120 ADAM SMITH. 



intitled to conclude that he regarded his friend as an 

 exception to the rule that religion has a powerful and 

 salutary influence on morals, because he has most forcibly 

 stated his opinion, that whenever the principles of reli- 

 gion which are natural to it are not perverted or cor- 

 rupted " the world justly places a double confidence in 

 the rectitude of the religious man's behaviour." (' Mor. 

 Sent./ L, 427.) Surely, Dr. Johnson himself could desire 

 no stronger testimony to religion, no more severe con- 

 demnation of infidelity.""" 



In his simple manners, and the easy flow of his con- 

 versation, wholly without effort, often with little re- 

 flection, the carelessness of his nature often appeared; 

 and the mistakes which he would occasionally fall into, 

 by giving immediate vent to what occurred to him on a 

 first impression, or a view of the subject from a single 

 point, sometimes would furnish subject of merriment 

 to his friends.f It was, probably, from the same sim- 

 plicity and earnestness that he was apt in conversation 

 to lay down principles and descant upon topics somewhat 

 in the way of a lecture; but no one found this tiresome, 

 all feeling that it was owing to his mind being in the 

 matter, and to his simple and unsophisticated nature. 

 Never was there anything about him in the least like 

 a desire to engross the conversation. On the contrary, 



* See ' Theory of Moral Sentiments,' Part. Ill, chap, i., ii., 

 and v. 



t In some few instances, these traces of imperfect judgment have 

 found a place in his works. His giving Gray the preference to 

 almost all poets, "as equalling Milton in sublimity and Pope in 

 eloquence and harmony," is the more singular, because the best by 

 far of Gray's poems, the Elegy, makes no pretension to sublimity 

 at all. (' Theory of Moral Sentiments,' I. 311.) 



