puted in their ultimate and general ten dency, he did not lose sight of that modification which they may occasion ally require in practice, for the accom plishment of an immediate and beneficial purpose; and if the evidence of many striking passages in his works may be trusted, he did not incur as a philosopher, and would not have incurred as a statesman, the censure of rashly and unfeelingly adhering to an abstract principle in disdain of the interests which might be prejudiced, or even the prejudices which might have been shocked, by its application.

Nothing is more obvious, and nothing contributes so much to the beauty and value of his writing, as that in all his speculations he carried human life along with him; he never forgot that it was the chief praise and glory of philosophy to teach men how to act and to live; and he breathes through every page the admirable sentiment of a noble author -"That whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us better men and better citizens, is at best but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness, and the knowledge we acquire by it only a creditable kind of ignorance-nothing more *." This is eminently displayed in that valuable chapter to which we have referred, in the fifth book of the "Wealth of Nations," on the " Institutions for the Education of Youth" one of the most profound and powerful disquisitions in any language. Neither the abstractions of philosophy, nor the pride of learning, nor the habits of the professor, could render him insensible to the purpose to which they ought all to be subservient, namely, the real interest of those who are to be taught. But the spirit of monopoly in such institutions he shews to be as inimical to those interests as it is in every other case. "The endowment of schools and colleges," he says, "have been opposed to this interest; they have not only corrupted the diligence of pub. lic teachers, but they have rendered it almost impossible to have any good private ones. Were there no endowed in stitutions for education, no system, no science could be taught for which there was not some demand. A private teacher could never find his account in teaching either an exploded and antiquated system of science acknowledged to be useful, or a science universally be

Lord Bolingbroke-On the Study of History,

lieved to be a mere useless and pedantic heap of sophistry and nonsense. Such systems, such sciences, can subsist no where but in those incorporated socie ties for education whose prosperity and revenue are, in great measure, independent of their reputation, and altogether independent of their industry. Were there no such institutions, a gen tleman, after going through, with appli cation and abilities, the most complete course of education which the circumstances of the times were supposed to afford, could not come into the world completely ignorant of everything which is the common subject of conversation among gentlemen and men of the world."

14

"The discipline of colleges and universities," says he, in another passage, "is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or, more properly speaking, for the ease, of the masters. Its object is, in all cases, to maintain the authority of the master; and whether he neglects or performs his duty, to oblige the students, in all cases, to behave to him as if he performed it with the greatest diligence and ability. It seems to presume perfect wisdom and virtue in the one order, and the greatest weakness and folly in the other. Where the masters, however, really perform their duty, there are no examples, I believe, that the greater part of the students ever neglect theirs. Such is the generosity of the greater part of young men, that so far from being disposed to neglect or despise the instructions of their master, provided he shews some serious intention of being of use to them, they are generally inclined to pardon a great deal of incorrectness in the performance of his duty, and sometimes even to conceal from the public a good deal of gross negligence."

Such are the manly and liberal doctrines which he has put forth on this allimportant topic. How unlike to the contracted and monkish sentiments entertained by many men, a great portion of whose lives has been passed within the walls of an university; and that too in the capacity of public teachers!

He was an ardent lover of freedom, but his devotions were not paid to her as to an unknown goddess, of whose attributes he was ignorant, and to whom his offerings were but an idle and a gaudy worship. If he loved freedom, he understood, better than the lovers of freedom have always done, in what it consisted: by what institutions it might be rendered

most permanent, and its substantial blessings be more widely and equally diffused. The scorn of oppression and injustice was in him an active and discerning sentiment; and, in his ardour for the interests and happiness of mankind, he felt alike, whether the means by which they were inflicted were legal or illegal. The poor and the weak, the humble and the unprotected, he knew had, in every age, endured more of evil from the operation of unjust laws than they have ever done from the mere violation of law. It was their condition, that is, the condition of the great mass of society, which he studied and wrote to ameliorate; and his language never assumes a loftier or more ardent tone than when he advocates their interests, -the interests of mankind at large, against some crying wrong, sanctioned, as it may happen to be, by law or charter. We might refer in proof of this to his observations on the laws against the combination of workmen, where he vindicates the poor against the power of the rich-on the law of settlement, the law of entails, and the severe and contemptuous tone in which he censures the spirit of commercial monopoly under every form. Nor did he fail to visit with equal severity the sentiments in which such impolitic and unjust regulations have their origin. Witness the indignant manner in which he replies to the miserable complaints of those who, disposed to view every improvement in the condition of the labouring classes of society as an encroachment upon their superiors, censure every increasing comfort they enjoy as a luxury to which they have no right. As he reprobates the injustice and impolicy of any attempt to retard their advancement, if such were possible; so has he treated with still greater contempt the monstrous and cruel paradox which has been sometimes maintained, that a liberal rate of wages relaxes the industry of the labourer, and that he never works so well as when he is ill requited for his labour.

"The liberal reward of labour," says Smith, "as it is the effect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To complain of it is to lament over the necessary effect and cause of the greatest public prosperity. As it encourages the propagation, so it increases the industry, of the common people. The wages of labour are the encouragement of industry, which, like

every other human quality, improves in proportion to the encouragement it receives. Where wages are high, accordingly, we shall always find the workmen more active, diligent, and expeditious. In cheap years, it is pretended they are generally more idle, and in dear ones more industrious than ordinary. A plentiful subsistence, therefore, it has been concluded, relaxes, and a scanly one quickens their industry. That a little more plenty than ordinary may render some men idle cannot be doubted; but that it should have this effect upon the greater part, or that men in general should work better when they are ill fed than when they are well fed, when they are disheartened than when they are in good spirits, when they are frequently sick than when they generally are in good health, seems not very probable."

"Our merchants and master-manufacturers too (he says, in another part of his work) complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people."-Wealth of Nations, Book I. ch. 8-9.

Yet his zeal in the best of causes never made him lose sight of the end of all law-the preservation of the peace of society. He takes care to shew that it is not the province of a good or a wise man to seek the establishment of his principles by violence or undue pertinacity, and in disdain of the prejudices and institutions of the community which he seeks to influence.

"The man, whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence (he says, in one of the finest passages of his writings) will respect the established powers and privileges even of individuals, and still more those of the great orders and societies into which the state is divided. Though he should consider some of them as in some measure abusive, he will content himself with moderating what he often cannot annihilate without great violence. When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force; but will religiously observe what by Cicero is justly called the divine maxim of Plato, never to use violence to his country, no more

poetry, and oratory, where, under different forms, they are beheld in their operation; amid that exhaustless variety of circumstances and vicissitude of for tune, under which man has been seen at once an agent and a victim; he found the everlasting materials for his speculations, the real and only data of all moral science. He did not affect to despise, economist as he was, the imperishable productions of human wit and genius, the poetry of Homer or of Milton, the eloquence of Demosthenes, or of Fox; because he could find in their works no argument for the theory of rent, or the doctrine of population. Nor was he pleased to think it the part of a philosopher or a philanthropist, to sneer at the domestic affections, and the social virtues, in the most comprehensive investigations which he instituted, and which had for their object the common benefit of mankind.

In his last hours he found delight in the tragedies of Euripides and Racine; and the drama, and the principles of the dramatic art, and of poetry in general, formed a frequent and favourite topic of his conversation. He was a great advocate for rhyme, a more unqualified one even than Dr. Johnson, for he was accustomed to contend for the propriety of it as well on the stage, as in all other departments of poetry*.

As he loved to read it, he was accustomed to quote poetry, and the number of beautiful passages which he had treasured in his memory, and was in the habit of introducing in conversation, was remarkable in a man distinguished by so many higher acquisitions.

His peculiar taste is best exemplified in the style of his writings, which possess, even in that respect alone, merit of a very high order. If he has not (and who has ?) the grace, the "careless, inimitable beauties," of Mr. Hume, it was owing in some measure to his not having mixed in such varied society; a circumstance which, acting upon the refined taste of the latter, lent to his com

It is well known that the two Doctors got to

rather high words once at Mr. Dilly's table, where they met at dinner. Many years after this, when Johnson, on some occasion, was maintaining the superiority of rhyme over blank verse, Boswell

observed that he had heard Adam Smith enforce

the same criticisin in his lectures at Glasgow. "Sir," said Johnson, Smith and I once met, and we did not much take to each other; but if I had known that the dog loved rhyme as much as you say he does, Sir, I should have hugged him,"

† Gibbon's Memoirs.

positions that inexpressible charm, which Gibbon may be supposed to have felt, when he describes himself in his ambition to emulate him, as "closing the volume with a mixed sensation of delight and despair *."

The great aim of Dr. Smith as a writer, and his great merit, is a marvellous perspicuity in the exposition of his ideas. Often diffuse, but never prolix; sometimes condensed, but never entangled in his expression; he unfolds the process of his reasonings so amply, that he leaves nothing to be supplied by his reader but a careful attention to his matter. Mr. Fox however is reported to have said of him, perhaps hastily, that he was unnecessarily diffuse, and fond of deductions where there was nothing to deduce. Mr. Stewart, with greater reserve, has ventured to hint a criticism nearly similar, and has ascribed this quality in his compositions to his early fondness for the study of the Greek geometry.

His greatest defect in the "Wealth of Nations," along with some faults in the arrangement of his subject, arises from his frequent digressions; his long dissertations upon some incidental questions, which frequently encumber the text, and intercept that complete and unbroken view of the subject as a whole, which a didactic author, who desires to interest and inform his reader, should always endeavour to preserve, from the first simple proposition with which he sets out, to the final developement of his system in all its parts. This defect arose partly from a peculiarity in his judgment, which led him to reject the use of marginal annotations; so useful in treating of many subjects, and certainly, it would seem, not the least so, in many which Dr. Smith undertook to discuss in his great work. It is curious, however, that, in the "Wealth of Nations," there are, we believe, but three or four notes, of four or five lines each, in the whole work, and these containing little more than references to authorities; whilst, in the "Theory of Moral Sentiments," there occurs but one of considerable length, and of importance more than equal to its length, in which it is remarkable that he has embodied a piece of reasoning, having essential reference to his system, of which it may be said, indeed, to furnish one of the strongest supports,

• Gibbon's Memoirs.

and the clearest illustrations to be found, perhaps, in the whole work.*—*

There is no doubt that he bestowed great care upon the style and composition of his works. And after all his practice as a writer, he is said never to have acquired that facility which is often attained by it, but to have written as slowly, and with as much labour at last, as he had ever done. This however was the effect, in some measure, of the nature of his speculations, and the general character and conduct of his understanding. In all his works, though we find passages of exceeding eloquence, force, and beauty, he is most distinguished for being a deliberate reasoner, and a candid and cautious thinker. It was usual with him, when employed in composition, not to write with his own hand, but to walk about his room dictating to an amanuensis. He had collected, in the course of his life, a very valuable library, which he bequeathed to his cousin, Mr. David Douglas. As he was a lover of books, he was more attentive to their condition, and the outward fashion of them, than is usual with scholars in general. When Mr. Smellie once called upon him, and was admiring a splendid copy of some classic author, and the general elegance of his shelves,-" You see, Sir," said Smith, "if in nothing else, I am a beau at least in my books."

Besides the two great works of which we have spoken, and on which the fame of Dr. Smith will for ever rest, we must not omit to mention the very original and ingenious dissertation on the formation of languages, which was appended to the early editions of the "Moral Sentiments," and still continues to be published along with that work; and the few masterly, but unfinished sketches which were published shortly after his death. The tract on languages is a piece of extensive learning and profound observation; but though Mr. Stewart

Dr. Smith was betrayed into this rejection of marginal writing, by his classic adherence to the plan of composition of the ancients, who were equally ignorant of the use and the abuse of our modera practice; but many of whose works would evidently have been much improved by a moderate adoption

of it; and every reader of the "Wealth of Nations" must have felt how much he would have been relieved in the study of this great work, if many portions of it, which might be pointed out, had been removed from the text to the margin, to be consulted

in their proper places, and not allowed to interrupt,

as they often do, a chain of profound and subtle reasoning, or an interesting deduction of consequences of the highest importance to the establishment of the point in question.

Vide "Theory of Moral Sent.," Part ii. Sect. 1.

has bestowed high praise upon it, it seems hardly to have attracted the notice it deserves. The longest and most important of the posthumous essays, is entitled a "History of Astronomy," in which the author proposes to illustrate the principles which suggest and direct philosophical inquirers, by an account of the origin and progress of that inte resting science. The same train of thought was pursued in two shorter and more imperfect essays, on the "History of the Ancient Physics," and that of the "Ancient Logic and Metaphysics." Along with these is a disquisition of very great beauty, entitled, with his accustomed amplitude of language, "On the Nature of that Imitation which takes place, in what are called the Imitative Arts;" and another, on the " 'External Senses "-all abounding in great originality of thought, exquisite illustration, and expression the most expanded and luminous.

In the "Sketches of the History of Philosophy," we find the same turn and tendency of mind which he has displayed in his greater works; a disposition which delighted to ascribe the first exercise of the imagination and the intellect, not to any view of profit or advantage in its results, but to a natural desire to fill up the void which was felt by the mind, from its inability to comprehend and connect together the various, and, as it would seem, the disjointed appearances which present themselves to its contemplation in the scenes and operations of nature. "Philosophy," says Dr. Smith, "is nothing but the science of the connecting principle of nature." It is an art addressed to the imagination, which seeks to adapt and reconcile to that faculty some theory, more or less satisfactory, of the phenomena, which, at first view, are void of order and connexion, and of meaning. The superiority of the Newtonian philosophy, he maintains, consists only in this,-that it is the most pleasing solution of the great problem of nature which has yet been given

that it connects more easily and more simply the appearances of the heavens in the fancy-not that it is by any means to be regarded as unfolding the actual chains which nature makes use of to bind together her several operations.

In the few observations which have been made upon the writings of this illustrious man, as in the short extracts introduced from them, it has been less our object, as will be seen, to dwell upon