CHAPTER II............................................................................ 7
Born at Kirkcaldy, June 5, 1723; his father and mother; his
early life; goes to Glasgow University at fourteen
years of age; afterwards gains a Snell Exhibition and
goes to Oxford; his experience there; goes to
Edinburgh in 1748 and lectures on Belles Lettres
under patronage of Lord Kames; friendship with
Hume; elected to chair of Logic in Glasgow in 1751,
and to chair of Moral Philosophy four years later;
descriptions of him by Professor Millar and Alexander
Carlyle; anecdote of his absent-mindedness; the Poker
Club and the Select Society; candidature of Hume and
Burke for chair of Logic at Glasgow; publication of
"Theory of Moral Sentiments" in 1759; letter from
Hume on its appearance; Smith engages himself to
travel with the Duke of Buccleuch in Europe; in 1763
they go to Paris; letter to Hume from that city; the
duke and Smith go to Toulouse and return to Paris;
Turgot and Quesnay; Smith returns to Kirkcaldy and
spends ten years in writing "The Wealth of Nations";
publishes this work in 1776; Hume's letter of
congratulation; Hume endeavours to get Smith to act
as his literary executor; Smith's letter on Hume's death
in 1776; reception of "Wealth of Nations"; anecdote of
Pitt; Smith goes to London; supposed encounter with
Johnson; returns to Edinburgh, 1778; his life there, and
his appointment as Commissioner of Customs; letter to
him from the Bishop of Norwich on Hume's death;
Smith's manner of composition; elected Lord Rector of
1
Life of Adam Smith
Contents
Glasgow in 1787; death in 1790. <...> CHAPTER III. ....................................................................... 36
Smith as a moralist; his style; his apparent reluctance to be
thought a sceptic; his consequent failure to establish
his ethical system on a philosophical basis; his
predecessors in philosophy; Locke; Berkeley and the
"New Question"; Hume's further application of the
experimental method; Smith adopts Hume's method;
sympathy his fundamental principle; neither Smith nor
Hume utilitarians; "merit and demerit"; conscience;
the character of virtue; works on other subjects;
"Considerations concerning the First Formation of
Languages"; "Principles which lead and direct
Philosophical Enquiries as illustrated by the History of
the Ancient Physics", and by the "History of Ancient
Logic and Metaphysics"; "Nature of that Imitation
which <...>
Life_of_Adam_Smith.pdf
R. B. HALDANE
LIFE
OF
ADAM SMITH
Стр.1
LIFE
OF
ADAM SMITH
by
R.B. HALDANE, M.P.
________________
LONDON
WALTER SCOTT
24 WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW
____
1887
{All rights reserved.}
Стр.2
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. ............................................................................4
Introductory; individuality of Smith; nature of the work
done by him; he will be remembered only as an
economist.
CHAPTER II............................................................................7
Born at Kirkcaldy, June 5, 1723; his father and mother; his
early life; goes to Glasgow University
at fourteen
years of age; afterwards gains a Snell Exhibition and
goes to Oxford; his experience there; goes to
Edinburgh in 1748 and lectures on Belles Lettres
under
patronage of Lord Kames; friendship with
Hume; elected to chair of Logic in Glasgow in 1751,
and to chair of Moral Philosophy four years later;
descriptions of him by Professor Millar and Alexander
Carlyle; anecdote of his absent-mindedness; the Poker
Club and the Select Society; candidature of Hume and
Burke for chair of Logic at Glasgow; publication of
"Theory of Moral Sentiments" in 1759; letter from
Hume on its appearance; Smith engages himself to
travel with the Duke of Buccleuch in Europe; in 1763
they go to Paris; letter to Hume from that city; the
duke and Smith go to Toulouse and return to Paris;
Turgot and Quesnay; Smith returns to Kirkcaldy and
spends ten years in writing "The Wealth of Nations";
publishes
this work in 1776; Hume's letter of
congratulation; Hume endeavours to get Smith to act
as his literary executor; Smith's letter on Hume's death
in 1776; reception of "Wealth of Nations"; anecdote of
Pitt; Smith goes to London; supposed encounter with
Johnson; returns to Edinburgh, 1778; his life there, and
his appointment as Commissioner of Customs; letter to
him from the Bishop of Norwich on Hume's death;
Smith's manner of composition; elected Lord Rector of
1
Стр.3
Life of Adam Smith
Glasgow in 1787; death in 1790.
CHAPTER III. .......................................................................36
Smith as a moralist; his style; his apparent reluctance to be
thought a sceptic; his consequent failure to establish
his ethical system on a philosophical basis; his
predecessors in philosophy; Locke; Berkeley and the
"New Question"; Hume's further application of the
experimental method; Smith adopts Hume's method;
sympathy his fundamental principle; neither Smith nor
Hume utilitarians; "merit and demerit"; conscience;
the character of virtue; works on other subjects;
"Considerations concerning the First Formation of
Languages";
"Principles which lead and direct
Philosophical Enquiries as illustrated by the History of
the Ancient Physics", and by the "History of Ancient
Logic and Metaphysics"; "Nature of that Imitation
which takes place in what are called the Imitative
Arts"; Essay on the external senses; "English and
Italian verses"; Smith apparently contemplated a great
work on the theories of ethics, and of jurisprudence.
CHAPTER IV. .......................................................................49
Pitt; cites Smith in House of Commons on tendency of
capital to accumulate; Smith's influence on Pitt; the
concrete character of "The Wealth of Nations";
political economy before Smith; nature of great
fallacies; mercantile
system; its origin and true
meaning; the arguments of the merchants; comparison
between Colbert and Bismarck; the exaggeration of the
free traders, and the fallacies of the protectionists;
France and the encyclopædists; the agricultural
system; Quesnay and Turgot; nature of advances
accomplished by men of genius; difference between
science and literature in this respect; Hume prepared
the ground for Smith; Quesnay's influence on Smith;
abstract nature of method of English economists who
succeeded Smith; difference between political
economy and politics; they were not separated in
2
Contents
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Life of Adam Smith
Contents
Smith's hands; his mixed method illustrated by his
defence of the Navigation Acts; arrangement of
"Wealth of Nations"; account of its contents.
CHAPTER V........................................................................102
Relation of Smith's teaching to modern
politics;
the
concrete character of his method; political economy a
hypothetical science; Smith an individualist but only
as a rule of practice; his attitude towards Free Trade
the only
safe one in view of the impending
controversy; limits of State interference; Smith's bias
against enlarging the duties of the Government when
persons under no disability were concerned; hardly
any political problem can be treated as a single
illustration of a simple principle;
the House of
Commons not fitted to decide what are really
speculative questions; there is no theoretical but only a
practical test possible as regards the propriety of State
interference, and this appears to have been Smith's
view; the pressure exercised by popular constituencies;
the faults of the two great parties; the outlook for the
future.
BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................108
3
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