SMITH

SMITH, ADAM, author of the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations, and the most distinguished political economist of modern times, 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 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.

He received the 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, 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 Balliol College, Oxford, as an exhibitor on Snell's foundation; and continued for seven years to prosecute his studies at that celebrated seminary.

Mathematics and natural philosophy formed his favourite pursuits while at Glasgow. But, subsequently to his removal to Oxford, he seems 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 to become so great a master.

Smith does not seem to have felt any very peculiar respect for his English alma mater. The severe remarks in the Wealth of Nations on the system of education followed in Oxford and Cambridge were suggested by his own observations. 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, make them either wholly neglect the important duties of their office, or discharge them in a 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 this sort of exercise. But he might have practised it with nearly equal advantage anywhere else. 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 of the English language, and 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?

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 reprimanded.

He continued, subsequently to his return from Oxford in 1747, 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 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 Lord Kames, and some of his other friends, to deliver, during that and the two following sessions, courses of lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres. These were well attended by an audience composed chiefly of students of law and theology. Among his pupils were Mr Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough; Mr William Johnstone, afterwards Sir William Pultney Johnstone, Bart.;² Dr Blair, &c.; 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 David Hume which lasted, without the slightest interruption, till the death of the latter.

No part of these lectures has been published; but it would appear from the statement of Blair, who commenced his 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 by whom they have been most successfully cultivated, from a manuscript treatise of Smith on rhetoric, of which the author had shown him a part.

It may be worthy of notice that Smith's was the first course of lectures on polite literature given in Scotland. It was followed by lectures on the same subject by Dr Watson, author of the History of Philip II. And a taste for such prelections being introduced, a chair of rhetoric was established by the crown in the University of Edinburgh in 1760, and endowed with a salary of £70 a-year, to which Dr Blair was appointed as first professor. We may further add, in illustration of the progress of this interesting study, that Lord Kames' Elements of Criticism was originally published in 1762; Dr Campbell's excellent work on the Philosophy of Rhetoric in 1776; and Dr Blair's useful and admirable lectures in 1783. Such were the followers of Smith in this peculiar department of literature; and it is but seldom that an impulse given by one individual is so vigorously and successfully followed up.

Smith's increasing celebrity, and the strong recommendations of Lord Kames and other distinguished persons, procured for him, 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, and for whom he justly entertained the highest regard. Of the offices to which he might have been appointed, this was probably the most suitable to his peculiar talents, and afforded the best opportunity for employing them to the greatest advantage. It is not, therefore, surprising that he considered the thirteen years during which he continued in Glasgow as the happiest portion of his life. At the same time, it seems reasonable to conclude that his professional pursuits must have materially contributed to mature his speculations in morals and politics, and, consequently, to determine him to undertake the great works which have immortalised his name.

Mr Millar, author of the Historical View of the English Government,³ 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 corresponding 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 extemporaneous 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

Smith, Adam. distinct propositions, which he successfully 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 début as an author, by contributing, anonymously, two articles to the Edinburgh Review, commenced in 1755, of which two numbers only were published. The first of these articles is a review of 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 Smith to continental literature at a period when it was comparatively neglected in Scotland.

In 1759 Smith published his Theory of Moral Sentiments. He had been engaged for a very considerable period in the composition of this work, which is finished throughout with the greatest care. It is bottomed on the principle that sympathy forms the real foundation of morals; that we do not immediately approve or disapprove of an action on becoming 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 impar-

tial 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 very ingenious theory.² But whatever opinion may be entertained with regard to the truth of the leading principle which it involves, the Theory of Moral Sentiments is incomparably the best, or rather it is the only great ethical work in the English language. It everywhere evinces great ingenuity, subtlety, and depth of thought. These, however, are the least of its excellences. Its conclusions are all practical, just, and true. The different passions, affections, and characters of the different classes of men, are delineated with singular fidelity. What is proper and praiseworthy in them is carefully discriminated from what is improper and blameworthy. The disturbing influences of fortune and of custom over our estimates of merit and demerit are skilfully appreciated; and the soundest maxims for the regulation of our conduct under every variety of circumstances are everywhere met with, and set in so clear a light that they are impressed even on the most careless readers. The style unaffected, copious, and, though sometimes redundant, always eloquent, is worthy of the subject. The richness of its colouring relieves the dryness of some of the more abstract discussions, while it gives additional force and embellishment to the powerful recommendations of generous, upright, and virtuous conduct, which are profusely scattered throughout the work, and are obviously the author's favourite topics.

The accounts which Smith has given in his last volume of the principal systems of moral philosophy are infinitely superior to anything of the kind that had previously appeared; and are said by an excellent judge, M. Cousin,³ to be imbued with the true spirit of philosophical history. The account of the "Stoical Philosophy" deserves especial notice. It is a beautiful exposition of a difficult subject, and is as correct in its statements as it is felicitous in its language.

It may be worth while, perhaps, to observe, that Dr. Gillies has affirmed, in a note to his translation of Aristotle's ethics and politics,⁴ that Smith was indebted for the principle of his theory to a statement of Polybius, in his General History (Book vi., ex. 1). But though the passage referred to be a remarkable one, it is doubtful whether it ever attracted the notice of Smith; and though it had, there is an immeasurable difference between a brief statement, or hint, like that in question; and the well digested system expounded in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. The principle of sympathy had, indeed, been always well known, not to Polybius only, but to everybody. It was remarked nearly two thousand years ago:—

"Ut ridentibus arident, ita flentibus adflet,
Humani vultus: Si vis me flere, dolendum est,
Primum ipsi tibi; tunc tua me infortunis ludent."