any perception of the sublime or beautiful in composition, either in poetry or language of any kind. He was too much of a geometrician to have much taste.’ Only if we think the notorious and flamboyant eccentricity of Lord Buchan extended to writing an article under one pseudonym in order to condemn it under another can we accept him as Smith’s ‘friendly’ interviewer. In any case he collected all his Bee articles for 4 May 1791 to 25 December 1793 in The anonymous and fugitive essays of The Earl of Buchan, vol. 1 (1812) so that, as the preface explains, ‘no person may hereafter ascribe to him any others than are by him, in this manner, avowed, described, or enumerated’. So all we know of ‘Amicus’ is that, as the ‘we’ of his defence of Allan Ramsay shows, he was a Scot. As to Lord Buchan, though he had his own odd ways of showing his regard for ‘the reputation of my excellent preceptor and amiable friend’ and recalled ‘having had the happiness to live long and much with him’, the regard was genuine, and in some remarks on literary immortality he groups together Homer, Thucydides, Shakespeare, Adam Smith (Essays as above, 213, 246–7, from The Bee, 29 May 1793 and 27 June 1792 respectively). Incidentally, his denial to Smith of a ‘perception of the sublime’ would have been rebutted by Edmund Burke (who had just written a book on The Sublime and the Beautiful): on 10 Sept. 1759 he wrote to Smith praising the ‘lively and elegant’ style of TMS and adding ‘it is often sublime too, particularly in that fine Picture of the Stoic Philosophy towards the end of your first part which is dressed out in all the grandeur and pomp that becomes that magnificent delusion’ (Corr. Letter 38).

  Despite the introductory assurance of authenticity by the editor of The Bee, Dr. James Anderson, who had himself known Smith, the moral propriety of reprinting yet again the gossip of Amicus may rightly be questioned. John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century (1888: i. 468) remarks that Smith’s table–talk would be precious, ‘but the scraps of it published in the Bee do no honour either to his memory or the discretion of his friends’. Dugald Stewart (V. 15) contrasts the opinions which ‘in the thoughtlessness and confidence of his social hours, he was accustomed to hazard on books, and on questions of speculation’, though having much truth and ingenuity in them, with ‘those qualified conclusions that we admire in his writings’; and what he said as the fancy or the humour took him, ‘when retailed by those who only saw him occasionally, suggested false and contradictory ideas of his real sentiments’. But the Amicus piece has often been quoted (see Rae, Life, 365–71). Smith himself seems to approve of curiosity about the great—‘The smallest circumstances, the most minute transactions of a great man are sought after with eagerness. Everything that is created with Grandeur seems to be important. We watch the sayings and catch the apothegms of the great ones with which we are infinitely pleased and are fond of every opportunity of using them . . .’ (LRBL ii. 107). We are after all publishing lectures which Smith died believing he had saved from publication as not in a worthy state. Of course (there is a difference) these had in one sense been ‘published’. In 1896 Edwin Cannan sought to justify the publication of the Lectures on Jurisprudence by quoting Smith’s own words about the limits on testamentary provisions. In LJ (A) i. 165–6 they run: ‘. . . we should permit the dying person to dispose of his goods as far as he sees, that is, to settle how it shall be divided amongst those who are alive at the same time with him. For these it may be conjectured he may have contracted some affection. . . . But persons who are not born he can have no affection for. The utmost stretch of our piety can not reasonably extend to them.’ Mutatis mutandis Smith’s suppressions need not inhibit us. Johnson’s remark in Rambler 60 is not inopportune: ‘If we owe regard to the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth’.

  5.

  System and aesthetics

  On 9 July 1764 Boswell wrote from Berlin to Isabella de Zuylen (Zélide): ‘Mr. Smith whose moral sentiments you admire so much, wrote to me sometime ago, “your great fault is acting upon system”, what a curious reproof to a young man from a grave philosopher’. The letter opens: ‘. . . You know I am a man of form, a man who says to himself, Thus will I act, and acts accordingly’ (Letters, ed. C. B. Tinker, 1924, 46). In the absence of Adam Smith’s letter (strange, considering what mountains of paper Boswell preserved) we cannot tell with what irony he wrote to his former student; but the incident draws attention to the two uses in the eighteenth century of the word and the concept ‘system’. While Smith was giving these lectures two of the most powerful critiques of the idea appeared: in the wittiest and subtlest of all such attacks, Tristram Shandy (1759–67), Sterne presents a hapless philosopher–father’s attempts to make his son’s upbringing conform to theory, the Shandean system—the form of the novel itself criticises the notion of rigid form; and in 1759 Voltaire produced, in Candide, a demolition of the optimistic scheme of the universe, a series of disastrous frustrations of the illusion that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Marivaux is fond of pillorying ‘les faiseurs de systèmes’ (e.g. in Lettres au Mercure, May 1718 etc.), who are what ‘le vulgaire’ call ‘philosophers’; and Shaftesbury had already in 1711 (Characteristics: Misc. III. ii) defined a formal philosopher as a ‘system–writer’. ‘System–monger’ comes in about the same time. On 27 Sept. 1748 we find Lord Chesterfield advising his son to ‘read and hear, for your amusement, ingenious systems, nice questions, subtilely agitated with all the refinements that warm imaginations suggest’, and less sardonically he complains: ‘The preposterous notions of a systematical man who does not know the world tire the patience of a man who does’. Cf. Stewart’s (V. 15) ‘too systematical’ of Smith; and the ‘man of system’ apt ‘to be very wise in his own conceit’, in TMS, VI. ii. 2. 17.

  ‘System’ in the good sense is exemplified by Johnson’s defence of The Wealth of Nations against Sir John Pringle’s charge that Smith was not equipped to write such a work since he had never taken part in trade: ‘. . . there is nothing which requires more to be illustrated by philosophy than trade does’ (Boswell, Life of Johnson, ed. Hill–Powell, ii. 430). Another example, used by James Wodrow in a letter to the Earl of Buchan (Glasgow Univ. Lib., Murray MS 506, 169) is the comparison of Smith’s accounting for the principal phenomena in the moral world from the one general principle of sympathy, with ‘that of gravity in the natural world’. Still another is set out by Smith in a letter (30, dated 4 April 1759) to Lord Shelburne on the course of study his son Lord Fitzmaurice should pursue in his future years at Glasgow, after completing his Philosophical studies. He should, says Smith, attend the lectures of the Professor of Civil Law, as the best preparation for the study of English Law even though Civil Law has no authority in the English Courts:

  The civil law is digested into a more regular system than the English Law has yet been, and tho’ the Principles of the former are in many respects different from those of the latter, yet there are many principles common to both, and one who has studied the civil law at least knows what a system of law is, what parts it consist of, and how these ought to be arranged: so that when he afterwards comes to study the law of any other country which is not so well digested, he carries at least the Idea of a System in his head and knows to what part of it he ought to refer everything that he reads.

  Compare this with the motive underlying the system of meanings laid out in the review of Johnson’s Dictionary (EPS 232–41).

  That something more than mere tidiness and intellectual coherence is involved for Smith is illustrated by a passage in Imitative Arts (II. 30, cf. section 2, above):

  A well–composed concerto of instrumental Music, by the number and variety of the instruments, by the variety of the parts which are performed by them, and the perfect concord or correspondence of all these different parts; by the exact harmony or coincidence of all the different sounds which are heard at the same time, and by that happy variety of measure which regulates the succession of those which are heard at different times, presents an object so agreeable, so great, so various, and so interesting, that alone, and without suggesting any other object, either by imitation or otherwise, it can occupy, and as it were fill up, completely the whole capacity of the mind, so as to leave no part of its attention vacant for thinking of any thing else. In the contemplation of that immense variety of agreeable and melodious sounds, arranged and digested, both in their coincidence and in their succession, into so complete and regular a system, the mind in reality enjoys not only a very great sensual, but a very high intellectual, pleasure, not unlike that which it derives from the contemplation of a great system in any other science.

  In other words, to watch the explanation of a great diversity and multiplicity of phenomena from a single general principle is to be confronted with beauty: ‘the beauty of a systematical arrangement of different observations connected by a few common principles’ (WN V. i. f. 25; cf. EPS, 13 ff). We remember that Smith’s dominant interests while a student at Glasgow under Professor Robert Simson (Stewart, I. 7) were mathematics and natural philosophy; this is where he learned ‘the idea of a system’—as set out in Astronomy IV. 19.

  The issue is most clearly stated in LRBL (ii. 132–4), in the lecture (24) on scientific and philosophical exposition, the ‘didacticall’ method. One may either explain phenomena piecemeal, using a new principle for each as it is encountered, e.g. the ‘System of Husbandry’ presented in Virgil’s Georgics following Aristotle’s procedure; ‘or in the manner of Sir Isaac Newton we may lay down certain principles known or proved in the beginning, from whence we account for the severall Phenomena, connecting all together by the same chain’. This enchaînement (the favourite term among French thinkers of the time) is in every branch of study—ethics, physics, criticism—‘vastly more ingenious and for that reason more engaging than the other. It gives us a pleasure to see the phaenomena which we reckoned the most unaccountable all deduced from some principle (commonly a wellknown one) and all united in one chain, far superior to what we feel from the unconnected method. . . .’ (Cf. TMS, VII. ii. 2. 14).

  The task Smith set himself in the Rhetoric was to substitute a ‘Newtonian’ (or Cartesian, cf. ii. 134), a philosophical and ‘engaging’ explanation of beauty in writing, for the old rigmarole about figures of speech and of thought, ‘topics’ of argument, subdivisions of discourse, characters of style and the rest. In this sense his lectures constitute an anti–rhetoric; and though they could not by themselves rescue the word rhetoric, or for that matter the phrases belles lettres and polite literature, from the bad press they suffered from, they exerted a profound and revolutionary influence which has still not been properly investigated, on Hugh Blair, Kames, William Richardson, George Campbell, and those they in turn taught.

  ‘There is no art whatever that hath so close a connection with all the faculties and powers of the mind as eloquence, or the art of speaking.’ So George Campbell introduces The Philosophy of Rhetoric in 1776. To come closer to describing Smith’s central informing principle, the formulations of two French writers whose work he knew well may help. ‘Le style est l’homme même’. This famous and generally misunderstood remark was made by the naturalist Buffon on his admission to the French Academy in 1753, in what came to be called his Discours sur le style. He is contrasting the inert facts of unanimated knowledge with what language does to them. ‘Ces choses sont hors de l’homme’ they are non–human. But utter them, and how you utter them, is ‘very man’, ‘man himself’. From a different angle Marivaux, in Le Spectateur français of 8 September 1722 (Huitième feuille), attacks the notion that you must write in the manner of this or that ancient or modern author, and aims ‘prouver qu’écrire naturellement, qu’être naturel n’est pas écrire dans le goût de tel Ancien ni de tel Moderne, n’est pas se mouler sur personne quant à la forme de ses idées, mais au contraire, se ressembler fidèlement à soi–même . . . rester dans la singularité d’esprit qui nous est échué. . . .’ Be like yourself: it was a lesson, Smith believed, the much admired Shaftesbury had never learned.

  Bibliographical Note

  Adam Smith’s life and thought:

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

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

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

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

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

  The Rhetoric:

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

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

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

  R. Salvucci: ‘La retorica come teoria della comunicazione’ [on A.S.] Sociologia della 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.

• Back to Top

  6: Glasgow Editors’ Introduction to Lectures on Jurisprudence

  Adam Smith, Lectures On Jurisprudence, ed. R.. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael and P. G. Stein, vol. V of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). Chapter: Introduction

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/196/55550 on 2009-10-16

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

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

  ---

  Introduction

  1.

  Adam Smith’s Lectures at Glasgow University

  Adam Smith was elected to the Chair of Logic at Glasgow University on 9 January 1751, and admitted to the office on 16 January. He does not appear to have started lecturing at the University, however, until the beginning of the next academic session, in October 1751, when he embarked upon his first—and only—course of lectures to the Logic class.

  In the well–known account of Smith’s lectures at Glasgow which John Millar supplied to Dugald Stewart, this Logic course of 1751–2 is described as follows:

  In the Professorship of Logic, to which Mr Smith was appointed on his first 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.1

  This ‘system of rhetoric and belles lettres’, we may surmise, was based on the lectures on this subject which Smith had given at Edinburgh before coming to Glasgow, and was probably very similar to the course which he was later to deliver as a supplement to his Moral Philosophy course, and of which a student’s report has come down to us.2 Concerning the content of the preliminary part of the Logic course, however—that in which Smith exhibited ‘a general view of the powers of the mind’ and explained ‘so much of the ancient logic as was requisite’—we know no more than Millar here tells us.

  In the 1751–2 session, Smith not only gave this course to his Logic class but also helped out in the teaching of the Moral Philosophy class. Thomas Craigie, the then Professor of Moral Philosophy, had fallen ill, and at a University Meeting held on 11 September 1751 it was agreed that in his absence the teaching of the Moral Philosophy class should be shared out according to the following arrangement:

  The Professor of Divinity, Mr. Rosse, Mr. Moor having in presence of the meeting, and Mr. Smith by his letter voluntarily agreed to give their assistance in the teaching both the publick and private classe in the following manner viz: the Professor undertakes to teach the Theologia Naturalis, and the first book of Mr. Hutchesons Ethicks, and Mr. Smith the other two books de Jurisprudentia Naturali et Politicis, and Mr. Rosse and Mr. Moor to teach the hour allotted for the private classe, the meeting unanimouslie agreed to the said proposals . . .3

  About the actual content of these lectures of Smith’s on ‘natural jurisprudence and politics’4 we know nothing, although we do know that according to the testimony of Smith himself a number of the opinions put forward in them had already been the subjects of lectures he had read at Edinburgh in the previous winter, and that they were to continue to be the ‘constant subjects’ of his lectures after 1751–2.5

  In November 1751 Craigie died, and a few months later Smith was translated from his Chair of Logic to the now vacant Chair of Moral Philosophy. He was elected on 22 April 1752, and admitted on 29 April. His first full course of lectures to the Moral Philosophy class, therefore, was delivered in the 1752–3 session. He continued lecturing to the Moral Philosophy class until he left Glasgow, about the middle of January 1764,6 to take up the position of tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch.

  In order to obtain an over–all view of the content of Smith’s course in Moral Philosophy it is still necessary to go back to the account of it given by John Millar:

  About a year after his appointment to the Professorship of Logic, Mr Smith was elected to the chair of Moral Philosophy. His course of lectures on this subject was divided into four parts. The first contained Natural Theology; in which he considered the proofs of the being and attributes of God, and those principles of the human mind upon which religion is founded. The second comprehended Ethics, strictly so called, and consisted chiefly of the doctrines which he afterwards published in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. In the third part, he treated at more length of that 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.7

  So far as it goes, this account would seem to be accurate and perceptive, but there is one point of some importance which it does not make clear. What Millar describes in the passage just quoted is the course of lectures given by Smith, in his capacity as Professor of Moral Philosophy, to what was called the ‘public’ class in that subject. But Professors of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow also normally gave a supplementary course of lectures, on a different subject, to what was called the ‘private’ class.8 The subjects upon which they lectured in this supplementary course, we are told,9 were not ‘necessarily connected’ with those of their ‘public’ lectures, but were ‘yet so much connected with the immediate duty of their profession, as to be very useful to those who attended them’. Hutcheson, for example, had employed these additional hours in ‘explaining and illustrating the works of Arrian, Antoninus, and other Greek philosophers’, and Reid was later to appropriate them to ‘a further illustration of those doctrines which he afterwards published in his philosophical essays’. Adam Smith employed them in delivering, once again, a course of lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. A student’s report of Smith’s ‘private’ Rhetoric course, as it was delivered in the 1762–3 session, was discovered in Aberdeen in 1958 by the late Professor John M. Lothian,10 and a newly edited transcript of this manuscript will be published in volume iv of the present edition of Smith’s Works and Correspondence.

  Turning back now to Millar’s account of Smith’s ‘public’ course in Moral Philosophy, we see that this course is described as having been divided into four parts. About the content of the first of these (‘Natural Theology’) we know nothing whatever, and about the second (‘Ethics, strictly so called’) we know little more than Millar here tells us—viz., that it consisted chiefly of the doctrines of TMS.11 About the third and fourth parts, however—at any rate in the form which they assumed in Smith’s lectures during his last years at Glasgow12 —we now know a great deal more, thanks to the discovery of the two reports of his lectures on Jurisprudence which it is the main purpose of this volume to present.

  The term ‘Jurisprudence’, it should perhaps be explained, was normally used by Smith in a sense broad enough to encompass not only the third part of the Moral Philosophy course as Millar described it (‘that branch of morality which relates to justice’), but also the fourth part (‘those political regulations which are founded, not upon the principle of justice, but that of expediency’). In one of the two reports ‘Jurisprudence’ is defined as ‘the theory of the rules by which civil governments ought to be directed’,13 and in the other as ‘the theory of the general principles of law and government’.14 Now the main objects of every system of law, in Smith’s view, are the maintenance of justice, the provision of police in order to promote opulence, the raising of revenue, and the establishment of arms for the defence of the state. These four, then, could be regarded as the main branches or divisions of ‘Jurisprudence’ as so defined; and this is the way in which the subject is in fact divided up in both the reports. Clearly the treatment of justice in the reports relates to the third part of Smith’s Moral Philosophy course as Millar described it, and the treatment of police, revenue, and arms relates to the fourth and final part of it.

  2.

  The Two Reports of Smith’s Jurisprudence Lectures

  The first of the two reports relates to Smith’s Jurisprudence lectures in the 1762–3 session, and the second, in all probability, to the lectures given in the 1763–4 session. Hereafter these reports will usually be referred to as LJ(A) and LJ(B) respectively. It will be convenient to begin here with a description of LJ(B), which was the first of the two reports to be discovered and which will already be familiar to a large number of readers in the version published many years ago by Professor Edwin Cannan. A re–edited version of it is published below, under the title ‘Report dated 1766’.

  In 1895, Cannan’s attention was drawn to the existence, in the hands of an Edinburgh advocate, of a bound manuscript which according to the title–page consisted of ‘JURIS PRUDENCE or Notes from the Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith Professor of Moral Philosophy’. In the edition of this manuscript which Cannan brought out in 1896,15 he described its main physical characteristics as follows:

  [The] manuscript . . . forms an octavo book 9 in. high, 7½ in. broad and 1⅛ in. thick. It has a substantial calf binding, the sides of which, however, have completely parted company with the back . . . On the back there is some gilt–cross–hatching and the word JURIS PRUDENCE (thus divided between two lines) in gilt letters on a red lable. There are in all 192 leaves. Two of these are fly–leaves of dissimilar paper and have their fellows pasted on the insides of the cover, front and back. The rest all consist of paper of homogeneous character, water–marked ‘L.V. Gerrevink.’

  The manuscript is written on both sides of the paper in a rectangular space formed by four red ink lines previously ruled, which leave a margin of about three–quarters of an inch. Besides the fly–leaves there are three blank leaves at the end and two at the beginning.

  There is nothing to show conclusively whether the writing was first executed on separate sheets subsequently bound up, or in a blank note–book afterwards rebound, or in the book as it appears at present.16

  This was a careful and accurate description of the document, and not very much needs to be added to it today. The back of the binding was repaired in 1897, and the volume was rebound again (and the spine relettered) in 1969. As a result of these operations the two original end–papers and one if not both of the two original fly–leaves have disappeared.17 Discounting these, there are two blank leaves at the beginning of the volume; then one leaf on the recto of which the title is written; then 179 leaves (with the pages numbered consecutively from 1 to 358) on which the main text is written; then one leaf containing no writing (but with the usual margins ruled); then four leaves, with the pages unnumbered, on which the index is written (taking up seven of the eight pages); then finally three blank leaves—making a total of 190 leaves in all. The new binding is very tight, and full particulars of the format of the volume could not be obtained without taking it apart.

  Cannan had no doubt that this document, as suggested on its title–page, did in fact owe its origin to notes of Adam Smith’s lectures on Juris–prudence at Glasgow University. The close correspondence between the text of the document and Millar’s description of the third and fourth parts of Smith’s Moral Philosophy course, together with the existence of many parallel passages in WN,18 put this in Cannan’s opinion beyond question; and his judgement in this respect has been abundantly confirmed by everything that has happened in the field of Smith scholarship since his day—not least by the recent discovery of LJ(A).

  The title–page of LJ(B) bears the date ‘MDCCLXVI’ (whereas Adam Smith left Glasgow in January 1764); the handwriting is ornate and elaborate; there are very few abbreviations; and some of the mistakes that are to be found would seem to have been more probably caused by misreading than by mishearing. These considerations led Cannan to the conclusion—once again abundantly justified—that the manuscript was a fair copy made (presumably in 1766) by a professional copyist, and not the original notes taken at the lectures.19 The only question which worried Cannan in this connection was whether the copyist had copied directly from the original lecture–notes or from a rewritten version of these notes made later by the original note–taker. The scarcity of abbreviations, the relatively small number of obvious blunders, and the comparatively smooth flow of the English, strongly suggested the latter. Cannan was worried, however, by the facts (a) that the copyist had clearly taken great pains to make his pages correspond with the pages from which he was copying (presumably because the index already existed), and (b) that the amounts of material contained in a page were very unequal. These two facts taken together suggested to Cannan that it was at least possible that the copyist had copied directly from the original lecture–notes rather than from a rewritten version of them.20 In actual fact, however, the degree of inequality in the amount of material in a page is not quite as great as Cannan suggests, and certainly no greater than one would reasonably expect to find in a student’s rewritten version of his lecture–notes.21 It seems very probable, then, that the copy was in fact made from a rewritten version.

  The question of the purpose for which this rewritten version was made, however, is a rather more difficult one. Was it made by the original note–taker for his own use, or was it made (whether by him or by someone else at another remove) for sale? In those days, we know, ‘manuscript copies of a popular professor’s lectures, transcribed from his students’ notebooks, were often kept for sale in the booksellers’ shops.’22 An interesting comparison may be made here between LJ(A)—a rewritten version almost certainly made by the original note–taker for his own use and not for sale—and LJ(B). LJ(A), although so far as it goes it is much fuller than LJ(B), is very much less polished, in the sense that it contains many more abbreviations, grammatical and spelling errors, blank spaces, etc. LJ(A), again, faithfully reproduces many of the summaries of previous lectures which Smith seems normally to have given at the beginning of each new one, and often notes the specific date on which the relevant lecture was delivered—features which are completely lacking in LJ(B). Nor is there in LJ(A) anything like the elaborate (and on the whole accurate) index which appears at the end of LJ(B). Considerations such as these, although not conclusive, do suggest the possibility that the rewritten version from which LJ(B) was copied had been prepared for sale, and therefore also the possibility that there were two or three steps between the original lecture–notes and the manuscript of LJ(B) itself. But what really matters, of course, is the reliability of the document: does it or does it not give a reasonably accurate report of what was actually said in the lectures at which the original notes were taken? Now that we have another set of notes to compare it with, we can answer this question with a fairly unqualified affirmative. LJ(B) is not quite as accurate and reliable as Cannan believed it to be; but if we make due allowance for its more summary character it is probably not much inferior to LJ(A) as a record of what may be assumed actually to have been said in the lectures.23

  In which session, then, were the lectures delivered from which LJ(B) was ultimately derived?24 Cannan, in his perceptive comments on this question,25 declined to lay too much weight on the frequent references to the Seven Years War as ‘the late’ or ‘the last’ war, on the perfectly valid ground that ‘it would be natural after the conclusion of peace for the reporter or the transcriber to alter “the war” or “the present war” into “the late war” ’. The reference to the ransom of the crew of the Litchfield,26 however, which took place in April 1760, clearly meant that it was almost certain that the lectures were not delivered before 1761–2. They could conceivably have been delivered in that session, but Cannan thought it more probable that they were delivered ‘either in the portion of the academical session of 1763–4 which preceded Adam Smith’s departure, or in the session of 1762–3 . . .’

  More light can now be thrown on this question as a result of the discovery of LJ(A), which relates without any doubt (since many of the lectures are specifically dated) to the 1762–3 session. The crucial point here is that in LJ(A) the order of treatment of the main subjects is radically different from that in LJ(B). ‘The civilians’, Smith is reported in LJ(B) as saying,27

  begin with considering government and then treat of property and other rights. Others who have written on this subject begin with the latter and then consider family and civil government. There are several advantages peculiar to each of these methods, tho’ that of the civil law seems upon the whole preferable.

  In LJ(B), then, Smith adopts the method of ‘the civilians’, beginning with government and then going on to deal with ‘property and other rights’. In LJ(A), by way of contrast, he adopts the method of the ‘others who have written on this subject’, beginning with ‘property and other rights’ and then going on to deal with ‘family and civil government’. LJ(B), therefore, cannot possibly relate to the same year as LJ(A), whence it follows (given the decisive Litchfield reference) that it must relate either to 1761–2 or to 1763–4. And it can now fairly readily be shown that it is very unlikely to relate to 1761–2. There is a reference in LJ(B) to Florida being ‘put into our hands’;28 and a comparison of the passage in which this reference occurs with the corresponding passage (a much more extensive one) in LJ(A)29 shows that it must refer to the cession of Florida at the end of the Seven Years War by the Treaty of Paris in February 1763. This event, therefore, could not have been remarked upon in the 1761–2 session; and it thus seems almost certain that LJ(B) relates to 1763–4.

  Cannan, when speaking of the possibility that LJ(B) might relate to 1763–4, seemed to suggest that if this were so the lectures from which the notes were taken would have had to be delivered in the portion of that session which ‘preceded Adam Smith’s departure’ from Glasgow.30 But this is surely to take the words ‘delivered . . . by Adam Smith’ on the titlepage of LJ(B) much too literally. After Smith left Glasgow, his ‘usual course of lectures’ was carried on by one Thomas Young, with whom (at any rate according to Tytler’s account) Smith left ‘the notes from which he had been in use to deliver his prelections’.31 Assuming, as would seem probable, that Young was in fact furnished by Smith with these notes and that he kept fairly closely to them in his lectures, it would have been perfectly possible for a student to take down, in the 1763–4 session, a set of lecture–notes from which a document possessing all the characteristics of LJ(B) could quite plausibly be derived.

  We turn now to LJ(A), an edited version of which is published for the first time below, under the title ‘Report of 1762–3’. ‘At various dates in the autumn of 1958’, wrote the discover of the document, the late Professor John M. Lothian, ‘remnants of what had once been the considerable country–house library of Whitehaugh were dispersed by auction in Aberdeen.’ In the eighteenth century Whitehaugh belonged to the Leith and later the Forbes–Leith families. Among a number of Whitehaugh books and papers purchased by Professor Lothian at various dates at these sales were two sets of lecture–notes, apparently made by students. One of these (hereafter called LRBL) clearly related to Smith’s lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, as delivered in the 1762–3 session. The other set, upon closer examination, proved to relate to Smith’s lectures on Jurisprudence, as delivered in the same session.32

  The manuscript of LJ(A) is in six volumes, each measuring approximately 120 × 195 mm., bound in a contemporary binding of quarter calf with marbled paper sides and vellum tips. On the spine of each volume its number—‘Vol. 1’, ‘Vol. 2’, etc.—has been inscribed in gilt letters on a red label. The make–up of the volumes is as follows:

  • Volume i: This volume begins with a gathering of 4 sheets (i.e. 8 leaves and 16 pages) watermarked ‘C. & I. Honig’. The first leaf is pasted to the inside front cover as an end–paper; the second forms a fly–leaf; both these are blank. The recto page of the third leaf contains a list of contents of vol. i (only partially completed); the verso page of the third leaf and the remaining five leaves of the gathering are blank. There follow 170 leaves (three of which have been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.
  • Volume ii: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 181 leaves (one of which has been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.
  • Volume iii: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 150 leaves (the last two and one other of which have been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. Then comes a gathering of 8 sheets (i.e. 16 leaves and 32 pages), watermarked ‘C. & I. Honig’, all of which are blank. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.
  • Volume iv: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 179 leaves (none of which have been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.
  • Volume v: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 151 leaves (the last two of which have been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.
  • Volume vi: This volume begins with an end–paper and a fly–leaf, both blank. There follow 172 leaves (the last of which has been left blank), watermarked ‘L.V. Gerrevink’, upon which the notes have been written. Then comes a gathering of 8 sheets (i.e. 16 leaves and 32 pages), watermarked ‘C. & I. Honig’, all of which are blank. The volume finishes with a fly–leaf and an end–paper, both blank.

  The presence of the blank leaves watermarked ‘C. & I. Honig’ at the beginning of vol. i and at the end of vols. iii and vi, we believe, can be accounted for fairly simply. So far as vol. i is concerned, the reporter would seem to have instructed the binder to insert a few blank leaves at the beginning so as to leave space for a list of contents: the list was duly started, but left incomplete. So far as vols. iii and vi are concerned, all the indications are that the reporter still had some relevant material to write up when he took these volumes to be bound, and therefore instructed the binder to insert some blank leaves at the end so that he could include this material when the volume came back from binding. Once again, however, the reporter apparently did not get round to using the blank leaves as he had planned.

  The format of the volumes makes it clear that the reporter wrote the notes on loose sheets of paper folded up into gatherings, which were later bound up into the six volumes. Almost all of these gatherings—all except four, in fact—consist of two sheets of paper placed together and folded once, making four leaves (i.e. eight pages) per gathering. Each gathering was numbered in the top left–hand corner of its first page before being bound. The writing of the main text almost always appears only on the recto pages of the volume, the verso pages being either left blank or used for comments, illustrations, corrections, and various other kinds of supplementary material.

  The handwriting of the manuscript varies considerably in size, character, and legibility from one place to another—to such an extent, indeed, as to give the impression, at least at first sight, that several different hands have contributed to its composition. Upon closer investigation, however, it appears more likely that at any rate the great majority of these variations owe their origin to differences in the pen or ink used, in the speed of writing, and in the amount which the reporter tried to get into the page. It seems probable, in fact, that the whole of the main text on the recto pages of LJ(A), and all or almost all of the supplementary material on the verso pages,33 was written by one and the same hand. This hand seems very similar to that in which the main text of LRBL is written;34 and this fact, particularly when taken together with certain striking similarities in the structure of the volumes,35 strongly suggests that both LJ(A) and the main text of LRBL were written by the same person.

  The main text of LJ(A) appears to us to have been written serially, soon after (but not during) the lectures concerned, on the basis of very full notes taken down in class, probably at least partly in shorthand.36 After having been written up in the form of a more or less verbatim report, the notes were corrected and supplemented in various ways shortly to be described. We do not have the impression, however, that the report was prepared with a view to sale: it has all the hallmarks of a set of working notes prepared, primarily for his own use, by a reasonably intelligent and conscientious student.

  The question of the origin and function of the supplementary material on the verso pages is not at all an easy one, and there seems to be no single or simple answer to it. Most, if not all, of these verso notes appear to be written in the same hand as the main text; but the appreciable variations in pen, ink, letter size, etc. often make it difficult to be sure about this (particularly in the first volume of the MS., where the verso notes are very numerous), and it is at least possible that a few of them may have been written by another hand—that of a fellow student, or a later owner, or perhaps the original owner at a later date. Our over–all impression, however, is that at any rate the great majority of the verso notes were in fact made by the original owner, and made fairly soon after the text on the recto pages was written. Some of these notes, we think, may have been explanatory glosses added from memory, or perhaps as a result of private reading. Others were very probably the result of collation with at least one other set of notes. And others still, we feel, may possibly have been added as a result of the reporter’s attendance at Smith’s daily ‘examination’ session—at which, we are told, lecturers had the opportunity of ‘explaining more clearly any part of the lecture which may not have been fully understood’, and at which Smith apparently delivered many ‘incidental and digressive illustrations, and even discussions’.37 Some of the longer verso notes in LJ(A) have a distinctly digressive quality,38 and may quite possibly have had this origin.39

  The frequency of the verso notes begins to decline after the first volume, with a particularly sharp fall occurring about two–thirds of the way through the third volume. In the first volume, there are verso notes on 64 leaves (out of 170); in the second volume, on 44 leaves (out of 181); in the third volume, on 20 leaves (out of 150), with only one note in the last 50 leaves; in the fourth, on 14 leaves (out of 179); in the fifth, on 5 leaves (out of 151); and in the sixth, on 5 leaves (out of 172). Hand in hand with this decline in the frequency of the verso notes goes a decline in their average length: in the last three volumes the great majority of the notes are very short (there being in fact only three which are more than six lines long), and most of them appear more likely to be glosses added from memory than anything else. There are various possible explanations of these characteristics of the MS., but since no one explanation appears to be more probable than any other there would seem to be little value in speculating about them.

  Only one other point about LJ(A) needs to be made at this juncture. Although the treatment of individual topics is usually much more extensive in LJ(A) than in LJ(B), the actual range of subjects covered is more extensive in LJ(B) than in LJ(A). Of particular importance here is the fact that whereas LJ(B) continues right through to the end of the course, LJ(A) stops short about two–thirds of the way through the ‘police’ section of Smith’s lectures. The most likely explanation of this is that LJ(A) originally included a seventh volume which somehow became separated from the others and has not yet come to light; but there are obviously other possible explanations—e.g. that the reporter ceased attending the course at this point.

  3.

  Adam Smith’s Lecture Timetable in 1762–3

  The fact that a large number of the lectures in LJ(A), and all (or almost all) of the lectures in LRBL, were specifically dated by the reporter, means that it is possible up to a point to reconstruct Smith’s lecture timetable for the 1762–3 session. Where the dates are missing, of course, guesses have to be made, and the conclusions sometimes become very conjectural. The exercise seems well worth carrying out, however: it is of some interest in itself, and it provides us with certain information which will be useful when we turn, in the next section of this Introduction, to the problems involved in the collation of LJ(A) and LJ(B).

  In Thomas Reid’s Statistical Account of the University of Glasgow, which was apparently drawn up about 1794, the following remarks appear under the heading ‘Time of Lecturing, &c.’:

  The annual session for teaching, in the university, begins, in the ordinary curriculum,40 on the tenth of October; and ends, in some of the classes, about the middle of May, and in others continues to the tenth of June . . .

  During this period, the business of the College continues without interruption.41 The Professors of Humanity, or Latin, and of Greek, lecture and examine their students, receive and correct exercises, three hours every day, and four hours for two days every week; the Professors of Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy, two hours every day, and three hours during a part of the session; excepting on Saturdays, when, on account of a general meeting of the public students, there is only one lecture given.42

  At any rate in the early 1790s, then, it was the normal practice in the teaching of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow for the Professor of that subject to ‘lecture and examine’ his students for ‘two hours every day, and three hours during a part of the session’.43 The question we must now ask is whether this was also the normal practice thirty years earlier, during the last two or three years of Smith’s period in Glasgow, and if so how the hours concerned were divided up in his particular case.

  Curiously enough, it is once again Thomas Reid who provides the crucial piece of evidence here, in the shape of a letter he wrote to a friend on 14 November 1764, a month or so after the beginning of the session in which he took over the Moral Philosophy Chair from Smith. In this letter he describes his lecture timetable as follows:

  I must launch forth in the morning, so as to be at the College . . . half an hour after seven, when I speak for an hour, without interruption, to an audience of about a hundred. At eleven I examine for an hour upon my morning prelection; but my audience is little more than a third part of what it was in the morning. In a week or two, I must, for three days in the week, have a second prelection at twelve, upon a different subject, where my audience will be made up of those who hear me in the morning, but do not attend at eleven. My hearers commonly attend my class two years at least. The first session they attend the morning prelection, and the hour of examination at eleven; the second and subsequent years they attend the two prelections, but not the hour of examination.44

  There is no suggestion in this letter (or, so far as we are aware, anywhere else) that Reid’s accession to the Moral Philosophy Chair was marked by any change of practice so far as the lecturing arrangements were concerned; and all the indications are that Smith, at any rate in his last years at Glasgow, had followed the same routine: a lecture from 7.30 to 8.30 each morning (except Saturday); an ‘examination’ on this ‘morning prelection’ from 11 a.m. to noon; and in addition, on certain days during a part of the session, a ‘second prelection . . . upon a different subject’ from noon to 1 p.m. Smith’s ‘morning prelection’ at 7.30 was of course his ‘public’ lecture on Moral Philosophy; the ‘examination’ at 11 a.m. (at which, as we already know from Richardson’s account,45 Smith delivered many ‘incidental and digressive illustrations’) related directly to this ‘morning prelection’; and his ‘second prelection . . . upon a different subject’ at noon was his ‘private’ lecture on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres.

  In our attempt to reconstruct Smith’s actual lecture timetable in 1762–3 it will be convenient to begin with the Rhetoric course, since its reconstruction involves far fewer difficulties than does that of the Jurisprudence course. The first lecture in the Rhetoric notes is headed ‘Lecture 2^d’ and dated Friday, 19 November. From the ‘2^d’ in the heading, and from the fact that the argument of this lecture appears to start in midstream, we may reasonably assume that at some time before 19 November Smith had already given a preliminary lecture in the Rhetoric course, which for some reason or other was not reported in this set of notes. Judging from the subsequent pattern of lecture–dates, it would seem probable that this preliminary lecture was given on Wednesday, 17 November. Starting with this latter date, then, the timetable of Smith’s Rhetoric course in 1762–3 would appear to have been as follows:46

  Number of Lecture	Date of Lecture
  47 The student has incorrectly ascribed the number ‘4’ to two successive lectures.
  48 The argument of lecture 9 appears to follow on logically from that of lecture 8. It would therefore seem probable that Smith did not lecture on Rhetoric on either the Wednesday or the Friday in the week beginning Monday, 6 December.
  49 In the MS. ‘26’—an obvious error.
  50 There is no obvious break in continuity between lecture 15 and lecture 16, which suggests that Smith did not lecture on Rhetoric during the period between Monday, 27 December 1762 and Wednesday, 5 January 1763. It should be noted, however, that although he may not have lectured on Rhetoric during this period, it seems fairly clear from LJ(A) that he did lecture on Jurisprudence during this period, probably on three occasions. See below, p. 18.
  51 From this point onwards, the ‘normal’ number of lectures given per week in the Rhetoric course would seem to have been reduced from three to two, the Wednesday lecture usually being the one cut out.
  52 In this week, apparently by way of exception, the second Rhetoric lecture was given on Wednesday rather than on Friday. A possible reason is that Smith transferred the lecture from Friday to Wednesday because the Friday concerned (the last Friday in January) was a holiday.
  53 The argument of lecture 28 seems to follow on logically from that of lecture 27. Smith lectured on Jurisprudence on Friday, 11 February 1763, but it seems probable that for some reason the Rhetoric lecture scheduled for that date was cancelled.
  54 The reporter’s notes under this date–heading are unusually extensive, and it seems likely that they in fact summarized the subject–matter of two lectures rather than one. We may therefore plausibly conjecture that the last lecture in the Rhetoric course (or, more strictly speaking, the last lecture in that course which is reported in this set of notes) was given on Monday, 21 February 1763.
  [1]	[Wednesday, 17 November 1762]
  2	Friday, 19 November 1762
  3	Monday, 22 November 1762
  4	Wednesday, 24 November 1762
  447	Friday, 26 November 1762
  5	Monday, 29 November 1762
  6	Wednesday, 1 December 1762
  7	Friday, 3 December 1762
  8	Monday, 6 December 176248
  9	Monday, 13 December 1762
  10	Wednesday, 15 December 1762
  11	Friday, 17 December 1762
  12	Monday, 20 December 1762
  13	Wednesday, 22 December 1762
  14	Friday, 24 December 1762
  15	Monday, 2749 December 176250
  16	Wednesday, 5 January 1763
  17	Friday, 7 January 1763
  18	Monday, 10 January 1763
  19	Wednesday, 12 January 1763
  20	Friday, 14 January 176351
  21	Monday, 17 January 1763
  22	Friday, 21 January 1763
  23	Monday, 24 January 1763
  24	Wednesday, 26 January 176352
  25	Monday, 31 January 1763
  26	Friday, 4 February 1763
  27	Monday, 7 February 176353
  28	Monday, 14 February 1763
  29	Friday, 18 February 176354
  [30]	[Monday, 21 February 1763]

  Smith’s Rhetoric course in 1762–3, then, started in the third week in November—round about the same time, it would seem, as Reid’s course in the ‘different subject’ two years later55 —and probably finished towards the end of February.56 In so far as a normal pattern is discernible, it would seem to be one involving the delivery of three lectures per week up to the middle of January, and two per week thereafter. This may help to explain the apparent contradiction between Reid’s statement that three lectures per week were devoted to the ‘different subject’57 and Richardson’s statement that only two were so devoted.58

  Let us turn now to the Jurisprudence course, the timetable for which is more difficult to reconstruct because the specific lecture–dates noted by the student are fewer and farther between, particularly in the first part of the course. The difficulties start right at the beginning. The first Jurisprudence lecture is dated Friday, 24 December 1762,59 but no further specific lecture–dates appear until p. 90 of the MS. of the first volume, where a new lecture is dated Thursday, 6 January 1763. The problem is to work out (a) how many lectures were given between 24 December and 6 January; (b) where exactly each of them began and ended; and (c) on which of the available lecturing days they were given.

  Some assistance can be obtained here from the MS. itself, by trying to detect in it what we may call ‘conjectural breaks’—i.e. points at which it seems plausible to assume, from the presence of a conspicuous space, a change of ink or pen, an unusually large number of dashes, a summary of an earlier argument, or some other indication, that one lecture may have ended and another begun. For example, there would seem to be a ‘conjectural break’ of this type round about the middle of p. 9 of the MS., suggesting that a new lecture began at this point—a lecture delivered, presumably, on Monday, 27 December 1762, which was the next available lecturing day.60

  The material in the notes from this first conjectural break to the next specific lecture–date (Thursday, 6 January 1763, on p. 90 of the MS.) occupies 81 MS. pages. The average length of the notes of later (specifically dated) lectures is roughly 15–16 MS. pages per lecture. It may thus be surmised that the material on pp. 9–90 of the MS. was derived from a total of five lectures—a surmise which is supported by the fact that four plausible conjectural breaks (on pp. 23, 40, 53, and 68) can be detected in the MS. between p. 9 and p. 90. So far as the actual dates of the intervening lectures are concerned, we are rather more in the dark. We know that Smith lectured on Rhetoric on Wednesday, 5 January 1763, so we may perhaps assume that on this date he lectured on Jurisprudence as well. We also know that he did not lecture on Rhetoric on Monday, 3 January 1763, so we may perhaps assume that on this date he did not lecture on Jurisprudence either, possibly because it was a holiday. We may also assume that he did not lecture at all on Friday, 31 December 1762, which would certainly have been a holiday.61 But this still leaves us with more available lecturing days than we have lectures to fit into them, so we must necessarily fall back up to a point on guesswork.

  All these factors being taken into account, the best guesses we can perhaps hazard about the dates of Smith’s Jurisprudence lectures from Friday, 24 December 1762 to Thursday, 6 January 1763, and about the specific points in the MS. at which these dates should be inserted, are as follows:62

  Volume and Page of MS. on which Lecture Begins	Date of Lecture
  i.1	Friday, 24 December 1762
  [i.9]	[Monday, 27 December 1762]
  [i.23]	[Tuesday, 28 December 1762]
  [i.40]	[Wednesday, 29 December 1762]
  [i.53]	[Tuesday, 4 January 1763]
  [i.68]	[Wednesday, 5 January 1763]
  i.90	Thursday, 6 January 1763

  The timetable for the week beginning Monday, 3 January 1763 may then be (conjecturally) completed by adding

  [i.104]

  [Friday, 7 January 1763]

  We may now proceed on a similar basis (but relegating the ‘working’ to footnotes) to reconstruct Smith’s lecture timetable for the remainder of the Jurisprudence course up to the point where the reporter’s notes break off. The result is as follows:

  Volume and Page of MS. on which Lecture Begins	Date of Lecture
  63 The timetable for this week is very conjectural indeed. The only certain date is Monday, 10 January 1763; but we do know that Smith lectured on Rhetoric on Wednesday, 12 January and Friday, 14 January 1763, and we have therefore assumed that he also lectured on Jurisprudence on those two days. The main difficulty is that there is not really enough material in the MS.—even taking into account the possible implications of the mysterious note on p. 145 and the gap of 3½ pages in the MS. which follows it—to represent the summaries of a full five days’ lecturing. It rather looks as if either Tuesday’s or Thursday’s lecture was cancelled: we have assumed, at a venture, that it was in fact Tuesday’s. P. 146 of the MS. (the point at which we have assumed that the lecture on Friday, 14 January 1763 began) does seem to mark a real ‘break’, since at this point Smith embarks upon a summary of ‘some of the last lectures’—something which he seems normally to have done only at the beginning of a new lecture.
  64 There is a certain element of conjecture in our ascription of the three mid–week dates to specific points in the MS., but everything fits in and on the whole the ascription seems fairly plausible.
  65 Apart from the certain dates of Wednesday, 26 January 1763 and Thursday, 3 February 1763, the timetables for this week and the next are very conjectural indeed. The first difficulty is that there are only thirty–one pages of MS. between the beginning of the lecture on Friday, 21 January 1763 and the beginning of that on Wednesday, 26 January 1763—not enough to represent a full three days’ lecturing. We have dealt with this by assuming that Smith lectured on Jurisprudence on Monday, 24 January 1763 (when we know that he lectured on Rhetoric), but that for some reason the Jurisprudence lecture scheduled for Tuesday, 25 January 1763 was not in fact delivered. The second difficulty is that there are only fifty–seven pages of MS. between the beginning of the lecture on Wednesday, 26 January 1763 and the beginning of that on Thursday, 3 February 1763—not nearly enough to represent a full six days’ lecturing. There are, it is true, several longish gaps in this section of the MS. of LJ(A), but a comparison with LJ(B) suggests that there was not in fact all that much which the reporter failed to get down. The most plausible conjectural breaks in these fifty–seven pages are on pp. 105, 121, and 131 of the MS. If we assume that there were in fact three lectures between Wednesday, 26 January 1763 and Thursday, 3 February 1763; that one of these was given on Monday, 31 January 1763 (when we know that Smith lectured on Rhetoric); and that Friday, 28 January 1763 was a holiday (as the last Friday in January apparently then was), then the three lectures must have been given either on Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday, or on Thursday, Monday, and Wednesday, or on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. In the timetable in the text we have opted for the third of these alternatives, but we would not claim that it is really much more plausible than either of the other two.
  66 The small amount of material in the MS. notes relating to this lecture, coupled with the fact that they appear to end in mid sentence and are followed by a blank page, suggests that the student either left the lecture early or for some other reason failed to get notes of the rest of it down. A comparison with LJ(B), which at this point contains some passages of which there is no counterpart in LJ(A), tends to confirm this hypothesis. Cf. below, p. 28, note 10.
  67 It is not at all certain that the break in fact came at this point, but all things considered it seems to be the most likely place.
  68 The most likely point of conclusion to the notes of the lecture of Wednesday, 16 February 1763, we have assumed, is at the foot of p. 130 of the MS., where several dashes appear. This would make it a very long set of notes for a single lecture, but there is one other case (Tuesday, 29 March 1763) where the report of a dated lecture is of similar length.
  69 The report of the lecture which we have dated (conjecturally) Thursday, 17 February 1763 is cut off abruptly in mid sentence, at the end of vol. iii of the MS., and the discussion of the acquisition of slaves which is being dealt with is never completed. Nor is there any counterpart in LJ(A) of the discussion of servants, guardian and ward, and domestic offences which in LJ(B) follows the treatment of the acquisition of slaves. All the indications are that the same order of treatment was in fact followed by Smith in 1762–3, but that the student for some reason failed to get, or to write up, any notes of this material. Certainly, at any rate, he took some pains to make room at the end of vol. iii for a substantial quantity of additional notes. The third and fourth leaves of the final gathering in the volume have been left blank, and, as already noted above (p. 10), sixteen extra leaves have been inserted, probably by the binder at the student’s request. The final gathering of vol. iii is numbered 126, and the first gathering in vol. iv is numbered 129. In the light of all these circumstances, it seems reasonable to assume that Smith did in fact lecture on servants, guardian and ward, etc., in 1763, and that this lecture was given on Friday, 18 February, when we know that he lectured on Rhetoric. Cf. below, pp. 29–30, notes 19 and 20.
  70 There is no trace of any lecture having been given on Friday, 25 February 1763, which, being the last Friday in February, was in all probability a holiday.
  71 In the actual date–heading on p. 84 of the MS., the day of the week appears as ‘Friday’, and the figure for the day of the month looks like an ‘18’ which has been altered to a ‘17’. It appears that the penultimate Friday in March may have been a holiday (see David Murray, op. cit., 462), so we have assumed that the lecture was in fact delivered on Thursday, 17 March 1763.
  72 There is no sign of the student’s having missed a lecture at this point. Friday’s lecture was probably cancelled.
  73 There is no trace of any lecture having been given on Thursday, 31 March, Friday, 1 April, or Monday, 4 April 1763. Since Easter Day in 1763 fell on 3 April, it seems probable that the Thursday, Friday, and Monday were holidays.
  74 As shown below (p. 31, note 40, and p. 380, note 53), it seems very likely that quite a large amount of material (relating to a lecture which Smith must have given on this date) was omitted from vol. vi, probably by accident.
  i.115	Monday, 10 January 1763
  [i.129]	[Wednesday, 12 January 1763]
  [i.143]	[Thursday, 13 January 1763]
  [i.146]	[Friday, 14 January 1763]63
  ii.1	Monday, 17 January 1763
  [ii.13]	[Tuesday, 18 January 1763]
  [ii.26]	[Wednesday, 19 January 1763]
  [ii.41]	[Thursday, 20 January 1763]
  ii.56	Friday, 21 January 176364
  [ii.71]	[Monday, 24 January 1763]
  ii.87	Wednesday, 26 January 176365
  [ii.105]	[Monday, 31 January 1763]
  [ii.121]	[Tuesday, 1 February 1763]
  [ii.131]	[Wednesday, 2 February 1763]
  ii.144	Thursday, 3 February 1763
  [ii.162]	[Friday, 4 February 1763]
  iii.1	Monday, 7 February 176366
  iii.6	Tuesday, 8 February 1763
  [iii.23]67	[Wednesday, 9 February 1763]
  iii.48	Thursday, 10 February 1763
  iii.65	Friday, 11 February 1763
  iii.76	Monday, 14 February 1763
  iii.87	Tuesday, 15 February 1763
  iii.105	Wednesday, 16 February 176368
  [iii.131]	[Thursday, 17 February 1763]69
  —	[Friday, 18 February 1763]69
  iv.1	Monday, 21 February 1763
  iv.19	Tuesday, 22 February 1763
  iv.41	Wednesday, 23 February 1763
  iv.60	Thursday, 24 February 176370
  iv.74	Monday, 28 February 1763
  iv.91	Tuesday, 1 March 1763
  iv.104	Wednesday, 2 March 1763
  iv.121	Thursday, 3 March 1763
  iv.134	Friday, 4 March 1763
  iv.149	Monday, 7 March 1763
  iv.164	Tuesday, 8 March 1763
  v.1	Wednesday, 9 March 1763
  v.15	Thursday, 10 March 1763
  v.31	Friday, 11 March 1763
  v.44	Monday, 14 March 1763
  v.58	Tuesday, 15 March 1763
  v.72	Wednesday, 16 March 1763
  v.84	[Thursday, 17 March 1763]71
  v.99	Monday, 21 March 1763
  v.111	Tuesday, 22 March 1763
  v.127	Wednesday, 23 March 1763
  v.140	Thursday, 24 March 176372
  vi.1	Monday, 28 March 1763
  vi.24	Tuesday, 29 March 1763
  vi.50	Wednesday, 30 March 176373
  vi.63	Tuesday, 5 April 1763
  vi.81	Wednesday, 6 April 1763
  vi.101	Thursday, 7 April 1763
  vi.117	Friday, 8 April 1763
  —	[Monday, 11 April 1763]74
  vi.135	Tuesday, 12 April 1763
  vi.155	Wednesday, 13 April 1763

  At the end of vol. vi of the MS., sixteen pages later, the student’s report ends, and there is no way of reconstructing Smith’s lecture timetable for the remainder of the Jurisprudence course. It seems reasonable to assume, however, that the pattern which is fairly consistently revealed in the lectures up to this point was continued until the course was concluded at or near the end of the session.

  4.

  The Collation of LJ(A) and LJ(B)

  As we have seen,75 LJ(A) owes its origin to Adam Smith’s Jurisprudence course as it was delivered in 1762–3, and LJ(B), in all probability, to that course as it was delivered in 1763–4. The collation of two sets of student’s notes relating to the same course of lectures as it was delivered in two successive sessions would not normally involve any special difficulties. In the present case, however, there are certain complications, arising out of three features of the documents which we have already noted above.

  In the first place, although the difference in the content of the actual lectures (taking them as a whole) may not have been very great as between the two sessions concerned, there was, as we have seen,76 an appreciable difference in the order in which the main subjects of the lectures were presented. In LJ(A) the order of treatment is property and other rights, domestic law, government, police; whereas in LJ(B) it is government, domestic law, property and other rights, police.

  In the second place, there is a difference in the origin of the reports. LJ(A), if our view of it is correct, is a rewritten version of notes of Smith’s lectures taken down (probably for the most part in shorthand) by a student in class, and was intended primarily as a working document for use by the student himself. The notes are relatively extensive, and the student has usually (although not always) taken some care to fill in gaps, correct errors, and add supplementary material. LJ(B), by way of contrast, would seem to be a fair copy, made by a professional copyist, of a much more summary report of Smith’s lectures—for the most part owing its origin, one may perhaps conjecture, to longhand notes taken down in class.77

  In the third place, there is a difference in the range of subjects covered in the reports, which is generally speaking more complete in LJ(B) than in LJ(A). On several occasions the writer of LJ(A), either because he has missed a lecture or for some other reason, fails to report Smith’s discussion of a particular subject which is duly reported upon in LJ(B). And, much more importantly, LJ(A) as we have seen78 stops short about two–thirds of the way through the ‘police’ section of Smith’s lectures, whereas LJ(B) continues right through to the end of the course.

  These considerations have largely dictated the particular method of collation which we have adopted below. What we have done is to take the subject–matter of LJ(B) as the starting–point, dividing it up in the first instance in accordance with the successive sectional headings supplied by Cannan in his edition of LJ(B), and then refining and extending these headings in a number of cases where further subdivision makes the task of collation easier. The particular pages of the MS. of LJ(B) on which these topics are dealt with are noted in the second column; and side by side with these, in the third column, we have noted the pages of the manuscript of LJ(A) on which parallel passages dealing with the same topics are to be found. In cases where there seem to us to be significant differences in the treatment of a topic as between the two texts, these differences are described in a note in the ‘Notes on the Collation’ which appear at the end of this section of the Introduction, a reference to the appropriate note being given in the fourth column of the collation itself. In the other cases, where there is no note–reference in the fourth column, it may be assumed that the two texts deal with the topic concerned in roughly the same manner—i.e. that even if (as is generally the case) the treatment in LJ(A) is more extensive than it is in LJ(B), both texts broadly speaking make much the same points in much the same order.

  TOPICS DISCUSSED	LJ(B)	LJ(A)	NOTE
  INTRODUCTION
  1. Of Works on Natural Jurisprudence	1–4	—	(1)
  2. Of the Division of the Subject	5–6	i.1–9	—
  PART I: OF JUSTICE
  Introduction	6–11	i.9–25	(2)
  Divn. I: Of Public Jurisprudence
  1. Of the Original Principles of Government
  (a) Utility and Authority	12–15	v.119–124 & 129–132	(3)
  (b) Doctrine of an Original Contract	15–18	v.114–119 & 127–129
  2. Of the Nature of Government and its Progress in the first Ages of Society
  (a) Forms of Government	18–19	iv.1–3	—
  (b) Early Progress of Government	19–30	iv.3–55	(4)
  3. How Republican Governments were introduced	30–36	iv.55–74 & 109–110	—
  4. How Liberty was lost	36–43	iv.74–95	—
  5. Of Military Monarchy	43–46	iv.95–99 & 104–109	(5)
  6. How Military Monarchy was dissolved	46–49	iv.99–104 & 109–113	(6)
  7. Of the Allodial Government	49–52	iv.113–124	—
  8. Of the Feudal System	52–57	iv.124–145 & 149–151	—
  9. Of the English Parliament	58–59	iv.145–148 & 151–157	—
  10. How the Government of England became Absolute	59–61	iv.157–167	—
  11. How Liberty was restored	61–64	iv.167–179 & v.1–12	(7)
  12. Of the English Courts of Justice	64–75	v.12–45	—
  13. Of the little Republics in Europe
  (a) Origin of these Republics	77–78	v.45–50	—
  (b) Manner of Voting	78	v.51–53	—
  14. Of the Rights of Sovereigns	78–86	v.54–86	—
  15. Of Citizenship	86–91	v.86–102	(8)
  16. Of the Rights of Subjects	91–99	v.102–114, 124–127, & 132–149	(9)
  Divn. II: Domestic Law
  1. Husband and Wife
  (a) Introduction	101–102	iii.1–5	—
  (b) Fidelity and Infidelity	102–105	—	(10)
  (c) Marriage and Divorce	105–111	iii.6–23	(11)
  (d) Polygamy	111–118	iii.23–52	(12)
  (e) Property Interests	118–120	iii.52–58	(13)
  (f) Prohibited Degrees	120–123	iii.58–69	(14)
  (g) Illegitimacy	123–126	iii.69–77	—
  2. Parent and Child	126–130	iii.78–87	—
  3. Master and Servant
  (a) Condition of the Slaves	130–133	iii.87–101	(15)
  (b) Slavery in Different Types of Society	134–138	iii.101–111	(16)
  (c) Further Inconveniences of Slavery	138–140	iii.111–114, 126–130, & 134–141	(17)
  (d) Causes of Abolition of Slavery	140–142	iii.114–126	(18)
  (e) Acquisition of Slaves	142–145	iii.141–147	(19)
  (f) State of Servants	145–146	—
  4. Guardian and Ward	146–148	—	(20)
  5. Domestic Offences and their Punishments	148	—
  Divn. III: Private Law
  1. Occupation	149–152	i.25–63	(21)
  2. Accession	152–154	i.63–76	(22)
  3. Prescription	154–155	i.76–90	—
  4. Succession
  (a) Legal Succession among the Romans	155–158	i.90–104	(23)
  (b) Succession to Movables in Modern Countries	158–159	i.104–114	(24)
  (c) Succession to Immovables	159–164	i.114–148	(25)
  (d) Testamentary Succession	164–169	i.149–167 & ii.1	—
  5. Voluntary Transference	169–171	ii.1–13	(26)
  6. Of Servitudes	172–173	ii.13–19	—
  7. Of Pledges and Mortgages	173–174	ii.19–26	—
  8. Of Exclusive Privileges	174–175	ii.26–41	(27)
  9. Of Contract	175–180	ii.41–84	(28)
  10. Of Quasi–Contract	180–181	ii.85–88	(29)
  11. Of Delinquency
  (a) Foundation of Punishment	181–182	ii.88–94	—
  (b) Murder and Homicide	182–189	ii.94–121	(30)
  (c) Other Offences against the Person	189–192	ii.121–135	(31)
  (d) Injuries to Reputation	192–194	ii.135–144	—
  (e) Injuries to Estate	194–199	ii.144–161	(32)
  (f) Expiration of Personal Rights	199–200	ii.162–174	—
  (g) General Observations	200–201	ii.174–180	—
  PART II: OF POLICE
  Divn. I: Cleanliness and Security	203–205	vi.1–7	—
  Divn. II: Cheapness or Plenty
  1. Of the Natural Wants of Mankind	205–209	vi.7–16	—
  2. That all the Arts are subservient to the Natural Wants of Mankind	209–211	vi.16–21	—
  3. That Opulence arises from the Division of Labour	211–213	vi.21–28	(33)
  4. How the Division of Labour multiplies the Product	213–218	vi.28–43	(34)
  5. What gives Occasion to the Division of Labour	218–222	vi.44–57	(35)
  6. That the Division of Labour must be proportioned to the Extent of Commerce	222–223	vi.63–66	(36)
  7. What Circumstances regulate the Price of Commodities
  (a) Natural Price of Commodities	223–227	vi.58–63 & 67–69	(37)
  (b) Market Price of Commodities	227–229	vi.70–75	—
  (c) Relation between Natural Price and Market Price	229–235	vi.75–97	(38)
  8. Of Money as the Measure of Value and Medium of Exchange
  (a) Measure of Value	235–237	vi.97–103	—
  (b) Medium of Exchange	237–244	vi.103–126	(39)
  9. That National Opulence does not consist in Money
  (a) Circulation, Banks, and Paper Money	244–247	vi.127–132	(40)
  (b) Further Comments on Banks	248–251	—
  (c) Opulence does not consist in Money	251–256	vi.133–146
  10. Of Prohibiting the Exportation of Coin	256–260	vi.146–158	(41)
  11. Of the Balance of Trade	261–266	vi.158–168	—
  12. Of the Opinion that no Expense at Home can be hurtful	266–270	vi.169–171	(42)

  notes on the collation

  (1) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the remarks about works on natural jurisprudence which are reported on pp. 1–4 of LJ(B). One possible explanation of this, of course, is that in 1762 Smith did not in fact make any such remarks at the beginning of his Jurisprudence lectures. Another possible explanation is that he did do so, but that the student, regarding them merely as a kind of historical prolegomenon, did not think fit to include them in his report of Smith’s lectures proper. A relevant indication here, perhaps, is that (as we have already seen above) there appears to be a fairly definite ‘conjectural break’ half way down p. 9 of the MS., which means that the reporter’s notes of the lecture concerned occupy not much more than half the average space occupied by his notes of subsequent lectures.

  There is another point of interest in this connection. Georg Sacke, in an article published in Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie in 1939 (Bd. IX, pp. 351–6), has drawn attention to the fact that the celebrated Russian jurist S. E. Desnitsky, who had been a student at Glasgow University from 1761 to 1767, gave a lecture at Moscow University on 30 June 1768 in which there is a long passage corresponding almost word for word with Smith’s remarks about works on natural jurisprudence as reported on pp. 1–4 of LJ(B). Desnitsky may well have been making use either of a set of lecture–notes identical with that from which LJ(B) was copied, or (as appears from his inclusion of some statements, not to be found in LJ(B), about Richard Cumberland, author of a seventeenth–century treatise on natural law) of a very close variant of it.

  (2) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the last five sentences on p. 11 of LJ(B), in which Smith makes the important statement that ‘property and civil government very much depend on one another’, and proceeds to consider the two possible methods of presenting the subject of Jurisprudence.

  (3) In LJ(A), these two topics are discussed near the end of the government section, in the context of the problem of the extent of the limits to the power of the sovereign. In LJ(B), they are discussed at the beginning of the government section; the order in which they are treated is reversed; and the context in which they appear is a much wider one. Another matter which perhaps deserves comment is that whereas in LJ(B) there is a fair amount of emphasis on the point that ‘superior wealth’ contributes to ‘confer authority’, this point is mentioned in LJ(A) only in passing, in a summary of the previous lecture (vol. v, p. 129).

  (4) Both texts deal with roughly the same points under this heading, but the order in which they are dealt with is rather different. LJ(A) is generally much more extensive in its treatment than LJ(B), and contains many more historical illustrations of the points made.

  (5) There is no trace on pp. 95–99 of LJ(A) of the point made on pp. 45–46 of LJ(B) about the difference between military government in Rome and in Asia. There is, however, an extended discussion of this point at the end of the summary of the lecture concerned which Smith apparently gave at the beginning of his next lecture (see LJ(A), pp. 107–109).

  (6) The passages on pp. 109–113 of LJ(A) contain certain points of which there is little or no trace in the corresponding section of LJ(B).

  (7) The treatment of this topic in LJ(A) is much more extensive than it is in LJ(B). See, for example, the discussion on pp. 167–170 of vol. iv of LJ(A) of ‘the situation and circumstances of England’, and compare the very brief reference to this on p. 62 of LJ(B). It is also worth noting, perhaps, that there is no reference in LJ(B) to the dangers to liberty (as distinct from the ‘securities’), whereas the dangers are specifically referred to on three occasions in LJ(A). See LJ(A), vol. iv, p. 179, and vol. v, pp. 5 and 12.

  (8) The two texts make roughly the same points under this head, but they do not always make them in quite the same order.

  (9) In LJ(A), on pp. 114–124 and 127–132, there is a discussion of the doctrine of an original contract and the principles of utility and authority. As already stated in note (3) above, the corresponding passages in LJ(B) appear at the beginning of the government section rather than near the end of it. There is a reference back to these passages on p. 93 of LJ(B).

  (10) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the passages dealing with fidelity and infidelity on pp. 102–105 of LJ(B). The indications (cf. above, p. 20, note 66) are that the LJ(A) reporter either left the relevant lecture early or for some other reason failed to get the latter part of it down, so that there is no record in his notes of Smith’s discussion of fidelity and infidelity. He would also seem to have missed the first part of Smith’s discussion of the next topic, marriage and divorce, corresponding to pp. 105–106 of LJ(B). A report of a summary by Smith of some of the missing parts (but not of his discussion of fidelity and infidelity) will be found on pp. 6–7 of vol. iii of LJ(A).

  (11) Subject to the qualification in note (10), both texts make roughly the same points, but do not always make them in quite the same order. In places, particularly round about the middle of the section, it is difficult to keep track of the correspondences.

  (12) LJ(A) includes, on pp. 48–52, a report of a summary by Smith of all his previous lectures about the different types of marriage. This summary would seem to correspond to a passage on pp. 117–118 of LJ(B).

  (13) Both texts make roughly the same points in roughly the same order, but towards the end, judging from the gaps in the MS., the LJ(A) reporter had difficulty in getting down all the points concerning the differences between the Scots and the English law. The very short summary in LJ(B) is of little help here.

  (14) Both texts make roughly the same points, but they do not always make them in quite the same order. The summing–up on pp. 65–66 of LJ(A) is in effect a short summary of all the preceding lectures on the family. The computations reported on p. 123 of LJ(B) were apparently not included in the relevant lecture in 1762–3: see the footnote on p. 64 of LJ(A).

  (15) Both texts make roughly the same points in the same order, but there are some differences. In particular, the Pollio story and the Ovid citations which appear on pp. 92–93 and 100 of LJ(A) do not appear in LJ(B) until the following section (pp. 135 and 136).

  (16) Some of the emphases are different as between the two texts. In particular, in LJ(B) the Pollio story (see note (15) above) is used to illustrate the readiness of the monarch to be influenced in the slave’s favour rather than (as in LJ(A)) as an illustration of how badly the slaves were treated. See also the penultimate sentence of note (18) below.

  (17) There are some quite substantial differences between the two texts here. Both LJ(A) and LJ(B) begin with the same point—that slavery is not only bad for the slave but is also economically disadvantageous. After this, however, the two texts begin to diverge. LJ(B) goes on to discuss the case of the colliers and salters, in order to demonstrate once again that ‘slavery is a disadvantage’. LJ(A), by way of contrast, does not bring the colliers and salters into the picture until pp. 126–130, after the question of the abolition of slavery has been dealt with. LJ(B), after dealing with the colliers and salters, proceeds to discuss the point that slavery ‘diminishes the number of free men’. LJ(A), however, does not discuss this point until later, on pp. 134–141. On pp. 131–134 of LJ(A) there is a discussion of the point that slavery is ‘very detrimentall to population’ of which there is no distinct counterpart in LJ(B).

  (18) In this section, LJ(B) embarks immediately upon a discussion of the transition from adscripti glebae to tenants by steelbow. The corresponding part of LJ(A) begins with a longish discussion (on pp. 114–117) of the reasons why the abolition of slavery has been very limited in most parts of the world. The main emphasis in the discussion in LJ(A) is partly on man’s alleged ‘love of domination and tyrannizing’ and partly on the fact that the abolition of slavery would be hurtful to the slave–owners. This discussion would appear to be, in effect, an elaboration of two themes which are briefly announced in LJ(B) on p. 134. After this, the points made by LJ(A) in the following pages, and the general drift of the argument, are much the same as they are in LJ(B), but the order in which the points are dealt with is often different.

  (19) There are some marked differences between the two texts here. LJ(B) begins by listing the five methods of acquiring slaves, and in the course of its discussion of the fifth method considers the state of affairs in ancient Rome where many citizens had no means of subsistence except ‘what they received from candidates for their votes’. It then goes on to talk about slavery in the West Indies. LJ(A) discusses the payment of money for votes in ancient Rome on pp. 141–144, before getting on to the methods of acquiring slaves, and in the context of a different problem—that of the reasons for the people’s demand at that time for an abolition of debts. LJ(A)’s discussion of the methods of acquiring slaves is relatively short, and is cut off in mid sentence (at the end of vol. iii) with a reference to the West Indies. Cf. above, pp. 20–1, note 69.

  (20) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the discussion of these three topics in LJ(B). The indications are that Smith did in fact lecture on them in 1762–3, but that the student for some reason failed to get, or to write up, any notes of the lectures. Cf. above, pp. 20–1, note 69.

  (21) Both texts begin by listing the five ways of acquiring property (LJ(A) on pp. 25–26, and LJ(B) on p. 149), and then proceed to outline the four stages theory—i.e. the theory that society normally tends to develop through four successive stages based on hunting, pasturage, agriculture, and commerce (LJ(A) on pp. 27–35, and LJ(B) on pp. 149–150). But whereas in LJ(B) the context of this outline of the four stages theory is the way in which the laws of occupation vary as one stage succeeds another, in LJ(A) the context appears to be a rather more general one—the way in which the laws and regulations with regard to acquisition of property in general vary as one stage succeeds another. After this, both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but the discussion in LJ(A) is much more extensive than it is in LJ(B).

  (22) Both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but LJ(A) brings out more clearly than LJ(B) the ‘four stages’ framework of the discussion.

  (23) LJ(A) goes into much more detail than LJ(B), and it is not always easy to keep track of the correspondences.

  (24) In both texts the general theme is the same, but LJ(A) goes into so much more detail than LJ(B) that the correspondences appear rather sporadic.

  (25) Both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but the treatment in LJ(A) is much more extensive and it is by no means easy to keep track of the correspondences. No counterpart can be found in LJ(A) of some of the passages on pp. 163–164 of LJ(B): it seems likely, judging from the mysterious note on p. 145 of LJ(A) and the 3½ blank pages which follow it, that the student for some reason failed to get a part of the relevant lecture down. The account in LJ(A) includes near the end (pp. 146–147) a summary of some of Smith’s earlier lectures on the subject.

  (26) Although the two texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, LJ(A) becomes much more detailed at the end than LJ(B).

  (27) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, but the order of treatment is a little different (e.g. in the case of the discussion of inventions), and there is little trace in LJ(B) of the interesting discussion of thirlage, etc., on pp. 37–41 of LJ(A).

  (28) The general tenor of the argument is the same in both texts, but the order in which certain points are dealt with is different and the treatment in LJ(A) is much more extensive, so that it is not easy to keep track of the correspondences. In addition, LJ(A) contains (on pp. 56 ff.) a very extended summary in which a number of points in earlier lectures are elaborated; and LJ(A) also contains discussions of at least three points (the role of the clergy, the effect of the rise of commerce, and culpa) of which there is little trace in LJ(B).

  (29) Although the general tenor of the argument is the same in both texts, the illustrations employed are not always the same, and there is no trace in LJ(A) of the point about bankruptcy discussed on p. 181 of LJ(B).

  (30) Both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but towards the end LJ(A)’s treatment of some points is much more extensive than LJ(B)’s.

  (31) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the passage dealing with bonds on p. 192 of LJ(B). The fact that there is a gap in the MS. of LJ(A) at about this point suggests that for some reason the reporter did not get the relevant material down. Otherwise, the points dealt with are roughly the same in both texts, and with one or two exceptions they appear in roughly the same order.

  (32) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, but the order of treatment is not always the same, particularly towards the end.

  (33) LJ(A) includes, on pp. 24–27, a summary of the main points of the previous lecture.

  (34) Details of some of the calculations which appear in LJ(A) are omitted, or drastically summarized, in LJ(B), and on some occasions the figures employed differ as between the two texts.

  (35) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, and more or less in the same order—except that the points about the ‘law by Sesostratis’ on pp. 218–219 of LJ(B) have their counterpart in LJ(A) much later (on pp. 54–55), in the course of a summary of the previous lecture.

  (36) The main points dealt with in LJ(B) under this heading do not have their counterpart in LJ(A) until later in the story. The parallel passages in LJ(A) in fact occur at the beginning of a new lecture (apparently as a kind of afterthought on Smith’s part), at a point in the course where he has in the previous lecture already embarked upon the next topic, the price of commodities.

  (37) Both texts deal with roughly the same points in the same order, but in LJ(A) there is a break in continuity (see previous note). LJ(A) includes a summary of the previous lecture.

  (38) LJ(A) includes a summary of the previous lecture.

  (39) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, but not always in quite the same order. LJ(A) contains a summary of the previous lecture.

  (40) The discussion of circulation, banks, and paper money on pp. 127–132 of LJ(A) breaks off suddenly at the foot of p. 132, at a point in the argument roughly corresponding to the end of the sentence ‘That this has a tendency . . . opulence of the country’ near the foot of p. 246 of LJ(B). There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of any of the material which appears in LJ(B) between this point and the point on p. 253 where a new paragraph begins. It is at the latter point that LJ(A) takes up the argument again, at the top of p. 133 of the MS., and from there to p. 146 the points covered in LJ(A) are roughly the same as those covered in LJ(B) from p. 253 to p. 256 (except that LJ(A) includes a long statistical discussion of which there are only faint echoes in LJ(B)). For a possible explanation of the omission from LJ(A) of what was evidently a large amount of material, see p. 380, note 53, below.

  (41) Both texts deal with roughly the same points, but not always in quite the same order. LJ(A) contains a summary of the previous lecture.

  (42) Both texts deal with roughly the same topics in the same order, up to the point near the foot of p. 268 of LJ(B) where the last sentence on that page begins. At a point corresponding to this LJ(A) ceases.

  5.

  Some Particular Aspects of the Report of 1762–3

  We do not regard it as any part of our purpose, in this Introduction, to present our personal views and interpretations of the actual thought of Adam Smith, as it is reported in the documents we have edited. Since LJ(A) is published here for the first time, however, it might be considered appropriate for us briefly to list some of the ways in which, in our opinion, the discovery of this document may enable new light to be thrown on the development of Smith’s ideas during the crucial Glasgow period.

  Let us begin with three general considerations, arising from the fact that the treatment of individual topics is usually much more extensive in LJ(A) than it is in LJ(B). This fact means, first, that in quite a large number of places (some but not all of which are specifically referred to in our editorial footnotes) where the text of LJ(B) is unclear or corrupt, Smith’s real meaning can now be ascertained by looking at the corresponding passage in LJ(A). It means, second, that in certain places (e.g. the section on occupation and that on contract) where the additional material in LJ(A) is very extensive indeed, some of the major emphases are altered—to such an extent, on occasion, as to make it appear at first sight that a quite different story is being told. And it means, third, that in some places we have been able to go farther than Cannan in our detection of the probable sources upon which Smith drew—not, we hasten to say, because Cannan’s editorial work was in any way unscholarly, but simply because there happens to be more material in LJ(A) than in LJ(B), and therefore more clues as to sources. For example, whereas Smith’s use of Montesquieu is clear from LJ(B), his dependence on Hume’s History and Essays is more pronounced in LJ(A).

  Turning now, more specifically, to vols. i–v of LJ(A), one of the most important points which emerges from them concerns the relation between the way in which Smith dealt with the latter part of the Moral Philosophy course in his Glasgow lectures, and the way in which Francis Hutcheson, Smith’s teacher, had dealt with it in his Glasgow lectures some time before. After the discovery of LJ(B), a number of scholars (notably Cannan and Scott) drew attention to certain interesting parallels between Hutcheson’s treatment of the subject and Smith’s. If we now compare Hutcheson’s treatment with that of Smith as reported in LJ(A) the parallels become more striking, since the order of treatment of the main subjects in LJ(A) is much closer to Hutcheson’s than the order of treatment in LJ(B).79 Another point of almost equal importance is that Smith’s use of the four stages theory as a kind of conceptual framework within which much of the discussion is set, and his conscious acceptance of the more general ‘environmental’ or ‘materialist’ approach which underlay the four stages theory, are more clearly evident in LJ(A) than they are in LJ(B).80

  There are various other points of a less general nature which emerge from a comparison between vols. i–v of LJ(A) and the corresponding sections of LJ(B). Of these, we may select four of the more interesting ones as examples. First, LJ(A) elaborates Smith’s explanation of the natural right to property by occupation, given very summarily in LJ(B).81 The account follows Smith’s theory of the impartial spectator in TMS and is evidently intended to be an alternative to a celebrated argument of Locke. Second, it is perhaps significant that in LJ(A) the dangers to liberty implicit in certain features of ‘the situation and circumstances of England’ are referred to, whereas in LJ(B), broadly speaking, it is only the safeguards which are mentioned.82 Third, as has already been stated above,83 there is no distinct counterpart in LJ(B) of the interesting discussion in LJ(A) of the fact that slavery is ‘very detrimentall to population’. On the other hand, LJ(B) contains a paragraph about the status in Britain of Negroes who had been slaves in America, an addition apparently prompted by an important court judgement of 1762.84 Fourth, the discussion of exclusive privileges in LJ(A) contains some important passages, of which there is virtually no counterpart in LJ(B), where Smith in effect generalizes the idea that institutions which are harmful to society today may very well in their origin have been convenient and in a sense necessary to society.85

  Turning now to vol. vi of LJ(A), which contains the report of Smith’s lectures on ‘police’, this does not appear, at any rate at first sight, to cast quite as much new light on Smith’s economic thought as we might perhaps have hoped. LJ(A), after all, stops short about two–thirds of the way through the ‘police’ section, so that LJ(B) is still our sole source of information concerning the remaining part of this section.86 LJ(A), again, does not in most of this section (so far as it goes) contain as much additional material—as compared with that in LJ(B)—as it does in the ‘justice’ section. And last but not least, at a crucial point where the text of LJ(B) obviously embodies a serious misinterpretation of Smith’s argument, the LJ(A) reporter, as if with a design to thwart us, has omitted to include a report of the relevant part of the lectures.87

  Yet when one looks into the matter a little more closely, certain quite interesting points do emerge. For example, it is perhaps significant that there is no trace in LJ(A) of the statement in LJ(B) that ‘labour, not money, is the true measure of value’.88 The more extensive treatment in LJ(A) of the effects of the prohibition on the export of bullion makes Smith’s reliance on Hume’s theory of specie–flow adjustment clearer than it is in LJ(B).89 The inclusion in LJ(A) of the sentence beginning ‘In what manner then . . . ’ at the end of Smith’s account of the relatively poor position of peasants and labourers in the modern state90 may perhaps be regarded as giving an emphasis to these passages rather different from that in LJ(B). The treatment of the division of labour in LJ(A) provides some suggestive evidence relating to the development of Smith’s ideas on this subject.91 And the inclusion in LJ(A) of a number of detailed calculations of the cost of production of a pin (which are either omitted or summarized very briefly in LJ(B)) makes the burden of Smith’s argument much clearer.

  Another point which emerges is perhaps of sufficient importance to deserve a paragraph to itself. A number of scholars, basing themselves on LJ(B), have argued that in Smith’s Glasgow lectures capital and the accumulation of capital did not yet play anything like the central role which they were later to do in WN; that the concept of profit on capital as a basic category of class income was still missing; and that the concept of a normal rate of profit on capital was also missing. Now that we have another, and more extensive, report of Smith’s Glasgow lectures to turn to, it is possible that these judgements may require some—although perhaps not very much—modification. In relation to the question of the role of capital, scholars interested in this problem will probably see some significance in a passage where Smith tries to calculate the value of ‘the stock of the whole kingdom’.92 In relation to the question of the concept of profit as a category of class income, they may wish to refer to a passage where he talks of the capacity of industry, when improved, to ‘give considerable profit of the great men’.93 And in relation to the question of the rate of profit, they will certainly be interested in a passage where Smith says that the price of a commodity must be sufficient to repay the costs of education and the apprentice fee ‘not only in principall but with the interest and profit which I might have made of it’,94 and also perhaps in another where he describes what happens in a competitive market when a trade is ‘overprofitable’.95

  6.

  The Principles Adopted in the Transcription of the Texts

  The preparation of LJ(A) and LJ(B) for publication has involved a number of serious difficulties, arising in large part from the particular way in which LJ(A) appears to have been originally compiled.

  As stated above,96 the main text on the recto pages of LJ(A) would seem to have been written serially, soon after (but not during) the lectures concerned, on the basis of very full notes taken down in class, probably in shorthand. The reporter evidently took some care, when writing up the notes, to ensure that they were as accurate as possible a representation of what Smith had actually said. But the degree of the reporter’s care varied appreciably from place to place; and since the notes were intended merely as working notes he was not overmuch concerned with legibility, grammar, and the niceties of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing. The handwriting varies from perfectly legible copper–plate to a hurried scrawl which is very difficult to decipher, and there is a large number of abbreviations, overwritings, deletions, and interlineations. The spelling is often careless and wildly inconsistent; punctuation and capitalization are usually very arbitrary; and paragraphing is minimal.

  The editors of LJ(A) were thus faced right at the outset with a difficult problem: to what extent, if at all, should these ubiquitous imperfections be cleaned up in the interests of readability? On the one hand, it could be argued that the published text should be in effect the editors’ reconstruction of what Smith might be presumed actually to have said in the lectures concerned—which would mean, of course, that the published text would deviate appreciably from the reporter’s imperfect notes. On the other hand, it could be argued that the text should properly be no more than a reproduction, as exact as possible, of the reporter’s manuscript notes as they stood, with all their manifest blemishes.

  In the end, we decided that some kind of compromise between these two extreme views would have to be arrived at. The adoption of the first method would have allowed too much room for the editors’ own subjective judgements, and would have largely deprived the reader of the opportunity to make up his own mind about the exact circumstances in which LJ(A) originated. The second method, as a number of experiments eventually showed, would have necessitated an impossibly extensive apparatus of footnotes, and would have succeeded only in making the text in many places virtually unreadable.

  An important constraint here was that the principles adopted in transcribing LJ(A) should as far as possible be the same as those adopted in transcribing LJ(B), in order that the comparison of the two documents should be facilitated. LJ(B), generally speaking, is much more readable as it stands than LJ(A): there are very few corrections and additions; the writing is almost always perfectly legible; and spelling and paragraphing are on the whole quite rational and consistent. The capitalization, however, is just as arbitrary in LJ(B) as it is in LJ(A); and the punctuation, although less arbitrary, would often hamper the reader if left unaltered.

  The basis of the set of principles eventually arrived at was the drawing of a distinction between two more or less separate groups of imperfections in the manuscripts—first, those which it was thought could justifiably be corrected in the published text without (in normal cases) any specific footnote reference; and, second, those others which it was felt ought to be allowed to remain in the published text, either with or without a specific footnote reference. After much experimentation, we decided to place in the first group (a) punctuation and capitalization, which we felt should up to a certain point be modernized; (b) straightforward overwritings and interlineations, which we decided need not (in normal cases) be specifically noted; and (c) contractions, most (but not all) of which we thought should be spelt out. In the second group, we decided to place all the remaining imperfections—notably spelling errors, omissions, inadequate paragraphing, deletions, replacements, etc.—feeling that these should be allowed to remain in the text, with specific footnote references (or other indications) wherever necessary. This distinction was, and was bound to be, to some extent arbitrary,97 but experience showed that it offered the best basis for a text which would satisfy as fully as possible the demands both of the general reader and of the Smith scholar.

  Another and related set of decisions had then to be made concerning the number and character of the symbols and conventions to be used in the critical apparatus. From the nature of the case, it was clear that this apparatus would inevitably have to be somewhat complex; and the editors were therefore very conscious of the fact that unless they made a special effort to reduce the number of symbols and conventions to the absolute minimum it might be very difficult for readers—specialist as well as non–specialist—to find their way through the text. Three basic decisions were accordingly made:

  • (a) The main symbolic apparatus should consist of three different types of brackets—square brackets [] for superfluous words or letters; angle brackets <> for words or letters supplied to rectify omissions; and braces {} for the verso notes in LJ(A).98
  • (b) A set of conventions, as simple as possible, should be adopted for the keying–in of footnote references to deletions, replacements, illegible words, and doubtful readings.
  • (c) There should be only two categories of footnotes—textual and editorial, indicated respectively by italic letters and by arabic numerals in roman type. The footnotes themselves should throughout be in plain English, unencumbered by any further symbols for the reader to memorize.

  These three basic decisions were eventually crystallized in a number of specific principles relating to the presentation of the text and the critical apparatus, the most important of which are the following:

  i.

  Numbering of Pages

  At the beginning of vol. i of the original MS. of LJ(A), the recto pages upon which the main text is written have been numbered by the reporter 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. up to 39, when this numbering ceases. The first pages of the gatherings on which the report is written are also numbered. All these numbers have been ignored in our text, and in the case of each volume the recto pages upon which writing appears have been numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. right through to the end of the volume concerned. Thus each volume is numbered separately, and the verso pages (together with any blank recto pages) are left unnumbered.99 In the text, the point at which one (recto) page of a particular volume of the MS. ends and the next page begins is marked by the insertion of a vertical rule in the text and the placing of the relevant page number (in ordinary arabic figures) in the margin. For example, 23 in the margin indicates that at the point in the line level with this number where a vertical rule is inserted, p. 22 of the MS. ends and p. 23 begins.100 If one or two words at the end of one page of the MS. are repeated at the beginning of the next, as frequently happens in LJ(A), the repetition is as it were credited to the next. At the point where one volume of LJ(A) ends and another volume begins (but only at that point), the number of the new volume is also stated. For example, iii.1 in the margin indicates that at the point in the line level with this number where a vertical rule is inserted, vol. ii of the MS. ends and vol. iii begins.

  In the case of LJ(B) the position is less complex, since the main text is written on both the recto and the verso pages of the MS.; all the material is contained in one volume; and the pages of the MS. (although not of the index), whether writing appears on them or not, have all been numbered successively by the copyist. These page numbers are those which are referred to in our text. The conventions adopted for indicating where one page ends and another begins are the same (mutatis mutandis) as those adopted in the case of LJ(A). The few cases in which words at the end of one page are repeated at the beginning of the next, however, are specifically noted.

  In our footnotes to the texts, page references to LJ(A) and LJ(B), if the number is not preceded by ‘p.’, are to pages of the MSS. If the number is preceded by ‘p.’ it refers to a page of this edition.

  ii.

  Punctuation

  As indicated above, the punctuation in LJ(A) is often arbitrary and irrational (or non–existent); and that in LJ(B) is not much better. In the interests of readability, therefore, the punctuation in both texts has to a certain extent been cleaned up. In particular, full points have normally been inserted between sentences where they are lacking in the MSS., and in a large number of cases where a sentence requires more (or less) breaking–up for full comprehensibility, semicolons or commas have been inserted (or deleted). We have not attempted to secure complete rationality or consistency in punctuation, however; and in a few cases where the interpretation of a particular passage may depend upon the punctuation no alterations have been made.

  iii.

  Capitalization

  The profusion of capital letters in both MSS. raises a special problem. Not only are capital letters used very frequently, but they are also used very inconsistently; and in a great number of cases it is quite uncertain whether or not a capital letter was in fact intended. In the interests of readability, therefore, a more modern system of capitalization has been employed, and an attempt made to secure a reasonable degree of consistency both within and between each of the two texts. In a few cases where the use of a capital letter in the MS. can reasonably be regarded as serving some special purpose (e.g. the emphasis of a key word, or of a new concept on the occasion of its first introduction) we have retained it.

  iv.

  Straightforward Overwritings and Interlineations

  In very many cases in LJ(A), and occasionally in LJ(B), a word (or series of words) has been changed to another simply by overwriting: e.g. the scribe has begun by writing ‘then’ and has changed it to ‘there’ (the correct word) by overwriting ‘there’ in the space occupied by ‘then’. As stated above,101 in many of these cases the overwritten word is illegible, and since to note them all would have meant a tremendous expansion of the apparatus of footnotes and greatly hindered readability, they have not in fact been specifically indicated in the text, except where some special point is involved. Similarly, straightforward interlineations—i.e. those clearly intended to form part of the text and not involving the replacement of deleted words—have also not been specifically indicated, except where some special point is involved.

  v.

  Contractions

  The contractions used in the MS. of LJ(A) for the words ‘the’, ‘against’, ‘with’, ‘that’, ‘than’, ‘neither’, ‘either’, ‘betwixt’, ‘which’, and ‘brother’ are not reproduced in the text, all these words being spelt out. So far as other contracted words (in both MSS.) are concerned, the general rule adopted is that all contractions which are raised, and all those above which a contraction symbol is placed, are spelt out, with the exception of ‘1^st’, ‘2^nd’, etc., which are reproduced in the text exactly as they appear in the MS. ‘M^r’, ‘D^r’, and ‘S^r’ are rendered as ‘Mr.’, ‘Dr.’, and ‘Sir’. All ampersands are spelt out, and ‘&c.’ (or ‘&ca.’) is rendered as ‘etc.’ (or ‘etca.’). The different signs used for the pound sterling are all rendered as ‘£’. All other contracted words, monetary symbols, measures, numbers, etc. are reproduced in the text exactly as they appear in the MS.

  vi.

  Spelling Errors, Omissions, etc.

  The spelling in the MSS. has normally been retained in the text, even when it is clearly wrong, and no attempt has been made to secure consistency. When the spelling of a word in the MS. is doubtful, the spelling used in the text is that which is normally used elsewhere in the MS., or (in cases where this criterion cannot be applied) the correct modern spelling. Similarly, grammatical errors, unconscious omissions or repetitions of words, etc. in both MSS. have normally been reproduced in the text.

  Where such errors, omissions, etc. seem likely to interfere seriously with readability, however, the following devices are used:

  • (a) Words or letters in the MS. which quite clearly ought not to be there are enclosed in square brackets. Example: MS.: the spirit of the of the Roman LawText: the spirit of the [of the] Roman Law
  • (b) Words or letters which quite clearly ought to be in the MS., but are not, are inserted and enclosed in angle brackets. Example: MS.: this vioated the constitutionText: this vio<l>ated the constitution
  • (c) In cases where a word (or words) is obviously omitted from the MS., and a reasonable guess can be made of what was intended, the probable word (or words) omitted is inserted in the text, preceded by a question mark and enclosed in angle brackets. Example: MS.: the laws of Scotland and were differentText: the laws of Scotland and <?England> were different
  • (d) In cases where a word (or words) is obviously omitted from the MS., but a reasonable guess cannot be made of what was intended, a pair of angle brackets enclosing a question mark is inserted in the text. Example: MS.: when the king was he summoned hisText: when the king was <?> he summoned his
  • (e) In cases which cannot be dealt with by the above devices, a footnote is normally inserted indicating what was probably intended.

  vii.

  Paragraphing

  The paragraphing in LJ(A) is minimal, and often very conjectural, if only because the first lines of new paragraphs are not indented. Sometimes the beginning of a new paragraph is marked in the MS. by a dash (or series of dashes) immediately following the preceding sentence; but such dashes, unfortunately, also frequently occur at the end of a sentence which is obviously not intended to be the last in a paragraph.102 Sometimes a change in ink and/or the style of the handwriting in the MS., coupled with a change in the subject–matter, indicates that a new paragraph was probably intended. In the text, new paragraphs have normally been formed only in those cases where the indication in the MS. is reasonably unambiguous, or where the absence of a new paragraph would interfere seriously with readability.

  The paragraphing in LJ(B) is reasonably clear and rational, and with very few exceptions has simply been reproduced in our text.

  When a new paragraph starts on a new page, the vertical rule indicating the change of page is inserted at the beginning of the new paragraph and not at the end of the preceding paragraph.

  viii.

  Deletions, Replacements, etc.

  • (a) Where a word (or words) in a line is deleted, and not replaced by an interlined word (or words), a footnote reference is keyed in at the end of the word immediately preceding the deletion. Example: MS.: from what he had for a long timeText: from what^a had for a long time
  • (b) Where a word (or words) at the beginning of a new paragraph is deleted, and not replaced by an interlined word (or words), a footnote reference is keyed in at the beginning of the first word of the paragraph. Example: MS.:Thus Contracts, when they were firstText:^b Contracts, when they were first
  • (c) Where a word (or words) in a line is deleted, and replaced by a word interlined above it, a footnote reference is keyed in at the end of the replacing word. Example: MS.: the balance of property has confers so small aText: the balance of property confers^c so small a
  • (d) Where a word (or words) in a line is deleted, and replaced by several words interlined above it, a footnote reference is keyed in at the end of the last of the replacing words. Example: MS.:with about their land themselves and multiply theirText: about their land^d themselves and multiply their

  ix.

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

  The footnotes ‘Reading doubtful’, ‘Reading of last two words doubtful’, etc., indicate that the editors are more than usually dubious about the reading of the word or words concerned which they have given in the text. The relevant footnote references are keyed in at the end of the word or words.

  In cases of complete illegibility, a blank space of approximately the same length as the illegible word or words is left in the text, a footnote reference is keyed in at the beginning of the following word, and an appropriate footnote inserted. If the editors wish merely to note the illegibility, without making any comment, the footnote is a textual one, indicated by an italic letter and in most cases reading simply ‘Illegible word’. If the editors wish not only to note the illegibility but also to make a comment, the footnote is an editorial one, indicated by an arabic numeral in roman type.

  When a blank space has been left in the MS., a similar procedure is normally adopted.103 A space of roughly the same length as the space in the MS. is left in the text, a footnote reference is keyed in at the beginning of the following word, and an appropriate footnote inserted. This footnote is a textual one if the editors wish merely to note that a blank space has been left in the MS. at this point, and an editorial one if they wish also to make a comment.

  In cases where the degree of illegibility is such that the number of illegible words cannot be exactly ascertained, an attempt is made in the relevant footnote to give an approximate indication of the number of words concerned—e.g. ‘Two or three illegible words’. Cases in which it appears possible that it is only part of a word which is illegible are not separately delineated—e.g. the footnote ‘Illegible word deleted’ must be taken to include the possibility that it is only part of a word which has been deleted at the relevant point in the MS.

  x.

  Treatment of the Verso Notes in LJ(A)

  The verso notes in LJ(A) are incorporated in the main text, at what appears to be the appropriate place, within braces. It is to be assumed, in the absence of any indication to the contrary, that the note concerned is written on the verso of the previous (recto) page. Thus if a passage appears within braces on (recto) page 28, and no contrary indication is given, it can be taken that in the MS. it is written on the verso of (recto) page 27. If a verso note continues on to the next verso page, as sometimes happens, an indication of this is given in square brackets at the appropriate point. Thus if a passage in braces appears on (recto) page 64 of the text, and at a certain point in this passage the indication [v.64] appears, this denotes the fact that the note in question, although starting on the verso of (recto) page 63, is carried over at the indicated point to the verso of (recto) page 64.

  xi.

  Cross–references

  In view of the fact that a detailed collation of LJ(A) and LJ(B) has been included in this Introduction, cross–references between the two documents have been provided only in special cases. The scope of our cross–references to other works of Smith has also been deliberately restricted, in the light of a general policy decision by the Board of Editors of the Glasgow edition to the effect that in each of the volumes of Smith’s works cross–references should normally be provided only to work of an earlier date. One of the results of this policy is that in the present volume there are virtually no references forward to WN. In WN itself, however, there are very many references back to the documents published in the present volume,104 to which readers are referred for the relation between Smith’s earlier and later ideas in the relevant fields.

  Acknowledgements

  The editors gratefully acknowledge the help on particular points of Professor J. A. Boyle, Mr. J. A. Crook, Dr. J. Diggle, Professor A. D. Fitton Brown, Professor M. C. Meston, Mrs. Dorothy Owen, Dr. J. Riley–Smith, Mr. A. S. Skinner, and Mr. D. E. C. Yale. They are also grateful to Amax Inc. of Greenwich, Connecticut, for their generous contribution to the publication costs of this volume.

  D. D. R. and P. G. S. wish it to be known that the main part of the editorial burden in relation to the present volume has been carried by R. L. M.

  The editors have made extensive use of the invaluable notes provided by Edwin Cannan for his edition of LJ(B) in 1896.

  R. L. M.

  D. D. R.

  P. G. S.

  LECTURES ON JURISPRUDENCE

  REPORT OF 1762–3

  [1 ]Stewart, I.16. The original version of Stewart’s ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith’, in which these remarks of Millar’s were incorporated, was read by Stewart to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 21 January and 18 March 1793.

  [2 ]See below, pp. 4, 9, 11, and 15–17.

  [3 ]Minutes of University Meeting of 11 September 1751 (Glasgow University Archives).

  [4 ]In the letter from Smith mentioned in the extract just quoted (Corr., Letter 9 addressed to William Cullen, dated 3 Sept. 1751), Smith wrote: ‘I shall, with great pleasure, do what I can to relieve him [Professor Craigie] of the burden of his class. You mention natural jurisprudence and politics as the parts of his lectures which it would be most agreeable for me to take upon me to teach. I shall very willingly undertake both.’

  [5 ]See Stewart, IV.25. Stewart is referring here to a document drawn up by Smith in 1755 which apparently contained ‘a pretty long enumeration . . . of certain leading principles, both political and literary, to which he was anxious to establish his exclusive right; in order to prevent the possibility of some rival claims which he thought he had reason to apprehend’. From this document Stewart quotes (apparently verbatim) the following statement by Smith: ‘A great part of the opinions enumerated in this paper is treated of at length in some lectures which I have still by me, and which were written in the hand of a clerk who left my service six years ago. They have all of them been the constant subjects of my lectures since I first taught Mr Craigie’s class, the first winter I spent in Glasgow, down to this day, without any considerable variation. They had all of them been the subjects of lectures which I read at Edinburgh the winter before I left it, and I can adduce innumerable witnesses, both from that place and from this, who will ascertain them sufficiently to be mine.’

  [6 ]The exact date on which Smith left Glasgow is not known. The fact that he was probably going to leave the University was publicly announced for the first time at a Dean of Faculty’s Meeting on 8 November 1763. Two months later, at a Faculty Meeting on 9 January 1764, Smith stated that ‘he was soon to leave this place’ and that ‘he had returned to the students all the fees he had received this session’. The previous Faculty Meeting (at which Smith had also been present) was held on 4 January 1764, so it may reasonably be assumed that his last lecture to the Moral Philosophy class (at which, according to Tytler’s account, the fees were returned) was delivered at some time during the period between these two Faculty Meetings. The last meeting at Glasgow University which Smith attended in his capacity as a member of the teaching staff was a University Meeting on 10 January 1764, and all the indications are that he left Glasgow within a few days of this date. Cf. Rae, 169–70; Scott, 97; and A. F. Tytler, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Kames (2nd edn., Edinburgh, 1814), i.272–3.

  [7 ]Stewart, I.18–20.

  [8 ]Cf. Rae, 51; David Murray, Memories of the Old College of Glasgow (Glasgow, 1927), 516; and Discourses on Theological & Literary Subjects, by the late Rev. Archibald Arthur . . . with an Account of some Particulars of his Life and Character, by William Richardson (Glasgow, 1803), 514–15.

  [9 ]By William Richardson, loc. cit.

  [10 ]See John M. Lothian (ed.), Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres delivered . . . by Adam Smith (1963).

  [11 ]What appears to be part of one of Smith’s lectures on ethics is reprinted and discussed in Appendix II of the Glasgow edition of TMS. The Introduction, 1(a), to that volume considers further evidence about the character of these lectures.

  [12 ]Little direct information is available about the form which they assumed during Smith’s first years at Glasgow. A certain amount can be conjectured, however, from the Anderson Notes. For the full text of these notes, and a commentary establishing their connection with Smith’s lectures, see R. L. Meek, ‘New Light on Adam Smith’s Glasgow Lectures on Jurisprudence’ (History of Political Economy, vol. 8, Winter 1976).

  [13 ]Below, p. 5.

  [14 ]Below, p. 398. Cf. TMS VII.iv.37.

  [15 ]Edwin Cannan (ed.), Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms, delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith (Oxford, 1896).

  [16 ]Ibid., xv–xvi.

  [17 ]One of the leaves at the beginning of the book looks as if it may have been the original fly–leaf, but a letter has been mounted on it and it is difficult to be sure about this.

  [18 ]Cannan, op. cit., xxxv–ix.

  [19 ]Ibid., xvii–xviii. W. R. Scott, in an article printed as Appendix V to the 2nd edn. of James Bonar’s Catalogue of the Library of Adam Smith (London, 1932), deduced from the remnants of a book–plate which was formerly pasted inside the front cover that the volume originally belonged to Alexander Murray of Murrayfield—for whom, Scott surmised, the copy was made.

  [20 ]Cannan, op. cit., xviii–xix.

  [21 ]It is certainly no greater than that found in LJ(A) and in the report of the Rhetoric lectures.

  [22 ]Rae, 64.

  [23 ]The beginning of LJ(B), which repeats almost verbatim some phrases from the end of TMS, appears to be a highly accurate record.

  [24 ]We are assuming that these lectures were all of a piece—i.e. that the original notes of them were all taken down in one and the same session. We have found no evidence which suggests the contrary.

  [25 ]Op. cit., xix–xx.

  [26 ]Below, p. 432.

  [27 ]Below, p. 401.

  [28 ]Below, p. 435.

  [29 ]Below, p. 324.

  [30 ]Above, p. 8. Cf. Scott, 319.

  [31 ]Tytler, op. cit., i.272. Not very much is known about Thomas Young. At a Dean of Faculty’s Meeting on 26 June 1762 we find his name heading a list of six students of Divinity which was to be presented to the Barons of Exchequer with a view to the selection of one of them ‘to study Divinity three years upon King Williams mortification from the 10th October next’. At a University Meeting on 24 June 1763 ‘a presentation was given in and read from the Barons of Exchequer in favour of Mr. Thomas Young to study Theology three years commencing at Martinmass last’. The decision to appoint Young to carry on Smith’s Moral Philosophy course was taken at the Faculty Meeting on 9 January 1764 to which reference has already been made in note 6 above. According to the minutes, ‘the Meeting desired Dr. Smiths advice in the choice of a proper person to teach in his absence and he recommended Mr. Thomas Young, student of Divinity who was agreed to’. Young was a candidate for the Moral Philosophy Chair which Smith vacated, and was supported by Black and Millar. Black reported to Smith on 23 January 1764 that ‘T. Young performs admirably well and is much respected by the students’; and Millar, in similar vein, reported to him on 2 February 1764 that Young ‘has taught the class hitherto with great and universal applause; and by all accounts discovers an ease and fluency in speaking, which, I own, I scarce expected’. See Scott, 256–7; also Corr., Letter 79 from Joseph Black, dated 23 Jan. 1764, and Letter 80 from John Millar, dated 2 Feb. 1764. Young did not obtain the Chair (which was given to Thomas Reid), and nothing is known of his later career.

  [32 ]John M. Lothian, op. cit., xi–xii.

  [33 ]There are a few corrections and collations on the verso pages of vol. i which may possibly be in a second hand, although this is by no means certain. Such cases are rarely if ever to be found in the later volumes.

  [34 ]We speak here only of the ‘main text’ of LRBL, rather than of the MS. as a whole, because in this MS. a large number of corrections and collations were in fact made, without any doubt at all, by a second hand.

  [35 ]Cf. the description of LJ(A) given above with that of the MS. of LRBL given in the Appendix (by T. I. Rae) to John M. Lothian, op. cit., 195. Another possibly significant similarity is that the average number of pages of MS. devoted to a lecture is almost the same in both cases—roughly 15.5 in LJ(A) and 15.3 in LRBL. The bindings of the two MSS., it is true, do differ in certain respects, but even here the differences are not very significant, and according to the opinion of the Glasgow University binder both of them could quite possibly have come from the same bindery.

  [36 ]Our suggestion that the original notes were probably taken down at least partly in shorthand is based mainly on the sheer length of the reports of a large number of the specifically dated lectures. Take, for example, the reports of the lectures delivered on 5, 6, and 7 April 1763 (below, pp. 355–74), which occupy respectively 18, 20, and 16½ pages of the MS. There is little padding in these reports; they contain a great deal of quite intricate detail; and there is every reason to think that they are on the whole reliable and accurate accounts of what Smith actually said. It is difficult to believe that these reports could have been as full and accurate as this if the original notes had been taken down entirely in longhand.

  [37 ]Our authority here is once again William Richardson in his Life of Arthur (op. cit., 507–8). The complete statement reads as follows: ‘The professors of Ethics, or Moral Philosophy, in the University of Glasgow, employ two hours every day in instructing their pupils. In the first of these, they deliver lectures; and devote the second, after a proper interval, to regular and stated examinations. Such examinations are reckoned of great utility to those who study, as tending to insure their attention, to ascertain their proficiency, and give the teacher an opportunity of explaining more clearly any part of the lecture which may not have been fully understood. Those who received instruction from Dr. Smith, will recollect, with much satisfaction, many of those incidental and digressive illustrations, and even discussions, not only in morality, but in criticism, which were delivered by him with animated and extemporaneous eloquence, as they were suggested in the course of question and answer. They occurred likewise, with much display of learning and knowledge, in his occasional explanations of those philosophical works of Cicero, which are also a very useful and important subject of examination in the class of Moral Philosophy.’

  [38 ]See, for example, the verso notes reproduced on pp. 20–1, 128–9, and 153–4 below.

  [39 ]It would appear, however, from a statement made by Thomas Reid (quoted below, p. 14), that it would be unusual for a student to attend the Moral Philosophy lectures, the Rhetoric lectures, and the daily examination session in one and the same academic year. But the writer of LJ(A) may of course have collated his notes with those of another student who did attend the examination session.

  [40 ]According to Reid’s account, ‘what is called the curriculum, or ordinary course of public education, comprehends at present five branches—the Latin and Greek languages, Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy. These branches are understood to require the study of five separate sessions.’ See The Works of Thomas Reid, ed. Sir William Hamilton (Edinburgh, 1846), 732.

  [41 ]In other words there were no terminal vacations as there are today. There were, however, holidays on a number of specific days during the session. Cf. David Murray, Memories of the Old College of Glasgow, 461–2.

  [42 ]The Works of Thomas Reid, 773–4.

  [43 ]Reid describes this as the daily programme ‘excepting on Saturdays, when . . . there is only one lecture given’. Whatever the situation may have been in the 1790s, there is no evidence that Smith ever lectured on a Saturday in 1762–3.

  [44 ]The Works of Thomas Reid, 39.

  [45 ]Above, p. 12, note 37.

  [46 ]The ‘Number of Lecture’ in the first column is the ordinal number actually ascribed to each lecture by the reporter, except in the case of the first and the last lecture where the number is conjectural (this being indicated by enclosing it in square brackets). The ‘Date of Lecture’ in the second column is the date actually ascribed to each lecture by the reporter, with the dates of the first and the last lecture being enclosed in square brackets to indicate their conjectural character. The course is divided up on a week–by–week basis, with a ruled line being inserted under the last lecture given in each particular week.

  [55 ]In the letter cited on p. 14 above, which is dated 14 November 1764, Reid says that the course in the ‘different subject’ is due to commence ‘in a week or two’.

  [56 ]We do not know for certain that it finished in February. It is at least possible that it went on longer, but that the remaining lectures were not reported in the set of notes which has come down to us.

  [57 ]Above, p. 14.

  [58 ]William Richardson, op. cit., 514.

  [59 ]From October to December Smith will have lectured on Natural Theology and Ethics. Stewart (III.1) tells us that after the publication of TMS Smith dealt with Ethics much more briefly than before.

  [60 ]Smith lectured on Rhetoric on Monday, 27 December 1762, so we may reasonably assume that he also lectured on Jurisprudence on that day.

  [61 ]Christmas Day and New Year’s Day were also holidays, but in 1762–3 they fell on Saturday, when Moral Philosophy lectures were not given anyway.

  [62 ]As before, numbers and dates in square brackets are conjectural; those without square brackets are as given by the reporter.

  [75 ]Above, pp. 7–9.

  [76 ]Above, p. 8.

  [77 ]On the other hand, the close similarity which is quite often to be observed between the actual words used in LJ(B) and in corresponding passages in TMS and WN suggests a degree of accuracy in the original lecture–notes which might be regarded as inconsistent with this hypothesis about the origin of LJ(B)—unless, of course, we assume that Smith (or Young) was dictating at the particular points concerned. Another possibility is that LJ(B) is a copy of a summary (perhaps made for sale) of what was originally a much longer set of notes.

  [78 ]Above, p. 13.

  [79 ]Cf. R. L. Meek, ‘New Light on Adam Smith’s Glasgow Lectures on Jurisprudence’, 452–3 and 461–2.

  [80 ]Cf. R. L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge, 1976), 116 ff.

  [81 ]Below, pp. 16–17 and 459.

  [82 ]Cf. above, p. 28, note 7.

  [83 ]p. 29, note 17.

  [84 ]Below, p. 456.

  [85 ]Below, pp. 85–6. This section also contains, on p. 86, a brief discussion of ‘the separation of trades’ which heralds the later discussion of the division of labour in vol. vi.

  [86 ]And also, of course, concerning the whole of the ‘revenue’ and ‘arms’ sections.

  [87 ]Above, p. 31, note 40.

  [88 ]Below, p. 503.

  [89 ]Below, pp. 385–9.

  [90 ]Below, p. 341.

  [91 ]Cf. R. L. Meek and A. S. Skinner, ‘The Development of Adam Smith’s Ideas on the Division of Labour’ (Economic Journal, vol. 83, Dec. 1973).

  [92 ]Below, pp. 381–3.

  [93 ]Below, p. 343.

  [94 ]Below, p. 357.

  [95 ]Below, p. 363.

  [96 ]p. 11.

  [97 ]For example, it is obvious that no clear logical line can be drawn between overwritings (at any rate those of a more radical kind) and replacements. To note all the overwritings in LJ(A), however, would have been a virtually impossible task: there are literally hundreds of them, many of which are uncertain or illegible and most of which are of little importance. Many of the replacements in LJ(A), on the other hand, are of much greater importance, representing as they do attempts by the reporter to alter his original formulations so as to make them more consonant with what Smith actually said, or to improve the flow of the argument.

  [98 ]Square brackets are also used to enclose certain manuscript page numbers, and are sometimes employed in footnotes for other (self–explanatory) purposes. In LJ(B), where the main text is written on both the recto and the verso pages of the MS., braces merely reproduce braces used in the text as a form of brackets.

  [99 ]The page containing the incomplete table of contents at the beginning of vol. i has also been left unnumbered.

  [100 ]For the conventions relating to the pagination of the notes on the verso pages of LJ(A), see p. 42 below.

  [101 ]p. 36, note.

  [102 ]Dashes occurring in the middle of a paragraph are normally reproduced in the text; single dashes occurring at what is construed as the end of a paragraph are normally omitted. When several dashes occur at the end of a paragraph, however, they are normally reproduced, since they may indicate a break of some kind (e.g. the end of a lecture).

  [a]‘he’ deleted

  [b]‘Thus’ deleted

  [c]Replaces ‘has’

  [d]The last three words replace ‘with’

  [103 ]In some cases, however (e.g. where a large part of a page, or a number of pages, has been left blank), a note of this fact is inserted in the text in italics.

  [104 ]WN also contains a number of references back to the Anderson Notes, in the version presented in the article referred to above, p. 4, note 12.

• Back to Top

  7: Cannan’s Introduction to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations

  Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, edited with an Introduction, Notes, Marginal Summary and an Enlarged Index by Edwin Cannan (London: Methuen, 1904). Vol. 1. Chapter: EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/237/212256 on 2009-10-16

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

  THE first edition of the Wealth of Nations was published on the 9th of March,1 1776, in two volumes quarto, of which the first, containing Books I., II. and III., has 510 pages of text, and the second, containing Books IV. and V., has 587. The title-page describes the author as ‘Adam Smith, LL.D. and F.R.S. Formerly Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow’. There is no preface or index. The whole of the Contents are printed at the beginning of the first volume. The price was £1 16s.2

  The second edition appeared early in 1778, priced at £2 2s.,3 but differing little in appearance from its predecessor. Its pages very nearly correspond, and the only very obvious difference is that the Contents are now divided between the two volumes. There are, however, a vast number of small differences between the first and second editions. One of the least of these, the alteration of ‘late’ to ‘present,’4 draws our attention to the curious fact that writing at some time before the spring of 1776 Adam Smith thought it safe to refer to the American troubles as ‘the late disturbances’.5 We cannot tell whether he thought the disturbances were actually over, or only that he might safely assume they would be over before the book was published. As ‘present disturbances’ also occurs close to ‘late disturbances,’6 we may perhaps conjecture that when correcting his proofs in the winter of 1775-6, he had altered his opinion and only allowed ‘late’ to stand by an oversight. A very large proportion of the alterations are merely verbal, and made for the sake of greater elegance or propriety of diction, such as the frequent change from ‘tear and wear’ (which occurs also in Lectures, p. 208) to the more ordinary ‘wear and tear’. Most of the footnotes appear first in the second edition. A few corrections as to matters of fact are made, such as that in relation to the percentage of the tax on silver in Spanish America (vol. i., pp. 169, 170). Figures are corrected at vol. i., p. 327, and vol. ii., pp. 371, 374. New information is added here and there: an additional way of raising money by fictitious bills is described in the long note at vol. i., p. 294; the details from Sandi as to the introduction of the silk manufacture into Venice are added (vol. i., p. 379); so also are the accounts of the tax on servants in Holland (vol. ii., pp. 341-2), and the mention of an often forgotten but important quality of the land-tax, the possibility of reassessment within the parish (vol. ii., p. 329). There are some interesting alterations in the theory as to the emergence of profit and rent from primitive conditions, though Smith himself would probably be surprised at the importance which some modern inquirers attach to the points in question (vol. i., pp. 49-52). At vol. i., pp. 99, 100, the fallacious argument to prove that high profits raise prices more than high wages is entirely new, though the doctrine itself is asserted in another passage (vol. ii., p. 100). The insertion in the second edition of certain cross-references at vol. i., pp. 195, 311, which do not occur in the first edition, perhaps indicates that the Digressions on the Corn Laws and the Bank of Amsterdam were somewhat late additions to the scheme of the work. Beer is a necessary of life in one place and a luxury in another in the first edition, but is nowhere a necessary in the second (vol. i., p. 430; vol. ii., p. 355). The epigrammatic condemnation of the East India Company at vol. ii., p. 137, appears first in the second edition. At vol. ii., p. 284, we find ‘Christian’ substituted for ‘Roman Catholic,’ and the English puritans, who were ‘persecuted’ in the first edition, are only ‘restrained’ in the second (vol. ii., p. 90)—defections from the ultra-protestant standpoint perhaps due to the posthumous working of the influence of Hume upon his friend.

  Between the second edition and the third, published at the end of 1784,1 there are considerable differences. The third edition is in three volumes, octavo, the first running to the end of Book II., chapter ii., and the second from that point to the end of the chapter on Colonies, Book IV., chapter viii. The author by this time had overcome the reluctance he felt in 1778 to have his office in the customs added to his other distinctions2 and consequently appears on the title-page as ‘Adam Smith, LL.D. and F.R.S. of London and Edinburgh: one of the commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs in Scotland; and formerly professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow’. The imprint is ‘London: printed for A. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand’. This edition was sold at one guinea.3 Prefixed to it is the following ‘Advertisement to the Third Edition’:—

  ‘The first Edition of the following Work was printed in the end of the year 1775, and in the beginning of the year 1776. Through the greater part of the Book, therefore, whenever the present state of things is mentioned, it is to be understood of the state they were in, either about that time, or at some earlier period, during the time I was employed in writing the Book. To this4 third Edition, however, I have made several additions, particularly to the chapter upon Drawbacks, and to that upon Bounties; likewise a new chapter entitled, The Conclusion of the Mercantile System; and a new article to the chapter upon the expences of the sovereign. In all these additions, the present state of things means always the state in which they were during the year 1783 and the beginning of the present5 year 1784.’

  Comparing the second and the third editions we find that the additions to the third are considerable. As the Preface or ‘Advertisement’ just quoted remarks, the chapter entitled ‘Conclusion of the Mercantile System’ (vol. ii., pp. 141-60) is entirely new, and so is the section ‘Of the Public Works and Institutions which are necessary for facilitating particular Branches of Commerce’ (vol. ii., pp. 223-48). Certain passages in Book IV., chapter iii., on the absurdity of the restrictions on trade with France (vol. i., pp. 437-8 and 459-60), the three pages near the beginning of Book IV., chapter iv., upon the details of various drawbacks (vol. ii., pp. 2-5), the ten paragraphs on the herring fishery bounty (vol. ii., pp. 20-4) with the appendix on the same subject (pp. 435-7), and a portion of the discussion of the effects of the corn bounty (vol. ii., pp. 10-11) also appear first in the third edition. With several other additions and corrections of smaller size these passages were printed separately in quarto under the title of ‘Additions and Corrections to the First and Second Editions of Dr. Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’.1 Writing to Cadell in December, 1782, Smith says:—

  ‘I hope in two or three months to send you up the second edition corrected in many places, with three or four very considerable additions, chiefly to the second volume. Among the rest is a short but, I flatter myself, a complete history of all the trading companies in Great Britain. These additions I mean not only to be inserted at their proper places into the new edition, but to be printed separately and to be sold for a shilling or half a crown to the purchasers of the old edition. The price must depend on the bulk of the additions when they are all written out.’2

  Besides the separately printed additions there are many minor alterations between the second and third editions, such as the complacent note on the adoption of the house tax (vol. ii., p. 328), the correction of the estimate of possible receipts from the turnpikes (vol. ii., p. 218, note), and the reference to the expense of the American war (vol. ii., p. 409), but none of these is of much consequence. More important is the addition of the lengthy index surmounted by the rather quaint superscription ‘N.B. The Roman numerals refer to the Volume, and the figures to the Page’. We should not expect a man of Adam Smith’s character to make his own index, and we may be quite certain that he did not do so when we find the misprint ‘tallie’ in vol. ii., p. 320, reappearing in index (s.v. Montauban) although ‘taille’ has also a place there. But the index is far from suggesting the work of an unintelligent back, and the fact that the ‘Ayr bank’ is named in it (s.v. Banks), though nameless in the text, shows either that the index-maker had a certain knowledge of Scotch banking history or that Smith corrected his work in places. That Smith received a packet from Strahan ‘containing some part of the index’ on 17th November, 1784, we know from his letter to Cadell, published in the Economic Journal for September, 1898. Strahan had inquired whether the index was to be printed in quarto along with the Additions and Corrections, and Smith reminded him that the numbers of the pages would all have to be altered to ‘accommodate them to either of the two former editions, of which the pages do not in many places correspond’. There is therefore no reason for not treating the index as an integral part of the book.

  The fourth edition, published in 1786, is printed in the same style and with exactly the same pagination as the third. It reprints the advertisement to the third edition, altering, however, the phrase ‘this third Edition,’ into ‘the third Edition,’ and ‘the present year 1784’ into ‘the year 1784,’ and adds the following ‘Advertisement to the Fourth Edition’:—

  ‘In this fourth Edition I have made no alterations of any kind. I now, however, find myself at liberty to acknowledge my very great obligations to Mr. Henery Hop1 of Amsterdam. To that Gentleman I owe the most distinct, as well as liberal information, concerning a very interesting and important subject, the Bank of Amsterdam; of which no printed account had ever appeared to me satisfactory, or even intelligible. The name of that Gentleman is so well known in Europe, the information which comes from him must do so much honour to whoever has been favoured with it, and my vanity is so much interested in making this acknowledgment, that I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of prefixing this Advertisement to this new Edition of my Book.’

  In spite of his statement that he had made no alterations of any kind, Smith either made or permitted a few trifling alterations between the third and fourth editions. The subjunctive is very frequently substituted for the indicative after ‘if,’ the phrase ‘if it was’ in particular being constantly altered to ‘if it were’. In the note at vol. i., p. 71, ‘late disturbances’ is substituted for ‘present disturbances’. The other differences are so trifling that they may be misreadings or unauthorised corrections of the printers.

  The fifth edition, the last published in Smith’s lifetime and consequently the one from which the present edition has been copied, is dated 1789. It is almost identical with the fourth, the only difference being that the misprints of the fourth edition are corrected in the fifth and a considerable number of fresh ones introduced, while several false concords—or concords regarded as false—are corrected (see vol. i., p. 108; vol. ii., pp. 215, 249).1

  It is clear from the passage at vol. ii., p. 177, that Smith regarded the title ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’ as a synonym for ‘political œconomy,’ and it seems perhaps a little surprising that he did not call his book ‘Political Œconomy’ or ‘Principles of Political Œconomy’. But we must remember that the term was still in 1776 a very new one, and that it had been used in the title of Sir James Steuart’s great book, An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Œconomy: being an Essay on the Science of Domestic Policy in Free Nations, which was published in 1767. Nowadays, of course, no author has any special claim to exclusive use of the title. We should as soon think of claiming copyright for the title ‘Arithmetic’ or ‘Elements of Geology’ as for ‘Principles of Political Economy’. But in 1776 Adam Smith may well have refrained from using it simply because it had been used by Steuart nine years before, especially considering the fact that the Wealth of Nations was to be brought out by the publishers who had brought out Steuart’s book.2

  From 1759 at the latest an early draft of what subsequently developed into the Wealth of Nations existed in the portion of Smith’s lectures on ‘Jurisprudence’ which he called ‘Police, Revenue and Arms,’ the rest of ‘Jurisprudence’ being ‘Justice’ and the ‘Laws of Nations.’ Jurisprudence he defined as ‘that science which inquires into the general principles which ought to be the foundation of the laws of all nations,’ or as ‘the theory of the general principles of law and government’.1 In forecasting his lectures on the subject he told his students:—

  ‘The four great objects of law are justice, police, revenue and arms.

  ‘The object of justice is the security from injury, and it is the foundation of civil government.

  ‘The objects of police are the cheapness of commodities, public security, and cleanliness, if the two last were not too minute for a lecture of this kind. Under this head we will consider the opulence of a state.

  ‘It is likewise necessary that the magistrate who bestows his time and labour in the business of the state should be compensated for it. For this purpose and for defraying the expenses of government some fund must be raised. Hence the origin of revenue. The subject of consideration under this head will be the proper means of levying revenue, which must come from the people by taxes, duties, &c. In general, whatever revenue can be raised most insensibly from the people ought to be preferred, and in the sequel it is proposed to be shown how far the laws of Britain and other European nations are calculated for this purpose.

  ‘As the best police cannot give security unless the government can defend themselves from foreign injuries and attacks, the fourth thing appointed by law is for this purpose; and under this head will be shown the different species of arms with their advantages and disadvantages, the constitution of standing armies, militias, &c.

  ‘After these will be considered the laws of nations. . . .’2

  The connection of revenue and arms with the general principles of law and government is obvious enough, and no question arises as to the explanation on these heads given by the forecast. But to ‘consider the opulence of a state’ under the head of ‘police’ seems at first sight a little strange. For the explanation we turn to the beginning of the part of the lectures relating to Police.

  ‘Police is the second general division of jurisprudence. The name is French, and is originally derived from the Greek πολιτεία, which properly signified the policy of civil government, but now it only means the regulation of the inferior parts of government, viz.: cleanliness, security, and cheapness or plenty.’3

  That this definition of the French word was correct is well shown by the following passage from a book which is known to have been in Smith’s possession at his death,1 Bielfeld’s Institutions politiques, 1760 (tom. i., p. 99).

  ‘Le premier Président du Harlay en recevant M. d’Argenson à la charge de lieutenant général de police de la ville de Paris, lui adressa ces paroles, qui méritent d’être remarquées: Le Roi, Monsieur, vous demande sûreté, netteté, bon-marché. En effet ces trois articles comprennent toute la police, qui forme le troisième grand objet de la politique pour l’intérieur de l’État.’

  When we find that the chief of the Paris police in 1697 was expected to provide cheapness as well as security and cleanliness, we wonder less at the inclusion of ‘cheapness or plenty’ or the ‘opulence of a state’ in ‘jurisprudence’ or ‘the general principles of law and government’. ‘Cheapness is in fact the same thing with plenty,’ and ‘the consideration of cheapness or plenty’ is ‘the same thing’ as ‘the most proper way of securing wealth and abundance’.2 If Adam Smith had been an old-fashioned believer in state control of trade and industry he would have described the most proper regulations for securing wealth and abundance, and there would have been nothing strange in this description coming under the ‘general principles of law and government’. The actual strangeness is simply the result of Smith’s negative attitude—of his belief that past and present regulations were for the most part purely mischievous.

  The two items, cleanliness and security, he managed to dismiss very shortly: ‘the proper method of carrying dirt from the streets, and the execution of justice, so far as it regards regulations for preventing crimes or the method of keeping a city guard, though useful, are too mean to be considered in a general discourse of this kind’.3 He only offered the observation that the establishment of arts and commerce brings about independency and so is the best police for preventing crimes. It gives the common people better wages, and ‘in consequence of this a general probity of manners takes place through the whole country. Nobody will be so mad as to expose himself upon the highway, when he can make better bread in an honest and industrious manner.’4

  He then came to ‘cheapness or plenty, or, which is the same thing, the most proper way of securing wealth and abundance’. He began this part of the subject by considering the ‘natural wants of mankind which are to be supplied,’1 a subject which has since acquired the title of ‘consumption’ in economic treatises. Then he showed that opulence arises from division of labour, and why this is so, or how the division of labour ‘occasions a multiplication of the product,’2 and why it must be proportioned to the extent of commerce. ‘Thus,’ he said, ‘the division of labour is the great cause of the increase of public opulence, which is always proportioned to the industry of the people, and not to the quantity of gold and silver as is foolishly imagined’. ‘Having thus shown what gives occasion to public opulence,’ he said he would go on to consider:—

  ‘First, what circumstances regulate the price of commodities:

  ‘Secondly, money in two different views, first as the measure of value and then as the instrument of commerce:

  ‘Thirdly, the history of commerce, in which shall be taken notice of the causes of the slow progress of opulence, both in ancient and modern times, which causes shall be shown either to affect agriculture or arts and manufactures:

  ‘Lastly, the effects of a commercial spirit, on the government, temper, and manners of a people, whether good or bad, and the proper remedies.’3

  Under the first of these heads he treated of natural and market price and of differences of wages, and showed ‘that whatever police tends to raise the market price above the natural, tends to diminish public opulence’.4 Among such pernicious regulations he enumerated taxes upon necessaries, monopolies, and exclusive privileges of corporations. Regulations which bring market price below natural price he regarded as equally pernicious, and therefore he condemned the corn bounty, which attracted into agriculture stock which would have been better employed in some other trade. ‘It is by far the best police to leave things to their natural course.’5

  Under the second head he explained the reasons for the use of money as a common standard and its consequential use as the instrument of commerce. He showed why gold and silver were commonly chosen and why coinage was introduced, and proceeded to explain the evils of tampering with the currency, and the difficulty of keeping gold and silver money in circulation at the same time. Money being a dead stock, banks and paper credit, which enable money to be dispensed with and sent abroad, are beneficial. The money sent abroad will ‘bring home materials for food, clothes, and lodging,’ and, ‘whatever commodities are imported, just so much is added to the opulence of the country’.1 It is ‘a bad police to restrain’ banks.2 Mun, ‘a London merchant,’ affirmed ‘that as England is drained of its money it must go to ruin’.3 ‘Mr. Gee, likewise a merchant,’ endeavoured to ‘show that England would soon be ruined by trade with foreign countries,’ and that ‘in almost all our commercial dealings with other nations we are losers’.4 Mr. Hume had shown the absurdity of these and other such doctrines, though even he had not kept quite clear of ‘the notion that public opulence consists in money’.5 Money is not consumable, and ‘the consumptibility, if we may use the word, of goods, is the great cause of human industry’.6

  The absurd opinion that riches consist in money had given rise to ‘many prejudicial errors in practice,’7 such as the prohibition of the exportation of coin and attempts to secure a favourable balance of trade. There will always be plenty of money if things are left to their free course, and no prohibition of exportation will be effectual. The desire to secure a favourable balance of trade has led to ‘most pernicious regulations,’8 such as the restrictions on trade with France.

  ‘The absurdity of these regulations will appear on the least reflection. All commerce that is carried on betwixt any two countries must necessarily be advantageous to both. The very intention of commerce is to exchange your own commodities for others which you think will be more convenient for you. When two men trade between themselves it is undoubtedly for the advantage of both. . . . The case is exactly the same betwixt any two nations. The goods which the English merchants want to import from France are certainly more valuable to them than what they give for them.’9

  These jealousies and prohibitions were most hurtful to the richest nations, and it would benefit France and England especially, if ‘all national prejudices were rooted out and a free and uninterrupted commerce established’.1 No nation was ever ruined by this balance of trade. All political writers since the time of Charles II. had been prophesying ‘that in a few years we would be reduced to an absolute state of poverty,’ but ‘we find ourselves far richer than before’.2

  The erroneous notion that national opulence consists in money had also given rise to the absurd opinion that ‘no home consumption can hurt the opulence of a country’.3

  It was this notion too that led to Law’s Mississippi scheme, compared to which our own South Sea scheme was a trifle.4

  Interest does not depend on the value of money, but on the quantity of stock. Exchange is a method of dispensing with the transmission of money.5

  Under the third heading, the history of commerce, or the causes of the slow progress of opulence, Adam Smith dealt with ‘first, natural impediments, and secondly, the oppression of civil government’.6 He is not recorded to have mentioned any natural impediments except the absence of division of labour in rude and barbarous times owing to the want of stock.7 But on the oppression of civil government he had much to say. At first governments were so feeble that they could not offer their subjects that security without which no man has any motive to be industrious. Afterwards, when governments became powerful enough to give internal security, they fought among themselves, and their subjects were harried by foreign enemies. Agriculture was hindered by great tracts of land being thrown into the hands of single persons. This led at first to cultivation by slaves, who had no motive to industry; then came tenants by steelbow (metayers) who had no sufficient inducement to improve the land; finally the present method of cultivation by tenants was introduced, but these for a long time were insecure in their holdings, and had to pay rent in kind, which made them liable to be severely affected by bad seasons. Feudal subsidies discouraged industry, the law of primogeniture, entails, and the expense of transferring land prevented the large estates from being divided. The restrictions on the export of corn helped to stop the progress of agriculture. Progress in arts and commerce was also hindered by slavery, as well as by the ancient contempt for industry and commerce, by the want of enforcement of contracts, by the various difficulties and dangers of transport, by the establishment of fairs, markets and staple towns, by duties on imports and exports, and by monopolies, corporation privileges, the statute of apprenticeship and bounties.1

  Under the fourth and last head, the influence of commerce on the manners of a people, Smith pronounced that ‘whenever commerce is introduced into any country probity and punctuality always accompany it’.2 The trader deals so often that he finds honesty is the best policy. ‘Politicians are not the most remarkable men in the world for probity and punctuality. Ambassadors from different nations are still less so,’3 the reason being that nations treat with one another much more seldom than merchants.

  But certain inconveniences arise from a commercial spirit. Men’s views are confined, and ‘when a person’s whole attention is bestowed on the seventeenth part of a pin or the eightieth part of a button,’4 he becomes stupid. Education is neglected. In Scotland the meanest porter can read and write, but at Birmingham boys of six or seven can earn threepence or sixpence a day, so that their parents set them to work early and their education is neglected. To be able merely to read is good as it ‘gives people the benefit of religion, which is a great advantage, not only considered in a pious sense, but as it affords them subject for thought and speculation.’5 There is too ‘another great loss which attends the putting boys too soon to work’. The boys throw off parental authority, and betake themselves to drunkenness and riot. The workmen in the commercial parts of England are consequently in a ‘despicable condition; their work through half the week is sufficient to maintain them, and through want of education they have no amusement for the other but riot and debauchery. So it may very justly be said that the people who clothe the whole world are in rags themselves.’6

  Further, commerce sinks courage and extinguishes martial spirit; the defence of the country is handed over to a special class, and the bulk of the people grow effeminate and dastardly, as was shown by the fact that in 1745 ‘four or five thousand naked unarmed Highlanders would have overturned the government of Great Britain with little difficulty if they had not been opposed by a standing army’.1

  ‘To remedy’ these evils introduced by commerce ‘would be an object worthy of serious attention.’

  Revenue, at any rate in the year when the notes of his lectures were made, was treated by Adam Smith before the last head of police just discussed, ostensibly on the ground that it was in reality one of the causes of the slow progress of opulence.2

  Originally, he taught, no revenue was necessary; the magistrate was satisfied with the eminence of his station and any presents he might receive. The receipt of presents soon led to corruption. At first too soldiers were unpaid, but this did not last. The earliest method adopted for supplying revenue was assignment of lands to the support of government. To maintain the British government would require at least a fourth of the whole of the land of the country. ‘After government becomes expensive, it is the worst possible method to support it by a land rent.’3 Civilisation and expensive government go together.

  Taxes may be divided into taxes upon possessions and taxes upon commodities. It is easy to tax land, but difficult to tax stock or money; the land tax is very cheaply collected and does not raise the price of commodities and thus restrict the number of persons who have stock sufficient to carry on trade in them. It is hard on the landlords to have to pay both land tax and taxes on consumption, which fact ‘perhaps occasions the continuance of what is called the Tory interest’.4

  Taxes on consumptions are best levied by way of excise. They have the advantage of ‘being paid imperceptibly,’5 since ‘when we buy a pound of tea we do not reflect that the most part of the price is a duty paid to the government, and therefore pay it contentedly, as though it were only the natural price of the commodity’.1 Such taxes too are less likely to ruin people than a land tax, as they can always reduce their expenditure on dutiable articles.

  A fixed land tax like the English is better than one which varies with the rent like the French, and ‘the English are the best financiers in Europe, and their taxes are levied with more propriety than those of any other country whatever’.2 Taxes on importation are hurtful because they divert industry into an unnatural channel, but taxes on exportation are worse. The common belief that wealth consists in money has not been so hurtful as might have been expected in regard to taxes on imports, since it has accidentally led to the encouragement of the import of raw material and discouragement of the import of manufactured articles.3

  From treating of revenue Adam Smith was very naturally led on to deal with national debts, and this led him into a discussion of the causes of the rise and fall of stocks and the practice of stockjobbing.4

  Under Arms he taught that at first the whole people goes out to war: then only the upper classes go and the meanest stay to cultivate the ground. But afterwards the introduction of arts and manufactures makes it inconvenient for the rich to leave their business, and the defence of the state falls to the meanest. ‘This is our present condition in Great Britain.’5 Discipline now becomes necessary and standing armies are introduced. The best sort of army is ‘a militia commanded by landed gentlemen in possession of the public offices of the nation,’6 which ‘can never have any prospect of sacrificing the liberties of the country’. This is the case in Sweden.

  Now let us compare with this the drift of the Wealth of Nations, not as it is described in the ‘Introduction and Plan,’ but as we find it in the body of the work itself.

  Book I. begins by showing that the greatest improvement in the productive powers of industry is due to division of labour. From division of labour it proceeds to money, because money is necessary in order to facilitate division of labour, which depends upon exchange. This naturally leads to a discussion of the terms on which exchanges are effected, or value and price. Consideration of price reveals the fact that it is divided between wages, profit and rent, and is therefore dependent on the rates of wages, profit and rent, so that it is necessary to discuss in four chapters variations in these rates.

  Book II. treats first of the nature and divisions of stock, secondly of a particularly important portion of it, namely money, and the means by which that part may be economised by the operations of banking, and thirdly the accumulation of capital, which is connected with the employment of productive labour. Fourthly it considers the rise and fall of the rate of interest, and fifthly and lastly the comparative advantage of different methods of employing capital.

  Book III. shows that the natural progress of opulence is to direct capital, first to agriculture, then to manufactures, and lastly to foreign commerce, but that this order has been inverted by the policy of modern European states.

  Book IV. deals with two different systems of political economy: (1) the system of commerce, and (2) the system of agriculture, but the space given to the former, even in the first edition, is eight times as great as that given to the latter. The first chapter shows the absurdity of the principle of the commercial or mercantile system, that wealth is dependent on the balance of trade; the next five discuss in detail and show the futility of the various mean and malignant expedients by which the mercantilists endeavoured to secure their absurd object, namely, general protectionist duties, prohibitions and heavy duties directed against the importation of goods from particular countries with which the balance is supposed to be disadvantageous, drawbacks, bounties, and treaties of commerce. The seventh chapter, which is a long one, deals with colonies. According to the forecast at the end of chapter i. this subject comes here because colonies were established in order to encourage exportation by means of peculiar privileges and monopolies. But in the chapter itself there is no sign of this. The history and progress of colonies is discussed for its own sake, and it is not alleged that important colonies have been founded with the object suggested in chapter i.

  In the last chapter of the Book, the physiocratic system is described, and judgement is pronounced against it as well as the commercial system. The proper system is that of natural liberty, which discharges the sovereign from ‘the duty of superintending the industry of private people and of directing it towards the employments most suitable to the interest of the society’.

  Book V. deals with the expenses of the sovereign in performing the duties left to him, the revenues necessary to meet those expenses and the results of expenses exceeding revenue. The discussion of expenses of defence includes discussion of different kinds of military organisation, courts of law, means of maintaining public works, education, and ecclesiastical establishments.

  Putting these two sketches together we can easily see how closely related the book is to the lectures.

  The title ‘Police’ being dropped as not sufficiently indicating the subject, there is no necessity for the mention of cleanliness, and the remarks on security are removed to the chapter on the accumulation of capital. The two sections on the natural wants of mankind are omitted,1 illustrating once more the difficulty which economists have generally felt about consumption. The next four sections, on division of labour, develop into the first three chapters of Book I. of the Wealth of Nations. At this point in the lectures there is an abrupt transition to prices, followed by money, the history of commerce and the effects of a commercial spirit, but in the Wealth of Nations this is avoided by taking money next, as the machinery by the aid of which labour is divided, and then proceeding by a very natural transition to prices. In the lectures the discussion of money led to a consideration of the notion that wealth consisted in money and of all the pernicious consequences of that delusion in restricting banking and foreign trade. This was evidently overloading the theory of money, and consequently banking is postponed to the Book about capital, on the ground that it dispenses with money, which is a dead stock, and thus economises capital, while the commercial policy is relegated by itself to Book IV. In the lectures, again, wages are only dealt with slightly under prices, and profits and rent not at all; in the Wealth of Nations wages, profits and rent are dealt with at length as component parts of price, and the whole produce of the country is said to be distributed into them as three shares.

  The next part of the lectures, that dealing with the causes of the slow progress of opulence, forms the foundation for Book III. of the Wealth of Nations. The influence of commerce on manners disappears as an independent heading, but most of the matter dealt with under it is utilised in the discussions of education and military organisation.

  Besides consumption, two other subjects, stock-jobbing and the Mississippi scheme, which are treated at some length in the lectures, are altogether omitted in the Wealth of Nations. The description of stock-jobbing was probably left out because better suited to the youthful hearers of the lectures than to the maturer readers of the book. The Mississippi scheme was omitted, Smith himself says, because it had been adequately discussed by Du Verney.

  Here and there discrepancies may be found between the opinions expressed in the lectures and those expressed in the book. The reasonable and straightforward view of the effects of the corn bounty is replaced by a more recondite though less satisfactory doctrine. The remark as to the inconvenience of regulations on foreign commerce having been alleviated by the fact that they encourage trade with countries from which imported raw materials came and discourage it with those from which manufactured goods came1 does not reappear in the book. The passage in the Lectures is probably much condensed, and perhaps misrepresents what Adam Smith said. If it does not, it shows him to have been not entirely free from protectionist fallacies at the time the lectures were delivered.2

  There are some very obvious additions, the most prominent being the account of the French physiocratic or agricultural system which occupies the last chapter of Book IV. The article on the relations of church and state (Bk. V., ch. i., pt. iii., art. 3) also appears to be a clear addition, at any rate in so far as the lectures on police and revenue are concerned, but, as we shall see presently, tradition seems to say that Smith did deal with ecclesiastical establishments in this department of his lectures on jurisprudence, so that possibly the lecture notes are deficient at this particular point, or the subject was omitted for the particular year in which the notes were taken. Then there is the long chapter on colonies. The fact of colonies having attracted Adam Smith’s attention during the interval between the lectures and the publication of his book is not very surprising when we remember that the interval coincided almost exactly with the period from the beginning of the attempt to tax the colonies to the Declaration of Independence.

  But these additions are of small importance compared with the introduction of the theory of stock or capital and unproductive labour in Book II., the slipping of a theory of distribution into the theory of prices towards the end of Book I., chapter vi., and the emphasising of the conception of annual produce. These changes do not make so much real difference to Smith’s own work as might be supposed; the theory of distribution, though it appears in the title of Book I., is no essential part of the work and could easily be excised by deleting a few paragraphs in Book I., chapter vi., and a few lines elsewhere; if Book II. were altogether omitted the other Books could stand perfectly well by themselves. But to subsequent economics they were of fundamental importance. They settled the form of economic treatises for a century at least.

  They were of course due to the acquaintance with the French Économistes which Adam Smith made during his visit to France with the Duke of Buccleugh in 1764-6. It has been said that he might have been acquainted with many works of this school before the notes of his lectures were taken, and so he might. But the notes of his lectures are good evidence to show that as a matter of fact he was not, or at any rate that he had not assimilated their main economic theories. When we find that there is no trace of these theories in the Lectures and a great deal in the Wealth of Nations, and that in the meantime Adam Smith had been to France and mixed with all the prominent members of the ‘sect,’ including their master, Quesnay, it is difficult to understand why we should be asked, without any evidence, to refrain from believing that he came under physiocratic influence after and not before or during his Glasgow period.

  The confession of faith of the Économistes is embodied in Quesnay’s Tableau Économique, which one of them described as worthy of being ranked, along with writing and money, as one of the three greatest inventions of the human race.1 It is reprinted on the next page from the facsimile of the edition of 1759, published by the British Economic Association (now the Royal Economic Society) in 1894.

  Those who are curious as to the exact meaning of the zigzag lines may study Quesnay’s Explication, which the British Economic Association published along with the table in 1894. For our present purposes it is sufficient to see (1) that it involves a conception of the whole annual produce or reproduction of a country; (2) that it teaches that some labour is unproductive, that to maintain the annual produce certain ‘avances’ are necessary, and that this annual produce is ‘distributed’. Adam Smith, as his chapter on agricultural systems shows, did not appreciate the minutiæ of the table very highly, but he certainly took these main ideas and adapted them as well as he could to his Glasgow theories. With those theories the conception of an annual produce was in no way inconsistent, and he had no difficulty in adopting annual produce as the wealth of a nation, though he very often forgetfully falls back into older ways of speaking. As to unproductive labour, he was not prepared to condemn the whole of Glasgow industry as sterile, but was ready to place the mediæval retainer and even the modern menial servant in the unproductive class. He would even go a little farther and put along with them all whose labour did not produce particular vendible objects, or who were not employed for the money-gain of their employers. Becoming somewhat confused among these distinctions and the physiocratic doctrine of ‘avances,’ he imagined a close connexion between the employment of productive labour and the accumulation and employment of capital. Hence with the aid of the common observation that where a capitalist appears, labourers soon spring up, he arrived at the view that the amount of capital in a country determines the number of ‘useful and productive’ labourers. Finally he slipped into his theory of prices and their component parts the suggestion that as the price of any one commodity is divided between wages, profits and rent, so the whole produce is divided between labourers, capitalists, and landlords.

  

  These ideas about capital and unproductive labour are certainly of great importance in the history of economic theory, but they were fundamentally unsound, and were never so universally accepted as is commonly supposed. The conception of the wealth of nations as an annual produce, annually distributed, however, has been of immense value. Like other conceptions of the kind it was certain to come. It might have been evolved direct from Davenant or Petty nearly a century before. We need not suppose that some one else would not soon have given it its place in English economics if Adam Smith had not done so, but that need not deter us from recording the fact that it was he who introduced it, and that he introduced it in consequence of his association with the Économistes.

  If we attempt to carry the history of the origin of the Wealth of Nations farther back than the date of the lecture notes in 1763 or thereabouts, we can still find a small amount of authentic information. We know that Smith must have been using practically the same divisions in his lectures in 1759, since he promises in the last paragraph of the Moral Sentiments published in that year, ‘another discourse’ in which he would ‘endeavour to give an account of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages and periods of society, not only in what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue and arms, and whatever else is the object of law.’ It seems probable, however, that the economic portion of the lectures was not always headed ‘police, revenue, and arms,’ since Millar, who attended the lectures when they were first delivered in 1751-2, says:—

  ‘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”.’1

  Of course this is not necessarily inconsistent with the economic lectures having been denominated police, revenue, and arms, even at that early date, but the italicising of ‘justice’ and ‘expediency,’ if due to Millar, rather suggests the contrary, and there is no denying that the arrangement of ‘cheapness or plenty’ under ‘police’ may very well have been an afterthought fallen upon to justify the introduction of a mass of economic material into lectures on Jurisprudence. As to the reason why that introduction took place the circumstances of Smith’s first active session at Glasgow suggest another motive besides his love for the subject, which, we may notice, did not prevent him from publishing his views on Ethics first.

  His first appointment at Glasgow, it must be remembered, was to the Professorship of Logic in January, 1751, but his engagements at Edinburgh prevented his performing the duties that session. Before the beginning of next session he was asked to act as deputy for Craigie, the Professor of Moral Philosophy, who was going away for the benefit of his health. He consented, and consequently in the session of 1751-2 he had to begin the work of two professorships, as to one of which he had very little previous warning.2 Every teacher in such a position would do his best to utilise any suitable material which he happened to have by him, and most men would even stretch a point to utilise even what was not perfectly suitable.

  Now we know that Adam Smith possessed in manuscript in the hand of a clerk employed by him certain lectures which he read at Edinburgh in the winter of 1750-1, and we know that in these lectures he preached the doctrine of the beneficial effects of freedom, and, according to Dugald Stewart, ‘many of the most important opinions in the Wealth of Nations’. There existed when Stewart wrote, ‘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’. Stewart says of this paper:—

  ‘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.” ’1

  It seems then that, when confronted with the two professorial chairs in 1751, Smith had by him some lectures on progress, very likely explaining ‘the slow progress of opulence,’ and that, as anyone in such circumstances would have liked to do, he put them into his moral philosophy course.

  As it happened, there was no difficulty in doing this. It seems nearly certain that Craigie himself suggested that it should be done. The request that Smith would take Craigie’s work came through Cullen, and in answering Cullen’s letter, which has not been preserved, Smith says, ‘You mention natural jurisprudence and politics as the parts of his lectures which it would be most agreeable for me to teach. I shall very willingly undertake both.’2 Craigie doubtless knew what Smith had been lecturing upon in Edinburgh in the previous winter and called it ‘politics’.

  Moreover the traditions of the Chair of Moral Philosophy, as known to Adam Smith, required a certain amount of economics. A dozen years earlier he had himself been a student when Francis Hutcheson was professor. So far as we can judge from Hutcheson’s System of Moral Philosophy, which, as Dr. W. R. Scott has shown,1 was already in existence when Smith was a student, though not published till 1755, Hutcheson lectured first on Ethics, next upon what might very well be called Natural Jurisprudence, and thirdly upon Civil Polity. Through the two latter parts a considerable quantity of economic doctrine is scattered.

  In considering ‘The Necessity of a Social Life,’ Hutcheson points out that a man in solitude, however strong and instructed in the arts, ‘could scarce procure to himself the bare necessaries of life even in the best soils or climates’.

  ‘Nay ’tis well known that the produce of the labours of any given number, twenty for instance, in providing the necessaries or conveniences of life, shall be much greater by assigning to one a certain sort of work of one kind in which he will soon acquire skill and dexterity, and to another assigning work of a different kind, than if each one of the twenty were obliged to employ himself by turns in all the different sorts of labour requisite for his subsistence without sufficient dexterity in any. In the former method each procures a great quantity of goods of one kind, and can exchange a part of it for such goods obtained by the labours of others as he shall stand in need of. One grows expert in tillage, another in pasture and breeding cattle, a third in masonry, a fourth in the chase, a fifth in iron-works, a sixth in the arts of the loom, and so on throughout the rest. Thus all are supplied by means of barter with the works of complete artists. In the other method scarce any one could be dexterous and skilful in any one sort of labour.

  ‘Again, some works of the highest use to multitudes can be effectually executed by the joint labours of many, which the separate labours of the same number could never have executed. The joint force of many can repel dangers arising from savage beasts or bands of robbers which might have been fatal to many individuals were they separately to encounter them. The joint labours of twenty men will cultivate forests or drain marshes, for farms to each one, and provide houses for habitation and inclosures for their flocks, much sooner than the separate labours of the same number. By concert and alternate relief they can keep a perpetual watch, which without concert they could not accomplish.’2

  In explaining the ‘Foundation of Property’ Hutcheson says that when population was scanty, the country fertile and the climate mild, there was not much need for developing the rules of property, but as things are, ‘universal industry is plainly necessary for the support of mankind’ and men must be excited to labour by self-interest and family affection. If the fruits of men’s labours are not secured to them, ‘one has no other motive to labour than the general affection to his kind, which is commonly much weaker than the narrower affections to our friends and relations, not to mention the opposition which in this case would be given by most of the selfish ones’. Willing industry could not be secured in a communistic society.1

  The largest continuous block of economic doctrine in the System of Moral Philosophy is to be found in the chapter on ‘The Values of Goods in Commerce and the Nature of Coin’ which occurs in the middle of the discussion of contracts. In this chapter it is pointed out that it is necessary for commerce that goods should be valued. The values of goods depend on the demand for them and the difficulty of acquiring them. Values must be measured by some common standard, and this standard must be something generally desired, so that men may be generally willing to take it in exchange. To secure this it should be something portable, divisible without loss, and durable. Gold and silver best fulfil these requirements. At first they were used by quantity or weight, without coinage, but eventually the state vouched for quantity and quality by its stamp. The stamp being ‘easy workmanship’ adds no considerable value. ‘Coin is ever valued as a commodity in commerce as well as other goods; and that in proportion to the rarity of the metal, for the demand is universal.’ The only way to raise its value artificially would be by restricting the produce of the mines.

  ‘We say indeed commonly, that the rates of labour and goods have risen since these metals grew plenty; and that the rates of labour and goods were low when the metals were scarce; conceiving the value of the metals as invariable, because the legal names of the pieces, the pounds, shillings or pence, continue to them always the same till a law alters them. But a day’s digging or ploughing was as uneasy to a man a thousand years ago as it is now, though he could not then get so much silver for it: and a barrel of wheat, or beef, was then of the same use to support the human body, as it is now when it is exchanged for four times as much silver. Properly, the value of labour, grain, and cattle are always pretty much the same, as they afford the same uses in life, where no new inventions of tillage or pasturage cause a greater quantity in proportion to the demand.’1

  Lowering and raising the coins are unjust and pernicious operations. Copious mines abate the value of the precious metals.

  ‘The standard itself is varying insensibly; and therefore if we would settle fixed salaries which in all events would answer the same purposes of life, or support those entituled to them in the same condition with respect to others, they should neither be fixed in the legal names of coin, nor in a certain number of ounces of gold and silver. A decree of state may change the legal names; and the value of the ounces may alter by the increase or decrease of the quantities of these metals. Nor should such salaries be fixed in any quantities of more ingenious manufactures, for nice contrivances to facilitate labour may lower the value of such goods. The most invariable salary would be so many days labour of men, or a fixed quantity of goods produced by the plain inartificial labours, such goods as answer the ordinary purposes of life. Quantities of grain come nearest to such a standard.’2

  Prices of goods depend upon the expenses, the interest of money employed, and the ‘labours too, the care, attention, accounts and correspondence about them’. Sometimes we must ‘take in also the condition of the person so employed,’ since ‘the expense of his station of life must be defrayed by the price of such labours; and they deserve compensation as much as any other. This additional price of their labours is the just foundation of the ordinary profit of merchants.’

  In the next chapter, on ‘The Principal Contracts in a Social Life,’ we find the rent or hire of unfruitful goods, such as houses, justified on the ground that the proprietor might have employed his money or labour on goods naturally fruitful.

  ‘If in any way of trade men can make far greater gains by help of a large stock of money than they could have made without it, ’tis but just that he who supplies them with the money, the necessary means of this gain, should have for the use of it some share of the profit, equal at least to the profit he could have made by purchasing things naturally fruitful or yielding a rent. This shows the just foundation of interest upon money lent, though it be not naturally fruitful. Houses yield no fruits or increase, nor will some arable grounds yield any without great labour. Labour employed in managing money in trade or manufactures will make it as fruitful as anything. Were interest prohibited, none would lend except in charity; and many industrious hands who are not objects of charity would be excluded from large gains in a way very advantageous to the public.’1

  Reasonable interest varies with the state of trade and the quantity of coin. In a newly settled country great profits are made by small sums, and land is worth fewer years’ purchase, so that a higher interest is reasonable. Laws in settling interest must follow ‘these natural causes,’ otherwise they will be evaded.2

  In the chapter ‘Of the Nature of Civil Laws and their Execution,’ we find that after piety the virtues most necessary to a state are sobriety, industry, justice and fortitude.

  ‘Industry is the natural mine of wealth, the fund of all stores for exportation by the surplus of which beyond the value of what a nation imports, it must increase in wealth and power. Diligent agriculture must furnish the necessaries of life and the materials for all manufactures; and all mechanic arts should be encouraged to prepare them for use and exportation. Goods prepared for export should generally be free from all burdens and taxes, and so should the goods be which are necessarily consumed by the artificers, as much as possible; that no other country be able to undersell like goods at a foreign market. Where one country alone has certain materials, they may safely impose duties upon them when exported; but such moderate ones as shall not prevent the consumption of them abroad.

  ‘If people have not acquired an habit of industry, the cheapness of all the necessaries of life rather encourages sloth. The best remedy is to raise the demand for all necessaries; not merely by premiums upon exporting them, which is often useful too; but by increasing the number of people who consume them; and when they are dear, more labour and application will be requisite in all trades and arts to procure them. Industrious foreigners should therefore be invited to us, and all men of industry should live with us unmolested and easy. Encouragement should be given to marriage and to those who rear a numerous offspring to industry. The unmarried should pay higher taxes as they are not at the charge of rearing new subjects to the state. Any foolish notions of meanness in mechanic arts, as if they were unworthy of men of better families, should be borne down, and men of better condition as to birth or fortune engaged to be concerned in such occupations. Sloth should be punished by temporary servitude at least. Foreign materials should be imported and even premiums given, when necessary, that all our own hands may be employed; and that, by exporting them again manufactured, we may obtain from abroad the price of our labours. Foreign manufactures and products ready for consumption should be made dear to the consumer by high duties, if we cannot altogether prohibit the consumption; that they may never be used by the lower and more numerous orders of the people whose consumption would be far greater than those of the few who are wealthy. Navigation, or the carriage of goods foreign or domestic, should be encouraged, as a gainful branch of business surpassing often all the profit made by the merchant. This too is a nursery of fit hands for defence at sea.

  ‘ ’Tis vain to allege that luxury and intemperance are necessary to the wealth of a state as they encourage all labour and manufactures by making a great consumption. It is plain there is no necessary vice in the consuming of the finest products or the wearing of the dearest manufactures by persons whose fortunes can allow it consistently with the duties of life. And what if men grew generally more frugal and abstemious in such things? more of these finer goods could be sent abroad; or if they could not, industry and wealth might be equally promoted by the greater consumption of goods less chargeable: as he who saves by abating of his own expensive splendour could by generous offices to his friends, and by some wise methods of charity to the poor, enable others to live so much better and make greater consumption than was made formerly by the luxury of one. . . . Unless therefore a nation can be found where all men are already provided with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life abundantly, men may, without any luxury, make the very greatest consumption by plentiful provision for their children, by generosity and liberality to kinsmen and indigent men of worth, and by compassion to the distresses of the poor.’1

  Under ‘Military skill and fortitude’ Hutcheson discusses what Adam Smith afterwards placed under ‘Arms,’ and decides in favour of a trained militia.2

  In the same chapter he has a section with the marginal title ‘what taxes or tributes most eligible,’ which contains a repudiation of the policy of taxation for revenue only:—

  ‘As to taxes for defraying the public expenses, these are most convenient which are laid on matters of luxury and splendour rather than the necessaries of life; on foreign products and manufactures rather than domestic; and such as can be easily raised without many expensive offices for collecting them. But above all, a just proportion to the wealth of people should be observed in whatever is raised from them, otherways than by duties upon foreign products and manufactures, for such duties are often necessary to encourage industry at home, though there were no public expenses.’3

  This proportionment of taxation to wealth he thinks cannot be attained except by means of periodical estimation of the wealth of families, since land taxes unduly oppress landlords in debt and let moneyed men go free, while duties and excises are paid by the consumer, so that ‘hospitable generous men or such as have numerous families supported genteelly bear the chief burden here, and the solitary sordid miser bears little or no share of it’.1

  It is quite clear from all this that Smith was largely influenced by the traditions of his chair in selecting his economic subjects. Dr. Scott draws attention to the curious fact that the very order in which the subjects happen to occur in Hutcheson’s System is almost identical with the order in which the same subjects occur in Smith’s Lectures.2 We are strongly tempted to surmise that when Smith had hurriedly to prepare his lectures for Craigie’s class, he looked through his notes of his old master’s lectures (as hundreds of men in his position have done before and after him) and grouped the economic subjects together as an introduction and sequel to the lectures which he had brought with him from Edinburgh. Hutcheson was an inspiring teacher. His colleague, Leechman, says:—

  ‘As he had occasion every year in the course of his lectures to explain the origin of government and compare the different forms of it, he took peculiar care, while on that subject, to inculcate the importance of civil and religious liberty to the happiness of mankind: as a warm love of liberty and manly zeal for promoting it were ruling principles in his own breast, he always insisted upon it at great length and with the greatest strength of argument and earnestness of persuasion: and he had such success on this important point, that few, if any, of his pupils, whatever contrary prejudices they might bring along with them, ever left him without favourable notions of that side of the question which he espoused and defended’.3

  Half a century later Adam Smith spoke of the Glasgow Chair of Moral Philosophy as an ‘office to which the abilities and virtues of the never-to-be-forgotten Dr. Hutcheson had given a superior degree of illustration’.4

  But while we may well believe that Adam Smith was influenced in the general direction of liberalism by Hutcheson, there seems no reason for attributing to Hutcheson’s influence the belief in the economic beneficence of self-interest which permeates the Wealth of Nations and has afforded a starting ground for economic speculation ever since. Hutcheson, as some of the passages just quoted show, was a mercantilist, and all the economic teaching in his System is very dry bones compared to Smith’s vigourous lectures on Cheapness or Plenty, with their often repeated denunciation of the ‘absurdity’ of current opinions and the ‘pernicious regulations’ to which they gave rise. Twenty years after attending his lectures, Adam Smith criticised Hutcheson expressly on the ground that he thought too little of self-love. In the chapter of the Theory of Moral Sentiments on the systems of philosophy which make virtue consist in benevolence, he says that Hutcheson believed that it was benevolence only which could stamp upon any action the character of virtue: the most benevolent action was that which aimed at the good of the largest number of people, and self-love was a principle which could never be virtuous, though it was innocent when it had no other effect than to make the individual take care of his own happiness. This ‘amiable system, a system which has a peculiar tendency to nourish and support in the human heart the noblest and the most agreeable of all affections,’ Smith considered to have the ‘defect of not sufficiently explaining from whence arises our approbation of the inferior virtues of prudence, vigilance, circumspection, temperance, constancy, firmness’.

  ‘Regard,’ he continues, ‘to our own private happiness and interest too, appear upon many occasions very laudable principles of action. The habits of œconomy, industry, discretion, attention and application of thought, are generally supposed to be cultivated from self-interested motives, and at the same time are apprehended to be very praise-worthy qualities which deserve the esteem and approbation of every body. . . . Carelessness and want of œconomy are universally disapproved of, not, however, as proceeding from a want of benevolence, but from a want of the proper attention to the objects of self-interest.’1

  Adam Smith clearly believed that Hutcheson’s system did not give a sufficiently high place to self-interest. It was not Hutcheson that inspired his remark, ‘it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest’.2 He may have obtained a general love of liberty from Hutcheson, but whence did he obtain the belief that self-interest works for the benefit of the whole economic community? He might possibly of course have evolved it entirely in his own mind without even hearing another lecture or reading another book after he left Hutcheson’s class. But it seems probable—we cannot safely say more—that he was assisted by his study of Mandeville, a writer who has had little justice done him in histories of economics, though McCulloch gives a useful hint on the subject in his Literature of Political Economy. In the chapter of the Moral Sentiments which follows the one which contains the criticism of Hutcheson just quoted, Smith deals with ‘Licentious Systems’. The appearances in human nature, he says, which seem at first sight to favour such systems were ‘slightly sketched out with the elegance and delicate precision of the duke of Rochefaucault, and afterwards more fully represented with the lively and humorous, though coarse and rustic eloquence of Dr. Mandeville’.1

  Mandeville, he says, attributes all commendable acts to ‘a love of praise and commendation,’ or ‘vanity,’ and not content with that, endeavours to point out the imperfection of human virtue in many other respects.

  ‘Wherever our reserve with regard to pleasure falls short of the most ascetic abstinence, he treats it as gross luxury and sensuality. Every thing according to him, is luxury which exceeds what is absolutely necessary for the support of human nature, so that there is vice even in the use of a clean shirt or of a convenient habitation.’2

  But, Smith thinks, he has fallen into the great fallacy of representing every passion as wholly vicious if it is so in any degree and direction:—

  ‘It is thus that he treats everything as vanity which has any reference either to what are or to what ought to be the sentiments of others: and it is by means of this sophistry that he establishes his favourite conclusion that private vices are public benefits. If the love of magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and improvements of human life, for whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, or equipage, for architecture, statuary, painting and music, is to be regarded as luxury, sensuality and ostentation, even in those whose situation allows, without any inconveniency, the indulgence of those passions, it is certain that luxury, sensuality and ostentation are public benefits: since, without the qualities upon which he thinks proper to bestow such opprobrious names, the arts of refinement could never find encouragement and must languish for want of employment.’3

  ‘Such,’ Smith concludes, ‘is the system of Dr. Mandeville, which once made so much noise in the world.’ However destructive it might appear, he thought ‘it could never have imposed upon so great a number of persons, nor have occasioned so general an alarm among those who are friends of better principles, had it not in some respects bordered upon the truth’.1

  Mandeville’s work originally consisted merely of a poem of 400 lines called ‘The Grumbling Hive: or Knaves Turn’d Honest,’ which according to his own account was first published as a six-penny pamphlet about 1705.2 In 1714 he reprinted it, appending a very much larger quantity of prose, under the title of The Fable of the Bees: or Private Vices, Public Benefits; with an Essay on Charity and Charity Schools and a Search into the Nature of Society. In 1729 he added further a second part, nearly as large as the first, consisting of a dialogue on the subject. The ‘grumbling hive,’ which is in reality a human society, is described in the poem as prospering greatly so long as it was full of vice:—

  • ‘The worst of all the multitude
  • Did something for the common good.
  • This was the state’s craft, that maintain’d
  • The whole, of which each part complain’d:
  • This, as in musick harmony,
  • Made jarrings in the main agree;
  • Parties directly opposite,
  • Assist each oth’r, as ’twere for spight;
  • And temp’rance with sobriety
  • Serve drunkenness and gluttony.
  • The root of evil, avarice,
  • That damn’d ill-natur’d baneful vice,
  • Was slave to prodigality,
  • That noble sin; whilst luxury
  • Employ’d a million of the poor,
  • And odious pride a million more:
  • Envy itself and vanity
  • Were ministers of industry;
  • Their darling folly, fickleness
  • In diet, furniture, and dress,
  • That strange ridic’lous vice, was made
  • The very wheel that turn’d the trade.
  • Their laws and cloaths were equally
  • Objects of mutability;
  • For what was well done for a time,
  • In half a year became a crime;
  • Yet whilst they altered thus their laws,
  • Still finding and correcting flaws,
  • They mended by inconstncy
  • Faults which no prudence could foresee.
  • Thus vice nursed ingenuity,
  • Which join’d with time and industry,
  • Had carry’d life’s conveniencies,
  • It’s real pleasures, comforts, ease,
  • To such a height, the very poor
  • Lived better than the rich before;
  • And nothing could be added more.’1

  But the bees grumbled till Jove in anger swore he would rid the hive of fraud. The hive became virtuous, frugal and honest, and trade was forthwith ruined by the cessation of expenditure. At the end of the ‘Search into the Nature of Society’ the author sums up his conclusion as follows:—

  ‘After this I flatter myself to have demonstrated that neither the friendly qualities and kind affections that are natural to man, nor the real virtues he is capable of acquiring by reason and self-denial, are the foundation of society: but that what we call evil in the world, moral as well as natural, is the grand principle that makes us sociable creatures, the solid basis, the life and support of all trades and employments without exception: that there we must look for the true origin of all arts and sciences, and that the moment evil ceases the society must be spoiled, if not totally dissolved.’2

  In a letter to the London Journal of 10th August, 1723, which he reprinted in the edition of 1724, Mandeville defended this passage vigorously against a hostile critic. If, he said, he had been writing to be understood by the meanest capacities, he would have explained that every want was an evil:—

  ‘That on the multiplicity of those wants depended all those mutual services which the individual members of a society pay to each other: and that consequently, the greater variety there was of wants, the larger number of individuals might find their private interest in labouring for the good of others, and united together, compose one body.’3

  If we bear in mind Smith’s criticism of Hutcheson and Mandeville in adjoining chapters of the Moral Sentiments, and remember further that he must almost certainly have become acquainted with the Fable of the Bees when attending Hutcheson’s lectures or soon afterwards, we can scarcely fail to suspect that it was Mandeville who first made him realise that ‘it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest’. Treating the word ‘vice’ as a mistake for self-love, Adam Smith could have repeated with cordiality Mandeville’s lines already quoted:—

  • ‘Thus vice nursed ingenuity,
  • Which join’d with time and industry,
  • Had carry’d life’s conveniencies,
  • It’s real pleasures, comforts, ease,
  • To such a height, the very poor
  • Lived better than the rich before.’

  Smith put the doggerel into prose, and added something from the Hutchesonian love of liberty when he propounded what is really the text of the polemical portion of the Wealth of Nations:—

  ‘The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often incumbers its operations.’1

  Experience shows that a general belief in the beneficence of the economic working of self-interest is not always sufficient to make even a person of more than average intelligence a free-trader. Consequently it would be rash to suppose that Smith’s disbelief in the mercantile system was merely the natural outcome of his general belief in economic freedom. Dugald Stewart’s quotations from his paper of 1755 do not contain anything to show that he was pouring contempt on the doctrine before he left Edinburgh and in his early years at Glasgow. It seems very likely that the reference in the lectures to Hume’s ‘essays showing the absurdity of these and other such doctrines’2 is to be regarded as an acknowledgment of obligation, and therefore that it was Hume, by his Political Discourses on Money and the Balance of Trade in 1752, who first opened Adam Smith’s eyes on this subject. The probability of this is slightly increased by the fact that in the lectures the mercantile fallacies as to the balance of trade were discussed in connexion with Money, as in Hume’s Discourses, instead of in the position which they would have occupied if Smith had either followed Hutcheson’s order, or placed them among the causes of the ‘slow progress of opulence’. It is, too, perhaps, not a mere coincidence that while both Hume in the Discourses in 1752 and Smith in his lectures ten years later rejected altogether the aim of securing a favourable balance of trade, Hume still clearly believed in the utility of protection for home industries, and Smith is at any rate reported to have made a considerable concession in its favour.1

  It would be useless to carry the inquiry into the origin of Adam Smith’s views any further here. Perhaps it has been carried too far already. In the course of the Wealth of Nations Smith actually quotes by their own name or that of their authors almost one hundred books. An attentive study of the notes to the present edition will convince the reader that though a few of these are quoted at second hand the number actually used was far greater. Usually but little, sometimes only a single fact, phrase or opinion, is taken from each, so that few authors are less open than Adam Smith to the reproach of having rifled another man’s work. That charge has indeed never seriously been brought against him, except in regard to Turgot’s Réflexions, and in that case not a particle of evidence has ever been produced to show that he had used or even seen the book in question. The Wealth of Nations was not written hastily with the impressions of recent reading still vivid on the author’s brain. Its composition was spread over at least the twenty-seven years from 1749 to 1776. During that period economic ideas crossed and recrossed the Channel many times, and it is as useless as it is invidious to dispute about the relative shares of Great Britain and France in the progress effected. To go further and attempt to apportion the merit between different authors is like standing on some beach and discussing whether this or that particular wave had most to do with the rising tide. One wave may appear to have what credit there is in sweeping over a child’s first sand castle and another wave may evidently wipe out his second, but both would have been swamped just as effectually, and almost as soon, on a perfectly calm day.

  [1 ] John Rae, Life of Adam Smith, 1895, p. 284.

  [2 ]Ibid., p. 285.

  [3 ]Ibid., p. 324.

  [4 ] Below, vol. i., p. 462; vol. ii., p. 423.

  [5 ] See vol. ii., p. 79, as well as the passages referred to in the previous note.

  [6 ] Vol. ii., pp. 75, 86, 115.

  [1 ] Rae, Life of Adam Smith, p. 362.

  [2 ]Ibid., p. 323.

  [3 ]Ibid., p. 362.

  [4 ] Edition 4 alters ‘this’ to ‘the’.

  [5 ] Edition 4 omits ‘present’.

  [1 ] They are frequently found at the end of existing bound copies of the second edition. The statement in Rae, Life of Adam Smith, p. 362, that they were published in 1783 is a mistake; cp. the ‘Advertisement to the Third Edition’ above.

  [2 ] Rae, Life of Adam Smith, p. 362.

  [1 ] Corrected to ‘Hope’ in edition 5. The celebrated firm of Hope, merchant-bankers in Amsterdam, was founded by a Scotchman in the seventeenth century (see Sir Thomas Hope in the Dictionary of National Biography). Henry Hope was born in Boston, Mass., in 1736, and passed six years in a banking house in England before he joined his relatives in Amsterdam. He became a partner with them, and on the death of Adrian Hope the conduct of the whole of the business of the firm devolved upon him. When the French invaded Holland in 1794 he retired to England. He died on 25th February, 1811, leaving £1,160,000 (Gentleman’s Magazine, March, 1811).

  [1 ] Most modern editions are copied from the fourth edition. Thorold Rogers’ edition, however, though said in the preface to be copied from the fourth, as a matter of fact follows the third. In one instance, indeed, the omission of ‘so’ before ‘as long as’ at vol. i., p. 43, line 25 (in the present edition), Rogers’ text agrees with that of the fourth edition rather than the third, but this is an accidental coincidence in error; the error is a particularly easy one to make and it is actually corrected in the errata to the fourth edition, so that it is not really the reading of that edition. The fifth edition must not be confused with a spurious ‘fifth edition with additions’ in 2 vols., 8vo, published in Dublin in 1793 with the ‘Advertisement’ to the third edition deliberately falsified by the substitution of ‘fifth’ for ‘third’ in the sentence ‘To this third edition however I have made several additions’. It is perhaps the existence of this spurious ‘fifth edition’ which has led several writers (e.g., Rae, Life of Adam Smith, p. 293) to ignore the genuine fifth edition. The sixth edition is dated 1791.

  [2 ] Steuart’s Principles was ‘printed for A. Millar, and T. Cadell, in the Strand’: and the Wealth of Nations ‘for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand’.

  [1 ]Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms, delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith. Reported by a student in 1763, and edited with an Introduction and Notes by Edwin Cannan, 1896, pp. 1, 3.

  [2 ]Ibid., pp. 3, 4.

  [3 ]Lectures, p. 154.

  [1 ] See James Bonar, Catalogue of the Library of Adam Smith, 1894.

  [2 ]Lectures, p. 157.

  [3 ]Ibid., p. 154.

  [4 ]Ibid., p. 156.

  [1 ]Lectures, p. 157.

  [2 ]Ibid., p. 163.

  [3 ]Ibid., pp. 172-3.

  [4 ]Ibid., p. 178.

  [5 ]Ibid., p. 182.

  [1 ]Lectures, p. 192.

  [2 ]Ibid., p. 195.

  [3 ]Ibid., p. 195.

  [4 ]Ibid., p. 196.

  [5 ]Ibid., p. 197.

  [6 ]Ibid., p. 199.

  [7 ]Ibid., p. 200.

  [8 ]Ibid., p. 204.

  [9 ]Ibid., p. 204.

  [1 ]Lectures, p. 206.

  [2 ]Ibid., p. 207.

  [3 ]Ibid., p. 209.

  [4 ]Ibid., pp. 211-19.

  [5 ]Ibid., pp. 219-22.

  [6 ]Ibid., p. 222.

  [7 ]Ibid., pp. 222-3.

  [1 ]Lectures, pp. 223-36.

  [2 ]Ibid., p. 253.

  [3 ]Ibid., p. 254.

  [4 ]Ibid., p. 255.

  [5 ]Ibid., p. 256.

  [6 ]Ibid., pp. 256, 257.

  [1 ]Lectures, p. 258.

  [2 ]Ibid., p. 236.

  [3 ]Ibid., p. 239.

  [4 ]Ibid., pp. 241, 242.

  [5 ]Ibid., pp. 242, 243.

  [1 ]Lectures, p. 243.

  [2 ]Ibid., p. 245.

  [3 ]Ibid., pp. 246, 247.

  [4 ]Ibid., pp. 247-52.

  [5 ]Ibid., p. 261.

  [6 ]Ibid., p. 263.

  [1 ] There is a reminiscence of them in the chapter on Rent, vol. i., pp. 164-5.

  [1 ] See above, p. xxvi.

  [2 ] See below, pp. xlvi, xlvii, for a conjecture on this subject.

  [1 ] Below, vol. ii., p. 177, note 2.

  [1 ] Dugald Stewart, in his ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith,’ read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1793 and published in Adam Smith’s posthumous Essays on Philosophical Subjects, 1795, p. xviii. See Rae, Life of Adam Smith, pp. 53-5.

  [2 ] Rae, Life of Adam Smith, pp. 42-5.

  [1 ] Stewart, in Smith’s Essays, pp. lxxx, lxxxi.

  [2 ] Rae, Life of Adam Smith, pp. 43-4.

  [1 ] W. R. Scott, Francis Hutcheson, 1900, pp. 210, 231. In the Introduction to Moral Philosophy, 1747, Civil Polity is replaced by ‘Œconomicks and Politicks,’ but ‘Œconomicks’ only means domestic law, i.e., the rights of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants.

  [2 ]System of Moral Philosophy, vol. i., pp. 288, 289.

  [1 ]System of Moral Philosophy, vol. i., pp. 319-21.

  [1 ]System of Moral Philosophy, vol. ii., p. 58.

  [2 ]Ibid., vol. ii., pp. 62, 63.

  [1 ]System of Moral Philosophy, pp. 71-2.

  [2 ]Ibid., vol. ii., p. 73.

  [1 ]System of Moral Philosophy, vol. ii., pp. 318-21.

  [2 ]Ibid., vol. ii., pp. 323-5.

  [3 ]Ibid., pp. 340-1.

  [1 ]System of Moral Philosophy, vol. ii., pp. 341-2.

  [2 ]Francis Hutcheson, pp. 232-5.

  [3 ] In the preface to Hutcheson’s System of Moral Philosophy, pp. xxxv, xxxvi.

  [4 ] Rae, Life of Adam Smith, p. 411.

  [1 ]Moral Sentiments, 1759, pp. 464-6.

  [2 ] Below, vol. i., p. 16.

  [1 ]Moral Sentiments, 1759, p. 474.

  [2 ]Ibid., 1759, p. 483.

  [3 ]Ibid., p. 485.

  [1 ]Moral Sentiments, 1759, p. 487.

  [2 ]Fable of the Bees, 1714, preface.

  [1 ] Pp. 11.13 in the ed. of 1705.

  [2 ] Pp. 427-8 in 2nd ed., 1723.

  [3 ] P. 465 in ed. of 1724.

  [1 ] Below, vol. ii., p. 43.

  [2 ]Lectures, p. 197.

  [1 ] Above, pp. xxvi, xxix. Moreover, before bringing out the second edition of his Discourses, Hume wrote to Adam Smith asking for suggestions. That Smith made no remark on the protectionist passage in the discourse on the Balance of Trade seems to be indicated by the fact that it remained unaltered (see Hume’s Essays, ed. Green & Grose, vol. i., pp. 59, 343 and 344).

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  8: Ingram on Smith and his followers

  John Kells Ingram, A History of Political Economy. New and Enlarged Edition with a Supplementary Chapter by William A. Scott and an Introduction by Richard T. Ely (London: A. and C. Black, 1915). Chapter: CHAPTER V: THIRD MODERN PHASE: SYSTEM OF NATURAL LIBERTY

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/1678/142324 on 2009-10-16

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  CHAPTER V

  THIRD MODERN PHASE: SYSTEM OF NATURAL LIBERTY

  The changes introduced during the third phase in the internal organisation of the industrial world were (1) the more complete separation of banking from general commerce, and the wider extension of its operations, especially through the system of public credit; and (2) the great development of the use of machinery in production. The latter did not become very prominent during the first half of the eighteenth century. Whilst tending to promote the dignity of the working classes by relieving them from degrading and exhausting forms of labour, it widened the gulf between them and the capitalist employers. It thus became plain that for the definitive constitution of industry a moral reform was the necessary preliminary condition.

  With respect to the political relations of industry, a remarkable inversion now showed itself. The systematic encouragements which the European Governments had extended to it in the preceding phase had been prompted by their desire to use it as an instrument for achieving the military superiority which was the great end of their policy. Now, on the contrary, the military spirit subordinated itself to the industrial, and the armies and the diplomacy of Governments were placed at the service of commerce. The wars which filled a large part of the eighteenth century were essentially Commercial wars, arising out of the effort to sustain or extend the colonial establishments founded in the previous phase, or to deprive rival nations of the industrial advantages connected with the possession of such establishments. This change of attitude, notwithstanding its deplorable tendency to foster international enmities and jealousies, marked a real and important progress by pointing to industrial activity as the one permanent practical destination of modern societies.

  But, whilst by this sort of action furthering the ascendency of the new forces, the ruling powers, both in England and France, betrayed the alarm they felt at the subversive ten-dencies which appeared inherent in the modern movement by taking up in their domestic policy an attitude of resistance. Reaction became triumphant in France during the latter half of the reign of Louis XIV, under the disastrous influence of Madame de Maintenon. In England, after the transaction of 1688, by which the Government was consolidated on the double basis of aristocratic power and official orthodoxy, the state policy became not so much retrograde as stationary, industrial conquest being put forward to satisfy the middle class and wean it from the pursuit of a social renovation. In both countries there was for some time a noticeable check in the intellectual development, and Roscher and others have observed that, in economic studies particularly, the first three decades of the eighteenth century were a period of general stagnation, eclecticism for the most part taking the place of originality. The movement was, however, soon to be resumed, but with an altered and more formidable character. The negative doctrine, which had risen and taken a definite form in England, was diffused and popularised in France, where it became evident, even before the decisive explosion, that the only possible issue lay in a radical social transformation. The partial schools of Voltaire and Rousseau in different ways led up to a violent crisis, whilst taking little thought of the conditions of a system which could replace the old; but the more complete and organic school, of which Diderot is the best representative, looked through freedom to a thorough reorganisation. Its constructive aim is shown by the design of the Encyclopédie—a project, however, which could have only a temporary success, because no real synthesis was forthcoming, and this joint production of minds often divergent could possess no more than an external unity. It was with this great school that the physiocrats were specially connected; and, in common with its other members whilst pushing towards an entire change of the existing system, they yet would gladly have avoided political demolition through the exercise of a royal dictatorship, or contemplated it only as the necessary condition of a new and better order of things. But, though marked off by such tendencies from the purely revolutionary sects, their method and fundamental ideas were negative, resting, as they did, essentially on the basis of the jus nature. We shall follow in detail these French developments in their special relation to economic science, and afterwards notice the corresponding movements in other European countries which showed themselves before the appearance of Adam Smith, or were at least unaffected by his influence.

  Before Adam Smith
  France

  The more liberal, as well as more rational, principles put forward by the English thinkers of the new type began, early in the eighteenth century, to find an echo in France, where the clearer and more vigorous intellects were prepared for their reception by a sense of the great evils which exaggerated mercantilism, serving as instrument of political ambition, had produced in that country. The impoverished condition of the agricultural population, the oppressive weight and unequal imposition of taxation, and the unsound state of the public finances had produced a general feeling of disquiet, and led several distinguished writers to protest strongly against the policy of Colbert and to demand a complete reform.

  The most important amongst them was Pierre Boisguillebert (d. 1714), whose whole life was devoted to these controversies. In his statistical writings (Détail de la France sous le règne présent, 1697; Factum de la France, 1707), he brings out in gloomy colours the dark side of the age of Louis XIV, and in his theoretic works (Traité de la natureet du commerce des grains; Dissertations sur la nature des richesses de I'argent et des tributs; and Essai sur la rareté de I'argent) he appears as an earnest, even passionate, antagonist of the mercantile school. He insists again and again on the fact that national wealth does not consist in gold and silver, but in useful things, foremost among which are the products of agriculture. He even goes so far as to speak of “argent criminel,” which from being the slave of trade, as it ought to be, had become its tyrant. He sets the “genuinely French Sully” far above the “Italianising Colbert,” and condemns all arbitrary regulations affecting either foreign or internal commerce, especially as regards the corn trade. National wealth does not depend on Governments, whose interference does more harm than good; the natural laws of the economic order of things cannot be violated or neglected with impunity; the interests of the several classes of society in a system of freedom are identical, and those of individuals coincide with that of the state. A similar solidarity exists between different nations; in their economic dealings they are related to the world as individual towns to a nation, and not merely plenty, but peace and harmony, will result from their unfettered intercourse. Men he divides into two classes—those who do nothing and enjoy everything, and those who labour from morning to night often without earning a bare subsistence; the latter he would favour in every way. Here we catch the breath of popular sympathy which fills the social atmosphere of the eighteenth century. He dwells with special emphasis on the claims of agriculture, which had in France fallen into unmerited neglect, and with a view to its improvement calls for a reform in taxation. He would replace indirect taxes by taxes on income, and would restore the payment of taxes in kind, with the object ot securing equality of burden and eliminating every element of the arbitrary. He has some interesting views of a general character: thus he approximates to a correct conception of agricultural rent, and he points to the order in which human wants follow each other—those of necessity, convenience, comfort, superfluity, and ostentation succeeding in the order named, and ceasing in the inverse order to be felt as wealth decreases. The depreciating tone in which Voltaire speaks of Boisguillebert (Siècle de Louis XIV, chap 30) is certainly not justified; he had a great economic talent, and his writings contain important germs of truth. But he appears to have exerted little influence, theoretical or practical, in his own time.

  The same general line of thought was followed by Marshal de Vauban (1633–1707) in his economic tracts, especially that bearing the title of Projet d'une dixme Royale, 1707, which was suppressed by the authorities, and lost for him the favour of his sovereign, but has added lustre to his name in the judgment of posterity. He is deeply impressed with the deplorable condition of the working classes of France in his day. He urges that the aim of the Government should be the welfare of all orders of the community; that all are entitled to like favour and furtherance; that the often despised and wronged lower class is the basis of the social organisation; that labour is the foundation of all wealth, and agriculture the most important species of labour; that the most essential condition of successful industry is freedom; and that all unnecessary or excessive restrictions on manufactures and commerce should be swept away. He protests in particular against the inequalities of taxation, and the exemptions and privileges enjoyed by the higher ranks. With the exception of some duties on consumption he would abolish all the existing taxes, and substitute for them a single tax on income and land, impartially applied to all classes, which he describes under the name of “Dixme Royale,” that is to say, a tenth in kind of all agricultural produce, and a tenth of money income chargeable on manufacturers and traders.1

  The liberal and humane spirit of Fénelon led him to aspire after freedom of commerce with foreign nations, and to preach the doctrine that the true superiority of one state over another lies in the number indeed, but also in the morality, intelligence, and industrious habits of its population. The Télémaque, in which these views were presented in an attractive form, was welcomed and read amongst all ranks and classes, and was thus an effective organ for the propagation of opinion.

  After these writers there is a marked blank in the field of French economic thought, broken only by the Réflexions Politiques sur les Finances et le Commerce (1738) of Dutot, a pupil of Law, and the semi-mercantilist Essais Politiques sur le Commerce (1731) of Mélon, till we come to the great name of Montesquieu. The Esprit des Lois (1748), so far as it deals with economic subjects, is written upon the whole from a point of view adverse to the mercantile system, especially in his treatment of money, though in his observations on colonies and elsewhere he falls in with the ideas of that system. His immortal service, however, was not rendered by any special research, but by his enforcement of the doctrine of natural laws regulating social no less than physical phenomena. There is no other thinker of importance on economic subjects in France till the appearance of the physiocrats, which marks an epoch in the history of the science.

  The heads of the physiocratic school were Francois Quesnay (1694–1774) and Jean Claude Marie Vincent, sieur de Gournay (1712–1759). The principles of the school had been put forward in 1755 by Richard Cantillon, a French merchant of Irish extraction (Essai sur la nature du Commerce en général), whose biography Jevons has elucidated,1 and whom he regards as the true founder of political economy; but it was in the hands of Quesnay and Gournay2 that they acquired a systematic form, and became the creed of a united group of thinkers and practical men, bent on carrying them into action. The members of the group called themselves “les économistes,” but it is more convenient, because unambiguous, to designate them by the name “physiocrates,” invented by Dupont de Nemours, who was one of their number. In this name, intended to express the fundamental idea of the school, much more is implied than the subjection of the phenomena of the social, and in particular the economic, world to fixed relations of co-existence and succession. This is the positive doctrine which lies at the bottom of all true science. But the law of nature referred to in the title of the sect was something quite different. The theological dogma which represented all the movements of the universe as directed by divine wisdom and benevolence to the production of the greatest possible sum of happiness had been transformed in the hands of the metaphysicians into the conception of a jus naturœ, a harmonious and beneficial code established by the favourite entity of these thinkers, Nature, antecedent to human institutions, and furnishing the model to which they should be made to conform. This idea, which Buckle apparently supposes to have been an invention of Hutcheson's, had come down through Roman juridical theory from the speculations of Greece.1 It was taken in hand by the modern negative school from Hobbes to Rousseau, and used as a powerful weapon of assault upon the existing order of society, with which the “natural” order was perpetually contrasted as offering the imperfect type from which fact had deplorably diverged. The theory received different applications according to the diversity of minds or circumstances. By some it was directed against the artificial manners of the times, by others against contemporary political institutions; it was specially employed by the physiocrats in criticising the economic practice of European Governments.

  The general political doctrine is as follows. Society is composed of a number of individuals all having the same natural rights. If all do not possess (as some members of the negative school maintained) equal capacities, each can at least best understand his own interest, and is led by nature to follow it. The social union is really a contract between these individuals, the object of which is the limitation of the natural freedom of each, just so far as it is inconsistent with the rights of the others. Government, though necessary, is a necessary evil; and the governing power appointed by consent should be limited to the amount of interference absolutely required to secure the fulfilment of the contract. In the economic sphere, this implies the right of the individual to such natural enjoyments as he can acquire by his labour. That labour, therefore, should be undisturbed and unfettered; and its fruits should be guaranteed to the possessor; in other words, property should be sacred. Each citizen must be allowed to make the most of his labour; and therefore freedom of exchange should be ensured, and competition in the market should be unrestricted, no monopolies or privileges being permitted to exist.

  The physiocrats then proceed with the economic analysis as follows. Only those labours are truly “productive” which add to the quantity of raw materials available for the purposes of man; and the real annual addition to the wealth of the community consists of the excess of the mass of agricultural products (including, of course, minerals) over their cost of production. On the amount of this “produit net” depends the well-being of the community, and the possibility of its advance in civilisation. The manufacturer merely gives a new form to the materials extracted from the earth; the higher value of the object, after it has passed through his hands, only represents the quantity of provisions and other materials used and consumed in its elaboration. Commerce does nothing more than transfer the wealth already existing from one hand to another; what the trading classes gain thereby is acquired at the cost of the nation, and it is desirable that its amount should be as small as possible. The occupation of the manufacturer and merchant, as well as the liberal professions, and every kind of personal service, are “useful” indeed, but they are “sterile,” drawing their income, not from any fund which they themselves create, but from the superfluous earnings of the agriculturists. Perfect freedom of trade not only rests, as we have already seen, on the foundation of natural right, but is also recommended by the consideration that it makes the “produit net,” on which all wealth and general progress depend, as large as possible. “Laissez faire, laissez passer” should therefore be the motto of Governments. The revenue of the State, which must be derived altogether from this net product, ought to be raised in the most direct and simplest way, namely, by a single impost of the nature of a land tax.1

  The special doctrine relating to the exclusive productiveness of agriculture arose out of a confusion between “value” on the one hand and “matter and energy” on the other. Smith and others have shown that the attempt to fix the character of “sterility” on manufactures and commerce was founded in error. And the proposal of a single impôt territorial falls to the ground with the doctrine on which it was based. But such influence as the school exerted depended little, if at all, on these peculiar tenets, which indeed some of its members did not hold. The effective result of its teaching was mainly destructive. It continued in a more systematic form the efforts in favour of the freedom of industry already begun in England and France. The essential historical office of the physiocrats was to discredit radically the methods followed by the European Governments in their dealings with industry. For such criticism as theirs there was, indeed, ample room: the policy of Colbert, which could be only temporarily useful, had been abusively extended and intensified; Governmental action had intruded itself into the minutest details of business, and every process of manufacture and transaction of trade was hampered by legislative restrictions. It was to be expected that the reformers should, in the spirit of the negative philosophy, exaggerate the vices of established systems; and there can be no doubt that they condemned too absolutely the economic action of the State, both in principle and in its historic manifestations, and pushed the “laissez faire” doctrine beyond its just limits. But this was a necessary incident of their connection with the revolutionary movement, of which they really formed one wing. In the course of that movement, the primitive social contract, the sovereignty of the people, and other dogmas now seen to be untenable, were habitually invoked in the region of politics proper, and had a transitory utility as ready and effective instruments of warfare. And so also in the economic sphere the doctrines of natural rights of buying and selling, of the sufficiency of enlightened selfishness as a guide in mutual dealings, of the certainty that each member of the society will understand and follow his true interests, and of the coincidence of those interests with the public welfare, though they will not bear a dispassionate examination, were temporarily useful as convenient and serviceable weapons for the overthrow of the established order. The tendency of the school was undoubtedly to consecrate the spirit of individualism, and the state of non-government. But this tendency, which may with justice be severely condemned in economists of the present time, was then excusable because inevitable. And, whilst it now impedes the work of reconstruction which is for us the order of the day, it then aided the process of social demolition, which was the necessary, though deplorable, condition of a new organisation.

  These conclusions as to the revolutionary tendencies of the school are not at all affected by the fact that the form of government preferred by Quesnay and some of his chief followers was what they called a legal despotism, which should embrace within itself both the legislative and the executive function. The reason for this preference was that an enlightened central power could more promptly and efficaciously introduce the policy they advocated than an assembly representing divergent opinions, and fettered by constitutional checks and limitations. Turgot, as we know, used the absolute power of the crown to carry into effect some of his measures for the liberation of industry, though he ultimately failed because unsustained by the requisite force of character in Louis XVI. But what the physiocratic idea with respect to the normal method of government was appears from Quesnay's advice to the dauphin, that when he became king he should “do nothing, but let the laws rule,” the laws having been of course first brought into conformity with the jus naturœ. The partiality of the school for agriculture was in harmony with the sentiment in favour of “nature” and primitive simplicity which then showed itself in so many forms in France, especially in combination with the revolutionary spirit, and of which Rousseau was the most eloquent exponent. It was also associated in these writers with a just indignation at the wretched state in which the rural labourers of France had been left by the scandalous neglect of the superior orders of society—a state of which the terrible picture drawn by La Bruyère is an indestructible record. The members of the physiocratic group were undoubtedly men of thorough uprightness, and inspired with a sincere desire for the public good, especially for the material and moral elevation of the working classes. Quesnay was physician to Louis XV, and resided in the palace at Versailles; but in the midst of that corrupt court he maintained his integrity, and spoke with manly frankness what he believed to be the truth. And never did any statesman devote himself with greater singleness of purpose or more earnest endeavour to the service of his country than Turgot, who was the principal practical representative of the school.

  The publications in which Quesnay expounded his system were the following:1 —Two articles, on “Fermiers” and on “Grains,” in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert (1756, 1757); a discourse on the law of nature in the Physiocratie of Dupont de Nemours (1768); Maximes générales de gouvernement économique d'un royaume agricole (1758), and the simultaneously published Tableau Economique avec sonexplication, ou Extrait des Économies Royales de Sully (with the celebrated motto “pauvres paysans, pauvre royaume; pauvre royaume, pauvre roi”); Dialogue sur le commerce et les travaux des artisans; and other minor pieces. The Tableau Économique, though on account of its dryness and abstract form it met with little general favour, may be considered the principal manifesto of the school. It was regarded by the followers of Quesnay as entitled to a place amongst the foremost products of human wisdom, and is named by the elder Mirabeau, in a passage quoted by Adam Smith,1 as one of the three great inventions which have contributed most to the stability of political societies, the other two being those of writing and of money. Its object was to exhibit by means of certain formulas the way in which the products of agriculture, which is the only source of wealth, would in a state of perfect liberty be distributed among the several classes of the community (namely, the productive classes of the proprietors and cultivators of land, and the unproductive class composed of manufacturers and merchants), and to represent by other formulas the modes of distribution which take place under systems of Governmental restraint and regulation, with the evil results arising to the whole society from different degrees of such violations of the natural order. It follows from Quesnay's theoretic views that the one thing deserving the solicitude of the practical economist and the statesman is the increase of the net product; and he infers also what Smith afterwards affirmed on not quite the same ground, that the interest of the landowner is “strictly and inseparably connected with the general interest of the society.”2

  M. de Gournay, as we have seen, was regarded as one of the founders of the school, and appears to have exercised some influence even upon the formation of Quesnay's own opinions. With the exception of translations of Culpeper and Child,3 Gournay wrote nothing but memoirs addressed to ministers, which have not seen the light; but we have a full statement of his views in the Éloge dedicated to his memory by his illustrious friend Turgot. Whilst Quesnay had spent his youth amidst rural scenes, and had been early familiar with the labours of the field, Gournay had been bred as a merchant, and had passed from the counting-house to the office of intendant of commerce. They thus approached the study of political economy from different sides, and this diversity of their antecedents may in part explain the amount of divergence which existed between their views. Gournay softened the rigour of Quesnay's system, and brought it nearer to the truth, by rejecting what Smith calls its “capital error”—the doctrine, namely, of the unproductiveness of manufactures and commerce. He directed his efforts to the assertion and vindication of the principle of industrial liberty, and it was by him that this principle was formulated in the phrase, since so often heard for good and for evil, “Laissez faire et laissez passer.” One of the earliest and most complete adherents of the physiocratic school, as well as an ardent and unwearied propagator of its doctrines, was Victor Mirabeau, whose sincere and independent, though somewhat perverse and whimsical, character is familiar to English readers through Carlyle's essay on his more celebrated son. He had expressed some physiocratic views earlier than Quesnay, but owned the latter for his spiritual father, and adopted most of his opinions, the principal difference being that he was favourable to the petite as opposed to the grande culture, which latter was preferred by his chief as giving, not indeed the largest gross, but the largest net product. Mirabeau's principal writings were Ami des Hommes, ou traité sur la population (1756, 1760), Théorie de I'impôt (1760), Les Économiques (1769), and Philosophic rurale, ou Économic générale et politique de l'Agriculture (1763). The last of these was the earliest complete exposition of the physiocratic system. Another earnest and persevering apostle of the system was Dupont de Nemours (1739–1817), known by his treatises De l'exportation et de l'importation des grains (1764), De I'origine et des progrès d'une science nouvelle (1767), Du commerce de la Compagnie des Indes (1767), and especially by his more comprehensive work Physiocratie, ou Constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus avantageux au genre humain (1768). The title of this work gave, as has been already mentioned, a name to the school. Another formal exposition of the system, to which Adam Smith refers as the “most distinct and best connected account” of it, was produced by Mercier-Larivière, under the title L'Ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés politiques (1767), a title which is interesting as embodying the idea of the jus naturœ.1 Both he and Dupont de Nemours professed to study human communities, not only in relation to their economic, but also to their political and general social aspects; but, notwithstanding these larger pretensions, their views were commonly restricted in the main to the economic sphere; at least material considerations decidedly preponderated in their inquiries, as was naively indicated by Larivière when he said, “Property, security, liberty—these comprise the whole social order; the right of property is a tree of which all the institutions of society are branches.”

  The most eminent member of the group was without doubt Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727–1781). This is not the place to speak of his noble practical activity, first as intendant of Limoges, and afterwards for a brief period as finance minister, or of the circumstances which led to his removal from office, and the consequent failure of his efforts for the salvation of France. His economic views are explained in the introductions to his edicts and ordinances, in letters and occasional papers, but especially in his Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses (1766). This is a condensed but eminently clear and attractive exposition of the fundamental principles of political economy, as they were conceived by the physiocrats. It embodies, indeed, the erroneous no less than the sound doctrines of that school; but several subjects, especially the various forms of land-economy, the different employments of capital, and the legitimacy of interest, are handled in a generally just as well as striking manner; and the mode of presentation of the ideas, and the luminous arrangement of the whole, are Turgot's own. The treatise, which contains a surprising amount of matter in proportion to its length, must always retain a place among the classics of the science.

  The physiocratic school never obtained much direct popular influence, even in its native country, though it strongly attracted many of the more gifted and earnest minds. Its members, writing on dry subjects in an austere and often heavy style, did not find acceptance with a public which demanded before all things charm of manner in those who addressed it. When Morellet, one of their number, entered the lists with Galiani, it was seen how esprit and eloquence could triumph over science, solid indeed, but clumsy in its movements.1 The physiocratic tenets, which were in fact partially erroneous, were regarded by many as chimerical, and were ridiculed in the contemporary literature, as, for example, the impôt unique by Voltaire in his L'homme aux quarante écus, which was directed in particular against Mercier-Larivière. It was justly objected to the group that they were too absolute in their view of things; they supposed, as Smith remarks in speaking of Quesnay, that the body-politic could thrive only under one precise régime,—that, namely, which they recommended,—and thought their doctrines universally and immediately applicable in practice.1 They did not, as theorists, sufficiently take into account national diversities,2 or different stages in social development; nor did they, as politicians, adequately estimate the impediments which ignorance, prejudice, and interested opposition present to enlightened statesmanship. It is possible that Turgot himself, as Grimm suggests, owed his failure in part to the too unbending rigour of his policy and the absence of any attempt at conciliation. Be this as it may, his defeat helped to impair the credit of his principles, which were represented as having been tried and found wanting.

  The physiocratic system, after guiding in some degree the policy of the Constituent Assembly, and awakening a few echoes here and there in foreign countries, soon ceased to exist as a living power; but the good elements it comprised were not lost to mankind, being incorporated into the sounder and more complete construction of Adam Smith.

  Italy

  In Italy, as in the other European nations, there was little activity in the economic field during the first half of the eighteenth century. It was then, however, that a really remarkable man appeared, the archdeacon Salustio Antonio Bandini (1677–1760), author of the Discorso sulla Maremma Sienese, written in 1737, but not published till 1775. The object of the work was to raise the Maremma from the wretched condition into which it had fallen through the decay of agriculture. This decay he showed to be, at least in part, the result of the wretched fiscal system which was in force; and his book led to important reforms in Tuscany, where his name is held in high honour. Not only by Pecchio and other Italian writers, but by Roscher also, he is alleged to have anticipated some leading doctrines of the physiocrats, but this claim is disputed. There was a remarkable renascence of economic studies in Italy during the latter half of the century, partly due to French influence, and partly, it would appear, to improved government in the northern states.

  The movement at first followed the lines of the mercantile school. Thus, in Antonio Broggia's Trattati dei tributi e delle monete e del governo politico detta società (1743), and Girolamo Belloni's Dissertazione sopra il commercio (1750), which seems to have had a success and reputation much above its merits, mercantilist tendencies decidedly preponderate. But the most distinguished writer who represented that economic doctrine in Italy in the last century was Antonio Genovesi, a Neapolitan (1712–1769). He felt deeply the depressed intellectual and moral state of his fellow-countrymen, and aspired after a revival of philosophy and reform of education as the first condition of progress and wellbeing. With the object of protecting him from the theological persecutions which threatened him on account of his advanced opinions, Bartolomeo Intieri, of whom we shall hear again in relation to Galiani, founded in 1755, expressly for Genovesi, a chair of commerce and mechanics, one of the conditions of foundation being that it should never be filled by a monk. This was the first professorship of economics established in Europe; the second was founded at Stockholm in 1758, and the third in Lombardy ten years later, for Beccaria. The fruit of the labours of Genovesi in this chair was his Lezioni di commercio, ossia di economia civile (1769), which contained the first systematic treatment of the whole subject which had appeared in Italy. As the model for Italian imitation he held up England, a country for which, says Pecchio, he had a predilection almost amounting to fanaticism. He does not rise above the false economic system which England then pursued; but he rejects some of the grosser errors of the school to which he belonged; he advocates the freedom of the corn trade, and deprecates regulation of the interest on loans. In the spirit of his age, he denounces the relics of mediæval institutions, such as entails and tenures in mortmain, as impediments to the national prosperity. Ferdinando Galiani was another distinguished disciple of the mercantile school. Before he had completed his twenty-first year he published a work on money (Della moneta libri cinque, 1750), the principles of which are supposed to have been dictated by two experienced practical men, the Marquis Rinuccini and Bartolomeo Intieri, whose name we have already met. But his reputation was made by a book written in French and published in Paris, where he was secretary of embassy, in 1770, namely, his Dialogues sur le commerce des blés. This work, by its light and pleasing style, and the vivacious wit with which it abounded, delighted Voltaire, who spoke of it as a book in the production of which Plato and Molière might have been combined!1 The author, says Pecchio, treated his arid subject as Fontenelle did the vortices of Descartes, or Algarotti the Newtonian system of the world. The question at issue was that of the freedom of the corn trade, then much agitated, and, in particular, the policy of the royal edict of 1764, which permitted the exportation of grain so long as the price had not arrived at a certain height. The general principle he maintains is that the best system in regard to this trade is to have no system— countries differently circumstanced requiring, according to him, different modes of treatment. This seems a lame and impotent conclusion from the side of science; yet doubtless the physiocrats, with whom his controversy lay, prescribed on this, as on other subjects, rules too rigid for the safe guidance of statesmen, and Galiani may have rendered a real service by protesting against their absolute solutions of practical problems. He fell, however, into some of the most serious errors of the mercantilists—holding, as indeed did also Voltaire and even Verri, that one country cannot gain without another losing, and in his earlier treatise going so far as to defend the action of Governments in debasing the currency.

  Amongst the Italian economists who were most under the influence of the modern spirit, and in closest harmony with the general movement which was impelling the Western nations towards a new social order, Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794) holds a foremost place. He is best known by his celebrated treatise Dei delitti e delle pene, by which Voltaire said he had made himself a benefactor of all Europe, and which, we are told, has been translated into twenty-two languages. The Empress Catherine having invited him to fix his residence at St. Petersburg, the Austrian Government of Lombardy, in order to keep him at home, established expressly for him a chair of political economy; and in his Elementi di economia pubblica (1769–1771; not published, however, till 1804) are embodied his teachings as professor. The work is unfinished: he had divided the whole subject under the heads of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, taxation, government; but he has treated adequately only the first two heads, and the last two not at all, having been called to take part in the councils of the state. He was in some degree under the influence of physiocratic ideas, and holds that agriculture is the only strictly productive form of industry, whilst manufacturers and artisans are a sterile class. He was strongly opposed to monopolies and privileges, and to corporations in arts and trades; in general he warmly advocated internal industrial freedom, though in regard to foreign commerce a protectionist. In the special case of the corn trade he was not, any more than Galiani, a partisan of absolute liberty. His exposition of economic principles is concise and sententious, and he often states correctly the most important considerations relating to his subject without adding the developments which would be desirable to assist comprehension and strengthen conviction. Thus on fixed capital (capitali fondatori), as distinct from circulating (annui), in its application to agriculture, he presents in a condensed form essentially the same explanations as Turgot about the same time gave; and on the division of labour and the circumstances which cause different rates of wages in different employments, he in substance comes near to Smith, but without the fulness of illustration which is so attractive a feature of the Wealth of Nations. Pietro Verri (1728–1797), an intimate and lifelong friend of Beccaria, was for twenty-five years one of the principal directors of the administration of Lombardy, in which capacity he originated many economic and other reforms. In his Riflessioni sulle leggi vincolanti, principal-mente nel commercio de'grani (written in 1769, printed in 1796), he considers the question of the regulation of the corn trade both historically and in the light of theoretic principles, and arrives at the conclusion that liberty is the best remedy against famine and against excessive fluctuations of price. He is generally opposed to Governmental interference with internal commerce, as well as to trade corporations, and the attempts to limit prices or fix the rate of interest, but is in favour of the protection of national industry by a judiciously framed tariff. These views are explained in his Meditazioni sull'economia politico. (1771), an elementary treatise on the science, which was received with favour, and translated into several foreign languages. A primary principle with him is what he calls the augmentation of reproduction—that is, in Smith's language, of “the annual produce of the land and labour” of a nation; and by its tendency to promote or to restrict this augmentation, he tests every enactment and institution. Accordingly, unlike Beccaria, he prefers the petite to the grande culture, as giving a larger total produce. In dealing with taxation, he rejects the physiocratic proposal of a single impôt territorial.1 Giovanni R. Carli (1720–1795), also an official promoter of the reforms in the government of Austrian Lombardy, besides learned and sound treatises on money, was author of Ragionamenti sopra i bilanci economics delle nazioni, in which he shows the falsity of the notion that a state gains or loses in foreign commerce according to the so-called balance of trade. In his letter to Pompeo Neri Sul libero commercio de'grani (1771), he takes up a position similar to that of Galiani, regarding the question of the freedom of the corn trade as not so much a scientific as an administrative one, to be dealt with differently under different local or other conditions. Rejecting the physiocratic doctrine of the exclusive productiveness of agriculture, he illustrates in an interesting way the necessity of various economic classes in a society, and the reflex agency of manufactures in stimulating the cultivation of the soil. Giambattista Vasco (1733–1796) wrote discourses on several questions proposed by academies and sovereigns. In these he condemns trade corporations and the attempts by Governments to fix the price of bread and to limit the interest on loans. In advocating the system of a peasant proprietary, he suggests that the law should determine the minimum and maximum portions of land which a citizen should be permitted to possess. He also, with a view to prevent the undue accumulation of property, proposes the abolition of the right of bequest, and the equal division of the inheritance amongst the children of the deceased. Gaetano Filangieri (1752–1788), one of the Italian writers of the last century whose names are most widely known throughout Europe, devoted to economic questions the second book of his Scienza. della legislazione (5 vols., 1780–1785). Filled with reforming ardour and a passionate patriotism, he employed his vehement eloquence in denouncing all the abuses of his time. Apparently without any knowledge of Adam Smith, he insists on unlimited freedom of trade, calls for the abolition of the mediaeval institutions which impeded production and national wellbeing, and condemns the colonial system then followed by England, Spain, and Holland. He prophesies, as Raynal, Turgot, and Genovesi had done before him, that all America would one day be independent, a prediction which probably helped to elicit Benjamin Franklin's tribute of admiration for his work. Rather a propagator than a discoverer, he sometimes adopted from others erroneous opinions, as, for example, when he approves the impôt unique of the physiocrats. On the whole, however, he represents the most advanced political and social tendencies of his age; whilst strongly contrasted with Beccaria in temperament and style, he was a worthy labourer in the same cause of national and universal progress. Ludovico Ricci (1742–1799) was author of an able report Sulla riforma degli istituti pii della cittâ di Modena (1787). He treated the subject of poor relief and charitable institutions in so general a way that the work possesses a universal and permanent interest. He dwells on the evils of indiscriminate relief as tending to increase the misery it seeks to remove, and as lowering the moral character of a population. He exposes especially the abuses connected with lying-in and foundling hospitals. There is much in him which is akin to the views of Malthus; like him he is opposed to any state provision for the destitute, who ought, he thinks, to be left to voluntary private beneficence. Ferdinando Paoletti (1717–1801) was an excellent and public-spirited priest, who did much for the diffusion of intelligence amongst the agricultural population of Tuscany, and for the lightening of the taxes which pressed upon them. He corresponded with Mirabeau (“Friend of Men”), and appears to have accepted the physiocratic doctrines, at least in their general substance. He was author of Pensieri sopra I'agricoltura (1769), and of I veri mezzi di render felici le società (1772); in the latter he advocates the freedom of the corn trade. The tract II Colbertismo (1791) by Count Francesco Mengotti is a vigorous protest against the extreme policy of prohibition and protection, which may still be read with interest. Mengotti also wrote (1791) a treatise Del commercio de'Romani, directed mainly against the exaggerations of Huet in his Histoire du commerce et de la navigation des anciens (1716), and useful as marking the broad difference between the ancient and modern civilizations.

  Here lastly may be mentioned another Italian thinker who, eminently original and even eccentric, cannot easily be classed among his contemporaries, though some Continental writers of our own century have exhibited similar modes of thought. This was Giammaria Ortes (1713–1790). He is opposed to the liberalist tendencies of his time, but does not espouse the doctrines of the mercantile system, rejecting the theory of the balance of trade, and demanding commercial freedom. It is in the Middle Ages that he finds his social and economic type. He advocates the maintenance of church property, is averse to the ascendency of the money power, and has the mediæval dislike for interest on loans. He entertains the singular idea that the wealth of communities is always and everywhere in a fixed ratio to their population, the latter being determined by the former. Poverty, therefore, necessarily waits on wealth, and the rich, in becoming so, only gain what the poor lose. Those who are interested in the improvement of the condition of the people labour in vain, so long as they direct their efforts to the increase of the sum of the national wealth, which it is beyond their power to alter, instead of to the distribution of that wealth, which it is possible to modify. The true remedy for poverty lies in mitigating the gain-pursuing propensities in the rich and in men of business. Ortes studied in a separate work the subject of population; he formulates its increase as “geometrical,” but recognizes that, as a limit is set to such increase amongst the lower animals by mutual destruction, so is it in the human species by “reason”—the “prudential restraint” of which Malthus afterwards made so much. He regards the institution of celibacy as no less necessary and advantageous than that of marriage. He enunciates what has since been known as the “law of diminishing returns to agricultural industry.” He was careless as to the diffusion of his writings; and hence they remained almost unknown till they were included in the Custodi collection of Italian economists, when they attracted much attention by the combined sagacity and waywardness which marked their author's intellectual character.

  Spain

  The same breath of a new era which was in the air elsewhere in Europe made itself felt also in Spain.

  In the earlier part of the eighteenth century Geronimo Ustariz had written his Teorica y Practica del Comercio y Marina (1724; published, 1740; Eng. transl. by John Kippax, 1751; French by Forbonnais, 1753), in which he carries mercantile principles to their utmost extreme.

  The reforming spirit of the latter half of the century was best represented in that country by Pedro Rodriguez, Count of Campomanes (1723–1802). He pursued with ardour the same studies and in some degree the same policy as his illustrious contemporary Turgot, without, however, having arrived at so advanced a point of view. He was author of Respuesta fiscal sobre abolir la tasa y establecer et comercio de granos (1764), Discurso sobre el fomento de industria popolar (1774), and Discurso sobre la education de los artesanos y su fomento (1775). By means of these writings, justly eulogised by Robertson,1 as well as by his personal efforts as minister, he sought to establish the freedom of the corn trade, to remove the hindrances to industry arising from mediæval survivals, to give a large development to manufactures, and to liberate agriculture from the odious burdens to which it was subject. He saw that, notwithstanding the enlightened administration of Charles III, Spain still suffered from the evil results of the blind confidence reposed by her people in her gold mines, and enforced the lesson that the real sources of the wealth and power of his country must be sought, not in America, but in her own industry.

  In both Italy and Spain, as is well observed by Comte,1 the impulse towards social change took principally the direction of economic reform, because the pressure exercised by Governments prevented so large a measure of free speculation in the fields of philosophy and general politics as was possible in France. In Italy, it may be added, the traditions of the great industrial past of the northern cities of that country also tended to fix attention chiefly on the economic side of public policy and legislation.

  Germany

  We have seen that in Italy and England political economy had its beginnings in the study of practical questions relating chiefly to money or to foreign commerce. In Germany it arose (as Roscher has shown) out of the so-called cameralistic sciences. Soon after the close of the Middle Ages there existed in most German countries a council, known as the Kammer (Lat. camera), which was occupied with the management of the public domain and the guardianship of regal rights. The Emperor Maximilian found this institution existing in Burgundy, and established, in imitation of it, aulic councils at Innspruck and Vienna in 1498 and 1501. Not only finance and taxation, but questions also of economic police, came to be entrusted to these bodies. A special preparation became necessary for their members, and chairs of cameralistic science were founded in universities for the teaching of the appropriate body of doctrine. One side of the instruction thus given borrowed its materials from the sciences of external nature, dealing, as it did, with forestry, mining, general technology, and the like; the other related to the conditions of national prosperity as depending on human relations and institutions; and out of the latter, German political economy was at first developed.

  In no country had mercantilist views a stronger hold than in Germany, though in none, in the period we are now considering, did the system of the balance of trade receive a less extensive practical application. All the leading German economists of the seventeenth century—Bornitz, Besold, Klock, Becher, Horneck, Seckendorf, and Schroder— stand on the common basis of the mercantile doctrine. And the same may be said of the writers of the first half of the eighteenth century in general, and notably of Justi (d. 1771), who was the author of the first systematic German treatise on political economy, a work which, from its currency as a text-book, had much effect on the formation of opinion. Only in Zincke (1692–1769) do we find occasional expressions of a circle of ideas at variance with the dominant system, and pointing in the direction of industrial freedom. But these writers, except from the national point of view, are unimportant, not having exercised any influence on the general movement of European thought.

  The principles of the physiocratic system met with a certain amount of favour in Germany. Karl Friedrich, Margrave of Baden, wrote for the use of his sons an Abrégé des principes d'Économie Politique, 1772, which is in harmony with the doctrines of that system. It possesses, however, little scientific value. Schlettwein (1731–1802) and Mauvillon (1743–1794) were followers of the same school. Theodor Schmalz (1764–1831), who is commonly named as “the last of the physiocrats,” may be here mentioned, though somewhat out of the historic order. He compares Colbertism with the Ptolemaic system, physiocratism with the Copernican. Adam Smith he represents as the Tycho Brahe of political economy—a man of eminent powers, who could not resist the force of truth in the physiocrats, but partly could not divest himself of rooted prejudices, and partly was ambitious of the fame of a discoverer and a reconciler of divergent systems. Though Smith was now “the fashion,” Schmalz could not doubt that Quesnay's doctrine was alone true, and would ere long be triumphant everywhere.1

  Just before the appearance of Smith, as in England Steuart and in Italy Genovesi, so in Austria Sonnenfels (1733–1817), the first distinguished economist of that country, sought to present the mercantile system in a modified and more enlightened form; and his work (Grundsätze der Polizei, Handlung, und Finanz, 1765; 8th ed., 1822), exercised even during a considerable part of the present century much influence on opinion and on policy in Austria.

  But the greatest German economist of the eighteenth century was, in Roscher's opinion, Justus Möser (1720–1794), the author of Patriotische Phantasieen (1774), a series of fragments, which, Goethe nevertheless declares, form “ein wahrhaftes Ganzes.” The poet was much influenced by Moser in his youth, and has eulogised in the Dichtung und Wahrheit (Bk. xiii) his spirit, intellect, and character, and his thorough insight into all that goes on in the social world. Whilst others occupied themselves with larger and more prominent public affairs and transactions, Moser observed and reproduced the common daily life of his nation, and the thousand “little things” which compose the texture of popular existence. He has been compared to Franklin for the homeliness, verve, and freshness of his writings. In opinions he is akin to the Italian Ortes. He is opposed to the whole spirit of the “Aufklärung,” and to the liberal and rationalistic direction of which Smith's work became afterwards the expression. He is not merely conservative but reactionary, manifesting a preference for mediæval institutions such as the trade guilds, and, like Carlyle in our own time, seeing advantages even in serfdom, when compared with the sort of freedom enjoyed by the modern drudge. He has a marked antipathy for the growth of the money power and of manufactures on the large scale, and for the highly developed division of labour. He is opposed to absolute private property in land, and would gladly see revived such a system of restrictions as in the interest of the state, the commune, and the family were imposed on mediæval ownership. In his wayward and caustic style, he often criticises effectively the doctrinaire narrowness of his contemporaries, throws out many striking ideas, and in particular sheds real light on the economic phenomena and general social conditions of the Middle Ages.

  The Netherlands

  In the Netherlands, tendencies towards the new economic ideas showed themselves about the middle of the seventeenth century. Dirck Graswinckel (1600–1668) advocated free trade in corn, and was in general opposed to restrictions on industry. Pieter de la Court (1618–1685) dealt in a similar spirit with most of the practical questions of his country and age. He is in favour of the perfect liberty of citizens to buy and sell, produce and consume, as well as to learn and teach; and he sharply criticised the system of trade corporations. He was in literary alliance with the Grand Pensionary, John de Witt. His principal work (Aanwysing der heilsame politike gronden en Maximan van de Republike van Holland en Westfriesland, 16691 ) was commonly attributed to that statesman. It is better known in the French translation (1709) which appeared under the title of Memoires de Jean de Witt. Jan de la Court (1622–1660), the brother of Pieter, followed the same direction. The works of Salmasius (1639, 1640) were of great importance in the controversy on the necessity and lawfulness of interest on money loans.

  Adam Smith, with his Immediate Predecessors and his Followers.
  England.

  The stagnation in economic inquiry which showed itself in England in the early part of the eighteenth century was not broken by any notable manifestation before 1735, when Bishop Berkeley put forward in his Querist, with much force and point, views opposed to those of the mercantile school on the nature of national wealth and the functions of money, though not without an admixture of grave error. But soon a more decisive advance was made. Whilst in France the physiocrats were working after their own fashion towards the construction of a definitive system of political economy, a Scottish thinker of the first order was elucidating, in a series of short but pregnant essays, some of the fundamental conceptions of the science. What had been written on these questions in the English language before his time had remained almost altogether within the limits of the directly practical sphere. With Locke, indeed, the general system of the modern critical philosophy had come into relation with economic inquiry, but only in a partial and indeterminate way. But in Hume the most advanced form of this philosophy was represented, and his appearance in the field of economics decisively- marks the tendency of the latter order of speculation to place itself in connection with the largest and deepest thought on human nature and general human history. Most of the essays here referred to first appeared in 1752, in a volume entitled Political Discourses, and the number was completed in the collection of Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, published in the following year. The most important of them are those on Commerce, on Money, on Interest, and on the Balance of Trade. Yet these should not be separated from the rest, for, notwithstanding the unconnected form of these little treatises, there runs through them a profound unity of thought, so that they indeed compose in a certain sense an economic system. They exhibit in full measure Hume's wonderful acuteness and subtlety, which indeed sometimes dispose him to paradox, in combination with the breadth, the absence of prejudice, and the social sympathies which so eminently distinguish him; and they offer, besides, the charm of his easy and natural style and his rare power of lucid exposition.

  In the essay on money he refutes the mercantilist error, which tended to confound it with wealth. “Men and commodities,” he says, “are the real strength of any community.” “In the national stock of labour consists all real power and riches.” Money is only the oil which makes the movements of the mechanism of commerce more smooth and easy. He shows that, from the domestic as distinguished from the international point of view, the absolute quantity of money, supposed as of fixed amount, in a country is of no consequence, whilst an excessive quantity, larger, that is, than is required for the interchange of commodities, may be injurious as raising prices and driving foreigners from the home markets. He goes so far, in one or two places, as to assert that the value of money is chiefly fictitious or conventional, a position which cannot be defended; but it must not be pressed against him, as he builds nothing on it. He has some very ingenious observations (since, however, questioned by J. S. Mill) on the effects of the increase of money in a country in stimulating industry during the interval which takes place before the additional amount is sufficiently diffused to alter the whole scale of prices. He shows that the fear of the money of an industrious community being lost to it by passing into foreign countries is groundless, and that, under a system of freedom, the distribution of the precious metals which is adapted to the requirements of trade will spontaneously establish itself. “In short, a Government has great reason to preserve with care its people and its manufactures; its money it may safely trust to the course of human affairs without fear or jealousy.”

  A very important service was rendered by his treatment of the rate of interest. He exposes the erroneous idea often entertained that it depends on the quantity of money in a country, and shows that the reduction of it must in general be the result of “the increase of industry and frugality, of arts and commerce,” so that it may serve as a barometer, its lowness being an almost infallible sign of the flourishing condition of a people. It may be observed in passing that in the essay devoted to this subject he brings out a principle of human nature which economists too often overlook, “the constant and insatiable desire of the mind for exercise and employment,” and the consequent action of ennui in prompting to exertion.

  With respect to commerce, he points to its natural foundation in what has since been called “the territorial division of labour,” and proves that the prosperity of one nation, instead of being a hindrance, is a help to that of its neighbours. “Not only as a man, but as a British subject,” he says, “I pray for the flourishing commerce of Germany, Spain, Italy, and even France itself.” He condemns the “numberless bars, obstructions, and imposts which all nations of Europe, and none more than England, have put upon trade.” Yet on the question of protection to national industry he is not quite at the free-trade point of view, for he approves of a tax on German linen as encouraging home manufactures, and of a tax on brandy as increasing the sale of rum and supporting our southern colonies. Indeed it has been justly observed that there are in him several traces of a refined mercantilism, and that he represents a state of opinion in which the transition from the old to the new views is not yet completely effected.

  We cannot do more than refer to the essay on taxes, in which, amongst other things, he repudiates the impôt unique of the physiocrats, and to that on public credit, in which he criticises the “new paradox that public encumbrances are of themselves advantageous, independent of the necessity of contracting them,” and objects, perhaps too absolutely, to the modern expedient of raising the money required for national enterprises by way of loan, and so shifting our burdens upon the shoulders of posterity.

  The characteristics of Hume, which are most important in the history of economic investigation, are (1) his practice of bringing economic facts into connection with all the weighty interests of social and political life, and (2) his tendency to introduce the historical spirit into the study of those facts. He admirably illustrates the mutual action of the several branches of industry, and the influences of progress in the arts of production and in commerce on general civilisation, exhibits the striking contrasts of the ancient and modern system of life (see especially the essay On the Populousness of Ancient Nations), and considers almost every phenomenon which comes under discussion in its relations to the contemporary stage of social development. It cannot be doubted that Hume exercised a most important influence on Adam Smith, who in the Wealth of Nations1 calls him “by far the most illustrious philosopher and historian of the present age,” and who esteemed his character so highly that, after a friendship of many years had been terminated by Hume's decease, he declared him to have “approached as nearly to the ideal of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.”

  Josiah Tucker, dean of Gloucester (d. 1799), holds a distinguished place among the immediate predecessors of Smith. Most of his numerous productions had direct reference to contemporary questions, and, though marked by much sagacity and penetration, are deficient in permanent interest. In some of these he urged the impolicy of restrictions on the trade of Ireland, advocated a union of that country with England, and recommended the recognition of the independence of the United States of America. The most important of his general economic views are those relating to international commerce. He s an ardent supporter of free-trade doctrines, which he bases on the principles that there is between nations no necessary antagonism, but rather a harmony, of interests, and that their several local advantages and different aptitudes naturally prompt them to exchange. He had not, however, got quite clear of mercantilism, and favoured bounties on exported manufactures and the encouragement of population by a tax on celibacy. Dupont, and after him Blanqui, represent Tucker as a follower of the physiocrats, but there seems to be no ground for this opinion except his agreement with them on the subject of the freedom of trade. Turgot translated into French (1755), under the title of Questions Importantes sur le Commerce, a tract by Tucker on The Expediency of a Law for the Naturalisation of Foreign Protestants.

  In 1767 was published Sir James Steuart's Inquiry into the Principles of Political Economy. This was one of the most unfortunate of books. It was the most complete and systematic survey of the science from the point of view of moderate mercantilism which had appeared in England. Steuart was a man of no ordinary abilities, and had prepared himself for his task by long and serious study. But the time for the mercantile doctrines was past, and the system of natural liberty was in possession of an intellectual ascendency which foreshadowed its political triumph. Nine years later the Wealth of Nations was given to the world, a work as superior to Steuart's in attractiveness of style as in scientific soundness. Thus the latter was predestined to fail, and in fact never exercised any considerable theoretic or practical influence. Smith never quotes or mentions it; being acquainted with Steuart, whose conversation he said was better than his book, he probably wished to keep clear of controversy with him.1 The German economists have examined Steuart's treatise more carefully than English writers have commonly done; and they recognise its high merits, especially in relation to the theory of value and the subject of population. They have also pointed out that, in the spirit of the best recent research, he has dwelt on the special characters which distinguish the economies proper to different nations and different grades in social progress.

  Coming now to the great name of Adam Smith (1723–1790), it is of the highest importance that we should rightly understand his position and justly estimate his claims. It is plainly contrary to fact to represent him, as some have done, as the creator of political economy. The subject of social wealth had always in some degree, and increasingly in recent times, engaged the attention of philosophic minds. The study had even indisputably assumed a systematic character, and, from being an assemblage of fragmentary disquisitions on particular questions of national interest, had taken the form, notably in Turgot's Réflexions, of an organised body of doctrine. The truth is, that Smith took up the science when it was already considerably advanced; and it was this very circumstance which enabled him, by the production of a classical treatise, to render most of his predecessors obsolete. But, whilst all the economic labours of the preceding centuries prepared the way for him, they did not anticipate his work. His appearance at an earlier stage, or without those previous labours, would be inconceivable; but he built, on the foundation which had been laid by others, much of his own that was precious and enduring.

  Even those who do not fall into the error of making Smith the creator of the science, often separate him too broadly from Quesnay and his followers, and represent the history of modern Economics as consisting of the successive rise and reign of three doctrines—the mercantile, the physio-cratic, and the Smithian. The last two are, it is true, at variance in some even important respects. But it is evident, and Smith himself felt, that their agreements were much more fundamental than their differences; and, if we regard them as historical forces, they must be considered as working towards identical ends. They both urged society towards the abolition of the previously prevailing industrial policy of European Governments; and their arguments against that policy rested essentially on the same grounds. Whilst Smith's criticism was more searching and complete, he also analysed more correctly than the physiocrats some classes of economic phenomena—in particular dispelling the illusions into which they had fallen with respect to the unproductive nature of manufactures and commerce. Their school disappeared from the scientific field, not merely because it met with a political check in the person of Turgot, but because, as we have already said, the Wealth of Nations absorbed into itself all that was valuable in their teaching, whilst it continued more effectually the impulse they had given to the necessary work of demolition.

  The history of economic opinion in modern times, down to the third decade of the nineteenth century, is, in fact, strictly bipartite. The first stage is filled with the mercantile system which, as we have shown, was rather a practical policy than a speculative doctrine, and which came into existence as the spontaneous growth of social conditions acting on minds not trained to scientific habits. The second stage is occupied with the gradual rise and ultimate ascendency of another system founded on the idea of the right of the individual to an unimpeded sphere for the exercise of his economic activity. With the latter, which is best designated as the “system of natural liberty,” we ought to associate the memory of the physiocrats as well as that of Smith, without, however, maintaining their services to have been equal to his.

  The teaching of political economy was in the Scottish universities associated with that of moral philosophy. Smith, as we are told, conceived the entire subject he had to treat in his public lectures as divisible into four heads, the first of which was natural theology, the second ethics, the third jurisprudence; whilst in the fourth “he examined those political regulations which are founded upon expediency, and which are calculated to increase the riches, the power, and the prosperity of a state.” The last two branches of inquiry are regarded as forming but a single body of doctrine in the well-known passage of the Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) in which the author promises to give in another discourse “an account of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages and periods of society, not only in what concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the subject of law.” This shows how little it was Smith's habit to separate (except provisionally), in his conceptions or bis researches, the economic phenomena of society from all the rest. The words above quoted have, indeed, been not unjustly described as containing “an anticipation, wonderful for his period, of general Sociology, both statical and dynamical, an anticipation which becomes still more remarkable when we learn from his literary executors that he had formed the plan of a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts, which must have added to the branches of social study already enumerated a view of the intellectual progress of society.” Though these large designs were never carried out in their integrity, as indeed at that period they could not have been adequately realised, it has resulted from them that, though economic phenomena form the special subject of the Wealth of Nations, Smith yet incorporated into that work much that relates to the other social aspects, incurring thereby the censure of some of his followers, who insist with pedantic narrowness on the strict isolation of the economic domain.

  There has been much discussion on the question—What is the scientific method followed by Smith in his great work? By some it is considered to have been purely deductive, a view which Buckle has perhaps carried to the greatest extreme. He asserts that in Scotland the inductive method was unknown, that the inductive philosophy exercised no influence on Scottish thinkers; and, though Smith spent some of the most important years of his youth in England, where the inductive method was supreme, and though he was widely read in general philosophical literature, he yet thinks he adopted the deductive method because it was habitually followed in Scotland,—and this though Buckle maintains that it is the only appropriate, or even possible, method in political economy, which surely would have been a sufficient reason for choosing it. That the inductive spirit exercised no influence on Scottish philosophers is certainly not true; as will be presently shown, Montesquieu, whose method is essentially inductive, was in Smith's time studied with quite peculiar care and regarded with special veneration by Smith's fellow-countrymen. As to Smith himself, what may justly be said of him is that the deductive bent was certainly not the predominant character of his mind, nor did his great excellence lie in the “dialectic skill” which Buckle ascribes to him. What strikes us most in his book is his wide and keen observation of social facts, and his perpetual tendency to dwell on these and elicit their significance, instead of drawing conclusions from abstract principles by elaborate chains of reasoning. It is this habit of his mind which gives us, in reading him, so strong and abiding a sense of being in contact with the realities of life.

  That Smith does, however, largely employ the deductive method is certain; and that method is quite legitimate when the premises from which the deduction sets out are known universal facts of human nature and properties of external objects. Whether this mode of proceeding will carry us far may indeed well be doubted; but its soundness cannot be disputed. But there is another vicious species of deduction which, as Cliffe Leslie has shown, seriously tainted the philosophy of Smith—in which the premises are not facts ascertained by observation, but the same a priori assumptions, half theological half metaphysical, respecting a supposed harmonious and beneficent natural order of things which we found in the physiocrats, and which, as we saw, were embodied in the name of that sect. In his view, Nature has made provision for social wellbeing by the principle of the human constitution which prompts every man to better his condition: the individual aims only at his private gain, but in doing so is “led by an invisible hand” to promote the public good, which was no part of his intention; human institutions, by interfering with the action of this principle in the name of the public interest, defeat their own end; but, when all systems of preference or restraint are taken away, “the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord.” This theory is, of course, not explicitly presented by Smith as a foundation of his economic doctrines, but it is really the secret substratum on which they rest. Yet, whilst such latent postulates warped his view of things, they did not entirely determine his method. His native bent towards the study of things as they are preserved him from extravagances into which many of his followers have fallen. But besides this, as Leslie has pointed out, the influence of Montesquieu tended to counterbalance the theoretic prepossessions produced by the doctrine of the jus natures. That great thinker, though he could not, at his period, understand the historical method which is truly appropriate to sociological inquiry, yet founded his conclusions on induction. It is true, as Comte has remarked, that his accumulation of facts, borrowed from the most different states of civilisation, and not subjected to philosophic criticism, necessarily remained on the whole sterile, or at least could not essentially advance the study of society much beyond the point at which he found it. His merit, as we have before mentioned, lay in the recognition of the subjection of all social phenomena to natural laws, not in the discovery of those laws. But this limitation was overlooked by the philosophers of the time of Smith, who were much attracted by the system he followed of tracing social facts to the special circumstances, physical or moral, of the communities in which they were observed. Leslie has shown that Lord Kaimes, Dalrymple, and Millar—contemporaries of Smith, and the last his pupil—were influenced by Montesquieu; and he might have added the more eminent name of Ferguson, whose respect and admiration for the great Frenchman are expressed in striking terms in his History of Civil Society.1 We are even informed that Smith himself in his later years was occupied in preparing a commentary on the Esprit des Lois.1 He was thus affected by two different and incongruous systems of thought—one setting out from an imaginary code of nature intended for the benefit of man, and leading to an optimistic view of the economic constitution founded on enlightened self-interest; the other following inductive processes, and seeking to explain the several states in which human societies are found existing, as results of circumstances or institutions which have been in actual operation. And we find accordingly in his great work a combination of these two methods— inductive inquiry on the one hand, and, on the other, a priori speculation founded on the “Nature” hypothesis. The latter vicious proceeding has in some of his followers been greatly aggravated, while the countervailing spirit of inductive investigation has fallen into the background, and indeed the necessity or utility of any such investigation in the economic field has been sometimes altogether denied.

  Some have represented Smith's work as of so loose a texture and so defective an arrangement that it may be justly described as consisting of a series of monographs. But this is certainly an exaggeration. The book, it is true, is not framed on a rigid mould, nor is there any parade of systematic divisions and subdivisions; and this doubtless recommended it to men of the world and of business, for whose instruction it was, at least primarily, intended. But it has the real and pervading unity which results from a set of principles and a mode of thinking identical throughout and the general absence of such contradictions as would arise from an imperfect digestion of the subject.

  Smith sets out from the thought that the annual labour of a nation is the source from which it derives its supply of the necessaries and conveniences of life. He does not of course contemplate labour as the only factor in production; but it has been supposed that by emphasising it at the outset he at once strikes the note of difference between himself on the one hand and both the mercantilists and the physiocrats on the other. The improvement in the productiveness of labour depends largely on its division; and he proceeds accordingly to give his unrivalled exposition of that principle, of the grounds on which it rests, and of its greater applicability to manufactures than to agriculture, in consequence of which the latter relatively lags behind in the course of economic development.1 The origin of the division of labour he finds in the propensity of human nature “to truck, barter, or exchange one thing for another.” He shows that a certain accumulation of capital is a condition precedent of this division, and that the degree to which it can be carried is dependent on the extent of the market. When the division of labour has been established, each member of the society must have recourse to the others for the supply of most of his wants; a medium of exchange is thus found to be necessary, and money comes into use. The exchange of goods against each other or against money gives rise to the notion of value. This word has two meanings—that of utility, and that of purchasing power; the one may be called value in use, the other value in exchange. Merely mentioning the former, Smith goes on to study the latter. What, he asks, is the measure of value? what regulates the amount of one thing which will be given for another? “Labour,” Smith answers, “is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.” “Equal quantities of labour, at all times and places, are of equal value to the labourer.” 2 “Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. I is their real price; money is their nominal price only.” Money, however, is in men's actual transactions the measure of value, as well as the vehicle of exchange; and the precious metals are best suited for this function, as varying little in their own value for periods of moderate length; for distant times, corn is a better standard of comparison. In relation to the earliest social stage, we need consider nothing but the amount of labour employed in the production of an article as determining its exchange value; but in more advanced periods price is complex, and consists in the most general case of three elements—wages, profit, and rent. Wages are the reward of labour Profit arises as soon as stock, being accumulated in the hands of one person, is employed by him in setting others to work, and supplying them with materials and subsistence, in order to make a gain by what they produce. Rent arises as soon as the land of a country has all become private property; “the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.” In every improved society, then, these three elements enter more or less into the price of the far greater part of commodities. There is in every society or neighbourhood an ordinary or average rate of wages and profit in every different employment of labour and stock, regulated by principles to be explained hereafter, as also an ordinary or average rate of rent. These may be called the natural rates at the time when and the place where they prevail; and the natural price of a commodity is what is sufficient to pay for the rent of the land,1 the wages of the labour, and the profit of the stock necessary for bringing the commodity to market. The market price may rise above or fall below the amount so fixed, being determined by the proportion between the quantity brought to market and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price. Towards the natural price as a centre the market price, regulated by competition, constantly gravitates. Some commodities, however, are subject to a monopoly of production, whether from the peculiarities of a locality or from legal privilege: their price is always the highest that can be got; the natural price of other commodities is the lowest which can be taken for any length of time together. The three component parts or factors of price vary with the circumstances of the society. The rate of wages is determined by a “dispute” or struggle of opposite interests between the employer and the workman. A minimum rate is fixed by the condition that they must be at least sufficient to enable a man and his wife to maintain themselves and, in general, bring up a family. The excess above this will depend on the circumstances of the country, and the consequent demand for labour—wages being high when national wealth is increasing, low when it is declining. The same circumstances determine the variation of profits, but in an opposite direction; the increase of stock, which raises wages, tending to lower profit through the mutual competition of capitalists. “The whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock must, in the same neighbourhood, be either perfectly equal or continually tending to equality”; if one had greatly the advantage over the others, people would crowd into it, and the level would soon be restored. Yet pecuniary wages and profits are very different in different employments—either from certain circumstances affecting the employments, which recommend or disparage them in men's notions, or from national policy, “which nowhere leaves things at perfect liberty.” Here follows Smith's admirable exposition of the causes which produce the inequalities in wages and profits just referred to, a passage affording ample evidence of his habits of nice observation of the less obvious traits in human nature, and also of the operation both of these and of social institutions on economic facts. The rent of land comes next to be considered, as the last of the three elements of price. Rent is a monopoly price, equal, not to what the landlord could afford to take, but to what the farmer can afford to give. “Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to market, of which the ordinary price is sufficient to replace the stock which must be employed in bringing them thither, together with the ordinary profits. If the ordinary price is more than this; the surplus part will naturally go to the rent of the land. If it is not more, though the commodity may be brought to market, it can afford no rent to the landlord. Whether the price is or is not more depends on the demand.” “Rent, therefore, enters into the price of commodities in a different way from wages and profits. High or low wages and profit are the causes of high or low price; high or low rent is the effect of it.”

  Rent, wages, and profits, as they are the elements of price, are also the constituents of income; and the three great orders of every civilised society, from whose revenues that of every other order is ultimately derived, are the landlords, the labourers, and the capitalists. The relation of the interests of these three classes to those of society at large is different. The interest of the landlord always coincides with the general interest: whatever promotes or obstructs the one has the same effect on the other. So also does that of the labourer: when the wealth of the nation is progressive, his wages are high; they are low when it is stationary or retrogressive. “The interest of the third order has not the same connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other two;… it is always in some respects different from and opposite to that of the public.”

  The subject of the second book is “the nature, accumulation, and improvement of stock.” A man's whole stock consists of two portions—that which is reserved for his immediate consumption, and that which is employed so as to yield a revenue to its owner. This latter, which is his “capital,” is divisible into the two classes of “fixed” and “circulating.” The first is such as yields a profit without passing into other hands. The second consists of such goods, raised, manufactured, or purchased, as are sold for a profit and replaced by other goods; this sort of capital is therefore constantly going from and returning to the hands of its owner. The whole capital of a society falls under the same two heads. Its fixed capital consists chiefly of (1) machines, (2) buildings which are the means of procuring a revenue, (3) agricultural improvements, and (4) the acquired and useful abilities of all members of the society (since sometimes known as “personal capital”). Its circulating capital is also composed of four parts—(1) money, (2) provisions in the hands of the dealers, (3) materials, and (4) completed work in the hands of the manufacturer or merchant. Next comes the distinction of the gross national revenue from the net—the first being the whole produce of the land and labour of a country, the second what remains after deducting the expense of maintaining the fixed capital of the country and that part of its circulating capital which consists of money. Money, “the great wheel of circulation,” is altogether different from the goods which are circulated by means of it; it is a costly instrument by means of which all that each individual receives is distributed to him; and the expenditure required, first to provide it, and afterwards to maintain it, is a deduction from the net revenue of the society. In development of this consideration, Smith goes on to explain the gain to the community arising from the substitution of paper money for that composed of the precious metals; and here occurs the remarkable illustration in which the use of gold and silver money is compared to a highway on the ground, that of paper money to a waggon-way through the air. In proceeding to consider the accumulation of capital, he is led to the distinction between productive and unproductive labour—the former being that which is fixed or realised in a particular object or vendible article, the latter that which is not so realised. The former is exemplified in the labour of the manufacturing workman, the latter in that of the menial servant. A broad line of demarcation is thus drawn between the labour which results in commodities or increased value of commodities and that which does no more than render services: the former is productive, the latter unproductive. “Productive” is by no means equivalent to “useful”: the labours of the magistrate, the soldier, the churchman, lawyer, and physician are, in Smith's sense, unproductive. Productive labourers alone are employed out of capital; unproductive labourers, as well as those who do not labour at all, are all maintained by revenue. In advancing industrial communities, the portion of annual produce set apart as capital bears an increasing proportion to that which is immediately destined to constitute a revenue, either as rent or as profit. Parsimony is the source of the increase of capital; by augmenting the fund devoted to the maintenance of productive hands, it puts in motion an additional quantity of industry, which adds to the value of the annual produce. What is annually saved is as regularly consumed as what is spent, but by a different set of persons, by productive labourers instead of idlers or unproductive labourers; and the former reproduce with a profit the value of their consumption. The prodigal, encroaching on his capital, diminishes, as far as in him lies, the amount of productive labour, and so the wealth of the country; nor is this result affected by his expenditure being on home-made, as distinct from foreign, commodities. Every prodigal, therefore, is a public enemy; every frugal man a public benefactor. The only mode of increasing the annual produce of the land and labour is to increase either the number of productive labourers or the productive powers of those labourers. Either process will in general require additional capital, the former to maintain the new labourers, the latter to provide improved machinery or to enable the employer to introduce a more complete division of labour. In what are commonly called loans of money, it is not really the money, but the money's worth, that the borrower wants; and the lender really assigns to him the right to a certain portion of the annual produce of the land and labour of the country. As the general capital of a country increases, so also does the particular portion of it from which the possessors wish to derive a revenue without being at the trouble of employing it themselves; and, as the quantity of stock thus available for loans is augmented, the interest diminishes, not merely “from the general causes which make the market price of things commonly diminish as their quantity increases,” but because, with the increase of capital, “it becomes gradually more and more difficult to find within the country a profitable method of employing any new capital”—whence arises a competition between different capitals, and a lowering of profits, which must diminish the price which can be paid for the use of capital, or in other words the rate of interest. It was formerly wrongly supposed, and even Locke and Montesquieu did not escape this error, that the fall in the value of the precious metals consequent on the discovery of the American mines was the real cause of the permanent lowering of the rate of interest in Europe. But this view, already refuted by Hume, is easily seen to be erroneous. “In some countries the interest of money has been prohibited by law. But, as something can everywhere be made by the use of money, something ought everywhere to be paid for the use of it,” and will in fact be paid for it; and the prohibition will only heighten the evil of usury by increasing the risk to the lender. The legal rate should be a very little above the lowest market rate; sober people will then be preferred as borrowers to prodigals and projectors, who at a higher legal rate would have an advantage over them, being alone willing to offer that higher rate.1

  As to the different employments of capital, the quantity of productive labour put in motion by an equal amount varies extremely according as that amount is employed—(1) in the improvement of lands, mines, or fisheries, (2) in manufactures, (3) in wholesale or (4) retail trade. In agriculture “Nature labours along with man,” and not only the capital of the farmer is reproduced with his profits, but also the rent of the landlord. It is therefore the employment of a given capital which is most advantageous to society. Next in order come manufactures; then wholesale trade—first the home trade, secondly the foreign trade of consumption, last the carrying trade. All these employments of capital, however, are not only advantageous, but necessary, and will introduce themselves in the due degree, if they are left to the spontaneous action of individual enterprise.

  These first two books contain Smith's general economic scheme; and we have stated it as fully as was consistent with the necessary brevity, because from this formulation of doctrine the English classical school set out, and round it the discussions of more recent times in different countries have in a great measure revolved. Some of the criticisms of his successors and their modifications of his doctrines will come under our notice as we proceed.

  The critical philosophers of the eighteenth century were often destitute of the historical spirit, which was no part of the endowment needed for their principal social office. But some of the most eminent of them, especially in Scotland, showed a marked capacity and predilection for historical studies. Smith was amongst the latter; Knies and others justly remark on the masterly sketches of this kind which occur in the Wealth of Nations. The longest and most elaborate of these occupies the third book; it is an account of the course followed by the nations of modern Europe in the successive development of the several forms of industry. It affords a curious example of the effect of doctrinal prepossessions in obscuring the results of historical inquiry. Whilst he correctly describes the European movement of industry, and explains it as arising out of adequate social causes, he yet, in accordance with the absolute principles which tainted his philosophy, protests against it as involving an entire inversion of the “natural order of things.” First agriculture, then manufactures, lastly foreign commerce; any other order than this he considers “unnatural and retrograde.” Hume, a more purely positive thinker, simply sees the facts, accepts them, and classes them under a general law. “It is a violent method,” he says, “and in most cases impracticable, to oblige the labourer to toil in order to raise from the land more than what subsists himself and family. Furnish him with manufactures and commodities, and he will do it of himself.” “If we consult history, we shall find that, in most nations, foreign trade has preceded any refinement in home manufactures, and given birth to domestic luxury.”

  The fourth book is principally devoted to the elaborate and exhaustive polemic against the mercantile system which finally drove it from the field of science, and has exercised a powerful influence on economic legislation. When protection is now advocated, it is commonly on different grounds from those which were in current use before the time of Smith. He believed that to look for the restoration of freedom of foreign trade in Great Britain would have been “as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should be established in it”; yet, mainly in consequence of his labours, that object has been completely attained; and it has lately been said with justice that free trade might have been more generally accepted by other nations if the patient reasoning of Smith had not been replaced by dogmatism. His teaching on the subject is not altogether unqualified; but, on the whole, with respect to exchanges of every kind, where economic motives alone enter, his voice is in favour of freedom. He has regard, however, to political as well as economic interests, and on the ground that “defence is of much more importance than opulence,” pronounces the Navigation Act to have been “perhaps the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.” Whilst objecting to the prevention of the export of wool, he proposes a tax on that export as somewhat less injurious to the interest of growers than the prohibition, whilst it would “afford a sufficient advantage” to the domestic over the foreign manufacturer. This is, perhaps, his most marked deviation from the rigour of principle; it was doubtless a concession to popular opinion with a view to an attainable practical improvement The wisdom of retaliation in order to procure the repeal of high duties or prohibitions imposed by foreign Governments depends, he says, altogether on the likelihood of its success in effecting the object aimed at, but he does not conceal his contempt for the practice of such expedients. The restoration of freedom in any manufacture, when it has grown to considerable dimensions by means of high duties, should, he thinks, from motives of humanity, be brought about only by degrees and with circumspection,—though the amount of evil which would be caused by the immediate abolition of the duties is, in his opinion, commonly exaggerated. The case in which J. S. Mill would tolerate protection—that, namely, in which an industry well adapted to a country is kept down by the acquired ascendency of foreign producers—is referred to by Smith; but he is opposed to the admission of this exception for reasons which do not appear to be conclusive.1 He is perhaps scarcely consistent in approving the concession of temporary monopolies to joint-stock companies undertaking risky enterprises “of which the public is afterwards to reap the benefit.”2 He is less absolute in his doctrine of Governmental noninterference when he comes to consider in his fifth book the “expenses of the sovereign or the commonwealth.” He recognises as coming within the functions of the state the erection and maintenance of those public institutions and public works which, though advantageous to the society, could not repay, and therefore must not be thrown upon, individuals or small groups of individuals. He remarks in a just historical spirit that the performance of these functions requires very different degrees of expense in the different periods of society. Besides the institutions and works intended for public defence and the administration of justice, and those required for facilitating the commerce of the society, he considers those necessary for promoting the instruction of the people. He thinks the public at large may with propriety not only facilitate and encourage, but even impose upon almost the whole body of the people, the acquisition in youth of the most essential elements of education. He suggests as the mode of enforcing this obligation the requirement of submission to a test examination “before any one could obtain the freedom in any corporation, or be allowed to set up a trade in any village or town corporate.” Similarly, he is of opinion that some probation, even in the higher and more difficult sciences, might be enforced as a condition of exercising any liberal profession, or becoming a candidate for any honourable office. The expense of the institutions for religious instruction as well as for general education, he holds, may without injustice be defrayed out of the funds of the whole society, though he would apparently prefer that it should be met by the voluntary contributions of those who think they have occasion for such education or instruction. There is much that is sound, as well as interesting and suggestive, in this fifth book, in which he shows a political instinct and a breadth of view by which he is favourably contrasted with the Manchester school. But, if we may say so without disrespect to so great a man, there are traces in it of what is now called Philistinism—a low view of the ends of art and poetry—which arose perhaps in part from personal defect; and a certain deadness to the high aims and perennial importance of religion, which was no doubt chiefly due to the influences of an age when the critical spirit was doing an indispensable work, in the performance of which the transitory was apt to be confounded with the permanent.

  For the sake of considering as a whole Smith's view of the functions of government, we have postponed noticing his treatment of the physiocratic system, which occupies a part of his fourth book. He had formed the acquaintance of Quesnay, Turgot, and other members of their group during his sojourn in France in 1765, and would, as he told Dugald Stewart, had the patriarch of the school lived long enough, have dedicated to him the Wealth of Nations. He declares that, with all its imperfections, the system of Quesnay is “perhaps the nearest approximation to the truth that had yet appeared on the subject of political economy.” Yet he seems not to be adequately conscious of the degree of coincidence between his own doctrines and those of the physiocrats. Dupont de Nemours complained that he did not do Quesnay the justice of recognising him as his spiritual father. It is, however, alleged, on the other side, that already in 1753 Smith had been teaching as professor a body of economic doctrine the same in its broad features with that contained in his great work. This is indeed said by Stewart; and, though he gives no evidence of it, it is possibly quite true; if so, Smith's doctrinal descent must be traced rather from Hume than from the French school. The principal error of this school, that, namely, of representing agricultural labour as alone productive, he refutes in the fourth book, though in a manner which has not always been considered effective. Traces of the influence of their mistaken view appear to remain in his own work, as, for example, his assertion that in agriculture nature labours along with man, whilst in manufactures nature does nothing, man does all; and his distinction between productive and unproductive labour, which was doubtless suggested by their use of those epithets, and which is scarcely consistent with his recognition of what is now called “personal capital.” To the same source M'Culloch and others refer the origin of Smith's view, which they represent as an obvious error, that “individual advantage is not always a true test of the public advantageousness of different employments.” But that view is really quite correct, as Professor Nicholson has clearly shown.1 That the form taken by the use of capital, profits being given, is not indifferent to the working class as a whole even Ricardo admitted; and Cairnes, as we shall see, built or. this consideration some of the most far-reaching conclusions in his Leading Principles.

  On Smith's theory of taxation in his fifth book it is not necessary for us to dwell. The well-known canons which he lays down as prescribing the essentials of a good system have been generally accepted. They have lately been severely criticised by Professor Walker—of whose objections, however, there is only one which appears to be well founded. Smith seems to favour the view that the contribution of the individual to public expenses may be regarded as payment for the services rendered to him by the state, and ought to be proportional to the extent of those services. If he held this opinion, which some of his expressions imply, he was certainly so far wrong in principle.

  We shall not be held to anticipate unduly if we remark here on the way in which opinion, revolted by the aberrations of some of Smith's successors, has tended to turn from the disciples to the master. A strong sense of his comparative freedom from the vicious tendencies of Ricardo and his followers has recently prompted the suggestion that we ought now to recur to Smith, and take up once more from him the line of the economical succession. But notwithstanding his indisputable superiority, and whilst fully recognising the great services rendered by his immortal work, we must not forget that, as has been already said, that work was, on the whole, a product, though an exceptionally eminent one, of the negative philosophy of the 18th century, resting largely in its ultimate foundation on metaphysical bases. The mind of Smith was mainly occupied with the work of criticism so urgent in his time; his principal task was to discredit and overthrow the economic system then prevalent, and to demonstrate the radical unfitness of the existing European Governments to direct the industrial movement. This office of his fell in with, and formed a part of, the general work of demolition carried on by the thinkers who gave to his period its characteristic tone. It is to his honour that, besides this destructive operation, he contributed valuable elements to the preparation of an organic system of thought and of life. In his special domain he has not merely extinguished many errors and prejudices, and cleared the ground for truth, but has left us a permanent possession in the judicious analyses of economic facts and ideas, the wise practical suggestions, and the luminous indications of all kinds with which his work abounds. Belonging to the best philosophical school of his period, that with which the names of Hume and Diderot are associated, he tended strongly towards the positive point of view. But it was not possible for him to attain it; and the final and fully normal treatment of the economic life of societies must be constituted on other and more lasting foundations than those which underlie his imposing construction.

  It has been well said that of philosophic doctrines the saying “By their fruits ye shall know them” is eminently true. And it cannot be doubted that the germs of the vicious methods and false or exaggerated theories of Smith's successors are to be found in his own work, though his good sense and practical bent prevented his following out his principles to their extreme consequences. The objections of Hildebrand and others to the entire historical development of doctrine which the Germans designate as “Smithianismus” are regarded by those critics as applicable, not merely to his school as a whole, but, though in a less degree, to himself. The following are the most important of these objections. It is said—(1) Smith's conception of the social economy is essentially individualistic. In this he falls in with the general character of the negative philosophy of his age. That philosophy, in its most typical forms, even denied the natural existence of the disinterested affections, and explained the altruistic feelings as secondary results of self-love. Smith, however, like Hume, rejected these extreme views; and hence it has been held that in the Wealth of Nations he consciously, though tacitly, abstracted from the benevolent principles in human nature, and as a logical artifice supposed an “economic man” actuated by purely selfish motives. However this may be, he certainly places himself habitually at the point of view of the individual, whom he treats as a purely egoistic force, working uniformly in the direction of private gain, without regard to the good ot others or of the community at large. (2) He justifies this personal attitude by its consequences, presenting the optimistic view that the good of the community is best attained through the free play of individual cupidities, provided only that the law prevents the interference of one member of the society with the self-seeking action of another. He assumes with the negative school at large—though he has passages which are not in harmony with these propositions—that every one knows his true interest and will pursue it, and that the economic advantage of the individual coincides with that of the society. To this last conclusion he is secretly led, as we have seen, by a priori theological ideas, and also by metaphysical conceptions of a supposed system of nature, natural right, and natural liberty. (3) By this reduction of almost every question to one of individual gain, he is led to a too exclusive consideration of exchange value as distinct from wealth in the proper sense. This, whilst lending a mechanical facility in arriving at conclusions, gives a superficial character to economic investigation, divorcing it from the physical and biological sciences, excluding the question of real social utility, leaving no room for a criticism of production, and leading to a denial, like J. S. Mill's, of any economic doctrine dealing with consumption— in other words, with the use of wealth. (4) In condemning the existing industrial policy, he tends too much towards a glorification of non-government and a repudiation of all social intervention for the regulation of economic life. (5) He does not keep in view the moral destination of our race, nor regard wealth as a means to the higher ends of life, and thus incurs, not altogether unjustly, the charge of materialism, in the wider sense of that word. Lastly, (6) his whole system is too absolute in its character; it does not sufficiently recognize the fact that, in the language of Hildebrand, man, as a member of society, is a child of civilization and a product of history, and that account ought to be taken of the different stages of social development as implying altered economic conditions and calling for altered economic action, or even involving a modification of the actor. Perhaps in all the respects here enumerated, certainly in some of them, and notably in the last, Smith is less open to criticism than most of the later English economists; but it must, we think, be admitted that to the general principles which lie at the basis of his scheme the ultimate growth of these several vicious tendencies is traceable.

  Great expectations had been entertained respecting Smith's work by competent judges before its publication, as is shown by the language of Ferguson on the subject in his History of Civil Society.1 That its merits received prompt recognition is proved by the fact of six editions having been called for within the fifteen years after its appearance.2 From the year 1783 it was more and more quoted in Parliament. Pitt was greatly impressed by its reasonings; Smith is reported to have said that that Minister understood the book as well as himself. Pulteney said in 1797 that Smith would persuade the then living generation and would govern the next.3

  Smith's earliest critics were Bentham and Lauderdale, who, though in general agreement with him, differed on special points. Jeremy Bentham was author of a short treatise entitled A Manual of Political Economy and various economic monographs, the most celebrated of which was his Defence of Usury (1787). This contained (Letter xiii) an elaborate criticism of a passage in the Wealth of Nations, already cited, in which Smith had approved of a legal maximum rate of interest fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, as tending to throw the capital of the country into the hands of sober persons, as opposed to “prodigals and projectors.” Smith is said to have admitted that Bentham had made out his case. He certainly argues it with great ability;1 and the true doctrine no doubt is that, in a developed industrial society, it is expedient to let the rate be fixed by contract between the lender and the borrower, the law interfering only in case of fraud.

  Bentham's main significance does not belong to the economic field. But, on the one hand, what is known as Benthamism was undoubtedly, as Comte has said,2 a derivative from political economy, and in particular from the system of natural liberty; and, on the other, it promoted the temporary ascendency of that system by extending to the whole of social and moral theory the use of the principle of individual interest and the method of deduction from that interest. This alliance between political economy and the scheme of Bentham is seen in the personal group of thinkers which formed itself round him,—thinkers most inaptly characterised by J. S. Mill as “profound,” but certainly possessed of much acuteness and logical power, and tending, though vaguely, towards a positive sociology, which, from their want of genuinely scientific culture and their absolute modes of thought, they were incapable of founding.

  Lord Lauderdale, in his Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth (1804), a book still worth reading, pointed out certain real weaknesses in Smith's account of value and the measure of value, and of the productivity of labour, and threw additional light on several subjects, such as the true mode of estimating the national income, and the reaction of the distribution of wealth on its production.

  Smith stood just at the beginning of a great industrial revolution. The world of production and commerce in which he lived was still, as Cliffe Leslie has said, a “very early” and comparatively narrow one; “the only steam-engine he refers to is Newcomen's,” and the cotton trade is mentioned by him only once, and that incidentally. “Between the years 1760 and 1770,” says Mr. Marshall, “Roebuck began to smelt iron by coal, Brindley connected the rising seats of manufactures with the sea by canals, Wedgwood discovered the art of making earthenware cheaply and well, Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny, Arkwright utilised Wyatt's and High's inventions for spinning by rollers and applied water-power to move them, and Watt invented the condensing steam-engine. Crompton's mule and Cartwright's power-loom came shortly after.” Out of this rapid evolution followed a vast expansion of industry, but also many deplorable results, which, had Smith been able to foresee them, might have made him a less enthusiastic believer in the benefits to be wrought by the mere liberation of effort, and a less vehement denouncer of old institutions which in their day had given a partial protection to labour. Alongside of these evils of the new industrial system, Socialism appeared as the alike inevitable and indispensable expression of the protest of the working classes and the aspiration after a better order of things; and what we now call “the social question,” that inexorable problem of modern life, rose into the place which it has ever since maintained. This question was first effectually brought before the English mind by Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), not, however, under the impulse of revolutionary sympathies, but in the interests of a conservative policy.

  The first edition of the work which achieved this result appeared anonymously in 1798 under the title—An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the future improvement of Society, with remarks on the speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other writers. This book arose out of certain private controversies of its author with his father, Daniel Malthus, who had been a friend of Rousseau, and was an ardent believer in the doctrine of human progress as preached by Condorcet and other French thinkers and by their English disciples. The most distinguished of the latter was William Godwin, whose Enquiry concerning Political Justice had been published in 1793. The views put forward in that work had been restated by its author in the Enquirer (1797), and it was on the essay in this volume entitled “Avarice and Profusion” that the discussion between the father and the son arose, “the general question of the future improvement of society” being thus raised between them—the elder Malthus defending the doctrines of Godwin, and the younger assailing them. The latter “sat down with an intention of merely stating his thoughts on paper in a clearer manner than he thought he could do in conversation,” and the Essay on population was the result.

  The social scheme of Godwin was founded on the idea that the evils of society arise from the vices of human institutions. There is more than enough of wealth available for all, but it is not equally shared: one has too much, another has little or nothing. Let this wealth, as well as the labour of producing it, be equally divided; then every one will by moderate exertion obtain sufficient for plain living; there will be abundant leisure, which will be spent in intellectual and moral self-improvement; reason will determine human actions; government and every kind of force will be unnecessary; and, in time, by the peaceful influence of truth, perfection and happiness will be established on earth. To these glowing anticipations Malthus opposes the facts of the necessity of food and the tendency of mankind to increase up to the limit of the available supply of it. In a state of universal physical wellbeing, this tendency, which in real life is held in check by the difficulty of procuring a subsistence, would operate without restraint. Scarcity would follow the increase of numbers; the leisure would soon cease to exist; the old struggle for life would recommence; and inequality would reign once more. If Godwin's ideal system, therefore, could be established, the single force of the principle of population, Malthus maintained, would suffice to break it down.

  It will be seen that the essay was written with a polemical object; it was an occasional pamphlet directed against the utopias of the day, not at all a systematic treatise on population suggested by a purely scientific interest. As a polemic, it was decidedly successful; it was no difficult task to dispose of the scheme of equality propounded by Godwin. Already, in 1761, Dr. Robert Wallace had published a work (which was amongst those used by Malthus in the composition of his essay) entitled Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence, in which, after speaking of a community of goods as a remedy for the ills of society, he confessed that he saw one fatal objection to such a social organization, namely, “the excessive population that would ensue.” With Condorcet's extravagances, too, Malthus easily dealt. That eminent man, amidst the tempest of the French Revolution, had written, whilst in hiding from his enemies, his Esquisse d'un tableau historique de I'esprit humain. The general conception of this book makes its appearance an epoch in the history of the rise of sociology. In it, if we except some partial sketches by Turgot,1 is for the first time explained the idea of a theory of social dynamics founded on history; and its author is on this ground recognized by Comte as his principal immediate predecessor. But in the execution of his great project Condorcet failed. His negative metaphysics prevent his justly appreciating the past, and he indulges, at the close of his work, in vague hypotheses respecting the perfectibility of our race, and in irrational expectations of an indefinite extension of the duration of human life. Malthus seems to have little sense of the nobleness of Condorcet's attitude, and no appreciation of the grandeur of his leading idea. But of his chimerical hopes he is able to make short work; his good sense, if somewhat limited and prosaic, is at least effectual in detecting and exposing utopias.

  The project of a formal and detailed treatise on population was an after-thought of Malthus. The essay in which he had studied a hypothetic future led him to examine the effects of the principle he had put forward on the past and present state of society; and he undertook an historical examination of these effects, and sought to draw such inferences in relation to the actual state of things as experience seemed to warrant. The consequence of this was such a change in the nature and composition of the essay as made it, in his own language, “a new work.” The book, so altered, appeared in 1803 under the title, An Essay on the Principle of Population, or a View of its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness; with an Enquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions.

  In the original form of the essay he had spoken of no checks to population but those which came under the head either of vice or of misery. He now introduces the new element of the preventive check supplied by what he calls “moral restraint,” and is thus enabled, as he himself said, to “soften some of the harshest conclusions” at which he had before arrived. The treatise passed through five editions1 in his lifetime, and in all of them he introduced various additions and corrections. That of 1817 is the last he fully revised, and presents the text substantially as it has since been reprinted.

  Notwithstanding the great development which he gave to his work, and the almost unprecedented amount of discussion to which it gave rise, it remains a matter of some difficulty to discover what solid contribution he has made to our knowledge, nor is it easy to ascertain precisely what practical precepts, not already familiar, he founded on his theoretic principles. This twofold vagueness is well brought out in his celebrated correspondence with Senior, in the course of which it seems to be made apparent that his doctrine is new not so much in its essence as in the phraseology in which it is couched. He himself tells us that when, after the publication of the original essay, the main argument of which he had deduced from Hume, Wallace, Adam Smith, and Price, he began to inquire more closely into the subject, he found that “much more had been done” upon it “than he had been aware of.” It had “been treated in such a manner by some of the French economists, occasionally by Montesquieu, and, among our own writers, by Dr. Franklin, Sir James Steuart, Mr. Arthur Young, and Mr. Townsend, as to create a natural surprise that it had not excited more of the public attention.” “Much, however,” he thought, “remained yet to be done. The comparison between the increase of population and food had not, perhaps, been stated with sufficient force and precision,” and “few inquiries had been made into the various modes by which the level” between population and the means of subsistence “is effected.” The first desideratum here mentioned—the want, namely, of an accurate statement of the relation between the increase of population and that of food—Malthus doubtless supposed to have been supplied by the celebrated proposition that “population increases in a geometrical, food in an arithmetical, ratio.” This proposition, however, has been conclusively shown to be erroneous, there being no such difference of law between the increase of man and that of the organic beings which form his food. J. S. Mill is indignant with those who criticise Malthus's formula, which he groundlessly describes as a mere “passing remark,” because, as he thinks, though erroneous, it sufficiently suggests what is true; but it is surely important to detect unreal science, and to test strictly the foundations of beliefs. When the formula which we have cited is not used, other somewhat nebulous expressions are frequently employed, as, for example, that “population has a tendency to increase faster than food,” a sentence in which both are treated as if they were spontaneous growths, and which on account of the ambiguity of the word “tendency,” is admittedly consistent with the fact asserted by Senior, that food tends to increase faster than population. It must always have been perfectly well known that population will probably (though not necessarily) increase with every augmentation of the supply of subsistence, and may, in some instances, inconveniently press upon, or even for a certain time exceed, the number properly corresponding to that supply. Nor could it ever have been doubted that war, disease, poverty— the last two often the consequences of vice—are causes which keep population down. In fact, the way in which abundance, increase of numbers, want, increase of deaths, succeed each other in the natural economy, when reason does not intervene, had been fully explained by the Rev. Joseph Townsend in his Dissertation on the Poor Laws (1786), which, we have seen, was known to Malthus. Again, it is surely plain enough that the apprehension by individuals of the evils of poverty, or a sense of duty to their possible offspring, may retard the increase of population, and has in all civilized communities operated to a certain extent in that way. It is only when such obvious truths are clothed in the technical terminology of “positive” and “preventive checks” that they appear novel and profound; and yet they appear to contain the whole message of Malthus to mankind. The laborious apparatus of historical and statistical facts respecting the several countries of the globe, adduced in the altered form of the essay, though it contains a good deal that is curious and interesting, establishes no general result which was not previously well known, and is accordingly ignored by James Mill and others, who rest the theory on facts patent to universal observation. Indeed, as we have seen, the entire historical inquiry was an afterthought of Malthus, who, before entering on it, had already announced his fundamental principle.

  It would seem, then, that what has been ambitiously called Malthus's theory of population, instead of being a great discovery, as some have represented it, or a poisonous novelty, as others have considered it, is no more than a formal enunciation of obvious, though sometimes neglected, facts. The pretentious language often applied to it by economists is objectionable, as being apt to make us forget that the whole subject with which it deals is as yet very imperfectly understood—the causes which modify the force of the sexual instinct, and those which lead to variations in fecundity, still awaiting a complete investigation.1

  It is the law of diminishing returns from land (of which more will be said hereafter), involving as it does—though only hypothetically—the prospect of a continuously increasing difficulty in obtaining the necessary sustenance for all the members of a society, that gives the principal importance to population as an economic factor. It is, in fact, the confluence of the Malthusian ideas with the theories of Ricardo, especially with the corollaries which the latter, as we shall see, deduced from the doctrine of rent (though these were not accepted by Malthus), that has led to the introduction of population as an element in the discussion of so many economic questions in recent times.

  Malthus had undoubtedly the great merit of having called public attention in a striking and impressive way to a subject which had neither theoretically nor practically been sufficiently considered. But he and his followers appear to have greatly exaggerated both the magnitude and the urgency of the dangers to which they pointed.2 In their conceptions a single social imperfection assumed such portentous dimensions that it seemed to overcloud the whole heaven and threaten the world with ruin. This doubtless arose from his having at first omitted altogether from his view of the question the great counteracting agency of moral restraint. Because a force exists, capable, if unchecked, of producing certain results, it does not follow that those results are imminent or even possible in the sphere of experience. A body thrown from the hand would, under the single impulse of projection, move for ever in a straight line; but it would not be reasonable to take special action for the prevention of this result, ignoring the fact that it will be sufficiently counteracted by the other forces which will come into play. And such other forces exist in the case we are considering. If the inherent energy of the principle of population (supposed everywhere the same) is measured by the rate at which numbers increase under the most favourable circumstances, surely the force of less favourable circumstances, acting through prudential or altruistic motives, is measured by the great difference between this maximum rate and those which are observed to prevail in most European countries. Under a rational system of institutions, the adaptation of numbers to the means available for their support is effected by the felt or anticipated pressure of circumstances and the fear of social degradation, within a tolerable degree of approximation to what is desirable. To bring the result nearer to the just standard, a higher measure of popular enlightenment and more serious habits of moral reflection ought indeed to be encouraged. But it is the duty of the individual to his actual or possible offspring, and not any vague notions as to the pressure of the national population on subsistence, that will be adequate to influence conduct.

  The only obligation on which Malthus insists is that of abstinence from marriage so long as the necessary provision for a family has not been acquired or cannot be reasonably anticipated. The idea of post-nuptial continence, which has since been put forward by J. S. Mill and others, is foreign to his view. He even suggests that an allowance might be made from the public funds for every child in a family beyond the number of six, on the ground that, when a man marries, he cannot tell how many children he shall have, and that the relief from an unlooked-for distress afforded by such a grant would not operate as an encouragement to marriage. The duty of economic prudence in entering on the married state is plain; but in the case of working men the idea of a secured provision must not be unduly pressed, and it must also be remembered that the proper age for marriage in any class depends on the duration of life in that class. Still, too early marriages are certainly not unfrequent, and they are attended with other than economic evils, so that possibly even legal measures might with advantage be resorted to for preventing them in all ranks by somewhat postponing the age of full civil competence—a change, however, which would not be without its dangers. On the other hand, the Malthusians often speak too lightly of involuntary celibacy, not recognising sufficiently that it is a deplorable necessity. They do not adequately estimate the value of domestic life as a school of the civic virtues, and the social importance (even apart from personal happiness) of the mutual affective education arising from the relations of the sexes in a well-constituted union.

  Malthus further infers from his principles that states should not artificially stimulate population, and in particular that poor-laws should not be established, and, where they exist, should be abolished. The first part of this proposition cannot be accepted as applying to every social phase, for it is evident that in a case like that of ancient Rome, where continuous conquest was the chief occupation of the national activity, or in other periods when protracted wars threatened the independence or security of nations, statesmen might wisely take special action of the kind deprecated by Malthus. In relation to modern industrial communities he is doubtless in general right, though the promotion of immigration in new states is similar in principle to the encouragement of population The question of poor-laws involves other considerations. The English system of his day was, indeed, a vicious one, though acting in some degree as a corrective of other evils in our social institutions; and efforts for its amendment tended to the public good. But the proposal of abolition is one from which statesmen have recoiled, and which general opinion has never adopted. It is difficult to believe that the present system will be permanent; it is too mechanical and undiscriminating; on some sides too lax, it is often unduly rigorous in the treatment of the worthy poor who are the victims of misfortune; and, in its ordinary modes of dealing with the young, it is open to grave objection. But it would certainly be rash to abolish it; it is one of several institutions which will more wisely be retained until the whole subject of the life of the working classes has been more thoroughly, and also more sympathetically, studied. The position of Malthus with respect to the relief of destitution is subject to this general criticism, that, first proving too much, he then shrinks from the consequences of his own logic. It follows from his arguments, and is indeed explicitly stated in a celebrated passage of his original essay, that he who has brought children into the world without adequate provision for them should be left to the punishment of Nature, that “it is a miserable ambition to wish to snatch the rod from her hand,” and to defeat the action of her laws, which are the laws of God, and which “have doomed him and his family to suffer.” Though his theory leads him to this conclusion, he could not, as a Christian clergyman, maintain the doctrine that, seeing our brother in need, we ought to shut up our bowels of compassion from him; and thus he is involved in the radical inconsequence of admitting the lawfulness, if not the duty, of relieving distress in cases where he yet must regard the act as doing mischief to society. Buckle, who was imposed on by more than one of the exaggerations of the economists, accepts the logical inference which Malthus evaded. He alleges that the only ground on which we are justified in relieving destitution is the essentially self-regarding one, that by remaining deaf to the appeal of the sufferer we should probably blunt the edge of our own finer sensibilities.

  It can scarcely be doubted that the favour which was at once accorded to the views of Malthus in certain circles was due in part to an impression, very welcome to the higher ranks of society, that they tended to relieve the rich and powerful of responsibility for the condition of the working classes, by showing that the latter had chiefly themselves to blame, and not either the negligence of their superiors or the institutions of the country. The application of his doctrines, too, made by some of his successors had the effect of discouraging all active effort for social improvement. Thus Chalmers “reviews seriatim and gravely sets aside all the schemes usually proposed for the amelioration of the economic condition of the people” on the ground that an increase of comfort will lead to an increase of numbers, and so the last state of things will be worse than the first.

  Malthus has in more recent times derived a certain degree of reflected lustre from the rise and wide acceptance of the Darwinian hypothesis. Its author himself, in tracing its filiation, points to the phrase “struggle for existence” used by Malthus in relation to the social competition. Darwin believes that man has advanced to his present relatively high condition through such a struggle, consequent on his rapid multiplication. He regards, it is true, the agency of this cause for the improvement of our race as largely superseded by moral influences in the more advanced social stages. Yet he considers it, even in these stages, of so much importance towards that end, that notwithstanding the individual suffering arising from the struggle for life, he deprecates any great reduction in the natural, by which he seems to mean the ordinary, rate of increase.

  There has been of late exhibited in some quarters a tendency to apply the doctrine of the “survival of the fittest” to human society in such a way as to intensify the harsher features of Malthus's exposition by encouraging the idea that whatever cannot sustain itself is fated, and must be allowed, to disappear. But what is repellent in this conception is removed by a wider view of the influence of Humanity, as a disposing power, alike on vital and on social conditions. As in the general animal domain the supremacy of man introduces a new force consciously controlling and ultimately determining the destinies of the subordinate species, so human providence in the social sphere can intervene for the protection of the weak, modifying by its deliberate action what would otherwise be a mere contest of comparative strengths inspired by selfish instincts.1

  David Ricardo (1772–1823) is essentially of the school of Smith, whose doctrines he in the main accepts, whilst he seeks to develop them, and to correct them in certain particulars. But his mode of treatment is very different from Smith's. The latter aims at keeping close to the realities of life as he finds them,—at representing the conditions and relations of men and things as they are; and, as Hume remarked on first reading his great work, his principles are everywhere exemplified and illustrated with curious facts. Quite unlike this is the way in which Ricardo proceeds. He moves in a world of abstractions. He sets out from more or less arbitrary assumptions, reasons deductively from these, and announces his conclusions as true, without allowing for the partial unreality of the conditions assumed or confronting his results with experience. When he seeks to illustrate his doctrines, it is from hypothetical cases,—his favourite device being that of imagining two contracting savages, and considering how they would be likely to act. He does not explain—probably he had not systematically examined, perhaps was not competent to examine—the appropriate method of political economy; and the theoretic defence of his mode of proceeding was left to be elaborated by J. S. Mill and Cairnes. But his example had a great effect in determining the practice of his successors. There was something highly attractive to the ambitious theorist in the sweeping march of logic which seemed in Ricardo's hands to emulate the certainty and comprehensiveness of mathematical proof, and in the portable and pregnant formulæ which were so convenient in argument, and gave a prompt, if often a more apparent than real, solution of difficult problems. Whatever there was of false or narrow in the fundamental positions of Smith had been in a great degree corrected by his practical sense and strong instinct for reality, but was brought out in its full dimensions and even exaggerated in the abstract theorems of Ricardo and his followers.

  The dangers inherent in his method were aggravated by the extreme looseness of his phraseology. Senior pronounces him “the most incorrect writer who ever attained philosophical eminence.” His most ardent admirers find him fluctuating and uncertain in the use of words, and generally trace his errors to a confusion between the ordinary employment of a term and some special application of it which he has himself devised.

  The most complete exposition of his system is to be found in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817). This work is not a complete treatise on the science, but a rather loosely connected series of disquisitions on value and price, rent, wages, and profits, taxes, trade, money and banking. Yet, though the connection of the parts is loose, the same fundamental ideas recur continually, and determine the character of the entire scheme.

  The principal problem to which he addresses himself in this work is that of distribution,—that is to say, the proportions of the whole produce of the country which will be allotted to the proprietor of land, to the capitalist, and to the labourer.1 And it is important to observe that it is especially the variations in their respective portions which take place in the progress of society that he professes to study,—one of the most unhistorical of writers thus indicating a sense of the necessity of a doctrine of economic dynamics— a doctrine which, from his point of view, it was impossible to supply.

  The principle which he puts first in order, and which is indeed the key to the whole, is this—that the exchange value of any commodity the supply of which can be increased at will is regulated, under a régime of free competition, by the labour necessary for its production. Similar propositions are to be found in the Wealth of Nations, not to speak of earlier English writings. Smith had said that, “in the early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them with one another.” But he wavers in his conception, and presents as the measure of value sometimes the quantity of labour necessary for the production of the object, sometimes the quantity of labour which the object would command in the market, which would be identical only for a given time and place. The theorem requires correction for a developed social system by the introduction of the consideration of capital, and takes the form in which it is elsewhere quoted from Malthus by Ricardo, that the real price of a commodity “depends on the greater or less quantity of capital and labour which must be employed to produce it.” (The expression “quantity of capital” is lax, the element of time being omitted, but the meaning is obvious.) Ricardo, however, constantly takes no notice of capital, mentioning labour alone in his statement of this principle, and seeks to justify his practice by treating capital as “accumulated labour;” but this artificial way of viewing the facts obscures the nature of the co-operation of capital in production, and by keeping the necessity of this co-operation out of sight has encouraged some socialistic errors. Ricardo does not sufficiently distinguish between the cause or determinant and the measure of value; nor does he carry back the principle of cost of production as regulator of value to its foundation in the effect of that cost on the limitation of supply. It is the “natural price” of a commodity that is fixed by the theorem we have stated; the market price will be subject to accidental and temporary variations from this standard, depending on changes in demand and supply; but the price will, permanently and in the long run, depend on cost of production defined as above. On this basis Ricardo goes on to explain the laws according to which the produce of the land and the labour of the country is distributed amongst the several classes which take part in production.

  The theory of rent, with which he begins, though commonly associated with his name, and though it certainly forms the most vital part of his general economic scheme, was not really his, nor did he lay claim to it. He distinctly states in the preface to the Principles, that “in 1815 Mr. Malthus, in his Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent, and a fellow of University College, Oxford, in his Essay on the Application of Capital to Land, presented to the world, nearly at the same moment, the true doctrine of rent.” The second writer here referred to was Sir Edward West, afterwards a judge of the supreme court of Bombay. Still earlier than the time of Malthus and West, as M'Culloch has pointed out, this doctrine had been clearly conceived and fully stated by Dr. James Anderson in his Enquiry into the Nature of Corn-Laws, published at Edinburgh in 1777.1 That this tract was unknown to Malthus and West we have every reason to believe; but the theory is certainly as distinctly enunciated and as satisfactorily supported in it as in their treatises; and the whole way in which it is put forward by Anderson strikingly resembles the form in which it is presented by Ricardo.

  The essence of the theory is that rent, being the price paid by the cultivator to the owner of land for the use of its productive powers, is equal to the excess of the price of the produce of the land over the cost of production on that land. With the increase of population, and therefore of demand for food, inferior soils will be taken into cultivation; and the price of the entire supply necessary for the community will be regulated by the cost of production of that portion of the supply which is produced at the greatest expense. But for the land which will barely repay the cost of cultivation no rent will be paid. Hence the rent of any quality of land will be equal to the difference between the cost of production on that land and the cost of production of that produce which is raised at the greatest expense.

  The doctrine is perhaps most easily apprehended by means of the supposition here made of the coexistence in a country of a series of soils of different degrees of fertility which are successively taken into cultivation as population increases. But it would be an error to believe, though Ricardo sometimes seems to imply it, that such difference is a necessary condition of the existence of rent. If all the land of a country were of equal fertility, still if it were appropriated, and if the price of the produce were more than an equivalent for the labour and capital applied to its production, rent would be paid. This imaginary case, however, after using it to clear our conceptions, we may for the future leave out of account.

  The price of produce being, as we have said, regulated by the cost of production of that which pays no rent, it is evident that “corn is not high because a rent is paid, but a rent is paid because corn is high,” and that “no reduction would take place in the price of corn although landlords should forego the whole of their rent.” Rent is, in fact, no determining element of price; it is paid, indeed, out of the price, but the price would be the same if no rent were paid, and the whole price were retained by the cultivator.

  It has often been doubted whether or not Adam Smith held this theory of rent. Sometimes he uses language which seems to imply it, and states prepositions which, if developed, would infallibly lead to it Thus he says, in a passage already quoted, “Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to market of which the ordinary price is sufficient to replace the stock which must be employed in bringing them thither, together with its ordinary profits. If the ordinary price is more than this, the surplus part of it will naturally go to the rent of land. If it is not more, though the commodity can be brought to market, it can afford no rent to the landlord. Whether the price is or is not more depends on the demand.” Again, in Smith's application of these considerations to mines, “the whole principle of rent,” Ricardo tells us, “is admirably and perspicuously explained.” But he had formed the opinion that there is in fact no land which does not afford a rent to the landlord; and, strangely, he seems to have seen that this appearance might arise from the aggregation into an economic whole of parcels of land which can and others which cannot pay rent. The truth, indeed, is, that the fact, if it were a fact, that all the land in a country pays rent would be irrelevant as an argument against the Andersonian theory, for it is the same thing in substance if there be any capital employed on land already cultivated which yields a return no more than equal to ordinary profits. Such last-employed capital cannot afford rent at the existing rate of profit, unless the price of produce should rise.

  The belief which some have entertained that Smith, notwithstanding some vague or inaccurate expressions, really held the Andersonian doctrine, can scarcely be maintained when we remember that Hume, writing to him after having read for the first time the Wealth of Nations, whilst expressing general agreement with his opinions, said (apparently with reference to Bk. I, chap, vii), “I cannot think that the rent of farms makes any part of the price of the produce, but that the price is determined altogether by the quantity and the demand.” It is further noteworthy that a statement of the theory of rent is given in the same volume, published in 1777, which contains Anderson's polemic against Smith's objections to a bounty on the exportation of corn; this volume can hardly have escaped Smith's notice, yet neither by its contents nor by Hume's letter was he led to modify what he had said in his first edition on the subject of rent.

  It must be remembered that not merely the unequal fertilities of different soils will determine differences of rent; the more or less advantageous situation of a farm in relation to markets, and therefore to roads and railways, will have a similar effect. Comparative lowness of the cost of transit will enable the produce to be brought to market at a smaller expense, and will thus increase the surplus which constitutes rent. This consideration is indicated by Ricardo, though he does not give it prominence, but dwells mainly on the comparative productiveness of soils.

  Rent is denned by Ricardo as the price paid for the use of “the original and indestructible powers of the soil.” He thus differentiates rent, as he uses the term, from what is popularly designated by the word; and, when it is to be taken in his sense, it is often qualified as the “true” or “economic” rent. Part of what is paid to the landlord is often really profit on his expenditure in preparing the farm for cultivation by the tenant. But it is to be borne in mind that wherever such improvements are “amalgamated with the land,” and “add permanently to its productive powers,” the return for them follows the laws, not of profit, but of rent. Hence it becomes difficult, if not impossible, in practice to discriminate with any degree of accuracy the amount received by the landlord “for the use of the original powers of the soil” from the amount received by him as remuneration for his improvements or those made by his predecessors. These have raised the farm, as an instrument for producing food, from one class of productiveness to a higher, and the case is the same as if nature had originally placed the land in question in that higher class.

  Smith had treated it as the peculiar privilege of agriculture, as compared with other forms of production, that in it “nature labours along with man,” and therefore, whilst the workmen in manufactures occasion the reproduction merely of the capital which employs them with its owner's profits, the agricultural labourer occasions the reproduction, not only of the employer's capital with profits, but also of the rent of the landlord. This last he viewed as the free gift of nature which remained “after deducting or compensating everything which can be regarded as the work of man.” Ricardo justly observes in reply that “there is not a manufacture which can be mentioned in which nature does not give her assistance to man.” He then goes on to quote from Buchanan the remark that “the notion of agriculture yielding a produce and a rent in consequence, because nature concurs with industry in the process of cultivation, is a mere fancy. It is not from the produce, but from the price at which the produce is sold, that the rent is derived; and this price is got, not because nature assists in the production, but because it is the price which suits the consumption to the supply.”1 There is no gain to the society at large from the rise of rent; it is advantageous to the landlords alone, and their interests are thus permanently in opposition to those of all other classes. The rise of rent may be retarded, or prevented, or even temporarily changed to a fall, by agricultural improvements, such as the introduction of new manures or of machines or of a better organisation of labour (though there is not so much room for this last as in other branches of production), or the opening of new sources of supply in foreign countries; but the tendency to a rise is constant so long as the population increases.

  The great importance of the theory of rent in Ricardo's system arises from the fact that he makes the general economic condition of the society to depend altogether on the position in which agricultural exploitation stands. This will be seen from the following statement of his theory of wages and profits. The produce of every expenditure of labour and capital being divided between the labourer and the capitalist, in proportion as one obtains more the other, will necessarily obtain less. The productiveness of labour being given, nothing can diminish profit but a rise of wages or increase it but a fall of wages. Now the price of labour, being the same as its cost of production, is determined by the price of the commodities necessary for the support of the labourer. The price of such manufactured articles as he requires has a constant tendency to fall, principally by reason of the progressive application of the division of labour to their production. But the cost of his maintenance essentially depends, not on the price of those articles, but on that of his food; and, as the production of food will in the progress of society and of population require the sacrifice of more and more labour, its price will rise; money wages will consequently rise, and with the rise of wages profits will fall. Thus it is to the necessary gradual descent to inferior soils, or less productive expenditure on the same soil, that the decrease in the rate of profit which has historically taken place is to be attributed (Smith ascribed this decrease to the competition of capitalists, though in one place, Book I, chap, ix,1 he had a glimpse of the Ricardian view). This gravitation of profits towards a minimum is happily checked at times by improvements of the machinery employed in the production of necessaries, and especially by such discoveries in agriculture and other causes as reduce the cost of the prime necessary of the labourer; but here again the tendency is constant. Whilst the capitalist thus loses, the labourer does not gain; his increased money wages only enable him to pay the increased price of his necessaries, of which he will have no greater and probably a less share than he had before. In fact, the labourer can never for any considerable time earn more than what is required to enable the class to subsist in such a degree of comfort as custom has made indispensable to them, and to perpetuate their race without either increase or diminution. That is the “natural” price of labour; and if the market rate temporarily rises above it population will be stimulated, and the rate of wages will again fall. Thus whilst rent has a constant tendency to rise and profit to fall, the rise or fall of wages will depend on the rate of increase of the working classes. For the improvement of their condition Ricardo thus has to fall back on the Malthusian remedy, of the effective application of which he does not, however, seem to have much expectation. The securities against a superabundant population to which he points are the gradual abolition of the poor-laws—for their amendment would not content him—and the development amongst the working classes of a taste for greater comforts and enjoyments.

  It will be seen that the socialists have somewhat exaggerated in announcing, as Ricardo's “iron law” of wages, their absolute identity with the amount necessary to sustain the existence of the labourer and enable him to continue the race. He recognizes the influence of a “standard of living” as limiting the increase of the numbers of the working classes, and so keeping their wages above the lowest point. But he also holds that, in long-settled countries, in the ordinary course of human affairs, and in the absence of special efforts restricting the growth of population, the condition of the labourer will decline as surely, and from the same causes, as that of the landlord will be improved.

  If we are asked whether this doctrine of rent and the consequences which Ricardo deduced from it, are true, we must answer that they are hypothetically true in the most advanced industrial communities, and there only (though they have been rashly applied to the cases of India and Ireland), but that even in those communities neither safe inference nor sound action can be built upon them. As we shall see hereafter, the value of most of the theorems of the classical economics is a good deal attenuated by the habitual assumptions that we are dealing with “economic men,” actuated by one principle only; that custom, as against competition, has no existence; that there is no such thing as combination; that there is equality of contract between the parties to each transaction, and that there is a definite universal rate of profit and wages in a community; this last postulate implying (1) that the capital embarked in any undertaking will pass at once to another in which larger profits are for the time to be made; (2) that a labourer, whatever his local ties of feeling, family, habit, or other engagements, will transfer himself immediately to any place where, or employment in which, for the time, larger wages are to be earned than those he had previously obtained;1 and (3) that both capitalists and labourers have a perfect knowledge of the condition and prospects of industry throughout the country, both in their own and other occupations. But in Ricardo's speculations on rent and its consequences there is still more of abstraction. The influence of emigration, which has assumed vast dimensions since his time, is left out of account, and the amount of land at the disposal of a community is supposed limited to its own territory, whilst contemporary Europe is in fact largely fed by the western States of America. He did not adequately appreciate the degree in which the augmented productiveness of labour, whether from increased intelligence, improved organization, introduction of machinery, or more rapid and cheaper communication, steadily keeps down the cost of production. To these influences must be added those of legal reforms in tenure, and fairer conditions in contracts, which operate in the same direction. As a result of all these causes, the pressure anticipated by Ricardo is not felt, and the cry is of the landlords over falling rents, not of the consumer over rising prices. The entire conditions are in fact so altered that Professor Nicholson, no enemy to the “orthodox” economics, when recently conducting an inquiry into the present state of the agricultural question,2 pronounced the so-called Ricardian theory of rent “too abstract to be of practical utility.”

  A particular economic subject on which Ricardo has thrown a useful light is the nature of the advantages derived from foreign commerce, and the conditions under which such commerce can go on. Whilst preceding writers had represented those benefits as consisting in affording a vent for surplus produce, or enabling a portion of the national capital to replace itself with a profit, he pointed out that they consist “simply and solely in this, that it enables each nation to obtain, with a given amount of labour and capital, a greater quantity of all commodities taken together.” This is no doubt the point of view at which we should habitually place ourselves; though the other forms of expression employed by his predecessors, including Adam Smith, are sometimes useful as representing real considerations affecting national production, and need not be absolutely disused. Ricardo proceeds to show that what determines the purchase of any commodity from a foreign country is not the circumstance that it can be produced there with less labour and capital than at home. If we have a greater positive advantage in the production of some other article than in that of the commodity in question, even though we have an advantage in producing the latter, it may be our interest to devote ourselves to the production of that in which we have the greatest advantage, and to import that in producing which we should have a less, though a real, advantage. It is, in short, not absolute cost of production, but comparative cost, which determines the interchange. This remark is just and interesting, though an undue importance seems to be attributed to it by J. S. Mill and Cairnes, the latter of whom magniloquently describes it as “sounding the depths” of the problem of international dealings,—though, as we shall see hereafter, he modifies it by the introduction of certain considerations respecting the conditions of domestic production.

  For the nation as a whole, according to Ricardo, it is not the gross produce of the land and labour, as Smith seems to assert, that is of importance, but the net income—the excess, that is, of this produce over the cost of production, or, in other words, the amount of its rent and its profits; for the wages of labour, not essentially exceeding the maintenance of the labourers, are by him considered only as a part of the “necessary expenses of production.” Hence it follows, as he himself in a characteristic and often quoted passage says, that, “provided the net real income of the nation be the same, it is of no importance whether it consists of ten or twelve millions of inhabitants. If five millions of men could produce as much fond and clothing as was necessary for ten millions, food and clothing for five millions would be the net revenue. Would it be of any advantage to the country that to produce this same net revenue seven millions of men should be required,—that is to say, that seven millions should be employed to produce food and clothing sufficient for twelve millions? The food and clothing of five millions would be still the net revenue. The employing a greater number of men would enable us neither to add a man to our army and navy nor to contribute one guinea more in taxes.” Industry is here viewed, just as by the mercantilists, in relation to the military and political power of the state, not to the maintenance and improvement of human beings, as its end and aim. The labourer, as Held1 has remarked, is regarded not as a member of society, but as a means to the ends of society, on whose sustenance a part of the gross income must be expended, as another part must be spent on the sustenance of horses. We may well ask, as Sismondi did in a personal interview with Ricardo, “What! is wealth then everything? are men absolutely nothing!”

  On the whole what seems to us true of Ricardo is this, that, whilst he had remarkable powers, they were not the powers best fitted for sociological research. Nature intended him rather for a mathematician of the second order than for a social philosopher. Nor had he the due previous preparation for social studies; for we must decline to accept Bagehot's idea that, though “in no high sense an educated man,” he had a specially apt training for such studies in his practice as an eminently successful dealer in stocks. The same writer justly notices the “anxious penetration with which he follows out rarefied minutiæ.” But he wanted breadth of survey, a comprehensive view of human nature and human life, and the strong social sympathies which, as the greatest minds have recognized, are a most valuable aid in this department of study. On a subject like that of money, where a few elementary propositions—into which no moral ingredient enters—have alone to be kept in view, he was well adapted to succeed; but in the larger social field he is at fault. He had great deductive readiness and skill (though his logical accuracy, as Mr. Sidgwick remarks, has been a good deal exaggerated). But in human affairs phenomena are so complex, and principles so constantly limit or even compensate one another, that rapidity and daring in deduction may be the greatest of dangers, if they are divorced from a wide and balanced appreciation of facts. Dialectic ability is, no doubt, a valuable gift, but the first condition for success in social investigation is to see things as they are.

  A sort of Ricardo-mythus for some time existed in economic circles. It cannot be doubted that the exaggerated estimate of his merits arose in part from a sense of the support his system gave to the manufacturers and other capitalists in their growing antagonism to the old aristocracy of landowners. The same tendency, as well as his affinity to their too abstract and unhistorical modes of thought, and their eudæmonistic doctrines, recommended him to the Benthamite group, and to the so-called Philosophical Radicals generally. Brougham said he seemed to have dropped from the skies—a singular avatar, it must be owned. His real services in connection with questions of currency and banking naturally created a prepossession in favour of his more general views. But, apart from those special subjects, it does not appear that, either in the form of solid theoretic teaching or of valuable practical guidance, he has really done much for the world, whilst he admittedly misled opinion on several important questions. De Quincey's presentation of him as a great revealer of truth is now seen to be an extravagance. J. S. Mill and others speak of his “superior lights” as compared with those of Adam Smith; but his work, as a contribution to our knowledge of human society, will not bear a moment's comparison with the Wealth of Nations.

  It is interesting to observe that Malthus, though the combination of his doctrine of population with the principles of Ricardo composed the creed for some time professed by all the “orthodox” economists, did not himself accept the Ricardian scheme. He prophesied that “the main part of the structure would not stand.” “The theory,” he says, “takes a partial view of the subject, like the system of the French economists; and, like that system, after having drawn into its vortex a great number of very clever men, it will be unable to support itself against the testimony of obvious facts, and the weight of those theories which, though less simple and captivating, are more just on account of their embracing more of the causes which are in actual operation in all economical results.”

  We saw that the foundations of Smith's doctrine in general philosophy were unsound, and the ethical character of his scheme in consequence injuriously affected; but his mode of treatment, consisting in the habitual combination of induction and deduction, we found little open to objection. Mainly through the influence of Ricardo, economic method was perverted. The science was led into the mistaken course of turning its back on observation, and seeking to evolve the laws of phenomena out of a few hasty generalisations by a play of logic. The principal vices which have been in recent times not unjustly attributed to the members of the “orthodox” school were all encouraged by his example, namely,—(1) the viciously abstract character of the conceptions with which they deal, (2) the abusive preponderance of deduction in their processes of research, and (3) the too absolute way in which their conclusions are conceived and enunciated.

  The works of Ricardo have been collected in one volume, with a biographical notice, by J. R. M'Culloch (1846).1

  After Malthus and Ricardo, the first of whom had fixed public attention irresistibly on certain aspects of society, and the second had led economic research into new, if questionable, paths, came a number of minor writers who were mainly their expositors and commentators, and whom, accordingly, the Germans, with allusion to Greek mythical history, designate as the Epigoni. By them the doctrines of Smith and his earliest successors were thrown into more systematic shape, limited and guarded so as to be less open to criticism, couched in a more accurate terminology, modified in subordinate particulars, or applied to the solution of the practical questions of their day.

  James Mill's Elements (1821) deserves special notice, as exhibiting the system of Ricardo with thoroughgoing rigour, and with a compactness of presentation, and a skill in the disposition of materials, which give to it in some degree the character of a work of art. The a priori political economy is here reduced to its simplest expression. J. R. M'Culloch (1779–1864), author of a number of laborious statistical and other compilations, criticised current economic legislation in the Edinburgh Review from the point of view of the Ricardian doctrine, taking up substantially the same theoretic position as was occupied at a somewhat later period by the Manchester school. He is altogether without originality, and never exhibits any philosophic elevation or breadth. His confident dogmatism is often repellent; he admitted in his later years that he had been too fond of novel opinions, and defended them with more heat and pertinacity than they deserved. It is noticeable that, though often spoken of in his own time both by those who agreed with his views, and those, like Sismondi, who differed from them, as one of the lights of the reigning school, his name is now tacitly dropped in the writings of the members of that school. Whatever may have been his partial usefulness in vindicating the policy of free trade, it is at least plain that for the needs of our social future he has nothing to offer. Nassau William Senior (1790–1864), who was professor of political economy in the university of Oxford, published, besides a number of separate lectures, a treatise on the science, which first appeared as an article in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana. He is a writer of a high order of merit. He made considerable contributions to the elucidation of economic principles, specially studying exactness in nomenclature and strict accuracy in deduction. His explanations on cost of production and the way in which it affects price, on rent, on the difference between rate of wages and price of labour, on the relation between profit and wages (with special reference to Ricardo's theorem on this subject, which he corrects by the substitution of proportional for absolute amount), and on the distribution of the precious metals between different countries, are particularly valuable. His new term “abstinence,” invented to express the conduct for which interest is the remuneration, was useful, though not quite appropriate, because negative in meaning. It is on the theory of wages that Senior is least satisfactory. He makes the average rate in a country (which, we must maintain, is not a real quantity, though the rate in a given employment and neighbourhood is) to be expressed by the fraction of which the numerator is the amount of the wages fund (an unascertainable and indeed, except as actual total of wages paid, imaginary sum) and the denominator the number of the working population; and from this he proceeds to draw the most important and far-reaching consequences, though the equation on which he founds his inferences conveys at most only an arithmetical fact, which would be true of every case of a division amongst individuals, and contains no economic element whatever. The phrase “wages fund’ originated in some expressions of Adam Smith1 used only for the purpose of illustration, and never intended to be rigorously interpreted; and we shall see that the doctrine has been repudiated by several members of what is regarded as the orthodox school of political economy. As regards method, Senior makes the science a purely deductive one, in which there is no room for any other “facts” than the four fundamental propositions from which he undertakes to deduce all economic truth. And he does not regard himself as arriving at hypothetic conclusions; his postulates and his inferences are alike conceived as corresponding to actual phenomena.1 Colonel Robert Torrens (1780–1864) was a prolific writer, partly on economic theory, but principally on its applications to financial and commercial policy. Almost the whole of the programme which was carred out in legislation by Sir Robert Peel had been laid down in principle in the writings of Torrens. He gave substantially the same theory of foreign trade which was afterwards stated by J. S. Mill in one of his Essays on Unsettled Questions.2 He was an early and earnest advocate of the repeal of the corn laws, but was not in favour of a general system of absolute free trade, maintaining that it is expedient to impose retaliatory duties to countervail similar duties imposed by foreign countries, and that a lowering of import duties on the productions of countries retaining their hostile tariffs would occasion an abstraction of the precious metals, and a decline in prices, profits, and wages. His principal writings of a general character were—The Economist [i.e., Physiocrat] Refuted, 1808; Essay on the Production of Wealth, 1821; Essay on the External Corntrade (eulogised by Ricardo), 3d ed., 1826; The Budget, a Series of Letters on Financial, Commercial, and Colonial Policy, 1841–3. Harriet Martineau (1802–1876) popularised the doctrines of Malthus and Ricardo in her Illustrations of Political Economy (1832–34), a series of tales, in which there is much excellent description, but the effect of the narrative is often marred by the somewhat ponderous disquisitions here and there thrown in, usually in the form of dialogue.

  Other writers who ought to be named in any history of the science are Charles Babbage, On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures (1832), chiefly descriptive, but also in part theoretic; William Thomas Thornton, Overpopulation and its Remedy (1846), A Plea for Peasant Proprietors (1848), On Labour (1869; 2d ed., 1870); Herman Merivale, Lectures on Colonisation and Colonies (1841–2; new ed., 1861); T. C. Banfield, The Organisation of Industry Explained (1844; 2d ed., 1848); and Edward Gibbon Wakefield, A View of the Art of Colonisation (1849). Thomas Chalmers, well known in other fields of thought, was author of The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns (1821–36), and On Political Economy in Connection with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society (1832); he strongly opposed any system of legal charity, and whilst justly insisting on the primary importance of morality, industry, and thrift as conditions of popular well-being, carried the Malthusian doctrines to excess. Nor was Ireland without a share in the economic movement of the period.1 Whately, having been second Drummond professor of political economy at Oxford (in succession to Senior), and delivered in that capacity his Introductory Lectures (1831), founded in 1832, when he went to Ireland as archbishop of Dublin, a similar professorship in Trinity College, Dublin. It was first held by Mountifort Longfield, afterwards Judge of the Landed Estates Court, Ireland (d. 1884). He published lectures on the science generally (1834), on Poor Laws (1834), and on Commerce and Absenteeism (1835), which were marked by independence of thought and sagacious observation. He was laudably free from many of the exaggerations of his contemporaries; he said, in 1835, “in political economy we must not abstract too much,” and protested against the assumption commonly made that “men are guided in all their conduct by a prudent regard to their own interest.” James A. Lawson (afterwards Mr. Justice Lawson, d. 1887) also published some lectures (1844), delivered from the same chair, which may still be read with interest and profit; his discussion of the question of population is especially good; he also asserted against Senior that the science is avide de faits, and that it must reason about the world and mankind as they really are.

  The most systematic and thoroughgoing of the earlier critics of the Ricardian system was Richard Jones (1790–1855), professor at Haileybury. Jones has received scant justice at the hands of his successors. J. S. Mill, whilst using his work, gave his merits but faint recognition. Even Roscher says that he did not thoroughly understand Ricardo, without giving any proof of that assertion, whilst he is silent as to the fact that much of what has been preached by the German historical school is found distinctly indicated in Jones's writings. He has been sometimes represented as having rejected the Andersonian doctrine of rent; but such a statement is incorrect. Attributing the doctrine to Malthus, he says that that economist “showed satisfactorily that when land is cultivated by capitalists living on the profits of their stock, and able to move it at pleasure to other employments, the expense of tilling the worst quality of land cultivated determines the average price of raw produce, while the difference of quality of the superior lands measures the rents yielded by them.” What he really denied was the application of the doctrine to all cases where rent is paid; he pointed out in his Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation, 1831, that besides “farmers' rents,” which, under the supposed conditions, conform to the above law, there are “peasant rents,” paid everywhere through the most extended periods of history, and still paid over by far the largest part of the earth's surface, which are not so regulated. Peasant rents he divided under the heads of (1) serf, (2) métayer, (3) ryot, and (4) cottier rents, a classification afterwards adopted in substance by J. S. Mill; and he showed that the contracts fixing their amount were, at least in the first three classes, determined rather by custom than by competition. Passing to the superstructure of theory erected by Ricardo on the doctrine of rent which he had so unduly extended, Jones denied most of the conclusions he had deduced, especially the following:—that the increase of farmers' rents is always contemporary with a decrease in the productive powers of agriculture, and comes with loss and distress in its train; that the interests of landlords are always and necessarily opposed to the interests of the state and of every other class of society; that the diminution of the rate of profits is exclusively dependent on the returns to the capital last employed on the land; and that wages can rise only at the expense of profits.

  The method followed by Jones is inductive; his conclusions are founded on a wide observation of contemporary facts, aided by the study of history. “If,” he said, “we wish to make ourselves acquainted with the economy and arrangements by which the different nations of the earth produce and distribute their revenues, I really know of but one way to attain our object, and that is, to look and see. We must get comprehensive views of facts, that we may arrive at principles that are truly comprehensive. If we take a different method, if we snatch at general principles, and content ourselves with confined observations, two things will happen to us. First, what we call general principles will often be found to have no generality—we shall set out with declaring propositions to be universally true which, at every step of our further progress, we shall be obliged to confess are frequently false; and, secondly, we shall miss a great mass of useful knowledge which those who advance to principles by a comprehensive examination of facts necessarily meet with on their road.” The world he professed to study was not an imaginary world, inhabited by abstract “economic men,” but the real world with the different forms which the ownership and cultivation of land, and, in general, the conditions of production and distribution, assume at different times and places. His recognition of such different systems of life in communities occupying different stages in the progress of civilisation led to his proposal of what he called a “political economy of nations.” This was a protest against the practice of taking the exceptional state of facts which exists, and is indeed only partially realised, in a small corner of our planet as representing the uniform type of human societies, and ignoring the effects of the early history and special development of each community as influencing its economic phenomena.

  It is sometimes attempted to elude the necessity for a wider range of study by alleging a universal tendency in the social world to assume this now exceptional shape as its normal and ultimate constitution. Even if this tendency were real (which is only partially true, for the existing order amongst ourselves cannot be regarded as entirely definitive), it could not be admitted that the facts witnessed in our civilization and those exhibited in less advanced communities are so approximate as to be capable of being represented by the same formulæ. As Whewell, in editing Jones's Remains, 1859, well observed, it is true in the physical world that “all things tend to assume a form determined by the force of gravity; the hills tend to become plains, the waterfalls to eat away their beds and disappear, the rivers to form lakes in the valleys, the glaciers to pour down in cataracts.” But are we to treat these results as achieved, because forces are in operation which may ultimately bring them about? All human questions are largely questions of time; and the economic phenomena which really belong to the several stages of the human movement must be studied as they are, unless we are content to fall into grievous error both in our theoretic treatment of them and in the solution of the practical problems they present.

  Jones is remarkable for his freedom from exaggeration and one-sided statement; thus, whilst holding Malthus in, perhaps, undue esteem, he declines to accept the proposition that an increase of the means of subsistence is necessarily followed by an increase of population; and he maintains what is undoubtedly true, that with the growth of population, in all well-governed and prosperous states, the command over food, instead of diminishing, increases.

  Much of what he has left us—a large part of which is unfortunately fragmentary—is akin to the labours of Cliffe Leslie at a later period. The latter, however, had the advantage of acquaintance with the sociology of Comte, which gave him a firmer grasp of method, as well as a wider view of the general movement of society; and, whilst the voice of Jones was but little heard amidst the general applause accorded to Ricardo in the economic world of his time, Leslie wrote when disillusion had set in, and the current was beginning to turn in England against the a priori economics.

  Comte somewhere speaks of the “transient predilection” for political economy which had shown itself generally in western Europe. This phase of feeling was specially noticeable in England from the third to the fifth decade of the present century. “Up to the year 1818,” said a writer in the Westmisster Review, “ the science was scarcely known or talked of beyond a small circle of philosophers; and legislation, so far from being in conformity with its principles, was daily receding from them more and more.” Mill has told us what a change took place within a few years. “Political economy,” he says, “had asserted itself with great vigour in public affairs by the petition of the merchants of London for free trade, drawn up in 1820 by Mr. Tooke and presented by Mr. Alexander Baring,1 and by the noble exertions of Ricardo during the few years of his parliamentary life. His writings, following up the impulse given by the bullion controversy, and followed up in their turn by the expositions and comments of my father and M'Culloch (whose writings in the Edinburgh Review during those years were most valuable), had drawn general attention to the subject, making at least partial converts in the Cabinet itself; and Huskisson, supported by Canning, had commenced that gradual demolition of the protective system which one of their colleagues” [Peel] “virtually completed in 1846, though the last vestiges were only swept away by Mr. Gladstone in 1860.” Whilst the science was thus attracting and fixing the attention of active minds, its unsettled condition was freely admitted. The differences of opinion among its professors were a frequent subject of complaint. But it was confidently expected that these discrepancies would soon disappear, and Colonel Torrens predicted that in twenty years there would scarcely “exist a doubt respecting any of its more fundamental principles.” “The prosperity,” says Mr. Sidgwick, “that followed on the abolition of the corn laws gave practical men a most impressive and satisfying proof of the soundness of the abstract reasoning by which the expediency of free trade had been inferred,” and when, in 1848, “a masterly expositor of thought had published a skilful statement of the chief results of the controversies of the preceding generation,” with the due “explanations and qualifications” of the reigning opinions, it was for some years generally believed that political economy had “emerged from the state of polemical discussion,” at least on its leading doctrines, and that at length a sound construction had been erected on permanent bases.

  This expositor was John Stuart Mill (1806–73). He exercised, without doubt, a greater influence in the field of English economics than any other writer since Ricardo. His systematic treatise has been, either directly or through manuals founded on it, especially that of Fawcett, the source from which most of our contemporaries in these countries have derived their knowledge of the science. But there are other and deeper reasons, as we shall see, which make him, in this as in other departments of knowledge, a specially interesting and significant figure.

  In 1844 he published five Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, which had been written as early as 1829 and 1830, but had, with the exception of the fifth, remained in manuscript. In these essays is contained any dogmatic contribution which he can be regarded as having made to the science. The subject of the first is the laws of interchange between nations. He shows that, when two countries trade together in two commodities, the prices of the commodities exchanged on both sides (which, as Ricardo had proved, are not determined by cost of production) will adjust themselves, through the play of reciprocal demand, in such a way that the quantities required by each country of the article which it imports from its neighbour shall be exactly sufficient to pay for one another. This is the law which appears, with some added developments, in his systematic treatise under the name of the “equation of international demand.” He then discusses the division of the gains. The most important practical conclusion (not, however, by any means an undisputed one) at which he arrives in this essay is, that the relaxation of duties on foreign commodities, not operating as protection but maintained solely for revenue should be made contingent on the adoption of some corresponding degree of freedom of trade with England by the nation from which the commodities are imported. In the second essay, on the influence of consumption on production, the most interesting results arrived at are the propositions—(1) that absenteeism is a local, not a national, evil, and (2) that, whilst there cannot be permanent excess of production, there may be a temporary excess, not only of any one article, but of commodities generally,—this last, however, not arising from over-production, but from a want of commercial confidence. The third essay relates to the use of the words “productive” and “unproductive” as applied to labour, to consumption, and to expenditure. The fourth deals with profits and interest, especially explaining and so justifying Ricardo's theorem that “profits depend on wages, rising as wages fall and falling as wages rise.” What Ricardo meant was that profits depend on the cost of wages estimated in labour. Hence improvements in the production of articles habitually consumed by the labourer may increase profits without diminishing the real remuneration of the labourer. The last essay is on the definition and method of political economy, a subject later and more maturely treated in the author's System of Logic.

  In 1848 Mill published his Principles of Political Economy, with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy. This title, though, as we shall see, open to criticism, indicated on the part of the author a less narrow and formal conception of the field of the science than had been common amongst his predecessors. He aimed, in fact, at producing a work which might replace in ordinary use the Wealth of Nations, which in his opinion was “in many parts obsolete and in all imperfect.” Adam Smith had invariably associated the general principles of the subject with their applications, and in treating those applications had often appealed to other and far larger considerations than pure political economy affords. And in the same spirit Mill desired, whilst incorporating all the results arrived at in the special science by Smith's successors, to exhibit purely economic phenomena in relation to the most advanced conceptions of his own time on the general philosophy of society, as Smith had done in reference to the philosophy of the eighteenth century.1

  This design he certainly failed to realise. His book is very far indeed from being a “modern Adam Smith.” It is an admirably lucid and even elegant exposition of the Ricardian economics, the Malthusian theory being of course incorporated with these, but, notwithstanding the introduction of many minor novelties, it is, in its scientific substance, little or nothing more. When Cliffe Leslie says that Mill so qualified and amended the doctrines of Ricardo that the latter could scarcely have recognized them, he certainly goes a great deal too far; Senior really did more in that direction. Mill's effort is usually to vindicate his master where others have censured him, and to palliate his admitted laxities of expression. Already his profound esteem for Ricardo's services to economics had been manifest in his Essays, where he says of him, with some injustice to Smith, that, “having a science to create,” he could not “occupy himself with more than the leading principles,” and adds that “no one who has thoroughly entered into his discoveries” will find any difficulty in working out “even the minutiæ of the science.” James Mill, too, had been essentially an expounder of Ricardo; and the son, whilst greatly superior to his father in the attractiveness of his expository style, is, in regard to his economic doctrine, substantially at the same point of view. It is in their general philosophical conceptions and their views of social aims and ideals that the elder and younger Mill occupy quite different positions in the line of progress. The latter could not, for example, in his adult period have put forward as a theory of government the shallow sophistries which the plain good sense of Macaulay sufficed to expose in the writings of the former; and he had a nobleness of feeling which, in relation to the higher social questions, raised him far above the ordinary coarse utilitarianism of the Benthamites.

  The larger and more philosophic spirit in which Mill dealt with social subjects was undoubtedly in great measure due to the influence of Comte, to whom, as Bain justly says, he was under greater obligations than he himself was disposed to admit. Had he more completely undergone that influence we are sometimes tempted to think he might have wrought the reform in economics which still remains to be achieved, emancipating the science from the a priori system, and founding a genuine theory of industrial life on observation in the broadest sense. But probably the time was not ripe for such a construction, and it is possible that Mill's native intellectual defects might have made him unfit for the task, for, as Roscher has said, “ein historischer Kopf war er nicht.” However this might have been, the effects of his early training, in which positive were largely alloyed with metaphysical elements, sufficed in fact to prevent his attaining a perfectly normal mental attitude. He never altogether overcame the vicious direction which he had received from the teaching of his father, and the influence of the Benthamite group in which he was brought up. Hence it was that, according to the striking expression of Roscher, his whole view of life was “zu wenig aus Einem Gusse.” The incongruous mixture of the narrow dogmas of his youthful period with the larger ideas of a later stage gave a wavering and indeterminate character to his entire philosophy He is, on every side, eminently “un-final;” he represents tendencies to new forms of opinion, and opens new vistas in various directions, but founds scarcely anything, and remains indeed, so far as his own position is concerned, not merely incomplete but incoherent.1 It is, however, precisely this dubious position which seems to us to give a special interest to his career, by fitting him in a peculiar degree to prepare and facilitate transitions.

  What he himself thought to be “the chief merit of his treatise” was the marked distinction drawn between the theory of production and that of distribution, the laws of the former being based on unalterable natural facts, whilst the course of distribution is modified from time to time by the changing ordinances of society. This distinction, we may remark, must not be too absolutely stated, for the organization of production changes with social growth, and, as Lauderdale long ago showed, the nature of the distribution in a community reacts on production. But there is a substantial truth in the distinction, and the recognition of it tends to concentrate attention on the question—How can we improve the existing distribution of wealth? The study of this problem led Mill, as he advanced in years, further and further in the direction of socialism; and, whilst to the end of his life his book, however otherwise altered, continued to deduce the Ricardian doctrines from the principle of enlightened selfishness, he was looking forward to an order of things in which synergy should be founded on sympathy.

  The gradual modification of his views in relation to the economic constitution of society is set forth in his Autobiography. In his earlier days, he tells us, he “had seen little further than the old school” (note this significant title) “of political economy into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance appeared the dernier mot of legislation.” The notion of proceeding to any radical redress of the injustice “involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty” he had then reckoned chimerical. But now his views were such as would “class him decidedly under the general designation of socialist;” he had been led to believe that the whole contemporary framework of economic life was merely temporary and provisional, and that a time would come when “the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, would be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice.” “The social problem of the future” he considered to be “how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action,” which was often compromised in socialistic schemes, “with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation in all the benefits of combined labour.” These ideas, he says, were scarcely indicated in the first edition of the Political Economy, rather more clearly and fully in the second, and quite unequivocally in the third,—the French Revolution of 1848 having made the public more open to the reception of novelties in opinion.

  Whilst thus looking forward to a new economic order, he yet thinks its advent very remote, and believes that the inducements of private interest will in the meantime be indispensable.1 On the spiritual side he maintains a similar attitude of expectancy. He anticipates the ultimate disappearance of theism, and the substitution of a purely human religion, but believes that the existing doctrine will long be necessary as a stimulus and a control. He thus saps existing foundations without providing anything to take their place, and maintains the necessity of conserving for indefinite periods what he has radically discredited. Nay, even whilst sowing the seeds of change in the direction of a socialistic organisation of society, he favours present or proximate arrangements which would urge the industrial world towards other issues. The system of peasant proprietorship of land is distinctly individualistic in its whole tendency; yet he extravagantly praises it in the earlier part of his book, only receding from that laudation when he comes to the chapter on the future of the labouring classes. And the system of so-called co-operation in production which he so warmly commended in the later editions of his work, and led some of his followers to preach as the one thing needful, would inevitably strengthen the principle of personal property, and, whilst professing at most to substitute the competition of associations for that of individuals, would by no means exclude the latter.

  The elevation of the working classes he bound up too exclusively with the Malthusian ethics, on which he laid quite an extravagant stress, though, as Bain has observed, it is not easy to make out his exact views, any more than his father's, on this subject. We have no reason to think that he ever changed his opinion as to the necessity of a restriction on population; yet that element seems foreign to the socialistic idea to which he increasingly leaned. It is at least difficult to see how, apart from individual responsibility for the support of a family, what Malthus called moral restraint could be adequately enforced. This difficulty is indeed the fatal flaw which, in Malthus's own opinion, vitiated the scheme of Godwin.

  Mill's openness to new ideas and his enthusiasm for improvement cannot be too much admired. But there appears to have been combined with these fine traits in his mental constitution a certain want of practical sense, a failure to recognize and acquiesce in the necessary conditions of human life, and a craving for “better bread than can be made of wheat.” He entertained strangely exaggerated, or rather perverted, notions of the “subjection,” the capacities, and the rights of women. He encourages a spirit of revolt on the part of working men against their perpetual condemnation, as a class, to the lot of living by wages, without giving satisfactory proof that this state of things is capable of change, and without showing that such a lot, duly regulated by law and morality, is inconsistent with their real happiness. He also insists on the “independence” of the working class—which, according to him, farà da sè—in such a way as to obscure, if not to controvert, the truths that superior rank and wealth are naturally invested with social power, and are bound in duty to exercise it for the benefit of the community at large, and especially of its less favoured members. And he attaches a quite undue importance to mechanical and indeed, illusory expedients, such as the limitation of the power of bequest and the confiscation of the “unearned increment” of rent.

  With respect to economic method also, he shifted his position; yet to the end occupied uncertain ground. In the fifth of his early essays he asserted that the method a priori is the only mode of investigation in the social sciences, and that the method a posteriori “is altogether inefficacious in those sciences, as a means of arriving at any considerable body of valuable truth.” When he wrote his Logic, he had learned from Comte that the a posteriori method—in the form which he chose to call “inverse deduction”—was the only mode of arriving at truth in general sociology; and his admission of this at once renders the essay obsolete. But, unwilling to relinquish the a priori method of his youth, he tries to establish a distinction of two sorts of economic inquiry, one of which, though not the other, can be handled by that method. Sometimes he speaks of political economy as a department “carved out of the general body of the science of society;” whilst on the other hand the title of his systematic work implies a doubt whether political economy is a part of “social philosophy” at all, and not rather a study preparatory and auxiliary to it. Thus, on the logical as well as the dogmatic side, he halts between two opinions. Notwithstanding his misgivings and even disclaimers, he yet remained, as to method, a member of the old school, and never passed into the new or “historical” school, to which the future belongs.

  The question of economic method was also taken up by the ablest of his disciples, John Elliott Cairnes (1824–75), who devoted a volume to the subject (Logical Method of Political Economy, 1857; 2d ed., 1875). Professor Walker has spoken of the method advocated by Cairnes as being different from that put forward by Mill, and has even represented the former as similar to, if not identical with, that of the German historical school. But this is certainly an error. Cairnes, notwithstanding some apparent vacillation of view and certain concessions more formal than real, maintains the utmost rigour of the deductive method; he distinctly affirms that in political economy there is no room for induction at all, “the economist starting with a knowledge of ultimate causes,” and being thus, “at the outset of his enterprise, at the position which the physicist only attains after ages of laborious research.” He does not, indeed, seem to be advanced beyond the point of view of Senior, who professed to deduce all economic truth from four elementary propositions. Whilst Mill in his Logic represents verification as an essential part of the process of demonstration of economic laws, Cairnes holds that, as they “are not assertions respecting the character or sequence of phenomena” (though what else can a scientific law be?), “they can neither be established nor refuted by statistical or documentary evidence.” A proposition which affirms nothing respecting phenomena cannot be controlled by being confronted with phenomena. Notwithstanding the unquestionable ability of his book, it appears to mark, in some respects, a retrogression in methodology, and can for the future possess only an historical interest.

  Regarded in that light, the labours of Mill and Cairnes on the method of the science, though intrinsically unsound, had an important negative effect. They let down the old political economy from its traditional position, and reduced its extravagant pretensions by two modifications of commonly accepted views. First, whilst Ricardo had never doubted that in all his reasonings he was dealing with human beings as they actually exist, they showed that the science, as he conceived it, must be regarded as a purely hypothetic one. Its deductions are based on unreal, or at least one-sided, assumptions, the most essential of which is that of the existence of the so-called “economic man,” a being who is influenced by two motives only, that of acquiring wealth and that of avoiding exertion; and only so far as the premises framed on this conception correspond with fact can the conclusions be depended on in practice. Senior in vain protested against such a view of the science, which, as he saw, compromised its social efficacy; whilst Torrens, who had previously combated the doctrines of Ricardo, hailed Mill's new presentation of political economy as enabling him, whilst in one sense rejecting those doctrines, in another sense to accept them. Secondly, beside economic science, it had often been said, stands an economic art,—the former ascertaining truths respecting the laws of economic phenomena, the latter prescribing the right kind of economic action; and many had assumed that, the former being given, the latter is also in our possession—that, in fact, we have only to convert theorems into precepts, and the work is done. But Mill and Cairnes made it plain that this statement could not be accepted, that action can no more in the economic world than in any other province of life be regulated by considerations borrowed from one department of things only; that economics can suggest ideas which are to be kept in view, but that, standing alone, it cannot direct conduct— an office for which a wider prospect of human affairs is required. This matter is best elucidated by a reference to Comte's classification, or rather hierarchical arrangement, of the sciences. Beginning with the least complex, mathematics, we rise successively to astronomy, physics, chemistry, thence to biology, and from it again to sociology. In the course of this ascent we come upon all the great laws which regulate the phenomena of the inorganic world, of organised beings, and of society. A further step, however, remains to be taken—namely, to morals; and at this point the provinces of theory and practice tend to coincide, because every element of conduct has to be considered in relation to the general good. In the final synthesis all the previous analyses have to be used as instrumental, in order to determine how every real quality of things or men may be made to converge to the welfare of Humanity.

  Cairnes's most important economic publication was his last, entitled Some Leading Principles of Political Economy newly Expounded, 1874. In this work, which does not profess to be a complete treatise on the science, he criticises and emends the statements which preceding writers had given of some of its principal doctrines, and treats elaborately of the limitations with which they are to be understood, and the exceptions to them which may be produced by special circumstances. Whilst marked by great ability, it affords evidence of what has been justly observed as a weakness in Cairnes's mental constitution—his “deficiency in intellectual sympathy,” and consequent frequent inability to see more than one side of a truth.

  The three divisions of the book relate respectively to (1) value, (2) labour and capital, and (3) international trade. In the first he begins by elucidating the meaning of the word “value,” and under this head controverts the view of Jevons that the exchange value of anything depends entirely on its utility, without, perhaps, distinctly apprehending what Jevons meant by this proposition. On supply and demand he shows, as Say had done before, that these, regarded as aggregates, are not independent, but strictly connected and mutually dependent phenomena—identical, indeed, under a system of barter, but, under a money system, conceivable as distinct. Supply and demand with respect to particular commodities must be understood to mean supply and demand at a given price; and thus we are introduced to the ideas of market price and normal price (as, following Cher-buliez, he terms what Smith less happily called natural price). Normal price again leads to the consideration of cost of production, and here, against Mill and others, he denies that profit and wages enter into cost of production; in other words, he asserts what Senior (whom he does not name) had said before him, though he had not consistently carried out the nomenclature, that cost of production is the sum of labour and abstinence necessary to production, wages and profits being the remuneration of sacrifice and not elements of it. But, it may well be asked, How can an amount of labour be added to an amount of abstinence? Must not wages and profits be taken as “measures of cost”? By adhering to the conception of “sacrifice” he exposes the emptiness of the assertion that “dear labour is the great obstacle to the extension of British trade”—a sentence in which “British trade” means capitalists' profits. At this point we are introduced to a doctrine now first elaborated, though there are indications of it in Mill, of whose theory of international values it is in fact an extension. In foreign trade cost of production, in Cairnes's sense, does not regulate values, because it cannot perform that function except under a régime of effective competition, and between different countries effective competition does not exist. But, Cairnes asks, to what extent does it exist in domestic industries? So far as capital is concerned, he thinks the condition is sufficiently fulfilled over the whole field—a position, let it be said in passing, which he does not seem to make out, if we consider the practical immobility of most invested, as distinct from disposable, capital. But in the case of labour the requisite competition takes place only within certain social, or rather industrial, strata. The world of industry may be divided into a series of superposed groups, and these groups are practically “non-competing,” the disposable labour in any one of them being rarely capable of choosing its field in a higher.1 The law that cost of production determines price cannot, therefore, be absolutely stated respecting domestic any more than respecting international exchange; as it fails for the latter universally, so it fails for the former as between non-competing groups. The law that holds between these is similar to that governing international values, which may be called the equation of reciprocal demand. Such a state of relative prices will establish itself amongst the products of these groups as shall enable that portion of the products of each group which is applied to the purchase of the products of all other groups to discharge its liabilities towards those other groups. The reciprocal demand of the groups determines the “average relative level” of prices within each group; whilst cost of production regulates the distribution of price among the individual products of each group This theorem is perhaps of no great practical value; but the tendency of the whole investigation is to attenuate the importance of cost of production as a regulator of normal price, and so to show that yet another of the accepted doctrines of the science had been propounded in too rigid and absolute a form. As to market price, the formula by which Mill had denned it as the price which equalises demand and supply Cairnes shows to be an identical proposition, and he defines it as the price which most advantageously adjusts the existing supply to the existing demand pending the coming forward of fresh supplies from the sources of production.

  His second part is chiefly remarkable for his defence of what is known as the wages fund doctrine, to which we adverted when speaking of Senior.1 Mill had given up this doctrine, having been convinced by Thornton that it was erroneous; but Cairnes refused to follow his leader, who, as he believes, ought not to have been convinced.2 After having given what is certainly a fallacious reply to Longe's criticism of the expression “average rate of wages,” he proceeds to vindicate the doctrine in question by the consideration that the amount of a nation's wealth devoted at any time to the payment of wages—if the character of the national industries and the methods of production employed remain the same—is in a definite relation to the amount of its general capital; the latter being given, the former is also given. In illustrating his view of the subject, he insists on the principle (true in the main, but too absolutely formulated by Mill) that “demand for commodities is not demand for labour.” It is not necessary here to follow his investigation, for his reasoning has not satisfied his successors, with the exception of Fawcett, and the question of wages is now commonly treated without reference to a supposed determinate wages fund. Cairnes next studies trades-unionism in relation to wages, and arrives in substance at the conclusion that the only way in which it can affect their rate is by accelerating an advance which must ultimately have taken place independently of its action. He also takes occasion to refute Mr. (now Lord) Brassey's supposed law of a uniform cost of labour in every part of the world. Turning to consider the material prospects of the working classes, he examines the question of the changes which may be expected in the amount and partition of the fund out of which abstinence and labour are remunerated. He here enunciates the principle (which had been, however, stated before him by Ricardo and Senior) that the increased productiveness of industry will not affect either profit or wages unless it cheapen the commodities which the labourer consumes. These latter being mostly commodities of which raw produce is the only or principal element, their cost of production, notwithstanding improvements in knowledge and art, will increase unless the numbers of the labouring class be steadily kept in check; and hence the possibility of elevating the condition of the labourer is confined within very narrow limits, if he continues to be a labourer only. The condition of any substantial and permanent improvement in his lot is that he should cease to be a mere labourer—that profits should be brought to reinforce the wages fund, which has a tendency, in the course of industrial progress, to decline relatively to the general capital of a country. And hence Cairnes—abandoning the purely theoretic attitude which he elsewhere represents as the only proper one for the economist—recommends the system of so-called co-operation (that is, in fact, the abolition of the large capitalist) as offering to the working classes “the sole means of escape from a harsh and hopeless destiny,” and puts aside rather contemptuously the opposition of the Positivists to this solution, which yet many besides the Positivists, as, for example, Leslie and F. A. Walker, regard as chimerical.

  The third part is devoted mainly to an exposition of Ricardo's doctrine of the conditions of international trade and Mill's theory of international values. The former Cairnes modifies by introducing his idea of the partial influence of reciprocal demand, as distinguished from cost of production, on the regulation of domestic prices, and founds on this rectification an interesting account of the connection between the wages prevailing in a country and the character and course of its external trade. He emends Mill's statement, which represented the produce of a country as exchanging for that of other countries at such values “as are required in order that the whole of her exports may exactly pay for the whole of her imports” by substituting for the latter phrase the condition that each country should by means of her exports discharge all her foreign liabilities—in other words, by introducing the consideration of the balance of debts. This idea was not new; it had been indicated by John Leslie Foster as early as 1804,1 and was touched on by Mill himself; but Cairnes expounds it well; and it is important as clearing away common misconceptions, and sometimes removing groundless alarms.2 Passing to the question of free trade, he disposes of some often-repeated protectionist arguments, and in particular refutes the American allegation of the inability of the highly-paid labour of that country to compete with the “pauper labour” of Europe. He is not so successful in meeting the “political argument,” founded on the admitted importance for civilization of developing diversified national industries; and he meets only by one of the highly questionable commonplaces of the doctrinaire economists Mill's proposition that protection may foster nascent indutries really adapted to a country till they have struck root and are able to endure the stress of foreign competition.

  We have dwelt at some length on this work of Cairnes, not only because it presents the latest forms of several accepted economic doctrines, but also because it is, and, we believe, will remain, the last important product of the old English school. The author at the outset expresses the hope that it will strengthen, and add consistence to, the scientific fabric “built up by the labours of Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo, and Mill.” Whilst recognizing with him the great merits of Smith, and the real abilities and services of his three successors here named, we cannot entertain the same opinion as Cairnes respecting the permanance of the fabric they constructed. We hold that a new edifice is required, incorporating indeed many of the materials of the old, but planned on different ideas and in some respects with a view to different ends—above all, resting on different philosophic foundations, and having relation in its whole design to the more comprehensive structure of which it will form but one department, namely, the general science of society.

  Cairnes's Slave Power (1862) was the most valuable work which appeared on the subject of the great American conflict.

  France

  All the later European schools presuppose—in part adopting, in part criticising—the work of the English economists from Smith1 to Ricardo and the Epigoni. The German school has had in a greater degree than any other a movement of its own—following, at least in its more recent period, an original method, and tending to special and characteristic conclusions. The French school, on the other hand,—if we omit the Socialists, who do not here come under consideration,—has in the main reproduced the doctrines of the leading English thinkers,—stopping short, however, in general of the extremes of Ricardo and his disciples. In the field of exposition the French are unrivalled; and in political economy they have produced a series of more or less remarkable systematic treatises, text-books, and compendiums, at the head of which stands the celebrated work of J. B. Say. But the number of seminal minds which have appeared in French economic literature—of writers who have contributed important truths, introduced improvements of method, or presented the phenomena under new lights—has not been large. Sismondi, Dunoyer, and Bastiat will deserve our attention, as being the most important of those who occupy independent positions (whether permanently tenable or not), if we pass over for the present the great philosophical renovation of Auguste Comte, which comprehended actually or potentially all the branches of sociological inquiry. Before estimating the labours of Bastiat. we shall find it desirable to examine the views of Carey, the most renowned of American economists, with which the latest teachings of the ingenious and eloquent Frenchman are, up to a certain point, in remarkable agreement. Cournot, too, must find a place among the French writers of this period, as the chief representative of the conception of a mathematical method in political economy.

  Of Jean Baptiste Say (1767–1832) Ricardo says—“He was the first, or among the first, of Continental writers who justly appreciated and applied the principles of Smith, and has done more than all other Continental writers taken together to recommend that enlightened and beneficial system to the nations of Europe.” The Wealth of Nations in the original language was placed in Say's hands by Clavière, afterwards minister, then director of the assurance society of which Say was a clerk; and the book made a powerful impression on him. Long afterwards, when Dupont de Nemours complained of his injustice to the physiocrats, and claimed him as, through Smith, a spiritual grandson of Quesnay and nephew of Turgot, he replied that he had learned to read in the writings of the mercantile school, had learned to think in those of Quesnay and his followers, but that it was in Smith that he had learned to seek the causes and the effects of social phenomena in the nature of things, and to arrive at this last by a scrupulous analysis. His Traité d'Économie Politique (1803) was essentially founded on Smith's work, but he aimed at arranging the materials in a more logical and instructive order.1 He has the French art of easy and lucid exposition, though his facility sometimes degenerates into superficiality; and hence his book became popular, both directly and through translations obtained a wide circulation, and diffused rapidly through the civilized world the doctrines of the master. Say's knowledge of common life, says Roscher, was equal to Smith's; but he falls far below him in living insight into larger political phenomena, and he carefully eschews historical and philosophical explanations. He is sometimes strangely shallow, as when he says that “the best tax is that smallest in amount.” He appears not to have much claim to the position of an original thinker in political economy. Ricardo, indeed, speaks of him as having “enriched the science, by several discussions, original, accurate, and profound.” What he had specially in view in using these words was what is, perhaps rather pretentiously, called Say's théorie des débouchés, with his connected disproof of the possibility of a universal glut. The theory amounts simply to this, that buying is also selling, and that it is by producing that we are enabled to purchase the products of others. Several distinguished economists, especially Malthus and Sismondi, in consequence chiefly of a misinterpretation of the phenomena of commercial crises, maintained that there might be general over-supply or excess of all commodities above the demand. This Say rightly denied. A particular branch of production may, it must indeed be admitted, exceed the existing capabilities of the market; but, if we remember that supply is demand, that commodities are purchasing power, we cannot accept the doctrine of the possibility of a universal glut without holding that we can have too much of everything—that “all men can be so fully provided with the precise articles they desire as to afford no market for each other's superfluities.” Whatever services, however, Say may have rendered by original ideas on those or other subjects, his great merit is certainly that of a propagandist and populariser.

  The imperial police would not permit a second edition of his work to be issued without the introduction of changes which, with noble independence, he refused to make; and that edition did not therefore appear till 1814. Three other editions were published during the life of the author—in 1817, 1819, and 1826. In 1828 Say published a second treatise, Cours complet d'Économic Politique pratique, which contained the substance of his lectures at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers and at the Collége de France. Whilst in his earlier treatise he had kept within the narrow limits of strict economics, in his later work he enlarged the sphere of discussion, introducing in particular many considerations respecting the economic influence of social institutions.

  Jean Charles L. Simonde de Sismondi (1773–1842), author of the Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du moyen âge, represents in the economic field a protest, founded mainly on humanitarian sentiment, against the dominant doctrines He wrote first a treatise De la Richesse Commerciale (1803), in which he followed strictly the principles of Adam Smith. But he afterwards came to regard these principles as insufficient and requiring modification. He contributed an article on political economy to the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, in which his new views were partially indicated. They were fully developed in his principal economic work, NouveauxPrincipes d'Économie Politique, ou de la Richesse dans ses rapports avec la Population (1819; 2d ed., 1827). This work, as he tells us, was not received with favour by economists, a fact which he explains by the consideration that he had “attacked an orthodoxy—an enterprise dangerous in philosophy as in religion.” According to his view, the science, as commonly understood, was too much of a mere chrematistic: it studied too exclusively the means of increasing wealth, and not sufficiently the use of this wealth for producing general happiness. The practical system founded on it tended, as he believed, not only to make the rich richer, but to make the poor poorer and more dependent; and he desired to fix attention on the question of distribution as by far the most important, especially in the social circumstances of recent times.

  The personal union in Sismondi of three nationalities, the Italian, the French, and the Swiss, and his comprehensive historical studies, gave him a special largeness of view; and he was filled with a noble sympathy for the suffering members of society. He stands nearer to socialism than any other French economist proper, but it is only in sentiment, not in opinion, that he approximates to it; he does not recommend any socialistic scheme. On the contrary, he declares in a memorable passage that, whilst he sees where justice lies, he must confess himself unable to suggest the means of realising it in practice; the division of the fruits of industry between those who are united in their production appears to him vicious; but it is, in his judgment, almost beyond human power to conceive any system of property absolutely different from that which is known to us by experience. He goes no further than protesting, in view of the great evils which he saw around him, against the doctrine of laisser faire, and invoking, somewhat vaguely, the intervention of Governments to “regulate the progress of wealth” and to protect the weaker members of the community.

  His frank confession of impotence, far wiser and more honourable than the suggestion of precipitate and dangerous remedies, or of a recurrence to outworn mediæval institutions, has not affected the reputation of the work. A prejudice was indeed early created against it in consequence of its partial harmony of tone, though, as we have seen, not of policy, with socialism, which was then beginning to show its strength, as well as by the rude way in which his descriptions of the modern industrial system, especially as it existed in England, disturbed the complacent optimism of some members of the so-called orthodox school. These treated the book with ill-disguised contempt, and Bastiat spoke of it as preaching an économie politique a rebours. But it has held its place in the literature of the science, and is now even more interesting than when it first appeared, because in our time there is a more general disposition, instead of denying or glossing over the serious evils of industrial society, to face and remove or at least mitigate them. The laisser faire doctrine, too, has been discredited in theory and abandoned in practice; and we are ready to admit Sismondi's view of the State as a power not mere intrusted with the maintenance of peace, but charged also with the mission of extending the benefits of the social union and of modern progress as widely as possible through all classes of the community. Yet the impression which his treatise leaves behind it is a discouraging one; and this because he regards as essentially evil many things which seem to be the necessary results of the development of industry. The growth of a wealthy capitalist class and of manufacture on the great scale, the rise of a vast body of workers who live by their labour alone, the extended application of machines, large landed properties cultivated with the aid of the most advanced appliances—all these he dislikes and deprecates; but they appear to be inevitable. The problem is, how to regulate and moralise the system they imply; but we must surely accept it in principle, unless we aim at a thorough social revolution. Sismondi may be regarded as the precursor of the German economists known under the inexact designation of “Socialists of the Chair;” but their writings are much more hopeful and inspiring.

  To the subject of population he devotes special care, as of great importance for the welfare of the working classes. So far as agriculturists are concerned, he thinks the system of what he calls patriarchal exploitation, where the cultivator is also proprietor, and is aided by his family in tilling the land—a law of equal division among the natural heirs being apparently presupposed—the one which is most efficacious in preventing an undue increase of the population. The father is, in such a case, able distinctly to estimate the resources available for his children, and to determine the stage of sub-division which would necessitate the descent of the family from the material and social position it had previously occupied. When children beyond this limit are born, they do not marry, or they choose amongst their number one to continue the race. This is the view which, adopted by J. S. Mill, makes so great a figure in the too favourable presentation by that writer of the system of peasant proprietors.

  In no French economic writer is greater force or general solidity of thought to be found than in Charles Dunoyer (1786–1862), author of La Liberté du Travail (1845; the substance of the first volume had appeared under a different title in 1825), honourably known for his integrity and independence under the régime of the Restoration. What makes him of special importance in the history of the science is his view of its philosophical constitution and method. With respect to method, he strikes the keynote at the very outset in the words “rechercher expérimentalement,” and in professing to build on “les données de l'observation et de l'experience.” He shows a marked tendency to widen economics into a general science of society, expressly describing political economy as having for its province the whole order of things which results from the exercise and development of the social forces. This larger study is indeed better named Sociology; and economic studies are better regarded as forming one department of it. But the essential circumstance is that, in Dunoyer's treatment of his great subject, the widest intellectual, moral, and political considerations are inseparably combined with purely economic ideas. It must not be supposed that by liberty, in the title of his work, is meant merely freedom from legal restraint or administrative interference; he uses it to express whatever tends to give increased efficiency to labour. He is thus led to discuss all the causes of human progress, and to exhibit them in their historical working.

  Treating, in the first part, of the influence of external conditions, of race, and of culture on liberty in this wider sense, he proceeds to divide all productive effort into two great classes, according as the action is exercised on things or on men, and censures the economists for having restricted their attention to the former. He studies in his second and third parts respectively the conditions of the efficiency of these two forms of human exertion. In treating of economic life, strictly so called, he introduces his fourfold division of material industry, in part adopted by J. S. Mill, as “(1) extractive, (2) voiturière, (3) manufacturière, (4) agricole,” a division which is useful for physical economics, but will always, when the larger social aspect of things is considered, be inferior to the more commonly accepted one into agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial industry, banking being supposed as common president and regulator. Dunoyer, having in view only action on material objects, relegates banking, as well as commerce proper, to the separate head of exchange, which, along with association and gratuitous transmission (whether inter vivos or mortis causa), he classes apart as being, not industries, in the same sense with the occupations named, but yet functions essential to the social economy. The industries which act on man he divides according as they occupy themselves with (1) the amelioration of our physical nature, (2) the culture of our imagination and sentiments, (3) the education of our intelligence, and (4) the improvement of our moral habits; and he proceeds accordingly to study the social offices of the physician, the artist, the educator, and the priest. We meet in Dunoyer the ideas afterwards emphasised by Bastiat that the real subjects of human exchange are services; that all value is due to human activity; that the powers of nature always render a gratuitous assistance to the labour of man; and that the rent of land is really a form of interest on invested capital. Though he had disclaimed the task of a practical adviser in the often-quoted sentence—“Je n'impose rien; je ne propose même rien; j'exposs,” he finds himself, like all economists, unable to abstain from offering counsel. And his policy is opposed to any state interference with industry. Indeed he preaches in its extreme rigour the laisser faire doctrine, which he maintains principally on the ground that the spontaneous efforts of the individual for the improvement of his condition, by developing foresight, energy, and perseverance, are the most efficient means of social culture. But he certainly goes too far when he represents the action of Governments as normally always repressive and never directive. He was doubtless led into this exaggeration by his opposition to the artificial organizations of labour proposed by so many of his contemporaries, against which he had to vindicate the principle of competition; but his criticism of these schemes took, as Comte remarks, too absolute a character, tending to the perpetual interdiction of a true systematisation of industry.1

  America

  At this point it will be convenient to turn aside and notice the doctrines of the American economist Carey. Not much had been done before him in the science by citizens of the United States. Benjamin Franklin, otherwise of world-wide renown, was author of a number of tracts, in most of which he merely enforces practical lessons of industry and thrift, but in some throws out interesting theoretic ideas. Thus, fifty years before Smith, he suggested (as Petty, however, had already done) human labour as the true measure of value (Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency, 1721), and in his Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind (1751) he expresses views akin to those of Malthus. Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, in 1791 presented in his official capacity to the House of Representatives of the United States a Report on the measures by which home manufactures could be promoted.1 In this document he gives a critical account of the theory of the subject, represents Smith's system of free trade as possible in practice only if adopted by all nations simultaneously, ascribes to manufactures a greater productiveness than to agriculture, and seeks to refute the objections against the development of the former in America founded on the want of capital, the high rate of wages, and the low price of land. The conclusion at which he arrives is that for the creation of American manufactures a system of moderate protective duties was necessary, and he proceeds to describe the particular features of such a system. There is some reason to believe that the German economist List, of whom we shall speak hereafter, was influenced by Hamilton's work, having, during his exile from his native country, resided in the United States.

  Henry Charles Carey (1793–1879), son of an American citizen who had emigrated from Ireland, represents a reaction against the dispiriting character which the Smithian doctrines had assumed in the hands of Malthus and Ricardo. His aim was, whilst adhering to the individualistic economy, to place it on a higher and surer basis, and fortify it against the assaults of socialism, to which some of the Ricardian tenets had exposed it. The most comprehensive as well as mature exposition of his views is contained in his Principles of Social Science (1859). Inspired with the optimistic sentiment natural to a young and rising nation with abundant undeveloped resources and an unbounded outlook towards the future, he seeks to show that there exists, independently of human wills, a natural system of economic laws, which is essentially beneficent, and of which the increasing prosperity of the whole community, and especially of the working classes, is the spontaneous result,—capable of being defeated only by the ignorance or perversity of man resisting or impeding its action. He rejects the Malthusian doctrine of population, maintaining that numbers regulate themselves sufficiently in every well-governed society, and that their pressure on subsistence characterises the lower, not the more advanced, stages of civilization. He rightly denies the universal truth, for all stages of cultivation, of the law of diminishing returns from land. His fundamental theoretic position relates to the antithesis of wealth and value.

  Wealth had been by most economists confounded with the sum of exchange values; even Smith, though at first distinguishing them, afterwards allowed himself to fall into this error. Ricardo had, indeed, pointed out the difference, but only towards the end of his treatise, in the body of which value alone is considered. The later English economists had tended to regard their studies as conversant only with exchange; so far had this proceeded that Whately had proposed for the science the name of Catallactics. When wealth is considered as what it really is, the sum of useful products, we see that it has its origin in external nature as supplying both materials and physical forces, and in human labour as appropriating and adapting those natural materials and forces. Nature gives her assistance gratuitously; labour is the sole foundation of value. The less we can appropriate and employ natural forces in any production the higher the value of the product, but the less the addition to our wealth in proportion to the labour expended. Wealth, in its true sense of the sum of useful things, is the measure of the power we have acquired over nature, whilst the value of an object expresses the resistance of nature which labour has to overcome in order to produce the object. Wealth steadily increases in the course of social progress; the exchange value of objects, on the other hand, decreases. Human intellect and faculty of social combination secure increased command over natural powers, and use them more largely in production, whilst less labour is spent in achieving each result, and the value of the product accordingly falls. The value of the article is not fixed by its cost of production in the past; what really determines it is the cost which is necessary for its reproduction under the present conditions of knowledge and skill. The dependence of value on cost, so interpreted, Carey holds to be universally true; whilst Ricardo maintained it only with respect to objects capable of indefinite multiplication, and in particular did not regard it as applicable to the case of land. Ricardo saw in the productive powers of land a free gift of nature which had been monopolised by a certain number of persons, and which became, with the increased demand for food, a larger and larger value in the hands of its possessors. To this value, however, as not being the result of labour, the owner, it might be maintained, had no rightful claim; he could not justly demand a payment for what was done by the “original and indestructible powers of the soil.” But Carey held that land, as we are concerned with it in industrial life, is really an instrument of production which has been formed as such by man, and that its value is due to the labour expended on it in the past,—though measured, not by the sum of that labour, but by the labour necessary under existing conditions to bring new land to the same stage of productiveness. He studies the occupation and reclamation of land with peculiar advantage as an American, for whom the traditions of first settlement are living and fresh, and before whose eyes the process is indeed still going on. The difficulties of adapting a primitive soil to the work of yielding organic products for man's use can be lightly estimated only by an inhabitant of a country long under cultivation. It is, in Carey's view, the overcoming of these difficulties by arduous and continued effort that entitles the first occupier of land to his property in the soil. Its present value forms a very small proportion of the cost expended on it, because it represents only what would be required, with the science and appliances of our time, to bring the land from its primitive into its present state. Property in land is therefore only a form of invested capital—a quantity of labour or the fruits of labour permanently incorporated with the soil; for which, like any other capitalist, the owner is compensated by a share of the produce. He is not rewarded for what is done by the powers of nature, and society is in no sense defrauded by his sole possession. The so-called Ricardian theory of rent is a speculative fancy, contradicted by all experience. Cultivation does not in fact, as that theory supposes, begin with the best, and move downwards to the poorer soils in the order of their inferiority.1 The light and dry higher lands are first cultivated; and only when population has become dense and capital has accumulated, are the low-lying lands, with their greater fertility, but also with their morasses, inundations, and miasmas, attacked and brought into occupation. Rent, regarded as a proportion of the produce, sinks, like all interest on capital, in process of time, but, as an absolute amount, increases. The share of the labourer increases, both as a proportion and an absolute amount. And thus the interest of these different social classes are in harmony.

  But, Carey proceeds to say, in order that this harmonious progress may be realised, what is taken from the land must be given back to it. All the articles derived from it are really separated parts of it, which must be restored on pain of its exhaustion. Hence the producer and the consumer must be close to each other; the products must not be exported to a foreign country in exchange for its manufactures, and thus go to enrich as manure a foreign soil. In immediate exchange value the landowner may gain by such exportation, but the productive powers of the land will suffer. And thus Carey, who had set out as an earnest advocate of free trade, arrives at the doctrine of protection: the “co-ordinating power” in society must intervene to prevent private advantage from working public mischief.2 He attributes his conversion on the question to his observation of the effects of liberal and protective tariffs respectively on American prosperity. This observation, he says, threw him back on theory, and led him to see that the intervention referred to might be necessary to remove (as he phrases it) the obstacles to the progress of younger com munities created by the action of older and wealthier nations. But it seems probable that the influence of List's writings, added to his own deep-rooted and hereditary jealousy and dislike of English predominance, had something to do with his change of attitude.

  The practical conclusion at which he thus arrived, though it is by no means in contradiction to the doctrine of the existence of natural economic laws, accords but ill with his optimistic scheme; and another economist, Frederic Bastiat, accepting his fundamental ideas, applied himself to remove the foreign accretion, as he regarded it, and to preach the theory of spontaneous social harmonies in relation with the practice of free trade as its legitimate outcome.1

  France—(continued,

  Bastiat (1801–1850), though not a profound thinker, was a brilliant and popular writer on economic questions. Though he always had an inclination for such studies, he was first impelled to the active propagation of his views by his earnest sympathy with the English anti-corn-law agitation. Naturally of an ardent temperament, he threw himself with zeal into the free-trade controversy, through which he hoped to influence French economic policy, and published in 1845 a history of the struggle under the title of Cobden et la Ligue. In 1845–48 appeared his Sophismes £conomiques (Eng. trans, by G. R. Porter, 1849, and by P. J. Stirling, 1873), in which he exhibited his best qualities of mind. Though Cairnes goes too far in comparing this work with the Lettres Provinciales, it is certainly marked by much liveliness, point, and vigour. But to expose the absurdities of the ordinary protectionism was no difficult task; it is only in such a form as the policy assumed in the scheme of List, as purely provisional and preparatory, that it deserves and demands consideration. After the revolution of 1848, which for a time put an end to the free-trade movement in France, the efforts of Bastiat were directed against the socialists. Besides several minor pieces possessing the same sort of merit as the Sophismes, he produced, with a view to this controversy, his most ambitious as well as characteristic work, the Harmonies. Économiques (Eng. trans, by P. J. Stirling, 1860). Only the first volume was published; it appeared in 1850, and its author died in the same year. Since then the notes and sketches which he had prepared as materials towards the production of the second volume have been given to the public in the collected edition of his writings (by Paillottet, with Life by Fontenay, 7 vols.), and we can thus gather what would have been the spirit and substance of the later portions of the book.

  It will always be historically interesting as the last incarnation of thoroughgoing economic optimism. This optimism, recurring to its first origin, sets out from theological considerations, and Bastiat is commended by his English translator for treating political economy “in connection with final causes.” The spirit of the work is to represent “all principles, all motives, all springs of action, all interests, as co-operating towards a grand final result which humanity will never reach, but to which it will always increasingly tend, namely, the indefinite approximation of all classes towards a level, which steadily rises,—in other words, the equalisation of individuals in the general amelioration.”

  What claimed to be novel and peculiar in his scheme was principally his theory of value. Insisting on the idea that value does not denote anything inherent in the objects to which it is attributed, he endeavoured to show that it never signifies anything but the ratio of two “services.” This view he develops with great variety and felicity of illustration. Only the mutual services of human beings, according to him, possess value and can claim a retribution; the assistance given by nature to the work of production is always purely gratuitous, and never enters into price. Economic progress, as, for example, the improvement and larger use of machinery, tends perpetually to transfer more and more of the elements of utility from the domain ol property, and therefore of value, into that of community, or of universal and unpurchased enjoyment. It will be observed that this theory is substantially identical with Carey's, which had been earlier propounded; and the latter author in so many words alleges it to have been taken from him without acknowledgment. It has not perhaps been sufficiently attended to that very similar views are found in Dunoyer, of whose work Bastiat spoke as exercising a powerful influence on “the restoration of the science,” and whom Fontenay, the biographer of Bastiat, tells us he recognised as one of his masters, Charles Comte1 being the other.

  The mode which has just been explained of conceiving industrial action and industrial progress is interesting and instructive so far as it is really applicable, but it was unduly generalised. Cairnes has well pointed out that Bastiat's theoretic soundness was injuriously affected by his habit of studying doctrines with a direct view to contemporary social and political controversies. He was thus predisposed to accept views which appeared to lend a sanction to legitimate and valuable institutions, and to reject those which seemed to him to lead to dangerous consequences. His constant aim is, as he himself expressed it, to “break the weapons” of anti-social reasoners “in their hands,” and this preoccupation interferes with the single-minded effort towards the attainment of scientific truth. The creation or adoption of his theory of value was inspired by the wish to meet the socialistic criticism of property in land; for the exigencies of this controversy it was desirable to be able to show that nothing is ever paid for except personal effort. His view of rent was, therefore, so to speak, foreordained, though it may have been suggested, as indeed the editor of his posthumous fragments admits by the writings of Carey. He held, with the American author, that rent is purely the reward of the pains and expenditure of the landlord or his predecessors in the process of converting the natural soil into a. farm by clearing, draining, fencing, and the other species of permanent improvements.1 He thus gets rid of the (so-called) Ricardian doctrine, which was accepted by the socialists, and by them used for the purpose of assailing the institution of landed property, or, at least, of supporting a claim of compensation to the community for the appropriation of the land by the concession of the “right to labour.” As Cairnes has said,2 “what Bastiat did was this: having been at infinite pains to exclude gratuitous gifts of nature from the possible elements of value, and pointedly identified” [rather, associated] “the phenomenon with ‘human effort’ as its exclusive source, he designates human effort by the term ‘service,’ and then employs this term to admit as sources of value those very gratuitous natural gifts the exclusion of which in this capacity constituted the essence of his doctrine.” The justice of this criticism will be apparent to any one who considers the way in which Bastiat treats the question of the value of a diamond. That what is paid for in most cases of human dealings is effort no one can dispute. But it is surely a reductio ad absurdum of his theory of value, regarded as a doctrine of universal application, to represent the price of a diamond which has been accidentally found as remuneration for the effort of the finder in appropriating and transmitting it. And, with respect to land, whilst a large part of rent, in the popular sense, must be explained as interest on capital, it is plain that the native powers of the soil are capable of appropriation, and that then a price can be demanded and will be paid for their use.

  Bastiat is weak on the philosophical side; he is filled with the ideas of theological teleology, and is led by these ideas to form a priori opinions of what existing facts and laws must necessarily be. And the jus natures, which, like metaphysical ideas generally, has its root in theology, is as much a postulate with him as with the physiocrats. Thus, in his essay on Free Trade, he says:—“Exchange is a natural right like property. Every citizen who has created or acquired a product ought to have the option of either applying it immediately to his own use or ceding it to whosoever on the surface of the globe consents to give him in exchange the object of his desires.” Something of the same sort had been said by Turgot; and in his time this way of regarding things was excusable, and even provisionally useful; but in the middle of the I9th century it was time that it should be seen through and abandoned

  Bastiat had a real enthusiasm for a science which he thought destined to render great services to mankind, and he seems to have believed intensely the doctrines which gave a special colour to his teaching. If his optimistic exaggerations favoured the propertied classes, they certainly were not prompted by self-interest or servility. But they are exaggerations; and, amidst the modern conflicts of capital and labour, his perpetual assertion of social harmonies is the cry of “peace, peace,” where there is no peace. The freedom of industry, which he treated as a panacea, has undoubtedly brought with it great benefits; but a sufficient experience has shown that it is inadequate to solve the social problem. How can the advocates of economic revolution be met by assuring them that everything in the natural economy is harmonious—that, in fact, all they seek for already exists? A certain degree of spontaneous harmony does indeed exist, for society could not continue without it, but it is imperfect and precarious; the question is, How can we give to it the maximum of completeness and stability?

  Augustin Cournot (1801–1877) appears to have been the first1 who, with a competent knowledge of both subjects, endeavoured to apply mathematics to the treatment of economic questions. His treatise entitled Recherches sur les Principes Mathématiques de la Theorie des Richesses was published in 1838. He mentions in it only one previous enterprise of the same kind (though there had in fact been others)—that, namely, of Nicolas Francois Canard, whose book, published in 1802, was crowned by the Institute, though “its principles were radically false as well as erroneously applied.” Notwithstanding Cournot's just reputation as a writer on mathematics, the Recherches made little impression. The truth seems to be that his results are in some cases of little importance, in others of questionable correctness, and that, in the abstractions to which he has recourse in order to facilitate his calculations, an essential part of the real conditions of the problem is sometimes omitted. His pages abound in symbols representing unknown functions, the form of the function being left to be ascertained by observation of facts, which he does not regard as a part of his task, or only some known properties of the undetermined function being used as bases for deduction. Jevons includes in his list of works in which a mathematical treatment of economics is adopted a second treatise which Cournot published in 1863, with the title Principes de la Theorie des Richesses. But in reality, in the work so named, which is written with great ability, and contains much forcible reasoning in opposition to the exaggerations of the ordinary economists, the mathematical method is abandoned, and there is not an algebraical formula in the book. The author admits that the public has always shown a repugnance to the use of mathematical symbols in economic discussion, and, though he thinks they might be of service in facilitating exposition, fixing the ideas, and suggesting further developments, he acknowledges that a grave danger attends their use. The danger, according to him, consists in the probability that an undue value may be attached to the abstract hypotheses from which the investigator sets out, and which enable him to construct his formulæ. And his practical conclusion is that mathematical processes should be employed only with great precaution, or even not employed at all if the public judgment is against them, for “this judgment,” he says, “has its secret reasons, almost always more sure than those which determine the opinions of individuals.” It is an obvious consideration that the acceptance of unsound or one-sided abstract principles as the premises of argument does not depend on the use of mathematical forms, though it is possible that the employment of the latter may by association produce an illusion in favour of the certainty of those premises. But the great objection to the use of mathematics in economic reasoning is that it is necessarily sterile. If we examine the attempts which have been made to employ it, we shall find that the fundamental conceptions on which the deductions are made to rest are vague, indeed metaphysical, in their character. Units of animal or moral satisfaction, of utility, and the like, are as foreign to positive science as a unit of dormitive faculty would be; and a unit of value, unless we understand by value the quantity of one commodity exchangeable under given conditions for another, is an equally indefinite idea. Mathematics can indeed formulate ratios of exchange when they have once been observed; but it cannot by any process of its own determine those ratios, for quantitative conclusions imply quantitative premises, and these are wanting. There is then no future for this kind of study, and it is only waste of intellectual power to pursue it. But the importance of mathematics as an educational introduction to all the higher orders of research is not affected by this conclusion. The study of the physical medium, or environment, in which economic phenomena take place, and by which they are affected, requires mathematics as an instrument; and nothing can ever dispense with the didactic efficacy of that science, as supplying the primordial type of rational investigation, giving the lively sentiment of decisive proof, and disinclining the mind to illusory conceptions and sophistical combinations. And a knowledge of at least the fundamental principles of mathematics is necessary to economists to keep them right in their statements of doctrine, and prevent their enunciating propositions which have no definite meaning. Even distinguished writers sometimes betray a serious deficiency in this respect; thus they assert that one quantity “varies inversely as” another, when what is meant is that the sum (not the product) of the two is constant; and they treat as capable of numerical estimation the amount of an aggregate of elements which, differing in kind, cannot be reduced to a common standard. As an example of the latter error, it may be mentioned that “quantity of labour,” so often spoken of by Ricardo, and in fact made the basis of his system, includes such various species of exertion as will not admit of summation or comparison.

  Italy

  The first Italian translation of the Wealth of Nations appeared in 1780. The most distinguished Italian economist of the period here dealt with was, however, no disciple of Smith. This was Melchiorre Gioja, author, besides statistical and other writings, of a voluminous work entitled Nuovo Prospetto delle Scienze Economiche (6 vols., 1815–17; the work was never completed), intended to be an encyclopædia of all that had been taught by theorists, enacted by Governments, or effected by populations in the field of public and private economy It is a learned and able treatise, but so overladen with quotations and tables as to repel rather than attract readers. Gioja admired the practical economic system of England, and enlarges on the advantages of territorial properties, manufactures, and mercantile enterprises on the large as opposed to the small scale. He defends a restrictive policy, and insists on the necessity of the action of the state as a guiding, supervising, and regulating power in the industrial world. But he is in full sympathy with the sentiment of his age against ecclesiastical domination and other mediæval survivals. We can but very briefly notice Romagnosi (d. 1835), who, by his contributions to periodical literature, and by his personal teaching, greatly influenced the course of economic thought in Italy; Antonio Scialoja (Principii d'Economia Sociale, 1840; and Carestia e Governo, 1853), an able advocate of free trade (d. 1877); Luigi Cibrario, well known as the author of Economia Politica, del media evo (1839; 5th ed., 1861: French trans, by Barneaud, 1859), which is in fact a view of the whole social system of that period; Girolamo Boccardo (b. 1829; Trattato Teorico-pratico di Economia Politica, 1853); the brilliant controversialist Francesco Ferrara, professor at Turin from 1849 to 1858 (in whose school most of the present Italian teachers of the science were, directly or indirectly, educated), a partisan of the laisser faire doctrine in its most extreme form, and an advocate of the peculiar opinions of Carey and Bastiat on the subject of rent; and, lastly, the Neapolitan minister Ludovico Bianchini (Principii della Scienza del Ben Vivere Sociale, 1845 and 1855), who is remarkable as having followed in some degree an historical direction, and asserted the principle of relativity, and who also dwelt on the relations of economics with morals, by a due attention to which the Italian economists have, indeed, in general been honourably distinguished.

  Spain

  The Wealth of Nations was translated into Spanish by J. A. Ortiz in 1794. It may perhaps have influenced Caspar de Jovellanos, who in 1795 presented to the council of Castile and printed in the same year his celebrated Informe de la Sociedad Economica de Madrid en expediente de Ley Agraria, which was a powerful plea for reform, especially in taxation and the laws affecting agriculture, including those relating to the systems of entail and mortmain. An English version of this memoir is given in the translation (1809) of Laborde's Spain, vol. iv.

  Germany

  Roscher observes that Smith did not at first produce much impression in Germany.1 He does not appear to have been known to Frederick the Great; he certainly exercised no influence on him. Nor did Joseph II. take notice of his work. And of the minor German princes, Karl Friedrich of Baden, as a physiocrat, would not be accessible to his doctrines. It was otherwise in the generation whose principal activity belongs to the first decade of the igth century. The Prussian statesmen who were grouped round Stein had been formed as economists by Smith, as had also Gentz, intellectually the most important man of the Metternich régime in Austria.

  The first German expositors of Smith who did more than merely reproduce his opinions were Christian Jacob Kraus (1753–1807), Georg Sartorius (17.66–1828), and August Ferdinand Lüder (1760–1819). They contributed independent views from different standpoints,—the first from that of the effect of Smith's doctrine on practical government, the second from that of its bearing on history, the third from that of its relation to statistics. Somewhat later came Gottlieb Hufeland (1760–1817), Johann Friedrich Eusebius Lotz (1771–1838), and Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob (1759–1827), who, whilst essentially of the school of Smith, apply themselves to a revision of the fundamental conceptions of the science. These authors did not exert anything like the wide influence of Say, partly on account of the less attractive form of their writings, but chiefly because Germany had not then, like France, a European audience. Julius von Soden (1754–1831) is largely founded on Smith, whom, however, he criticises with undue severity, especially in regard to his form and arrangement; the Wealth of Nations he describes as a series of precious fragments, and censures Smith for the absence of a comprehensive view of his whole subject, and also as one-sidedly English in his tendencies.

  The highest form of the Smithian doctrine in Germany is represented by four distinguished names:—Karl Heinrich Rau (1792–1870), Friedrich Nebenius (1784–1857), Friedrich Benedict Wilhelm Hermann (1795–1868), and Johann Heinrich von Thünen (1783–1850).

  Rau's characteristic is “erudite thoroughness.” His Lehrbuch (1826–32) is an encyclopædia of all that up to his time had appeared in Germany under the several heads of Volkswirthschaftslehre, Volkswirthschaftspolitik, and Finanzwissenschaft. His book is rich in statistical observations, and is particularly instructive on the economic effects of different geographical conditions. It is well adapted for the teaching of public servants whose duties are connected with economics, and it was in fact the source from which the German official world down to the seventies of the igth century derived its knowledge of the science. In his earlier period Rau had insisted on the necessity of a reform of economic doctrine (Ansichten der Volkswirthschaft, 1821), and had tended towards relativity and the historical method; but he afterwards conceived the mistaken notion that that method “only looked into the past without studying the means of improving the present,” and became himself purely practical in the narrower sense of that word. He has the merit of having given a separate treatment of Unternehmergewinn, or “wages of management.” Nebenius, minister in Baden, who was largely instrumental in the foundation of the Zollverein, was author of a highly esteemed monograph on public credit (1820). The Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen (1832; 2d ed., 1870) of Hermann do not form a regular system, but treat a series of important special subjects. His rare technological knowledge gave him a great advantage in dealing with some economic questions. He reviewed the principal fundamental ideas of the science with great thoroughness and acuteness. “His strength,” says Roscher, “lies in his clear, sharp, exhaustive distinction between the several elements of a complex conception, or the several steps comprehended in a complex act.” For keen analytical power his German brethren compare him with Ricardo. But he avoids several one-sided views of the English economist. Thus he places public spirit beside egoism as an economic motor, regards price as not measured by labour only but as a product of several factors, and habitually contemplates the consumption of the labourer, not as a part of the cost of production to the capitalist, but as the main practical end of economics. Thünen is known principally by his remarkable work entitled Der Isolirte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirthschaft und National-ökonomie (1826; 3d ed., 1875). In this treatise, which is a classic in the political economy of agriculture, there is a rare union of exact observation with creative imagination. With a view to exhibit the natural development of agriculture, he imagines a state, isolated from the rest of the world, circular in form and of uniform fertility, without navigable rivers or canals, with a single large city at its centre, which supplies it with manufactures and receives in exchange for them its food-products, and proceeds to study the effect of distance from this central market on the agricultural economy of the several concentric spaces which compose the territory. The method, it will be seen, is highly abstract, but, though it may not be fruitful, it is quite legitimate. The author is under no illusion blinding him to the unreality of the hypothetic case. The supposition is necessary, in his view, in order to separate and consider apart one essential condition—that, namely, of situation with respect to the market. It was his intention (imperfectly realised, however) to institute afterwards several different hypotheses in relation to his isolated state, for the purpose of similarly studying other conditions which in real life are found in combination or conflict. The objection to this method lies in the difficulty of the return from the abstract study to the actual facts; and this is probably an insuperable one in regard to most of its applications. The investigation, however, leads to trustworthy conclusions as to the conditions of the succession of different systems of land economy. The book abounds in calculations relating to agricultural expenditure and income, which diminish its interest to the general reader, though they are considered valuable to the specialist. They embody the results of the practical experience of the author on his estate of Tellow in Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Thünen was strongly impressed with the danger of a violent conflict between the middle class and the proletariate, and studied earnestly the question of wages, which he was one of the first to regard habitually, not merely as the price of the commodity labour, but as the means of subsistence of the mass of the community. He arrived by mathematical reasonings of some complexity at a formula which expresses the amount of “natural wages” as = √ap, where a is the necessary expenditure of the labourer for subsistence, and p is the product of his labour. To this formula he attributed so much importance that he directed it to be engraved on his tomb. It implies that wages ought to rise with the amount of the product; and this conclusion led him to establish on his estate a system of participation by the labourers in the profits of farming, of which some account will be found in Mr. Sedley Taylor's Profit-sharing between Capital and Labour (1884). Thünen deserves more attention than he has received in England; both as a man and as a writer he was eminently interesting and original; and there is much in Der Isolirte Staat and his other works that is awakening and suggestive.

  Roscher recognizes what he calls a Germane-Russian (deutsch-russische) school of political economy, represented principally by Heinrich Storch (1766–1825). Mercantilist principles had been preached by a native (“autochthonen”) economist, Ivan Possoschkoff, in the time of Peter the Great. The new ideas of the Smithian system were introduced into Russian by Christian Von Schlözer (1774–1831) in his professorial lectures and in his Anfangsgr¨nde der Staatswirthschaft, oder die Lehre vom National-reichthume (1805–1807). Storch was instructor in economic science of the future emperor Nicholas and his brother the grand-duke Michael, and the substance of his lessons to them is contained in his Cours d'Économie Politique (1815). The translation of this treatise into Russian was prevented by the censorship; Rau published a German version of it, with annotations, in 1819. It is a work of a very high order of merit. The epithet “deutsch-russisch” seems little applicable to Storch; as Roscher himself says, he follows mainly English and French writers—Say, Sismondi, Turgot, Bentham, Steuart, and Hume, but, above all, Adam Smith. His personal position (and the same is true of Schlözer) led him to consider economic doctrines in connection with a stage of culture different from that of the Western populations amongst which they had been formulated; this change of the point of view opened the door to relativity, and helped to prepare the Historical method. Storch's study of the economic and moral effects of serfdom is regarded as especially valuable. The general subjects with which he has particularly connected his name are (i) the doctrine of immaterial commodities (or elements of national prosperity), such as health, talent, morality, and the like; (2) the question of “productive” and “unproductive,” as characters of labour and of consumption, on which he disagreed with Smith and may have furnished indications to Dunoyer; and (3) the differences between the revenue of nations and that of individuals, on which he follows Lauderdale and is opposed to Say. The latter economist having published at Paris (1823) a new edition of Storch's Cours, with criticisms sometimes offensive in tone, he published by way of reply to some of Say's strictures what is considered his ripest and scientifically most important work, Considérations sur la nature du Revenu National (1824; translated into German by the author himself, 1825).

  A distinct note of opposition to the Smithian economics was sounded in Germany by two writers, who, setting out from somewhat different points of view, animated by different sentiments, and favouring different practical systems, yet, so far as their criticisms are concerned, arrive at similar conclusions; we mean Adam Müller and Friedrich List.

  Adam Müller (1779–1829) was undoubtedly a man of real genius. In his principal work Èlemente der Staatskunst (1809), and his other writings, he represents a movement of economic thought which was in relation with the (so-called) Romantic literature of the period. The reaction against Smithianism of which he was the coryphæus was founded on an attachment to the principles and social system of the Middle Ages. It is possible that the political and historical ideas which inspire him, his repugnance to contemporary liberalism, and his notions of regular organic development, especially in relation to England, were in some degree imbibed from Edmund Burke, whose Reflections on the Revolution in France had been translated into German by Friedrich Gentz, the friend and teacher of Müller. The association of his criticisms with mediæval prepossessions ought not to prevent our recognizing the elements of truth which they contain.

  He protests against the doctrine of Smith and against modern political economy in general on the ground that it presents a mechanical, atomistic, and purely material conception of society, that it reduces to nullity all moral forces and ignores the necessity of a moral order, that it is at bottom no more than a theory of private property and private interests, and takes no account of the life of the people as a whole in its national solidarity and historical continuity. Exclusive attention, he complains, is devoted to the immediate production of objects possessing exchange value and to the transitory existence of individuals; whilst to the maintenance of the collective production for future generations, to intellectual products, powers, possessions and enjoyments, and to the State with its higher tasks and aims, scarcely a thought is given. The truth is that nations are specialised organisms with distinct principles of life, having definite individualities which determine the course of their historical development. Each is through all time, one whole; and, as the present is the heir of the past, it ought to keep before it constantly the permanent good of the community in the future. The economic existence of a people is only one side or province of its entire activity, requiring to be kept in harmony with the higher ends of society; and the proper organ to effect this reconciliation is the State, which, instead of being merely an apparatus for the administration of justice, represents the totality of the national life. The division of labour, Müller holds, is imperfectly developed by Smith, who makes it to arise out of a native bent for truck or barter; whilst its dependence on capital—on the labours and accumulations of past generations—is not duly emphasised, nor is the necessary counterpoise and completion of the division of labour, in the principle of the national combination of labour, properly brought out. Smith recognizes only material, not spiritual, capital; yet the latter, represented in every nation by language, as the former by money, is a real national store of experience, wisdom, good sense, and moral feeling, transmitted with increase by each generation to its successor, and enables each generation to produce immensely more than by its own unaided powers it could possibly do. Again, the system of Smith is one-sidedly British; if it is innocuous on the soil of England, it is because in her society the old foundations on which the spiritual and material life of the people can securely rest are preserved in the surviving spirit of feudalism and the inner connection of the whole social system—the national capital of laws, manners, reputation, and credit, which has been handed down in its integrity in consequence of the insular position of the country. For the continent of Europe a quite different system is necessary, in which, in place of the sum of the private wealth of individuals being viewed as the primary object, the real wealth of the nation and the production of national power shall be made to predominate, and along with the division of labour its national union and concentration—along with the physical, no less the intellectual and moral, capital shall be embraced. In these leading traits of Müller's thought there is much which foreshadows the more recent forms of German economic and sociological speculation, especially those characteristic of the “Historical” school.

  Another element of opposition was represented by Fried-rich List (1789–1846), a man of great intellectual vigour as well as practical energy, and notable as having powerfully contributed by his writings to the formation of the German Zollverein. His principal work is entitled Das Nationals System der Politischen Oekonomie (1841; 7th ed., 1883: Eng. trans., 1885). Though his practical conclusions were different from Müller's, he was largely influenced by the general mode of thinking of that writer, and by his strictures on the doctrine of Smith. It was particularly against the cosmopolitan principle in the modern economic system that he protested, and against the absolute doctrine of free trade, Which was in harmony with that principle. He gave prom i-nence to the National idea, and insisted on the special requirements of each nation according to its circumstances and especially to the degree of its development.

  He refuses to Smith's system the title of the industrial, which he thinks more appropriate to the mercantile system, and designates the former as “the exchange-value system.” He denies the parallelism asserted by Smith between the economic conduct proper to an individual and to a nation, and holds that the immediate private interest of the separate members of the community will not lead to the highest good of the whole. The nation is an existence, standing between the individual and Humanity, and formed into a unity by its language, manners, historical development, culture, and constitution. This unity is the first condition of the security, wellbeing, progress, and civilization of the individual; and private economic interests, like all others, must be subordinated to the maintenance, completion, and strengthening of the nationality. The nation having a continuous life, its true wealth consists—and this is List's fundamental doctrine—not in the quantity of exchange-values which it possesses, but in the full and manysided development of its productive powers. Its economic education, if we may so speak, is more important than the immediate production of values, and it may be right that the present generation should sacrifice its gain and enjoyment to secure the strength and skill of the future. In the sound and normal condition of a nation which has attained economic maturity, the three productive powers of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce should be alike developed. But the two latter factors are superior in importance, as exercising a more effective and fruitful influence on the whole culture of the nation, as well as on its independence. Navigation, railways, all higher technical arts, connect themselves specially with these factors; whilst in a purely agricultural state there is a tendency to stagnation, absence of enterprise, and the maintenance of antiquated prejudices. But for the growth of the higher forms of industry all countries are not adapted—only those of the temperate zones, whilst the torrid regions have a natural monopoly in the production of certain raw materials; and thus between these two groups of countries a division of labour and confederation of powers spontaneously takes place. List then goes on to explain his theory of the stages of economic development through which the nations of the temperate zone, which are furnished with all the necessary conditions, naturally pass, in advancing to their normal economic state. These are (i) pastoral life, (2) agriculture, (3) agriculture united with manufactures; whilst in the final stage agriculture, manufactures, and commerce are combined. The economic task of the state is to bring into existence by legislative and administrative action the conditions required for the progress of the nation through these stages. Out of this view arises List's scheme of industrial politics. Every nation, according to him, should begin with free trade, stimulating and improving its agriculture, by intercourse with richer and more cultivated nations, importing foreign manufactures and exporting raw products. When it is economically so far advanced that it can manufacture for itself, then a system of protection should be employed to allow the home industries to develop themselves fully, and save them from being overpowered in their earlier efforts by the competition of more matured foreign industries in the home market. When the national industries have grown strong enough no longer to dread this competition, then the highest stage of progress has been reached; free trade should again become the rule, and the nation be thus thoro ighly incorporated with the universal industrial union. In List's time, according to his view, Spain, Portugal, and Naples were purely agricultural countries; Germany and the United States of North America had arrived at the second stage, their manufactures being in process of development. France was near the boundary of the third or highest stage, which England alone had reached. For England, therefore, as well as for the agricultural countries first-named, free trade was the right economic policy, but not for Germany or America. What a nation loses for a time in exchange-values during the protective period she much more than gains in the long run in productive power,—the temporary expenditure being strictly analogous, when we place ourselves at the point of view of the life of the nation, to the cost of the industrial education of the individual. The practical conclusion which List drew for his own country was that she needed for her economic progress an extended and conveniently bounded territory reaching to the sea-coast both on north and south, and a vigorous expansion of manufactures and commerce, and that the way to the latter lay through judicious protective legislation with a customs union comprising all German lands, and a German marine with a Navigation Act. The national German spirit, striving after independence and power through union, and the national industry, awaking from its lethargy and eager to recover lost ground, were favourable to the success of List's book, and it produced a great sensation. He ably represented the tendencies and demands of his time in his own country; his work had the effect of fixing the attention, not merely of the speculative and official classes, but of practical men generally, on questions of Political Economy; and he had without doubt an important influence on German industrial policy. So far as science is concerned, the emphasis he laid on the relative historical study of stages of civilization as affecting economic questions, and his protest against absolute formulas, had a certain value; and the preponderance given to the national development over the immediate gains of individuals was sound in principle; though his doctrine was, both on its public and private sides, too much of a mere chrematistic, and tended in fact to set up a new form of mercantilism, rather than to aid the contemporary effort towards social reform.

  Most of the writers at home or abroad hitherto mentioned continued the traditions of the school of Smith, only developing his doctrine in particular directions, sometimes not without one-sidedness or exaggeration, or correcting minor errors into which he had fallen, or seeking to give to the exposition of his principles more of order and lucidity. Some assailed the abuse of abstraction by Smith's successors, objected to the conclusions of Ricardo and his followers their non-accordance with the actual facts of human life, or protested against the anti-social consequences which seemed to result from the application of the (so-called) orthodox formulas. A few challenged Smith's fundamental ideas, and insisted on the necessity of altering the basis of general philosophy on which his economics ultimately rest. But, notwithstanding various premonitory indications, nothing substantial, at least nothing effective, was done, within the field we have as yet surveyed, towards the establishment of a really new order of thinking, or new mode of proceeding, in this branch of inquiry. Now, however, we have to describe a great and growing movement, which has already considerably changed the whole character of the study in the conceptions of many, and which promises to exercise a still more potent influence in the future. We mean the rise of the Historical School, which we regard as marking the third epoch in the modern development of economic science.

  [1]An English translation of the Dixme Royale was published in 1708.

  [1]“Richard Cantillon and the Nationality of Political Economy,” in Contemporary Review, Jan. 1881. Cantillon is quoted in the Wealth of Nations, bk. i. chap. 8.

  [2]Gournay strongly recommended to his friends Cantillon's book as “ouvrage excellent qu'on négligeait.” Mémoires de Morellet, i. 38.

  [1]See Cliffe Leslie's Essays in Political end Moral Philosophy, p. 151.

  [1]Prof. Ricca-Salemo (Le Dottrine Finanziarie in Inghilterra) has called attention to the fact that the proposal of a single tax on land, grounded on theoretic principles identical with those of the Physiocrats, was put forward, and supported with much clearness and force, so early as 1734, by Jacob Vanderlint. an Englishman, in his tract entitled Money answers all things

  [1]A complete edition of the Œuvres économiques et philosophiques of Quesnay was published by Oncken in 1888.

  [1]Wealth of Nations, bk. iv, chap. 9.

  [2]Ibid. bk. i, chap. 11.

  [3]Gournay's inspiration was, without doubt, largely English. “II avait lu,” says Morellet, “de bons livres Anglais d'Economie politique, tells que Petty, Davenant, Gee, Child, &c.”—Mémoires, i. 38.

  [1]Other less prominent members of the group were Letrosni and the Abbe Baudeau.

  [1]On Galiani's Dialogues, see page 72. Soon after the appearance of this book Turgot wrote to Mile, de Lespinasse—“ Je crois possible de lui faire une très bonne réponse; mais cela demande bien de l'art. Les économistes sont trop confiants pour combattre contre un si adroit fer-railleur. Pour l'abbè Morellet, il ne faut pas qu'il y pense.” Morellet's work was prohibited by the Controller-General Terray; though printed in 1770, some months after Galiani's, it was not published till 1774. Adam Smith speaks of Morellet as “an eminent French author, of great knowledge in matters of political economy” (Bk. v, chap, i).

  [1]Hume, in a letter to Morellet, 1769, calls them “the set of men the most chimerical and arrogant that now exist.” He seems intentionally to ignore Morellet's close connection with them.

  [2]Turgot said, “Quiconque n'oublie pas qu'il y a des états politiques séparés les uns des autres et constitués diversement, ne traitera jamais bien aucune question d'Économie politique.” Letter to Mlle, de Lespinasse, 1770.

  [1]So also Grimm: “C'est Platon avec la verve et les gestes d'Arlequin.” Diderot called the book “modèle de dialogues qui restera a cote des lettres de Pascal.”

  [1]J. S. Mill, in his Principles, bk. i. chap, i, takes credit to his father for having first illustrated and made prominent in relation to production what he strangely calls “a fundamental principle of Political Economy,” namely, that “all that man does or can do with matter” is to “move one thing to or from another.” But this is clearly put forward by Verri in his Meditazioni, sect. 3: “Accostare e separare sono gli unici element! che l'ingegno umano ritrova analizzando l'idea della riproduzione.”

  [1]History of America, note 193.

  [1]Philosophie Positive, vol. v, p. 759.

  [1]Roscher, Geschichte der N.O. in Deutschland, p. 498.

  [1]An earlier work of P. de la Court, the Interest van Holland ofte Gronden van Hollands-Welvaren (1662), was much read in the seventeenth century There are one English and three German translations oi this book.

  [1]Bk. v, chap i, art. 3.

  [1]Smith says, in a letter to Pulteney (1772)—“I have the same opinion of Sir James Steuart's book that you have. Without once mentioning it, I flatter myself that any false principle in it will meet with a clear and distinct confutation in mine.”

  [1]“When I recollect what the President Montesquieu has written, I am at a loss to tell why I should treat of human affairs; but I too am instigated by my reflections and my sentiments; and I may utter them more to the comprehension of ordinary capacities, because I am more on the level of ordinary men.… The reader should be referred to what has been already delivered on the subject by this profound politician and amiable moralist” (Part I, sect. 10). Hume speaks of Montesquieu as an “illustrious writer,” who “has established… a system of political knowledge, which abounds in ingenious and brilliant thoughts and is not wanting in solidity” (Principles of Morals, sect. 3, and note).

  [1]The following paragraph appeared in the Moniteur Universel of March 11, 1790:—“On prétend que le cèlébre M. Smith, connu si avantageusement par son traité des causes de la richesse des nations, prépare et va mettre à l'impression un examen critique de l'Esprit des Lois; c'est le résultat de plusieurs années de méditation. et l'on sait assez ce qu'on a droit d'attendre d'une tête comme celle de M. Smith. Ce livre fera époque dans l'histoire de la politique et de la philosophic, tel est du moins le jugement qu'en portent des gens instruits qui en connaissent des fragments dont ils ne parlent qu'avec un enthousiasme du plus heureux augure.”

  [1]Smith takes no account in this place of the evils which may arise from a highly developed division of labour. But see Bk. v, chap. i.

  [2]This sentence, which on close examination will be found to have no definite intelligible sense, affords a good example of the way in which metaphysical modes of thought obscure economic ideas. What is a“quantity of labour,” the kind of labour being undetermined? And what is meant by the phrase “of equal value”?

  [1]Smith's expressions on this point are lax, as will be seen when we come to examine the (so-called) Ricardian Theory of Rent.

  [1]See p. 110, on Bentham.

  [1]It must, however, always be borne in mind that the adoption by a state of this sort of protection is liable to three practical dangers:—(1) of encouragement being procured through political influences for industries which could never have an independent healthy life in the country; (2) of such encouragement being continued beyond the term during which it might be usefully given; (3) of a retaliatory spirit of exclusion being provoked in other communities.

  [2]Professor Bastable calls the author's attention to the interesting fact that the proposal of an export duty on wool and the justification of a temporary monopoly to joint-stock companies both appear for the first time in the third edition (1784).

  [1]In the Introductory Essay to his edition of the Wealth of Nations.

  [1]“The public will probably soon be furnished with a theory of national economy, equal to what has ever appeared on any subject of science whatever” (Part III, sect. 4).

  [2]Five editions of the Wealth of Nations appeared during the life of the author:—the first in 1776, the second in 1779, the third in 1784, the fourth in 1786, and the fifth in 1789. After the third edition Smith made no change in the text. The principal editions containing matter added by other economists are those by William Playfair, with notes, 1805; by David Buchanan, with notes, 1814; by J. R. M'Culloch, with life of the author, introductory discourse, notes, and supplemental dissertations, 1828 (also, with numerous additions, 1839; since reprinted several times with further additions); by the author of England and America (Edward Gibbon Wakefield), with a commentary, which, however, is not continued beyond the second book, 1835–9; by James E. Thorold Rogers, Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, with biographical preface and a careful verification of all Smith's quotations and references, 1869 (2d ed., 1880); and by J. S. Nicholson, professor at Edinburgh, with an Introductory Essay, and notes referring to sources of further information on the various topics handled in the text, 1884. There is a careful Abridgment by W. P. Emerton (2d ed., 1881), founded on the earlier Analysis of Jeremiah Joyce (3d ed., 1821).

  [3]Parl. Hist., vol. xxxiii, p. 778.

  [1]It must be remembered, however, that the same doctrine had been supported with no less ability as early as 1769 by Turgot in his Mémoire sur les préts d'argent.

  [2]Lettres d'A. Comte à J. S. Mill, p. 4.

  [1]In his discourse at the Sorbonne (1750), Sur les progrés successifs de I'esprit humain.

  [1]Their dates are 1806, 1807, 1816, 1817, 1826.

  [1]On this subject see the speculations of Herbert Spencer in his Principle of Biology, Part VI, chaps, xii, xiii.

  [2]Malthus himself said:—“It is probable that, having found the bow bent too much one way, I was induced to bend it too much the other in order to make it straight.”

  [1]The Essay on Population and the Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent (1815), to be hereafter mentioned, are by far the most important contributions of Malthus to the science. He was also author of Principles of Political Economy (1820), Definitions in Political Economy (1827), and other minor pieces. On these less important writings of Malthus, and on his personal history, see Malthus and his Work (1885), by James Bonar, who has also edited (1888) the Letters of Ricardo to Malthus.

  [1]“Political economy, you think, is an inquiry into the nature and causes of wealth; I think it should rather be called an inquiry into the laws that determine the division of the produce of industry amongst the classes who concur in its formation.”—Letters of Ricardo to Malthus, ed. by J. Bonar (1889).

  [1]Anderson's account of the origin of rent is reprinted in the Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Economical Tracts, edited lor Lord Overstone by J. R. M'Culloch, 1859.

  [1]Senior, however, has pointed out that Smith is partly right; whilst it is true that rent is demanded because the productive powers of nature are limited, and increased population requires a less remunerative expenditure in order to obtain the necessary supply; on the other hand, it is the power which most land possesses of producing the subsistence of more persons than are required for its cultivation that supplies the fund out of which rent can be paid.

  [1]“As the colony increases, the profits of stock gradually diminish. When the most fertile and best situated lands have been all occupied, less profit can be made by the cultivation of what is inferior both in soil and situation, and less interest can be afforded for the stock which is so employed.” The view in question had been anticipated by West.

  [1]Adam Smith says:—“It appears evidently from experience that man is of all sorts of luggage, the most difficult to be transported” (Wealth of Nations. Bk. I, chap. viii).

  [2]Tenant's Gain not Landlord's Lost 1883), p. 83.

  [1]Zwei Bücher zur Socialen Geschichte Englands, p. 194.

  [1]A sketch of Ricardo's personal history, and an account of his writings on monetary questions, which could not conveniently be introduced here, will be found under his name in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edition.

  [1]Thus, is Wealth of Nations, Bk. I, chap, viii, we have the phrases—“the funds which are destined to the payment of wages,” “the funds destined for employing industry” “the funds destined for the maintenance of servants”

  [1]See the last of his Four Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, 1852.

  [2]Mill, however, tells us in his Preface to those Essays that bis own views on that subject had been entertained and committed to writing before the publication by Torrens of similar opinions.

  [1]Samuel Crumpe, M.D., had published at Dublin in 1793 an Essay on the Best Means of Providing Employment for the People, which obtained a prize offered by the Royal Irish Academy for the best dissertation on that subject. This is a meritorious work, and contains a good statement of some of the leading principles of Adam Smith. John Hely Hutchinson's Commercial Restraints of Ireland (1779) is important for the economic history of that country.

  [1]Afterwards Lord Ashburton. For this Petition, see M'Culloch'a Literature of Political Economy, p. 57, or Senior's Lectures on the Transmission of the Precious Metals, &c., 2d ed., p. 78.

  [1]Curiously, in an otherwise well-executed abridgment of Mill's work published in the United States (1886) by J. Laurence Laughlin, as a textbook for colleges, all that “should properly be classed under the head of Sociology” has been omitted, Mill's own conception being thus set aside, and his book made to conform to the common type.

  [1]Mr. John Morley (“Mill on Religion,” in Critical Miscellanies, 2d ser., 1877) betrays something like consternation at finding in Mill's posthumous writings statements of opinion distinctly at variance with philosophic doctrines he had energetically maintained during his whole life.

  [1]See also his Chapters on Socialism, in Fortnightly Review, 1879.

  [1]Economists are fond of comparing the rate of profit or wages in one nation (using this word in its economic sense) to a single fluid surface which is continually disturbed by transient influences and continually tending to recover its level. We must compare these rates in different nations to reservoirs which, not communicating with each other, stand always at different, though variable, levels. And the latter comparison will apply also to the rates (at least of wages) in different economic “groups,” or strata, within the same community.

  [1]See p. 139.

  [2]Jevons strangely says, in the Preface to his Theory of Political Economy, 2d ed., that the wages fund doctrine “has been abandoned by most English economists owing to the attacks,” amongst others, “of Cairnes.” Cairnes was, in truth, a supporter of the doctrine.

  [1]In his Essay on the Principle of Commercial Exchanges.

  [2]On this whole subject see Professor C. F. Bastable's Theory of International Trade, 1887.

  [1]The first French translation of the Wealth of Nations, by Blavet, appeared in the Journal de I'Agriculture, du Commerce, des Finances, et des Arts, 1779–80; new editions of it were published in 1781, 1788, and 1800; it was also printed at Amsterdam in 1784. Smith himself recommended it in his third edition of the original as excellent. In 1790 appeared the translation by Roucher, to which Condorcet had intended to add notes, and in 1802 that by Count Germain Gamier, executed during his exile in England which is now considered the standard version, and has been reproduced, with notes by Say, Sismondi, Blanqui, &c., in the Collection des Principaux Économistes.

  [1]He grossly exaggerated Smith's faults of method. Thus he says— “L'ouvrage de Smith n'est qu'un assemblage confus des principes les plus sains de l'Economic politique… son livre est un vaste chaos d'idées Justus” (Discours préliminaire).

  [1]The French economists are continued on page 175.

  [1]Hamilton's Works, edited by H. C. Lodge, vol. iii. p. 294.

  [1]It is, however, a mistake to suppose that the assumption of this historical order of descent is essential to the theory in question.

  [2]This argument seems scarcely met by Professor F. A. Walker, Political Economy, 50–52. But perhaps he is right in thinking that Carey exaggerates the importance of the considerations on which it is founded. Mill and Leslie remark that the transportation of agricultural products from the western to the Atlantic States has the same effect as their export to Europe, so far as this so-called “land-butchery” is concerned; besides some manures are obtainable from abroad.

  [1]Other writings of Carey's besides his Social Science are his Essay on the Rate of Wages (1835); Principles of Political Economy (1838–1840); Past, Present, and Future (1848) Unity of Law (1872).

  [1]Charles Comte (1782–1837) was son-in-law of J. B. Say. He was associated with Dunoyer in his political writings and, like him, distinguished for his honourable independence. He was author of the Traité de Legislation, a meritorious and useful, but not a profound work.

  [1]M. Leroy-Beaulieu maintains (Essai sur la Repartition des Richesses, 2d ed., 1882) that this, though not strictly, is approximately true—that economic forms a very small part of actual rent.

  [2]Essays in Political Economy, p. 334.

  [1]Hermann Heinrich Gossen's work, Entwickelung der Geseize des menschlichen Verkehrs, so highly praised by Jevons, Theory of Pol. Econ., 2d ed., Pref., was published in 1854.

  [1]The first German version of the Wealth of Nations was that by Johann Friedrich Schiller, published 1776–78. The second, which is the first good one, was by Christian Carve (1794, and again 1799 and 1810). A later one by C. W. Asher (1861) is highly commended.

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  9: McCulloch’s Sketch of the Life of Adam Smith

  John Ramsay McCulloch, Treatises and Essays on Subjects connected with Economic Policy with Biographical Sketches of Quesnay, Adam Smith & Ricardo (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1853). Chapter: SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADAM SMITH, LL.D.

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/2209/207816 on 2009-10-16

  The text is in the public domain.

  ---

  SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADAM SMITH, LL.D.

  Adam Smith, author of the “Wealth of Nations,” was born at Kirkcaldy, on the 5th of June 1723. His father, who held the situation of comptroller of customs in that town, died a few months before his birth; so that the charge of his early education devolved wholly on his mother, the daughter of Mr Douglas of Strathenry, in the county of Fife.

  His constitution during infancy is said to have been extremely infirm and delicate, and required all the anxious attention of his mother, who treated him with the greatest indulgence. This, however, had no unfavourable influence over his temper or dispositions; and he repaid the fond solicitude of his parent by every attention that filial gratitude and affection could dictate, during the long period of sixty years.

  When only three years of age, he was stolen by a party of gypsies from Strathenry, to which place he had been carried by his mother. Fortunately, however, the future reformer of the commercial policy of nations was speedily restored to his parent and to society.

  He received the first rudiments of his education in the grammar school of Kirkcaldy. The weakness of his constitution prevented him from indulging in the amusements common to boys of his age. But Dugald Stewart states,1 that he was even then distinguished by his passion for books, and by the extraordinary powers of his memory; that he was much beloved by his schoolfellows, many of whom subsequently attained to great eminence; and that he was thus early remarkable for those habits which remained with him through life, of speaking to himself when alone, and of absence in company.

  He continued at Kirkcaldy until 1737, when he was sent to the University of Glasgow, where he remained for three years. He then entered Baliol College, Oxford, as an exhibitioner on Snell’s foundation; and continued for seven years to prosecute his studies at that celebrated seminary.

  Stewart mentions, on the authority of Dr Maclaine of the Hague, that mathematics and natural philosophy formed young Smith’s favourite pursuits while at Glasgow. But, subsequently to his removal to Oxford, he seems to have entirely abandoned them, and to have principally devoted the time not consumed in the routine duty of the University to the study of the belles lettres, and of those moral and political sciences of which he was destined afterwards to become so great a master.2

  Smith does not seem to have felt any very peculiar respect for his English alma mater. The just though severe remarks in the “Wealth of Nations” on the system of education followed in Oxford and Cambridge, had evidently been suggested by his own observation. He shows that it is reasonable to expect that the plan of appointing professors with handsome salaries, who are not permitted to receive fees from their pupils, should, in all ordinary cases, induce them either wholly to neglect the important duties of their office, or to discharge them in the most slovenly manner; and he refers to the example of Oxford, to prove the accuracy of this conclusion; “the greater part of the public professors of that seminary having, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.”

  While at Oxford, Smith frequently employed himself in translating, particularly from the French, in the view of improving his style; and he used often to express a favourable opinion of such exercises. But this was a species of employment he might have prosecuted with nearly equal advantage at any other place. No doubt, however, he must have reaped considerable advantage from his residence at Oxford, by its contributing to improve and perfect his acquaintance with the niceties and delicacies of the English language, as well as by rendering him a greater proficient in classical learning, of which his knowledge was both extensive and accurate; but it is not, perhaps, very easy to discover what other obligations he could owe to it. What advantage could he derive in prosecuting his inquiries respecting the history of society, and into “those principles which ought to run through and be the foundation of the laws of all nations,” from living among those who were satisfied with what had been known on these subjects two thousand years ago? and who compelled the noble and aspiring youth of the country, committed to their charge, to draw the principal part of their information with respect to politics and philosophy from the politics and the logic of Aristotle?1

  Something had occurred, while Smith was at Oxford, to excite the suspicions of his superiors with respect to the nature of his private pursuits; and the heads of his college, having entered his apartment without his being aware, unluckily found him engaged reading Hume’s “Treatise of Human Nature.” The objectionable work was, of course, seized; the young philosopher being at the same time severely reprimanded.1

  He continued, subsequently to his return from Oxford in 1747, to reside for nearly two years at Kirkcaldy, with his mother. He had been sent to Oxford that he might qualify himself for entering the Church of England. The ecclesiastical profession was not, however, agreeable to his taste; and, in opposition to the advice of his friends, he returned to Scotland, resolved to devote himself exclusively to literary pursuits.

  In the latter part of the year 1748, Smith fixed his residence in Edinburgh, where he was prevailed upon, by the encouragement and persuasion of Lord Kames, and some of his other friends, to deliver, during that and the two following years, a course of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres. The lectures were well attended by an auditory composed chiefly of students of law and theology. He had the honour to reckon among his pupils Mr Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough; Mr William Johnston, afterwards Sir William Pulteney; Dr Blair, etc.; with all of whom he subsequently continued on the most intimate terms. It was at this period also that he laid the foundation of that friendship with Mr David Hume, which lasted, without the slightest interruption, till the death of the latter.

  No part of these lectures was ever published; but it would appear from the statement of Dr Blair, who commenced his course of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres in 1758, ten years after Smith’s first course, that they had been reduced into a systematic shape. In a note to his eighteenth lecture, Blair mentions that he had borrowed several of the ideas respecting the general characters of style, particularly the plain and simple, and the characters of those English authors who are classed under them, from a manuscript treatise of Smith on Rhetoric, of which the author had shown him a part.

  His increasing celebrity procured for Smith, in 1751, the honour of being elected Professor of Logic in the University of Glasgow; and in the following year he was elevated to the chair of Moral Philosophy in the same University, vacant by the death of Mr Craigie, the immediate successor of the celebrated Dr Hutcheson, under whom Smith had formerly studied. He continued to hold this situation for thirteen years; and, as the studies and inquiries in which his academical duties daily engaged him, were those most agreeable to his taste, it is not surprising that he should have considered his residence at Glasgow as the happiest portion of his life. At the same time, it seems reasonable to conclude that his professional pursuits must have had a great effect in maturing his speculations in morals and politics, and, consequently, in determining him to undertake the great works which have immortalised his name.

  Mr Millar, author of the “Historical View of the English Government,” and Professor of Law in the University of Glasgow, had the advantage of hearing Smith’s course of lectures on Moral Philosophy, of which he has given the following account:—

  “His course of lectures 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 his 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 Dr 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.”

  Smith made his debût as an author by contributing, anonymously, two articles to the “Edinburgh Review,” commenced in 1755, of which only two numbers were published. The first of these articles is a review of Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, and the second a letter to the editor, containing some observations on the literature of the different European countries. The latter is worth notice as evincing the attention paid by the author to Continental literature, at a period when it was comparatively neglected in this country.

  In 1759 Dr Smith published his “Theory of Moral Sentiments.” He had been engaged for a very considerable period in the composition of this work, which is throughout elaborated with the greatest care. The fundamental principle maintained by the author is, that sympathy forms the real foundation of morals; that we do not immediately approve or disapprove of any given action, when we have become acquainted with the intention of the agent and the consequences of what he has done, but that we previously enter, by means of that sympathetic affection which is natural to us, into the feelings of the agent and those to whom the action relates; that, having considered all the motives and passions by which the agent was actuated, we pronounce, with respect to the propriety or impropriety of the action, according as we sympathise or not with him; while we pronounce, with respect to the merit or demerit of the action, according as we sympathise with the gratitude or resentment of those who were its objects, and that we necessarily judge of our own conduct by comparing it with such maxims and rules as we have deduced from observations previously made on the conduct of others.

  “Whatever judgment,” says Smith, “we form with respect to our own motives and actions must always bear 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 judgment of others. We endeavour to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial spectator would examine it. If, upon placing ourselves in his situation, we thoroughly enter into all the passions and motives which influenced it, we approve of it by sympathy with the approbation of this supposed equitable judge. If otherwise, we enter into his disapprobation and condemn it.”1

  Several, and, as it is now generally admitted, some unanswerable, objections have been urged against this most ingenious theory. But whatever difference of opinion may exist with respect to the truth of the principle it involves, the “Theory of Moral Sentiments” has been universally allowed to abound in the most admirable disquisitions, in a faithful and skilful delineation of character, and in the soundest and most elevated maxims for the practical regulation of human life. The style various, but always eloquent, is worthy of the subject; and while it serves, by the beauty and richness of its colouring, to relieve the dryness of some of the more abstract discussions, it gives additional force to the powerful recommendations of generous, upright, and disinterested conduct to be found in every part of the work.

  Dr Brown, who has criticised this theory with his usual acuteness, and has shown that though sympathy may diffuse moral sentiments it cannot originate them, bears, notwithstanding, the strongest testimony to the transcendant merits of Smith’s work. “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” he observes, “is, without all question, one of the most interesting works, perhaps I should have said the most interesting work, in moral science. It is valuable, however, as I before remarked, not for the leading doctrine, of which we have seen the fallacy, but for the minor theories which are adduced in illustration of it; for the refined analysis which it exhibits in many of its details; and for an eloquence which, adapting itself to all the temporary varieties of its subject, familiar, with a sort of majestic grace, and simple even in its magnificence, can play amid the little decencies and proprieties of common life, or rise to all the dignity of that sublime and celestial virtue, which it seems to bring from heaven indeed, but to bring down gently and humbly, to the humble bosom of man.”1

  Having published the substance of so important a part of his lectures, Smith was enabled to make considerable retrenchments from the ethical part of his course, and to give a proportional extension to the disquisitions on Jurisprudence and Political Economy. He had long been in the habit of embodying the results of his studies and investigations with respect to both these departments of political science, and particularly the latter, in his lectures. And it appears, from a statement which he drew up in 1755, to vindicate his claims to certain political and literary opinions, that he had been in the habit of teaching, from the time he obtained a chair in the University of Glasgow, and even when at Edinburgh, the same enlarged and liberal doctrines with respect to the freedom of industry, and the injurious influence of restraints and regulations, which he afterwards so fully established in the “Wealth of Nations.” His residence in a large commercial city, like Glasgow, gave him considerable advantage in the prosecution of his favourite studies, by affording means of easily obtaining that correct practical information on many points, which cannot be learned from books, and by enabling him to compare his theoretical doctrines with the experimental conclusions of his mercantile friends. Notwithstanding the disinclination, so common among men of business, to listen to speculative opinions, and the opposition of his leading principles to the old maxims of trade, he was able, before he quitted his situation in the University, to rank some very eminent merchants among his proselytes.

  The publication of the “Theory of Moral Sentiments” brought a vast accession of reputation to Smith; and placed him, in the estimation of all who were qualified to form an opinion on such a subject, in the first rank of moralists, and of able and eloquent writers.

  In 1762 the Senatus Academicus of the University of Glasgow unanimously conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws; in testimony, as it is expressed in the minutes of the meeting, of their respect for his universally acknowledged talents, and of the advantage that had resulted to the University from the ability with which he had for many years expounded the principles of jurisprudence. But the most important effect of his increasing celebrity, in so far at least as respected himself, was his receiving in 1763 an invitation from Mr Charles Townsend, who had married the Duchess of Buccleuch, to attend her Grace’s son, the young Duke, on his travels; and the advantageous terms that were offered, combined with the strong desire he entertained of visiting the Continent, induced him to accept the offer, and to resign his chair at Glasgow. “With the connection which he was led to form in consequence of this change in his situation,” says Stewart, “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.”

  Dr Smith set out for France in company with his noble pupil in March 1764. They remained only a few days at Paris on their first visit to that capital, but proceeded to Toulouse, where they resided for about eighteen months. The society of Toulouse, a considerable city, and at that time the seat of a parliament, must have been a good deal superior to that of most country towns; and Smith no doubt availed himself of it, and of the leisure he then enjoyed, to perfect and extend his knowledge of the literature, internal policy, and state of France. He has told us that he was not disposed to place much confidence in the facts and reasonings of political arithmeticians; and it is evident, from his rarely stating facts on the authority of others, and from the references he occasionally makes to circumstances connected with Toulouse, Geneva, and other places he visited, that he was chiefly indebted to his own observation and inquiries for the accurate and extensive information which he is universally acknowledged to have possessed with respect to the institutions, habits, and condition of the French people.

  After leaving Toulouse, Smith and his noble pupil proceeded to Geneva, where they resided two months. They returned to Paris at Christmas, 1765, and remained in that city for nearly twelve months. During the whole of this period, Smith lived on the most friendly footing with the best society in Par