Life of Adam Smith Part 25

Its name was the Oyster Club, and it may be thought from that circ.u.mstance that those great philosophers did not spurn the delights of more ordinary mortals. But probably no three men could be found who cared less for the pleasures of the table. Hutton was an abstainer; Black a vegetarian, his usual fare being "some bread, a few prunes, and a measured quant.i.ty of milk diluted with water"; and as for Smith, his only weakness seems to have been for lump sugar, according to an anecdote preserved by Scott, which, trivial though it be, may be repeated here, under the shelter of the great novelist's example and of Smith's own biographical principle that nothing about a great man is too minute not to be worth knowing.

Scott, speaking apparently as an eye-witness, says: "We shall never forget one particular evening when he (Smith) put an elderly maiden lady who presided at the tea-table to sore confusion by neglecting utterly her invitation to be seated, and walking round and round the circle, stopping ever and anon to steal a lump from the sugar basin, which the venerable spinster was at length constrained to place on her own knee, as the only method of securing it from his uneconomical depredations. His appearance mumping the eternal sugar was something indescribable." It is probably the same story Robert Chambers gives in his _Traditions of Edinburgh_, and he makes the scene Smith's own parlour, and the elderly spinster his cousin, Miss Jean Douglas. It may have been so, for Scott, as a school companion of young David Douglas, would very likely have been occasionally at Panmure House.

FOOTNOTES:

[284] Nicholson's edition of _Wealth of Nations_, p. 8.

[285] Bonar's _Catalogue of the Library of Adam Smith_, p. viii.

[286] Smellie's _Life of Smith_, p. 297.

[287] _Quarterly Review_, x.x.xvi. 200.

[288] _Sir J. Sinclair's Correspondence_, i. 389.

[289] Stewart's _Works_, x. 73.

[290] Stewart's _Life of Reid_, sec. iii.

[291] Sinclair's _Old Times and Distant Places_, p. 7.

[292] Stewart's _Life of Reid_, sec. iii.

[293] Black's _Works_, I. x.x.xii.

[294] _Transactions_, R.S.E., v. 98.

CHAPTER XXII

VARIOUS CORRESPONDENCE IN 1778

Soon after Smith settled in Edinburgh he received from his old French friends, the d.u.c.h.esse d'Enville and her son the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, a presentation copy of a new edition of their ancestor's _Maximes_, accompanied by the following letter from the Duke himself, in which he informs Smith of the interesting circ.u.mstance that, in spite of the way his famous ancestor is mentioned in the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, he had himself at one time undertaken a translation of that work, and only abandoned the task when he found himself antic.i.p.ated by the publication of the translation by Abbe Blavet in 1774. It is a little curious that a disciple of Quesnay, a regular frequenter of Mirabeau's economic dinners, should take no notice in his letter of Smith's greater work, so lately published.

PARIS, _3 mars 1778_.

Le desir de se rappeller a votre souvenir, monsieur, quand on a eu l'honneur de vous connoitre doit vous paroitre fort naturel; permettez que nous saisissons pour cela, ma mere et moi, l'occasion d'une edition nouvelle des _Maximes de la Rochefoucauld_, dont nous prenons la liberte de vous offrir un exemplaire. Vous voyez que vous n'avons point de rancune, puisque le mal que vous avez, dit de lui dans la _Theorie des Sentimens Moraux_ ne nous empeche point de vous envoyer ce meme ouvrage. Il s'en est meme fallu de peu que je ne fisse encore plus, car j'avois eu peutetre la temerite d'entreprendre une traduction de votre _Theorie_; mais comme je venois de terminer la premiere partie, j'ai vu paroitre la traduction de M. l'Abbe Blavet, et j'ai ete force de renoncer au plaisir que j'aurois eu de faire pa.s.ser dans ma langue un des meilleurs ouvrages de la votre.

Il auroit bien fallu pour lors entreprendre une justification de mon grandpere. Peutetre n'auroit-il pas ete difficile premierement de l'excuser, en disant, qu'il avoit toujours vu les hommes a la Cour, et dans la guerre civile, _deux theatres sur lesquels ils sont certainement plus mauvais qu'ailleurs_; et ensuite de justifier, par la conduite personnelle de l'auteur, les principes qui sont certainement trop generalises dans son ouvrage. Il a pris la partie pour le tout; et parceque les gens qu'il avoit eu le plus sous les yeux etoient animes par _l'amour-propre_, il en a fait le mobile general de tous les hommes. Au reste quoique son ouvrage merite a certains egards d'etre combattu, il est cependant estimable meme pour le fond, et beaucoup pour la forme.

Permettez-moi de vous demander, si nous aurons bientot une edition complete des oeuvres de votre ill.u.s.tre ami M.

Hume? Nous l'avons sincerement regrette.

Recevez, je vous supplie, l'expression sincere de tous les sentimens d'estime et d'attachement avec lesquels j'ai l'honneur d'etre, monsieur, votre tres humble et tres obeissant serviteur,

LE DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.[295]

What immediate answer Smith gave to this letter is unknown, and he certainly suffered the offending allusion to his correspondent's ancestor to remain unmodified in the new edition of the _Theory_ which appeared in 1781, but eventually at any rate he came to think that he had done the author of the _Maximes_ an injustice by a.s.sociating him in the same condemnation with Mandeville, and when Dugald Stewart visited Paris in 1789 he was commissioned by Smith to express to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld his sincere regret for having done so, and to inform him that the error would be repaired in the forthcoming edition of the work, which was at that time in preparation.[296] This was done. In that final edition the allusion to Rochefoucauld was entirely suppressed, and the censure confined to Mandeville alone.

While Smith's French friends were remonstrating with him about an incidental allusion in the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, his old friend, Lord Kames--still at eighty-three as keen for metaphysical controversy as he had been with Bishop Butler sixty years before--was preparing an elaborate attack upon the theory of the book itself, which he proposed to incorporate in a new edition of his own _Principles of Morality and Religion_. Before publishing this examination of the theory, however, he sent the ma.n.u.script to Smith for perusal, and received the following reply:--

_16th November 1778._

MY DEAR LORD--I am much obliged to you for the kind communication of the objections you propose to make in yr.

new edition to my system. Nothing can be more perfectly friendly and polite than the terms in which you express yourself with regard to me, and I should be extremely peevish and ill-tempered if I could make the slightest opposition to their publication. I am no doubt extremely sorry to find myself of a different opinion both from so able a judge of the subject and from so old and good a friend; but differences of this kind are inevitable, and besides, _Partium contentionibus respublica crescit_. I should have been waiting on your Lordship before this time, but the remains of a cold have for these four or five days past made it inconvenient for me to go out in the evening.

Remember me to Mrs. Drummond,[297] and believe me to be, my dear Lord, your most obliged and most humble servant,

ADAM SMITH.

Smith had most probably discussed the merits of Lord Kames's objections with his lordship already, so that he saw no occasion to reply to them in his letter. What Kames princ.i.p.ally combated was the idea that sympathy with the sufferings of another originated in any way in our imagining what would be our own feelings if we were in the sufferer's place. He contends, on the contrary, that it is excited directly by the perception of the screams, contortions, tears, or other outward signs of the pain that is endured; and that trying to put ourselves in the sufferer's place produces really a self-satisfaction, on account of our own immunity from his troubles, which has the effect not of awakening the feeling of pity but of moderating and diminishing it.

A second objection he raises is that if Smith's theory were true, those in whom the power of imagination was strongest would feel the force of the moral duties most sensibly, and vice versa, which, he says, is contradicted by experience. His last objection is that while the theory proposes to explain the origin of the moral sentiments so far as they respect other persons, it fails entirely to account for those sentiments in regard to ourselves. Our distress on losing an only son and our grat.i.tude for a kindly office neither need to be explained nor can they be explained by imagining ourselves to be other persons.

One of the first acquaintances Smith made in Edinburgh was a young Caithness laird who was presently to make a considerable figure in public life--the patriotic and laborious Sir John Sinclair, founder of the Board of Agriculture, promoter of the Statistical Account of Scotland, and author of the _History of the Public Revenue_, _the Code of Agriculture_, _the Code of Health_, and innumerable pamphlets on innumerable subjects. Sinclair was not yet in Parliament when Smith came to Edinburgh in the end of 1777, but his hands were already full of serious work. He was busy with his _History of the Public Revenue_, in which Smith gave him every a.s.sistance in his power, and he had actually finished a treatise on the Christian Sabbath, which, in deference to Smith's advice, he never gave to the press. The object of this treatise was to show that the puritanical Sabbath observance of Scotland had no countenance in Holy Scripture, and that, while part of the day ought certainly to be devoted to divine service, the rest might be usefully employed in occupations of a character not strictly religious without infringing any divine law. When the work was completed, Sinclair showed the ma.n.u.script to Smith, who dissuaded him strongly from printing it. "Your work, Mr. Sinclair," said he, "is very ably written, but I advise you not to publish it, for rest a.s.sured that the Sabbath as a political inst.i.tution is of inestimable value independently of its claim to divine authority."[298]

One day Sinclair brought Smith the news of the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga in October 1777, and exclaimed in the deepest concern that the nation was ruined. "There is a great deal of ruin in a nation,"

was Smith's calm reply. In November 1778 Sinclair wanted Smith to send him to Thurso Castle the loan of the important French book on contemporary systems of taxation, which is so often quoted in the _Wealth of Nations_--the _Memoires concernant les Impositions_--and of which only 100 copies were originally printed, and only four apparently found their way to this country. Smith naturally hesitated to send so rare a book so far, but promised his young correspondent to give him, when he returned to Edinburgh, not only that book but everything else, printed or written, which he possessed on the subject. Smith's letter is as follows:--

Mr. Smith presents his most respectful compliments to Mr.

Sinclair of Ulbster.

The _Memoires sur les Finances_[299] are engaged for four months to come to Mr. John Davidson;[300] when he is done with them Mr. Smith would be very happy to accommodate Mr.

Sinclair, but acknowledges he is a little uneasy about the safety of the conveyance and the greatness of the distance.

He has frequent occasion to consult the book himself, both in the course of his private studies and in the business of his present employment, and is therefore not very willing to let it go out of Edinburgh. The book was never properly published, but there were a few more copies printed than was necessary for the Commission, for whose use it was compiled.

One of these I obtained by the particular favour of Mr.

Turgot, the late Controller-General of the Finances. I have heard but of three copies in Great Britain: one belongs to a n.o.ble lord, who obtained it by connivance, as he told me;[301] one is in the Secretary of State's office, and the third belongs to a private gentleman. How these two were obtained I know not, but suspect it was in the same manner.

If any accident should happen to my book, the loss is perfectly irreparable. When Mr. Sinclair comes to Edinburgh I shall be very happy to communicate to him not only that book, but everything else I have upon the subject, both printed and ma.n.u.script, and am, with the highest respect for his character, his most obedient humble servant,

ADAM SMITH.

EDINBURGH, _24th November 1778_.[302]

The _Memoires_ was printed in 1768, but it may be reasonably inferred, from Smith's account of the extreme difficulty of getting a copy, that he only obtained his in 1774, on the advent of Turgot to power. If that be so, much in the chapters on taxation in the _Wealth of Nations_ must have been written in London after that date.

Sir John's biographer quotes a pa.s.sage from another letter of Smith in connection with his correspondent's financial studies. This letter--which Archdeacon Sinclair describes as a "holograph letter in six folio pages"--is no longer extant, but it concluded with the following remarks on the taxation of the necessaries and luxuries of the poor:--

I dislike all taxes that may affect the necessary expenses of the poor. They, according to circ.u.mstances, either oppress the people immediately subject to them, or are repaid with great interest by the rich, _i.e._ by their employers in the advanced wages of their labour. Taxes on the _luxuries_ of the poor, upon their beer and other spirituous liquors, for example, as long as they are so moderate as not to give much temptation to smuggling, I am so far from disapproving, that I look upon them as the best of sumptuary laws.

I could write a volume upon the folly and the bad effects of all the legal encouragements that have been given either to the linen manufacture or to the fisheries.--I have the honour to be, with most sincere regard, my dear friend, most affectionately yours,

ADAM SMITH.[303]