[Born at Kirkaldy, in Scotland, 1723. Died, in Edinburgh, 1790. Aged
67.]
This great master in the science of political economy was the son of an
Officer of Customs, and studied first in Glasgow, afterwards at Oxford.
He had feeble health, and was of studious habits. In 1748, a lecturer,
in Edinburgh, upon Rhetoric and the Belles-Lettres; and in 1751,
appointed Professor, first of Logic, and then of Moral Philosophy, in
the University of Glasgow. At this period of his life he published his
“Theory of the Moral Sentiments,” a work in which he regards Sympathy as
the foundation of all morals. In 1763, resigning his Professorship, he
became tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch, with whom he travelled on
the continent for several years. He subsequently retired to his native
village, where he passed ten years of his life in close obscurity,
study, and fruitful meditation. In 1776, he issued from his cell to pour
light for ever into the busy world. In that year was published his
memorable “Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.”
This monument of industry, observation, sagacity, learning, and
acuteness, continues the one great hand-book of political economists.
The leading points which Adam Smith laboured to urge in his “Inquiry”
are--That labour is the only source of the wealth of nations; that
wealth does not consist in the abundance of gold and silver, but in the
abundance of the necessities, conveniences, and enjoyments of life; that
it is sound policy to leave individuals to pursue their own interest in
their own way, and that every regulation intended to force industry into
particular channels, is impolitic and pernicious. The justice of these
axioms has, after years of argument, denial, and resistance, received
general acknowledgment in England; and Adam Smith is the author of one
revolution in the world’s progress, and a benefactor of his kind. His
reasoning is not always sound; but the base of his fabric is
unassailable, and the illustration which constitutes its ornament, is
amongst the happiest ever employed to give life and light to a solid
structure. Adam Smith is the great practical philosopher of an age and a
people, craving for his philosophy more than for any other, yet wanting,
most of all, the philosophy which shows the soul of a man as the most
precious of all his estates, and teaches him the husbandry of it. He
died, having won a competence, and fulfilling a government appointment.
[This plaster cast was formerly in the collection of Sir Thomas
Lawrence.]