APPENDIX. 89 



" obfervations of Mr Smith would have fuggefted many new Account of 



00 J Dr Smith. 



" and important views concerning the internal and domeftic 

 circumftances of thofe nations, which would have difplayed 

 their feveral fyftems of policy, in a light much lefs artificial 

 than that in which they have hitherto appeared." 

 The fame turn of thinking was frequently, in his focial 

 hours, applied to more familiar fubjects ; and the fanciful theo- 

 ries which, without the leaft affectation of ingenuity, he was 

 continually flarting upon all the common topics of difcourfe, 

 gave to his converfation a novelty and variety that were quite 

 inexhauftible. Hence too the minutenefs and accuracy of his 

 knowledge on many trifling articles, which, in the courfe of his 

 fpeculations, he had been led to confider from fome new and 

 interefting point of view ; and of which his lively and circum- 

 ftantial defcriptions amufed his friends the more, that he feem- 

 ed to be habitually inattentive, in fo remarkable a degree, to 

 what was pafling around him. 



I have been led into thefe remarks by the DifTertation on 

 the Formation of Languages, which exhibits a very beautiful 

 fpecimen of theoretical hiftory, applied to a fubject equally cu- 

 rious and difficult. The analogy between the train of thinking 

 from which it has taken its rife, and that which has fuggefted 

 a variety of his other difquifitions, will, I hope, be a fufficient 

 apology for the length of this digreflion ; more particularly, as 

 it will enable me to Amplify the account which I am to give 

 afterwards, of his enquiries concerning political ceconomy. 



I shall only obferve farther on this head, that when dif- 

 ferent theoretical hiflories are propofed by different writers, of 

 the progrefs of the human mind in any one line of exertion, 

 thefe theories are not always to be underftood as (landing in op- 

 pofition to each other. If the progrefs delineated in all of 

 them be plaulible, it is poffibie at leaft, that they may all have 

 been realized ; for human affairs never exhibit, in any two in- 

 ftances, a perfect uniformity. But whether they have been reali- 

 zed or no, is often a queftion of little confequence. In mofl; cafes, 

 Vol. 111. (M) it 



