Nicholas Phillipson
Page 36
28. Smith was notoriously absent-minded. James Kay’s caricature shows him wrapped in thought, carrying a nosegay to protect him from Edinburgh’s notorious stench, on his way from his house in the Canongate to the Customs House opposite the Cathedral.
SMITH’S GRAVE IN THE CANONGATE CHURCHYARD, EDINBURGH
29. Smith died in July 1790 and was buried in the Canongate churchyard. He is commemorated by a modest but elegant memorial which stands in striking contrast to the enormous monument Hume commissioned before his death from Robert Adam. It was, Smith declared, ‘the greatest piece of vanity I ever saw in my friend Hume’. Smith’s own memorial is now sadly decayed. Its simple inscription reads:
HERE ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF ADAM SMITH, AUTHOR OF THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS AND WEALTH OF NATIONS. HE WAS BORN, 5th JUNE 1723, AND HE DIED, 17th JULY 1790.
Notes and Sources
ABBREVIATIONS
Smith’s Works
All references are to the Glasgow Edition of the works of Adam Smith.
Corr. Correspondence, ed. E.C. Mossner and I.S. Ross (1987)
EPS Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W.P.D. Wightman, J.C. Bryce and I.S. Ross (1980)
LJ Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. R.L. Meek, D.D. Raphael and P.G. Stein (1978)
LR Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, ed. J.C. Bryce (1983)
TMS The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie (1976)
WN An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner (1978)
Smith’s Biographers
Campbell and Skinner R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner, Adam Smith (London, 1982)
Rae J. Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London, 1895)
Ross I.S. Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford, 1995)
Scott W. R. Scott, Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow, 1937)
Stewart D. Stewart, ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.’, ed. I.S. Ross in Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. W.P.D. Wightman, J.C. Bryce and I.S. Ross (Oxford, 1980), pp. 264–351
Libraries
EUL Edinburgh University Library
GUL Glasgow University Library
NLS National Library of Scotland
SRO Scottish Record Office
PROLOGUE
1. Hume, The Letters of David Hume, vol. ii, p. 314.
2. Corr., p. 337.
3. Corr., pp. 286–7.
4. Stewart, p. 327n.
5. Ibid., p. 303.
6. Ibid., p. 327.
7. EPS, p. 245.
8. Corr., pp. 223–4.
Notes on Sources
Smith’s first serious biography, Dugald Stewart’s ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.’, was written for the Royal Society of Edinburgh and published in 1794 and remains an indispensable source. Stewart knew Smith well in the later years of his life, and understood the intellectual and political milieu in which he lived. His extended essay was frequently reprinted with later editions of Smith’s works and presents what has become the canonical portrait of its subject. Rae’s Life of Adam Smith, written at a time of revived interest in the literary world of eighteenth-century London and Edinburgh, was the first serious attempt to set Smith’s life in wider social and political contexts. It is well, though by no means flawlessly, researched, and jauntily written. Scott’s Adam Smith as Student and Professor, based on extensive use of Glasgow University’s archives, is an essential introduction to Smith’s early years at Kirkcaldy and Glasgow and to his professorial career. Ross’s Life of Adam Smith is a deeply researched modern attempt to set Smith’s life and works in contemporary contexts and one to which every modern Smith scholar must remain indebted. I certainly am.
Of the shorter lives, Campbell and Skinner’s brief Adam Smith deserves more attention than it generally receives. D.D. Raphael’s Adam Smith is the work of the doyen of Smith scholars and an editor of the Glasgow edition of Smith’s works. J.Z. Muller’s Adam Smith in His Time and Ours is lively and opinionated. James Buchan’s Adam Smith and the Pursuit of Perfect Liberty is informed, intelligent and by far the best short introduction to Smith’s life and works.
1. A KIRKCALDY UPBRINGING
1. Stewart, p. 269.
2. The Bee or Literary Weekly Intelligencer, iii (11 May 1791), pp. 164–7.
3. Corr., p. 275.
4. Withrington and Grant, eds., The Statistical Account of Scotland by Sir John Sinclair, vol. x. Fife, pp. 505–65.
5. Dennison and Coleman, Historic Kirkcaldy.
6. Durie, The Scottish Linen Industry in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 16–17. See also Durie, ‘Lairds, Improvement, Banking and Industry in Eighteenth Century Scotland’, pp. 21–30.
7. Durie, The Scottish Linen Industry, p. 16.
8. Loch, A Tour through most of the Trading Towns and Villages of Scotland.
9. Warden, The Linen Trade Ancient and Modern, p. 561.
10. Withrington and Grant, Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. x. Fife, pp. 505–65.
11. [Oswald], Memorials of the Rt. Hon. James Oswald of Dunnikier, Preface.
12. Sedgwick, History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1715–54, ‘Oswald, James’.
13. [Oswald], Memorials of the Rt. Hon. James Oswald of Dunnikier, p. 122.
14. Stewart, pp. 300, 333.
15. WN, pp. 376–8, 412.
16. WN, p. 461.
17. WN, p. 49.
18. The story is told in the Kirkcaldy Council Book 1716–42 (KYD/1/1/3, pp. 154, 158, 167, 168–70). I am grateful to the burgh archivist for permission to use these records.
19. Ibid., pp. 174, 217.
20. Ibid., pp. 299–300.
21. Eutropius, Breviarum Historiae Romanae, intro.
22. Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. iii, pp. 584–5.
23. Moore, ‘The Enlightened Curriculum: Liberal Education in Eighteenth Century British Schools’, pp. 97–116.
24. Mizuta, ed., Adam Smith’s Library: A Catalogue, no. 574.
25. Ross, p. 15.
26. Epictetus, The Discourses of Epictetus, p. 287.
27. Ibid., p. 306.
28. Ibid., pp. 292, 17.
29. TMS, p. 283.
30. TMS, pp. 291–2.
31. Spectator, no. 6, 7 March 1710/11.
Notes on Sources
On the history of Kirkcaldy see the Rev. T. Fleming’s excellent ‘Parish of Kirkcaldy’ in The Statistical Account of Scotland …, edited by Withrington and Grant, and Dennison and Coleman’s Historic Kirkcaldy. In thinking about Smith’s education at the parish school. Moore’s ‘The Enlightened Curriculum: Liberal Education in Eighteenth Century British Schools’ has been invaluable. The discussion of the Spectator draws on my own work. See my Hume, chapter 2 and the references cited there, and my ‘Politics and Politeness in the Reigns of Anne and the Early Hanoverians’.
2. GLASGOW, GLASGOW UNIVERSITY AND FRANCIS HUTCHESON’S ENLIGHTENMENT
1. Defoe, Tour thro the Whole Island of Great Britain, p. 334.
2. What follows is indebted to the essays in Devine and Jackson, eds., Glasgow. Volume I: Beginnings to 1830.
3. Smout, A History of the Scottish People, 1560–1830, pp. 258–66.
4. Smout, ‘The Glasgow Merchant Community in the Seventeenth Century’, pp. 53–71.
5. Devine, The Tobacco Lords. A Study of the Tobacco Merchants of Glasgow and their Trading Activities, p. 171; Devine, ‘The Scottish Merchant Community 1680–1740’.
6. WN, p. 493.
7. Sher, ‘Commerce, Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-century Glasgow’, in Glasgow, p. 318.
8. Gray, ed., Memoirs of the Life of Sir John Clark of Penicuick …, p. 248.
9. Defoe, Tour thro the Whole Island of Great Britain, p. 338.
10. Gibson, The History of Glasgow, from the Earliest Accounts to the Present Time, p. 114.
11. Knox, The Works of John Knox, pp. 619–21.
12. Emerson, ‘Politics and the Glasg
ow Professors, 1690–1800’, pp. 21–39.
13. Robert, Viscount Molesworth, An Account of Denmark as it was in the Year 1692, preface. On Molesworth generally, see Jones, ‘The Scottish Professoriate and the Polite Academy 1720–40’, pp. 89–117.
14. G. Turnbull–Molesworth, 3 Aug. 1722, Historical Manuscripts Commission. Report on Manuscripts in Various Collections, vol. viii (1913).
15. Molesworth, ibid.
16. [H. Blair], ‘Hutcheson’s Moral Philosophy’, Edinburgh Review, i, 1755/56, pp. 9–23.
17. Hutcheson, A System of Moral Philosophy, vol. i, pp. xxvi, xxxii–iii, xxxv.
18. Leechman, The Temper, Character and Duty of a Minister of the Gospel, pp. 5, 12, 17.
19. On Hutcheson’s Dublin career see Brown, Francis Hutcheson in Dublin 1719–1730: The Crucible of his Thought, and McBride, ‘The School of Virtue: Francis Hutcheson, Irish Presbyterianism and the Scottish Enlightenment’.
20. Wodrow, Analecta or Materials for a History of Remarkable Providences, vol. iv, p. 190.
21. Ibid., pp. 186–7.
22. Scott, Francis Hutcheson, p. 93.
23. Sher, ‘Commerce, Religion and the Enlightenment’.
24. Defoe, Tour thro the Whole Island of Great Britain, p. 334.
25. Carlyle, Anecdotes and Characters of the Times, p. 38.
26. Corr., p. 309.
27. Chamberlayne, Magnae Britanniae Notitia, pp. 12–13.
28. Ross, p. 42. For Loudon, see Moore, ‘The two systems of Francis Hutcheson: on the origins of the Scottish Enlightenment’, pp. 43–4.
29. Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, vol. i, pp. iv–v ‘Preface Giving some Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of the Author’ by W. Leechman.
30. Brougham, Lives of Men of Letters and Science who flourished in the time of George III, vol. i, p. 483.
31. Stewart, pp. 270–71.
32. Corr., p. 309.
33. Krieger, The Politics of Discretion: Pufendorf and the Acceptance of Natural Law, p. 13.
34. Pufendorf, The Law of Nature and Nations: Or a General System of the Most Important Principles of Morality, Jurisprudence and Politics, p. 623.
35. Ibid., p. 625.
36. Ibid., p. 624.
37. Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen According to Natural Law, p. 35.
38. [Hutcheson], ‘To the Author of the London Journal’, London Journal, 21 November 1724.
39. Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees: or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, vol. i, pp. 323–4.
40. Ibid., p. 343.
41. Ibid., p. 331.
42. Ibid., p. 37.
43. Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, p. 93.
44. Ibid., p. 186.
45. Ibid., p. 9.
46. Ibid., pp. 114–15.
47. Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, vol. i, p. 14.
48. Hutcheson, Inquiry, p. 178.
49. Cited in Moore, ‘The two systems of Francis Hutcheson’, p. 59.
Notes on Sources
For Smith’s student life, see particularly Scott and Ross.
Glasgow’s history has been neglected, but see the pioneering essays contributing to Glasgow, Volume 1: Beginnings to 1830, edited by Devine and Jackson. The tobacco trade has been authoritatively studied by Devine in The Tobacco Lords: A Study of the Tobacco Merchants of Glasgow and their Trading Activities. The history of the university badly needs modern treatment but see Scott, J.D. Mackie’s dated The University of Glasgow 1451 to 1951 and R.L. Emerson’s ‘Politics and the Glasgow Professors 1690–1800’, in The Glasgow Enlightenment, edited by Hook and Sher.
On Pufendorf, see his On the Duty of Man and Citizen, ed. J. Tully, R. Tuck, Philosophy and Government 1572–1651 and I. Hont, ‘The Language of Sociability and Commerce: Samuel Pufendorf and the Theoretical Foundation of the “Four Stages” Theory’, in his Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective. On Mandeville, see his Fable of the Bees: or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, edited by F.B. Kaye, and E.J. Hundert’s The Enlightenment’s Fable: Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of Society.
Hutcheson has been extensively studied, mostly in the misleading belief that he was ‘the father of the Scottish Enlightenment’. The standard biography – W.R. Scott’s Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy – is dated but still useful. See also T.D. Campbell, ‘Francis Hutcheson: “Father” of the Scottish Enlightenment’, in The Origins and Nature of the Scottish Enlightenment, edited by Campbell and Skinner. For his career in Dublin see M. Brown, Francis Hutcheson in Dublin 1719–1730 and Ian McBride’s excellent ‘The School of Virtue: Francis Hutcheson, Irish Presbyterians and the Scottish Enlightenment’. On the elusive relation between his moral and political thought see James Moore, ‘The Two Systems of Francis Hutcheson: On the Origins of the Scottish Enlightenment’ and K. Haakonssen, ‘Natural Law and Moral Realism: The Scottish Synthesis’.
3. PRIVATE STUDY 1740–46: OXFORD AND DAVID HUME
1. Ross, p. 58 and the St James’s Chronicle, Saturday, 31 July 1790.
2. He was nominated by the Glasgow Senate but David Raynor has suggested to me that his guardian, William Smith, the Duke of Argyll’s secretary, may have had a hand in the election. Smith himself was certainly well aware of his guardian’s value in such matters; in 1742 he told his mother to alert Smith to the fact that there would shortly be another vacancy for a Snell exhibition (Corr., p. 2).
3. [N. Amhurst], Terrae–Filius, nos. vii and xliii.
4. Quoted in Ward, Georgian Oxford, p. 132.
5. Sutherland and Mitchell, eds., The History of the University of Oxford. Vol. 5 The Eighteenth Century, pp. 115–16.
6. WN, pp. 760–61.
7. Jones, Balliol College: A History, pp. 162, 165.
8. Davis, Balliol College, p. 159.
9. St James’s Chronicle, Saturday, 31 July 1790.
10. Corr., p. 1.
11. Corr., p. 3.
12. Stewart, p. 271.
13. Ibid., pp. 271–2.
14. TMS, pp. 308–9. See also EPS, p. 303.
15. TMS, p. 139.
16. ‘De la Grandeur’, in P. Nicole, Oeuvres Philosophiques et Morales. Translated by N. Keohane and quoted in Philosophy and the State in France. The Renaissance to the Enlightenment, pp. 296–7.
17. TMS, p. 123.
18. LR, p. 97.
19. TMS, p. 33.
20. Marivaux, Journaux et Oeuvres Diverses, p. 475.
21. Ibid., pp. 475–6
22. ‘C’est la société, c’est toute l’humanité même qui en tient la seule école qui soit convenable, école toujours ouverte, où tout l’homme étudie les autres, et en est étudié à son tour, où tout l’homme est tour à tour écolier et maître. Cette science reside dans le commerce que nous avons tous, et sans exception, ensemble’ (Marivaux, Journaux et Oeuvres Diverses, p. 476).
23. ‘… un tissu d’événements qui lui ont donné une certaine connaissance de la vie et du caractère des hommes’ (Marivaux, La Vie de Marianne, ou Les Aventures de Madame la Comtesse de ***, p. 85).
24. TMS, p. 143.
25. Boswell in Extremes 1776–1778, p. 11.
26. Hume, ‘My Own Life’, Essays Moral, Political and Literary, p. xxxiv.
27. Mossner, The Life of David Hume, pp. 144–5.
28. Monthly Review, vol. 22, 1797, pp. 57ff. The story was repeated in a slightly different form by McCulloch, Sketch of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D., p. 8. The story comes from John Leslie (1766–1832), the future Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh and an ardent Humean. He was tutor to Smith’s nephew and heir, David Douglas, in 1787–8. I am very grateful to David Raynor for the reference and the attribution.
29. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, p. xvi.
30. Ibid., p. 415.
31. Ibid., p. 363.
32. Ibid., p. 427.
33. Ibid., pp. 316�
��17.
34. Hume, Essays Moral, Political and Literary, pp. 37–8.
35. [Adam Ferguson], ‘Of the Principle of Moral Estimation. A Discourse between David Hume, Robert Clerk and Adam Smith’, The Manuscripts of Adam Ferguson, p. 207.
Notes on Sources
For Smith’s Oxford career see Stewart and Ross.
For Oxford see Sutherland and Mitchell’s The History of the University of Oxford. Vol. 5 The Eighteenth Century, J. Jones, Balliol College: A History and H.W.C. Davis, Balliol College.
Although the literature on Hume’s Treatise is vast and multifaceted it pays surprisingly little attention to Hume’s ambitions to develop a Science of Man and to its significance for Smith’s own philosophical development. However, the following are useful: R. Popkin’s classic ‘David Hume: His Pyrrhonism and his Critique of Pyrrhonism’, in Chappell’s Hume; D.W. Livingston’s Hume’s Philosophy of Common Life; D.D. Raphael’s ‘ “The True Old Humean Philosophy” and its influence on Adam Smith’, in David Hume: Bicentenary Papers, edited by G.P. Morice; and D. Fate Norton’s David Hume: Common-Sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician. I have written rather more fully about the historicity of Hume’s approach to the study of human nature in my own Hume.
4. EDINBURGH’S EARLY ENLIGHTENMENT
1. ‘Ad.Smith Ll.D 1723–1790’. EUL MSS, La. II 451/2, ff. 429–34.
2. Corr., pp. 24–5.
3. Mudie, The Modern Athens, p. 162.
4. Fletcher, Political Works, p. 193.
5. Corr., p. 68. Smith’s comment that the merchants had little understanding of trading with the plantations is curious coming from one who mingled with the Glasgow merchant community and listened carefully to their conversation. Glasgow merchants had learned how to evade the Navigation Acts two decades before the Union.
6. Scots Magazine, 33, 1771, pp. 340–44.
7. Emerson, ‘The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh 1737–1743’.
8. Select Transactions of the Honourable the Society for Improvement in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland, p. 1.
9. MacLaurin, An Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries, pp. vi–vii.