University of Virginia Library

Notes to the Life of Adam Smith, LL.D.

[A]

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

[B]

'The lectures of the profound and eloquent Dr Hutcheson,' etc.] Those who have derived their knowledge of Dr Hutcheson solely from his publications, may, perhaps, be inclined to dispute the propriety of the epithet eloquent, when applied to any of his compositions; more particularly, when applied to the System of Moral Philosophy, which was published after his death, as the substance of his lectures in the University of Glasgow. His talents, however, as a public speaker, must have been of a far higher order than what he has displayed as a writer; all his pupils whom I have happened to meet with (some of them, certainly, very competent judges) having agreed exactly with each other in their accounts of the extraordinary impression which they made on the minds of his hearers. I have mentioned, in the text, Mr Smith as one of his warmest admirers; and to his name I shall take this opportunity of adding those of the late Earl of Selkirk; the late Lord President Miller; and the late Dr Archibald Maclaine, the very learned and judicious translator of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History. My father, too, who had attended Dr Hutcheson's lectures for several years, never spoke of them without much sensibility. On this occasion we can only say, as Quinctilian has done of the eloquence of Hortensius; 'Apparet placuisse aliquid eo dicente, quod legentes non invenimus.'

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

[C]

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

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

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

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

I have said, in the text, that my own opinion about the foundation of morals does not agree with that of Mr Smith; and I propose to state, in another publication, the grounds of my dissent from his conclusions on that question. [33] At present, I shall only observe, that I consider the defects of his Theory as originating rather in a partial, than in a mistaken view of the subject; while, on some of the most essential points of ethics, it appears to me to approximate very nearly to a correct statement of the truth. I must not omit to add, in justice to the author, that his zeal to support his favourite system never has led him to vitiate or misrepresent the phenomena which he has employed it to explain; and that the connected order which he has given to a multiplicity of isolated facts, must facilitate greatly the studies of any of his successors, who may hereafter prosecute the same inquiry, agreeably to the severe rules of the inductive logic.

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

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

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

As the foregoing observations apply with fully as great force to the Wealth of Nations, as to the Theory of Moral Sentiments, I trust some allowance will be made for the length of this note. [34]

[D]

Extracted by Mr Stewart from (John) Nichols's Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, etc., Vol III (1818), pp. 515, 516; and appended in manuscript to one of his own copies of this Memoir.
Dr. Adam Smith to Mr. George Baird
Glasgow, February 7, 1763.

'DEAR SIR, I have read over the contents of your friend's [34] work with very great pleasure; and heartily wish it was in my power to give, or to procure him all the encouragement which his ingenuity and industry deserve. I think myself greatly obliged to him for the very obliging notice he has been pleased to take of me, and should be glad to contribute anything in my power towards completing his design. I approve greatly of his plan for a Rational Grammar, and am convinced that a work of this kind, executed with his abilities and industry, may prove not only the best system of grammar, but the best system of logic in any language, as well as the best history of the natural progress of the human mind in forming the most important abstractions upon which all reasoning depends. From the short abstract which Mr Ward has been so good as to send me, it is impossible for me to form any very decisive judgement concerning the propriety of every part of his method, particularly of some of his divisions. If I was to treat the same subject, I should endeavour to begin with the consideration of verbs; these being, in my apprehension, the original parts of speech, first invented to express in one word a complete event: I should then have endeavoured to show how the subject was divided from the attribute; and afterwards, how the object was distinguished from both; and in this manner I should have tried to investigate the origin and use of all the different parts of speech, and of all their different modifications, considered as necessary to express all the different qualifications and relations of any single event. Mr Ward, however, may have excellent reasons for following his own method; and, perhaps, if I was engaged in the same task, I should find it necessary to follow the same, -- things frequently appearing in a very different light when taken in a general view, which is the only view that I can pretend to have taken of them, and when considered in detail.

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

[E]

I ought to have mentioned, among the number of Mr Smith's friends at Paris, the Abbe Morellet, of whom I have frequently heard him speak with much respect. But his name, with which I was not then very well acquainted, happened to escape my recollection while writing this Memoir; nor was I at all aware that they had been so well known to each other, as I have since learned that they were. On this subject I might quote the Abbe Morellet himself, of whom I had the pleasure to see much in the year 1806; but I prefer a reference to his own words, which coincide exactly with what he stated to myself. 'J'avais connu Smith dans un voyage qu'il avait fait en France, vers 1762; il parlait fort mal notre langue; mais La Theorie des Sentimens Moraux, publiee en 1758, m'avait donne une grande idee de sa sagacite et de sa profondeur. Et veritablement je le regarde encore aujourd'hui comme un des hommes qui a fait les observations et les analyses les plus completes dans toutes les questions qu'il a traitees. M. Turgot, qui aimait ainsi que moi la metaphysique, estimait beaucoup son talent. Nous le vimes plusieurs fois; il fut presente chez Helvetius; nous parlames de la theorie commerciale, banque, credit public, et de plusieurs points du grand ouvrage qu'il meditait.' -- Memoires de l'Abbe Morellet, Tome I. p. 257, (Paris, 1821).

[F]

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

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

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

[G]

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

[H]

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

[I] [35]
When this memoir was first written, I was not fully aware to what an extent the French Economists had been anticipated in some of their most important conclusions, by writers (chiefly British) of a much earlier date. I had often, indeed, been struck with the coincidence between their reasonings concerning the advantages of their territorial tax, and Mr Locke's speculations on the same subject, in one of his political discourses published sixty years before; as well as with the coincidence of their argument against corporations and exclusive companies, with what had been urged at a still earlier period, by the celebrated John de Witt; by Sir Josiah Child; by John Cary of Bristol; and by various other speculative men, who appeared in the latter part of the seventeenth century. To these last writers, my attention had been directed by some quotations and references of the Abbe Morellet, in his very able Memoir on the East India Company of France, printed in 1769. Many passages, however, much more full and explicit than those which had fallen in his way, have been pointed out to me by the Earl of Lauderdale, in his curious and valuable collection of rare English Tracts relating to political economy. In some of these, the argument is stated in a manner so clear and so conclusive, as to render it surprising, that truths of which the public has been so long in possession, should have been so completely overborne by prejudice and misrepresentation, as to have had, to a large proportion of readers, the appearance of novelty and paradox, when revived in the philosophical theories of the present age. [36]

The system of political economy which professes to regulate the commercial intercourse of different nations, and which Mr Smith has distinguished by the title of the Commercial, or Mercantile System, had its root in prejudices still more inveterate than those which restrained the freedom of commerce and industry among the members of the same community. It was supported not only by the prejudices with which all innovations have to contend, and by the talents of very powerful bodies of men interested to defend it, but by the mistaken and clamorous patriotism of many good citizens, and their blind hostility to supposed enemies or rivals abroad. The absurd and delusive principles, too, formerly so prevalent, with respect to the nature of national wealth, and the essential importance of a favourable balance of trade (principles which, though now so clearly and demonstrably exploded by the arguments of Mr Smith, must be acknowledged to fall in naturally, and almost inevitably, with the first apprehensions of the mind when it begins to speculate concerning the Theory of Commerce), communicated to the Mercantile System a degree of plausibility, against which the most acute reasoners of our own times are not always sufficiently on their guard. It was accordingly, at a considerably later period, that the wisdom of its maxims came to be the subject of general discussion; and, even at this day, the controversy to which the discussion gave rise cannot be said to be completely settled, to the satisfaction of all parties. A few enlightened individuals, however, in different parts of Europe, very early got a glimpse of the truth; [37] and it is but justice, that the scattered hints which they threw out should be treasured up as materials for literary history. I have sometimes thought of attempting a slight sketch on that subject myself; but am not without hopes that this suggestion may have the effect of recommending the task to some abler hand. At present, I shall only quote one or two paragraphs from a pamphlet published in 1734, by Jacob Vanderlint; [38] an author whose name has been frequently referred to of late years, but whose book never seems to have attracted much notice till long after the publication of the Wealth of Nations. He describes himself, in his Preface, as an ordinary tradesman, from whom the conciseness and accuracy of a scholar is not to be expected; and yet the following passages will bear a comparison, both in point of good sense and of liberality, with what was so ably urged by Mr Hume twenty years afterwards, in his Essay on the Jealousy of Trade.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the same Essay, Mr Vanderlint, following the footsteps of Locke, maintains, with considerable ingenuity, the noted doctrine of the Economists, that all taxes fall ultimately on land; and recommends the substitution of a land-tax, in place of those complicated fiscal regulations, which have been everywhere adopted by the statesmen of modern Europe; and which, while they impoverish and oppress the people, do not, in the same degree, enrich the sovereign. [39]

The doctrine which more exclusively distinguishes this celebrated sect, is neither that of the freedom of trade, nor of the territorial tax, (on both of which topics they had been, in part, anticipated by English writers), but what they have so ingeniously and forcibly urged, with respect to the tendency of the existing regulations and restraints, to encourage the industry of towns in preference to that of the country. To revive the languishing agriculture of France was the first and the leading aim of their speculations; and it is impossible not to admire the metaphysical acuteness and subtlety, with which all their various discussions are so combined as to bear systematically upon this favourite object. The influence of their labours in turning the attention of French statesmen, under the old monarchy, to the encouragement of this essential branch of national industry, was remarked by Mr Smith more than thirty years ago; nor has it altogether ceased to operate in the same direction, under all the violent and fantastic metamorphoses which the government of that country has since exhibited. [40]

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

'JEAN-CLAUDE-MARIE VINCENT, Seigneur DE GOURNAY, etc. est mort Paris le 27. Juin dernier (1759) g de quarante sept ans.

'Il etoit n Saint-Malo, au moi de Mai 1712, de Claude VINCENT, l'un des plus consid rables n gocians de cette ville, et secr taire du roi.

'Ses parens le destinrent au commerce, et l'envoy rent Cadix en 1729, peine g de dix sept ans.' -- (p. 321.)

'Aux lumi res que M. de Gournay tiroit de sa propre exp rience et de ses r flexions, il joignit la lecture des meilleurs ouvrages que poss dent sur cette mati re les diff rentes nations de l'Europe, et en particulier la nation Angloise, la plus riche de toutes en ce genre, et dont il s' toit rendu, Pour cette raison, la langue famili re. Les ouvrages qu'il lut avec plus de plaisir, et dont il gota le plus la doctrine, furent les trait s du fameux Josias Child, qu'il a traduits depuis en Francois, et les m moires du Grand Pensionnaire Jean de Witt. On sait que ces deux grands hommes sont consid r s, l'un en Angleterre, l'autre en Hollande, comme les l gislateurs du commerce; que leurs principes sont devenus les principes nationaux, et que l'observation de ces principes est regard e comme une des sources de la prodigieuse sup riorit que ces deux nations ont acquise dans le commerce sur toutes les autres puissances. M. de Gournay trouvoit sans cesse dans la pratique d'un commerce tendu la v rification de ces principes simples et lumineux, il se les rendoit propres sans pr voir qu'il toit destin en repandre un jour la lumi re en France, et m riter de sa patrie le mme tribut de reconnoissance, que l'Angleterre et la Hollande rendent la m moire de ces deux bienfaiteurs de leur nation et de l'humanit .' -- (pp. 324, 325.)

'M. de Gournay, apr s avoir quitt l'Espagne, prit la resolution d'employer quelques ann es voyager dans les diff rentes parties de l'Europe, soit pour augmenter ses connoissances, soit pour tendre ses correspondances et former des liaisons avantageuses pour le commerce, qu'il se proposoit de continuer. Il voyagea Hambourg; il parcourut la Hollande et l'Angleterre; partout il faisoit des observations et rassembloit des m moires sur l'etat du commerce et de la marine, et sur les principes d'administration adopt s par ces diff rentes nations relativement ces grands objets. Il entretenoit pendant ses voyages une correspondance suivie avec M. de Maurepas, auquel il faisoit part des lumi res qui'il recueilloit.' -- (pp. 325, 326.)

'M. de Gournay acheta, en 1749, une charge de conseiller au grand conseil; et une place d'intendant du commerce etant venue v quer au commencement de 1751, M. de Machault, qui le m rite de M. de Gournay etoit tr sconnu, la lui fit donner. C'est de ce moment que la vie de M. de Gournay devint celle d'un homme public: son entr e au Bureau du commerce parut itre l'epoque d'une r volution. M. de Gournay, dans une pratique de vingt ans du commerce le plus tendu et le plus vari , dans la fr quentation des plus habiles n gocians de Hollande et d'Angleterre, dans la lecture des autsurs les plus estim s de ces deux nations, dans l'observation attentive des causes de leur tonnante prosp rit , s'itoit fait des principes qui parurent nouveaux quelques-uns des magistrats qui composoient le Bureau du Commerce.'-- (pp. 327, 328.)

'M. de Gournay n'ignoroit pas que plusieurs des abus auxquels il s'opposoit, avoient t autrefois tablis dans une grande partie de l'Europe, et qu'il en restoit mime encore des vestiges en Angleterre; mais il savoit aussi que le gouvernement Anglois en avoit d truit une partie; que s'il en restoit encore quelques-unes, bien loin de les adopter comme des tablissemens utiles, il cherchoit les restreindre, les empicher de s' tendre, et ne les tol roit encore, que parceque la constitution r publicaine met quelquefois des obstacles la r formation de certains abus, lorsque ces abus ne peuvent itre corrig s que par une autorit dont l'exercice le plus avantageux au peuple excite toujours sa d fiance. Il savoit enfin que depuis un si cle toutes les Personnes clair es, soit en Hollande, soit en Angleterre, regardoient ces abus comme des restes de la barbarie Gothique et de la foiblesse de tous les gouvernemens qui n'avoient ni connu l'importancs de la libert publique, ni su la prot ger des invasions de l'esprit monopoleur et de l'int rit particulier. [41]

'M. de Gournay avoit fait et vu faire, pendant vingt ans, le plus grand commerce de l'univers sans avoir eu occasion d'apprendre autrement que par les livres l'existence de toutes ces loix auxquelles il voyoit attacher tant d'importance, et il ne croyoit point alors qu'on le prendroit pour un novateur et un homme systimes, lorsqu' il ne feroit que d velopper les principes que l'experience lui avoit enseign s, et qu'il voyoit universellement reconnus par les n gocians les plus clair s avec lesquels il vivoit.

'Ces principes, qu'on qualifioit de systime nouveau, ne lui paroissoient que les maximes du plus simple bon sens. Tout ce pr tendu systime itoit appuy sur cette maxime, qu'en general tout homme connoit mieux son propre int rit qu'un autre homme qui cet int rit est enti rement indiff rent. [42]

'De l M. de Gournay concluoit, que lorsque l'int rit des particuliers est pr cis ment le mime que l'int rit general, ce qu'on peut faire de mieux est de laisser chaque homme libre de faire ce qu'il veut. -- Or il trouvoit impossible que dans le commerce abandonn lui-meme, l'int rit particulier ne concourt pas avec l'int rit g n ral.' -- (pp. 334, 335, 336.)

In mentioning M. de Gournay's opinion on the subject of taxation, M. Turgot does not take any notice of the source from which he derived it. But on this head (whatever may be thought of the justness of that opinion) there can be no doubt among those who are acquainted with the writings of Locke and of Vanderlint. 'Il pensoit' (says Turgot) 'que tous les impts, sont en derniere analyse, toujours pay s par le propri taire, qui vend d'autant moins les produits de sa terre, et que si tous les impits itoient r partis sur les fonds, les propri taires et le royaume y gagneroient tout ce qu' absorbent les fraix de r gie, toute la consommation ou l'emploi st rile des hommes perdus, soit percevoir les impits, soit faire la contrebande, soit l'empecher, sans compter la prodigieuse augmentation des richesses et des valeurs r sultantes de l'augmentation du commerce.' -- (pp. 350, 351.)

In a note upon this passage by the Editor, this project of a territorial tax, together with that of a free trade, are mentioned among the most important points in which Gournay and Quesnay agreed perfectly together: [43] and it is not a little curious, that the same two doctrines should have been combined together as parts of the same system, in the Treatise of Vanderlint, published almost twenty years before. [44]

It does not appear from Turgot's account of M. de Gournay, that any of his original works were ever published; nor have I heard that he was known even in the capacity of a translator, prior to 1752. 'Il eut le bonheur' (says M. Turgot) 'de rencontrer dans M. Trudaine, le mime amour de la vrit et du bien public qui l'animoit; comme il n'avoit encore d velopp ses principes que par occasion, dans la discussion des affaires ou dans la conversation, M. Trudaine l'engagea donner comme une esp ce de corps de sa doctrine; et c'est dans cette vue qu'il a traduit, en 1752, les trait s sur le commerce et sur l'int rit de l'argent, de Josias Child et de Thomas Culpepper.' -- (p. 354.) I quote this passage, because it enables me to correct an inaccuracy in point of dates, which has escaped the learned and ingenious writer to whom we are indebted for the first complete edition which has yet appeared of Turgot's works. After dividing the Economists into two schools, that of Gournay, and that of Quesnay, he classes under the former denomination (among some other very illustrious names), Mr David Hume; whose Political Discourses, I must take the liberty of remarking, were published as early as 1752, the very year when M. Gournay published his translations of Child and of Culpepper.

The same writer afterwards adds: 'Entre ces deux coles, profitant de l'une et de l'autre, mais vitant avec soin de parotre tenir aucune, se sont lev s quelques philosophes clectiques, la tite desquels il faut placer M. Turgot, l'Abb de Condillac, et le c l bre Adam Smith; et parmi lesquels on doit compter tr s-honorablement le traducteur de celui-ci, M. le S nateur Germain Garnier, en Angleterre my Lord Landsdown, Paris M. Say. Genve M. Simonde.'

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

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

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

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

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

[J]

Among the questionable doctrines to which Mr Smith has lent the sanction of his name, there is perhaps none that involves so many important consequences as the opinion he has maintained concerning the expediency of legal restrictions on the rate of interest. The inconclusiveness of his reasoning on this point, has been evinced, with a singular degree of logical acuteness, by Mr Bentham, in a short treatise entitled A Defence of Usury; a performance to which (notwithstanding the long interval that has elapsed since the date of its publication), I do not know that any answer has yet been attempted; and which a late writer, eminently acquainted with the operations of commerce, has pronounced (and, in my opinion, with great truth), to be 'perfectly unanswerable.' [45] It is a remarkable circumstance, that Mr Smith should, in this solitary instance, have adopted, on such slight grounds, a conclusion so strikingly contrasted with the general spirit of his political discussions, and so manifestly at variance with the fundamental principles which, on other occasions, he has so boldly followed out, through all their practical applications. This is the more surprising, as the French Economists had, a few years before, obviated the most plausible objections which are apt to present themselves against this extension of the doctrine of commercial freedom. See, in particular, some observations in M. Turgot's Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Riches; and a separate Essay, by the same author, entitled, 'M moire sur le prt inter t, et sur le Commerce des Fers.' [46]

Upon this particular question, however, as well as upon those mentioned in the preceding Note, I must be allowed to assert the prior claims of our own countrymen to those of the Economists. From a memoir presented by the celebrated Mr Law (before his elevation to the ministry), to the Regent Duke of Orleans, that very ingenious writer appears to have held the same opinion with M. Turgot; and the arguments he employs in support of it are expressed with that clearness and conciseness which, in general, distinguish his compositions. The memoir to which I refer is to be found in a French work entitled, Recherches et Consid rations sur les Finances de France, depuis 1595 jusqu'en 1721. (See Vol. VI. p. 181. Edit. printed at Lige, 1758.) In the same volume, this doctrine is ascribed by the editor, to Mr Law as its author, or, at least, as its first broacher in France. 'Une opinion apport e en France pour la premi re fois par M. Law, c'est que l'etat ne doit jamais donner de r glemens sur le taux de l'inter t.' -- p. 64.

To this opinion Law appears evidently to have been led by Locke, whose reasonings (although he himself declares in favour of a legal rate of interest), seem, all of them, to point at the opposite conclusion. Indeed the apology he suggests for the existing regulations is so trifling and so slightly urged, that one would almost suppose he was prevented merely by a respect for established prejudices, from pushing his argument to its full extent. The passage I allude to, considering the period when it was written, does no small credit to Locke's sagacity. -- (See the folio edit. of his Works, Vol. II. p. 31, et seq.)

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

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

[K]

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

P.S. Soon after the foregoing account of Mr Smith was read before the Royal Society, a Volume of his Posthumous Essays was published by his executors and friends, Dr Black and Dr Hutton. In this volume are contained three Essays on the Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Inquiries; -- illustrated, in the first place, by the History of Astronomy; in the second, by the History of the Ancient Physics; in the third, by the History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics. To these are subjoined three other Essays; -- on the Imitative Arts; on the Affinity between certain English and Italian Verses; and on the External Senses. 'The greater part of them appear' (as is observed in an advertisement subscribed by the Editors) 'to be parts of a plan the Author had once formed, for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts.' -- 'This plan' (we are informed by the same authority) 'he had long abandoned as far too extensive; and these parts of it lay beside him neglected till his death.'

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

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

Footnotes