Chapter V (2)

In Hutcheson, the tendency was so strong, as to make him believe, that, by arguing from a certain number of original principles, he could construct the theory and explain the march of human affairs, with little or no aid from the experience of the past, or, indeed, of the present. His views, for instance, respecting the nature and objects of legislation, criminal, as well as civil, might have been written by a recluse who had never quitted his hermitage, and whose purity was still unsoiled by the realities of the world. Starting from the so-called nature of things, his first steps were ideal, and from them he sought to advance to the actual. In his account of the duties of life, as they existed before the power of government was consolidated, he quotes no evidence to show what really happened among barbarous tribes who were in that state; but he contents himself with deductive inferences from the principles he had previously laid down.[645] Difficult questions relating to the laws of property, are treated in the same manner; that is to say, the conclusions respecting them are arrived at on speculative grounds, and not by comparing how the different enactments have worked in different countries.[646] Experience is either shut out, or made subordinate to theory; and facts are adduced to illustrate the inference, but not to suggest it. So, too, the proper relation between the people and their rulers, and the amount of liberty which the people should possess, instead of being inductively generalized from an historical inquiry into the circumstances which had produced most happiness, might, in the opinion of Hutcheson, be ascertained by reasoning from the nature of government, and from the ends for which it was instituted.[647]

[645] See his ingenious chapter, entitled 'A deduction of the more
special laws of nature and duties of life, previous to civil
government, and other adventitious states.' _Moral Philosophy_,
vol. i. p. 227; and compare vol. ii. pp. 294-309, 'How civil power
is acquired.'

[646] See, for example, his remarks on 'the right of possession.' _Moral
Philosophy_, vol. i. p. 344; on 'rights by mortgage,' p. 350; and
on inheritance, p. 356.

[647] In his _Moral Philosophy_, vol. ii. pp. 346, 347, he sums up a
long argument on 'the nature of civil laws,' by saying: 'Thus the
general duties of magistrates and subjects are discoverable from
the nature of the trust committed to them, and the end of all
civil power.'

The next great attempt to study the actions of men scientifically, and to generalize the principles of their conduct without the intervention of supernatural ideas, was made by Adam Smith, who, in 1759, published his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, and, in 1776, his _Wealth of Nations_. To understand the philosophy of this, by far the greatest of all the Scotch thinkers, both works must be taken together, and considered as one; since they are, in reality, the two divisions of a single subject. In the _Moral Sentiments_, he investigates the sympathetic part of human nature; in the _Wealth of Nations_, he investigates its selfish part. And as all of us are sympathetic as well as selfish; in other words, as all of us look without as well as within, and as this classification is a primary and exhaustive division of our motives to action, it is evident, that if Adam Smith had completely accomplished his vast design, he would at once have raised the study of human nature to a science, leaving nothing for subsequent inquirers except to ascertain the minor springs of affairs, all of which would find their place in this general scheme, and be deemed subordinate to it. In his attempt to perform this prodigious task, and to traverse the enormous field which he saw lying before him, he soon perceived that an inductive investigation was impossible, because it would require the labour of many lives even to assemble the materials from which the generalization was to be made. Moved by this reflection, and, probably, moved still more by the intellectual habits which prevailed around him, he resolved on adopting the deductive method instead of the inductive; but, in seeking for the premisses from which he was to reason, and on which his structure was to be built, he resorted to a peculiar artifice, which is perfectly valid, and which he had an undoubted right to employ, though, to make it available, requires such delicate tact, and involves so many refinements, that extremely few writers have used it with effect on social questions either before or since.

The plan to which I allude is, that when any subject becomes unmanageable by the inductive method, whether from the impossibility of experimenting upon it, or from its extreme natural complexity, or from the presence of immense and bewildering details collected around it, we may, in all such cases, make an imaginary separation of inseparable facts; and reason upon trains of events which have no real and independent existence, and which are nowhere to be found except in the mind of the inquirer. A result obtained in this way, cannot be strictly true; but, if we have reasoned accurately, it will be as near truth as were the premisses from which we started. To make it perfectly true, we must confront it with other results, which we have arrived at in a similar way, and from the same subject. These separate inferences may eventually be coördinated into a single system; so that, while each inference contains only an imperfect truth, the whole of the inferences, when put together, will contain perfect truth.

Such hypothetical arguments are evidently based upon an intentional suppression of facts; and the artifice is necessary, because, without the suppression, the facts would be unmanageable. Each argument leads to a conclusion which approximates to truth; hence, whenever the premisses are so comprehensive as almost to exhaust the facts to which they refer, the conclusion will be so near to complete truth as to be of the greatest value, even before it is coördinated with other conclusions drawn from the same department of inquiry.

Geometry exhibits the most perfect example of this logical stratagem. The object of the geometrician is, to generalize the laws of space; in other words, to ascertain the necessary and universal relations of its various parts. Inasmuch, however, as space would have no parts unless it were divided, the geometrician is forced to assume such a division; and he takes the simplest possible form of it, a division by lines. Now, a line considered as a fact, that is, as it is found in the actual world, must always have two qualities, length and breadth. However slight these qualities may be, every line has them both. But if the geometrician took both into consideration, he would find himself in the presence of a problem too complicated for the resources of the human understanding to deal with; or, at all events, too complicated for the present resources of our knowledge. He, therefore, by a scientific artifice, deliberately strikes off one of these qualities, and asserts that a line is length without breadth. He knows that the assertion is false, but he also knows that it is necessary. For, if you deny it, he can prove nothing. If you insist upon his letting into his premisses the idea of breadth, he is unable to proceed, and the whole fabric of geometry falls to the ground. Since, however, the breadth of the faintest line is so slight as to be incapable of measurement, except by an instrument used under the microscope, it follows that the assumption, that there can be lines without breadth, is so nearly true, that our senses, when unassisted by art, cannot detect the error. Formerly, and until the invention of the micrometer, in the seventeenth century, it was impossible to detect it at all. Hence, the conclusions of the geometrician approximate so close to truth, that we are justified in accepting them as true. The flaw is too minute to be perceived. But that there is a flaw, appears to me certain. It appears certain, that whenever something is kept back in the premisses, something must be wanting in the conclusion. In all such cases, the field of inquiry has not been entirely covered; and part of the preliminary facts being suppressed, it must, I think, be admitted, that complete truth is unattainable, and that no problem in geometry has yet been exhaustively solved.[648]

[648] That is, so far as the facts are concerned. Geometry, considered
in the most elevated manner, rests on ideas, and from that point
of view is impregnable, unless the axioms can be overthrown. But
if geometricians will insist on having definitions as well as
axioms, they gain, no doubt, increased clearness, but they lose
something in accuracy. I apprehend that, without definitions,
geometry could not be a science of space, but would be a science
of magnitudes, ideally conceived and consequently as pure as
ratiocination could make it. This does not touch the question as
to the empirical origin of the axioms.

Still, the amazing triumphs effected in this branch of mathematics, show how powerful a weapon that form of deduction is, which proceeds by an artificial separation of facts, in themselves inseparable. So little, however, is the philosophy of the method understood, that when, late in the eighteenth century, political economy assumed a scientific form, many persons, who were otherwise well instructed, reproached its cultivators with their hard-heartedness; such objectors being unable to see, that the science could not be constructed if it were necessary to take in the whole range of generous and benevolent affections. The political economist aims at discovering the laws of wealth, which are far too complicated to be studied under every aspect. He, therefore, selects one of those aspects, and generalizes the laws as they are exhibited in the selfish parts of human nature. And he is right in doing so, simply because men, in the pursuit of wealth, consider their own gratification oftener than the gratification of others. Hence, he, like the geometrician, blots out one part of his premisses, in order that he may manipulate the remaining part with greater ease. But we must always remember, that political economy, though a profound and beautiful science, is only a science of one department of life, and is founded upon a suppression of some of the facts in which all large societies abound. It suppresses, or, what comes to the same thing, it ignores, many high and magnanimous feelings which we could ill afford to lose. We are not, therefore, to allow its conclusions to override all other conclusions. We may accept them in science, and yet reject them in practice. Thus, the political economist, when confining himself to his own department, says, with good reason, that it is both absurd and mischievous for government to undertake to supply the working-classes with employment. This assertion, he, as a political economist, can prove; and yet, notwithstanding its scientific truth, it may be practically right for a government to do the exact opposite. It may be right for a government to supply the employment, when the people are so ignorant as to demand it, and when, at the same time, they are so powerful as to plunge the country into anarchy if the demand is refused. Here, the view of the politician takes in all the premisses of which the political economist had only taken in a portion. In the same way, as a matter of economic science, it is wrong for any one to relieve the poor; since nothing is better established, than that to relieve poverty increases it, by encouraging improvidence. But, in spite of this, the antagonistic principle of sympathy will come into play, and will, in some minds, operate with such force, as to make it advisable, that he who feels it should give alms, because, if he abstains from giving them, the violence which he does to his own nature may inflict more mischief on himself, than his bestowal of charity would inflict on the general interests of society.

It will not, I hope, be considered that, in these remarks, I have digressed from the main argument of the present chapter, since, although, in making them, I have aimed at clearing up a general question respecting the nature of scientific proof, I have only done so with the more particular object of illustrating the philosophy of Adam Smith, and of explaining the method which that most profound and original thinker pursued. We shall now be able to see how entirely his plan was deductive, and what a peculiar form of deduction it was. In his two great works, he first lays down certain ideas, and from them he marches on to the facts of the external world. And, in each work, he reasons from only part of his premisses; supplying the other part in the other work. None of us are exclusively selfish, and none of us are exclusively sympathetic. But Adam Smith separates in speculation qualities which are inseparable in reality. In his _Moral Sentiments_, he ascribes our actions to sympathy; in his _Wealth of Nations_, he ascribes them to selfishness. A short view of these two works will prove the existence of this fundamental difference, and will enable us to perceive that each is supplementary to the other; so that, in order to understand either, it is necessary to study both.

In the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, Adam Smith lays down one great principle from which he reasons, and to which all the others are subordinate. This principle is, that the rules which we prescribe to ourselves, and which govern our conduct, are solely arrived at by observing the conduct of others.[649] We judge ourselves, because we had previously judged them. Our notions are obtained from without, and not from within. If, therefore, we lived entirely alone, we could have no idea of merit or demerit, and it would be impossible for us to form an opinion as to whether our sentiments were right or wrong.[650] To acquire this knowledge, we must look abroad. Inasmuch, however, as we have no direct experience of what other persons actually feel, we can only gain the information by conceiving what we should feel if we were in their place.[651] Hence, all men are, in imagination, constantly changing situations with others; and though the change is ideal, and lasts but for a moment, it is the foundation of that great and universal impulse which is called Sympathy.[652]

[649] 'Our continual observations upon the conduct of others, insensibly
lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what
is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided.' ... 'It is
thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are
ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular
instances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and
propriety, approve or disapprove of. We do not originally approve
or condemn particular actions; because, upon examination, they
appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain general
rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed by finding from
experience that all actions of a certain kind, or circumstanced in
a certain manner, are approved of or disapproved of.' _Smith's
Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. pp. 219, 220. At p. 153: 'We
either approve or disapprove of our own conduct according as we
feel that, when we place ourselves in the situation of another
man, and view it, as it were, with his eyes and from his station,
we either can or cannot entirely enter into and sympathize with
the sentiments and motives which influenced it.'

[650] 'Were it possible that a human creature could grow up to manhood
in some solitary place, without any communication with his own
species, he could no more think of his own character, of the
propriety or demerit of his own sentiments and conduct, of the
beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty and
deformity of his own face.' _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_,
vol. i. p. 154. 'Our first moral criticisms are exercised upon the
characters and conduct of other people.' p. 156.

[651] 'As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can
form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by
conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.'
_Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 2.

[652] 'That imaginary change of situation, upon which their sympathy is
founded, is but momentary.' _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_,
vol. i. p. 21. Compare vol. ii. p. 206.

By proceeding from these premisses, a vast number of social phenomena may be explained. We naturally sympathize with joy more than with sorrow.[653] Hence, that admiration for prosperous and successful persons, which is quite independent of any benefit we expect from them; and hence, too, the existence of different ranks and of social distinctions, all of which emanate from the same source.[654] Hence, also, the feeling of loyalty, which is a product, not of reason, nor of fear, nor of a sense of public convenience, but rather of sympathy with those above us, begetting an extraordinary compassion for even their ordinary sufferings.[655] Custom and fashion play a great part in the world, but they owe their origin entirely to sympathy;[656] and so do the various systems of philosophy which have flourished at different times, the disagreement between which depends on the fact, that each philosopher has sympathized with different ideas, some sympathizing with the notion of fitness or congruity, some with that of prudence, some with that of benevolence, and every one developing the conception paramount in his own mind.[657] To sympathy, again, we must ascribe the establishment of rewards and punishments, and the whole of our criminal laws, none of which would have existed but for our disposition to sympathize with those who either do good or suffer harm; for the circumstance of society being protected by penal laws, is a subsequent and subordinate discovery, which confirms our sense of their propriety, but did not suggest it.[658] The same principle causes the difference of character exhibited by different classes, such as the irritability of poets, compared with the coolness of mathematicians;[659] it likewise causes that social difference between the sexes, which makes men more remarkable for generosity, and women for humanity.[660] All these results illustrate the workings of sympathy, and are the remote, but still the direct, operations of that principle. Indeed, we can trace to it some of the minutest divisions of character; pride and vanity, for instance, being dependent on it, although those two passions are often confused together, and are sometimes strangely blended in the same mind.[661]

[653] 'I will venture to affirm that, when there is no envy in the case,
our propensity to sympathize with joy is much stronger than our
propensity to sympathize with sorrow.' _Smith's Theory of Moral
Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 58. 'It is because mankind are disposed to
sympathize more entirely with our joy than with our sorrow, that
we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty.' p. 65.

[654] 'Upon this disposition of mankind to go along with all the
passions of the rich and the powerful, is founded the distinction
of ranks, and the order of society. Our obsequiousness to our
superiors more frequently arises from our admiration for the
advantages of their situation, than from any private expectations
of benefit from their good will.' _Smith's Theory of Moral
Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 69. See also vol. ii. p. 72.

[655] See the striking remarks in _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i.
p. 70-72.

[656] _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. pp. 23 seq.

[657] _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. pp. 131-244. This sketch of
the different systems of philosophy is perhaps the ablest part of
the book, notwithstanding two or three errors which it contains.

[658] _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. pp. 89, 92, 115,
116. The utmost which he will concede to the notion of social
convenience, is that 'we frequently have occasion to confirm our
natural sense of the propriety and fitness of punishment, by
reflecting how necessary it is for preserving the order of
society.' p. 122.

[659] _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. pp. 172-174.

[660] 'Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man. The fair
sex, who have commonly much more tenderness than ours, have seldom
so much generosity.' _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol.
ii. p. 19. Sufficient facts have not yet been collected to enable
us to test the truth of this remark, and the loose experience of
individual observers is worth very little on so wide a subject.
Still, I venture to doubt the truth of Adam Smith's distinction. I
suspect that women are, on the whole, more generous than men, as
well as more tender. But to establish a proposition of this sort,
would require the most extensive research, made by a careful and
analytic mind; and, at present, there is not even any tolerably
good work on the mental characteristics which distinguish the
sexes, and there never will be one until physiology is united with
biography.

[661] _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. pp. 115-122.

Sympathy, then, is the main-spring of human conduct. It arises, not so much from witnessing the passions of other persons, as from witnessing the situation which excites those passions.[662] To this single process we are indebted, not only for the highest principles, but also for the deepest emotions. For, the greatest affection of which we are capable, is merely sympathy fixed into habit; and the love which exists between the nearest relations, is not inherent, but is derived from this mighty and controlling principle, which governs the whole course of affairs.[663]

[662] 'Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the
passion, as from that of the situation which excites it.' _Smith's
Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 6.

[663] 'What is called affection, is, in reality, nothing but habitual
sympathy.' _Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. p. 63.
'In some tragedies and romances, we meet with many beautiful and
interesting scenes, founded upon what is called the force of
blood, or upon the wonderful affection which near relations are
supposed to conceive for one another, even before they know that
they have any such connection. This force of blood, however, I am
afraid, exists nowhere but in tragedies and romances.' p. 66.

By this bold hypothesis, Adam Smith, at one stroke, so narrowed the field of inquiry, as to exclude from it all considerations of selfishness as a primary principle, and only to admit its great antagonist, sympathy. The existence of the antagonism, he distinctly recognizes. For, he will not allow that sympathy is in any way to be deemed a selfish principle.[664] Although he knew that it is pleasurable, and that all pleasure contains an element of selfishness, it did not suit the method of his philosophy to subject the principle of sympathy to such an inductive analysis as would reveal its elements. His business was, to reason from it, and not to it. Concentrating his energy upon the deductive process, and displaying that dialectic skill which is natural to his countrymen, and of which he himself was one of the most consummate masters the world has ever seen, he constructed a system of philosophy, imperfect indeed, because the premisses were imperfect, but approaching truth as closely as it was possible for any one to do who abstained from giving due consideration to the selfish part of human nature. Into the workings of its sympathetic part, he looked with a minuteness, and he reasoned from it with a subtlety, which make his work the most important that has ever been written on this interesting subject. But, inasmuch as his plan involved a deliberate suppression of preliminary and essential facts, the results which he obtained do not strictly correspond to those which are actually observed in the world.[665] This, however, as I have shown, is not a valid objection; since such discrepancy between the ideal and the actual, or between the abstract and the concrete, is the necessary consequence of that still early condition of our knowledge, which forces us to study complicated questions piecemeal, and to raise them to sciences by separate and fragmentary investigations.

[664] 'Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish
principle.' _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. ii. p. 206. In
vol. i. p. 9, he complains of 'those who are fond of deducing all
our sentiments from certain refinements of self-love.'

[665] This is noticed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose sketch of Adam Smith
is hasty, and somewhat superficial, but who, nevertheless, truly
observes, that Smith 'has exposed himself to objections founded on
experience, to which it is impossible to attempt any answer.'
_Mackintosh's Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy_, pp. 239, 240.
See also a letter from Hume to Adam Smith, in _Burton's Life and
Correspondence of Hume_, vol. ii. p. 60.

That Adam Smith saw this necessity, and that his seeing it was the cause of the method he pursued, is evident from the fact, that in his next great work he followed the same plan, and, though he argued from new premisses, he carefully avoided arguing from any of the old ones. Convinced that, in his theory of morals, he had reasoned as accurately as possible from the principles supplied by sympathy, his capacious and insatiable mind, deeming that nothing had been done while aught remained to do, urged him to pass on to the opposite passion of selfishness, and treat it in the same manner, so that the whole domain of thought might be covered. This he did in his _Wealth of Nations_, which, though even a greater work than his _Moral Sentiments_, is equally one-sided, in reference to the principles which it assumes. It assumes that selfishness is the main regulator of human affairs, just as his previous work had assumed sympathy to be so. Between the two works there elapsed an interval of seventeen years; the _Wealth of Nations_ not being published till 1776. But what shows that to their author both were part of a single scheme, is the notable circumstance, that, so early as 1753, he had laid down the principles which his later work contains.[666] This was while his former work was still in meditation, and before it had seen the light. It is, therefore, clear, that the study which he made, first of one passion, and then of its opposite, was not a capricious or accidental arrangement, but was the consequence of that vast idea which presided over all his labours, and which, when they are rightly understood, gives to them a magnificent unity. And a glorious object of ambition it was. His aspiring and comprehensive genius, sweeping the distant horizon, and taking in the intermediate space at a glance, sought to traverse the whole ground in two separate and independent directions, indulging the hope, that, by supplying in one line of argument the premisses which were wanting in the other, their opposite conclusions would be compensatory rather than hostile, and would serve as a broad and permanent basis on which one great science of human nature might be safely built.

[666] 'Mr. Smith's political lectures, comprehending the fundamental
principles of his "Inquiry," were delivered at Glasgow as early as
the year 1752 or 1753.' _Dugald Stewart's Life of Adam Smith_,
p. lxxviii., prefixed to _Smith's Posthumous Essays_, London, 4to,
1795.

The _Wealth of Nations_ is, as I have elsewhere observed,[667] probably the most important book which has ever been written, whether we consider the amount of original thought which it contains, or its practical influence. Its practical recommendations were extremely favourable to those doctrines of freedom which the eighteenth century ushered in; and this secured to them an attention which otherwise they would not have received. While, therefore, the _Wealth of Nations_ was the proximate cause of a great change in legislation,[668] a deeper analysis will show, that the success of the book, and, consequently, the alteration of the laws, depended upon the operation of more remote and general causes. It must also be confessed, that those same causes predisposed the mind of Adam Smith to the doctrines of liberty, and gave him a sort of prejudice in favour of conclusions which limited the interference of the legislator. Thus much he borrowed from his age; but one thing he did not borrow. His wide and organizing mind was all his own. This would have made him great under any circumstances; to make him powerful, required a peculiar conjunction of events. That conjunction he enjoyed, and he turned it to good account. The influence of his contemporaries was enough to make him liberal; his own capacity was enough to make him comprehensive. He had, in a most remarkable degree, that exuberance of thought, which is one of the highest forms of genius, but which leads those who possess it into distant excursions, which, though they have one common aim, are often stigmatized as digressions, simply because they who criticize are unable to discern the great principle which pervades the whole, and unites the various parts into a single scheme. This has been especially the case with Adam Smith, whose immortal work has often been exposed to such shallow objections. And certainly, the _Wealth of Nations_ displays a breadth of treatment which those who cannot sympathize with, are very likely to ridicule. The phenomena, not only of wealth, but also of society in general, classified and arranged under their various forms; the origin of the division of labour, and the consequences which that division has produced; the circumstances which gave rise to the invention of money, and to the subsequent changes in its value; the history of those changes traced in different ages, and the history of the relations which the precious metals bear to each other; an examination of the connection between wages and profits, and of the laws which govern the rise and fall of both; another examination of the way in which these are concerned, on the one hand, with the rent of land, and, on the other hand, with the price of commodities; an inquiry into the reason why profits vary in different trades, and at different times; a succinct, but comprehensive, view of the progress of towns in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire; the fluctuations, during several centuries, in the prices of the food of the people, and a statement of how it is, that, in different stages of society, the relative cost of land and of meat varies; the history of corporation laws and of municipal enactments, and their bearing on the four great classes of apprentices, manufacturers, merchants, and landlords; an account of the immense power and riches formerly enjoyed by the clergy, and of the manner in which, as society advances, they gradually lose their exclusive privileges; the nature of religious dissent, and the reason why the clergy of the established Church can never contend with it on terms of equality, and, therefore, call on the State to help them, and wish to persecute when they cannot persuade; why some sects profess more ascetic principles, and others more luxurious ones; how it was, that, during the feudal times, the nobles acquired their power, and how that power has, ever since, been gradually diminishing; how the rights of territorial jurisdiction originated, and how they died away; how the sovereigns of Europe obtained their revenue, what the sources of it are, and what classes are most heavily taxed in order to supply it; the cause of certain virtues, such as hospitality, flourishing in barbarous ages, and decaying in civilized ones; the influence of inventions and discoveries in altering the distribution of power among the various classes of society; a bold and masterly sketch of the peculiar sort of advantages which Europe derived from the discovery of America and of the passage round the Cape; the origin of universities, their degeneracy from their original plan, the corruption which has gradually crept over them, and the reason why they are so unwilling to adopt improvements, and to keep pace with the wants of the age; a comparison between public and private education, and an estimate of their relative advantages;--these, and a vast number of other subjects, respecting the structure and development of society, such as the feudal system, slavery, emancipation of serfs, origin of standing armies, and of mercenary troops, effects produced by tithes, laws of primogeniture, sumptuary laws, international treaties concerning trade, rise of European banks, national debts, influence of dramatic representations over opinions, influence of foreign travels over opinions, colonies, poor-laws,--all topics of a miscellaneous character, and many of them diverging from each other,--all are fused into one great system, and irradiated by the splendour of one great genius. Into that dense and disorderly mass, did Adam Smith introduce symmetry, method, and law. At his touch, anarchy disappeared, and darkness was succeeded by light. Much, of course, he took from his predecessors, though nothing like so much as is commonly supposed. On this sort of borrowing, the best and strongest of us are dependent. But, after making every possible allowance for what he gathered from others, we must honestly say, that no single man ever took so great a step upon so important a subject, and that no single work which is now preserved, contains so many views, which were novel at the time, but which subsequent experience has ratified. What, however, for our present purpose, is most important to observe, is, that he obtained these results by arguing from principles which the selfish part of human nature exclusively supplied, and that he omitted those sympathetic feelings of which every human being possesses at least some share, but which he could not take into consideration, without producing a problem, the number of whose complications it would have been hopeless to unravel.

[667] _History of Civilization_, vol. i. p. 214.

[668] 'Perhaps the only book which produced an immediate, general, and
irrevocable change in some of the most important parts of the
legislation of all civilized states.' _Mackintosh's Ethical
Philosophy_, p. 232. But this is too strongly expressed, as the
economical history of France and Germany decisively proves.

To avoid, therefore, being baffled, he simplified the problem, by erasing from his view of human nature those premisses which he had already handled in his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_. At the beginning of the _Wealth of Nations_, he lays down two propositions: 1st, that all wealth is derived, not from land, but from labour; and 2d, that the amount of the wealth depends, partly on the skill with which the labour is conducted, and partly on the proportion between the number of those who labour and the number of those who do not labour. The rest of the work, is an application of these principles, to explain the growth and mechanism of society. In applying them, he everywhere assumes, that the great moving power of all men, all interests, and all classes, in all ages, and in all countries, is selfishness. The opposite power of sympathy he entirely shuts out; and I hardly remember an instance in which even the word occurs in the whole course of his work. Its fundamental assumption is, that each man exclusively follows his own interest, or what he deems to be his own interest. And one of the peculiar features of his book is, to show that, considering society as a whole, it nearly always happens that men, in promoting their own interest, will unintentionally promote the interest of others. Hence, the great practical lesson is, not to restrain selfishness, but to enlighten it; because there is a provision in the nature of things, by which the selfishness of the individual accelerates the progress of the community. According to this view, the prosperity of a country depends on the amount of its capital; the amount of its capital depends on the habit of saving, that is, on parsimony, as opposed to generosity; while the habit of saving is, in its turn, governed by the desire we all feel of bettering our condition,--a desire so inherent in our nature, that it comes with us from the womb, and only leaves us in the grave.[669]

[669] 'Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the
increase of capital. Industry, indeed, provides the subject which
parsimony accumulates; but whatever industry might acquire, if
parsimony did not save and store up, the capital would never be
the greater.' ... 'But the principle which prompts to save, is the
desire of bettering our condition; a desire which, though
generally calm and dispassionate, comes with us from the womb, and
never leaves us till we go into the grave.' _Smith's Wealth of
Nations_, book ii. chap. iii. pp. 138, 140, edit. Edinb. 1839.

This constant effort of every man, to better his own condition, is so salutary, as well as so powerful, that it is often capable of securing the progress of society, in spite of the folly and extravagance of the rulers of mankind.[670] If it were not for this propensity, improvement would be impossible. For human institutions are constantly stopping our advance, by thwarting our natural inclinations.[671] And no wonder that this should be the case, seeing that the men who are at the head of affairs, and by whom the institutions are contrived, have, perhaps, a certain rough and practical sagacity; but being, from the narrowness of their understandings, incapable of large views, their councils are determined by those mere casual fluctuations which alone they are able to perceive.[672] They do not see that we have prospered, not on account of their enactments, but in the teeth of them; and that the real cause of our prosperity is the fact that we enjoy undisturbed the fruit of our own labour.[673] Whenever this right is tolerably secure, every man will be bent on procuring for himself either present enjoyment or future profit; and if he does not aim at one of these objects, he is void of common understanding.[674] If he possess capital, he will probably aim at both, but, in doing so, he will never consider the interest of others; his sole motive will be his own private profit.[675] And it is well that such should be the case. For, by thus pursuing his personal interest, he aids society more than if his views were generous and exalted. Some people affect to carry on trade for the good of others; but this is mere affectation, though, to say the truth, it is an affectation not very common among merchants, and many words are not needed to dissuade them from so foolish a practice.[676]

[670] 'The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to
better his condition, the principle from which public and
national, as well as private, opulence is originally derived, is
frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of
things towards improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of
government and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the
unknown principle of animal life, it frequently restores health
and vigour to the constitution, in spite not only of the disease,
but of the absurd prescriptions of the doctor.' _Wealth of
Nations_, book ii. chap. iii. p. 141. 'The natural effort of every
individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert
itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that
it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of
carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of
surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the
folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.' Book iv.
chap. v. p. 221.

[671] See an admirable passage, p. 156, too long to quote, beginning,
'If human institutions had never thwarted those natural
inclinations,' &c.

[672] 'That insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or
politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary
fluctuations of affairs.' _Wealth of Nations_, book iv. chap. ii.
p. 190.

[673] 'That security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man,
that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone
sufficient to make any country flourish, notwithstanding these and
twenty other absurd regulations of commerce.' _Wealth of Nations_,
book iv. chap. v. p. 221.

[674] 'In all countries where there is a tolerable security, every man
of common understanding will endeavour to employ whatever stock he
can command, in procuring either present enjoyment or future
profit.' _Wealth of Nations_, book ii. chap. i. p. 115.

[675] 'The consideration of his own private profit is the sole motive
which determines the owner of any capital to employ it either in
agriculture, in manufactures, or in some particular branch of the
wholesale or retail trade.' _Wealth of Nations_, book ii. chap. v.
p. 154.

[676] 'By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the
society more effectually than when he really intends to promote
it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to
trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very
common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in
dissuading them from it.' _Wealth of Nations_, book iv. chap. ii.
p. 184.

In this way, Adam Smith completely changes the premisses which he had assumed in his earlier work. Here, he makes men naturally selfish; formerly, he had made them naturally sympathetic.[677] Here, he represents them as pursuing wealth for sordid objects, and for the narrowest personal pleasures; formerly he represented them as pursuing it out of regard to the sentiments of others, and for the sake of obtaining their sympathy.[678] In the _Wealth of Nations_, we hear no more of this conciliatory and sympathetic spirit; such amiable maxims are altogether forgotten, and the affairs of the world are regulated by different principles. It now appears that benevolence and affection have no influence over our actions. Indeed, Adam Smith will hardly admit common humanity into his theory of motives. If a people emancipate their slaves, it is a proof, not that the people are acted on by high moral considerations, nor that their sympathy is excited by the cruelty inflicted on these unhappy creatures. Nothing of the sort. Such inducements to conduct are imaginary, and exercise no real sway. All that the emancipation proves, is, that the slaves were few in number, and, therefore, small in value. Otherwise, they would not have been emancipated.[679]

[677] In his _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 21, he says that
mankind are 'naturally sympathetic.'

[678] 'Nay, it is chiefly for this regard to the sentiments of mankind,
that we pursue riches and avoid poverty.' _Theory of Moral
Sentiments_, vol. i. p. 66. 'To become the natural object of the
joyous congratulations and sympathetic attentions of mankind, is,
in this manner, the circumstance which gives to prosperity all its
dazzling splendour.' p. 78.

[679] 'The late resolution of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, to set at
liberty all their negro slaves, may satisfy us that their number
cannot be very great. Had they made any considerable part of their
property, such a resolution could never have been agreed to.'
_Wealth of Nations_, book iii. chap. ii. p. 159.

So, too, while in his former work, he had ascribed the different systems of morals to the power of sympathy, he, in this work, ascribes them entirely to the power of selfishness. He observes, that, among the lower ranks of society, dissipation is more fatal to individuals, than it is among the higher ranks. The extravagance which dissipation produces, may injure the fortune of a wealthy man, but the injury is usually capable of being repaired, or, at all events, he can indulge his vices for years without completely destroying his fortune, and without bringing himself to utter ruin. To the labourer, a similar indulgence would be fatal in a single week; it would not merely reduce him to beggary, and perhaps send him to jail, but it would destroy his future prospects, by taking away that character for sobriety and regularity on which his employment depends. Hence, the better class of common people, guided by their interest, look with aversion on excesses which they know to be fatal; while the upper ranks finding that a moderate amount of vice hurts neither their purse nor their reputation consider such license to be one of the advantages which their fortune confers, and they value, as one of the privileges belonging to their station, the liberty of indulging themselves without being censured. Therefore it is, that they who dissent from the established Church have a purer system of morals, or, at all events, an austerer one, than they who agree with it. For, new religious sects usually begin among the common people, the thinking part of whom are, by their interest, driven to strict views of the duties of life. Consequently, the advocates of the new opinion profess a similar strictness, seeing that it is the surest means of increasing their proselytes. Thus it is that sectaries and heretics, governed by interest rather than by principle, adopt a code of morals which is suited to their own purpose, and the rigidity of which is strongly contrasted with the laxer code of more orthodox believers.[680] Owing to the operation of the same principle, we also find, that, among the orthodox themselves, the clergy embrace a stricter system of morals in countries where church benefices are nearly equal than they do in countries where the benefices are very unequal. This is because, when all the benefices are nearly equal, none can be very rich, and, consequently, even the most conspicuous among the clergy will have but small incomes. But a man who has little to spend can have no influence, unless his morals are exemplary. Having no wealth to give him weight the vices of levity would make him ridiculous. To avoid contempt, and also to avoid the expense which a looseness of conduct occasions, and which his narrow circumstances cannot afford, he has but one remedy, and that remedy he adopts. He retains his influence, and saves his pocket, by protesting against pleasures which he cannot conveniently enjoy; in this, as in all other cases, pursuing that plan of life which his own interest urges him to follow.[681]

[680] 'In every civilized society, in every society where the
distinction of ranks has once been completely established, there
have been always two different schemes or systems of morality
current at the same time; of which the one may be called the
strict or austere; the other the liberal, or, if you will, the
loose system. The former is generally revered and admired by the
common people; the latter is commonly more esteemed and adopted by
what are called the people of fashion. The degree of
disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vices of levity,
the vices which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from
the excess of gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the
principal distinction between those two opposite schemes or
systems. In the liberal, or loose system, luxury, wanton, and even
disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of
intemperance, the breach of chastity, at least in one of the two
sexes, provided they are not accompanied with gross indecency, and
do not lead to falsehood and injustice, are generally treated with
a good deal of indulgence, and are easily either excused or
pardoned altogether. In the austere system, on the contrary, these
excesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence and detestation.
The vices of levity are always ruinous to the common people, and a
single week's thoughtlessness and dissipation is often sufficient
to undo a poor workman for ever, and to drive him, through
despair, upon committing the most enormous crimes. The wiser and
better sort of the common people, therefore, have always the
utmost abhorrence and detestation of such excesses, which their
experience tells them are so immediately fatal to people of their
condition. The disorder and extravagance of several years, on the
contrary, will not always ruin a man of fashion; and people of
that rank are very apt to consider the power of indulging in some
degree of excess, as one of the advantages of their fortune; and
the liberty of doing so without censure or reproach, as one of the
privileges which belong to their station. In people of their own
station, therefore, they regard such excesses with but a small
degree of disapprobation, and censure them either very slightly or
not at all.

'Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people,
from whom they have generally drawn their earliest as well as
their most numerous proselytes. The austere system of morality
has, accordingly, been adopted by those sects almost constantly,
or with very few exceptions; for there have been some. It was the
system by which they could best recommend themselves to that order
of people, to whom they first proposed their plan of reformation
upon what had been before established. Many of them, perhaps the
greater part of them, have even endeavoured to gain credit by
refining upon this austere system, and by carrying it to some
degree of folly and extravagance; and this excessive rigour has
frequently recommended them, more than any thing else, to the
respect and veneration of the common people.' ... 'In little
religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the common people have
been almost always remarkably regular and orderly; generally much
more so than in the established church. The morals of those little
sects, indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably rigorous
and unsocial.' _Wealth of Nations_, book v. chap. i. pp. 332, 333.

[681] 'Where the church benefices are all nearly equal, none of them can
be very great; and this mediocrity of benefice, though it may, no
doubt, be carried too far, has, however, some very agreeable
effects. Nothing but exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of
small fortune. The vices of levity and vanity necessarily render
him ridiculous, and are, besides, almost as ruinous to him as they
are to the common people. In his own conduct, therefore, he is
obliged to follow that system of morals which the common people
respect the most. He gains their esteem and affection, by that
plan of life which his own interest and situation would lead him
to follow.' _Wealth of Nations_, book v. chap. i. p. 340.

In these striking generalizations, which, though they contain a large amount of truth, are far from containing the whole truth, no room is left for the magnanimous parts of our nature to act; but the system of morals, prevailing at any one time or in any one class, is solely ascribed to the dictates of unalloyed selfishness. Adam Smith, by reasoning from this principle, with that exquisite subtlety which characterized his mind, explains many other circumstances which society presents, and which at first sight appear incongruous. According to the old notions, which, indeed, are not yet quite extinct, those who received wages were under a personal obligation to those who paid them; that is to say, they were under a moral obligation, over and above the obligation of performing certain services. It was believed that a master could not only select what servants he chose, but could pay them what he chose; or, at all events, that it was the will of the masters, considered as a body, which fixed the usual and average rate of wages.[682] The lower classes were, therefore, much indebted to the higher ones for giving them so much as they did; and it was incumbent upon all persons, who received wages, to take them with humble thankfulness, and with a feeling of gratitude, on account of the favour bestowed upon them by the generosity of their superiors.

[682] Besides the evidence supplied by economical treatises, the laws in
our statute-book, respecting wages, show the general conviction,
that their rate could be fixed by the upper classes.

This doctrine, so convenient to the upper classes of society, and so natural to the universal ignorance which formerly prevailed on these matters, began to be shaken by the speculative thinkers of the seventeenth century; but it was reserved for the eighteenth century to overthrow it, by letting in the great idea of necessity, and proving, that the rate of wages established in a country, was the inevitable consequence of the circumstances in which that country was placed, and had no connexion with the wishes of any individual, or, indeed, with the wishes of any class. To all instructed persons, this is now a familiar truth. Its discovery has excluded the notion of gratitude from the pecuniary relation between employers and employed, and has made known that servants or workmen who receive wages, have no more reason to be grateful than those who pay them. For, no choice having been exercised in fixing the wages, no favour can be conferred in their payment. The whole process is compulsory, and is the result of what had previously happened. Scarcely had the eighteenth century passed away, when this most important discovery was completed. It was decisively proved, that the reward of labour depends solely on two things; namely, the magnitude of that national fund out of which all labour is paid, and the number of the labourers among whom the fund is to be divided.