176 ADAM SMITH. 



tic accounts of their founder's habits that he never 

 could feel at his ease in the presence of Louis XV., 

 and confessed the reason to be, his thinking all the 

 while that he stood before a man who had the power 

 of destroying him. This is recorded in the Memoirs 

 to which I have above referred, and we find two in- 

 stances in the same work, illustrating the practical ope- 

 ration of the " despotisme legale" To the Doctor's 

 great dismay, M. de Mirabeau, his steady follower, 

 was suddenly hurried away to the fortress of Vincennes, 

 because an expression in his speculative work on Tax- 

 ation being misunderstood by the King, had given 

 him offence ; and when Turgot was anxious to obtain 

 the King's assent, on the occasion of his proposing one 

 of the great municipal reforms which he supported, he 

 took the indirect, if not humiliating course of speaking 

 to the Doctor and to the mistress's waiting-woman, to 

 whom the Doctor gave a note of the plan, which by 

 this circuit reached the Koyal ear. 



But our view of what has been accomplished in 

 economical science, before the period to which the 

 following Life refers, would be most imperfect, if we 

 passed over the Essays of Mr. Hume. They were 

 published in 1752, and gave the first clear refutation 

 of the errors which had so long prevailed in Commer- 

 cial Policy, and the first philosophical as well as prac- 

 tical exposition of those sound principles, which ought 

 to be the guide of statesmen in their arrangements, as 

 well as of philosophers in their speculations upon this 

 important subject. I have treated of this admirable 

 work in the life of that illustrious writer.* 



It was necessary to give a summary of the progress 

 which had been made in ethical and economical philo- 

 sophy before the time of Dr. Smith, in order that we 

 might duly appreciate the invaluable services which 

 he rendered to both those branches of science, and to 



* VoL ii 



