The fame of Adam Smith rests so deservedly on his great work, the Wealth of Nations, that the fact is apt to be lost sight of, that long before he distinguished himself as a political economist he had gained a reputation, not confined to his own country, by his speculations in moral philosophy. The Theory of Moral Sentiments was first published in 1759, when its author was thirty-six; the Wealth of Nations in 1776, when he was fifty-three. The success of the latter soon eclipsed that of his first work, but the wide celebrity which soon attended the former is attested by the fact of. the sort of competition that ensued for translating it into French. Rochefoucauld, grandson of the famous author of the Maxims, got so far in a translation of it as the end of the first Part, when a complete translation by the Abb? Blavet compelled him to renounce the continuance of his work. The Abb? Morelletso conspicuous a figure in the French literature of that periodspeaks of himself in his Memoirs as having been impressed by Adam Smith's Theory with a great idea of its author's wisdom and depth of thought.(1) The publication of these two books, the only writings published by their author in his lifetime,

are strictly speaking the only episodes which form anything like landmarks in Adam Smith's career. The sixty-seven years of his life (1723-90) were in other respects strangely destitute of what are called "events;" and beyond the adventure of his childhood, when he was carried away by gipsies but soon rescued, nothing extraordinary ever occurred to ruffle the even surface of his existence. If, therefore, the happiness of an individual, like that of a nation, may be taken to vary inversely with the materials afforded by them to the biographer or the historian, Adam Smith may be considered to have attained no mean degree of human felicity. From his ideal of life, political ambition and greatness were altogether excluded; it was his creed that happiness was equal in every lot, and that contentment alone was necessary to ensure it. "What," he asks, "can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?" To this simple standard, circumstances assisted him to mould his life. His health, delicate in his early years, became stronger with age; necessity never compelled him to seek a competence in uncongenial pursuits; nor did a tranquil life of learning ever tempt him into paths at variance with the laws of his moral being or his country. In several passages of his Moral Sentiments, it will appear that he took no pains to conceal his preference for the old Epicurean theory of life, that in ease of body and peace of mind consists happiness, the goal of all desire. But the charm of such a formula of life is perhaps more obvious than its rendering into an actual state

of existence. Ease of body does not always come for the wishing; and peace of mind often lies still further from command. The advantage of the formula is, that it sets before us a definite aim, and affords us at any time a measure of the happiness we enjoy or of that we see around us. Judged by this standard, however, the conclusion must beand it is a conclusion from which Adam Smith does not shrinkthat the lot of a beggar may be equal in point of happiness to that of a king. The result of this Epicurean theory of life on Adam Smith was, fortunately for the world, a strong preference for the life of learning and literature over the professional or political life.

Adam Smith by James Anson Farrer

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