SMITH, Adam was born at Kirkcaldy, on the 5th of June 1723. His father, who held the situation of comptroller of customs in that town, died a few months before his birth; so that the charge of his early education devolved wholly on his mother, the daughter of Mr. Douglas of Strathenry, in the county of Fife. His constitution during infancy is said to have been extremely infirm and delicate, and required all the anxious attention of his mother, who treated him with the greatest indulgence. This did not, however, produce any unfavourable effect on his temper or dispositions; and he repaid the fond solicitude of his parent by every attention that filial gratitude and affection could dictate, during the long period of sixty years. When only three years of age, he was stolen from Strathenry, to which place he had been carried by his mother, by a party of gipsys. Fortunately, however, for the best interests of mankind, he was speedily recovered by the exertions of his uncle.

He received the first rudiments of his education in the grammar school of Kirkcaldy. The weakness of his constitution prevented him from indulging in the amusements common to boys of his age. But Mr. Stewart states, that he was even then distinguished by his passion for books, and by the extraordinary powers of his memory; that he was much beloved by his school-fellows, many of whom subsequently attained to great eminence, for his friendly and generous disposition; and that even then he was remarkable for those habits which remained with him through life, of speaking to himself when alone, and of mental absence in company. He continued at Kirkcaldy until 1737, when he was sent to the University of Glasgow, where he remained for three years. He then entered Balliol College, Oxford, as an exhibitor on Snell’s foundation; and he continued for seven years to prosecute his studies at that celebrated seminary.

Mr. Stewart mentions, on the authority of Dr. Maclaine of the Hague, that mathematics and natural philosophy formed young Smith’s favourite pursuits while at Glasgow. But subsequently to his removal to Oxford he seems to have entirely abandoned them, and to have principally devoted the time not consumed in the routine duty of the University to the study of polite literature, and of those moral and political sciences of which he was destined afterwards to become so great a master. Smith does not seem to have felt any very peculiar respect for his English alma mater. The severe remarks in the Wealth of Nations on the system of education followed in Oxford and Cambridge, had evidently been suggested by his own observation.

While he resided at Oxford, something had occurred to excite the suspicions of his superiors with respect to the nature of his private pursuits; and the heads of his college, having entered his apartment without his being aware, unluckily found him engaged reading Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature. The objectionable work was, of course, seized; the young philosopher being at the same time severely reprimanded.

Subsequently to his return from Oxford in 1747, he continued to reside for nearly two years at Kirkcaldy with his mother. He had been sent to Oxford that he might be qualified for entering the church of England. The ecclesiastical profession was not, however, agreeable to his taste; and in opposition to the advice of his friends, he returned to Scotland, resolved to devote himself exclusively to literary pursuits. In the latter part of the year 1748, he fixed his residence in Edinburgh, where, in consequence of the encouragement and persuasion of Lord Kames, and some of his other friends, he was prevailed upon to deliver, during that and the two following years, a course of lectures on rhetoric and polite literature. The lectures were attended by a respectable auditory, composed chiefly of students of law and theology; and he had the honour to reckon among his pupils Mr. Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Loughborough, Mr. William Johnstone, afterwards Sir William Pulteney, and Dr. Blair; with all of whom he subsequently continued on the most intimate terms. It was also at this period that he laid the foundation of that friendship with David Hume, which[7:20:415] lasted, without the slightest interruption, till the death of the latter.

No part of these lectures was ever published; but it would appear from the statement of Dr. Blair, who commenced his course of Lectures on rhetoric in 1758, ten years after Dr. Smith’s first course, that they had been reduced into a systematic form. In a note to his eighteenth lecture, Dr. Blair mentions that he had borrowed several of the ideas respecting the general characters of style, particularly the plain and simple, and the characters of those English authors who are classed under them, from a manuscript treatise of Dr. Smith on Rhetoric, of which the author had shewn him a part.

In consequence of his increasing celebrity, Dr. Smith was elected, in 1751, professor of logic in the University of Glasgow; and the year following he was elevated to the chair of moral philosophy in the same University, vacant by the death of Mr. Craigie, the immediate successor of the celebrated Dr. Hutcheson, under whom Dr. Smith had formerly studied. He continued to hold this situation for thirteen years; and, as the studies and inquiries in which his academical duties daily engaged him, were the most agreeable to his taste, it is not surprising that he should have considered the period of his residence at Glasgow as the happiest portion of his life. At the same time, it seems reasonable to conclude that his professional pursuits must have had a great effect in maturing his speculations in morals and politics, and, consequently, in determining him to undertake those great works which have immortalized his name, and largely benefited the whole human race.

Mr. Millar, the distinguished author of the Historical View of the English Government, and professor of law in the University of Glasgow, had the advantage of hearing Dr. Smith’s course of lectures on moral philosophy; of which he has given the following account: “There was no situation in which the abilities of Dr. Smith appeared to greater advantage than as a professor. In delivering bis lectures, he trusted almost entirely to extemporary elocution. His manner, though not graceful, was plain and unaffected; and, as he seemed to be always interested in the subject, he never failed to interest his hearers. Each discourse consisted commonly of several distinct propositions, which he successively endeavoured to prove and illustrate. These propositions, when announced in general terms, had, from their extent, not unfrequently something of the air of a paradox. In his attempts to explain them, he often appeared, at first, not to be always interested in the subject, and spoke with some hesitation. As he advanced, however, the matter seemed to crowd upon him, his manner became warm and animated, and his expression easy anti fluent. In points susceptible of controversy, you could easily discern, that he secretly conceived an opposition to his opinions, and that he was led upon this account to support them with greater energy and vehemence. By the fulness and variety of his illustrations, the subject gradually swelled in his hands, and acquired a dimension which, without a tedious repetition of the same views, was calculated to seize the attention of his audience, and to afford them pleasure, as well as instruction, in following the same object through all the diversity of shades and aspects in which it was presented, and afterwards in tracing it backwards to that original proposition or general truth from which this beautiful train of speculation had proceeded.

“His reputation as a professor was accordingly raised very high, and a multitude of students from a great distance resorted to the University, merely upon his account. Those branches of science which he taught became fashionable at this place, and his opinions were the chief topic of discus sion in clubs and literary societies. Even the small peculiarities in his pronunciation or manner of speaking became frequently the objects of imitation.”

It is understood that Dr. Smith made his debut as an author by contributing, anonymously, two articles to a publication entitled the Edinburgh Review, commenced in 1755, of which only two numbers were published. The first of these articles is a review of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary, and displays considerable acuteness; the second is in the form of a letter to the editor, and contains some general observations on the literature of the different European countries. It is chiefly remarkable as evincing the attention paid by the author to continental literature, at a period when it was comparatively neglected in this country.

In 1759 Smith published his Theory of Moral Sentiments. He had been engaged for a very considerable period in the composition of this work, which is throughout elaborated with the greatest care. The fundamental principle maintained by the author is, that sympathy forms the real foundation of morals; that we do not immediately approve or disapprove of any given action, when we have become acquainted with the intention of the agent and the consequences of what he has done, but that we previously enter, by means of that sympathetic affection which is natural to us, into the feelings of the agent and those to whom the action relates; that, having considered all the motives, and passions by which the agent was actuated, we pronounce, with respect to the propriety or impropriety of the action, according as we sympathize or not with him; while we pronounce, with respect to the merit or demerit of the action, according as we sympathize with the gratitude or resentment of those who were its objects; and that we necessarily judge of our own conduct by comparing it with such maxims and rules as we have deduced from observations previously made on the conduct of others.

Several, and, as it is now generally admitted, some unanswerable, objections have been urged against this most ingenious theory. But, whatever difference of opinion may exist with respect to the truth of the principle it involves, the Theory of Moral Sentiments has been universally allowed to abound in the most admirable disquisitions, in a faithful and skilful delineation of character, and in the soundest and most elevated maxims for the practical regulation of human life. The style various, but always eloquent, is worthy of the subject; and while it serves, by the beauty and richness of its colouring, to relieve the dryness of some of the more abstract discussions, it gives additional force to the powerful recommendations of generous, upright, and disinterested conduct to be found in every part of the work.

Dr. Brown, who has criticised this theory with his usual acuteness, and has shewn that though sympathy may diffuse moral sentiments, it can never originate them, bears, notwithstanding, the strongest testimony to the transcendent merits of Dr. Smith’s work. “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” he observes, “is, without all question, one of the most interesting works, perhaps I should have said the most interesting work, in moral science. It is valuable, however, as I before remarked, not for the leading doctrine, of which we have seen the fallacy, but for the minor theories which are adduced in illustration of it; for the refined analysis which it exhibits in many of its details; and for an eloquence which, adapting itself to all the temporary varieties of its subject, familiar, with a sort of majestic grace, and simple even in its magnificence, can play amid the little decencies and proprieties of common life, or rise to all the dignity of that sublime and celestial virtue, which it seems to bring from heaven indeed, but to bring down gently and humbly, to the bosom of man.”^[1. Brown’s Lectures, vol. iv. p. 132. edit 1824. ][7:20:416] Having published the substance of so important a part of his lectures, Smith was enabled to make considerable retrenchments from the ethical parts of his course, and to give a proportionally greater extension to the disquisitions on Jurisprudence and Political Economy. He had long been in the habit of embodying in his lectures the results of his studies and investigations with respect to both these departments of political science, and particularly the latter; and it appears from a statement which he drew up in 1755, in order to vindicate his claims to certain political and literary opinions, that he had been in the habit of teaching, from the time he obtained a chair in the University of Glasgow, and even when at Edinburgh, the same enlarged and liberal doctrines with respect to the freedom of industry, and the impolicy and injurious influence of artificial restraints and regulations, which he afterwards so fully established in the Wealth of Nations. His residence in a large commercial city, like Glasgow, gave him considerable advantage in the prosecution of his favourite studies, by affording means of easily obtaining that correct practical information, on many points, which cannot be learned from books, and by enabling him to compare his theoretical doctrines with the experimental conclusions of his mercantile friends. Notwithstanding the disinclination so common among men of business, to listen to speculative opinions, and the opposition of his leading principles to the old maxims of trade, be was able, before he quitted his situation in the University, to rank some very eminent merchants among his proselytes.

The publication of the Theory of Moral Sentiments brought a great accession of reputation to the author; and placed him, in the estimation of all who were qualified to form an opinion on such a subject, in the first rank of moralists, and of able and eloquent writers. In 1762 the Senate of the University of Glasgow unanimously conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; in testimony, as it is expressed in the minutes of the meeting, of their respect for his universally acknowledged talents, and of the advantage that had resulted to the University from the ability with which he had for many years expounded the principles of jurisprudence. But the most important effect of his increasing celebrity, in so far at least as respected himself, was his receiving in 1763 an invitation from Mr. Charles Townsend, who had married the Duchess of Buccleugh, to attend her Grace’s son, the young Duke, on his travels; and the advantageous terms that were offered, combined with the strong desire which he entertained of visiting the Continent, induced him to accept the offer, and to resign his chair at Glasgow. “With the connexion which he was led to form in consequence of this change in his situation,” says Mr. Stewart, “he had reason to be satisfied in an uncommon degree, and he always spoke of it with pleasure and gratitude. To the public it was not, perhaps, a change equally fortunate; as it interrupted that studious leisure for which nature seems to have destined him, and in which alone he could have hoped to accomplish those literary projects which had flattered the ambition of his youthful genius."

Dr. Smith set out for France in company with his noble pupil in March 1764. They remained only a very few days at Paris on their first visit to that capital, but proceeded to Toulouse, where they resided for about eighteen months. The society of Toulouse, a considerable city, and at that time the seat of a parliament, must have been a good deal superior to that of most country towns; and Dr. Smith would, no doubt, avail himself of it, and of the leisure he then enjoyed, to perfect and extend his knowledge of the literature, internal policy, and state of France. He has told us that he was not disposed to place much confidence in the facts and reasonings of political arithmeticians; and it is evident from his rarely stating facts on the authority of others, and from the references he occasionally makes to circumstances connected with Toulouse, Geneva, and other places which he visited, that he was chiefly indebted to his own observation and inquiries for the accurate and extensive information he is universally acknowledged to have possessed with respect to the institutions, habits, and condition of the French people.

After leaving Toulouse, Dr. Smith and his pupil proceeded to Geneva, where they resided two months. They returned to Paris at Christmas, 1765, and remained in that city for nearly twelve months. During the whole of this period, Dr. Smith lived on the most friendly footing with the best society in Paris. Turgot, afterwards comptroller general of Finance, D’Alembert, Helvetius, Marmontel, the Abbé Morellet,^[2. The paragraph which follows is extracted from the Mémoires of the Abbe Morellet published in 1621. “J'avais connu Smith dans un voyage qu'il avait fait en France, vers 1762; il parlait fort mal notre langue; mais sa Théorie des Sentimens Moraux, publiée en 1759, m'avait donné und grande idée de sa sagacité et de sa profondeur. Et véritablement je le regarde encore aujourd’hui comme one des hommes qui a fait les observations et les analyses les plus complètes dans toutes les questions qu'il a traitées. Μ. Turgot, qui animait ainsi que moi la métaphysique, estimait beaucoup son talent Nous le v mes plusieurs fois; il fut présenté chez Helvétius: nous parlâmes théorie commerciale, banque, crédit public, et de plusieurs points du grand ouvrage qu’il méditait. Il me fit présent d’un fort job portefeuille anglais de poche, qui était à son usage, et dont je me suis servi vingt ans.” Tom. i. p. 237. ] the Duc de la Rochefoucault, and Madame Riccoboni, were of the number of his acquaintances; and some of them he continued ever after to reckon among his friends. He was also on familiar terms with M. Quesnay, founder of the sect of the Economists; and there is every reason to think that he derived considerable advantage from his intercourse with that able and excellent person, than whom none was better qualified to strike out original and ingenious views. So sensible, indeed, was Dr. Smith of his great and various merits as a man and a philosopher, that he intended, had he not been prevented by Quesnay’s death, to have left a lasting testimony of the estimation in which he held him, by dedicating to him the Wealth of Nations.

In October 1766, the Duke of Buccleugh and Dr. Smith returned to London. The latter soon after removed to his old residence at Kirkcaldy; where he continued to reside, with very little interruption, for about ten years, habitually occupied in study, and in the elaboration of his great work. The Inquiry into the Nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations appeared in 1776; an sera that will be for ever memorable in the history of political philosophy. Of this invaluable work, it is sufficient to observe, that, notwithstanding the defects that have been discovered in some of its principles, and the objections that have been made, and, perhaps, with justice, to its arrangement, it will ever remain one of the noblest monuments of profound sagacity, great and varied learning, sound judgment, and persevering research, directed to the best, because the most useful, purposes. There can be no question with respect to the claim of Dr. Smith to be considered as the real founder of the modern system of Political Economy. Though he has not left a perfect work, he has left one which contains a greater number of useful truths than have ever been given to the world by any other individual; and be has pointed out and smoothed the route, by following which subsequent philosophers have been able to perfect much that he left incomplete, to rectify the mistakes into which he fell, and to make many new and important discoveries. Whether indeed we refer to the soundness of its leading doctrines, the liberality and universal applicability of its practical conclusions, or the powerful and beneficial influence which it has had on the progress of economical science, and on the policy and conduct of nations, the Wealth of Nations must be placed in[7:20:417] the foremost rank of those works that have helped to liberalize, enlighten, and enrich mankind.

Dr. Smith survived the publication of the Wealth of Nations fifteen years. He had the satisfaction to see it translated into all the languages of Europe; to bear his opinions quoted in the House of Commons; to be consulted by the minister; and to observe that the principles which he had expounded were beginning to produce a material change in the public opinion, and in the councils of this and other countries; and he must have enjoyed the full conviction that the progress of events would ensure their ultimate triumph, by showing that they were productive of signal advantage, not only to the general mass of mankind, but to the inhabitants of every country which should have good sense enough to adopt them.

Mr. Hume died very soon after the publication of the Wealth of Nations. Dr. Smith, with whom he had long lived on the most intimate terms, was most assiduous in his attentions to his illustrious friend during his illness; and he gave a brief account of the circumstances connected with his death, together with a sketch of his character, in a letter addressed to Mr. Strahan of London, which was soon after published as a supplement to Mr. Hume’s autobiography. The unqualified eulogium pronounced in this letter on Mr. Hume’s character excited the indignation of those who took offence at his religious opinions. Dr. Horne, bishop of Norwich, in an anonymous letter, attacked Dr. Smith on this ground; and very naturally ascribed to him the same sceptical opinions that had been entertained by his deceased friend. But he took no notice of this attack; and wisely declined entering upon a controversy that could have led to no useful result.

Dr. Smith resided principally in London during the two years immediately subsequent to the publication of the Wealth of Nations; caressed by the most distinguished persons in the metropolis, who were justly proud of his acquaintance, and who, though they could not always subscribe to the justice of his remarks, were equally delighted with the goodness of his heart, the simplicity of his manners, the vigour of his understanding, and the variety of his attainments. In 1788 he was appointed, through the unsolicited application of his old pupil and friend, the Duke of Buccleugh, a commissioner of customs for Scotland. In consequence of this appointment he removed to Edinburgh, where he continued afterwards to reside, possessed of an income more than equal to his wants, and in the enjoyment of the society of his earliest and most esteemed friends. His mother, then in extreme old age, and his cousin, Miss Douglas, accompanied him to Edinburgh, the latter superintending the domestic arrangements and economy of his family. But though his appointment to the customs reflects high credit on the nobleman by whose intervention it was procured, it may be doubted whether it was worthy of the country or of Dr. Smith. The philosopher who had produced a work in which the true sources of national wealth and prosperity were, for the first time, fully explored and laid open, deserved a different and a higher reward.

In 1787 Dr. Smith was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; on which occasion he addressed a letter to that learned body, which strikingly evinces the high sense be felt of this honour, and his affectionate regard for those from which it emanated. “No preferment,” says he, “could have given me so much real satisfaction. No man can owe greater obligations to a society than I do to the University of Glasgow. They educated me; they sent me to Oxford. Soon after my return to Scotland, they elected me one of their own members; and afterwards preferred me to another office, to which the abilities and virtues of the never to be forgotten Dr. Hutcheson had given a superior degree of illustration. The period of thirteen years, which I spent as a member of that society, I remember as by far the most useful, and therefore as by far the happiest and most honourable, period of my life; and now, after three and twenty years’ absence, to be remembered in so very agreeable a manner by my old friends and protectors, gives me a heartfelt joy which I cannot easily express to yap.”

His constitution, which had at no time been robust, began early to give way; and his decline was accelerated by the grief and vexation he felt on account of the death of his mother, to whom he had been most tenderly attached, in 1784, and of Miss Douglas, in 1788. He survived the latter only about two years, having died in July 1790. His last illness, which was occasioned by a chronic obstruction of the bowels, was both tedious and painful: but he bore it with the greatest fortitude and resignation: his cheerfulness never forsook him; and he had all the consolation that could be derived from the affectionate sympathy and attention of his friends.

His conduct in private life did not belie the generous principles inculcated in his works. He was in the habit pf allotting a considerable part of his income to offices of secret charity. Mr. Stewart mentions that he had been made acquainted with some very affecting instances of his beneficence. “They were all,” he observes, “on a scale much beyond what might have been expected from his fortune; and were accompanied with circumstances equally honourable to the delicacy of his feelings and the liberality of his heart.”

Dr. Smith collected an exceedingly valuable and well-selected, though not a very extensive, library. He was very particular, not only with respect to the books themselves, but also with respect to the condition of the copies admitted into his collection. “The first time,” says Mr-Smellie, “I happened to be in his library, observing me looking at the books with some degree of curiosity and perhaps surprise, for most of the volumes were elegantly and some of them superbly bound, 'You must have remarked,’ said he, ‘ that I am a beau in nothing but my books.’” Smellie’s Lives, p. 296. * His library is still in the possession of Lord Reston’s widow.

Notwithstanding the apparent flow and artlessness of his style, and his great experience in composition, Dr. Smith stated, not long before his death, that he continued to compose as slowly, and with as great difficulty, as at first. He did not write with his own hand, but generally walked up and down his apartment, dictating to an amanuensis.^[4. Mr. Stewart states that all Hume’s works were written with his own hand; and that the last volumes of bis history were printed from the original copy, with only a few marginal corrections. ]

Dr. Smith had been long resolved that none of his manuscripts, except those which he himself judged fit for publication, should ever see the light; and a few days before his death he carried this resolution into effect, by having all his papers committed to the flames, with the exception of the fragments of some essays, intended to illustrate the principles that lead and direct philosophical inquiries, which he left to the discretion of his friends to publish or not as they thought proper. The contents of the manuscripts that were destroyed are not exactly known; but they certainly contained the course of lectures on rhetoric delivered at Edinburgh in 1748, and the lectures on jurisprudence and natural religion, which formed a most important part of the course of moral philosophy delivered at Glasgow. The loss of the latter must ever be a subject of deep regret. We are ignorant of the motives which induced Dr. Smith to destroy them; but Mr. Stewart supposes that it was not[7:20:418] so much on account of any apprehended injury to his literary 'reputation from the publication of such unfinished works, as from an anxiety lest the progress of truth should be retarrded by the statement of doctrines of which the principles were not fully developed.

The following observations on the private character and habits of Dr. Smith proceed from the pen of Mr. Stewart, who knew him well, and who was the last survivor of that galaxy of illustrious men who shed, during the last century, so imperishable a glory over the literature of Scotland. “The more delicate and characteristical features of his mind,” Mr. Stewart observes, “it is perhaps impossible to trace. That there were many peculiarities, both in his manners and in his intellectual habits, was manifest to the most superficial observer; but although, to those who knew him, these peculiarities detracted nothing from the respect which his abilities commanded; and although, to his intimate friends, they added an inexpressible charm to his conversation, while they displayed, in the most interesting light, the artless simplicity of his heart; yet it would require a very skilful pencil to present them to the public eye. He was certainly not fitted for the general commerce of the world, or for the business of active life. The comprehensive speculations with which he had been occupied from his youth, and the variety of materials which his own invention continually supplied to his thoughts, rendered him habitually inattentive to familiar objects, and to common occurrences; and he frequently exhibited instances of absence, which had scarcely been surpassed by the fancy of La Bruyere. Even in company he was apt to he engrossed with his studies; and appeared at times, by the motion of his lips, as well as by his looks and gestures, to be in the fervour of composition. I have often, however, been struck, at the distance of years, with his accurate memory of the most trifling particulars; and am inclined to believe, from this and some other circumstances, that he possessed a power, not perhaps uncommon among absent men, of recollecting, in consequence of subsequent efforts of reflection, many occurrences which, at the time when they happened, did not seem to have sensibly attracted his notice.

“To the defect now mentioned, it was probably owing, in part, that he did not fall in easily with the common dialogue of conversation, and that he was somewhat apt to convey his own ideas in the form of a lecture. When he did so, however, it never proceeded from a wish to engross the discourse, or to gratify his vanity. His own inclination disposed him so strongly to enjoy in silence the gaiety of those around him, that his friends were often led to concert little schemes, in order to engage him in the discussions most likely to interest him. Nor do I think I shall be accused of going too far when I say, that he was scarcely ever known to start a new topic himself, or to appear unprepared upon those topics that were introduced by others. Indeed, his conversation was never more amusing than when he gave a loose to his genius upon the very few branches of knowledge of which he only possessed the outlines.

“The opinions he formed of men, upon a slight acquaintance, were frequently erroneous; but the tendency of his nature inclined him much more to blind partiality than to ill-founded prejudice. The enlarged views of human affairs, on which his mind habitually dwelt, left him neither time nor inclination to study, in detail, the uninteresting peculiarities of ordinary characters; and accordingly, though intimately acquainted with the capacities of the intellect, and the workings of the heart, and accustomed, in his theories, to mark, with the most delicate hand, the nicest shades, both of genius and of the passions; yet, in judging of individuals, it sometimes happened that his estimates were, in a surprising degree, wide of the truth.

“In his external form and appearance there was nothing uncommon. When perfectly at ease, and when warmed with conversation, his gestures were animated, and not ungraceful; and, in the society of those he loved, his features were often brightened with a smile of inexpressible benignity. In the company of strangers, his tendency to absence, and perhaps still more his consciousness of this tendency, rendered his manner somewhat embarrassed ;—an effect which was probably not a little heightened by those speculative ideas of propriety, which his recluse habits tended at once to perfect in his conception, and to diminish his power of realizing.”

The following is a list of the published works of Dr. Smith.
Two articles in the Edinburgh Review for 1755, being, (1) a Review of Johnson’s English Dictionary, and (2) A Letter to the Editors.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The first edition of this work was published in 8vo, early in 1759. The sixth edition was published a short time before the author’s death. It contains several additions, most of which were executed during his last illness.
Considerations concerning the first Formation of Languages, and the different Genius of Original and Compounded Languages. This essay was originally subjoined to the first edition of the Moral Sentiments. It is an ingenious and pretty successful attempt to explain the formation and progress of language, by means of that species of investigation to which Dugald Stewart has given the appropriate name of Theoretical or Conjectural History; and which consists in endeavouring to trace the progress anti vicissitudes of any art or science, partly from such historical facts as have reference to it, and, where facts are wanting, from inferences derived from considering what would be the most natural and probable conduct of mankind under the circumstances supposed.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The first edition was published at London in 1776, in two volumes 4to. The fourth edition, which was the last revised by the author, appeared in three volumes 8vo, in 1786.
Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Lond. 1795, 4to. These are the fragments which he exempted from the general destruction of his manuscripts, and which were published by his friends, Dr. Black and Dr. Hutton. In an advertisement prefixed to the publication, the editors state that, when the papers which Dr. Smith had left in their hands were examined, “the greater number appeared to be parts of a plan he once had formed for giving a connected history of the liberal sciences and elegant arts.” “It is long,” they add, “since he found it necessary to abandon that plan as far too extensive; and these parts of it lay beside him neglected until his death. The reader will find in them that happy connection, that full and accurate expression, and that clear illustration, which are conspicuous in the rest of his works; and though it is difficult to add much to the great fame he so justly acquired by his other writings, these will be read with satisfaction and pleasure.” The papers in question comprise, I. fragments of a great work On the Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Inquiries, illustrated (1) by the History of Astronomy; (2) by the History of the Ancient Physics; and (3) by the History of the Ancient Logics and Metaphysics. II. An essay entitled. Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called the imitative Arts. III. A short tract, Of the Affinity between certain English and Italian Verses. IV. A disquisition. Of the External Senses.

Of the historical dissertations, the first only, on the History of Astronomy, seems to be nearly complete. They are all written on the plan of the dissertation on the Formation of Languages, being partly theoretical and partly founded on fact. In the essay on the History of Astronomy, [7:20:419] after premising some acute and ingenious speculations with respect to the effects of unexpectedness and surprise, and of wonder and novelty, the author proceeds to give a brief, masterly, outline of the different astronomical systems, from the earliest ages down to that of Newton. The fragments that remain of the other two historical essays are much less complete, and do not possess the interest of the former. The short essay, Of the Affinity between certain English and Italian Verses is curious rather than valuable. It affords a striking illustration of the variety and extent of Dr. Smith’s literary pursuits. The disquisition with respect to the External Senses is of considerable extent. It embraces some ingenious discussions, and is a valuable contribution to the science of which it treats.

The Wealth of Nations has passed through many editions, some of which have been accompanied with notes and illustrations; but the best that has yet appeared, is that which was edited by Mr. M‘Culloch, with notes and dissertations, embodying the views of later economists, and adapting the work to the present state of that science of which it has so eminently contributed to advance the progress.