98 ADAM SMITH. 



on Taxation 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- worn an, to whom 

 the Doctor gave a note of the plan, which by this circuit 

 reached the Royal ear. 



But our view of what has been accomplished in econo- 

 mical 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 1 752, and 

 gave the first clear refutation of the errors which had so 

 long prevailed in Commercial Policy, and the first phi- 

 losophical as well as practical 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 already 

 treated of this admirable work in the life of that illustri- 

 ous writer/"' 



It was necessary to give a summary of the progress 

 which had been made in ethical and economical philoso- 

 phy 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 prevent us from 

 supposing, as men are always prone to do, that he whose 

 merit as a great improver can hardly be estimated too 

 highly, was also the creator of the system which he so 

 largely contributed to extend and to consolidate. We 

 may now proceed to the history of his life. 



Adam Smith was born at Kirkaldy, in the Scotch 



* Vol. I. 



