SMITH 



517 



thought. It is said that he was intended for the 

 English Church, hut if so his own convictions 

 crossed the designs of his friends. He returned to 

 Kirkcaldy, and lived for a while with his mother 

 there in undisturbed seclusion and study. In 1748 

 he carne to Edinburgh, where silently and un- 

 ostentatiously he became one of the brilliant little 

 circle of men of letters who were then rising to 

 importance, amongst his friends being; David Hume, 

 John Home, Dr Hugh Blair, Lord Hailes, and 

 Principal Robertson. In 1751 he got the chair 

 of Logic in the university of Glasgow, and this was 

 changed a year afterwards for that of Moral Philo- 

 sophy. In 1759 appeared his Theory of Moral 

 Sentiments, celebrated for its reference of the 

 mental emotions to the one source of sympathy. 

 The Dissertation on the Origin of Languages was 



CMished along with the later editions of this 

 k. Both had a great reputation in their day, 

 and, although they are now obscure books in com- 

 parison with that other by which the author's name 

 is remembered, the jiosition they held with respect- 

 able thinkers gave a hearing to his doctrines on 

 political economy which they would hardly have 

 otherwise obtained. In 1762 the university of 

 Glasgow gave him the degree of Doctor of Laws. 

 In the following year he undertook a task, which 

 might at first seem very uncongenial to a mind 

 like his, given to retired study and independent 

 thought and action he became 'governor' or 

 travelling tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch. 

 He was then sedulously collecting materials for 

 his great work, and no doubt the inducement to 

 accept the office was the opportunity it gave him 

 for travelling and seeing for himself. He had the 

 opportunity of Ix-ing nearly a year in Paris, and 

 of mixing in the circle of renowned wits and 

 philosophers of the reign of Louis XV., includ- 

 ing i^uesnay, Turgot, and Necker. In 1766 his 

 ineiit came to an end, and he returned to 

 Kirkcaldy to live in the old house with his mother. 

 The year 1776 was an era in the history of the 

 world as well as that of the Kirkcaldy recluse, by 

 reason of the appearance of the Inquiry into the 

 Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. If 

 there was any living man to whose works he was 

 indebted for the leading principles of this book it 

 was David Hume, and it was from him, as best 

 understanding the fullness and completeness of the 

 exposition, that it had its first emphatic welcome. 

 He wrote immediately on receiving it : ' Euge ! 

 Belle 1 Dear Mr Smith, I am much pleased with 

 your performance ; and the perusal of it has taken 

 me from a state of great anxiety. It was a work 

 'if ~'i much expectation by yourself, by your friends, 

 and by the public that I trembled for its appear- 

 ance, but arn now much relieved. Not but that the 

 reading of it necessarily requires so much attention, 

 anil tlir public is disposed to give so little, that 

 I shall still doubt, for some time, of its lieing at 

 first very popular. But it has depth, and solidity, 

 and acuteness, and is so much illustrated by 

 curious facts that it must at last take the public 

 attention.' Tliis was not destined to be exactly 

 the literary history of this great work. Its start- 

 ling doctrines, line clear style, and abundant 

 illustration from curious facts took at first ; but 

 counteracting influences arose when people saw 

 how far the new doctrines went in playing havoc 

 with old prejudices. The French revolution set 

 the mind of the country bigotedly against every- 

 thing that breathed of innovation. It was known 

 that the yoiniL''-i 1'itt participated at first in 

 Smith's free-trade notions, but he had afterwards, 

 whether from |rmanent conviction or temporary 

 policy, to put himself in the foremost ranks of the 

 enemies of innovation. It was not until long after 

 the terrors of that epoch and the nervous vicissi- 



tudes of the war had passed over that Smith's work 

 had an opportunity of revolutionising the public 

 mind on matters of trade and finance. It came up, 

 as it were, the leader of a great literary host, fur 

 expounders long crowded in numbers round The 

 Wealth of Nations as the text-book of sound 

 economy. It has been made matter of reproach 

 against this work that it is not systematic in its 

 form and that its nomenclature is not exact. But 

 its author was not arranging the results of estab- 

 lished knowledge he was rather pulling down 

 existing structures, compounded of ignorance and 

 prejudice. Nor, indeed, have those who have 

 attempted to make an exact science out of political 

 economy practically vindicated the reproach they 

 have cast on him of being unmethodical. What- 

 ever we may yet come to, very few portions indeed 

 of political economy admit of being treated as exact 

 science ; it is too closely connected with human 

 passions and energies, and consequently with special 

 results and changes, to be so treated. 



In 1776 lie lost his friend David Hume. He 

 watched by him on his death-bed, and wrote an 

 account of his last illness and death in a memor- 

 able letter to Mr Strahan in London. Soon after- 

 wards he established himself in London, and lie- 

 came a member of the club to which Reynolds, 

 Garrick, and Johnson belonged, though with the 

 last Smith's relations were not uniformly amicable. 

 In 1778 he was made a Commissioner of Customs. 

 The only effect of this was to bring him to Edin- 

 burgh, and increase his means for indulging in his 

 favourite weakness, the collection of a fine library ; 

 for he was, as he called himself, a 'beau in his 

 books.' He lost his worthy mother in 1784; in 

 1787 he was chosen Lord Hector of Glasgow Uni- 

 versity ; and he died 17th July 1790. 



Smith's position in the history of political economy, 

 his relation to his predecessors the physiocratic school, 

 and his influence on later economists have been considered 

 in the article POLITICAL ECONOMY. It is a mistake to 

 hold that the barren principle of laissez-ftt ire was the teach- 

 ing of Adam Smith. Smith held it to be the duty of the 

 state to protect its citizens from infectious diseases, to 

 endow by charter joint-stock companies with exclusive 

 trading privileges, to enforce military training on all males, 

 and to establish compulsory and cheap education ; state 

 intervention being, however, justified only where the work 

 cannot be done by individuals, or not so well as by the 

 state. Smith's works were edited in 5 v.,1 -. by Dugald 

 Stewart in 1811-12, and contain, besides the Theory of 

 the Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations, essays 

 on the first formation of languages, on the history of 

 astronomy, ancient physics, and ancient logic, and on 

 the imitative arts. There have been numerous editions 

 of the Wealth of Nations, by M'Culloch (1850), Thorold 

 Rogers (1880), and Professor Nicholson (1884). His 

 system has been dealt with by all subsequent economists, 

 and in all civilised languages. His Glasgow lectures on 

 Justice, Police, Revenue atul Arms were published in 1897. 

 See Lives by Dugald Stewart (1811), Farrer ('English 

 Philosophers,' 1881), Haldane ('Great Writers,' 1887), 

 and John Rae (1895). 



Smith, ALBERT, was born at Chertsey, Surrey, 

 on 24th May 1816, and educated at Merchant 

 Taylors' School. He entered the Middlesex Hos- 

 pital, and, after in 1838 becoming an M.R.C.S., 

 proceeded to Paris to complete his studies. He 

 then commenced practice with his father, but soon 

 relinquished it for lecturing and light literature, 

 and published upwards of a score of books, some 

 of which were illustrated by Leech. His novels 

 include The Adventures of Mr Ledbury (1844), 

 Scattergood Family (1845), Marchioness of Brin- 

 villiers (1846), Christopher Tadpole (1848), and 

 The Pottleton Legacy ( 1849) ; of his entertainments 

 the most successful was 'The Ascent of Mont 

 Blanc ' (1852). He appeared in this at the Egyptian 

 Hall only two days before his death, which took 

 place at Fulham on 23d May 1860. 



