APPENDIX. 123 



M. Turgot's approbation, by his undertaking; the tafk of Account of 



* ■ f '■;''• , Dr Smith, 



tranflating them into the French language. 



I am aware, that the evidence I have hitherto produced of 

 Mr Smith's originality may be objected to as not perfectly de- 

 cisive, as it refts entirely on the recollection of thofe ftudents 

 who attended his flrft courfes of moral philofophy at Glafgow ; 

 a recollection which, at the diftance of forty years, cannot be 

 fuppofed to be very accurate. There exifts however fortu- 

 nately, a fhort manufcript, drawn up by Mr Smith in the year 

 1755, and prefented by him to a fociety of which he was then 

 a member ; in which paper, a pretty long enumeration is given 

 of certain leading principles, both political and literary, to 

 which he was anxious to eftablifti his exclufive right; in order to 

 prevent the poflibility of fome rival claims which he thought he 

 had reafon to apprehend, and to which his fituation as a Profeflbr, 

 added to his unreferved communications in private companies, 

 rendered him peculiarly liable. This paper is at prefent in my 

 poffeflion. It is exprefled with a good deal of that honed and 

 indignant warmth, which is perhaps unavoidable by a man 

 who is confcious of the purity of his own intentions, when he 

 fufpects, that advantages have been taken of the franknefs of 

 his temper. On fuch occafions, due allowances are not always 

 made for thofe plagiarifms which, however cruel in their ef- 

 fects, do not neceflarily imply bad faith in thofe who are guilty 

 of them ; for the bulk of mankind, incapable themfelves of 

 original thought, are perfectly unable to form a conception of 

 the nature of the injury done to a man of inventive genius, by 

 encroaching on a favourite fpeculation. For reafons known to 

 fome members of this Society, it would be improper, by the 

 publication of this manufcript, to revive the memory of private 

 differences ; and I mould not have even alluded to it, if I did 

 not think it a valuable document of the progrefs of Mr Smith's 

 political ideas at a very early period. Many of the raoft im- 

 1 (Q^2> portant 



