The Adam Smith Review: Volume 13 [1 ed.] 1032417080, 9781032417080

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The Adam Smith Review

Adam Smith’s contribution to economics is well recognised, yet scholars have recently been exploring anew the multidisciplinary nature of his works. The Adam Smith Review is a rigorously refereed annual review that provides a unique forum for interdisciplinary debate on all aspects of Adam Smith’s works, his place in history and the significance of his writings to the modern world. It is aimed at facilitating debate among scholars working across the humanities and social sciences, thus emulating the reach of the Enlightenment world which Smith helped to shape. This 13th volume demonstrates, perhaps more so than any other issue in recent memory, the dazzling breadth and diversity of Smith scholarship across the disciplines today –​from studies of hospitals, balls and monsters to colonies, clerisy, language and the mind; from issues of empathy, compassion, cohesion, translation, representation, paternalism and moral innovation, to Smith’s influence on Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, American and Italian thought and practice. Adam Smith remains our companion, always provoking us and stimulating creative directions in our thinking and research. Fonna Forman is Professor of Political Science at the University of California San Diego, where she is the Founding Director of the UCSD Center on Global Justice.

The Adam Smith Review

Published in association with the International Adam Smith Society Editor: Fonna Forman (Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego) Book Review Editor: Craig Smith (School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow) Editorial Assistant: Matthew Draper (Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego) Editorial Board (as of Volume 7): Christopher J. Berry (University of Glasgow, UK); Vivienne Brown (Open University, UK); Neil De Marchi (Duke University, USA); Stephen Darwall (University of Michigan, USA); Douglas; Den Uyl (Liberty Fund, USA); Laurence W. Dickey (University ofWisconsin, USA); Samuel Fleischacker (University of Illinois, Chicago, USA); Charles L. Griswold (Boston University, USA); Knud Haakonssen (University of Sussex, UK); Iain McLean (Nuffield College, Oxford, UK); Hiroshi Mizuta (Japan Academy, Japan); John Mullan (University College London, UK); Takashi Negishi (Japan Academy, Japan); Martha C. Nussbaum (University of Chicago, USA); James Otteson (University of Alabama, USA); Nicholas Phillipson (University of Edinburgh, UK); Emma Rothschild (Harvard University, USA and King’s College, Cambridge, UK); Ian Simpson Ross (British Columbia, Canada); Amartya Sen (Harvard University, USA; and Trinity College, Cambridge, UK); Richard B. Sher (New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA); Shannon C. Stimson (University of California, Berkeley, USA); Kathryn Sutherland (St Anne’s College, Oxford, UK); Keith Tribe (King’s School,Worcester, UK); Gloria Vivenza (University of Verona, Italy); Donald Winch (University of Sussex, UK). The Adam Smith Review is a multidisciplinary annual review sponsored by the International Adam Smith Society. It aims to provide a unique forum for vigorous debate and the highest standards of scholarship on all aspects of Adam Smith’s works, his place in history, and the significance of his writings for the modern world.The Adam Smith Review aims to facilitate interchange between scholars working within different disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, and to this end it is open to all areas of research relating to Adam Smith.The Review also hopes to broaden the field of English-​language debate on Smith by occasionally including translations of scholarly works at present available only in languages other than English. The Adam Smith Review is intended as a resource for Adam Smith scholarship in the widest sense. The Editor welcomes comments and suggestions, including proposals for symposia or themed sections in the Review. Future issues are open to comments and debate relating to previously published papers.

The website of the Adam Smith Review is: http://​www.adam​smit​hrev​ iew.org/​ For details of membership of the International Adam Smith Society and reduced rates for purchasing the Review, please contact the Membership Secretary, Remy Debes, ([email protected]). The Adam Smith Review (Volume 4) Edited by Vivienne Brown The Philosophy of Adam Smith The Adam Smith Review, Volume 5: Essays Commemorating the 250th Anniversary of The Theory of Moral Sentiments Edited by Vivienne Brown and Samuel Fleischacker The Adam Smith Review (Volume 6) Edited by Fonna Forman The Adam Smith Review (Volume 7) Edited by Fonna Forman The Adam Smith Review (Volume 8) Edited by Fonna Forman The Adam Smith Review (Volume 9) Edited by Fonna Forman The Adam Smith Review (Volume 10) Edited by Fonna Forman The Adam Smith Review (Volume 11) Edited by Fonna Forman The Adam Smith Review (Volume 12) Edited by Fonna Forman The Adam Smith Review (Volume 13) Edited by Fonna Forman For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle​dge.com/The-​ Adam-​Smith-​Rev​iew/​book-​ser​ies/​ASR

The Adam Smith Review Volume 13 Edited by Fonna Forman

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Fonna Forman; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Fonna Forman to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​41708-​0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​41710-​3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​35939-​5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003359395 Typeset in Bembo by Newgen Publishing UK

Contents

List of contributors Editorial introduction

x xv

F O N N A F O RM AN

Chile Symposium: “Adam Smith’s legacy in political economy”

1

Introduction: Chile Symposium

3

L EO N I DA S M O N T E S

Stronger than a rope of sand? The ‘problem’ of cohesion in a commercial society

6

CH RI STO P H E R J. B E RRY

Empathy and perspective: A Smithian conception of humanity

19

S A M U E L F L E I SC H ACK E R

Adam Smith, the liberal

42

D E I R D R E N. M C C L O SK E Y

Mutual sympathy, hospitals, and balls: David Hume’s objection to the ‘hinge’ of Adam Smith’s moral theory

46

D E N N I S C. RASM U SSE N

First-​order compassion and second-​order compassion: One central difference in the social thought of David Hume and Adam Smith regarding the installment of social stability D IR K S C H U C K

61

viii Contents

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce prior to the translation of Adam Smith into Chinese

79

LU TAO SO P H I A WANG

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory of representation

100

TRE VO R L ATI M E R

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”

123

ECEM OKAN

University of Palermo Symposium: Cross-​disciplinary studies on Adam Smith’s language and translated works

147

Introduction: Palermo Symposium

149

C RI STI N A G U C C I O NE

Adam Smith on language and his epistemology

151

I ARA V I GO D E LI MA

‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’ in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and in The Wealth of Nations

166

LU I GI A LO N ZI

Translation as the convergence of politico-​economic and linguistic matters: The Portuguese version of Adam Smith’s Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages (1816)

185

M O N I CA L U P E T TI AND MARCO E . L. GUI D I

Colonies and slave labour in the first translation of The Wealth of Nations into Portuguese

239

M AU R I C I O C. C O UTI NHO

Economics terms from Scotland to Italy: The first Italian translations of Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1790/​91–​1851)

267

C RI STI N A G U C C I O NE

Articles

285

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy: A legacy of Adam Smith’s last teachings 287 LO R E N Z O GARB O

Contents  ix

A theory of sociality, morality, and monsters: Adam Smith and Mary Shelley

312

JA N O SB O RN, BART J. WI LSO N, MI TCHE LL B RI GGS, AL ISON M . L EE, A N D A LE C M O SS

Moral innovation and the man within the breast

327

DY L AN D E L LI SAN T I

Machine and system: Adam Smith and the encyclopédistes

347

PED RO P I M E N TA

Book reviews

363

Christopher J. Berry, Adam Smith. A Very Short Introduction

365

A N N A M A RK WA RT

Ryan Patrick Hanley, Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life

370

F. E . G U E R RA- ​P U JO L

Ozler, Şule and Gabrinetti Paul, A., Psychoanalytic Studies of the Work of Adam Smith:Towards a Theory of Moral Development and Social Relations

375

R IC CA RD O B O N F I GLI O LI

Tatsuya Sakamoto, David Hume and Adam Smith: A Japanese Perspective

379

MA RI A P I A PAGAN ELLI

Schliesser, Eric, Adam Smith Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker

381

CR AI G S M I T H

Jacob Sider Jost, Interest and Connection in the Eighteenth Century: Hervey, Johnson, Smith, Equiano

385

KA R E N VALI H O R A

Notes for contributors

389

Contributors

Luigi Alonzi is an associate professor of Early Modern History at the University of Palermo. He received his PhD from the University of Basilicata (2001). His publications include Famiglia, patrimonio e finanze nobiliari: I Boncompagni (secoli XVI–​XVIII) (Piero Lacaita Editore: Manduria, 2003); Economia e finanza nell’Italia moderna: Rendite e forme di censo (secoli XV–​XX) (2012); Economia: Parole concetti narrazioni (secoli XVI–​XVIII) (2019). Christopher J. Berry is Professor (Emeritus) of Political Theory and Honorary Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow. His most recent publications (2018) are Essays on Hume, Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment, a selection from his past work with new pieces, and the Very Short Introduction to Adam Smith. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Scotland’s ‘National Academy’). Riccardo Bonfiglioli graduated in Philosophical Sciences from the University of Bologna under the supervision of Prof. Alberto Burgio. He is a PhD student in Philosophy at the University of Cagliari and the University of Paris 1, Sorbonne. He is currently conducting a research on the relationship between the concept of human nature and the self in Adam Smith. Mitchell Briggs grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from Chapman University in 2020 with bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Business Finance. He is a Research Associate at Green Street, a commercial real estate intelligence company. Mauricio C. Coutinho is Professor of Economics at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), in the city of Campinas, Brazil. He regularly teaches History of Economic Thought, as well as disciplines which allow historical/​theoretical approaches to economics. His main research field has been the evolution of monetary thinking, from 1690 (Locke, Barbon) to 1820 (Thornton, Ricardo). A revision of the monetary aspects of the Wealth of Nations is presently being developed. Additionally, the spread of economic ideas (and of liberalism) in the Portuguese-​Brazilian world, from 1780 to 1850. Among papers on some Brazilian economists of the early 1800s,

List of contributors  xi Mauricio Coutinho has written on the characteristics of the first Portuguese edition of the Wealth of Nations, published in colonial Brazil in 1811. Dylan DelliSanti is an independent scholar in Washington, D.C. who currently teaches at the DC Central Detention Facility through the Georgetown Prison Scholars Program. Samuel Fleischacker is LAS Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He works on moral and political philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. He is the author of nine books, including Adam Smith (Routledge, 2021), Being Me Being You: Adam Smith and Empathy (2019), A Third Concept of Liberty: Judgment and Freedom in Kant and Adam Smith (1999), and On Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations: A Philosophical Companion (2004). He was President of the International Adam Smith Society from 2006 to 2010. Lorenzo Garbo is a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Redlands. Garbo’s areas of specialization include History of Economic Thought, International Trade, and Microeconomics. Garbo received an MA and PhD in economics from Columbia University. Cristina Guccione is a researcher of English Language and Translation at the University of Palermo where she teaches English for specific purposes. Her studies have focused on language domain in diachronic and synchronic perspective, particularly on the political and economic English language. She has recently dealt with the first and second series of the Biblioteca dell’economista, edited by Francesco Ferrara (1810–​1900), as an early corpus of specialized translations that can be exploited for linguistic, translational and contrastive research. F. E. Guerra-​Pujol is an associate instructor of law at the University of Central Florida. His areas of research include markets, property rights, and the philosophy of law. He is also the author of many scholarly papers, journal articles and book chapters, including “Gödel’s Loophole,” “Adam Smith in Love,” and “The Poker-​Litigation Game.” Marco E.L. Guidi, PhD, is a professor of History of Economic Thought at the University of Pisa, Department of Economics and Management. He has been a visiting professor in various European and Japanese universities. His research interests include classical utilitarianism, the evolution of Italian and European economics from both a theoretical and an institutional perspective, economic translations and the transnational circulation of economic ideas, history of economics methodology. Trevor Latimer received his PhD in Politics from Princeton University and has held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Georgia and Dartmouth College. He has published widely on topics that include localism, political

xii  List of contributors equality and plural voting, the principle of subsidiarity,Tocqueville and white supremacy, and the presidential veto. Alison M. Lee graduated from Chapman University in 2020 with a BS in Business Administration, emphasis in International Business, and double minored in Humanomics and English. Currently, she works at Applied Materials as a program manager for the Chip Task Force. Iara Vigo de Lima is an associate professor at the Department of Economics, Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Brazil. She received her PhD from University of Stirling, Scotland. She was a visiting scholar at the University of Glasgow and Visiting Professor at the Università degli Studi di Siena. Her main areas of research and teaching are in the history and philosophy of economics. She is the author of Foucault’s Archaeology of Political Economy (2010). She has articles published in the Review of Political Economy, EconomiA, On the Horizon, and Review of Radical Political Economics. Monica Lupetti is an associate professor of Portuguese and Brazilian Language and Translation at the Department of Philology, Literature and Linguistics of the University of Pisa. She is the author of numerous diachronic studies on bilingual Portuguese-​Italian grammarography and lexicography and on Portuguese translations of literary and economic texts, as well as of synchronic studies on linguistic transfer. Anna Markwart is a National Science Centre-​funded post-​doctoral researcher at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. She is the author of the book Bogactwo uczuć moralnych (2017) devoted to Adam Smith’s philosophy. She graduated from the Jagiellonian University where she completed her PhD. Her research is mostly focused on the moral and social philosophy of the eighteenth century. Her current research interests concern Adam Smith and Sophie de Grouchy. Deirdre N. McCloskey has been the UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago since 2000. Trained at Harvard as an economist, she has written 20 books and edited 7 more, and has published some 400 articles on economic theory, economic history, philosophy, rhetoric, feminism, ethics and law. She taught for 12 years in Economics at the University of Chicago, and describes herself now as a ‘postmodern free-​market quantitative Episcopalian feminist Aristotelian.’ Leonidas Montes is President of Centro de Estudios Públicos and Professor at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile. He is the author of Adam Smith in Context (2004), co-​ edited with Eric Schliesser New Voices and Adam Smith (2006) and has published some papers and book chapters on Adam Smith. Leonidas was a member of the Board of the International Adam Smith Society (IASS), member of the Executive Committee of the History of

List of contributors  xiii Economics Society (HES, 2006–​ 2008) and Chairman of the Board of Televisión Nacional de Chile (2010–​2012). He was Dean of the School of Government, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (2008–​2014) and senior research fellow at the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University (2014–​2015). Alec Moss graduated from Chapman University in 2019 with a BA in Economics and a minor in Data Analytics. He joined Fisher Investments in 2019 and has been working there as an Equity Research Associate since 2021. His research focuses on creating new capital markets technology. Ecem Okan is an associate professor of Economics at the Center for Interdisciplinarity in English Studies, University of Lorraine. Previously, she conducted postdoctoral research at the Center for the Study of Economic Liberty, Arizona State University. She holds a PhD from the University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne. She works on the relation of economics and philosophy of history through the works of David Hume and Adam Smith in particular, and the Scottish Enlightenment in general. Jan Osborn is an associate professor in the Department of English and the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University. Her book, Community Colleges and First-​Generation Students: Academic Discourse in the Writing Classroom, explores student identities formation via classroom discourse. Her research interests include cultural, critical and feminist rhetorics. Dr. Osborn has taught English in secondary public schools and in community colleges in Michigan and California. She is the Director of the Chapman University/​Orange High School Literacies Partnership, engaging with high school students from diverse ethnic, linguistic and socio-​economic backgrounds. Maria Pia Paganelli is a professor of Economics at Trinity University. She works on Adam Smith, David Hume and 18th-​ century monetary theories. She wrote The Routledge Guidebook to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (Routledge 2020) and co-​edited the Oxford Handbook on Adam Smith (2013) and Adam Smith and Rousseau (2018). She served as the Vice President of the History of Economic Society and as the book review editor for the Journal of the History of Economic Thought. She is currently the President of the International Adam Smith Society. Pedro Pimenta is a professor of Modern Philosophy at the University of Sao Paulo and a specialist in the philosophy of the Enlightenment (Scotland and France). Among his recent publications are books in Portuguese and articles in French and English. He has coordinated Brazilian translations and critical editions of works by Condillac, Diderot, Hume and Smith among others. He is currently interested in the conceptual and theoretical relations between political economy and physiology in the writings of Quesnay, Hume and Smith.

xiv  List of contributors Dennis C. Rasmussen is a professor of Political Science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the author of five books, including The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume,Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought (2017), Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders (2021), and The Constitution’s Penman: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America’s Basic Charter (2023). Dirk Schuck, PhD, is currently a research fellow at the University of Erfurt in the DFG-​Collaborative Research Unit ‘Structural Changes of Property’ where he acts as Research Assistant to Prof. Martin Mulsow. He is the author of a book Freedom and Empathy in the Social Psychology of Early Liberalism, which got published by the German Society for Research in the Eighteenth Century DGEJ in 2019. He edited a new German Edition of John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education in 2020. He is also an associate researcher at the German-​French Center for Social Studies Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin. Besides that, he worked extensively in the field of political communication and as a social psychiatrist for the Public Health Administration of the City of Berlin. Craig Smith is the Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in the Scottish Enlightenment at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of Adam Smith’s Political Philosophy: The Invisible Hand and Spontaneous Order (Routledge, 2006) and Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Civil Society: Moral Science in the Scottish Enlightenment (2019). Karen Valihora is an associate professor of English at York University and the author of Austen’s Oughts: Judgment after Locke and Shaftesbury (2010). Lutao Sophia Wang was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and has a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in history, and a PhD in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of K.T. Li and the Taiwan Experience (2006) and has translated Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments into Chinese (2011). She is currently conducting a study comparing Adam Smith’s economic ethics to the Chinese elite’s economic ethics (from Confucius to contemporary China). Bart J. Wilson is Professor of Economics and Law and Donald P. Kennedy Endowed Chair in Economics and Law at Chapman University. He is a member of the Economic Science Institute and tenured in the Argyros School of Business and Economics and the Fowler School of Law. In 2016 he founded the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy, for which he serves as the director. Bart is the co-​author of Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations in the Twenty-​First Century (2019), and the author of The Property Species (2020).

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Editorial introduction

As this issue goes to press, the Omicron wave of Covid-​19 is declining in some parts of the world, but others are still struggling. While many who read this are now safe and well, others surely have experienced illness, loss, disruption, displacement and continued challenges, both weighty and quotidian. Among the many things a Smithian might seize upon when trying to make sense of the recent period, the pandemic has exposed our radical interdependence, and our need for truth, transparency, social trust and collective action. Perhaps from all this, a renewed public consciousness might emerge, reminding us that the well-​being of the individual rests on the health of the collective. My great thanks to our Editorial Board, the Executive Committee of the International Adam Smith Society, our Book Reviews Editor, Craig Smith, our referees and especially our authors for their abundant patience as we brought ASR 13 to light. I appreciated so many gestures of good-​will and consideration as our review process stalled over several months. Taylor & Francis and the University of California, San Diego, continue to be steadfast institutional partners and friends to this journal. And I am grateful to our Editorial Assistant, Matthew Draper, for his superb editorial insight and support throughout this challenging period. ASR 13 demonstrates, perhaps more so than any other issue in recent memory, the dazzling breadth and diversity of Smith scholarship across the disciplines today –​from studies of hospitals, balls and monsters to colonies, clerisy, language and the mind; from issues of empathy, compassion, cohesion, translation, representation and moral innovation, to Smith’s influence on Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, American and Italian thought and practice. Adam Smith remains our companion, always provoking us and stimulating creative directions in our thinking and research.

Chile Symposium “Adam Smith’s legacy in political economy”

Introduction Chile Sympoisum Leonidas Montes

A bit of history, as Hume would say, is rarely harmful. In November 2016 a group of members of the International Adam Smith Society (IASS) Board were in Chile celebrating the 240th anniversary of the “Wealth of Nations”. We organized different seminars at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and attended a Liberty Fund Colloquium entitled “Adam Smith’s Legacy in Political Economy”. As the President of IASS, Sandra Peart, likes to work, she called for an early Executive Board Meeting for Sunday. Inspired by the good weather, nice atmosphere, seminars that triggered much local interest, and perhaps even some good Chilean wines, the idea of an “Adam Smith Chile Conference” emerged almost naturally.The project was enthusiastically supported by all members of the IASS Board. The idea was there. So was the energy. The first good news followed as Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez accepted to host the conference. The venue would be its beautiful Campus in Viña del Mar, by the seaside. Following some preliminary discussions, the “Adam Smith Chile Conference” was finally scheduled for January 12–​13, 2018. During 2017 all members of the IASS Board began to work.The ground was prepared for Adam Smith’s division of labor and his call for “skill, dexterity, and judgment”. Once the conference was announced, interest and, as you can imagine, many and diverse questions followed. Call for papers triggered demand from Latin-​ American participants and academics from all over the world. A committee comprised by Sandra Peart, Doug Den Uyl, Fonna Forman, Charles Griswold, Ryan Hanley, Chris Martin, Leonidas Montes, Maria Pia Paganelli, Michelle Schwarze and Craig Smith supervised the event and helped with the selection of papers. Besides, a local organizing committee integrated by Carolina Apablaza, Cristóbal Bellolio, and José Edwards, took care of all details. The conference program began to shape up nicely and smoothly. Finally, 46 papers were accepted. Four of them were keynote lectures. Participants, followers, and students interested on Adam Smith began to arrive at Viña del Mar. On Friday, January 12, 2018, Deirdre McCloskey, who is also an honorary fellow of Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and loves Chile, began the conference with a lively and provocative talk entitled “Smith the Non-​Utopian versus His Followers since 1848”. Her talk is reproduced in this volume as “Adam Smith, The Liberal”. Three parallel sessions –​“On Smith’s Sympathy”, DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-2

4  Leonidas Montes “Smith on Labor and Credit Markets” and “Smith’s connections” –​followed. From these nine presentations, the paper “Mutual Sympathy, Hospitals, and Balls: Hume’s Objection to the ‘Hinge’ of Smith’s Moral Theory” by Dennis Rasmussen is included in this volume. After lunch, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, we had three more sessions with three papers each one: “Adam Smith and Chile”, “Hume and Smith” and “Smith and North America”. From this round, Dirk Schuck’s “First-​order-​ compassion and second-​order-​compassion”, “David Hume and Adam Smith on Public Debt and American affairs” by Ecem Okan and Trevor Latimer’s “Melancton Smith,Adam Smith and the SympatheticTheory of Representation” are published in this volume. That afternoon we had another three interesting sessions –​“Stigler, Smith and Recognition”, “Adam Smith and the Classics” and “Equality and Regulation” –​with nine papers.To wrap up an intense and challenging first day, Samuel Fleischacker gave his keynote lecture on “Empathy and Perspective: A Smithian Conception of Humanity”. This paper, which paved the way to his recent book Being Me Being You: Adam Smith and Empathy, is also in this issue. On Saturday, the conference kicked off with James Otteson’s suggestive “Adam Smith’s Libertarian Paternalism”. Three more sessions on “Smith and Politics”, “Operas, Soul and Morality” and “Smith, Latin America and China” were held that morning. From these sessions, Lutao Sophia Wang’s paper “Adam Smith and the Traditional Chinese Elite on Commerce prior to the Translation of Adam Smith into Chinese” is also published. After lunch we had two more sessions: “Smith on Justice and Fairness” and “Smith and Morality”. And immediately came the icing on the cake with Christopher Berry’s closing keynote lecture “Stronger than a Rope of Sand:The ‘Problem’ of Cohesion in a Commercial Society”, also included here. To close what had been a wonderful conference, Sandra Peart, as President of the IASS and engine behind this project, delighted all of us with her charm and final words. The 2018 Adam Smith Chile Conference was a cheerful event and a wonderful opportunity to share ideas between academics from all over the world. It generated great interest not only in Chile, but also in Latin-​America. With the benefit of hindsight, the conference not only promoted Smith scholarship; it was also a step forward for broadening up the scope of IASS.The invisible hand once again played its role: a quick look at the papers and participants is evidence of this unintended consequence. Of course, it would be impossible to thank all people involved in this great Smithian adventure. But special thanks are due to Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez for the support and commitment to make this idea possible. It was a feast of exchange and cooperation that would not have been possible without the support of the dean of the School of Government, Ignacio Briones, and the Board of Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez. Pedro Ibáñez, Chairman of the Board, and Nicolas Ibáñez, member of the Board, also attended and participated in the 2018 Adam Smith Chile Conference.

Introduction: Chile Symposium  5 The editor of The Adam Smith Review (ASR), Fonna Forman, attended the conference and enthusiastically encouraged participants to submit their papers. Matthew Draper did a great editorial job putting together the nine papers selected for this 13th volume of the ASR. But we should thank not only the authors, but also all the referees who revised and improved the papers published in this issue. As Adam Smith would say: “before any thing can be the proper object of gratitude, it must not only be the cause of pleasure or pain; it must likewise be capable of feeling them”.With that Smithian feeling that goes beyond any utilitarian reason, I invite you to read these nine papers that are a good testimony of this memorable conference. They represent the work of all those academics who traveled to the very south of the world to share their thoughts on Adam Smith. And they are the proper object of our gratitude.

Stronger than a rope of sand? The ‘problem’ of cohesion in a commercial society Christopher J. Berry

My title derives from John Brown’s immensely popular An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (1757). As part of his vehement critique of contemporary society, Brown declaimed that ‘a chain of Self-​Interest is indeed no better than a Rope of Sand: There is no Cement nor Cohesion between the Parts’.1 None of the writers of the Scottish Enlightenment fully endorse Brown’s critique. Some of them, it is true, on occasion come close. There are, for example, passages in Kames’ Sketches on the History of Man (1774) that exhibit similar sentiments (see, e.g., the Sketch on Patriotism). Others develop a more sophisticated articulation of the thrust of Brown’s argument implicit in this remark. Ferguson in the An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) (especially in the final two books) is the most notable, with his attack on the passivity and atomism of contemporary or commercial society.Yet even in Kames and Ferguson there is a recognition of the superiority of that type of society to anything that would embody Brown’s vision. Inherent in that recognition is an acknowledgement that self-​interest is an ineluctable feature of a society where, in Smith’s phrase, ‘everyman is in some measure a merchant’.2 Given their acceptance of this, the Scots need to rebut Brown’s argument and hold that a commercial society exhibits or establishes some cohesive principles that are more robust than a rope of sand. In the following, and given the circumstances of this lecture, I will focus on Smith, but Hume also on occasion will be brought in. For a good part of the lecture, I will proceed dialogically inasmuch as I will raise questions from what I shall call a Brownian point of view and assemble a Smithian answer. Of course, this is fictive; neither Hume nor Smith deigns to discuss Brown in their published writings.3 I divide the paper into six sections.

I I start with a gross-​grained scene-​setting. In order to be successful in their task the Scots have to deflect or reject the Hobbesian answer to how self-​interest and social cohesion can be reconciled. For Hobbes the fact about humans is that they are concerned with their own well-​being to the exclusion of others. DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-3

Stronger than a rope of sand?  7 It was not Hobbes’ account of motivation that was a problem, Smith is clear that humans pursue pleasure and avoid pain. The objection was to Hobbes’ insistence on exclusivity; other individuals were either actual or potential competitors. His solution to that unbridled competition, whether for resources or for the positional good of glory or because of a lack of trust, was to establish an authorised sovereign, who can enforce unequivocal definitions of good and evil.This has to be ‘enforced’ because, as he put it, ‘covenants without the sword are mere words’. Individuals have to be ‘terrorised’ by a sovereign power to ‘do as they would be done by’.4 Contemporaries and successors read this to mean that morality meant no more than coerced compliance to a sovereign’s edict. Many critics of Hobbes, like Samuel Clarke, took the rationalist road but another route was travelled by Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd. Earl of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury thought Hobbes’ philosophy rested on a faulty reading of human nature. Humans were not irreducibly or exclusively self-​centred; they also possessed what he called a ‘natural moral sense’.5 This language was taken up by the Scots but their debt to Shaftesbury was mediated by the impact of Mandeville. Like Hobbes, but more insidiously, Mandeville argued that virtuous actions were not necessary to produce beneficial outcomes, vices can have the same effect. For example, pride and luxury (Brown’s bêtes noires) encourage industry.6 Mandeville was thought by his contemporaries to be claiming that virtue was a sham and that those who claimed to be virtuous (all right-​thinking individuals in other words) were hypocrites. But what was so potentially damaging was Mandeville’s claim that Shaftesbury’s theory is untrue because it is ‘inconsistent with our daily Experience’.7 Pre-​eminent among the defenders of Shaftesbury against Mandeville was Francis Hutcheson. Hutcheson effectively turned the tables on Mandeville. It was Mandeville’s account that was untrue to human experience. Giving evidence that he was Hutcheson’s pupil, Smith expresses this in the opening sentence of the Moral Sentiments, How selfish soever a man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derive nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.8 But, of itself, this is not going to satisfy Brown since, for one thing, it says nothing about the relative weightings of these ‘principles’.While for Hutcheson self-​love presupposes moral conduct or is a subset of benevolence.9 Smith and Hume recognise it as an independent presence. They do not/​cannot consistently wish it away.To meet the Brownian challenge by, on the one hand, judging Hutcheson’s answer as inadequate while, on the other, rejecting the posture of Hobbes and Mandeville requires more argument.

8  Christopher J. Berry

II Smith openly declares that each individual, whether in commercial society or not, has a ‘natural preference...for his own happiness above that of other people’ (TMS II.ii.2.1/​82). Although this preference is a matter of fact, it does not exist in isolation. The effect of sociality needs to be taken into account. Both Smith (TMS III.i.3/​111) and Hume10 use the imagery of society as a mirror, it reflects back to us the effect of our actions. For Smith it is a weakness of the Hobbesian/​Mandevillean view that it cannot take on board the fact that the interactions of social life ‘humble the arrogance of self-​love’ (TMS II.ii.2.1/​83). This socially induced humility restrains the selfish and supports the benevolent affections (TMS I.i.5.5/​25). This restraint, as well as this support, is most effectively exhibited in modern, commercial societies—​in other words, in the type of society that is the explicit target of Brown’s critique. The crux of Smith’s moral theory is, of course, sympathy—​the use of imagination by a spectator to gauge reflexively the contextual appropriateness of an actor’s behaviour (TMS I.i.3.1/​16). This sympathetic fit is neither automatic nor fixed. One key variable is emotional proximity. Compared to the more forgiving environment of family and friends, where sympathetic concord requires less negotiation, in the relatively anonymous setting of the marketplace more effort is needed to achieve the desired state of harmony between the actor and the spectator (cf.TMS I.i.4.10/​ 23). This extra effort has the effect of strengthening the character. In other words, the actor in a commercial society exercises a greater degree of moderation and exhibits more consistently the virtue of self-​command than is possible in more tribal or clannish times (cf. TMS III.3.25/​146). Feckless or reckless behaviour is more likely to be forgiven or tolerated among friends and family than it is from a ‘faceless’ institution like a bank, especially if you want to secure a loan. Interacting with strangers instils self-​discipline. Exuberant behaviour in the bar among friends would be out of place on public transport. Moreover, for all the self-​ interestedness they embody, modern societies exhibit other virtues that further mark them out as superior. A ‘polished people’, Smith says, acquire habits that make them ‘frank, open and sincere’ (TMS V.2.11/​208). In his Glasgow lectures, he observed that ‘when the greater part of the people are merchants they always bring probity and punctuality into fashion’ so that these are ‘the principal virtues of a commercial nation’.11 To say they are the ‘principal’ virtues is to say they will have established themselves. Since lying and lateness will not be approved, and on Smith’s moral/​social psychology everyone desires approval, then individuals’ actions will conform to what we can call ‘commercial norms’.12 Given that the ‘good opinion’ of others is always desired then, he says, this will produce a ‘considerable degree of virtue’ and ‘regular conduct’ (TMS I.iii.3.5/​63). This conduct, principally in the form of adhering to the rules of justice, is integral to modern society. For Smith, the ‘reward’ for acting justly and being trusted is to inspire ‘confidence’ in us from those with whom we live (TMS

Stronger than a rope of sand?  9 III.5.8/​166). As we will emphasise later, trust and confidence are crucial because they lay a foundation for the rule-​governed, predictable behaviour necessary to the functioning of a commercial society and which, at the same time, is socially cohesive.

III How is this more than a ‘rope of sand’? To attempt an initial answer to this, I will adapt Smith’s famous example of a commercial transaction—​butchers and their customers. Our transaction with butchers is payment for meat; we do not in the normal course of events appeal to their benevolence or humanity but rather, says Smith, to their ‘self-​love’ (WN I.ii/​27). This, of course, is not to say that the butcher cannot exercise benevolence, she may give a beggar some sausages but that is at her discretion, whereas handing over sausages for the correct payment is not. The butcher would lose trade if she got a reputation for being untrustworthy, for supplying 10 sausages but charging for 12. The butcher’s self-​interest thus promotes the morality of fair dealing. Similarly, from the customers’ perspective, it ‘pays’ to be a good credit risk. The bank will not lend to me if I have a record of default. The bank gains from my payment of interest on the loan, I gain from having funds to expand my business or go on holiday. To bring out the significance of this mutuality for social cohesion, we can in an abstract, simplified manner identify three ways by which Adam (say) can get something he wants that Eve (say) possesses. First, Adam simply takes it from Eve. To make this the default interaction is to subscribe to a Hobbesian model where competition, together with lack of trust (what he calls ‘diffidence’) and the need to be superior, produces, as he famously says, an absence of ‘industry’ and a short, miserable brutish existence.13 And because this is the ‘natural condition of mankind’ Eve is equally motivated to take it back from Adam. But even if Hobbes’ own solution is implemented, it does not remove societal instability. His argument is that what prevents Adam from taking what he wants is fear of punishment from the sovereign, the artificial person (Leviathan) created by mutual covenant between Adam, Eve and everyone else. But Smith and other Scots, as we have seen, reject this argument because it rests on a faulty reading of human nature. (I will return to ‘human nature’ at the close.) Contra Hobbes, society is not held together through fear. As Hume argues, all governments rest on ‘opinion’ and he is explicit that fear is only a ‘secondary’ principle, although, of course, it has a role to play.14 While Smith, for his part, judges that, in contrast to ‘management and persuasion’, ‘force and violence’ are the worst ‘instruments of government’ (WN V.i.g/​799). Hobbesian society is always liable to instability or lack of cohesion; as an enforced social order it is always vulnerable to internal dissolution through the exercise of the residual natural right of self-​preservation. Second, Adam can receive what he wants or needs as a gift from Eve. Like Eve, you do a ‘good deed’ when through an act of beneficence you make others

10  Christopher J. Berry happy by presenting them with something they want or in which you know they will take delight. Equally giving to charity to support those in need is on an everyday level, or in the unreflective course of common life, a morally good action. The practice of benevolent gift-​giving or Christian charity would seem to be the model that underlies Brown’s own prescriptions. However, this also is unstable; it too can be seen to be a rope that cannot bear much weight. The reason for this is its discretionary element. In the standard jurisprudential language of Smith’s era, benevolence is an imperfect obligation because it cannot be externally compelled. Even if it is accepted with Brown that one ought to be benevolent or heed one’s Christian duty, it does not have a sufficiently cohesive force in a commercial society. So much the worse for commercial society Brown might rejoin but the Smithian point is not that individuals cannot (should not) act ‘morally’ and follow their conscience but that this ‘action’ cannot reliably be generalised as a societally foundational principle. As starkly put by Smith a society can subsist without beneficence but not without justice (TMS II.ii.3.3/​86).15 From which it follows that a Brownian society, if based solely on beneficence, can hardly be cohesive if its very existence is parasitic upon the foundational security of justice. It is because justice is not discretionary or arbitrary that it functions as socially cohesive ‘cement’ (to use Brown’s other image). While everyone can agree that unjust acts should be punished that agreement is lacking when the issue is who deserves to be the subject of beneficence (cancer patients or the homeless, say). It is on this basis that Hume criticises ‘natural morality’ for potentially exacerbating rather than resolving social disagreements16 and Smith objects to accounts of justice that go beyond his own ‘strict’ understanding (cf. TMS VII.ii.9/​269). I will, though, return to the obverse: whether the necessary condition of justice is a sufficient condition for social cohesiveness. Third, Adam can engage Eve in barter or exchange. Suppose Adam has two knives and no forks, and Eve has two forks and no knives. As it happens, both Adam and Eve want a knife and fork. Following their own self-​interest they can thus trade and both get what they want. Nothing in this transaction relies on Adam and Eve knowing each other, it thus comports with what Smith calls an ‘assembly of strangers’ or the prevailing circumstances of life in a commercial society (TMS Ii.4.9/​23). What it does rely on is the predictable force of self-​ interest. Unlike the first mode of interaction, it does not depend on the threat of external sanction to prevent Adam simply seizing one of Eve’s forks. Unlike the second mode it does not depend on discretion; Eve could gift Adam one of her two forks even though he has only one knife, but then again she may not. However, if Adam has something Eve wants in exchange, then both have a reason to do business, and scaled-​up, this mutuality provides a cohesive societal cement. Nonetheless, the Brownian could still reasonably object to the exchange model. It too embodies contingency. If one party has nothing to exchange, then because self-​interest is the motive it will not occur, and that possibility undermines this model of cohesion; the rope of sand survives.

Stronger than a rope of sand?  11

IV What is the Smithian response to this objection? One way is to re-​affirm his denial that self-​interest is an exclusionary principle. Humans act on other principles and these via the ‘mirror’ serve to support cohesion. But I want to bracket that reply and, instead, take more fully on board that specific objection to commercial society. To do that means grappling more fundamentally with what a commercial society entails. A society where ‘everyman is in some sense a merchant’ is a society of inter-​dependence. This inter-​dependence is the necessary consequence of the division of labour. The extent of the division of labour (and thence of societal wealth) depends on the extent of the market and that depends on having confidence in the future. Summarily put, Adam will manufacture knives to sell, Eve will manufacture forks also to sell but they will specialise in that way only if they are confident that on market day Adam can sell knives and buy forks. The same applies to Eve and her forks. Without that confidence then their self-​interest would lead Adam and Eve to manufacture both knives and forks but with the effort now spread there will be fewer knives and forks. Moreover, those that are made will be inferior to those that could have been produced by specialising.When scaled up this inter-​dependence becomes a commercial society. And it is this society that removes ‘miserable poverty’ and improves the well-​being of all—​everyone is better fed, clothed and housed than in any society that would take seriously Brown’s (or indeed Rousseau’s) prescriptions.17 In addition, with greater social wealth the virtues of charity and benevolence are better performed in ‘civilized and thriving nations’ (WN Introd. 4/​10). If these virtues are seen, with Brown, as inducing cohesion, then on those grounds commercial society is cohesive. While the modern form of society rests upon reliability, there must, of course, be institutional support and this comes in the form of the rule of law. The effect of that is to establish the requisite certainty and predictability. Without those the division of labour and market would not be viable. This is a crucial argument in the Wealth of Nations. Of course, enforcement is necessary but this is not a reprise of Hobbes. For him everyone attempts to free-​r ide because the default interaction is zero-​sum.The decisive advantage of a society based on exchange is that it is non zero-​sum (both Adam and Eve get knives and forks). Why won’t commercial actors free-​r ide as a matter of course? The answer lies in the mutually supportive effects of trust.This lies at the heart of the cohesiveness of modern societies and why they are held together by more than a rope of sand. How does this work? For Smith, as for Hume, justice is pivotal and though in Smith’s case it has a ‘natural’ root in resentment, it is a product of experience. We learn to be just. The rules of justice are taught through the media of ‘discipline, education, and example’ (TMS III.5.1/​163). By being exposed to this range of instruction, which is in effect the process of socialisation, then, scarcely without exception, everyone can live what are, in practice, decent, blameless lives. Social living

12  Christopher J. Berry does not require the super-​human qualities possessed by saints or heroes. What enables individuals, ‘the coarse clay’ of mankind, to live more or less peaceably together is that, thanks to this common instruction, they share a sense of justice. This sentimental agreement induces trust and sufficient confidence that the conduct of others can be relied upon (Ibid). We can add that this Smithian account (also to be found in Hume) fits some contemporary analysis. For example, in Elinor Ostrom’s version, as humans learn to trust one another they develop reciprocity norms. She further draws attention to the ‘fact’ that when many individuals act reciprocally there is an incentive to acquire a reputation for keeping promises and performing actions with short-​term costs but long-​term net benefits.18 Even free-​riders, like Hume’s ‘sensible knave’, will, as he puts it, suffer a ‘total loss of reputation and the forfeiture of all future trust and confidence with mankind’.19 To which Smith would add that this forfeiture would, even in the knave putatively, be painful since it is true of all humans that they possess an ‘original aversion’ to offending others (TMS III.2.6/​116). This aversion and the socially induced inter-​personal confidence identified by Smith needs, as he appreciates and as I have already noted, to be reinforced institutionally. It is by living under the rule of law that individuals will have ‘confidence’ in the ‘faith of contracts’ and ‘payment of debts’ (WN V.iii.7/​910). It is only in ‘commercial countries’, he says in TMS, that the ‘authority of the law...[is] perfectly sufficient to protect the meanest man in the state’ (TMS VI.ii.1.13/​223). The great advantage of modern times, as he says this time in the Rhetoric lectures, is the greater security that comes from separating justice from politics.20 Again it is the ‘modernity’ that is crucial. It is with the introduction of ‘commerce and manufactures’ that ‘order and good government and with them the liberty and security of individuals’ is found. This is in pointed contrast to the localised warfare and ‘servile dependency’ to superiors of pre-​ commercial times (WN III.iv.4/​412). Contrary to Brown’s tireless condemnation of the enervating and effeminising effects of luxury as the besetting sin of a self-​interested society and for, in consequence inter alia, undermining military capacity, commercial society is strong.21 As Hume argues, in ‘Of Refinement of Arts’, ages of refinement (i.e. luxury) promote industry, knowledge and humanity as an indissoluble trio without detriment to martial valour.22 For Smith, professional armies are superior to citizens’ militias (WN V.i.a22/​699). In addition, any attempt to introduce them would run contrary to the dominant inclinations of the populace in modern societies, and, moreover, with the need consequently for a ‘very rigorous police’ to enforce participation this would make the proposal even more unpalatable (WN V.i.a.178/​698; cf.V.i.f.59/​787). In sum, the clear implication is that a society where everyman lives by exchanging, operating on the assumption of self-​interest, is a more peaceable, more equitable and on those solid grounds more cohesive than Brown alleges. But this still might appear too superficial and paint too rosy a picture. A number of issues could be invoked here. These include the extent to which

Stronger than a rope of sand?  13 the actual operation of a commercial society saps its own integrity and thus by extension corrodes its cohesion. Leaving to one side the growth of material inequality because that is an issue that animates neither Brown nor Smith, this corrosion could be identified in the damage done to the ‘intellectual, social and martial virtues’ of the ‘labouring poor’ (WN V.i.f.50/​782) or in the corruption of the moral sentiments emanating from the disposition to admire riches and status over wisdom and virtue (TMS I.iii.3.1/​61-​2). However, these are perhaps consequential effects and Smith proffers his own remedies. But there remain two further lines of criticism from Brown’s perspective, to which I now turn.

V First, because a commercial society rests on nothing more tangible than trust, and its cognates belief, opinion, expectation and ‘credit’, then it seems clearly too insubstantial to support a cohesive social order. The fundamental concern was that trust was no longer anchored but was being left to float in a sea of uncertainty; commercial society is liquid not solid. For Brown and many others of that era, such as Davenant and Bolingbroke, both of whom are among the few writers Brown acknowledges, this world of intangibles enabled speculators and ‘stock-​jobbers’ to flourish. Moreover, the abstract and belief-​dependent character of a commercial society meant this danger was all the more insidious. Uncertainty or risk is intrinsic to commerce (Adam may not be able to sell his knives); there are no guarantees so that maybe its cohesion is no stronger than a rope of sand. Smith acknowledges dangers in credit but in far less apocalyptic terms than Hume (even though he is less sanguine than James Steuart or Robert Wallace). There is a tone of resignation in his treatment but, the odd phrase aside, no indication that he judges this a fatal blow. And it is not obvious why on these grounds a Brownian society is anymore cohesive. The belief in a Providential superintendence is no more substantial, and just as prone to the presence of outliers, than a belief that humans by and large act predictably. Similarly the institutional backing of an established church provides no more cement than the institutional backing of the rule of law. Nonetheless in this last point lies the second line of criticism. Indeed this, perhaps, is the basic flaw that a Brownian would detect. In the Moral Sentiments in the context of underlining the indispensability of justice, Smith gives the example of a society of merchants (TMS II.ii.3.2/​86). This might just mean intra-​trade association but since he defines a commercial society as one where everyone is a merchant to some degree, then a broader referent is warranted. Smith chose this example quite deliberately to identify a society where ‘mutual love and affection’ are absent. Those sentiments are not essential since buyers and sellers can co-​exist without any emotional attachments between them; they interact as self-​interested individuals for the self-​limited purpose of exchanging their knives and forks. But the Brownian question is: does this lack of attachment corrode social cohesion?

14  Christopher J. Berry Smith, of course, is not oblivious to this issue. Indeed, in this same passage he concedes that this society where love is absent is not very appealing. And in the immediately preceding paragraph he says society ‘flourishes’ when its members are ‘bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection’ (TMS II.ii.3.1/​85).23 The context here is the fact that humans are not self-​ sufficient. But, as we have seen with the butcher, beneficence does not support a solid society-​wide base. This same qualification applies to another of Smith’s statements. It is in the nature of humans, he says, to ‘love’ their ‘own country’ to the extent to which they judge it superior to others even those of the ‘same kind’ (TMS VI.ii.2.-​4/​227-​29). But this alertness on Smith’s part to a patriotic love of one’s country also does not mark a radical departure from the argument thus far. This is apparent from his remarks a few paragraphs later. There he states that, he is not a citizen who is not disposed to respect the laws and to obey the civil magistrate; and he is certainly not a good citizen who does not wish to promote… the welfare of the whole society of his fellow citizens. In peaceable and quiet times [he goes on] these two principles coincide… the support of the established government seems evidently the best expedient for maintaining the safe, respectable and happy situation of our fellow citizens. (TMS V.iii.2.11-​12/​231) These tranquil ‘times’ are, as a general rule, provided by a commercial society. Hence, in those circumstances, that is, those relevant to the issue at hand, acting justly and abiding by the rules supports societal well-​being on a wider front. However, the Brownian may judge that this re-​affirmation of the crucial role of keeping the rules and acting justly means that the rope remains frayed and unable to bear the weight necessary for cohesion. That is to say, for the Brownian it remains the case that the primacy given to justice by Smith and Hume means that cohesion-​inducing ‘social preferences’ (to use Samuel Bowles term for motives that induce people to help each other24) remain secondary. Similarly, the ‘negativity’ of justice that facilitates the commercial actor’s wish to be left alone to get on with her own affairs produces the neglect, or ‘crowding-​ out’, of public service and the corrosion of social cement. Accordingly, the Brownian could push the critique further. Social preferences rather than being secondary are themselves essential. Indeed, somewhat in the way Hume criticised contractarianism, or as Herbert Hart argued some 50 or so years ago,25 the butcher’s obligation to give the correct number of sausages to a customer assumes some pre-​existent rule of just conduct that cannot itself be grounded in an obligation to follow rules—​you can’t meaningfully make a promise to keep promises. In an implicit response, Smith does state that individuals, in fact, will do more than merely follow the rules of justice, they will also revere them. He even goes so far as to say that without this reverence or

Stronger than a rope of sand?  15 ‘sacred regard’ to the rules human society ‘would crumble into nothing’ because without it mutual conduct could not be depended upon (TMS III.5.2/​163).26 Whence this reverence? Smith gives what I judge to be his standard answer, it is the effect of habit, ‘our continual observations’ on the conduct of others which are then internalised (TMS III.4.7/​159, III.5.2/​163). I think Smith thinks this robust enough. Brown presumably would not. He would hold to the case, in Smith’s own language, that ‘the important rules of morality are the commands and laws of the Deity’. This statement Smith explicitly calls an ‘opinion’27—​ one which ‘enhances[d]‌ ’ ‘habitual reverence’, which I take to mean that it is not itself the source of reverence. Nonetheless, this opinion does have an origin in ‘nature’, that is, human nature, and is characteristic of ‘the ignorance and darkness of pagan superstition’ (TMS III.5.4/​164), albeit this is later confirmed by ‘philosophical researches’.What is confirmed, I would argue, is the opinion that humans ubiquitously hope that obedience to divine laws will be rewarded and disobedience punished in some life to come (cf. TMS II.ii.3.12/​91, III.2.33/​132). By saying that this ubiquity is anchored in human nature brings me to my final point. In the Moral Sentiments, Smith distinguishes between concord and unison (TMS I.i.4.7/​22). Whereas concord is a negotiation between actors and spectators that the social mirror reflects and which produces social ‘harmony’ (that is cohesion), unison is undifferentiated. Smithian commercial society is one based on concord, while that envisaged or advocated by Brown is one based on unison in the sense of embodying uniformity.The latter is not morally appealing. It belies the principles of natural liberty, according to which as long as the laws of justice are not violated individuals should be left perfectly free to pursue their own interest in their own way (WN IV.ix.51/​687). As Smith says, symptomatically, of sumptuary legislation it is ‘monstrous impertinence’ for the government to determine what clothes I can wear (WN II.iii.36/​346).Yet this legislation encapsulates what social unison amounts to in practice. The concord established in commercial society is for Smith more robust than a rope of sand. That strength or resilience is not fatally dissipated by the presence of negative aspects in a commercial society, such as the growth of debt or mentally stultifying labour. It is the presence of self-​interest together, with its consequences, that is, the very factors Brown sees as the weakness of commercial society, that is at the core of its strength. Ultimately this is because it is a constant and universal principle of human nature. Yet, any recourse to ‘human nature’ is, of course, not going to be definitive. To illustrate this I return to a Brownian objection that an exchange society embodies contingency but as it appears in Marx. In his 1843-​44 writings, especially in his commentary on James Mill, Marx invokes need as a principle of true human communal nature and judges the Smithian exchange model as defective. On Marx’s reading of that model, both Adam and Eve see their knives and forks as an objectification of their own self-​interest and not as the joint expression of human production. So if Eve has one knife and no forks and Adam has a knife and two forks, then, with nothing to exchange, Eve is impotent and stands, like

16  Christopher J. Berry the beggar before the butcher, in the position of a supplicant to Adam.28 For Marx, in the absence of private property, Eve’s lack of a fork would be supplied by Adam as a fellow human. But—​and this is my point here—​Marx’s own version is itself, of course, not determinative. Indeed his own model seems to imply unison, since my expression of my human nature (my Gattungwesen) will necessarily comport with your expression.29

VI There are, arguably, ways to adjudicate between differing accounts of human nature but that it is not my current remit.30 Instead, I conclude by reiterating two points. First, in line with his reading of human nature, for Smith commercial society produces sufficient concord for ‘social harmony’ (WN I.i.4.7/​ 22)—​a concord that he has shown not only to be viable but morally superior to a society predicated on unison. Brown’s nostalgia for an earlier time is mis-​ placed. And, second, on that basis and for all its vehemence Brown’s critique is mis-​directed and thus unjustified. Commercial society is robust and its cohesion is stronger than a rope of sand; to (mis)appropriate a well-​known phrase it is, rather, more like a lump of granite.

Notes 1 J, Brown, An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (1757), London Pt II, Sect. 4, p.111. 2 A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). Book I, Chapter 3, para.3/​p. 37 (Glasgow edition) ed. R. Campbell & A., Skinner (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1981). Hereafter inserted in the text as WN. 3 In his correspondence Hume dismisses him as (reputedly) a flatterer of the ‘low Fellow Warburton’, and says he would ‘certainly be ashamed to engage’ with him (The Letters of David Hume 2 vols), J. Greig (ed.), [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932] I, 250 [no.132]. The one Scot who did engage was Robert Wallace (Characteristics of the Present Political State of Great Britain, Second Edition, 1768, London, Ch. 5 especially). Despite his own qualms about commercial society he subjects Brown’s book to extensive and withering criticism. Brown for his part makes one reference to Hume’s Essays and his comment that the clergy have lost their influence [cf. ‘Whether the British Government inclines more to Absolute Monarchy or to a Republic’ 1741].The only contemporary to whom Brown does refer is Montesquieu, though Davenant on Trade is cited a couple of times and he remarks disapprovingly on the cool reception given Bolingbroke. The Estimate, as perhaps befits its popularity, is not decked out with scholarship, even references to the Roman moralists/​ historians are rare. 4 T. Hobbes, Leviathan (1651). ed. R. Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 38–​39, 92, 117. 5 Shaftsbury, A. Cooper, 3rd Lord, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times etc. ed. J. Robertson, 2 vols. (London: Grant Richards, 1900). I: 262. He accuses Hobbes of ‘shifting’ names so as to ‘explain all the social passions and natural affections as to denominate them of the selfish kind’ (I, 79).

Stronger than a rope of sand?  17 6 B. Mandeville, (1732). The Fable of the Bees, ed. F. Kaye, 2 vols (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1998), I: 86. 7 Mandeville, Fable I: 324. 8 A. Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1757/​90) (Glasgow edition). eds. A. Macfie & D. Raphael (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1982) Part1. Section 1, Chapter 1/​p. 9. hereafter in text as TMS.) Compare Hutcheson’s opening sentence to his 1725 Inquiry into Virtue and Moral Goodness, ‘moral goodness…denotes our idea of some quality apprehended in actions, which procures approbation, attended with desire of the agent’s happiness’. In F. Hutcheson, Philosophical Writings, ed. R. Downie (London: Everyman, 1994) p. 67. 9 Hutcheson, Writings, ed. Downie pp. 86–​95. 10 D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, (1739/​40) revised edition L. Selby-​Bigge & P. Nidditch (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), Book II Part II Sect. 5, p. 365. 11 A. Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence (Glasgow edition) R. Meek, D. Raphael & P. Stein (eds.) (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1982), 1766 Report, section 328/​p. 539. 12 Smith is not alone. For example, John Millar states that, ‘individuals form their notions of propriety according to a general standard, and fashion their morals in conformity to the prevailing taste of the times’ and, in the same passage, he applies this to the presence of a ‘mercantile spirit [which] is not confined to tradesmen or merchants; from a similarity of situation it pervades in some degree all orders and ranks and by the influence of habit and example it is communicated, more or less, to every member of the community’. An Historical View of the English Government, M. Salber Phillips & D. Smith (eds.) in one volume, (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 2000), p. 777. See also A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society [1767], D. Forbes (ed.). (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966, p. 189, who refers to ‘punctuality and fair-​dealing’ as the ‘system of manners’ of merchants. 13 Hobbes Leviathan Ch. 13. 14 D. Hume, ‘Of the First Principles of Government’ (1741) in (1985), Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, E. Miller (ed.), (Indianapolis, Liberty Press, 1987), pp. 33–​34. 15 For a discussion of Smith on beneficence, see Ryan Hanley, Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2009), pp. 178–​187. He goes so far as to attribute ‘primacy’ to beneficence (p. 179) but this seems an unwarranted claim. 16 D. Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Bk III Part II Sect. 2, p. 489. 17 See C.J. Berry, The Idea of a Commercial Society in the Scottish Enlightenment, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), Ch. 3. 18 E. Ostrom, ‘A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice of Collective Action’, American Political Science Review 99 (1998), 1–​22 (p.12). 19 D. Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). T. Beauchamp (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 156. 20 A. Smith, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Glasgow Edition, J. Bryce (ed.), (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1983), Lecture 28, p.176. 21 For example, he attributes the panic caused by the Jacobite incursion into England to the fact that a ‘dastard Spirit of Effeminacy hath crept upon us, and destroyed the national Spirit of Defence’ Brown, Estimate II, 3, (p. 91). 22 Hume, ‘Of Refinement of Arts’ (1752) in Essays, pp. 268–​280. 23 Ryan Hanley emphasises this paragraph in his claim that Smith is a ‘normative ethicist’ whose central task is to provide individuals with resources ‘to overcome

18  Christopher J. Berry natural self-​partiality and the destructive egocentrism that follows from it’, Love’s Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p.106. 24 S. Bowles, The Moral Economy (New Haven:Yale University Press, 2016), p. 45; cf. 76. 25 H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), pp. 219–​220. 26 The importance of ‘reverence’ is brought out by Charles Griswold (Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1999]) p. 237. See also his Jean-​Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith (London: Routledge, 2017), p. 242, where he refers to the ‘affective space’ cleared by a sense of justice along with ‘mediating institutions’ and sympathy for one’s community in which the ‘sacred regard’ might be located. Samuel Fleischacker judges the reference to ‘sacred’ here to mean ‘awe-​inspiring’ and to be ‘central’ to the function of the rules (On Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004, p. 71). 27 Smith’s use of ‘opinion’ here is non-​technical and in line with our contemporary usage to refer to a particular view including that of oneself and in the eyes of others. In the present context a few paragraphs later he again says it is an ‘opinion’ that the Author of nature intends the happiness of humans; he does not say the truth of this is confirmed by ‘the examination of the works of nature’ [TMS III.5.7/​166]. 28 K. Marx, ‘Excerpts from James Mill’, in Early Writings, ed. L. Colletti (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1975), pp. 259–​278. I discuss Marx’s argument (using the same example) in C.J. Berry, ‘Need and Egoism in Marx’s Early Writings’, History of Political Thought,VII (1987), 461–​473. 29 See his comment depicting the unalienated circumstance of human production, ‘in meiner individuellen Lebensäusserung unmittelbar Deine Lebensäusserung geschaffen zu haben, also in meiner individuellen Thätigkeit unmittelbar mein wahres Wesen, mein menschliches, mein Gemeinwesen bestätigt und verwirklicht zu haben…Dieß Verhältniß wäre dabei wechselseitig, von deiner Seite geschähe, was von meiner geschieht’ ‘Aus James Mill’ in K.Marx and F. Engels, Gesamtausgabe (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1982), IV vol. 2, p. 465 (cf. Early Writings, pp. 277–​278). 30 For a discussion of that point, see C.J. Berry, Human Nature (London: Macmillan, 1986), Ch. 10.

Empathy and perspective A Smithian conception of humanity Samuel Fleischacker

I A word on terminology, to begin with. I am guided throughout this essay by Adam Smith’s writings, but Smith did not use the word “empathy”: that was coined, in English, only in the early twentieth century. Both Smith and his friend David Hume spoke instead of “sympathy,” using that word to mean essentially what we mean by “empathy” today. With that in mind, let’s turn to a debate between Hume and Smith over the nature of sympathy. Hume construed sympathy as passed from one person to another mostly by way of contagion. You look sad so I feel sad; you are cheerful and that cheers me up. Exactly how this contagion works, for Hume, is not entirely clear. Sometimes he indicates that I infer your feelings from your expressions1; sometimes it seems there is no intermediary inference, and your feeling, or your expression of feeling, has a direct impact on me.2 In either case, I wind up with the bare idea of your feeling, for Hume. I then associate this idea, in my imagination, with the idea of my self—​I imagine myself feeling what you feel—​and thereby come to experience your feeling. For Smith, by contrast, we feel what others feel by projecting ourselves into their situations, and imagining how we would feel there.3 Smith allows that sometimes it “may seem” that sympathy arises merely by contagion. Strong expressions of joy and grief, especially, can light up or dampen the feelings of others.4 But even here, he says, the joy and grief transfer over “because they suggest to us the general idea of some good or bad fortune that has befallen the person in whom we observe them” (TMS 11, I.i.1.8): we imagine ourselves in the situation of having experienced good or bad fortune. Moreover, even as regards grief and joy, and certainly as regards most other feelings, we do not sympathize with any depth or nuance unless we know more about the person’s situation: General lamentations, which express nothing but the anguish of the sufferer, create rather a curiosity to inquire into his situation … than any actual sympathy that is very sensible. The first question which we ask is, What has befallen you? Till this be answered, though we are uneasy both DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-4

20  Samuel Fleischacker from the vague idea of his misfortune, and still more from torturing ourselves with conjectures about what it may be, yet our fellow-​feeling is not very considerable.5 Smith concludes: “Sympathy … does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it” (TMS 12, I.i..1.10). This difference between Hume and Smith has the consequence that for Smith, but not for Hume, it may often be the case that I feel something different from what you feel, when I sympathize with you. Hume acknowledges that this happens sometimes, as when I feel embarrassment for a person who is acting the fool in public. But for Hume this is a hard case to explain, while for Smith it follows readily from how sympathy works in paradigm cases. On seeing someone insulted, I imagine I would feel angry but not as angry as she seems to be—​or on the other hand more angry: I admire her stoicism, or think she has insufficient self-​respect. On seeing someone receive an award, I think I would be rather less pleased with myself, or rather more, than she seems to be. Smithian sympathy opens up a gap between the feelings we have for another and the feelings that she has herself. It is thus something of an achievement if the person sympathizing and the person sympathized with are able to reach a concord of feelings.

II A second point to note about Smith’s account of sympathy is that it consists not simply in feeling what another might feel, but in being aware that that is how things feel for him or her. Stephen Darwall lays out the difference between these two things.The first can be illustrated by a famous scenario presented by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky: Mr. Crane and Mr. Tees were scheduled to leave the airport on different flights, at the same time. They traveled from town in the same limousine, were caught in a traffic jam, and arrived at the airport 30 minutes after the scheduled departure time of their flights. Mr. Crane is told that his flight left on time. Mr. Tees is told that his was delayed and just left 5 minutes ago.6 Most people respond to this scenario by thinking that Mr. Tees will be far more upset than Mr. Crane—​because they think they would have been far more upset, in Mr.Tees’s situation, than in Mr. Crane’s.They don’t think about what it is like to be Mr.Tees or Mr. Crane in general, however; they just imagine themselves in their situations.7 The story could be re-​told with “you” in place of the characters’ names and have the same effect. It would be quite different for us to be told something about Mr. Tees that distinguished him from other people—​ that he is on the verge of being late to a wedding, perhaps, or on the contrary, that he is reluctant to get to his destination and has plenty of reading to do in

Empathy and perspective  21 the airport—​and then asked what it might be like to be him in his situation. And that, as Darwall points out, is how Smith frames what he calls sympathy: When I condole with you for the loss of your only son, in order to enter into your grief I do not consider what I, a person of such a character and profession, should suffer, if I had a son, and if that son were unfortunately to die: but I consider what I should suffer if I was really you, and I not only change circumstances with you, but I change persons and characters. (TMS VII.iii.1.4, 317) Darwall offers a nuanced explication of this passage. “Consider the difference,” he says, between the instructions: (a) imagine what someone would feel if he were to lose his only child, and (b) imagine what it would be like for that person to feel that way.” Under (a), Darwall says, I will think “What a terrible thing –​a precious child is lost.” Under (b), I will think,“What a terrible thing for him –​he has lost his precious child” (270-​1, my emphases). The latter thought requires me to consider “not just a person with the relevant feelings, but someone conscious of his feelings, their phenomenological textures, and relevance for his life.” Let’s call the feelings that arise from this latter thought “perspectival” or “Smithian” empathy, as opposed to the plain empathy we have for Mr. Tees and Mr. Crane. Smithian empathy involves the awareness that the other has a distinct kind of consciousness from mine—​a distinct perspective—​and an attempt to enter his situation from that perspective.

III A third point about Smith’s account: For Smith, the awareness of mutual sympathy is always a source of pleasure. Hume criticized Smith on this score. Writing to Smith in response to the first edition of TMS, he said, I wish you had more particularly and fully prov’d, that all kinds of Sympathy are necessarily Agreeable. … [I]‌t would appear that there is a disagreeable Sympathy, as well as an agreeable: And indeed, as the Sympathetic Passion is a reflex image of the principal it must partake of its Qualities, and be painful where that is so. … An ill-​humord Fellow; a man tir’d and disgusted with every thing, always ennuié; sickly, complaining, embarrass’d; such a one throws an evident Damp on Company, which I suppose wou’d be accounted for by Sympathy; and yet is disagreeable. … [If] all Sympathy was agreeable[, a] Hospital would be a more entertaining Place than a Ball. (Corr 36; p. 43) Smith responded to this critique by saying that while it is indeed painful to share the pains of others—​we would hardly be “sharing” them otherwise—​the awareness that I share another’s feelings, which Smith identifies with approbation, is always pleasurable:

22  Samuel Fleischacker [I]‌n the sentiment of approbation there are two things to be taken notice of; first, the sympathetic passion of the spectator; and secondly, the emotion which arises from his observing the perfect coincidence between this sympathetic passion in himself, and the original passion in the person principally concerned. This last emotion, in which the sentiment of approbation properly consists, is always agreeable and delightful. The other may be agreeable or disagreeable, according to the nature of the original passion, whose features it must always, in some measure, retain. (TMS I.iii.1.9n; 46n) The force of this reply has been missed by some commentators, who complain that your bad feelings, and my bad feelings on your behalf, cannot add up to a good feeling.8 Smith’s point, however, is that the awareness of sympathy is not a matter of adding your feelings to my feelings: it is a new feeling, separate from both your original feeling and my sympathy for that feeling. It is a second-​ order feeling, we might say, responding to the concord between our two first-​ order feelings, rather than to the objects of those feelings. In addition, for Smith a sympathetic passion is not a mere “reflex image of the principal” passion in the other person, as it is for Hume. Hume reads his own account of sympathy too much into Smith—​as if Smith too were a contagion theorist, assuming that my sympathetic feelings straightforwardly mirror your feelings. For Smith, my sympathy arises from thinking myself into your situation and it is an open question whether I will then feel as you do. If you are “ill-​humord” and constantly complaining, I may not share your feelings. And if I do feel as you do, there is a new element to the situation—​the harmony between us—​about which, if I am aware of it, I will also have feelings. The sentiment of approbation is my reaction to that new element of the situation, not to your feelings alone, nor to my sympathetic feelings for you.There is no reason why this new feeling has to have the character of the original feelings whose concord gives rise to it. And even in cases where the original feelings were painful, says Smith, it does not: it is, rather, “always agreeable and delightful.”9 The remaining question is whether this point is true. Smith notes that sympathy “alleviates grief by insinuating into the heart almost the only agreeable sensation which it is at that time capable of receiving” (I.i.2.3; 14); we take comfort at funerals from the grief of our friends, even if we continue to mourn our own loss. In addition, whatever Hume may have thought, sometimes a hospital is more entertaining than a ball. Imagine walking through a hospital and feeling very much in synch with the suffering of the patients. Now imagine being at a ball while feeling very out of synch with the delight that the other people seem to be having. Where would you rather be? Experiencing a ball as an outsider to the fun others are having can be sharply painful, and not a few of us will leave a ball like that for a place where people are suffering. Sometimes, we agree with Ecclesiastes: “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting.” (7:2).

Empathy and perspective  23 This is especially true where we disapprove of “the house of feasting.” Imagine being at a ball in the middle of a world crisis, when you think people should not be celebrating. You might very well prefer to be at a hospital then, or in any case somewhere more somber and quiet. Cheerfulness of which we disapprove tends to be depressing and anger or grief of which we approve tends to instill in us at least a modicum of pleasure: by way of the solidarity we feel with the person experiencing it.10 And it is that sense of solidarity, I suggest, that Smith most wants to bring out. The reason why awareness of mutual empathy is always pleasurable is that in it we are re-​assured that we participate in a common humanity. We find that our feelings are characteristic of the human community and experience that as comforting and encouraging. We don’t want to be idiosyncratic in our feelings. Sometimes we are regarded that way, and worry about it. A friend or colleague disapproves of my anger, my self-​pity, my joy in my accomplishments, even my good cheer, and I fear that I am cut off from other people, emotionally malformed in some way. So it is a relief to find that others do share in my feelings.11 Finding that others feel as I do signals my membership in the general human community. That is always a pleasure.12 On this view, we have a felt common humanity rather than a reasoned one: in the sense both that our common humanity consists in certain shared feelings, or shared dispositions to have certain feelings, and that we recognize our shared humanity by way of feeling rather than reason. Perhaps this is too sharp a dichotomy. Insofar as Smithian empathy depends on a reflective process of putting ourselves in another’s situation, it requires a certain amount of reasoning. But the shared sentimental humanity that arises from this process is still sharply different from the shared rational humanity of a Plato or a Kant.13 Reason alone neither constitutes nor makes us aware of Smith’s common humanity. Nor on the other hand is Smith’s common humanity a purely biological one, or a religious posit, something that depends on our having a God-​given soul. And one thing that distinguishes Smith’s common humanity from these alternatives is the degree to which it consists in precisely what makes us different from one another. As we have seen, in Smithian empathy we are aware of the fact that the person with whom we are empathizing has a distinctive perspective from which she experiences her feelings. If she comes into fellow feeling with me, she is likewise aware of my distinctive perspective. That we have such perspectives, and therefore differ, is precisely one of the things we share, and enjoy sharing. Which is to say: what unites me, sentimentally, with the rest of humankind is not just a disposition to have certain feelings in certain circumstances, but an ability to be aware of those feelings, in myself and others, as from a distinctive perspective. Only because we have distinctive perspectives do we worry about our differences from others; only because we worry about that do we take pleasure in discovering that we are not so different after all. But that discovery, fully spelled out, amounts to the realization that we are similar while distinct, that we retain our uniqueness even as we have similar reactions—​ that, indeed, one of the main things we have in common is our ability to be

24  Samuel Fleischacker unique. In Smithian empathy, we hold two thoughts together: (1) “For all our differences, we yet share these reactions” and (2) “For all that we share, we yet remain different people.” Both thoughts are sources of pleasure, and the distinctive pleasure of Smithian empathy is one we take precisely in their combination. They delineate, together, the kind of common humanity we want to participate in. So Smith’s sentimental conception of humanity is at the same time a perspectival conception of humanity.To be human is for Smith not at its core to be rational, or to have a God-​given soul, but to develop and sustain a perspective, a point of view: a mesh of opinions and attitudes that respond to the situations we have lived through in the past and shape the way we live through future situations. And because the situations I live through are different from the ones you live through, my perspective will differ from your perspective. What we share, what makes us all human and differentiates us from other animals,14 is that we have a perspective. We can also enter one another’s perspectives by way of empathy. Indeed, only by way of doing that do we come to see that, and how, we differ from others: only by empathetically understanding that others have different perspectives do we come to recognize that we ourselves have a perspective. Our sense of common humanity thus consists in our ability to empathize as much as it does in our having a perspective; there is no way to separate these two things. What it is to be human, on this view, is to have and maintain a perspective, but we can maintain a perspective only if we can engage in Smithian empathy. We are, at the same time and by the same token, empathetic and perspectival beings.

IV What is a perspective? As I am using that term, it refers to a more or less coherent network of opinions and attitudes, formed in response to events in the world around us.15 It contrasts with a mere jumble of feelings, with momentary feelings that vanish in the next moment, and with feelings that are disconnected from the world—​feelings, like those induced by a drug, that are caused by something in our environment, but do nothing to represent that cause to us. It also differs from a set of beliefs that we arrive at independently of feeling. The beliefs to which pure reason might bring us will not be a perspective, nor will a collection of arbitrary Humean feelings, representing nothing beyond themselves. A perspective is a subjective take on the world. Many philosophers do not give us an account of mental functioning that yields such an idea. Smith does. In explaining his conception of sympathy, Smith interweaves emotions and opinions: To approve of another man’s opinions is to adopt those opinions, and to adopt them is to approve of them. … But this is equally the case with regard to our approbation or disapprobation of the sentiments or passions of others. (TMS 17)

Empathy and perspective  25 Smith’s view of how we approve and disapprove of sentiments or passions indeed depends on viewing them as like opinions, with objects they can fit or not fit. “To approve of the passions of another … as suitable to their objects,” he says, “is the same thing as to observe that we entirely sympathize with them” (16). So our passions, like our opinions, represent the world; they are not, as they are for Hume, enclosed within themselves, incapable of representing anything.16 Our passions and opinions, for Smith, are also interwoven with one another. He illustrates his fittedness account of approval with a variety of examples: sharing another’s resentment, “keep[ing] time” with another’s grief, admiring the same poem or picture that another admires, and laughing at the same joke. These examples mix moral with aesthetic reactions, sentiments that respond to an event with sentiments that respond to an action, and sentiments that endure over considerable time—​resentment and grief—​with momentary feelings of admiration or hilarity. In the next paragraph, Smith compares sharing emotions with sharing opinions—​“to approve of another man’s opinions is to adopt those opinions,” he says, which “is equally the case with regard to our approbation or disapprobation of the sentiments or passions of others” (17). And in the next chapter, he brings our shared reactions to art, science, and philosophy together with our reactions to one another’s grief, happiness, and indignation. So for Smith our intellectual and emotional experiences are all of a piece, all in some way representative of the world around us, and all likely to vary with the different experiences we have of that world. They add up to a general way that we experience the world. This helps explain how Smith can speak, later in the book, of the difference between considering what I would suffer, in my own person, if I were in your situation and “consider[ing] what I should suffer if I was really you, … chang[ing] persons and characters” with you. A “person and character” seems here very much to be a holistic subjective take on the world, shaped by experience and social relationships but not reducible to these external factors. Elsewhere, Smith describes types of characters—​ the “vain” man, the “proud” man, the “prudent” man, in TMS (255, 213–​215); the “uncouth” but judicious ploughman, the idle and prodigal aristocrat, the bold merchant, in WN (143–​144, 385, 411)—​each of which has a pattern of feeling and acting that differs from the others. These patterns are shaped by external factors while at the same time providing their bearers with a distinctive way of taking in and responding to such factors.17 In all these respects, Smith talks of people as having not merely character traits but a character: a comprehensive pattern of feeling and acting that shapes their outlook on the world. That is what I have been calling a perspective.

V We have seen that there is a connection between engaging in Smithian empathy and being aware of perspectives: being aware, even, of our own perspective. Only if you can enter into the perspective of others can you recognize that you have a distinctive perspective of your own. I would now like to suggest that the connection between empathy and perspectives goes deeper than this: that you

26  Samuel Fleischacker cannot even have a perspective unless you can enter empathetically into other perspectives. Who we each are is intimately bound up with who we think others are—​and with who they think we are. To put the point starkly: there is no sharp line between being me and being you. I will try to make the case for this claim by way of a problem in the account of empathy I have presented thus far. I have been taking for granted that there is a clear distinction between plain empathy and Smithian or perspectival empathy. Most writers on empathy do take this for granted. Darwall does, as we have seen. Peter Goldie distinguishes between empathy and “in-​his-​shoes-​imagining”: the former involves imagining myself as another in his or her situation, while the latter requires me to figure out how I would feel in that situation.18 These distinctions seem intuitively plausible, but they pre-​suppose that we can have stable and sharply delineated perspectives independently of empathy. I would now like to question that pre-​supposition. Is there really such a thing as “my perspective” and “your perspective,” independently of empathy? Consider what it means for me to enter another’s situation as me. Suppose I am trying to feel my way into the shoes of a black person who has been subjected to a racial threat, or a poor person who has lost or been cheated out of $10. Can I really enter so much as their situations without thinking about what it is like to be them in that situation? My being subjected to a racial threat or insult is unlikely to have the practical consequences, or emotional impact, that such a thing would have on a black person, and my being deprived of $10 will have a much smaller effect on my life than a similar loss would have on the life of a poor person. So even to enter the other’s situation properly, I must become her, to a significant degree—​I can’t so much as try on her shoes, if I remain wholly “me” in imagination.19 There is, moreover, no clear limit to how much I must take on board to get her situation right.The effect of a flight delay on an impatient person’s life is different from the effect of a delay on a calm person’s life;20 the effect of a setback on the life of a person with a fragile ego is different from the effect of a setback on a person with great self-​confidence.What counts as a person’s situation cannot be neatly separated off from how she feels about those situations, nor can her feelings be separated off from her prior history, including her prior psychological history. The situations we are in include our dispositions to react emotionally to those situations, and the histories that have bred such dispositions in us. Accordingly, we can’t really enter other people’s shoes without also imagining ourselves, to some degree, as them. Goldie’s distinction between “empathy” and “in-​his-​shoes imagining,” and the parallel one in Darwall, cannot be clearly made out. At the same time, we can’t really imagine what it might be like to be other people without also imagining what it might be like to be in their shoes. How can I figure out what it is like to be you without imagining what it would be like for me to occupy your historical and social position or live through your experiences? Who are you apart from all these things? Your characteristics—​a

Empathy and perspective  27 cheerful or cynical attitude toward life, athletic skill or the lack of it, charm or irritability—​are after all largely the product of your position and experiences. On the other hand, if I try to take on all of your experiences and characteristics, leaving nothing of myself behind, I will no longer be empathizing at all, merely attempting to merge with you. Actually merging with you is impossible, I believe,21 and even holding up such a thing as an ideal obscures the fact that it is I must do the imagining, and I must draw on my own experiences and feelings in order to feel my way into you. I could of course simply mimic what you say or do, but this would no longer be a way of feeling myself into you. In none of these ways can I imagine myself in your perspective or character; I instead lose sight of myself altogether—​and consequently lose the ability to have feelings of my own for you.22 If I try to merge with you, I will certainly fail to achieve what Smith thinks we seek to achieve by way of imaginative projection: I will fail to reach a position from which I can assess your feelings as appropriate or inappropriate to the situations that give rise to them. To assess feelings as appropriate to a situation, one needs a certain distance from the perspective of the person who has those feelings; one needs to be able to abstract from those factors in the other’s emotional state that lead him or her to react too strongly, or not strongly enough, or to react, as in some of Smith’s own examples, like a lunatic, a child, or an “impudent and rude” fool (TMS 12). It is moreover intrinsic to empathy, independent of its relationship to moral judgment, that we manage this distance from the other. For the lunatic and child and fool, were they fully aware of what they were doing, would probably react differently than they do. They may indeed be trying to do that even as we watch them; certainly people with greater control over themselves try to do that. We misjudge others if we take them to be stuck in the current form of their perspectives, if we don’t recognize the degree to which they are trying to peer beyond the limits of self-​awareness that their habits or history have placed upon them. We all, constantly, try to see ourselves as others see us, and change ourselves in response to that view. Something frustrating happens to me, and I gather from my friends’ responses whether I am over-​reacting to it, or not reacting strongly enough. I am unexpectedly successful in something and take a quick surreptitious glance around the room before determining whether I should be bursting out in rapture or feeling something more modest, and expressing it in more measured tones. Or my responses are shaped by an inward glance at how I think an impartial spectator might react.23 These efforts at self-​understanding and self-​transformation are part of what it is to have a perspective; one who strives to sympathize with me will fail if she assumes that every detail of who I am is fixed. Empathy requires of us that we not freeze the perspective of the people with whom we are empathizing, not lock it into one determinate form. A spectator who thinks that I will necessarily react with fear or jealousy to a particular situation because I have tended to react that way in the past underestimates the degree to which I try to change my responses

28  Samuel Fleischacker to things—​underestimates what Smith would call my self-​command. I am in central part a being who tries to control and change his reactions. So if you are trying to be me, you will miss something if you fix my dispositions and attitudes and assume that they cannot become like yours, or like those of the impartial spectator. Putting too much of the other’s affective background into her situation is a way of misconstruing her, of not taking her self-​command seriously enough. By the same token, I should not assume, when attempting to understand myself, that my reactions or perspective are fixed. I am a wilting wall-​flower, say, and you are forthright and fearless. I watch you take a heroic stance on an issue and think “I would never have the guts to do that.” But do I really know that about myself? My very admiration for you bespeaks some motivation to become like you. And if I can enter empathetically into the circumstances and practices that have given you courage, I surely have some understanding of what I need to do to achieve it myself. In a future situation I might well think, “what would you do?”—​and do that. I misconstrue myself—​my self-​command—​if I think I am incapable of this. I need instead always to assume that the other could be me, and that I could be her. That is what it means for human beings to be capable of “fellow feeling,” and to locate their shared humanity in that capacity. But then there will be no sharp line between being me in your shoes and being you in your shoes. Our best sense of who we are is a constantly moving target: a perspective whose contours we come to understand, and control, only insofar as we engage in a constant process of empathizing with other perspectives. We do not have a perspective independent of empathy, and our attempts at empathy change our perspectives. Our selves are determinate, to the extent that they are, only by way of empathetic relationships with other selves, which move constantly between what we have in common and what differentiates us. So to distinguish imagining myself in your shoes sharply from imagining myself as you obscures the degree to which our situations depend on who we are, who we are depends on our situations, and our perspectives include an effort to go beyond their own limitations. It obscures, in short, the degree to which I am always trying to see myself as you, in our empathetic interactions, and you are trying always to see yourself as me. We do not merge with one another, but who we each are depends inextricably on how we see others.

VI This brings us to Smith’s conception of the self, which I think he sees as arising from the process of empathy. I have no self-​independent of having a perspective, for Smith, and I have no perspective independent of my empathetic interactions with others. To elaborate: For Smith we are driven to reflect on ourselves, which for him means entering our own perspectives as if from the perspective of an outsider, only after realizing that others are doing that to us:

Empathy and perspective  29 [O]‌ur first moral criticisms are exercised upon the characters and conduct of other people … But we soon learn, that other people are equally frank with regard to our own. We become anxious to know how far we deserve their censure or applause, and whether to them we must appear those agreeable or disagreeable creatures which they represent us. We begin, upon this account, to examine our own passions and conduct, and to consider how these must appear to them, by considering how they would appear to us if in their situation. We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behaviour, and endeavour to imagine what effect it would, in this light, produce upon us. (TMS 112; see also 129) So our notion of ourselves arises in the first instance from our response to how others see us. Indeed, Smith says explicitly that we can arrive at this notion only in and from society: 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 beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty or deformity of his own face. All these are objects which he cannot easily see, which naturally he does not look at, and with regard to which he is provided with no mirror, which can present them to this view. Bring him into society, and he is immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted before. (110) A person who was “a stranger to society,” Smith says, would attend only to “the objects of his passions, the external bodies which pleased or hurt him”; it would never occur to him to notice his “passions themselves, the joys or sorrows, which those objects excited” (op. cit.).Without the mirror of society, we would not become aware that we so much as had a self. That puts the point too weakly, however. Without the mirror provided by society, we would not just be unaware that we had a self; we would in fact not have a self. The metaphor of the mirror is misleading. I have a body before I see it in the mirror; the mirror gives me a way of becoming aware of my body, but my body exists whether I am aware of it or not. On the Cartesian and Lockean views of the self from which early modern philosophers begin, however, my self does not exist if I am not aware of it; a self, on these views, is by definition something that reflects upon itself, that is self-​aware.24 So Smith’s self cannot so much as exist until it is awakened to such reflection by society. Society brings the self into existence, and at the same time provides the standards guiding its characteristic acts of self-​reflection: which for Smith are first and foremost acts of moral self-​reflection. Smith responds to Hume’s deconstruction of the self in Book I of the Treatise much as Kant does (and as Hume himself has been said to do in Books II and III of the Treatise25): by positing a continuous self for

30  Samuel Fleischacker moral purposes. But Smith, unlike Kant, sees the social construction of the self as necessary to that moral posit. Hume had concluded his chapter on personal identity by suggesting himself that the identity we attribute to the self, like the identity we attribute to a church that is rebuilt in a new style, may serve social purposes.26 But for Hume, this was just evidence that the self is a “fiction.” For Smith, there is nothing fictional about the self. It is a posit we cannot do without—​cannot think away or see beyond—​and as real as anything else whose existence we need to posit. Nor is there anything worrying about the fact that that posit results from a process of social construction. That is just how posits arise, in both science and morality. But on this conception of the self, constructed for moral purposes out of our acts of empathy with others, and with ourselves as if we were another person, I will have no self prior to my acts of empathy. I come to determine who you are by distinguishing your perspective from mine and I come to determine who I am by distinguishing my perspective from yours. And what I take to belong properly to you, and what I take to belong properly to me, may change, as I proceed with this imaginative and interpretive process. It follows that there will be no “natural,” pre-​empathetic self to which I might turn, in order to ground a distinction between imagining being myself in your situation and imagining being you in it: that distinction will arise, instead, from the process of empathy. More precisely, I come to determine both who you are and who I am by contrasting our perspectives with that of the impartial spectator. The impartial spectator is the centerpiece of Smith’s moral system. It is a device that, Smith says, we build within ourselves in response to the fact that people often judge us out of misinformation or bias: we want to know how we would look, instead, to someone who knew all the facts relevant to what we have done, and had no reason to favor either us or the people with whom we are interacting. What the impartial spectator approves and disapproves of will, Smith says, set the standard for what we ourselves should approve or disapprove of. But my focus here is not on Smith’s moral theory. I want to stress instead the role that the impartial spectator plays in our psychology: in our construal of who we and other people are. The impartial spectator tells me how a human being in general—​“anyone”—​would think or feel in a particular situation, so to the extent that you don’t seem to think or feel that way, I take you to have a distinctive perspective on the world. And I come to see myself, similarly, as having a distinctive perspective by way of my differences from the impartial spectator. At the same time, the impartial spectator is also constructed: out of the various actual spectator perspectives I encounter, as corrected for bias and misinformation. So in figuring out my own identity, I am constantly thinking about yours, and comparing both to that of a notional, general human being. But all these positions are constructed out of a process of interpretation, and subject to re-​interpretation. There is on this view no stable, essentialist conception of the human self to be found. We instead constantly make sense of ourselves and others by way of a triangulation among self-​perspectives, other-​perspectives, and a notional impartial spectator perspective.27

Empathy and perspective  31 And in practice, it seems to me, we engage in precisely such a triangulation to determine our identities. As I try to figure out what is peculiar to my take on the world, I constantly note ways in which I react to, say, rudeness or family squabbles differently from you. At the same time I conduct a comparison in my mind’s eye of both of our reactions with the reactions that “anyone”—​a vague “anyone,” which reflects everyone I know—​might have to such behavior. I also note your differences from me, and from “anyone,” when I try to figure out your take on the world. You are an observant Jewish academic like me, let’s say, but you are always calm and accepting when fellow academics schedule events on Jewish holidays, while I get upset. I think to myself: Why this difference between us? Is she more generous-​minded or stoic than I am, recognizing wisely that the Christian world we live in can’t be expected to accommodate itself to our needs? Or is she conformist or cowardly, unwilling to speak up for her rights? By the same token, I wonder whether my indignation is a mark of self-​ respect and courage, or just of spleen and self-​indulgence. And to settle these questions I think, how might an impartial spectator react? What would be the response, to these sorts of situations, of an unbiased and well-​informed “anyone”? The impartial spectator thus guides the process of construction by which I interpret who you are and who I am: provides norms, standards, for that process, a benchmark of how “people in general” feel or act, against which I can recognize and assess my, and your, peculiarities. At the same time, this “anyone” is itself constantly under construction, a product of how I interpret the many “you”s I encounter and “I”s I imagine myself to be. This is a complicated and fluid conception of selfhood. But it is also phenomenologically accurate and very useful for moral purposes. It explains nicely how and why our notions of ourselves are tied up with our notions of who we think we should be, and how and why we tend to try to change ourselves in the course of trying to understand ourselves. Selfhood, on this picture, is not a fiction, as Hume would have it—​it is instead a necessary and ineliminable component of our moral and psychological reflections. But it is indeterminate, ever-​changing, and a reflection of and response to our social environments.

VII A word on my way of interpreting Smith. Charles Griswold points to a sharp tension between the empathy of Book I of TMS, in which I place myself in your situation, and the empathy of Book VII of TMS, in which I “change persons and characters” with you, using this tension to suggest that there is an internal contradiction in what Smith wants out of empathy. I have been arguing, to the contrary, that Smith intends these to be flip sides of the same process, or perhaps ends of a spectrum that includes both exercises. Does Smith say that these are two facets of the same process, or place them along a spectrum? No. But

32  Samuel Fleischacker I think my reading of him fits well both with his account of the self and with the phenomenology of empathy. These are reasons to favor my interpretation over Griswold’s. Relatedly, I think Griswold’s reading of Smith on empathy misses its interactive quality. Smith, says Griswold, presumes that we can share other people’s feelings perfectly, can grasp, instantaneously as it were, how another feels. “The transparency of the agent to the impartial spectator, the definitiveness of the latter’s knowledge and judgment, …—​these are among the views that Smith’s [account of empathy] … seems to require according to Smith himself.”28 Griswold derives this understanding of Smith in part from Smith’s frequent use of ocular imagery to characterize empathy—​we “see” other people’s suffering, “look” at their situation “through their eyes,” etc. (67–​68). And it’s characteristic of vision, says Griswold, or at least of philosophical construals of vision, that the objects we see are wholly before us, and we grasp them immediately. By contrast, Griswold thinks that empathy should be understood as “an interpretive process expressed … through narrative, or probably narratives whose competing claims must themselves be adjudicated somehow” (71). But that is how Smith presents empathy! Griswold is right that it would be a mistake to think that others are transparent to us, or that we definitively grasp how they feel, and he is also right that Smith’s ocular language can push us toward such a model. Smith’s primary account of empathy, in Book I of TMS, does not make these mistakes, however. On the contrary, Smith says that we ask for a narrative—​“What has befallen you?”—​before empathizing with even the most basic emotions of another (TMS 11), that we need to “adopt the whole case of [our] companion with all its minutest incidents,” before we can properly empathize with him or her, and that even when we do this, our emotions “will still be very apt to fall short of the violence of what is felt by the sufferer” (TMS 21): the feelings of agent and spectator “will never be unisons” although “they may be concords” (TMS 22). This is precisely a narrative account of empathy, governed by the reciting of a “case” (note that the imagery is legal here, not ocular), and in which the goal is explicitly said to stop short of perfect harmony. Smith’s constant use of detailed vignettes (e.g.,TMS 30, 42, 49, 84), and frequent mentions of the value of literature (e.g., TMS 143, 177), also suggests a view of empathy as “an interpretive process expressed through narrative.” And when Smith considers the conflicting empathies we experience when one person is angry with another (TMS 38, 75–​76), he brings in “narratives whose competing claims must themselves be adjudicated somehow.” So while Griswold characterizes the workings of empathy astutely and beautifully, he is wrong to suppose that his account differs from Smith’s. These disagreements with Griswold are related because an account of empathy which works through narrative rather than vision is much more open to the complex formation and re-​formation of the self who is empathizing, and the self who is empathized with, than would be either a placing of myself, taken as a fixed entity, into your situation or an attempt to transform myself into you (taken, again, as something fixed). The open-​ended, interpretive process that

Empathy and perspective  33 constitutes empathy, for both Griswold and me, allows and at times requires each of us to re-​interpret who we take to be the narrator of the tales we hear or imagine about our own and other people’s situations: who exactly you are, and who exactly I am. A narrative interpretation of what Smith means by empathy will therefore buttress the case for reading TMS such that the self-​ oriented empathy of Book I belongs together with the other-​oriented empathy of Book VII.29 I submit that this is the best way to interpret what Smith is up to. Smithian empathy is indeed a narrative process, which doesn’t sharply distinguish between who we are and what situations we inhabit, which shapes and reshapes how we understand ourselves and others as we go along, and which therefore allows for a fluid movement between entering your situation, in imagination, as me and as you.

VIII I’d like to close with a broader historical point. If I am right about Smith’s linking of empathy to perspective, and construal of our humanity in terms of them, he is one of the first philosophers to explore a theme that has been central to literature, popular culture, and politics ever since his time. The 18th century is notable for its emphasis on both empathy and perspectivalism. The centrality of empathy to 18th-​century moral thought is well known. Lynn Hunt and Thomas Laqueur have demonstrated how much it shaped not just moral philosophy, but everyday moral thought and the ideas that went into movements for the abolition of slavery or the proclamation of human rights. Laqueur says that the “humanitarian narrative” of the 18th century—​ he gives the realistic novel, the autopsy and the clinical report as examples—​ inspired political change by speaking “[in an] extraordinarily detailed fashion about the pains and deaths of ordinary people [while making] apparent the causal chains that might connect the actions of its readers with the suffering of its subjects.”30 Hunt asks whether it can be merely coincidental that the three greatest novels of psychological identification of the eighteenth century—​Richardson’s Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1747-​8) and Rousseau’s Julie (1761)—​were all published in the period that immediately preceded the appearance of the concept of ‘the rights of man’?31 She also details the many ways in which the art and music of the 18th century aimed at the arousal of empathy in their viewers and listeners. And the idea that empathy, rather than reason or our having been created in the image of God, is the main source of our ability to see others as fellow human beings is new in this period. Less well attended to, but implicit in what Laqueur and Hunt are teaching us, is the fact that the 18th century also saw the invention or discovery of the idea of a perspective. Hunt describes how people marveled at the ability of

34  Samuel Fleischacker Richardson to immerse his readers in the worlds he created, to “create the impression that you are present” in those worlds, and how Rousseau defied the common complaint that novels seduce us into living vicariously in “an estate that is not [our] own,” and called on us instead to revel in that feature of the novel.32 But this is a call to inhabit other people’s perspectives. Novels give us entry into subjective worlds or estates other than our own: our objective world as seen through the eyes of people different from us. We enter the head of a Moll Flanders or Pamela or Julie, as we would later enter the head of Dickens’ Pip or Tolstoy’s Pierre Bezuhov or the various unhappy Buddenbrook siblings. This entering the head of another, learning to appreciate their psychological perspective in great detail, is the stock in trade of novelists, and something rarely to be found in ancient or medieval literature. Famously, despite a few fore-​runners in other places and times, the novel is mostly an 18th-​century European invention, which enables a new kind of sentimental identification among people.33 But that identification is inextricable from a new appreciation of the subjective differences among us, and the degree to which our subjective features come together in a distinctive whole: a perspective. This amounts, indeed, to a new “I.” Consider, in particular, first personal novels. We get glimpses of the inner workings of Iago and Hamlet by way of their monologues, but we are not invited to enter their subjective worlds holistically, or to consider how their passions and attitudes add up to a subjective whole. In earlier literature, the first person was generally an exemplary “I,” standing in for any of us. The first person in the Psalms, or in Paul’s letters or Augustine’s Confessions, is meant to represent the religious experience or journey of any human being—​we are meant to see ourselves in it. By contrast, the first person in Dickens’ Great Expectations or Dostoevsky’s Underground Man is a distinctive human being who is emphatically not the same as the reader: but whose subjective world we are meant nevertheless to enter. (It’s worth noting that it may take a full novel to lay out a person’s perspective.) I suggest that it is no more coincidental that an emphasis on empathy came together, historically, with an emphasis on distinctive perspectives than that it was followed by the proclamation of human rights. Empathy and perspectivalism belong together. It becomes important for me to empathize with you only if you have a distinctive perspective that I cannot learn about simply by looking to common human reason, or a general theory of human nature. I understand that you have such a perspective, however, and even that I have such a perspective, only by way of empathy. This is Smith’s position, as I understand it. But Smith was just expressing, more clearly than his peers and predecessors, a view that was coming to the fore throughout the literature, politics, and moral practice of his time.34 In this, Smith helped develop a new, perspectival conception of humanity. There are some very attractive features of this conception. In the first place, I suspect that most of us simply feel that we are “most ourselves” in our having a distinctive perspective on the world. To say that my “proper self ” consists in occupying this perspective, and being aware of it as such, rings much more true

Empathy and perspective  35 than saying, as Kant does, that pure reason is my proper self.35 Saying that my proper self consists in my having a God-​given soul, on the other hand, tells me little. Even if I am a devout theist, I am likely to be unsure what this means. In the second place, the notion of a perspective includes the workings of my reason as well as my feelings—​it is shaped by how I reason about the situations I am in, and the poems or philosophies I admire, not just by my unadorned feelings. So it can take on board much that is plausible in Kantian as well as Humean views of human nature. It can give the same weight to reasoning over coercion that Kantians do; it is just as egalitarian as a Kantian view; and it can demand the same sort of respect for others that Kantians do. Indeed, by requiring us to respect the differences between ourselves and others, and not just our commonalities, it may do a better job of capturing what we mean by “respect” than Kantians do. Relatedly, while Smithian empathy may not be quite the same thing as caring for others, it is a condition for respectful, sensitive, and nuanced modes of caring. We are likely to care badly when we don’t care out of Smithian empathy: we are likely to care in a way that does not reflect an awareness of the difference between our perspective and the perspective of those we care for. Which is to say, if I am right about the links among empathy, perspectivalism, and humanity, that we are likely to care in a way that does not adequately reflect an awareness of the other’s humanity.When we make sure that Smithian, perspectival empathy directs our caring, we care as one unique human being for another: we respect our differences from others as well as our commonalities. In Kant’s terms, we respect the humanity in others and display the humanity in ourselves. Or, in the terms of the modern Kantian John Rawls, we show how seriously we take “the distinction between persons.” Kant and his followers have never made good sense of that distinction, however. Smith does: his perspectival conception of humanity, and the empathy that underlies it, capture perfectly, I think, what we take to be most valuable about ourselves—​what defines and explains why we are, each and all, of absolute and intrinsic value.

Notes 1 David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, ed. LA Selby-​Bigge and PH Nidditch, second edition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978), pp. 319, 516. Henceforth: T. 2 T 317, 386, 576 592, 605. I discuss Hume’s various accounts of sympathy in “Sympathy in Hume and Smith: A Comparison, Critique, and Reconstruction,” in Intrasubjectivity and Objectivity in Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl, ed. C. Fricke and D. Føllesdal (Munich: de Gruyter, 2013). 3 “Simulation” may actually be a better word than “projection,” but it smacks too much of contemporary “simulation theory. Hume and Smith cannot be aligned neatly with the contemporary debate between “theory theorists” and “simulation theorists”: see my “Sympathy in Hume and Smith.” 4 Upon some occasions sympathy may seem to arise merely from the view of a certain emotion in another person. The passions, upon some occasions, may

36  Samuel Fleischacker seem to be transfused from one man to another, instantaneously, and antecedent to any knowledge of what excited them in the person principally concerned. (Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, eds. DD Raphael and AL Macfie (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), p. 11) Henceforth: TMS. 5 TMS 11-​12, I.i.1.9. 6 Kahneman and Tversky, “The Simulation Heuristic,” in Judgment Under Uncertainty, ed. D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A.Tversky (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); cited in Darwall, “Empathy, Sympathy, Care,” Philosophical Studies 89 (2–​3), p. 268. 7 As Peter Goldie puts it, we are not given a “characterization” of Crane or Tees. For Goldie, this means that the exercise involves neither empathy nor in-​his-​shoes imagining. “What the process consists of, rather, is centrally imagining oneself … enacting … . two distinct narratives.” (Goldie, The Emotions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), p. 200n). I agree with this, but I consider this to be in-​his-​shoes imagining. Goldie is wonderful at drawing up fine-​grained taxonomies of the emotions, and of how we share emotions, but sometimes he cuts his distinctions too finely. 8 David Raynor, “Adam Smith and the Virtues,” Adam Smith Review, vol. 2. See my response to Raynor in the same issue of the Adam Smith Review. 9 Which is not to deny that this “agreeable and delightful” feeling may be faint, and overridden by painful first-​order feelings to which it responds. This is presumably what happens at funerals, and other tragic occasions: we take some pleasure in our mutual harmony feelings but that pleasure is overridden by our mourning, so our overall mood is bleak (cf. TMS 14–​15). 10 To be sure, this modicum of pleasure in the concord of our feelings may be overridden by the anger or grief with which we feel that concord. But that is just what Smith himself says (sympathy “alleviates” grief, in the sentence just quoted, but does not remove it), and he goes on to stress that we much prefer to sympathize with joy than with grief: hence, among other things, our baleful tendency to sympathize with the rich than the poor (TMS I.iii.3; pp.61–​66). 11 John Steinbeck writes: “We are lonesome animals. We spend all life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say —​and to feel —​‘Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it.You’re not as alone as you thought.’ ” As quoted in G. Plimpton (ed.), Writers at Work 02 (Paris Review), (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), p.183. 12 Smith never directly says that the experience of mutual empathy is an affirmation of our common humanity. But that reading fits the phenomenological facts, I think, and makes sense of why this experience would be always pleasurable. It also makes sense of Smith’s repeated claim that, as someone striving for mutual empathy with everyone, I must see myself as “one of the multitude in no respect better than any other in it” (TMS 83; see also 137). Why is human equality a presupposition or consequence of the achievement of mutual empathy? Because mutual empathy captures the aspect of ourselves in which we are in fact all the same: our shared modes of emotional response. 13 In my Third Concept of Liberty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), I suggest that Smith’s conception of empathy influenced Kant’s conception of reflective judgment in the third Critique, and that there is a kind of “self of judgment” in Kant’s writings of the 1790s that bears a good deal of resemblance to the empirically

Empathy and perspective  37 shaped self of Smith. Even here, Kant avoids construing the self as dependent on sentiment, exactly, but he does speak of a feeling of common humanity—​sensus communis—​that unites us with others, and one of the guiding principles he gives to judgment (“think in the place of others”) can readily be construed as a kind of empathy. So there may be elements of Kant that echo the themes I am attributing to Smith. But they are not the best-​known elements of Kant, and they are certainly not to be found in the thoroughly rationalist, a priori self of the Groundwork. 14 There will be at best a very attenuated sense in which a dog or chimpanzee has a perspective—​an integrated sense of the world, that is shaped by history and knows itself to be so shaped—​and no sense in which an earthworm or fish does. Frans de Waal has demonstrated that chimpanzees do display some of the skills involved in empathy, but nothing like the tracking of a life and way of doing things that would amount to recognizing a perspective. 15 Remy Debes proposes a notion of “affective perspectives” with many affinities to the one I develop here (including the idea that they are crucial to our agency and our dignity): see Debes, “The Authority of Empathy,” in R. Debes and K. Stueber (eds.), Ethical Sentimentalism: New Perspectives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 185–​189. 16 A passion is an original existence, or, if you will, modification of existence, and contains not any representative quality, which renders it a copy of any other existence or modification. When I am angry, I am actually possest with the passion, and in that emotion have no more a reference to any other object, than when I am thirsty, or sick, or more than five foot high. ’Tis impossible, therefore, that this passion can be oppos’d by, or be contradictory to truth and reason; since this contradiction consists in the disagreement of ideas, consider’d as copies, with those objects, which they represent. (T 415) Compare “Of the Standard of Taste”: “all sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever a man is conscious of it. … [N]‌o sentiment represents what is really in the object.” (Hume, Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. E. Miller, [Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987], p. 230). 17 Smith makes clear that our patterns of feeling and acting are not wholly determined by external factors in his description of the “wise and virtuous man,” who carefully structures his character according to an internal design (TMS 247-​8). The ambitious “poor man’s son” of TMS IV.i also shapes his character on an internal model: this time the image of the idle rich, whom the poor boy wrongly takes to have achieved perfect happiness. One of these models is morally appealing, the other not, but both function to shape experience. 18 Actually, Goldie’s account of in-​his-​shoes imagining is unclear, perhaps for precisely the reasons I am about to raise. He refuses to countenance imagining myself, unvarnished, in the other’s situation as an example of the phenomenon—​hence his insistence that the Crane and Tees case exemplifies neither empathy nor in-​his-​shoes imagining (The Emotions, 200)—​instead saying that it involves a mixture of “certain aspects of my characterization” with “certain aspects of the other’s characterization” (op. cit.). We are given no idea of how the lines might be drawn here, or why we should not see projecting my whole characterization into the situation of another as one example of this kind of imagining.

38  Samuel Fleischacker 19 See also Bence Nanay, “Adam Smith’s Concept of Sympathy and Its Contemporary Interpretations,” in V. Brown and S. Fleischacker (eds.), Essays on the Philosophy of Adam Smith, (London: Routledge, 2010): “[A]‌crucial question to ask about Smith’s account of sympathy is what we should mean by ‘X’s situation’ when talking about imagining oneself in someone else’s situation.” (91) 20 An example that Goldie himself uses: “Centrally imagining myself (as an irritable person, I will correctly assume) missing the plane leaves the narrator very cross and frustrated. Successfully empathizing with, say, Mother Theresa … leaves the narrator serene” (The Emotions, 201). 21 Goldie (following Max Scheler) thinks otherwise. In “emotional identification,” he says, “one’s sense of one’s own identity to some extent merges with one’s sense of the identity of the other, so that there is a sort of draining away of the boundaries of cognitive and sensory identity.” He acknowledges that “it is not easy to say just what emotional identification consists of,” but he mentions “identification with a totem or with one’s ancestors, ecstatic religious experience,… a mother’s identification with her child,” and the coming together that couples experience in “truly loving sexual intercourse” as examples of it (Goldie 193–​194). It is certainly true that people often say that they “merge” with others,“lose” their self, etc., in such experiences. But I see no reason to take that language as more than a hyperbolic way of describing a certain kind of unself-​conscious joy or attention—​ in many cases also of an illusory sense that one has really “become” a different person. In any case, there is no good literal sense to be made of this imagery: one of the stubborn facts about human consciousness is that it comes in discrete packages, and that we never merge with the minds of others the way two chemical substances can merge to form a new one. A careful analysis of phenomena described as “self-​other merging” can be found in Batson, Altruism in Humans, pp. 145–​160. Batson concludes that “our self-​concept is constrained both by our personal history and by our body” and that phrases like “including the other in the self,” “oneness,” and “self-​other merging” should be taken metaphorically rather than literally (159). Coplan and Gruen both argue—​ one from an epistemological and one from a moral standpoint—​that maintaining a clear self-​other distinction is essential to empathy (Coplan 15–​18, Gruen 59–​60). Such a distinction is, I think, quite compatible with the dialectical process of self-​ identification I describe below. 22 Goldie, again, seems to disagree, saying that ideally I should not introduce any “aspects of myself ” into the imaginative process that constitutes empathy: that I should abandon my own perspective (“characterization,” in Goldie’s terms) as much as possible (The Emotions, 202). But if I leave myself behind entirely, I will be unable to enter the other’s perspective. Even if, to use one of Goldie’s own examples, I—​a solidly nonheroic middle-​class person who has never experienced battle—​want to think myself into the perspective of Tolstoy’s noble Prince Andrei at the battle of Schön Graben, I will need to call on all the moments in which I have felt a flicker of courage or aristocratic grace. I will not otherwise be able to recognize why Prince Andrei’s graceful calm is so well-​suited to his character: I will not be able to feel the rightness of this moment in the novel. Goldie compares empathy to acting in the style promoted by the Stanislavski school (The Emotions 178), but the Stanislavski school famously urges actors to find something in themselves by which they can approximate the feelings and traits of their characters. On my view, what Goldie calls “empathy” and what Goldie calls “in-​his-​shoes-​ imagining” belong on a spectrum, rather than being sharply opposed to one another.

Empathy and perspective  39 I leave more of my perspective (“characterization”) behind, and take on more of your perspective, in empathy, and I leave less of my perspective behind, and take on less of your perspective, in “in-​his-​shoes-​imagining.” But they are not different in kind, and we indeed move fluidly along this spectrum in understanding both others and ourselves. That is why Smithian empathy, as I understand it, embraces the spectrum as a whole, rather than one or the other end of it. 23 Sometimes, of course, we react so instantaneously, and with such raw passion, that we don’t consider what others might think. But often we do factor in that consideration, and our modes of reaction, our emotional dispositions, are very much shaped by this sort of interaction. That includes, at least to some degree, our disposition to burst out in passion. Tolstoy illustrates this acutely: “I wanted to run after him,” says the madly jealous Pòzdnyshev, about the musician with whom his wife has been breakfasting, but remembered that it is ridiculous to run after one’s wife’s lover in one’s socks; and I did not wish to be ridiculous but terrible. In spite of the fearful frenzy I was in, I was all the time aware of the impression I might produce on others, and was even partly guided by that impression. (“The Kreutzer Sonata,” in Leo Tolstoy, Collected Shorter Fiction, trans. L. and A. Maude and N.J. Cooper (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001),Volume 2, p. 318)) 24 I don’t mean to say that the self, for these philosophers, is nothing but a process of self-​reflection. That would be viciously circular—​and Locke’s view of the self has indeed been accused by some commentators of such circularity. I suspect the accusation is unfair even when applied to Locke, but in any case for Smith there is certainly more to the self than its capacity for self-​reflection: there are, for starters, all the first-​order ideas and feelings on which we reflect. It is just that these first-​order sorts of awareness will not constitute a self unless and until the being that has them becomes aware that it has them, and begins to reflect on them. Self-​consciousness is thus a necessary but not sufficient condition for selfhood, for Smith. As regards Locke, one way of answering the charge of vicious circularity is to argue that he does not define the self in terms of reflection at all. Udo Thiel, in a masterful and thorough study, makes this case, maintaining that Locke instead defines the self instead in terms of consciousness, and consciousness in terms of a first-​order awareness of things that need not include a second-​order “reflection upon” that awareness: see Thiel, The Early Modern Subject (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), ­chapter 3. If Thiel is right, that would of course give us reason to doubt my claim that early modern philosophers in general define the self as essentially self-​reflective. But even Thiel acknowledges that Locke has commonly been read as identifying consciousness with reflection: for instance, by Leibniz, “who simply assumes that ‘consciousness’ is the same as ‘reflection’ in Locke” (112). If even such an astute reader of Locke as Leibniz understood him this way, however, then Smith is very likely to have understood him in the same way—​and, if he were gesturing rather lightly at a tradition of thinking about the self in his own work (as I take him to have been doing: he certainly has no extensive discussion of this subject of his own), to have defined the self in a similarly reflective way. I am grateful to Ruth Boeker for directing me to Thiel’s work. 25 Donald Ainslie has made the richest and most careful argument for this point of which I am aware. See his “Skepticism about Persons in Book II of Hume’s Treatise,”

40  Samuel Fleischacker Journal of the History of Philosophy 37:3 (1999) and “Sympathy and the Unity of Hume’s Idea of Self,” in J. Jenkins, J. Whiting, and C. Williams (eds.), Persons and Passions: Essays in Honor of Annette Baier, (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005). 26

In like manner it may be said without breach of the propriety of language, that such a church, which was formerly of brick, fell to ruin, and that the parish rebuilt the same church of free-​stone, and according to modern architecture. Here neither the form nor materials are the same, nor is there any thing common to the two objects, but their relation to the inhabitants of the parish; and yet this alone is sufficient to make us denominate them the same. (T 258)

27 Compare Goldie: [A]‌person’s character, mood, thoughts, feelings, sayings, actions, bodily changes, expressions of emotion, and self-​interpretations, as well as your own emotions, mood, and character, all play a part in the project of understanding and explaining that person’s emotions—​and emotional life—​in a narrative, often only achieved through a complex and cautious process of tâtonnement within the hermeneutic circle. (The French word ‘tâtonner’ means to feel one’s way, or to proceed cautiously, nicely capturing the interpretive task as I wish to describe it.) (189) 28 Griswold (2010, p. 71). 29 It’s worth noting that Smith says that “I become in some measure the same person” with the target of my empathy on the very first page of TMS. So the other-​oriented of Book VII is present to some degree even in Book I. 30 Laqueur, “Bodies, Details, and the Humanitarian Narrative,” in The New Cultural History. ed. Lynn Hunt, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 176–​177. 31 Hunt, Inventing Human Rights (New York: WW Norton, 2008), p. 39. 32 Hunt, Inventing Human Rights, 54–​55. 33 Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983) brings out the way in which these sentimental identifications, as developed precisely through the novel (as well as the newspaper), gave rise to modern nationalism. 34 Many attribute the idea that we each have a distinctive and holistic perspective to Leibniz rather than Smith. Leibniz lived just a couple of generations before Smith, and it would not much disturb my story about the 18th-​century invention of perspectivalism to anoint him the founder of the idea rather than Smith. Furthermore, Leibniz’s monadology certainly does represent a kind of perspectivalism—​each monad has a holistic view that differs essentially from that of all the others. Along with other scholars, I have in fact argued myself that Leibniz’s perspectivalism deeply shaped the cultural pluralism of Herder, who in turn was the major philosophical influence on the founders of both nationalism and cultural anthropology (see my Ethics of Culture [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994], ­chapter 5). But Leibniz’s monads are notoriously “windowless.” None of them can enter the perspective of the others. Each of us, for Leibniz, knows that others represent distinctive perspectives by rational deduction from the nature of God—​an all-​perfect Being would have no reason to create identical monads—​rather than

Empathy and perspective  41 by any direct acquaintance with those others. Herder had to betray or ignore part of Leibniz’s legacy when he said that each culture represents a distinct “circle of conceptions” but that outsiders could nevertheless enter that circle. Had he relied on Smith rather than Leibniz, there would have been no betrayal. Smith, we may say, gives us monads with windows. But that is because Smith’s perspectives are not purely rational entities. They are empirical entities, if subjective ones, and constituted at least as much by sentiment as by reason. 35 Kant, Groundwork, Ak 4:457.

Adam Smith, the liberal1 Deirdre N. McCloskey

I want to place Smith in politics, or as he said, “police.” Some of us claim Smith for the left, some for the right, and each can find passages to support her claim. I want to claim him for liberalism, which is neither left nor right so far as the exercise of state power is concerned. True liberals are not conservatives. Left and right quarrel about how to use state power expansively, for redistribution or for empire. The liberals from Locke to Hayek want to restrain it, and, in terms of Niall Ferguson’s latest book, let the market square undermine the top-​down tower. I think we can agree that Smith was steadily suspicious of state power and its corruptions by importuning interests. No sentient Briton in 1776 would have viewed the state as an amiable referee among countervailing powers, or would have supposed that philosopher kings ruled in Whitehall. Many now do. After 1848 economics ceased being mainly a criticism of illiberalism, and increasingly adopted the illiberal premise of social engineering, an engine run by philosopher kings and, lately, queens, especially after 1948. But, as James Buchanan and his school have argued, the economists remain mistaken in their premises and their ambitions and their expected outcomes. Above all Smith believed, that is, in letting ordinary people have a go. Smith, as many recent historians of economic thought have argued, was an egalitarian, not in the French sense of redistribution after production but in the Scottish sense of letting people try their hands freely at production in the first place. His fierce denunciation of the English laws of settlement is an instance among many. The ordinary working man was to be allowed to use his capital of hand and back. He approved as he declared in 1776 of “the liberal plan of equality, liberty, and justice.” I believe he meant social equality, liberty of enterprise, and the equal administration of justice. One can debate the details. But in any case he was declaring for liberalism as against state direction and interference. He famously said in 1755 that “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.” His idea of opulence was the Dutch Republic. He could not have anticipated how much beyond the Dutch that the application of liberal policies, letting ordinary people have a go, would lead. DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-5

Adam Smith, the liberal  43 The American democratic poet Walt Whitman in 1855 declared of the commoner, “I contain multitudes.” The experiment was tried in the 19th century, and proved spectacularly true. The fantastic ingenuity of the Great Enrichment came not from the institutions of capital accumulation or the state, but from letting people have a go. I admit of course that the program of liberty remains to be completed. The African-​American poet Langston Hughes sang in 1935, “O, let America be America again —​/​The land that never has been yet /​—​And yet must be —​the land where every man is free.” It took a long, long time for the promissory note of “All men [and women, dear] are created equal,” penned by a slave owner who kept his own son by Sally Hemmings in bondage, to be cashed in. The Tory critic and essayist Samuel Johnson in 1775 asked sardonically of the rebellious Americans, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” Smith the liberal was against slavery, but not a radical in the sense of tearing up society by the roots and starting over again. The implementation of such experiments was again French, and has been a repeated theme in French political thinking down to the present—​although in the Anglosphere Thomas Paine declared that “we have it in our power to begin the world over again,” and William Godwin believed it, too. That is, Smith advocated gradual, organic evolution, which Hayek observes is the sign of the true liberal, as against the unhinged experiments of the radical and the dark fears of the conservative. Above all he disdained the Man of System, who “seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-​board.” The Noblest Daniel McFadane recently praised the Noblest Peter Diamond writing on the future of American social security: Perhaps the most important distinction between a member of the general public and a professional economist is that an economist is trained, like a chess player, to think about the consequences of policy actions. So, if economists are players of policy chess, then Peter is a Grand Master, anticipating and evaluating consequences that most of us never even think about. Smith would have replied that we do not need chess grandmasters. We need to let the economic pawns go about their business. Yet there was a turn in economic thought after Smith, and especially after Mill’s first edition of 1848, working in quite another and less liberal and more radical direction, elevating the Man of System to the point that we hardly realize by now that we have done so. Anthony Waterman put his finger on it, in 2012: “Malthus’ first [1798] Essay made land scarcity central, and so began a century-​long mutation of ‘political economy,’ the optimistic science of wealth, to ‘economics,’ the pessimistic science of scarcity.”

44  Deirdre N. McCloskey The pessimistic science of scarcity is what we teach in microeconomic theory. No free lunches, TANSTAAFL. But in fact the modern world during the past two centuries has been chiefly an enormous free lunch, an increase of income per head for the poorest among us on the order of 3,000 percent since 1800, with no sign of slowing. And now spreading to the world. Not 300 percent, class, a mere factor of 4 times. But three thousand percent, roughly a factor of thirty. Agricultural output. Airplanes. Universities. Containerization. Reinforced concrete. Antibiotics. The mischief in teaching the science of scarcity, so useful and sensible for the short to medium run, came out of the rhetoric of “perfect competition.” This vale of tears has no perfect thing, evident from the mere choice of words, and so economists commenced rejecting Smith’s and, partially, Mill’s optimism about letting people have a go. I recently listed, no doubt incompletely, the alleged “imperfections” in the system of markets put forward by economists and their critics since Mill—​in succession items such as monopoly, increasing returns, mass unemployment, externalities, information asymmetry, behavioral irrationality, and so forth. They numbered, startlingly, well over one hundred. It is what we teach to our students, that the commercially tested betterment under liberalism is, of course, no perfect system in this and that and a hundred other respects. No wonder our students drift into socialism. If commercially tested betterment has so many imperfections that they fill up the rest of the academic term, after a week or so devoted to “perfect” competition expressed in supply and demand curves, surely planning and regulation by the state is the solution. Yet the highly imperfect system of commercially tested betterment allowed by somewhat liberal states resulted in a 3,000 percent increase in the material welfare of their poorest citizens. Thus, in historical sequence, 1700 to the present, the Netherlands, Britain, the United States, France, Sweden, Italy, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Chile, China, India, Botswana. In Yiddish syntax, maybe we should have such “imperfections.” Shockingly, no economist—​not one in a century and a half of accumulating claims of imperfection—​has shown that any of the imperfections is significantly large relative to the spectacular success of commercially tested betterment since 1848. Monopoly, for example, was shown by Arnold Harberger to reduce income by on the order of 2 or 3 percent, as against the 3,000 percent achieved by letting people try to get it without corrupting the state. And monopoly has been steadily diminished in its anyway small significance by massive reductions in the costs of transport and transactions, as in the railway or the internet. The closest approach to a scientific demonstration of an important imperfection is the Keynesian claim that the system has an intrinsic tendency to mass unemployment. A Victorian atheist used to propose that all churches have a sign on their front doors saying, “Important If True.”Yet the Keynesian claim proved after World War II to be spectacularly untrue. Liberal economies achieved quite full employment, if not pressed into massively illiberal systems of interference in the employment deal.

Adam Smith, the liberal  45 In short, in the long run The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations has little to do with the vaunted science of scarcity, reaching its peak in the Samuelsonian economics of Max U taught now in most universities. It has to do with discovery, and the sort of society that encourages discovery. Above all, as we have seen since 1800 or 1848, liberal societies do so, letting the pawns have a go.

Note 1 Outline of a talk to the conference of the International Adam Smith Society, Adolfo Ibañez University,Viña del Mar, Chile, January 12, 2018.

Mutual sympathy, hospitals, and balls David Hume’s objection to the ‘hinge’ of Adam Smith’s moral theory Dennis C. Rasmussen

In a letter of 28 July 1759, David Hume raised an objection to what he called the ‘Hinge’ of Adam Smith’s moral theory. Given that this article centres on that objection, it is best to have the text before us at the outset. Hume writes: I am told that you are preparing a new Edition [of TMS], and propose to make some Additions and Alterations, in order to obviate Objections. I shall use the Freedom to propose one, which, if it appears to be of any Weight, you may have in your Eye. I wish you had more particularly and fully prov’d, that all kinds of Sympathy are necessarily Agreeable. This is the Hinge of your System, and yet you only mention the Matter cursorily … Now it woud appear that there is a disagreeable Sympathy, as well as an agreeable: And indeed, as the Sympathetic Passion is a reflect Image of the principal, it must partake of its Qualities, and be painful where that is so. Indeed, when we converse with a man with whom we can entirely sympathize, that is, where there is a warm and intimate Friendship, the cordial openness of such Commerce overpowers the Pain of a disagreeable Sympathy, and renders the whole Movement agreeable. But in ordinary Cases, this cannot have place. An ill-​humord Fellow; a man tir’d and disgusted with every thing, always ennuié; sickly, complaining, embarrass’d; such a one throws an evident Damp on Company, which I suppose wou’d be accounted for by Sympathy; and yet it is disagreeable. It is always thought a difficult Problem to account for the Pleasure, receivd from the Tears and Grief and Sympathy of Tragedy; which woud not be the Case, if all Sympathy was agreeable. An Hospital woud be a more entertaining Place than a Ball. (Corr. Letter 36: 43) This article analyses and evaluates both Hume’s objection and Smith’s response to it. Is mutual sympathy in fact always pleasing? As we will see, several prominent scholars—​ including David Raynor, Eugene Heath, and Alexander Broadie—​have sided with Hume on this issue, while Samuel Fleischacker and Hans Muller have made a case for Smith’s view. I contend, in essence, that Hume and Smith were both half right. DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-6

Mutual sympathy, hospitals, and balls  47 The article proceeds in three sections. The first lays some crucial groundwork by outlining the basic differences between Hume and Smith with regard to the nature of sympathy; the second explains why the fact that people take pleasure in mutual sympathy is so important for Smith’s moral theory, i.e. the sense in which it is the ‘Hinge’ of his system; and the third finally turns to the objection that is laid out in Hume’s letter and Smith’s response to it.

Sympathy as contagion, sympathy as projection The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) is an inquiry into what Smith, borrowing from the title of Hume’s Second Enquiry, calls ‘the principles of morals’ (TMS VII.i.2; Smith 1976).1 While Smith never mentions Hume by name in the work, virtually the entire inquiry—​the questions that Smith takes up, the answers that he gives, even the examples that he uses—​shows unmistakable signs of Hume’s influence.2 This article focuses on an important area of disagreement between the two, but we should not lose sight of the fact that the similarities between their theories are far broader and more fundamental than the differences. Both Hume and Smith view morality as an eminently practical and human phenomenon rather than one based on any kind of sacred, mysterious, or otherworldly authority; both hold that morality derives from the sentiments rather than reason; and both posit that right and wrong are established by the sentiments that we feel when we adopt the proper perspective, one that corrects for personal biases and misinformation—​Hume’s ‘common point of view’ or ‘general point of view’ and Smith’s ‘impartial spectator’. While the basic structure and underpinning of Smith’s moral theory are much the same as Hume’s, he deviates from his good friend’s outlook when it comes to the nature of sympathy.3 Even here, however, their points of departure are quite similar. First, Hume and Smith both use the term ‘sympathy’ in a rather expansive sense to denote a kind of ‘fellow feeling’ with any emotion, not just with suffering or sorrow. Sympathy is thus broader than compassion or pity, for Hume and Smith; it is closer to what we generally refer to as ‘empathy’, although that term fits Smith’s conception of sympathy somewhat better than Hume’s. They are also in agreement in regarding this faculty as a fundamental feature of the human make-​up. Not for them is the view, often associated with Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Mandeville, that all actions and feelings can ultimately be explained by, or reduced to, self-​love. Hume proclaims that ‘whatever other passions we may be actuated by … the soul or animating principle of all of them is sympathy’ (Hume 2007, 2.2.5.15: 234–​235) and Smith regards this faculty as so important that he devotes the entire first chapter of TMS to examining it. Yet their conceptions of this faculty are significantly different. According to Hume’s account, sympathy simply transmits the emotions of one person to another, more or less vividly depending on the circumstances. I see the joy that you exhibit after being awarded a long-​awaited promotion and feel happy

48  Dennis C. Rasmussen myself, for example, or I observe your sorrow on the unexpected death of a loved one and feel a similar sadness. Hume depicts this as a passive, almost mechanical process. He speaks of the way that ‘a chearful countenance infuses a sensible complacency and serenity into my mind; as an angry or sorrowful one throws a sudden damp upon me’ (Hume 2007, 2.1.11.2: 206). As we have already seen, he uses similar language in his letter to Smith, writing that ‘an ill-​ humord Fellow; a man tir’d and disgusted with every thing, always ennuié; sickly, complaining, embarrass’d; such a one throws an evident Damp on Company’ (Corr. Letter 36: 43). Hume also compares the way that sympathy conveys feelings between people to the way that vibrating strings convey motion to one another—​again, a spontaneous, entirely involuntary operation (see Hume 2007, 3.3.1.7: 368). Indeed, at a few points he goes so far as to describe sympathy as a kind of emotional ‘contagion’ (see Hume 2007, 3.3.3.5: 386; and Hume 1998, 7.2: 59; 7.21: 64).4 Smith conceives of sympathy as a much fuller, much more active projection into the situation of another person.5 He accepts that sympathy sometimes appears to operate in the simple, direct manner that Hume describes, such as when a smiling face cheers a spectator or a sorrowful countenance produces a sense of melancholy in someone who observes it—​the very examples, of course, that Hume himself had used (see TMS I.i.1.6). Smith insists, though, that we cannot really enter into the feelings of other people until we have imaginatively placed ourselves in their shoes; the mere observation of their expressions is usually insufficient. This is especially obvious for what Smith calls the ‘unsocial passions’. We do not automatically feel anger when we see an angry person, for instance; rather, we need to know what caused this person’s anger in order to ‘bring his case home to ourselves’ (TMS I.i.1.7; see also I.ii.3.1; I.ii.3.5). Even sympathy with another person’s joy or grief, Smith maintains, generally depends on an appreciation of that person’s circumstances. Imagine two individuals who exhibit identical signs of anguish, but the lamentations of the first are caused by the death of a loved one while those of the second are provoked by a paper cut; obviously, we would be far more likely to sympathize with the former than the latter. Smith concludes, therefore, that sympathy ‘does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it’ (TMS I.i.1.10). Smith’s view has helpfully been described as a ‘projection’ account of sympathy, as opposed to Hume’s ‘contagion’ account, since it involves an imaginative projection into the situation of another person (Fleischacker 2012: 276).6 Demonstrating the superiority of a ‘projection’ account of sympathy to a ‘contagion’ account is in fact the main burden of the opening chapter of TMS; this place of honour indicates the importance that Smith attached to the topic.7 That Smith is consciously engaging with Hume in this chapter is clear. In the second paragraph of the book, in the context of arguing that ‘we can form no idea of the manner in which [other people] are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation’, Smith writes that ‘it is the impressions of our own senses only, not those of his, which our

Mutual sympathy, hospitals, and balls  49 imaginations copy’ (TMS I.i.1.2). As any reader of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature or Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding knows, this language—​ the distinction between an ‘idea’ and an ‘impression’, and the ‘copying’ of the latter by means of the imagination—​is distinctly Humean. Smith uses this Humean terminology, however, to show that Hume’s passive, quasi-​mechanical conception of sympathy cannot adequately account for a number of familiar experiences from everyday life, and he tries to show how his own conception enables him to tell a fuller, more accurate story. Smith concludes the chapter with four examples of sympathetic interaction that his understanding of this faculty handles better than Hume’s does. Smith notes, first, that we sometimes cringe on behalf of an individual who is acting rudely even if he is completely oblivious to the offense that he is causing; second, we feel pity for someone who has lost the use of her reason even if she appears perfectly content; third, we are distressed for an infant who has a terrible disease even if he feels no great pain at the moment; and finally, we can even feel sorry for the dead—​who are, of course, no longer around to feel anything at all (see TMS I.i.1.10–​13). In all of these cases we feel an emotion on behalf of others that they do not or cannot feel themselves. It would be difficult to explain such experiences using Hume’s ‘contagion’ account of sympathy, since the emotions are not actually present in the other individuals for us to ‘catch’. Smith’s ‘projection’ account, on the other hand, explains them easily: we simply project ourselves into these individuals’ situations. Here again it is plain that Smith is deliberately taking on Hume, as the first of his examples is drawn straight from the pages of the Treatise. Smith writes that ‘we blush for the impudence and rudeness of another, though he himself appears to have no sense of the impropriety of his own behaviour’ (TMS I.i.1.10), while Hume had written that ‘we blush for the conduct of those, who behave themselves foolishly before us … tho’ they show no sense of shame, nor seem in the least conscious of their folly’ (Hume 2007, 2.2.7.5: 239).8 Hume, however, considers this to be a ‘pretty remarkable’ instance of sympathy and struggles to explain it, whereas Smith deems it relatively clear-​cut. Smith places such great stock in his improvement on Hume’s account of sympathy not only because it enables him to provide a better explanation of experiences like these but also because it enables him to formulate a richer moral theory. Hume and Smith both regard sympathy as the starting point of all moral judgment, but once again Smith’s account is more complex, and arguably more sophisticated. Hume’s conception of moral judgment is grounded firmly in an external or observer’s point of view. When considering an action or a character trait I observe its effects—​whether useful or harmful, agreeable or disagreeable—​by sympathizing with the feelings of all involved and then form my judgment accordingly. This kind of judgment corresponds roughly to what Smith dubs ‘merit and demerit’, which he treats in Part 2 of TMS. Merit and demerit, as Smith uses the terms, relate to ‘the beneficial or hurtful nature of the effects’ that a given action ‘aims at, or tends to produce’ (TMS I.i.3.7; see also II.i.intro.2). Yet merit and demerit constitute only the second half of

50  Dennis C. Rasmussen moral judgment, for Smith. The first half, which he treats in Part 1, centres on what Smith calls ‘propriety and impropriety’, which relate to ‘the cause or object which excites’ a given action (TMS II.i.intro.2; see also I.i.3.5). In other words, Smith insists that complete moral judgment requires that we consider not just the effects of an action, but also the circumstances in which it occurred, including what motivated it. When we assess the moral goodness of a donation to charity, for instance, we care not just about how much good the money does but also about the circumstances and motivation of the donor. Does the donation represent a substantial portion of her income, or just a tiny fraction of a vast fortune? Was she genuinely moved by the plight of the unfortunate, or just looking to get a tax break? Smith’s ‘projection’ account of sympathy allows for these kinds of judgments about context and motivation in a way that Hume’s ‘contagion’ account does not (or at least not as easily). Given that we do not just mechanically ‘catch’ the feelings of others, whatever they happen to be, but instead imaginatively project ourselves into their situation, according to Smith, there is room for us to judge whether their feelings are the right ones, given their circumstances. Again, it matters not just that someone is feeling happy or sad or angry, or even how he acts on his feelings, but also whether his happiness or sadness or anger is warranted. Smith’s more complex conception of sympathy thus plays a central role in his moral theory. For Smith, we judge the propriety of an action through ‘a direct sympathy with the affections and motives of the person who acts’ and we judge the merit of that action through ‘an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of the person who is, if I may say so, acted upon’ (TMS II.i.5.1). In other words, moral judgment requires not just an external or observer’s point of view, as in Hume’s theory, but rather the active adoption of the perspective of each individual involved in a given situation. While Hume and Smith both place sympathy at the heart of their respective moral theories, then, Smith’s richer conception of sympathy allows for a correspondingly richer moral theory.

Smith and the importance of ‘the pleasure of mutual sympathy’ After spending much of the first chapter of TMS arguing for a ‘projection’ account of sympathy, Smith devotes the second chapter to ‘the pleasure of mutual sympathy’.9 He declares, in the chapter’s opening sentence, that ‘nothing pleases us more than to observe in other men a fellow-​feeling with all the emotions in our own breast’ (TMS I.i.2.1). Smith regards this as a straightforward, even obvious, fact about human nature: people simply enjoy the feeling of sentimental concord, of being on the same emotional page as someone else. He maintains that sympathy is pleasing whether we are feeling good or bad: ‘Sympathy … enlivens joy and alleviates grief. It enlivens joy by presenting another source of satisfaction; and it alleviates grief by insinuating into the heart almost the only agreeable sensation which it is at that time capable of receiving’

Mutual sympathy, hospitals, and balls  51 (TMS I.i.2.2). This is why, he explains, we are so eager to communicate our feelings to others, particularly those who are closest to us, whether we experience good or bad fortune. Most people’s first instinct upon either winning the lottery or losing a loved one, its seems safe to say, would be to immediately share the news with their family and friends. What is more, Smith holds that mutual sympathy is not merely pleasant, but an essential component of our psychological well-​being. He claims that ‘the chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved’ (TMS I.ii.5.1) and, conversely, that a lack of sympathy generally causes people to lose all relish of life: they can take no pleasure in the presence of others when there is little prospect of enjoying a sense of ‘fellow-​feeling’, and the idea of solitude is if anything still more horrifying (see TMS II.ii.2.3). The pleasure that people take in mutual sympathy plays (at least) three crucial roles in Smith’s moral theory: it encourages us to formulate moral standards, it encourages us to abide by those standards, and it rewards us when we do so.10 Let us briefly examine each of these three roles in turn. The desire for mutual sympathy is, Smith argues, one of the chief reasons why we are prompted to develop and codify moral standards in the first place. Since we want to achieve mutual sympathy with those around us, we are continually prompted to raise or lower the ‘pitch’ of our sentiments accordingly. When we view the situations of others, we know that their emotions (as actors) are likely to be far stronger than ours (as spectators). For instance, we know that an individual who has just won the lottery will feel far happier than we do as a result of witnessing her win it. Thus, in order to attain mutual sympathy we strive to sympathize with or ‘enter into’ her sentiments as fully as we can—​to put ourselves into her shoes in order to raise our emotions closer to hers (see TMS I.i.4.6). Conversely, we know that when we are the person ‘principally concerned’ in a given set of circumstances, those who observe us are unlikely to feel as intensely as we do, and so we strive to lower or dampen our emotions (or at least the expression of them) to ‘that pitch, in which the spectators are capable of going along with [us]’ (TMS I.i.4.7). Smith holds that much of our sense of propriety—​which is, recall, the first half of moral judgment in his theory—​rests on such give-​and-​take efforts to achieve mutual sympathy. In particular, the efforts of spectators to ‘enter into’ the sentiments of actors gives rise to what Smith calls ‘the soft, the gentle, the amiable virtues, the virtues of candid condescension and indulgent humanity’, while the efforts of actors to ‘bring down’ their sentiments to the level of spectators give rise to ‘the great, the awful and respectable, the virtues of self-​ denial, self-​government, of that command of the passions which subjects all the movements of our nature to what our own dignity and honour, and the propriety of our own conduct require’ (TMS I.i.5.1).11 In this way, the desire for mutual sympathy not only motivates us to adopt moral standards—​standards by which we judge ourselves and others—​but also determines much of the content of those standards:

52  Dennis C. Rasmussen And hence it is, that to feel much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our benevolent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature; and can alone produce among mankind that harmony of sentiments and passions in which consists their whole grace and propriety. As to love our neighbour as we love ourselves is the great law of Christianity, so it is the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as we love our neighbour, or what comes to the same thing, as our neighbour is capable of loving us. (TMS I.i.5.5, emphasis added; see also III.3.35) Precisely because standards of propriety arise from the mutual adjustments of actors and spectators, Smith suggests, the proper level of most passions lies ‘in a certain mediocrity’—​that is, a ‘pitch’ that lies somewhere between those of actor and spectator (TMS I.ii.intro.1). Of course, for Smith the ultimate standard of moral judgment is that of an impartial spectator, meaning a spectator who is both fully informed and disinterested (see TMS III.3.3). But the judgement of this imagined spectator is, according to Smith’s account, little more than the aggregation or generalization of the judgements that we ordinary human beings settle on through the process of sympathetic give-​and-​take.12 The desire for mutual sympathy thus provides the indispensable starting point for the formulation and development of moral standards. At this point it should be relatively clear how the other two roles played by the pleasure of mutual sympathy that were mentioned earlier—​encouraging us to abide by our society’s moral standards and rewarding us when we do so—​follow naturally from Smith’s account. The simple fact that we desire the sympathy and approval of others so strongly is, according to Smith, an inducement for us to act with propriety—​to exhibit both the ‘amiable’ virtues of humanity and the ‘awful’ virtues of self-​command. The original foundation of both sets of virtues, after all, is precisely to enable us (as actors and spectators) to attain a mutual sympathy of sentiments. Hence, as Charles Griswold (1999: 122) succinctly puts it, ‘the psychic pleasure that comes from mutual sympathy is a midwife of the virtues’. Of course, Smith is no fool: he is well aware that no individual is perfectly virtuous at all times. Sometimes we are short-​sighted or deluded, or our passions get the better of us. Nor does he expect that the mutual adjustments of actors and spectators will generally yield a complete correspondence of sentiments. But he suggests that such adjustments will generally be ‘sufficient for the harmony of society’ (TMS I.i.4.7). Finally, Smith holds that when we do act with propriety and merit, we are naturally rewarded by the pleasure of mutual sympathy with those around us, as well as by having a good conscience—​which is to say, earning the sympathy of our own internalized impartial spectator. When we act morally we feel a sense of ‘friendship and harmony with all mankind’, which fills us with a warm feeling of ‘cheerfulness, serenity, and composure’ (TMS II.ii.2.4). Conversely, when we act immorally we are naturally punished by a lack of sympathy from others and our own consciences. When we know ourselves to be ‘the proper

Mutual sympathy, hospitals, and balls  53 object of the resentment and indignation of mankind’, we are haunted by ‘the agonies of shame, and horror, and consternation’, and we ‘cannot hope for the consolation of sympathy in this … greatest and most dreadful distress’ (TMS II.ii.2.3). The pleasure of mutual sympathy thus plays a central role in determining our happiness or misery. Indeed, James Otteson (2002: 236) points out that the ‘meta-​argument’ of TMS ‘takes the form of a hypothetical imperative: if you wish to obtain a tranquil and happy psychological state, then you should abide by the system of morality that has arisen naturally and unintentionally in the way’ Smith describes throughout the book—​precisely because of the pleasure we naturally take in mutual sympathy. In short, Smith holds that the pleasure of mutual sympathy is a key factor in motivating people to develop and follow moral standards, thereby providing a basis for a (relatively) stable and healthy society. It does not seem unreasonable, then, for Hume to have described it as the ‘Hinge’ of Smith’s system.

Is mutual sympathy always pleasing? The question remains: Is Smith’s initial premise right? Do we in fact always take pleasure in mutual sympathy? As his letter of 28 July 1759 makes clear, Hume thought not. ‘I wish you had more particularly and fully prov’d’, he tells Smith, ‘that all kinds of Sympathy are necessarily Agreeable’ (Corr. Letter 36: 43).13 He contends, in line with his ‘contagion’ account of sympathy, that there must be ‘a disagreeable Sympathy, as well as an agreeable’, since ‘the Sympathetic Passion is a reflex Image of the principal’, and so ‘it must partake of the Qualities, and be painful where that is so’. In other words, we feel pain rather than pleasure when we sympathize with a suffering individual—​a kind of replication, in somewhat diminished form, of that person’s suffering. Hume grants an exception for the case ‘where there is a warm and intimate Friendship’. In such cases, he accepts, ‘the cordial openness of such Commerce overpowers the Pain of a disagreeable Sympathy, and renders the whole Movement agreeable’. But he insists that ‘in ordinary Cases, this cannot have place’. If we really took pleasure in all instances of sympathy, after all, ‘an Hospital woud be a more entertaining Place than a Ball’ (Corr. Letter 36: 43). While Hume regarded this difficulty as a deep one, embedded in the very hinge of Smith’s system, Smith himself considered it to be a fairly minor and easily resolved issue. Indeed, in the second edition of TMS he dealt with the problem with the simple addition of a footnote: It has been objected to me that as I found the sentiment of approbation, which is always agreeable, upon sympathy, it is inconsistent with my system to admit any disagreeable sympathy. I answer, that in the sentiment of approbation there are two things to be taken notice of; first, the sympathetic passion of the spectator; and, secondly, the emotion which arises from his observing the perfect coincidence between this sympathetic passion in himself, and the original passion in the person principally concerned. This

54  Dennis C. Rasmussen last emotion, in which the sentiment of approbation properly consists, is always agreeable and delightful. The other may either be agreeable or disagreeable, according to the nature of the original passion, whose features it must always, in some measure, retain. Two sounds, I suppose, may, each of them taken singly, be austere, and yet, if they are perfect concords, the perception of their harmony and coincidence may be agreeable. (TMS I.iii.1.9)14 As Samuel Fleischacker (2012: 300) notes, to some extent Smith’s reply concedes Hume’s point: ‘Sympathy itself need not be pleasurable, only the consciousness of sympathy is’. But he is also quick to note that ‘the concession is a minor one and requires but a minor revision of Smith’s larger view’. After all, Smith continues to maintain, in this footnote, that we can take pleasure in a harmony of sentiments even if the shared sentiment itself is disagreeable. Even while sharing grief over the death of a loved one, for instance, we can appreciate the very fact that we are on the same page as someone else. Smith was clearly satisfied with this response to Hume’s worry: in a letter to Gilbert Elliot he enclosed a draft of it, opining that ‘I think I have entirely discomfited [i.e. rebutted] him’ (Corr. Letter 40 to Elliot, 10 Oct. 1759: 49). So who makes the more persuasive case? Of the handful of scholars who have examined this issue, the majority have sided with Hume. David Raynor (1984: 57–​58), for instance, insists that ‘Smith’s reply completely misses the point of Hume’s criticism’, which is that Smith’s assumption that the observation of corresponding sentiments must always be agreeable is false because untrue to experience: in cases where both the communicated passion and its prototype are disagreeable it is simply implausible that the observation of their correspondence should be agreeable.15 Similarly, Eugene Heath (1995: 455) declares that Smith’s claim that sympathy is always pleasurable ‘seems false. It is not always the case that we feel an “agreeable and delightful” emotion on the discovery of sympathy’.16 Alexander Broadie (2006: 173–​174) agrees that ‘Smith’s rebuttal begs the question, namely whether observation of agreement gives rise to an agreeable feeling. Smith’s reply simply states that it does’ without explaining ‘what is wrong with Hume’s counterexample’. Fleischacker, however, has defended Smith’s view against the criticisms levelled by Hume, Raynor, and others. He writes: We quite often feel sad or angry or disgusted along with another person, yet are simultaneously pleased to find that we have achieved this harmony of sentiments. This explains the comfort we get from people who visit us when we are mourning, and from people who share our outrage when we are aggrieved, as well as the self-​satisfaction that the visitors or comrades

Mutual sympathy, hospitals, and balls  55 in outrage may feel. As people principally concerned, we are relived to find that others share our feelings; as spectators, we are pleased to find ourselves capable of sharing other people’s feelings. In both cases—​in any achievement of sympathy—​we enjoy the awareness of belonging to a community. (2012: 301)17 Hans Muller (2016) too backs Smith’s view. Muller’s response, on behalf of Smith, to Hume’s counterexample about the hospital and the ball is that the objection is misconceived. After all, it is obvious, on the Smithian view, why balls are generally more enjoyable than hospitals, even assuming that we are able to reach mutual sympathy with the same number of people in both situations: at balls we take pleasure in both the joy of the attendees and the mutual sympathy that we attain with them (two ‘pluses’, as it were), while at the hospital the pleasure that we take in mutual sympathy with the patients is at least partly counterbalanced by the pain that we feel on their behalf (a ‘plus’ and a ‘minus’)(see Muller 2016: 225). Even if the ‘plus’ outweighs the ‘minus’ in the case of the hospital, there is no reason to believe it would be, as Hume suggests, ‘a more entertaining Place than a Ball’ (Corr. Letter 36: 43, emphasis added). I believe that both sides in this debate—​between Hume, Raynor, Heath, and Broadie on the one hand and Smith, Fleischacker, and Muller on the other—​are essentially half right and that greater clarity on the issues that divide them can be gained by paying more attention to the differences between the sentiments of actors and those of spectators. With respect to the former, Smith’s position seems to me obviously correct, for exactly the reasons that Fleischacker lays out. It is plainly true that mutual sympathy is often comforting to us (as actors) when we experience a painful emotion—​hence the sense of consolation that mourners generally gain from the presence of visitors (a phenomenon that I take to be familiar enough to require no corroborating evidence). As Smith notes, in such a situation sympathy ‘alleviates grief by insinuating into the heart almost the only agreeable sensation which it is at that time capable of receiving’: the very ‘sweetness of … sympathy’ itself (TMS I.i.2.2-​4). Here Smith’s account seems to be on the mark, and—​importantly—​it is difficult to see how Hume’s ‘contagion’ account of sympathy could account for this phenomenon adequately. If emotions were simply transmitted between individuals in the way that Hume claims, then presumably the presence of fellow mourners would serve to amplify one’s grief rather than alleviate it. On the other hand, I am doubtful that the reverse is true—​that is, that we (as spectators) generally gain pleasure from sympathizing with someone else who is experiencing a painful emotion. This was the core of Hume’s objection: we do not choose to spend our days in hospitals and funeral parlours for the pleasure of sympathizing with patients and mourners. This is not to simply to say that balls are generally more pleasant places than hospitals; Muller is right to suggest that this point is obvious enough, and that Smith has a

56  Dennis C. Rasmussen perfectly good explanation for it.18 Nor is it simply to say that we often find it difficult or unpleasant to sympathize with pain and unhappiness; Smith himself readily admits that this is the case. Indeed, he devotes an entire chapter of TMS to demonstrating that it is easier (because more agreeable) to sympathize with joy than with sorrow (see TMS I.iii.1), in the midst of which he states explicitly that ‘it is painful to go along with grief, and we always enter into it with reluctance’ (TMS I.iii.1.9). (Hume quoted this sentence in his letter and pressed Smith that ‘it will probably be requisite for you to modify or explain this Sentiment, and reconcile it to your System’ [Corr. Letter 36: 43]. Accordingly, it was to this sentence that Smith added the footnote responding to Hume’s concern.) Rather, I am suggesting—​with Hume, Raynor, Heath, and Broadie, and contra Smith, Fleischacker, and Muller—​that when we sympathize with the painful emotions of another person, the pleasure of being on the same emotional page as that person is rarely strong enough to outweigh the pain of the shared emotion itself. Perhaps the pleasure will sometimes outweigh the pain in cases ‘where there is a warm and intimate Friendship’ (Corr. Letter 36: 43), as Hume concedes, but absent such special circumstances it seems to me that it will seldom do so. Smith is adamant that even in ordinary cases the pleasure of mutual sympathy is usually sufficient to outweigh the pain of the emotion being sympathized with, not just for actors but also for spectators. He writes: We run not only to congratulate the successful, but to condole with the afflicted; and the pleasure which we find in the conversation of one whom in all the passions of his heart we can entirely sympathize with, seems to do more than compensate for the painfulness of that sorrow with which the view of his situation affects us. (TMS I.i.2.6) This is an empirical claim, of course, and I have no survey data or psychological studies to disprove it, but it does seem to me striking that Smith offers nothing beyond this single, bald assertion to prove the point—​no further explanation of what he has in mind and no corroborating evidence in the form of concrete examples or even hypothetical illustrations. Something of this sort would be necessary, it seems to me, in order to negate Hume’s counterexamples, and to explain why virtually no one does find pleasure in sympathizing with the sort of ‘ill humord Fellow’ whom Hume describes, or jump at the chance to visit a hospital simply in order to enjoy mutual sympathy with sick and injured patients. As we have seen, Fleischacker (2012: 301) attempts to flesh out Smith’s claim by pointing not just to ‘the comfort we get from people who visit us when we are mourning, and from people who share our outrage when we are aggrieved’ (i.e. the pleasure that actors take in mutual sympathy), but also to ‘the self-​satisfaction that the visitors or comrades in outrage may feel’ (i.e. the pleasure that spectators take). ‘As spectators’, he writes, ‘we are pleased to find ourselves capable of sharing other people’s feelings’. Yet the question, again, is

Mutual sympathy, hospitals, and balls  57 not just whether we get a sense of ‘self-​satisfaction’ when we comfort mourners and share others’ outrage, but whether the pleasure of this self-​satisfaction is sufficient to outweigh the sympathetic pain that (as Smith acknowledges) we will also necessarily feel in these situations. And rare is the person who delights in attending funerals for people whom he does not know well, or joining angry protests for causes that she does not care about, in order to reap this sense of self-​satisfaction.

Conclusion If my reading of the evidence (such as it is) is correct, then Hume and Smith were both essentially half right in this debate. Smith was right to suggest that mutual sympathy is generally pleasant for actors even in cases where the emotion being sympathized with is a painful one, while Hume was right to suggest that it is seldom so for spectators (again, barring close friendship or some other special circumstance). To what extent, then, does the (half-​right) objection laid out in Hume’s letter undermine Smith’s broader moral theory? As I read it, very little. Smith’s ‘projection’ account of sympathy remains more compelling than Hume’s ‘contagion’ account, for all of the reasons delineated in the first section of this article. And the fact that we take pleasure in mutual sympathy as actors, whether the emotion being sympathized with is pleasant or painful, still supplies virtually all of the incentives to develop and follow moral standards that I sketched in the second section. As far as I can see, the only caveat to Smith’s moral theory that is raised by (the persuasive half of) Hume’s objection is that the pleasure of mutual sympathy provides somewhat less of an incentive for us to cultivate the ‘amiable’ virtues of humanity than the ‘awful’ virtues of self-​command, since the former rely on spectators ‘entering into’ the emotions of actors in order to reach a closer correspondence of sentiments (which, as Hume showed in his letter, may not in fact always be pleasant for those spectators—​except, of course, when the actors’ emotions themselves are pleasant). This is perhaps a mildly surprising result, especially since Smith generally depicts the ‘amiable’ virtues as less demanding than the ‘awful’ ones; indeed, at one point he claims that the former enable us to better cultivate the latter (see TMS III.3.34-​6).Yet this flaw in Smith’s theory is hardly a fatal one. Smith still has plenty of resources for explaining why we regard the ‘amiable’ virtues as virtues—​above all because we (as actors) find it so pleasing when others exhibit them. And this, in turn, helps to explain why we might cultivate these virtues—​above all because we want both other people and our own consciences (i.e. our internalized impartial spectator) to approve of our behaviour. In other words, even if the immediate pleasure of mutual sympathy does not itself encourage us to cultivate the ‘amiable’ virtues in cases where the emotions we observe are painful, Smith can point to plenty of other reasons why we might do so. While Hume’s objection to the ‘Hinge’ of Smith’s moral theory is in part well-​founded, it ultimately does strikingly little to weaken that theory.

58  Dennis C. Rasmussen

Acknowledgements Earlier versions of this article were presented at Brown University’s History of Philosophy Roundtable in October 2017 and the International Adam Smith Society conference in Viña del Mar, Chile, in January 2018. I would like to thank the participants for their helpful queries and suggestions, particularly Leon Montes and Sam Fleischacker, the latter of whom kindly presented my paper at the Smith Society conference in my absence (due to a shoveling-​ related back injury).

Notes 1 An entire book could be—​and, frankly, should be—​written on the relationship between Hume’s and Smith’s moral theories. The most extensive discussion of this relationship to date is a still-​unpublished doctoral dissertation (McHugh 2001). For a shorter but very useful overview, see Hanley (2016). I have compared Hume’s and Smith’s moral theories in Rasmussen (2017:Ch. 5). The first section of the present chapter draws on this latter work, particularly pp. 90–​4; I am grateful to Princeton University Press for permission to reuse this material. 2 For a discussion of why Smith might have refrained from mentioning Hume by name, see Rasmussen (2017: 87–​8). 3 The relationship between Hume’s and Smith’s conceptions of sympathy has been the subject of much scholarly commentary. For two particularly helpful studies, see Fleischacker (2012) and Sayre-​McCord (2013). 4 Admittedly, Hume does not always describe sympathy as taking place in such a simple and direct manner. He discusses this faculty on at least five separate occasions in the Treatise—​in sections 2.1.11, 2.2.7, 2.2.9, 3.3.1, and 3.3.6—​and in the later discussions he sometimes speaks of an ‘extensive’ sympathy that takes into account the future feelings of an individual and/​or the feelings of many individuals at once. For a discussion of this point, see Herdt (1997: Ch. 2) and Abramson (2000).Yet Hume makes clear that he regards the ‘extensive’ form(s) of sympathy as rather exceptional, not the way that this faculty standardly ‘works’: see Cunningham (2004). 5 For some of the ambiguities in Smith’s account, see Haakonssen (1981: 51). 6 Hume too believes that the imagination plays a central role in the sympathetic process, to be sure, but according to his account the role of the imagination is not to project ourselves into the situation of another person but rather to convert our ‘idea’ of that person’s feelings into a livelier ‘impression’. 7 See Fleischacker (2012: 279–​82). For an alternative view, according to which Smith is not engaging with Hume in the first chapter of TMS, see Raynor (2006: 240). 8 The similarity between these passages is noted in Fleischacker (2012: 281). 9 For further discussion, see McHugh (2016). 10 The centrality of mutual sympathy in Smith’s moral theory has been noticed by many, but it has been particularly emphasized by James Otteson. See, for instance, Otteson (2002: 84–​92, 113–​18, 204–​8) and Otteson (2013: 36–​40, 46–​ 52, 156–​8). 11 As the editors of the Glasgow edition of TMS note, Smith’s distinction between the ‘amiable’ and ‘awful’ virtues parallels a similar contrast that Hume had drawn in the Treatise: ‘The characters of Caesar and Cato, as drawn by Sallust, are both of

Mutual sympathy, hospitals, and balls  59

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

them virtuous, in the strictest sense of the word; but in a different way: Nor are the sentiments entirely the same, which arise from them. The one produces love; the other esteem: The one is amiable; the other awful’ (Hume 2007, 3.3.4.2: 387). For elaboration on this point, see Rasmussen (2014: 49–​51). In his anonymous review of TMS, Hume passed over this claim of Smith’s without passing judgment on it either way: see Raynor (1984: 56, 67–​8). The final sentence of this footnote was deleted in the final, sixth edition of TMS. For a later repetition of this argument, see Raynor (2006: 242). For a response, see Fleischacker (2006: 247–​8). Simon Blackburn (1998: 203–​4, n. 6) voices agreement with Raynor’s conclusion without any further comment. Heath does concede, however, that sympathy with negative emotions can be pleasurable under certain conditions—​for instance, conditions of uncertainty where there is mutual esteem between the parties: see Heath (1995, 455–​7). For an earlier version of this claim, see Fleischacker (2006: 247–​8). Fleischacker (2012: 302–​3) writes that ‘it is in fact true, contra Hume, that a hospital can be an agreeable place—​even that it may be more agreeable than a ball. Imagine walking through a hospital and feeling very much in synch with the suffering of the patients. Now imagine being at a ball while feeling very out of synch with the delight that other people seem to be having. Worse, imagine being at a ball where you disapprove of the pleasure people are having: Perhaps it is being held right after a catastrophe, and you think people should not be celebrating. Where would you rather be? Experiencing a ball as an outsider to the fun others are having can be sharply painful, and not a few of us will leave a ball like that for a place where people are suffering. Sometimes, we all agree with Ecclesiastes: “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting” (7:2).’ This is a cleverly constructed hypothetical, and I agree that it would be far more difficult to account for it using Hume’s ‘contagion’ account of sympathy than Smith’s ‘projection’ account. We should not, however, lose sight of Hume’s broader point, which is undoubtedly correct: for most people, most of the time—​that is, absent some fairly special circumstances—​balls are more pleasant places than hospitals.

Bibliography Abramson, K. (2000) ‘Sympathy and the Project of Hume’s Second Enquiry’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 83: 45–​80. Blackburn, S. (1998) Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning, Oxford: Clarendon. Broadie, A. (2006) ‘Sympathy and the Impartial Spectator’, in K. Haakonssen (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cunningham, A. (2004) ‘The Strength of Hume’s “Weak” Sympathy’, Hume Studies, 30: 237–​56. Fleischacker, S. (2006) ‘On Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”: Response’, Adam Smith Review, 2: 46–​58. —​—​—​(2012) ‘Sympathy in Hume and Smith:A Contrast, Critique, and Reconstruction’, in C. Fricke and D. Føllesdal (eds.), Intersubjectivity and Objectivity in Adam Smith and Edmund Husserl: A Collection of Essays, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. Griswold, C. (1999) Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haakonssen, K. (1981) The Science of a Legislator:The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

60  Dennis C. Rasmussen Hanley, R. (2016) ‘Hume and Smith on Moral Philosophy’, in P. Russell (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Hume, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heath, E. (1995) ‘The Commerce of Sympathy: Adam Smith on the Emergence of Morals’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 33: 447–​66. Herdt, J. (1997) Religion and Faction in Hume’s Moral Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hume, D. (1998) An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, (ed.) T.L. Beauchamp, Oxford: Clarendon. —​—​—​ (2007) A Treatise of Human Nature, (eds.) D.F. Norton and M.J. Norton, Oxford: Clarendon. McHugh, J. (2011) ‘Sympathy, Self, and Society: Adam Smith’s Response to David Hume’s Moral Theory’, Boston University PhD dissertation. —​—​—​(2016) ‘Ways of Desiring Mutual Sympathy in Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 24: 614–​34. Muller, H. (2016) ‘Sympathy for Whom?: Smith’s Reply to Hume’, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 2: 212–​32. Otteson, J. (2002) Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —​—​—​ (2013) Adam Smith, New York: Bloomsbury. Rasmussen, D. (2014) The Pragmatic Enlightenment: Recovering the Liberalism of Hume, Smith, Montesquieu, and Voltaire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —​—​—​ (2017) The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Raynor, D. (1984) ‘Hume’s Abstract of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 22: 51–​79. —​—​—​(2006) ‘Adam Smith and the Virtues’, Adam Smith Review, 2: 239–​45. Sayre-​McCord, G. (2013) ‘Hume and Smith on Sympathy, Approbation, and Moral Judgment’, Social Philosophy and Policy, 30: 208–​36. Smith, A. (1976) The Theory of Moral Sentiments, (eds.) D.D. Raphael and A.L Macfie, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Glasgow edition. —​—​—​ (1987) Correspondence of Adam Smith, (eds.) E.C. Mossner and I.S. Ross, 2nd edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press; Glasgow edition.

First-​order compassion and second-​order compassion One central difference in the social thought of David Hume and Adam Smith regarding the installment of social stability Dirk Schuck

1 Introduction There is a stunning scene in Shakespeare’s play Henry V in which the king orders a thief to be hung. The king and his army are at war and travelling through the countryside. An old man is caught stealing and brought before the king, and, as he begs for mercy, the men ask the king what to do with him. The king orders the man to be hung because stealing cannot be allowed in his army, in which order and discipline have to be maintained. What the cheering crowd does not know is that the thief is Bardolph, an old friend of the king from the wild days of his youth, where he mostly hung out in taverns among beggars, thieves, and prostitutes. The king seems at first to feel pity for Bardolph, but he then quickly seems to change his mind as he realizes the public nature of the situation he is in. He comes to see that, as the king, he personally embodies law and order and has to act accordingly. So he orders the hanging of his old drinking mate. Another friend from the old days watches the scene from aside, and swears to be and stay a thief forever once the king and his army have left the hanging site. Henry will go on to win the war, because he is so good at keeping his army together and giving his men new strength and power through his speeches and leading abilities. This scene from a play written in 1599 still has an astonishing symbolic power today.1 First, the king can serve as a projection screen for young grown-​ ups, who can identify with the tough decision that the king has to make concerning his old friend.The king has to let go of an old drinking buddy who just cannot get used to playing by the rules. By ordering the man to be executed he is also killing this part in himself, his concrete compassion and grief for his old friend. As Kenneth Brannagh plays this scene in his great movie adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, you can see how the king first suffers –​in the moment when he realizes that he has to order the hanging of an old friend –​but nonetheless also seems to be freed from an old burden. He let go of something. What the king let go of I would like to classify as first-​order-​compassion, and what he embraces in this scene I would like to call second-​order-​compassion DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-7

62  Dirk Schuck (which Bardolph fails to get). The difference between first-​order-compassion and second-​order-​compassion is that first-​order-​compassion is always a feeling for a concrete other, which is in this sense immediate, while second-​ordercompassion is a consideration of whether or not the concrete other in question really deserves pity under the given circumstances.Adam Smith clearly describes these two differing kinds of compassion that can –​and, in a sense, must –​ contradict each other; and he also clearly favors second-​order-compassion as the more developed and civilized one. What I want to show as the big difference between the idea of compassion in the moral philosophy of Smith and Hume is that while Hume sticks to first-​order-​compassion as the basis of genuine social morality, Smith takes the opposite standpoint. Precisely because situations of first-​order-​compassion –​or, as Smith would more likely call them, our everyday sympathies for one another –​are usually not sufficiently “impartial,” we cannot build a just system of morality on them. For this reason every feeling the self develops for a concrete other has to be checked with reference to the so-​called “impartial spectator,” which is Smith’s term for the inner embodiment of the social conscience. For Smith, while living in a civil society the adult subject naturally develops an inner “impartial spectator” that helps her to distinguish between right and wrong.The way he describes this development of moral standards of judgment shows that it occurs during a process of socialization. While in the beginning, as Smith says, “our first moral criticisms are exercised upon the characters and conduct of other people; and we are all very forward to observe how each of these affects us,” we then quickly realize that others do so themselves, which then leads to a state in which we “become anxious to know how far we deserve their censure or applause, and whether to them we must necessarily appear those agreeable or disagreeable creatures which they represent us” (TMS III.1.5: 112). This “anxiety,” as Smith calls it, then becomes the very basis of morality itself, because now we go on “to examine our own passions and conduct, and to consider how these must appear to them, by considering how they would appear to us if in their situation” (TMS III.1.5: 112). Before we seem to realize what’s going on, in this way we have already become spectators of ourselves, but spectators from a supposedly imagined outsider’s perspective. What Rousseau denounces as amour-​propre –​which refers to the bourgeois subject being continually dependent on the judgment of others and therefore longing for their applause –​is for Smith the very basis of civil morality itself.2 There are two things worth noting about this process of internalizing the “impartial spectator” as Smith describes it. First, there is the fact that freedom, in the sense of the capacity for self-​command, emerges from basic dependency. Second, it shows that Smith didn’t really believe in the idea of an innate “moral sense,” because at first, the individual in his scheme seems to be very careless about the well-​being of others. Only the realization that the individual depends on those others for its own reputation will at last allow her to follow social norms of behavior.

First-order compassion and second-order compassion  63 This is what Hegel called “the unhappy consciousness”: i.e. an individual who follows social norms only because she knows she will become socially isolated if she does not (Hegel 2018: 117—​135). Such an individual for Hegel has not reached the state of consciousness in which one can see that her basic natural rights and dignity as a human being depend on mutual recognition with others. Instead, for Smith the bourgeois individual becomes melancholy about the fact that her basic motivation for moral behavior is not to become socially isolated. Maybe on this point Smith was more correct about the actual workings of civil society, whereas Hegel’s solution is, of course, more ideologically appealing as a justification for civil society. In any case, there might not have been a single thinker who put so much effort into going into all the details of the workings of the bourgeois mind as Smith, and the way he describes how this mind works is very telling.

2 The workings of sympathy Although Smith is usually seen as a follower of sentimentalism, he differs in important aspects from his predecessors. First and foremost, he is not so much into the idea of an innate “moral sense,” but this maybe is not the most important disagreement he has with a genuine sentimentalist ethics. I want to make the point that while Smith actually believes in a natural disposition or “propensity” to sympathize with others, the meaning of the term “sympathy” for him becomes something entirely different from the classic sentimentalist meaning. For Smith, “sympathy” means what George Herbert Mead called “taking the role of the other.”3 It is mainly seen as a mental process in which you “put yourself in the other’s shoes” or “change place” with someone in your imagination (TMS I.i.1.3: 10). Hume too already departs from the early “enthusiasm” that surrounded the Shaftesburian notion of “pleasures of sympathy” insofar as for Hume “sympathy” is something like an emotional contagion, which –​for the individual –​is not consciously controllable. “Sympathy” in the Humean sense of the term is not good or bad in itself. While for Shaftesbury it was always already good in a certain sense, for Hume it is just a basic fact of human nature. This is also how Smith views “sympathy.” But for Hume, in contrast to Smith, “sympathy” does not necessarily imply a mental process of putting yourself in another’s place (Darwall 1998: 261–​282; Frazer 2010: 97–​100; Fleischacker 2012: 273–​311). On the contrary, “sympathy” just happens without the individual even necessarily noticing it (Hume 2007, 2.1.11.3: 206). This individual then simply picks up on certain feelings of the others surrounding her (like in the often-​discussed phenomena of “panic”). The way Smith describes the basic workings of “sympathy” is quite different from Hume, although Smith still considers, at least implicitly, the fact of possible “emotional contagion.” But for Smith, “sympathy” is all about imagining oneself seen by others and thereby imagining what they will feel about oneself (Marshall 1986: 174, TMS I.i.4.8: 22). This is of course all imagination, yet for eighteenth

64  Dirk Schuck century social thought this was simply a fact in the way that today it is a fact for us that there is an underlying brain activity of “mirror neurons” that makes this kind of social imagination possible. As Smith himself put it, however, it is not important which basic trait of human nature makes this kind of imaginative process possible (TMS VII.iii.intro.3: 315). The important thing is instead to use it to build up a working system of social morals. We today can definitely learn from this pragmatic approach, for we spend too much time analyzing the origins of sociability when what is actually important is how to foster it through socialization. Shakespeare’s play Henry V might have been an immediate success not least because it opened up the possibility –​then and now –​to identify with a king and, via this identification, develop a bourgeois morality.A real medieval king back in the days very probably would not have cared whether he himself embodies law and order in the face of saving an old friend from the rope. Also his army would have not expected justice to be everywhere, and the king wouldn’t have lost his authority by saving his friend. The king Shakespeare describes is clearly already a modern sovereign. He himself might not be bound by the law, for he is still king, but he is bound by the representative source of his power as king. He is a Hobbesian king, and –​through the historical landscape of being at war the story is placed in –​the audience also learns that war does not really end, when law and order functions properly. It simply has rules now. The foremost rule for the Smithian subject is being aware of the observation of the “spectators” themselves, and, in this sense, King Henry is a perfect Smithian subject. Moreover, in the same moment the state is embodied in his person, and this state –​a successful state, as we learn by the end of the play –​ cannot be nice to thieves, beggars and alike. For “justice” is its very backbone. The ongoing fascination with Shakespeare today might have to do with the very fact that in his plays we still can believe in a connection between the society we live in and a justice that has to come out of it. Smith’s commitment to second-​order compassion has to do with his strong belief in bourgeois justice functioning correctly. He thought that only an internalized “impartial spectator” can make a just treatment of others possible.To understand why the “impartial spectator” might have a right to tell us –​metaphorically speaking –​who is included within, and who is left out of the “circle of sympathy,” we must now turn to the perspective of an outsider from society as Hume and Smith imagined it.

3 The social manipulation of the sentimentalist subject via first-​order compassion The most common example that sentimentalist ethics gives for a potentially deviant subject is not the thief (because his bad behavior has already been proven), but the beggar.The question is to what degree the beggar really deserves our pity, or is this figure just a malevolent manipulator of the sentimentalist subject. In Henry MacKenzie’s novel Man of Feeling, a book that was so popular at

First-order compassion and second-order compassion  65 the time that MacKenzie was seen as the Scottish Goethe, a benevolent young man is portrayed as he stumbles from one misery to the next because he is incapable of ignoring the sorrow of others. His inability not to sympathize with others is depicted by MacKenzie as a weakness, if not as some sort of psychosocial illness. In attaining his pleasure only from the workings of sympathy, the “man of feeling” loses his self-​command (MacKenzie 1967).Whereas Smith describes the workings of sympathy as being comprised of, as Fonna Forman calls it, a mutual dynamic of “sympathetic discipline,” in MacKenzie’s novel, “sympathy” at last turns out to be the opposite of “self-​command” –​at least if one is as sympathetic as the “man of feeling” is (Forman-​Barzilai 2009: 76). The “man of feeling” represents the caricature of the sentimentalist subject. For his sentimentality not only does him no good, it also weakens him. It is important to see that although Smith still sticks to “sympathy” as the fundamental social bond that holds civil society together, he is already well aware of this sentimentalist excess of feeling. His term for it is “extreme humanity” (TMS I.ii.4.3: 40). For Smith, the problem with the “extreme humanist” is not so much that she is a deviant form of subjectivity, but that a person like her who derives all of her “pleasure” from the exercise of “sympathy” is very easy to manipulate –​especially by someone, who does not play fair.The most common example of this is the beggar: for a beggar –​at least in the eyes of Smith –​often exaggerates how bad his situation is in order to be viewed with more pity (TMS I.i.1.3: 10). Of course, for the beggar it’s not about receiving pity but about getting more money through its incitement. What a beggar, in the Smithian view, has not internalized is an “impartial spectator.”The “impartial spectator” would not allow for such sorts of manipulative behavior. An individual who is in pain and who has internalized an “impartial spectator” would always only show as much of her pain as would be agreeable to others. This is “sympathetic discipline,” or Smith’s notion of “self-​command” in a civil society: the presence of others to whom you are not only another spectator but also a “spectacle,” requires you to understate your expressions of pain (see Marshall 1986: 175). This is, of course, the ethics of a society in which you have to exercise self-​control in order to demonstrate your individual strength and liability. No wonder Smith identifies the virtue of humanity with women, and the virtue of self-​command with men (TMS IV.ii.10: 190). For Smith, women aren’t actually able to fully internalize the “impartial spectator” because –​from Smith’s point of view –​they depend too much on the ever louder applause and praise of others, whereas the Smithian ideal (manly) subject can also stand firm against his longing for actual sympathy because his “greatest desire” will be to get the “sympathy” of the “impartial spectator” (TMS II.ii.2.1: 83). One can see how ambivalent this conception of Smith’s is: on the one hand, one should always be a spectator to oneself from the standpoint of others, while on the other hand, this internalized expectation should lead to greater self-​ discipline in expressing your feelings toward others. The ideal or “generalized

66  Dirk Schuck other” from a Smithian point of view is in this sense someone who asks for reasonableness, modesty and calmness in social interaction.The “impartial spectator” represents an outsider’s perspective on oneself, in which one has already learned to control one’s immediate sympathetic reaction to others. As King Henry in Shakespeare’s play, one has to manage not to always be immediately affected by the grief and longings of others, and rather consider whether or not they’re just. Let us now turn to Hume’s view on the beggar, which is quite different. Hume’s view of “sympathy” is still more connected to the gaining of “pleasure,” or the avoidance of “pain.” For Hume, what a human being basically gains from “sympathy” is, in the first place, only “pleasure” or “pain.” For this reason we love to sympathize with those who are happy, because their smile somehow makes us smile, too. Hume here in fact describes a mechanism of social mediation that the Frankfurt School attributed to the so-​called “cultural industry”: the bourgeois subject longs to identify with those who are well off, because by this identification it can take part in their “pleasure.” For this reason, such people today are commonly called “stars” (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002: 94–​136). In Humean terms, the happy ones “reverberate rays of passion” that make you feel good (Hume 2007, 2.2.6.21: 236). With the beggar, it is the opposite way round. The beggar at first makes you feel bad, because you pick up on his state of being in pain (Hume 2007, 2.2.9.15–​6: 249).4 This already departs significantly from the Shaftesburian notion of “pleasures of sympathy” in which “pity” makes you feel good about yourself because it allows you to show compassion toward those more miserable than yourself (Shaftesbury 2001b, Inquiry 1.2.3: 16–​21). Hume’s scheme here is much more materialist in a certain sense: what makes you feel good about seeing someone who is miserable is a strange effect of comparison: by comparing one’s own state of mind with someone who is more miserable, the well-​being of oneself emerges more strongly in contrast to the misery of others (Hume 2007, 2.1.11.18: 210, also 3.3.2.4–​5: 379). Nonetheless, there is always an immediate reaction of disgust when seeing someone in pain. By viewing an expression of pain, the spectator associates how this pain would feel for herself. Because of this associative imagination, she will feel a slight disgust. Compassion then for Hume only becomes possible by passing beyond this immediate disgust and putting oneself consciously in the other’s place. This mental change of perspective now allows for compassion. This Humean kind of compassion can be called first-​order compassion, because it derives from a single moment of conscious perspective-​taking. In the moment you imaginatively put yourself in the beggar’s shoes you do not wish his fate upon yourself. The very possibility of taking on the beggar’s perspective shows that you fear a similar fate for yourself, and this moment of sharing the beggar’s fate in one’s imagination –​only for a short instant –​enables you to feel compassion. First-​ order compassion in this sense comes out of a humanist impulse, but is not necessarily connected any longer with the so-​called “pleasures of sympathy.” In fact, it is partly an overcoming of this kind of sympathetic “pleasure.” For

First-order compassion and second-order compassion  67 it would have given you only an impression of disgust concerning the sickly looking beggar. Smith dismisses the immediate moment of emotional contagion in which the beggar leaves the bourgeois subject in disgust. The systematic problem with Smith’s term of “sympathy” in this respect is that it always already involves the moment of perspective-​taking. In this sense, a beggar that shows off his ulcerous wounds creates in the bourgeois subject who walks by a mediated reaction of disgust via perspective-​taking (TMS I.i.1.3: 10). For a very short instant, one imagines oneself having those wounds, which might lead to tossing the beggar some money. Nonetheless, an “impartial spectator” wouldn’t allow for such behavior, for it demands that one not beg for pity in this ostentatious way. What my analysis wants to hint at is that there is a certain kind of coldness involved in the second-​order compassion that the “impartial spectator” allows for. For you cannot know if someone is showing you his sickness only to incite more pity. Maybe he is also just not capable anymore of holding it back. I will return to this later and now elaborate more on the Smithian critique of sentimentalism that leads to his idea of the necessity of a second-​order compassion that allows for controlling our immediate sympathetic reaction toward others, that is, first-​order compassion.

4 The necessity of second-​order compassion to keep up sympathetic discipline The problem with “extreme humanity” for Smith is that it leaves you with little or no self-​control over your sympathetic reactions. The most well-​known literary figure to personify this would be Laurence Sterne’s Uncle Toby. Uncle Toby is a former soldier, who got hit by a cannon ball and lost his ability to perform sexual intercourse. As a result, he turned into a kind of whiner, who identified with every suffering creature –​the most famous example of which is a fly, which he carries to the window and saves from being killed. He is literally the guy who cannot hurt a fly. There is an interesting parallel to Uncle Toby in Smith’s TMS. Smith also describes a soldier who loses a leg by being hit with a cannon ball. To bear his pain, the only option this soldier has is to “identify” with an outsider’s perspective of himself, which puts him at a somewhat imaginary but nonetheless real distance from his immediate sufferings (TMS III.3.25: 147). The other famous example in TMS concerning the endurance of pain is seeing your “brother upon the rack” (TMS 1.i.1.2: 9). Although even in this extreme situation one is never able to feel what his pain is, the sympathetic presence in Smith’s view might be helpful for the brother to stand his pain: because he will feel the necessity for sympathetic discipline by viewing himself from the outsider’s perspective (of the other brother). My point is that for Smith what the “impartial spectator” allows is a distancing from your immediate feelings. This can be helpful to an individual in many ways, but it is especially helpful if this individual is already inclined to

68  Dirk Schuck be a little sentimental. Smith is thus talking within the sentimentalist discourse, but for different reasons no longer really holds a sentimentalist position. He puts forth no concept of an innate moral sense, and he also does not believe that our immediate sentimental reaction toward one another should be the basis for our social morality. This second aspect is perhaps even the more important one, and it is the core difference in the conception of social morality between Hume and Smith, namely, whether this social morality as a system of “justice” primarily relies on first-​or second-​order compassion. Although relations of first-​order compassion may be important to keep a family together, they do not suffice for Smith to keep a society together. You can already see this problem in Hume. At least at the end of the Treatise, Hume becomes rather pessimistic about how far the individual’s compassion for others might reach. After analyzing the inner contradiction between competition and sympathy in some detail, Hume makes the point that in civil society one can only rely on one’s own family for sympathy, in the sense of compassion, which is to say, one can only rely on concrete others, that are somehow –​through kinship or friendship –​already related to you when it comes to enjoying full-​fledged solidarity in the inherently competitive realm of a market-​based societal order. This is realistic, but also kind of pessimistic. It clearly shows the borders of bourgeois morality. Theodor Lipps, the German philosopher from the end of the nineteenth century who invented the term “Einfühlung” and translated the Treatise, translates Hume’s term “malice” not with “Bosheit” but with the German word “Schadenfreude.” This translation only is possible because Hume focuses in his discussion of “malice” on the ambivalence so often present in the feelings of empathy (see Hume 2007, 2.2.9: 245–​50). To put it still another way: even though there might be a possible sympathetic connection between strangers, Ego can still not be sure what Alter will use the information for it gained out of its “sympathy” with Ego. This is a commonplace in today’s evolutionary biology, in which “empathy” is seen as a major weapon to be able to efficiently combat an enemy, namely by gathering information about the inner workings of their mindset (Ferrari 2014: 297–​313). We then can already see that empathy in itself is not sufficient for grounding social morality because it can be used either way. Hume’s response to this problem is rather progressive, for he makes clear that life conditions have to have a certain stability to ensure that people aren’t turning into competitive monsters who become unable to show any compassion at all. As already became apparent in Hume’s notion of compassion, he sees the individual mainly as a seeker of pleasure and avoider of pain. For this reason, to put it frankly, society has to build a social framework allowing for the individual to obtain pleasure in a way that does not hurt too much. This is the special mixture of Hume’s social thought in which a rather conservative view of human nature effectively combines with a rather progressive idea of social order.5 It is precisely because there is a malevolent side to human nature that Hume conceives of a society that offers social possibilities to be good, and to avoid being competitive all the time.

First-order compassion and second-order compassion  69 But the elaboration of Hume’s social thought in this respect leads away from the main problem we are concerned with here, which is why Smith proposes the idea of second-​order compassion to counterbalance everyday sympathies. What is unique about Smith’s conception is that it builds a systematic bridge between a more rationalist approach and a sentimentalist approach to morality (Carrasco 2004: 81–​116). What remains sentimentalist about Smith is the sheer fact that he imagines a society governed by “moral sentiments.” What turns rationalist in his ethical thought is the idea of the “impartial spectator” ruling over the immediate feelings for concrete others. As Seyla Benhabib would put it, Smith is much in favor of the supremacy of a “generalized other” over our relation to the “concrete other” (Benhabib 1986: 402–​24). But it is also important to see that the “impartial spectator” keeps up the sentimentalist model of social control insofar as it governs our moral sentiments. And the way it governs those sentiments is by means of an internalized other. The idea of an internalized other that conducts the individual’s behavior is, of course, a notion that would become rather famous in modern social thought, reaching from Smith to Hegel, Mead and Freud. Also the typically French critique of bourgeois subjectivity shows a certain continuity in criticizing this point from Rousseau to postmodern thought. It is an idea Althusser, as a theorist of society, then picks up from the psychoanalytic Lacan to describe the reproduction of social relations. Indeed, Althusser’s notion of the ideological state apparatus offers an interesting way to describe what Smith is after. Because Althusser stresses that “ideology” –​which for him does not solely denominate a certain set of ideas or beliefs, but also the practices behind it –​only becomes “evident” to a certain form of subjectivity by making itself the immediate “ideological” relation to its reality (Althusser 1984: 36–​44). This is exactly what Smith has in mind when he talks about the well-​functioning “impartial spectator.” As an internalized conscience within every individual, the “impartial spectator” should govern our moral sentiments so that these sentiments are immediately felt when a certain situation arises. In this respect, one can say that the “impartial spectator” installs a sentimental regime of second-​order compassion whose purpose is to control our everyday sympathies, that is, our first-​order compassion.

5  Second-​order compassion as a guarantee for socially mediated justice Although in Smith’s scheme “justice” is only a “negative virtue,” insofar as it basically guarantees a certain kind of liberty that then has to be filled with action by the individual herself, it is for Smith nonetheless the “main pillar” of a civil order (TMS 2.ii.3.4: 86). However, in the social sphere, in which the social virtues have their proper place (for Smith is also not so naive as to think that you will find a lot of sympathy in the competitive realm of the market itself), the way to ensure that just forms of social behavior will actually take place is to foster the individual’s ability to properly assess a certain situation. For this is all

70  Dirk Schuck that “sympathy” can do in Smith’s view: it can give you an accurate picture of the “situation” someone else is in (TMS 1.i.2.6: 16). That was the problem with the sentimentalist subject in the first place: a sentimentalist approach to a social situation is not always the best way to gain such an accurate picture. The “man of feeling” will easily sympathize with anyone who offers this possibility to him, because he derives all of his “pleasure” from this kind of “fellow-​feeling.” Smith therefore changes the notion of social nature (Schuck 2019). Man having a social nature for Smith is not about being automatically benevolent to those in suffering. Instead, what having a social nature means for Smith is to be “spectators to ourselves” from the perspective of an “impartial spectator.” Thus, social morality for Smith is not grounded in genuine benevolence, but in a “natural” state of mind in which one checks his actions with the internalized “impartial spectator.” The impartial spectator, in this sense, is a “mirror of society” within the individual, which shows that she is a social being. As a mediator of social interaction the “impartial spectator” makes sure that social manipulation cannot easily take place. As an internalized conscience, it counterbalances the immediate impulses of the individual via “moral sentiments.” A “moral sentiment” for Smith is not –​as it was for Shaftesbury –​ a genuine impulse of benevolence towards others, or a genuine “aversion to injustice and wrong” (which is to say: a “moral sense”), but a sentiment that the “impartial spectator” introduces in the context of specific situations.This shows how the “impartial spectator” is a product of habituation as well, for one must have had some experience with those specific situations in life. The sentence that best expresses what second-​order compassion is for Smith can be found in the section on “justice and beneficence” in TMS, where he writes: They reflect that mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent, and oppose to the emotions of compassion which they feel for a particular person, a more enlarged compassion which they feel for mankind. (TMS 2.ii.3.7: 88–​9) One should not be perplexed by the usage of the term “mankind” here. Because what Smith means by “mankind” is not some Rousseauian person in a state-​of-​ nature who is void of all civil values, but exactly the opposite: by re-​coining the notion of social nature in the way I just described, Smith naturalizes the very “mirror of society” that allowed the individual to internalize bourgeois norms of behavior. In referring to “a more enlarged compassion which they feel for mankind” in the sentence I just quoted, Smith thus means the social bonds of society itself. What the individual has to appeal to in order to counterbalance “the emotions of compassion which [it] feels for a particular person” is none other than the civil order of justice. It is exactly what Shakespeare shows in the scene with Henry and his old drinking mate. The king naturally still has feelings for his old friend –​he is not an animal, but a human being. But what the king has to do in order to restore

First-order compassion and second-order compassion  71 justice is to overcome these immediate emotions and do what’s right, and that is why Bardolph has to be hanged. We can now see that the very reason why Smith develops the idea of a second-​order compassion is to counterbalance first-​ order compassion, which for him is the sentimental disposition to be socially manipulated.

6  Smith versus Shaftesbury: Overcoming the pleasures of sympathy One has to return once more to Shaftesbury to see the whole scope of the problem. Although Shaftesbury strongly refers to the idea of community and the well-​being or “social affection” that comes out of living in it, he nonetheless sees the individual as a seeker of pleasure and avoider of pain. His major move, which was not originally his but goes back to Montaigne, is to see “social affection” or shared “sympathy” as one of, if not the, major source(s) of a human’s pleasure (Hasbach 1890: 91).This is already a quite sophisticated way to combine Epicurean and Stoic elements at the very heart of the idea of human nature: it is true that human beings primarily seek pleasure, but it is also true that you can find individual fulfillment only by living in a strong social community. As I have shown above, Hume and Smith heavily rely on this basic idea, but the interesting point is that they differ in their moral evaluation of it. For Shaftesbury, this mixture in human nature shows that humans are basically good. Because they derive most of their pleasure from social life, they are inclined to act benevolently, and thereby are also able to build up a civil society that can regulate itself (on the basis of “social nature”). What Hume, in contrast to this optimistic picture, leaves us with is rather a pessimistic view, or at least a strange combination of progressive ideas with a more ambivalent picture of human nature.6 Sympathy, for Hume, is neither good nor bad in itself, but can only be seen as a natural trait of humans that needs to be socially framed and cultivated in a certain way. Smith offers a new solution to the problem. The social nature of man is not about some genuine affection toward the well-​being of others –​or, at least, this affection is just some kind of an automatic reflex. Rather, what social nature really means is that humans can only live up to their potential as moral beings within a civil order. Therefore, the true understanding of social nature is to be attained by realizing the inner divide within human nature. For to live up to the full potential of what is human, one has to split oneself “into two persons” (TMS III.i.6: 113). As David Marshall has shown, Shaftesbury, in his later work Soliloquy, or: Advice to an Author, had already come up with this idea when he interpreted the motto of the oracle of Delphi as “Divide yourself, or: be two” (Shaftesbury 2001a, Soliloquy 1.2: 107). Human beings in this sense have a self-​seeking side and a social side within them, and life is about skillfully combining these seemingly contradictory impulses. It should be noted that the solution of the young Shaftesbury in his Inquiry is more radical in this respect, because from a genuine

72  Dirk Schuck sentimentalist position he denies altogether that there is a contradiction. Instead, he preaches the “pleasures of sympathy” as the basis of a “naturally good” societal order (Shaftesbury 2001b, Inquiry 2.2.1: 62–​73). But let’s get back to Smith: the originality of Smithian social thought is precisely to break free of the sentimentalist view of a benevolent human nature in the way that he gives sociality a new meaning. What makes the human mind social is that it is only able to reflect upon itself in the presence of others (TMS III.i.4: 111–​2). We always already are for this reason in the social realm when we reflect upon ourselves as specific individuals, even though we might not always realize this social connection because we internalized it early in life.7 And this is a fact that is neither good nor bad in itself, but still can be very useful to construct a social morality (Luhmann 1989: 411). Indeed, it is the only way to construct a social morality. Therefore, the pleasure-​seeking side of the individual, which is clearly there, is not the most basic human trait. Instead, what makes us human is to realize that our pleasures are connected to the pleasure of others, and to cultivate that connection. Smith shows that our unique human ability is to counterbalance our animal instincts through social morality, and that this counterbalancing is the conditio sine qua non of a civil order. Second-​order compassion in this respect is a socially mediated compassion that strongly relies on shared communal values. It shows our strength as beings that are able to counteract their own inner longings. Smith develops a complex conception of what it means to be human, namely, that what it means to be human has to do with overcoming destructive desires, and developing a “greatest desire” that enables you to act in accordance with your internalized moral standards instead (TMS II.ii.2.1:83).

7  Hume versus Smith: The importance of first-​order compassion for social stability D. D. Raphael shows how Smith’s advancement of the theory of the “impartial spectator” may be interpreted as Smith’s reaction to Gilbert Elliot’s critique of the moral conventionalism of The Theory of Moral Sentiments.8 However, several commentators argue that this still leaves no sufficient room for the possibility of consciously opposing the order of a society that is seen by the individual mind as unjust.9 Instead, according to this line of criticism, Smith tends to regard the judgments of the “impartial spectator” as just, simply because it is the “impartial spectator.” But this might be too easy.There must be a possibility to criticize the values of a community from the standpoint of the individual conscience.10 This is hardly thinkable in the scheme Smith puts forward. On the other hand, however, he does at least give us a model of how to develop a social conscience. From my point of view, the main problem emerges when Smith introduces second-​order compassion, or “a more enlarged compassion which [one] feels for mankind,” to dominate the first-​order compassion, or a “compassion which [one] feels for a particular person” (TMS 2.ii.3.7: 88–​9).

First-order compassion and second-order compassion  73 In this moment, he tends to socially disenfranchise the individual as a possible judge of what is right and wrong.11 In other words, he becomes so skeptical about the immediate dimension of social relations that he abandons the liberal task of empowering the individual to cultivate her own abilities to judge a social situation properly. The “impartial spectator” is just too strong, it becomes the “cause” of all our actions, as Smith puts it, while “the person whom I properly call myself ” in the end only tries to live up to the expectations of its inner “judge” (TMS III.i.6: 113). From my point of view, this cannot be regarded as a coherent model of civil liberty, because the particular person so strongly empowered by Shaftesbury, for Smith just becomes someone who is living up to the social norm for better or worse. Although one can rightly regard Hume’s scheme of social interaction as less developed than Smith’s, it can serve to correct certain rigorous aspects of the Smithian moral curriculum.12 For Hume, the problem of first-​order compassion is not so much that it is inadequate from the point of view of social justice but rather that it simply does not extend very far. It’s hard to sympathize with a complete stranger, but modern society is full of them. What a just legislator has to make sure of then is that there are enough possibilities to put your mind at ease about the troubles of self-​preservation. The social framework, or civil society as a surrounding totality of the individual, has to be arranged in such a way as to allow the individual to develop “calm passions,” that is Humean “reason” (Hume 2007, 2.3.4.8–​10: 267–​8). Precisely because human nature also has a malevolent side, malign impulses have to be counterbalanced by a truly “social” framework for the individual’s potential to act. Hume would have strongly disapproved of the notion of freedom as entrepreneurial risk, which is so common today. The moment of risk-​taking, although sometimes perhaps necessary, is for Hume the moment in which the will operates feebly rather than best (Hume 2007, 3.2.9.26: 285). Therefore, first-​order compassion as a kind of social affection for the concrete other already requires a lot of effort to build up during the course of the individual’s socialization. That first-​order compassion is not adequate with respect to social justice is not the fundamental concern for Hume (Hume 2007, 2.3.7: 238–​40). The point is that it supports particular individuals in a concrete way. Therefore, from Hume’s perspective to internalize a social conscience to generally counterbalance it might rather be a move in the wrong direction. Although the “man of feeling” might be a little sentimental, his real problem lies in the hiding of malevolent intentions when experiencing empathy. In this sense, even to reach a social state in which the first-​order compassion is possible is a difficult task for a legislator, because it requires insurance of a certain social stability of life conditions. For only this stability, in combination with a strong civil education that has to take place in the family as the genuine place for experiencing benevolence, can guarantee that malign impulses be kept to a minimum (Hume 2007, 3.3.3.2: 384–​5). One can see how Hume could still help reform today’s social policies.

74  Dirk Schuck The problem with second-​order compassion in this sense may be that it suppresses the very force in human nature that it feeds on. It still needs to stem from a certain social affection; otherwise, it would just entail indifference to the particular other. Although Smith makes a strong critique of the sentimentalist subject that is interesting in many ways, his move against first-​order compassion is itself ambivalent. From my point of view, what he goes astray is in equating overcoming an always pleasure-​ seeking attitude with a genuine humanist impulse. This might be a problem he paradoxically inherits from Shaftesbury. Because Shaftesbury mixes up precisely this in his notion of the “pleasures of sympathy,” which then becomes the “greatest good” that a sentimentalist subjectivity, or “man of feeling,” longs for. Smith is right in criticizing this, and especially in criticizing its affinities to social manipulation. One might think of the later sentimental elements in the cultural industry, which work strongly through melancholic nostalgia to bind the individual in very sticky ways to questionable social values.The point is that not everybody has to be a hero like King Henry. Forgiveness is a good thing. Charles Griswold argues in accordance with Smith that internalizing an “impartial spectator” can help Ego correct distorted projections about Alters bad intentions toward Ego, which in turn can lead to forgiveness (Griswold 2007: 38). I do not want to deny that this might be true under specific circumstances. But if you take into account that an impartial spectator’s perspective under specific circumstances might be distorting, too, the picture gets more complicated. For whom one actually has compassion when one feels second-​ order compassion is an interesting question. If the whole point of second-​order compassion is to deny sympathy to the concrete other that has done wrong, who –​metaphorically speaking –​replaces this concrete other? There is a strong critique of second-​order compassion by Lessing, who read Smith very thoroughly (Heidsiek 1983: 125–​43). This also leads us back to the problem of what is necessary to feel compassion in the first place. In his work Hamburgische Dramaturgie Lessing discusses the question of sympathizing with an actor on the stage. It should be noted that the ancient discussion of fellow-​feeling also strongly relied on this theatrical discourse. Lessing here agrees with the Aristotelian position that one can only feel compassion when fearing a similar fate oneself. Compassion, in this sense, is a social transformation of fear (Lessing 1879, No.74–​83: 403–​39). What “sympathy” presupposes then is recognizing fundamental similarities between myself and someone else.There already has to be a certain kind of recognition at work before one can feel any “sympathy.” The concrete other in this sense is already a similar other, and it is on this fundamental level where the recognition of a shared human nature, or “Menschheit,” takes place. Instead, when one feels second-​order compassion, as Lessing puts it, one sympathizes with the community itself, and this is hardly even thinkable.13 Who is it King Henry feels compassion for in the moment he decides to kill his old friend, the thief Bardolph? What gives such a narcissistic magic to Shakespeare’s scene is the fact that in this case it is the king himself as the embodiment of law and order.

First-order compassion and second-order compassion  75

Notes 1 I am much obliged to an anonymous referee for the Adam Smith Review to point out the parallel between this scene at Henry V 3.6: 99–​117 and the scene in Henry IV 5.5: 48–​71 where Prince Henry finally rejects Falstaff. However, as only the former scene is explicitly concerned with compassion, I decided for the present purpose to restrict my analysis to it, in order to not go beyond the scope of my argument. I will, however, pursue this hint further in my analysis of the Henriad. 2 I understand Smith’s reference in TMS to civil society as a mirror for a person’s conduct, or, in his own words, as “the only looking-​glass by which we can, in some measure, with the eyes of other people, scrutinize the propriety of our own conduct” (TMS III.i.5: 112), to be a conscious inversion of Rousseau’s defamation of the “sociable man, [who], always outside himself, is capable only of living in the opinion of others and, so to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgment” (Rousseau 1997: 187). As Charles Griswold has shown though, this is not to say that Smith, like Rousseau, regards human beings as naturally careless about the opinion of others (C. Griswold 2018:115–​30; see also Pierre Force 2003: 33–​47; Ryan Patrick Hanley 2009: 116–​23; for a discussion of Force’s position and Smith’s Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review, see Dennis C. Rasmussen 2008: 59–​70). 3 I here defer to the interpretation of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who sees the radicalness of the Smithian concept of sympathy in overcoming any notion of a providential element in human nature. For Luhmann, Smithian sympathy is morally neutral in the sense that, in principle, it can serve to build up just societies as well as unjust societies (Luhmann 1989: 411). For the considerable influence Smith’s scheme of social interaction had on George Herbert Mead, see Albion W. Small 1907, Ruth Leys 1993: 277–​307, Timothy M. Costelloe 1997: 81–​109). 4 For Hume, the ability of immediately taking on someone’s pain by sympathetic mimesis also depends on the spectator’s felt distance between the sufferer and spectator. The spectator might be too remote from the living conditions of the sufferer for feelings of empathy to take place. This might especially be the case when the spectator is very proud of his own riches, and the sufferer is a beggar. The beggar might still trigger slight disgust in the spectator, but the spectator’s feeling might in effect be a superior one (Hume 2007, 2.2.9.15–​6: 249). However, in his Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Hume describes the situation in which a beggar consciously provokes such a feeling in a spectator by addressing the spectator as “my Lord,” knowing very well that the chances are that he is not. The provoked impact will most likely be that the spectator will feel flattered, and play along with the role the beggar ascribed to him by tossing a gold coin. This is exactly the kind of social manipulation Smith is worried about, and MacKenzie describes in his Man of Feeling. 5 By calling Hume’s perspective on social order “progressive” I mean that he stresses the fundamental role of stability of living conditions for an individual’s ability to act as a free and self-​responsible agent. As Louis Loeb has shown, the risk factors Hume sums up in the Treatise under the name of “unphilosophical probabilities,” must be kept to an endurable limit to be able to perform “reason” (Loeb 1995: 101–​13). 6 See Note 5. 7 Laurie Bréban most lucidly reconstructs Smith’s concept of sympathy as consistent with a spectator’s ability to distinguish herself from others including in the case of

76  Dirk Schuck “changing places” with that other (Bréban 2018: 22–​40). However, if one reads Smith in the way that, in effect, there is no self-​antecedent to its reflection in the mirror of society, the issue of an irreducible opacity of self-​knowledge is already at work on the most fundamental level of self-​awareness (see Fleischacker 2011: 82). 8 As is well known, Gilbert Elliot’s letter, supposedly from September 1759, in which he criticizes the first printed edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is lost. While Elliot’s letter to Smith is lost, its content can be reconstructed from Smith’s answer to him from 10 October 1759. Smith put considerable effort in resolving Elliot’s critique by developing further the theory of the impartial spectator (Raphael 2007: 32; Corr. Letter 40 to Gilbert Elliot, 10 Oct. 1759: 48–​57). 9 Others, of course, have countered this criticism. David Golemboski gives a valuable overview of some of the most important contemporary criticisms and counter-​ defenses of the theory of the impartial spectator (Golemboski 2015: 174–​193). In his editorial introduction to On Moral Sentiments: Contemporary Responses to Adam Smith, John Reeder gives an account of some immediate critical reactions to the Theory of Moral Sentiments (Reeder 1997: vii–​xii). For some of the most elaborate defenses of the theory of the impartial spectator, see Fleischacker (2005), who sees the theory of the impartial spectator mainly as a way of dealing with the problem of moral and cultural relativism; Griswold (1999), who understands Smith as a pragmatist moral skeptic; Otteson (2002), who stresses the overall importance of Smith’s reliance on God for claiming absolute moral authority for his theory; and Fricke (2011), who defends the objective normativity inherent in what Smith calls the “most sacred laws of justice” (TMS II.ii.2.2: 84). 10 Fonna Forman understands Smith’s enhancements to the Theory of Moral Sentiments as a prolonged attempt to incorporate crucial aspects of a protestant idea of the independence of conscience. As Christel Fricke points out, Forman, however, concludes that Smith does in effect not succeed in explaining how a socially internalized conscience can consolidate moral autonomy (Forman-​Barzilai 2009: 86–​105; Fricke 2013: 189). 11 Christel Fricke depicts a similar relation between what I call first-​and secondorder -​compassion when she asserts that: the spectator’s ‘sympathy’ […] is not an imagined and then imaginatively triggered actual first order feeling, but a second order feeling triggered by the discovery of emotional concord between the spectator involved in his imaginative change of position and the agent. Should the spectator discover a lack of emotional concord instead, his first-​order feeling would still be a ‘sympathetic emotion’, but his second-​order feeling would not be ‘sympathy’, but rather what Smith aptly calls ‘antipathy’ (TMS II.i.5.4 and 5: 75). Moral sentiments underlying moral judgements are feelings of sympathy of the second kind. (Fricke 2013: 182) Fricke, however, does not discuss the case in which this socially mediated relation leads to a conscious denial of first-​order compassion on the part of the spectator. James Otteson clearly lays out the consequence of consciously denying attention to others on behalf of the impartial spectator (Otteson 2002: 142). 12 I want to make this claim only and specifically for Hume’s perspective on social interaction in the case of observing someone suffering. By this, I do not mean to underestimate Hume’s conventionalism. From an ethical standpoint, Hume’s

First-order compassion and second-order compassion  77 conventionalism might appear as more problematic than Smith’s because Hume does not reflect on it as a problem, whereas Smith clearly struggles with it. 13 Lessing here speaks of the “state”: “Our sympathy requires an individual object, and a state is far too much an abstract conception to touch our feelings” (Lessing 1879, No. 14: 267). See also Lessing 1990 (1767): 105: “Unsere Sympathie erfordert einen einzelnen Gegenstand, und ein Staat ist ein viel zu abstrakter Begriff für unsere Empfindungen.”

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78  Dirk Schuck Griswold, C. L. (2018) Jean-​Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: A Philosophical Encounter, London and New York: Routledge. Hanley, R. P. (2009) Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue, New York: Cambridge University Press. Hasbach, W. (1890) Die allgemeinen philosophischen Grundlagen der von Francois Quesnay und Adam Smith begründeten politischen Ökonomie, Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot. Hegel, G. W. F. (2018) The Phenomenology of Spirit, transl. and ed. T. Pinkard, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heidsiek, A. (1983) ‘Adam Smith’s Influence on Lessing’s View on Man and Society’, Lessing Yearbook, 15: 125–​43. Horkheimer, M. and Adorno, T. W. (2002) Dialectics of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, transl. E. Jephcott, ed. G. Schmid Noerr, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hume, D. (2007) A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. D. F. Norton and M. J. Norton, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Lessing, G. E. (1879) Hamburg Dramaturgy, transl. H. Zimmern, ed. E. Bell, London: George Bell & Sons. Lessing, G. E. (1990) Hamburgische Dramaturgie, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1990. Leys, R. (1993) ‘Mead’s Voices –​Imitation as Foundation, or: the Struggle against Mimesis’, Critical Inquiry, 19/​2: 277–​307. Loeb. L. E. (1995) ‘Hume on Stability, Justification, and Unphilosophical Probability’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 33/​1: 101–​13. Luhmann, N. (1989) Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik: Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft Band 3, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. MacKenzie, H. (1967) The Man of Feeling, ed. B.Vickers, London: Oxford University Press. Marshall, D. (1986) The Figure of Theater: Shaftesbury, Defoe, Adam Smith and George Eliot, New York: Columbia University Press. Otteson, J. R. (2002) Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life, New York: Cambridge University Press. Raphael, D. D. (2007) The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rasmussen, D. C. (2008) The Problems and Promise of Commercial Society: Adam Smith’s Response to Rousseau, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press. Reeder, J. (1997) On Moral Sentiments: Contemporary Responses to Adam Smith, Bristol: Thoemmes Press. Rousseau, J.-​J. (1997) The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. by V. Gourevich, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schuck, D. (2019) Die Verinnerlichung der sozialen Natur: zum Verhältnis von Freiheit und Einfühlung in der Sozialpsychologie des frühen Liberalismus bei Locke, Shaftesbury, Hume und Smith, Hamburg: Felix Meiner. Shaftesbury, A. A. Cooper, Earl of (2001a) Characteristics of Men, Manner, Opinion, Times, Vol. 1, Indianapolis: Liberty Press. Shaftesbury, A. A. Cooper, Earl of (2001b) Characteristics of Men, Manner, Opinion, Times, Vol. 3, Indianapolis: Liberty Press. Small, A. W. (1907) Adam Smith and Modern Sociology: A Study in the Methodology of the Social Sciences, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Smith, A. (1976) The Theory of Moral Sentiments, (eds.) D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Glasgow edition. Reprinted, Liberty Press (1982). Smith, A. (1987) Correspondence of Adam Smith, (eds.) E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross, 2nd edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press; Glasgow edition.

 dam Smith and the traditional A Chinese elite on commerce prior to the translation of Adam Smith into Chinese Lutao Sophia Wang

As the founder of modern economics and a prominent moral philosopher, Adam Smith’s reception in foreign countries has been one of the foci in research. Analytically speaking, his reception in a foreign country may be influenced both by the persons who translated and interpreted his thought, and by the larger historical and cultural tradition of the foreign country prior to the translation. This paper is about such a larger context, in the foreign country of China. I will study the compatibilities of Adam Smith and Chen Hongmou, a model official in China in the eighteenth century, particularly the compatibilities between their views on commerce. My purpose is to complement the studies of the reception of Adam Smith in China after he was translated so as to illustrate how the study of the reception of Adam Smith in foreign countries might be benefitted from incorporating such a larger context.

Introduction Smith’s Wealth of Nations was first translated into Chinese in 1902 by Yan Fu after China’s numerous humiliating defeats by the Western powers and Japan (Schwartz, 1964; Chen, 2017).Yan Fu introduced Smith as an advocate of economic liberalization against the state intervention into economy. This reading was not very different from how Smith was interpreted in the West prior to the emergence of a much richer and complicated Smith after the popularization of his Theory of Moral Sentiments in the late 1970.1 What makes Yan Fu’s interpretation of Smith more interesting is that he distorted Smith both in his translation and annotations. The distortion might be explained by the political context in which Yan Fu translated Adam Smith. Adam Smith was presented to China during a crisis when Chinese tended to condemn China and idealize the West. As Yan Fu put it, since Chinese people have been stupefied by the Chinese dictatorship in the past two thousand years, learning can bear no fruit unless Chinese follow the rules set down in the Western sciences (Chen, 2017, p. 148). Such a dichotomy ‘China vs. the West’ obviously neglected the importance of a prosperous commerce for hundreds, if not thousands, years in Chinese history. For example, it is well known that, traditionally, Chinese had a notion of ‘free market’ that is not very different DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-8

80  Lutao Sophia Wang from Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ (Young, 1996). Also, prior to 1820, China’s gross national product always surpassed that of Europe.There was a commercial revolution in the Song Dynasty (960–​1279) (Zhao & Chen, 2006, p. 433). In the eighteenth century, the size of China’s domestic market was comparable to that in Western Europe (Maddison, 2003, p. 44). More than 1/​10 of grains, 1/​4 of raw cotton, 1/​2 of cotton cloth and 9/​10 of raw silk were sold on the market (Rowe, 2009, p. 123). Furthermore, the dichotomy idealized Adam Smith’s commercial society in Western Europe. For example, in Yan Fu’s annotation to his translation of Adam Smith’s criticism of the corruption of the commercial society caused by division of labour, he accused Smith of disregarding the fact that the division of labour never caused any deterioration of people’s knowledge and virtues in Europe (Yan, 1995, p. 689).This annotation not only distorted Adam Smith, it is the opposite of what Adam Smith meant about the effect of division of labour upon the spirit of labourers (Smith, 1976,V.i.f.50, pp. 781–​782). Such a dichotomy of ‘China vs. the West’ persists in China today in a different form. The current Chinese regime launched a market reform in 1978 and its performance since then has been stunning. However, it is not clear what has guided China’s economic reform. It seems that China has been borrowing heavily from capitalism in the West and in East Asia, but it has refuted the Western model of capitalism. Its model of economic development, instead, has been labelled as ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’. This model seems to indicate that China has reversed Yan Fu’s dichotomy of China vs. the West by criticizing the West and idealizing China. This model becomes even more interesting in the light of China’s announcement of its ‘Made in China 2025’ campaign (U. S. Chamber of Commerce, 2017).2 This program shifted away from market reform and openness to more state intervention and protectionism. Why was there such a shift? What is the future of China’s economic reform? Could we learn more about ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ if we go back to examine the views about the characteristics of traditional Chinese commerce? The purpose of this paper is to go beyond the modern and contemporary dichotomy of ‘China vs. the West’ and to explore how Adam Smith may be compared with the traditional Chinese elite. It will compare Adam Smith and Chen Hongmou, one of the most influential members of traditional Chinese elite in the eighteenth century, about their views on commerce and commercial society, particularly those involving state intervention and free market, for their compatibilities. It proposes that in the areas where Chen was compatible with Adam Smith, Smith would be accepted more easily in China, while in other areas where they are not compatible, Smith would not be accepted easily. This paper selects Chen Hongmou (1696–​1771) for the primary comparison for three reasons. First, he was Smith’s contemporary and the most prominent Chinese official in the eighteenth century (Rowe, 2001). From 1733 to 1763, he served as governor-​general, governor, and other provincial posts in more than 12 provinces from Yunnan to Jiangnan, from Gansu to Guangdong.

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce  81 He was a model official during his life time and the most important reference for the reformers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although his influence was only restricted to China and he did not formulate a formal theory about commerce, he fought with the phenomenon of commercial development and related problems just like Adam Smith did. Such a comparison does not mean that Chen Hongmou is in any way comparable to Adam Smith in his influence or sophistication. In modern social sciences, it is hard to find anyone that is comparable to Smith in his contribution and influence.Yet, such a comparison is worthwhile because it will enhance our understanding of both Smith and Chen. In early modern China from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, other elite could be considered for a comparison with Smith, but they do not fit better than Chen in terms of their experiences in economic policy. Huang Zongxi (1610–​1695) and Gu Yanwu (1613–​1683) were leading Enlightenment thinkers that advocated personal interest (si) and commerce. They nevertheless were anti-​Manchu private scholars who refused to serve the government (Zhao, 2002, pp. 1859–​1906). Dai Zhen (1724–​1777), a great philosopher in the eighteenth century, attacked Song Confucians’ dualism that separates human nature into moral principle and human desire, and advocated monism that combines moral principle and human desired into one human nature, and hence liberated the pursuit of material interest from the restraints of moral principle in the commercial development. However, Dai never passed the civil service examinations for the highest degree (jin shi). Invited by Emperor Qianlong to compile Siku Quanshu at the Imperial Academy in 1773, Dai was hardly involved in economic policy-​making (Chin, 1990). Yuan Mei (1716–​1798) advocated economic liberalization and commerce and did serve the Qing government as a county magistrate for more than six years. He retired from the government at age 38 and became a successful merchant (Schmidt, 2003; Shen, 1988).3 The duration and nature of Yuan Mei’s government appointments do not make him a better candidate than Chen Hongmou for a comparison with Adam Smith. The second reason Chen is a good person to compare with Smith is that Chen was a high-​ranking government official that left a large set of data for research. From 1733 to 1763, he served as governor-​general, governor, and other provincial posts in more than 12 provinces. After 1763, he was promoted to Beijing, first as the Minister of War, the Minister of Civil Service and then the Grand Secretary, the highest official position under the Qing emperors. He left not only his essays and correspondences, but also many annotated sourcebooks on various subjects such as scholarship, education, bureaucratic disciplines, official conduct and reform of social practice. It is daunting to master such a large dataset in classical Chinese, but thanks to William T. Rowe’s distinguished and exhaustive scholarship that explored not only Chen’s own publications, other publications related to Chen, but also unpublished Qing palace archives in China and Taiwan, we now have a comprehensive biography of Chen: Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-​Century China (Rowe, 2001). Chinese scholars have praised this book a ‘masterpiece’ in terms

82  Lutao Sophia Wang of quality and scope that lifted the research on Chen to an unprecedented level (Liu, 2008; Huang 2007). It was translated into Chinese in 2011. Thirdly, Chen was selected for his representativeness of the traditional Chinese elite. William T. Rowe claimed that Chen was the best single window on his era and on the mentality of China’s ruling elite (Rowe, 2001, p. 2). This present study selects Chen as a representative of traditional Chinese elite in the eighteenth century, but it does not mean that all the ideas of the traditional Chinese elite were fully presented in Chen’s views. How typical Chen was among the traditional Chinese elite will have to wait for further inquiries.

Smith on market or state in the commercial society Smith contended that commercial society is the last stage of economic development. He believed that all societies develop according to a four-​stage model, from the age of hunters, to the age of pasture, to the age of agriculture and to the age of commerce (Smith, 1976, V.i.a.2–​10, pp. 689–​695). The most significant difference between the commercial society and former societies is its ability to create an enormous amount of wealth. It made a frugal peasant in Western Europe much richer than an African king (Smith, 1976, I.i.11, p. 24). Smith emphasized three ways that the commercial society produces and increases its wealth, by division of labour, by free market, and by free international trade. All three enhance the efficiency of production. The division of labour divides work into steps to be completed by different individuals. It enhances efficiency in three ways, by the improvement of dexterity of the workman, by the time saved from passing from one sort of work to another and by the application of proper machinery (Smith, 1976, I.i.6–​8, pp. 17–​21). Smith argued that free market increases the wealth by enhancing the efficiency in allocation of resources. When the state does not intervene and when individuals, motivated by their self-​interest, are able to seek freely the greatest values for their economic activities, the market would be the most efficient. He described that free market works like an invisible hand guided by the self-​ interest of individuals: As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestick industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value…h (H)e generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the publick interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestick to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce  83 own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. (Smith, 1976, IV.ii.9, p. 456) Smith continued to argue that, in local situations, when the individuals are led by their self-​interest, they are the better judges of their interest than any statesman or lawgiver (Smith, 1976, IV.ii.10, p. 456). Smith advocated not only freedom in domestic market, he was also very enthusiastic about the extension of freedom to the international market because international market would further the division of labour and enhance efficiency. Smith believed that while efficiency is decided by the extent of division of labour, the extent of division of labour is decided by the extent of the market (Smith, 1976, I.iii, pp. 31–​36). Consequently, he supported the expansion of international trade. He said that international trade brings in two distinctive benefits. One is that it expands the limit of division of labour beyond the extent of domestic market. The international market provides a broader market and perfects the division of labour in the domestic manufacture. It also finds a foreign market for the goods not consumed domestically. The second benefit is that international trade brings in foreign goods that are not produced but are in demand domestically (Smith, 1976, IV.i.31, pp. 446–​447). Due to these benefits, Smith believed that, ‘The discovery of America and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope are the two greatest important events recorded in the history of mankind’ (Smith, 1976, IV.vii.c.80, p. 626). Smith was positive to the development of commercial society in Western Europe as it created a tremendous amount of wealth, but he was critical to the amount of the state intervention in the commercial society in Western Europe, which he termed as mercantilism. Mercantilism is a political economic system that believes that the wealth of nations consists in the accumulation of trade surplus embodied in gold and silver. Due to mercantilism, the states in Western Europe rushed to accumulate trade surplus with policies encouraging exports and restricting imports (Smith, 1976, IV.i.35–​45, pp. 450–​451). For example, the goal of British colonial policy was to restrict imports and to encourage exports by a monopoly of the colonial trade. Due to the high profits of colonial trade, the British colonies attracted much more investment than it would have without the monopoly. But Smith attacked such an expansion of investment in colonies for its inefficiency. He argued that the efficiency of investment is determined by its return rates (Smith, 1976, IV.vii.c.35–​38, pp. 600–​602). If the capital is invested in a neighbouring country, it could return three times per year, and the capital that is employed would be three times of its original amount. However, if the same amount of capital is invested in a distant foreign country, the return rate might be just one, and it would become less efficient. If the capital is invested in the colonies, it might become even much less efficient as it takes several years for the investment to return since colonies often were late for their payments due to the lack of capital and the need to borrow.

84  Lutao Sophia Wang In order to improve the efficiency of commercial society, Smith liked to mitigate the state intervention and to establish an obvious and simple system of natural liberty where mercantilism is abolished and the state involvement in the economy is kept at the minimum (Smith, 1976, IV.ix.51, p. 687). Did Smith believe that the system of natural liberty is an ideal society? The answer is ‘no’, because even in the system of natural liberty there would be sources of corruption due to division of labour. Smith believed that, in a commercial society, the division of labour divides the society into three orders: landlords, capitalists and labourers (Smith, 1976, I.xi.p.1–​10, pp. 264–​ 267). These three orders correspond to the three production elements of the commercial society –​land, capital and labour –​but the relationships among them are not equal partnership. Instead, they are hierarchical. The landlords own the land and belong to the upper order. The capitalists have the capital and belong to the middle order. The labourers, having neither land nor capital, belong to the lowest order. Smith said that the labourers work the hardest and gain the least. In the ‘Early Draft of Part of Wealth of Nations’ collected in Lectures on Jurisprudence, Smith said, But with regard to the produce of the labour of a great society there is never any such thing as a fair and equal division. In a society of an hundred thousand families, there will perhaps be one hundred who don’t labour at all, and who yet, either by violence or by the more orderly oppression of law, employ a greater part of the labour of the society than any other ten thousand in it.The division of what remains, too, after this enormous defalcation, is by no means made in proportion to the labour of each individual. On the contrary those who labour most get least. The opulent merchant, who spends a great part of his time in luxury and entertainments, enjoys a much greater proportion of the profits of his traffic than all the clerks and accountants who do the business. These last, again, enjoying a great deal of leisure and suffering scarce any other hardship besides the confinement of attendance, enjoy a much greater share of the produce than three times an equal number of artizans, who, under their direction, labour much more severely and assiduously. The artizan, again, tho he works generally under cover, protected from the injuries of the weather, at his ease and assisted by the conveniency of innumerable machines, enjoys a much greater share than the poor labourer who has the soil and the seasons to struggle with and who, while he affords the materials for supplying the luxury of all other members of common wealth, and bears, as it were, upon his shoulders the whole fabric of human society, seems himself to be press down below ground by the weight, and to be buried out of sight in the lowest foundations of the building. (Smith, 1978, pp. 563–​564)4 Furthermore, Smith argued that the interest of the capitalists often contradicts the general interest of the society. Consequently, they often suppress the public. Smith said:

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce  85 But the rate of profit does not, like rent or wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension, of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin…The interest of the dealers…is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the publick. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of publick, but to narrow the competition must always be against it… The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution… It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the publick, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the publick, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it. (Smith, 1976, I.xi.p.10, p. 267) Here, Smith argued that the interest of the capitalists often contradicts that of the society as a whole. This argument undermines his idea of ‘invisible hand’ where he argued that individuals’ pursuits of self-​interest would promote the public interest unintentionally. Since it is hard to reconcile this contradiction, it seems that Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ is not without nuances and has to be considered in the context that he also believed that capitalists’ interest often contradicts the general interest of society. In any event, such a hierarchical commercial society was not acceptable to Smith, because he believed that all human beings are born equal and should be treated equally (Smith,1976, I.ii.4, pp. 28–​29; Fleischacker, 2004, pp. 204–​208). He said: The difference of natural talents in different men, is in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguished men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of the division of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom and education. When they came into the world, for the first six or eight years of their existence, they were, perhaps, very much alike, and neither their parents nor play-​fellows could perceive any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to be employed in very different occupations.The different talents come then to be taken notice of, and widens by degrees, till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance. Smith deplored the stupefying working condition of the commercial society for the labourers that makes them incapable of making rational judgments. He said that, due to the division of labour, labourers’ skills were limited to only one or two tasks in a day. The limitation restricts labourers’ sensitivity and creativity.

86  Lutao Sophia Wang Smith declared that ‘unless the government takes some pains to prevent it’, it would make the labourers in commercial society incapable of making rational judgments (Smith, 1976,V.i.f.50, pp. 781–​782). Specifically, Smith proposed progressive taxation and education to uplift the poor. About taxation, although Smith once labelled the rights of property ‘sacred’ (Smith, 1976, I.xi.c.27, p. 188), he did favour taxing the rich at the higher rate than the poor and then using the taxes to benefit the poor. For example, he suggested that the luxury vehicles pay a higher road toll than freight vehicles so that the indolent and vain rich are made to contribute in a very easy manner to the relief of the poor (Smith, 1976,V.i.d.5, p. 725). He also advocated a tax on house-​rents, because it would fall heaviest on the rich: ‘It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the publick expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion’ (Smith,1976,V.ii.e.6, p. 842). In addition, Smith proposed to promote equality with education. Twice he suggested that the state should correct the deficiency and corruption in the commercial society with education. He advocated youth education for the poor (Smith,1976,V.i.f.55, pp. 785–​786). Due to the fact that in a commercial society, ordinary people do not have the opportunity to educate their youth like the upper-​class people, the state should encourage local communities to establish elementary schools to educate the poor’s children, teaching them reading, writing, counting, geometry and mechanics. He said that, instead of financing them directly, the state should let the local communities and parents pay. Second, he said that the state has to help with the education of all age groups (Smith,1976, V.i.g.14–​15, pp. 796–​797). Here his central concern is how to ameliorate the impact of harsh religious principles of radical religious factions upon the adult members. He suggested two policies to correct the rigorous demands of small religious factions. One is to encourage the middle and upper-​ class people to study science and philosophy. ‘Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition’. Once the upper and middle classes are free from superstition, the lower class will follow. The other is to encourage the general populace to engage in entertainment such as painting, poetry, music, dancing and drama, so as to relieve the depression and pessimism among the people.

Chen Hongmou’s ‘pro-​market intervention’ in China in the eighteenth century How did Chen’s ideas disagree or agree with Adam Smith’s ideas about commerce? As discussed above, Smith emphasized the division of labour, free market and expansion of free international trade as a means to improve efficiency and to create wealth. He liked to abolish mercantilism and to restore the efficiency of the commercial society. However, he did believe that even after the mercantilism is abolished and a system of natural liberty is established,

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce  87 the commercial society would not become an ideal society due to a hierarchy created by the division of labour. In order to compare Smith and Chen systematically, this section will attempt to answer the following questions. Did Chen share anything in common with Smith’s emphasis upon division of labour, free market and free international trade as a means to create wealth in commercial development? What was the role of the state in Chen’s views about commerce? How did Chen deal with the problem of hierarchy in the commercial development? First of all, Chen’s views about commerce could be understood better in the context of Chinese political economy in the eighteenth century. In the eighteenth century, China was not yet a commercial society. The contribution of commerce to the state revenue remained less than that of agriculture (Zhou, 2002, p. 23), so it was an agricultural society with a very prosperous commercial sector. It was also an agricultural society plagued by a problem of rapid population increase. In the 400 years from 1400 to 1800, the population increased from 65 million to 400 million. In contrast, in the same four centuries, the arable land increased only three times. Even though the yields per unit increased too, it was not fast enough to offset the population growth (Rowe, 2001, p. 156). How to promote economic growth in a society plagued by dramatic increase in population and slower growth rates of arable land and of yields per unit of land? While Chen agreed with his contemporaries to reclaim land and increase agricultural productivity, he stood out as an ardent supporter of commerce (Rowe, 2001, p. 285). To him, economy was very complex, where agriculture represented only a part, and commerce contributed and led to the enrichment of the whole society. As he quoted from his contemporary Zhifu Wang: Apart from farming and grain production, there are other occupations which must be considered in any strategy for the production of wealth… In the narrowest sense, these are useful because they aid in the supply of food and other daily necessities. In the broadest sense, however, they contribute to the process of commercial circulation, which in turn leads to the enrichment of the whole society. (Rowe, 2001, p. 198) How did the commerce enrich the whole society? Chen said that selling dear and buying cheap would accumulate wealth (Rowe, 2001, p. 285). Since merchants’ business principle is selling dear and buying cheap, merchants would increase the wealth of the society and should be protected (Rowe, 2001, pp. 198, 205). Chen Hongmou’s views about the role of commerce in Chinese economy in the eighteenth century were aptly summarized by William T. Rowe as ‘pro-​ market intervention’ (Rowe, 2001, pp. 214, 216).5 Chen believed that market is the most efficient in allocating resources, hence creating wealth, although he didn’t believe that the market should be left alone in accomplishing the task by itself all the time.

88  Lutao Sophia Wang First of all, Chen argued for free market. He said that the economy operates according to certain inviolable economic laws. These laws determine the prices of the supply and demand of all the commodities in a local market. Commodities will seek out market in which they command the highest price, and commercial agents will seek to buy low and sell high (Rowe, 2001, p. 205). William T. Rowe traced Chen’s ideas about free market to Sima Guang (1019–​1086 AD) in the Song Dynasty, but in fact these ideas could be traced further back to a very popular and influential statement made by Sima Qian in the first century BC, ‘Cheap goods would go to the places where they could be sold more, while expensive goods will drive the people to look for them in less expensive places…’ (Young, 1996). These ideas resonate with Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’. However, as it will be explained in the following, they do not mean laissez-​faire all the time to Chen. As a Confucian, Chen believed in state activism, even though his activism often worked within the framework of free market. As suggested by William T. Rowe, Chen argued that the economic laws of supply and demand were both a ‘constraint’ and an ‘enabling tool’ essential for policymaking (Rowe, 2001, p. 205). The market was a constraint on state policy because the state policy should not violate the market if it intended to achieve its goal. The market was an enabling tool because the state could promote its policy better if the policy resonated with the market. How does Chen’s concept of market as a constraint and as an enabling tool of state policy differ from Adam Smith’s market as an invisible hand? The answer is quite complicated. It depends upon whether the state policy concerned violates the market or not. When Chen’s policy recognized the market and followed the market, his market would be similar to Adam Smith’s market as an invisible hand. However, when Chen’s policy recognized the market, but its implementation violated the market, his state policy would become a visible hand and would violate the market as an invisible hand. Hence, Chen’s ‘pro-​market intervention’ could mean either non-​intervention or intervention, depending upon the policy concerned. I shall discuss Chen’s policies that adhered to the market first. In Chen’s management of food crisis, he used commercial circulation to ease food crises. For example, he opposed embargos during dearth. When Chen was the governor of Jiangxi in 1742 and 1743, the Yangzi River flooded and ruined the harvest in its region. Although Jiangxi was spared from the flood, the price for the grain rose sharply. The public believed it was caused by the export of the grain from Jiangxi to the flooded region, and therefore attempted to block the export. Chen banned such activities because he believed the embargo, not the export, was the cause of price inflation. He had faith that dearth would attract imports and thus in turn would stabilize the price. ‘Interregional merchants will inevitably be drawn to make purchases in markets where prices are low and similarly will be drawn to make sales in markets where prices are high’ (Rowe, 2001, p. 176). Since the ban on embargos was built upon Chen’s

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce  89 belief that the market shouldn’t be violated, this policy was in accordance with Adam Smith’s concept of market as an invisible hand. Also, about price control, Chen prohibited his subordinates from fixing the prices in government procurement (Rowe, 2001, p. 179). He believed that market should be determined by prices and argued that differentially high market prices would guarantee the relief of shortages. Such prices would induce local grains holders to sell and would attract imports from outside. Official price control would be counterproductive. To set up a guideline for government procurement that often purchased at submarket rates, Chen conducted an imperial project to investigate market prices of hundreds of construction materials, as well as freights and artisanal pay scales, for 1,557 counties throughout the empire (Rowe, 2001, p. 207). These detailed schedules were published in a series of province-​ specific volumes during Chen’s term as the grand secretary in 1769. He instructed local officials that such guidelines should be pegged as closely as possible and should be adjusted periodically. Since such a guideline aimed at directing the state officials to follow the market prices, this policy adhered to the market, and thus supported Adam Smith’s concept of market as an invisible hand as well. However, in other areas, Chen’s policies seemed to support state intervention. For example, in his opposition to the local official or popular seizures of private stocks during food crises, Chen argued that privately held grain stocks belonged to the rich, and they shouldn’t be coerced to sell (Rowe, 2001, p. 180). His assumption was that the rich would sell when the price was right. However, this didn’t work out well with the rich all the time. If this didn’t work, Chen would resort to moral persuasion. He induced the rich to give up their grains with moral exhortations and persuasions. Here, Chen seemed to believe that market force alone did not always work. Since Chen resorted to moral persuasion to make the rich sell, the state as a visible hand became more important than the market as an invisible hand. Chen’s complicated policy about the market as an invisible hand and state policy as a visible hand could also be illustrated by his granaries policies. Qing Dynasty had two kinds of granaries: the state granaries and community granaries. State granaries, owned by the state, were located in counties, and would purchase the grains from the people in the harvest seasons when the price was low, and would sell grains to the people in the planting seasons when the price was high. The purpose is to maintain price stability and to provide the people with grains at affordable prices. Following the market, Chen insisted that the people should never be forced to sell to or buy from the state granaries. They should only sell or buy when the market compelled them to do so. He said that state granaries should be ‘a remedial supplement to the market, not to override or obviate it’ (Rowe, 2001, p. 254). However, Chen did advocate government intervention to assist the operation of the state granaries by promoting the sales of officials’ titles to the rich in exchange of their contribution of grains to the state granaries (Rowe, 2001, pp. 255–​257). Since Chen supported both

90  Lutao Sophia Wang the market in selling and buying of grains and the state’s sales of official titles to stock the granaries, his granaries policy seemed to be the result of a balance of market as an invisible hand and the state as a visible hand. As for the community granaries, they were conceived originally as an institution by the local communities to help the people in need during planting seasons (Rowe, 2001, p. 275). Although ideally, community granaries were supposed to be stocked with the contribution from the people, in practice, most of them started with state funding (Rowe, 2001, p. 279). In addition to help the poor, Chen believed that the community granaries would create wealth; first, by lowering the interest rate of the community granaries than the differential prices for grains between the pre-​harvest sale and the post-​harvest sale; second, by increasing the granaries’ stocks by the cycles of lending and repayment; and third, by selling dear and buying cheap from the granaries (Rowe, 2001, pp. 285–​286). For example, while the prevailing market interest rates were 30–​40 percent per year, and 10–​20 percent in Emperor Yongzheng’s edict of 1724, Chen made the interest rates of loans from the community granaries under his supervision much lower than the market rates and at the lower end of the official rates. He charged 10 percent plus 3 percent for overhead costs (Rowe, 2001, p. 285). Compared to the prevailing market rates of 30 to 40 percent, this was a considerable saving. It was also less than the price differential between the pre-​harvest and post-​harvest grains. Hence, the borrowers made a profit even before the loan was used. Due to Chen’s belief in the ability of market to create wealth, he became one of the few Chinese officials that supported the idea that it is possible to increase the per capita productivity and hence to achieve economic growth (Rowe, 2001, p. 285).6 Yet, this policy clearly aimed at outbidding the market so as to create wealth. It did not seem to support market as an invisible hand. About Smith’s interest in machinery to enhance efficiency and to create wealth, Chen was also devoted to it, although he worked mostly in the agricultural setting. He improved farm technology such as seeds selections, fertilizing and planting techniques, and built hydraulic infrastructures. His interest in creating employment opportunities for rural areas prompted him to develop sericulture (Rowe, 2001, pp. 231–​243). He also proposed to develop mining industries, although his proposal was not approved (Rowe, 2001, pp. 243–​245). It seems that Chen Hongmou was interested in developing manufacturing industry so as to develop the economy, but he didn’t share Adam Smith’s view that China should open up for international trade and to learn from foreign technology (Rowe, 2001, pp. 243–​245; Smith, 1976, IV.ix.41, p. 680). As for international trade that Smith identified as one of the major causes for increasing efficiency and wealth, this is the area where Chen differed from Smith the most. To be sure, Chen was interested in the wealth that the international trade would produce and even suggested to establish a navy to protect overseas trade (Rowe, 2001, pp. 248–​249). He seemed to be less prone to the ‘tribute mentality’. Compared to his colleagues, he tended to treat foreign trading partners more as equals (Rowe, 2001, pp. 248–​249). He said that

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce  91 ‘Chinese and non-​Chinese have a single common essence’ and that ‘people of the center and of the periphery form a single family’. He also supported interracial marriages (Rowe, 2001, pp. 294–​295). However, he didn’t oppose the dominance of the ongoing tributary system where trading countries were tributary states in a hierarchy with China on top as the Middle Kingdom. Neither did his sense of Han cultural superiority allow him to become a cosmopolitan. He treated the conversion of ethnic tribes to Confucianism as his mission. For example, in Shaanxi, in 1746, he attacked the Christian churches, Buddhist sects and other pilgrimage societies for ‘violating the cosmic and social order and denying heavenly mandated bonds of generational seniority, familial attachment and territorial community’, bonds in Chen’s understanding the natural human impulses. He expropriated their facilities and assets and redistributed them to community schools, community granaries and Confucian community-​compact halls (Rowe, 2001, pp. 380, 422). While Smith and Chen shared some values concerning efficiency resulted from free market and division of labour in commercial development, they shared much less concerning equality as the ethical principle of a society with a prosperous commerce. As will be illustrated in the following, in contrast to Smith who believed that human beings are born equal and should be treated as equals, Chen seemed to believe that, although human beings are born equal, as adults, they are fundamentally different and should be treated differently. It would be very helpful to put Chen’s concept of hierarchy in the historical context. Although Confucianism emphasized the fact that human beings are born equal, in reality, the traditional Chinese society was built upon hierarchies. Historically, there are two kinds of hierarchy in China: the hierarchy between the emperors and their people, and the hierarchy between the elite and commoners. For the first hierarchy, according to Ying-​shih Yu, in the feudal society during the Zhou Dynasty (1046–​256 BC), scholars were originally the lowest aristocrats. Later, due to the social turmoil during the Warring Period (476, 453, 403–​221 BC), scholars were released from the aristocracy, and became the top class of the common people where government officials were selected from. Under Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (157–​87 BC), Confucianism was adopted as the state ideology. Believing that they represented the Confucian moral authority, scholars-​officials took criticizing the political authority of the emperors as their responsibility. Hence, in Chinese political culture, there are two types of authority: the Confucian moral authority and the political authority (Yu, 1982). In the next two thousand years in Chinese history, the Confucian moral authority and the political authority were constantly in tension in ideas and in practice. In the eighteenth century, due to the prestige of the emperors in pacifying the country within and without, Qing emperors were able to merge both the confucian moral and political authorities in their own hands (Huang, 1994, pp. 92–​93). It legitimized the emperors as the sole authority in the realm. This is very different in the Smithian tradition, where there was a separation of the state and church and the state was never the sole source of moral authority.

92  Lutao Sophia Wang In addition, on top of the imperial state’s attempts to consolidate its legitimacy by merging moral authority, Chinese political system was built upon a religiously based hierarchy (Taylor, 1989). Traditional Chinese cosmology and official religion are hierarchical in nature where heaven, earth and man represent the three essential elements, and heaven and earth are man’s parents. This forms one hierarchy. Human society is another hierarchy. The son of heaven, the emperor, is the only person who can represent the human society to offer sacrifices to heaven and earth.The religious hierarchy later was challenged by Taoism and Buddhism, and by commercial development, but it didn’t break down until the nineteenth century. Such a conception of Chinese imperial hierarchy is supported by Antony Yu’s study of emperors as the agents of ancestor worship (Yu, 2005, p. 3). Since emperors were the only agents who could communicate with the Heaven for the living people, their authority couldn’t and shouldn’t be challenged. The hierarchy between the emperors and their people could be best exemplified by Chen’s relationship with Emperor Qianlong. Although Chen often debated policies with Emperor Qianlong, he never challenged the emperor’s authority. When Emperor Qianlong criticized him, without any evidence, for being guilty of favouritism, do-​nothingness and a sloppy workstyle, what he could do was to apologize and apologize again (Rowe, 2001, p. 55). As for the hierarchy between the elite and the commoners, although human beings were considered born equals in Confucianism, a four-​class concept, first developed in the seventh century BC, dominated the traditional Chinese society until the sixteenth century. The four classes were scholars-​officials, farmers, artisans and merchants, and in the original form, scholars-​officials were the ruling elite class while the merchants ranked the lowest. The original four-​class concept was challenged in the sixteenth century and a new concept of four classes emerged, declaring that, despite the different occupations, the classes were equal in social status (Yu, 1987, pp. 347–​348). The most noticeable difference the emergence of the new concept of classes made was the enhancement of the status of merchants. By the eighteenth century, a powerful alliance between the scholar-​official class and the merchants was developed due to the policy selling official titles to merchants so as to stock the state granaries, a policy Chen Hongmou supported wholeheartedly (Rowe, 2001, p. 256). As William T. Rowe explained, Chen believed that genuine scholarly achievement couldn’t be measured solely by the success in the civil service examinations. Chen did not discriminate merchants and was one of their biggest protectors (Rowe, 2001, p. 198). How merchants formed alliance with the scholar-​ official class can be illustrated by experiences of salt merchants in Yangzhou in the eighteenth century. It was quite common among rich merchants to have a division of labour among their children in terms of the latter’s careers. While the older sons might be merchants, younger sons might become officials via the civil service examinations or the purchase of official titles (Ho, 1954, pp. 158–​159). In Chinese society where family was the fundamental social unit, the alliance

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce  93 between the scholars-​officials and merchants within one family only illustrated the power of such an alliance. The alliance between the merchants and the scholars-​officials transformed the scholar-​official class and the merchant class, but it did not significantly transform the hierarchy between the elite and other commoners (farmers and artisans). William T. Rowe argued that Chen’s position on this issue was filled with contradictions, as he supported Confucian egalitarianism on the one hand and the social reality of hierarchy on the other hand. Rowe contended that Chen was much more complicated than the claim that he intended to maintain the social distinctions and to arrest social mobility (Rowe, 2001, pp. 295–​300). I tend to think that while Chen obviously didn’t oppose social mobility as he endorsed wholeheartedly the sales of officials’ degrees to the merchants, Rowe himself presented ample evidences that Chen did believe in a hierarchy between the ruling and the ruled. First of all, although Chen believed that all human beings, regardless of socio-​economic status, shared the common humanity (Rowe, 2001, pp. 291–​ 293), he maintained that there were two distinctive social ranks –​the ruling (the superior) and the ruled (the inferior) –​and that they differed due to their intelligence (Rowe, 2001, p. 299).The ruled had only memory, while the ruling had both memory and comprehension. It is the comprehension that led the ruling class to their sociopolitical status. Here, Chen indeed went farther away from the Confucian concept of egalitarianism. Also, Chen was deeply offended when the ruled overstepped the social distinctions by following rituals that do not fit their social status (Rowe, 2001, p. 297). He routinely called his own ruling class ‘people like us’ and referred the people they ruled as ‘stupid people’ (Rowe, 2001, p. 298). Of course, as Rowe explained, ‘stupidity’ here did not mean anything despicable. It only meant that the ruled needed to be educated by the ruling class. However, Chen did not seem to be confident how much the ruled could be educated due to their intelligence. Chen’s support of hierarchy could also be illustrated by his ideas about fiscal policies which were different from Adam Smith. In contrast to Smith’s interest in progressive taxation of the rich to help the poor, Chen Hongmou was interested in protecting the wealth of the rich. He maintained that the wealth of the rich belonged to themselves and shouldn’t be confiscated or redistributed coercively (Rowe, 2001, p. 303). He supported the idea that wealth was partially determined by virtue, and partially determined by the fate. Therefore, he wanted the poor to be contented with their fate (Rowe, 2001, p. 305), although he did assign the rich the responsibility to help the poor. To be sure, Chen did promote tax relief during food crises and advocate tax exemption for settlers in the border areas (Rowe, 2001, pp. 179, 221). He was also known to decrease customary fees at the local government (Ch’u, 1962, p. 27). His policy of stocking the state granaries with the contribution from the rich seemed to be an indirect device to redistribute the wealth. However, he didn’t propose to reform the whole tax structure that favoured the elite and could be exploited by them. Historically speaking, the traditional Chinese fiscal system did favour

94  Lutao Sophia Wang the ruling class. The data on the income and taxes for the eighteenth century are scanty, but solid data are available for the nineteenth century. They showed that the income of the elite was 16 times as high as that of the commoners (Chang, 1962, p. 328), and that they paid less than two-​thirds of the land-​and-​ labour-​service taxes that commoners paid (Ch’u, 1962, p. 187).7 In other words, while in Smith’s commercial society, the ethical principle of equality became the foundation for the development of welfare state later, in China the alliance between the scholars-​officials and the merchants didn’t succeed in challenging the imperial state until the 1911 revolution, the bourgeois revolution. After that revolution, China had other revolutions, such as the Communist Revolution in 1949 and the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. The problem with these revolutions is that while their goals might be equality, at the end of the revolution, the state resumed its dominance over the society. Even today, this tradition persists. In summary, both Smith and Chen Hongmou favoured commerce due to its contribution to improve efficiency and to create wealth. They both were interested in technology to improve efficiency. They nevertheless differed in Chen’s support of state activism and Smith’s propensity to accept laissez-​faire. They also differed in Smith’s support of free international trade and in Chen’s Middle Kingdom Complex that encouraged the restriction of the international trade other than limited tributary trade. In addition, while Smith promoted the ethical principle of equality in the commercial society, Chen accepted inequality between the ruling and the ruled, although he supported the new concept of four-​class that greatly enhanced merchants’ social status.

The reception of Adam Smith in China had he been introduced in the eighteenth century How does the comparative analysis inform us about the reception of Adam Smith in China had he been introduced in the eighteenth century? First, Chen would accept the freedom of domestic market and would find Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ fascinating. However, he would allow more state intervention and would hesitate to accept the openness of international trade due to his Middle Kingdom Complex. Neither would he accept Adam Smith’s ethical principle of equality due to his deeply seeded belief in hierarchy. It is also interesting to speculate how Yan Fu might have reacted to Adam Smith had he introduced Adam Smith to China in an era when China and the West were not considered two extremes of a dichotomy. I would argue that China’s reception of Adam Smith might be less biased. Had Yan Fu not been prejudiced against Chinese cultural tradition, he might have been much more positive to the Chinese heritage of ‘pro-​market intervention’ where the state and the market worked together to promote economic development. Furthermore, had Yan Fu not idealized Adam Smith’s commercial society in Western Europe, he might have introduced faithfully Smith’s criticism that the

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce  95 commercial society in Europe was hierarchical and corrupted and needed the state’s intervention to correct the corruption. In other words, Yan’s attack of the stupefying dictatorship in China is correct as it was built upon hierarchy instead of equality. However, what Yan missed is that it is possible to develop a prosperous market economy built upon a political hierarchy in Chinese cultural tradition.

The relevance of the comparative analysis to China’s market reform since 1978 How does the comparative analysis of Adam Smith and Chen Hongmou inform us of the reception of Adam Smith in contemporary China? First of all, China made a drastic change in the area of international trade, from restriction to a commitment to openness in 1978. This is the area where Western thinkers, such as Adam Smith, made the most impact. Due to market reform and openness, China was able to double its gross national product every eight years and became the second largest economic entity in the world by 2010. In 2015, China’s economic policies made a turn with the launch of the MIC2025 campaign. Instead of free market and openness, China started to advocate protectionism and state intervention, which may be viewed as a reversion of the market reform since 1978.Yet, a historical analysis showed that this campaign was not a product of consensus. It was the triumph of the conservative state capitalists who have been debating with liberal market reformers about the future of economic reform ever since the beginning of the reform (Eaton, 2016). As Barry Naughton explained, since the reform in 1978, China has made a transition from command economy and adopted functioning market economy, but the process of market transition is not yet completed (Naughton, 2007, p. 85). To sustain further economic growth, China needs institutional reforms to support free market. Nevertheless, Chinese leaders have become complacent, and from 2003 to 2013, while there were proposals for economic reform, little was done to secure the institutions that would further the market-​ oriented reform (Naughton, 2014). It seems that MIC2025 announced in 2015 was exactly a product of this complacency. Fortunately, Naughton argued that economic reform was not dead. Just like what Chinese reformers have been arguing, the current growth is not sustainable due to factors such as the changes in labour force where surplus labour has been depleted and population at working age has been declining. As China is moving from labour-​intensive development to technology-​intensive development, market reform has become even more urgent to deter imminent crises.Would China revise or even rescind MIC2025 and resume market reform? Could the study of Chen Hongmou’s ‘pro-​market intervention’ help us find an answer? As discussed above, Chen Hongmou’s ‘pro-​market intervention’ advocated market as an invisible hand that constrained state intervention, but he indeed supported state activism on other occasions. Such a delimma between market

96  Lutao Sophia Wang and state is a characteristics of traditional Chinese political economy and represents a challenge to both Chen Hongmou and contemporary Chinese policymakers. I would argue that, if Chen were to attempt to sustain growth, he probably would lean towards market at the expense of state intervention in various cases, but his ‘pro-​market intervention’ would have restrained him from becoming fully Smithian in domestic and international trade. Despite the traditional Chinese values for free market, a significant transition out of state intervention is very difficult in the Chinese cultural tradition. It is debatable whether China would revise, or even rescind MIC2025, either due to persuasion or due to failure to deliver. In addition, what makes the transition from state intervention to free market in the future even more questionable is the traditional Chinese belief in hierarchy between the ruling and the ruled. Such a belief would not support political equality, a fundamental value for the rule of law and for further economic reform. An examination of the hierarchy between inside and outside of the bureaucracy in contemporary China illustrates that China indeed lagged far behind in this area (Naughton, 2016). Also, the rise and prevalence of red capitalists, those capitalists affiliated with the current regime, proved the importance of government support for the successes of private firms (Wang, 2016). Furthermore, in terms of income, the disparities deteriorated in both rural and urban regions as well as between rural and urban regions (Benjamin, 2008).With regard to education, noticeable disadvantages existed for minorities and poor regions (Hannum, 2008). The lack of progress in the area of equality was probably unintentional, but the state seemed to lack the will to improve equality due to other policy priorities. Equality is, nevertheless, an essential value for market reform and its future. It seems quite possible that, unless China adopts policies to improve economic and political equality, the market reform would not take roots. This study of Adam Smith and Chen Hongmou illustrates that the essential elements of traditional Chinese elite consciousness about market and state have sustained and provided a powerful tool to explain how Adam Smith might be received in the Chinese cultural tradition. It seems that, in such a tradition, free market is valued, but so is state intervention. Also, it is easier to accept market than equality, such that the coexistence of a limited market economy and a political hierarchy might be the norm, not an exception. Adam Smith’s commercial society built upon equality is culturally specific Smithian, and it would not be accepted easily in China even today.

Notes 1 Due to the limit of space, the reception of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments in China will not be discussed in this paper. 2 I would like to thank Professor Thomas G. Rawski for his comments on an earlier version of this paper presented at the conference of the International Adam Smith Society in Chile in January 2018. His timely information on the implications of the MIC2025 is particularly helpful.

Adam Smith and the traditional Chinese elite on commerce  97 3 I would like to thank one of the anonymous reviewers for his or her comments on Dai Zhen and Yuan Mei. 4 James E. Alvey cautioned that there is some evidence for a change of view between the ‘Early Draft’ and published The Wealth of Nations because the published views are softer than the unpublished, but he admitted even in the published views, Smith’s evaluation of the wealth distribution in a commercial society is mixed, see his Adam Smith: Optimist or Pessimist: a New Problem Concerning the Teleological Basis of Commercial Society, Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2003, pp. 240–​241. 5 William T. Rowe also described the roles of the state and market in Chen’s views of commerce as ‘participatory intervention’ and ‘regulatory intervention’ (Rowe, 2001, pp. 210–​211). ‘Pro-​market intervention’ is preferred in this paper because it reflects better Chen’s attempt to balance the roles of the state and market in his economic policies. Helen Dunstan asked if the market consciousness in China in the eighteenth century could be conceived as sprouts of economic liberalism (Dunstan, 1996, pp. 327–​333). To this question, this paper provides a very complicated answer. 6 Historical studies of China’s economic development in the eighteenth century illustrate the results of Chen Hongmou’s economic policies. The development was led by the state, but there was considerable market freedom in the allocation of resources (Gao, 2005, p. 207). 7 According to Ch’u, the elite in Shan-​yin, Kuai-​chi and Hsiao-​shan, paid only 1.06 to 1.4 taels for 1 tael of land-​and-​labour-​service tax, whereas the commoners, paid 2800 to 4000 copper coins for 1 tael of tax.The market rate between taels and copper coins in this area was 1700:1 to 1800:1. This means that a commoner-​taxpayer had to pay about 1,000 to 2,200 more coins per tael than the elite (Ch’u, 1962, p. 332).

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98  Lutao Sophia Wang Gao, W. (2005) Huo chen di chuantong: shiba shiji Zhongguo di jingji fazhan he zhengfu zhengce (The living tradition: the Chinese economic development and the state policy in the eighteenth century). Beijing: Beijing University Press. Hannum, E., Behrman, J., M. Wang, M., and Liu, J. (2008) Education in the Reform Era. In: Brandt, L. and Rawski, T. G. (eds.), China’s Great Economic Transformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 215–​249. Ho, P.-​t. (1954) The Salt Merchants of Yang-​chou: A Study of Commerical Capitalism in Eighteenth Century China. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 17(1/​2), pp. 130–​168. Huang, C. (1994) Qingchu zhengquan yishi zhi tanjiu (On the consciousness about political authority in early Qing). In: Youru sheng yu (Excel into the Holy Land), Taipei:Yunchen, pp. 87–​124. Huang, J. (2007) Shijie di Chen Hongmou (The world’s Chen Hongmou). Dangdai Guangxi, Issue 23, p. 51. Lardy, N. (2014) Market Over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China. Washington DC: Institute for International Economics. Liu, L. (2008) Chen Hongmou yanjiu zongshu (A survey of academic research on Chen Hongmou). Wenshi bolan (lilun), issue 10. Maddison, A. (2003) The World Economy: Historical Statistics. Paris: OECD. Munro, D. J. (1969) The Concept of Man in Early China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Naughton, B. (2007) The Chinese Economy:Transitions and Growth. Cambridge: MIT Press. Naughton, B. (2014) China’s Economy: Complacency, Crisis & and Challenge of Reform. Daedalus, Volume 142 (2), pp. 14–​25. Naughton, B. (2016) Inside and Outside: the Modernized Hierarchy that Runs China. Journal of Comparative Economics, Volume 44 (2), pp. 404–​415. Perkins, D.H., Rawski, T. G. (2008) Forecasting China’s Economic Growth to 2025. In: Brandt, L. and Rawski, T. G. (eds.), China’s Great Economic Tranformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 829–​886. Polanyi, K. (2001) The Great Transformation:The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston: Beacon Press. Pomeranz, K. (2000) The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rowe, W. T. (2001) Saving the World: Chen Hongmou and Elite Consciousness in Eighteenth-​ Century China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Rowe,W.T. (2009) China’s Last Empire:The Great Qing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Schmidt, J. D. (2003) Harmony Garden: The Life, Literary Criticism and Poetry of Yuan Mei. London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Schwartz, B. (1964) In Search of Wealth and Power:Yen Fu and the West. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Shen, J. (1988) Yuan Mei jing ji si xiang lue lun (An outline of Yuan Mei’s economic ideas). Dong wu jiao xue, pp. 22–​24,15. Smith, A. (1976) An Inquiry into the Nature and the Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Oxford: Oxford Universty Press, Reprint Liberty Press (1981). Smith, A. (1978) Lectures on Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press, Lliberty reprint 1982. Taylor, R. (1989) Chinese Hierarchy in Comparative Perspective. Journal of Asian Studies, 48(3), pp. 490–​511.

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 elancton Smith, Adam Smith, and M the sympathy theory of representation Trevor Latimer

On June 22, 1788, at a convention convened in Poughkeepsie, New York, to consider, and perhaps ratify, a new United States Constitution, a merchant of “the middling sort”1 named Melancton Smith rose to his feet and insisted, in opposition to the plan’s proponents, that representatives should “resemble those they represent…be a true picture of the people…possess the knowledge of their circumstances and their wants…sympathize in all their distresses, and be disposed to seek their true interests.”2 This article is about the role of sympathy in the theory of representation developed by Melancton Smith and his associates during the “great national discussion” of 1787–​1788 and that theory’s relationship with Adam Smith’s account of sympathy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. I call Melancton Smith’s theory the “sympathy theory of representation” because it is distinctive in the ratification debate, and in the history of political thought, precisely because sympathy appears center stage. My claim is that Melancton Smith’s conception of sympathy, the one driving his distinctive theory of representation, is, in every important respect, the same as Adam Smith’s. Not only that: because sympathy is used in virtually the same way by both Smiths, we can deepen our understanding of Melancton Smith’s sympathy theory of representation, and representation in general, by moving back and forth, from Adam to Melancton, and from Melancton back to Adam. Melancton Smith and his associates didn’t simply adopt Adam Smith’s account of sympathy (or something just like it) from The Theory of Moral Sentiments; they developed and extended it to address a topic about which Adam Smith wrote comparatively little: political representation. By carefully reconstructing and then analyzing Melancton Smith’s theory of representation we can, I argue, get an inkling of what someone who sympathized with Adam Smith on sympathy would think about representation. This of course does not mean that Adam Smith shared Melancton Smith’s views on representation—​their politics differed. But Melancton Smith’s sympathy theory of representation is one way Adam Smith could have gone, had he constructed a theory of representation from sympathy. The way Melancton Smith and his “circle”3 used sympathy has so much in common with Adam Smith’s conception of sympathy that I am compelled DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-9

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  101 to conclude that someone in the Melancton Smith circle had read The Theory of Moral Sentiments, was familiar with its contents secondhand, or somehow, without knowledge of Adam Smith’s work, produced something remarkably and implausibly similar. Since we know so little about Melancton Smith’s life, and hardly anything at all about him before 1769, when he was already a young man, we can only speculate about the merits of the aforementioned alternatives.4 Irrespective of his source—​The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith’s work secondhand, or his own considerable mind—​Melancton Smith’s theory of representation deserves wider recognition than it has hitherto received. Melancton Smith and his associates, today largely forgotten, show us that representatives can represent, perhaps even should represent, their constituents by sympathizing with them.

1 The “standard” Anti-​Federalist account of representation Melancton Smith and his circle are unique in the ratification debate, as I’ve said, because they used the concept of sympathy to hone their views about political representation. To see just how innovative Melancton Smith and his associates were, it’s helpful to compare their account with those of run of the mill Anti-​ Federalists (the label used to identify opponents of the proposed Constitution). Anti-​Federalists shared many of the same concerns about representation under the proposed Constitution, but only a subset of them—​Melancton Smith and his circle—​used sympathy to express them. Once I’ve demonstrated the role and importance of sympathy in Melancton Smith and his circle’s theory of representation, we will turn to its relationship with Adam Smith’s account of sympathy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. But before getting to what I’ll call the “standard” Anti-​Federalist account of representation, it’s worth mentioning that no Anti-​Federalist (and no Federalist, for that matter) developed a fully formed, freestanding “theory” of representation. On both sides of the debate, the participants wrote to change minds, not to fill books. They wrote in response to the proposed Constitution and to one another as events unfolded.This means that the “political theory” we find in the ratification debate is largely implicit; scholars must reconstruct it for themselves, should they find it useful. The “standard” Anti-​Federalist account of representation, like the sympathy theory of representation, emerged in response to the proposed Constitution. That must always be kept in mind. Anti-​Federalist objections to the plan were numerous and wide ranging,5 but one of the most voiced complaints was that both houses of the new national legislature would be too small. By too small they meant that each house would not have enough representatives. The new House of Representatives, at least until the first census and reapportionment (scheduled for 1790), would have 65 members. The new Senate, with two representatives per state, would have 26. Ninety-​one people would represent the entire United States, from Maine to Georgia and from the Atlantic Coast to (almost) the Mississippi River.6

102  Trevor Latimer At that time, many state legislatures were bigger than the national legislature proposed by the Constitution. In the period after the Revolution, the smallest state assembly (Delaware’s lower chamber) had 21 members and the largest (Connecticut’s lower chamber) had 200.The median state’s lowest chamber had 78 representatives, more than the proposed House of Representatives for the entire country.7 And, in a particularly striking contrast, from 1754 to 1790 the British House of Commons had 588 members.8 The fact that Anti-​Federalists thought that the new national legislature would be too small, on its own, does not tell us much. The reasons they thought it would be too small, however, are the key to the standard Anti-​Federalist position. Anti-​Federalists identified two problems with small legislatures, or by extension, large constituencies. First, they argued that small legislatures could not provide “full” or “complete” representation of the people. The metaphor they often used in this context was that of a mirror; they believed that the legislature should mirror the people it hoped to represent. In Melancton Smith’s words, the legislature should “be a true picture of the people.” This idea was not entirely new. Eric Nelson has argued that it can be traced to a seventeenth century dispute between the English Parliament and the Crown, especially in the writings of Henry Parker.9 Parker claimed that Parliament is “nothing else, but the very people it self artificially congregated.”10 In British North America, over a century later, John Adams claimed that the representative assembly “should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them.”11 Some scholars claim that this piece of the theory follows from Anti-​ Federalists’ skepticism of representation.12 If the people themselves could not assemble under “some convenient tree”13 to conduct their business, the best they could do would be to send representatives in their stead. It then follows, from this perspective, that the representative body should reproduce the people in miniature. No significant segment of the society should be left out; every important interest should be represented. However, as Saul Cornell has shown, views varied considerably within Anti-Federalism.14 Many Anti-​Federalists were not skeptical of representation as such. Even so, they agreed that representation under the new national government would be inadequate. They agreed that large constituencies would be unrepresentative. Large constituencies would be unrepresentative, they argued, because they tend to contain more distinct interests than small constituencies. This, they believed, was simply a fact of sociology, though they would not have called it that. If a constituency contains more than one distinct interest, returning a single representative from that district ensures that some interest or interests will go unrepresented. Anti-​Federalists assumed, perhaps with good reason, that representatives could not represent multiple interests simultaneously. The assumption is certainly reasonable in cases in which interests conflict and

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  103 compete. If a constituency contains both debtors and creditors, for example, its representative cannot faithfully represent both at the same time. Smaller districts, by contrast, because they tend to contain fewer distinct interests, are more likely to be represented “fully” by a single representative. If the aforementioned constituency containing both debtors and creditors were divided into two smaller districts, it could then send two representatives, one representing creditors and the other representing debtors, to the assembly. Anti-​Federalists’ first objection to the size of the proposed national legislature, then, was that it would not represent all of country’s distinct interests.Their second objection was that those chosen as representatives would favor particular interests, again as a sociological fact. Scholars familiar with Publius’s argument for the “extended republic” will immediately grasp the second objection, for it “was the direct opposite of James Madison’s in the tenth number of The Federalist.”15 Madison argued that large districts would “refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens…whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.”16 According to Madison, large constituencies would filter out the “partial considerations” of parochial politicians. Anti-​Federalists agreed that large districts would return “a chosen body of citizens” but disagreed that they would thereby be chosen well. The problem, they argued, was that constituencies, no matter their size, tend to select the most prominent personalities to represent them. But the most prominent men in large constituencies were (and are) almost always rich—​the great—​rather than men of the “middling sort.” Large electoral districts would choose elites like Alexander Hamilton or Robert Livingston (Federalists), whereas smaller districts would choose men like Melancton Smith and his allies at the New York Ratifying Convention (Anti-​Federalists). Even today, as of 2016, the median U.S. Senator, who represents an entire state, is worth nearly six times as much as the median Representative, who in most cases represents a district that is considerably smaller.17 To recap: whereas Anti-​Federalists’ first objection to a small national legislature was that it would not represent all the country’s various interests, their second objection was that a small national legislature would be filled by the rich and the great. With the large constituencies imagined by the new Constitution it would be difficult for ordinary folk to elect anyone other than a merchant, banker, or large landowner; mechanics and small farmers would be excluded—​ not de jure but de facto. The new national legislature would be unrepresentative in two senses: it wouldn’t represent everyone, in terms of interests, and it wouldn’t represent everyone, in terms of class or social position. This is the “standard” Anti-​Federalist account of representation.The national legislature had to be large, most Anti-​Federalists argued, so its constituencies could be small. Constituencies had to be small so that the legislative body would mirror the people it would represent. And they had to be small so that

104  Trevor Latimer ordinary folk, not just bankers and lawyers, could be in the room where it happens. The problem with the standard account—​the problem that the Melancton Smith circle’s sympathy theory of representation resolves—​is that it is opaque about the mechanism through which mirroring yields representativeness. Anti-​Federalists wanted the representative body to mirror the people so as to represent them better. But as the following passage from Bernard Manin’s influential study of representation demonstrates, most Anti-​Federalists, and many of their contemporary interpreters, don’t say how all this actually works. Manin argues, I believe correctly, that Anti-​Federalists advanced a “descriptive” theory of representation, but also that the ‘descriptive’ conception supposes that representatives will spontaneously do as the people would have done since they are a reflection of the people, share the circumstances of their constituents, and are close to them in both the metaphorical and spatial senses of the term.18 As we shall see in the next section, although most Anti-​Federalists failed to explain exactly how representatives would “do as the people would have done,” it does not follow that they would do so spontaneously, as Manin alleges. When Manin says that representatives will do as they people would have done because “they are a reflection of the people, share the circumstances of their constituents, and are close to them in both the metaphorical and spatial senses of the term,” he is describing the conditions under which representatives act representatively rather than how they do it. This is the contribution of Melancton Smith and his circle.While some Anti-​ Federalists fumbled their way toward an explanation of the phenomenon—​that representatives who resemble those they represent make better representatives—​ the Melancton Smith circle explained the mechanism: through sympathy. Representatives who resemble those they represent make better representatives because, and insofar as, they actively sympathize with their constituents. Melancton Smith and his circle also saw—​ with remarkable clarity—​ that members of the “middling sort,” representing small constituencies, were more likely to be capable of sympathizing with all their constituents than rich men, elected from large constituencies.

2  Sympathy and the Melancton Smith circle We now turn to sympathy as it was used by the Melancton Smith circle. By my count, using the digital edition of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, “sympathy,” “sympathize,” and “sympathetic” appear 32 times—​in the relevant sense—​between September 17, 1787, the day the Constitution was signed in Philadelphia, and July 2, 1788, the day the Confederation Congress accepted its ratification.19 By “the relevant sense” I mean those instances in which sympathy refers to political representation.20

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  105 It turns out, in what would be a fascinating coincidence if it were indeed coincidental, that 25 of the 32 references to sympathy come from the state of New York. Nine of these appear in newspapers, four in pamphlets, and twelve in the records of the New York Ratifying Convention in Poughkeepsie. Ten references come from The Federalist. Fourteen come from The Federalist or Hamilton and Madison writing under their own names. And fifteen, nearly half, come from what I am calling, following Michael P. Zuckert and Derek A. Webb, the “Melancton Smith circle.” Seven are from Melancton Smith himself at the New York Ratifying Convention, one is from “Brutus,” four are from “Federal Farmer,” and three are from Melancton Smith’s Anti-​Federalist allies at the New York Ratifying Convention: Gilbert Livingston, John Lansing, Jr., and John Williams. Only three references can be attributed to anyone other than the members of Publius or the Melancton Smith circle.21 Before explaining in detail how the Melancton Smith circle used the concept of sympathy, let me pause to say what the circle was and why it matters. The very idea of the Melancton Smith circle is a clever solution to a vexing attribution problem in the historiography of ratification. While we now know who wrote each of the Federalist essays, the same cannot be said for many of the pseudonymous Anti-​Federalist papers, including “Brutus” and “Federal Farmer.”22 For many years, historians believed that Federal Farmer was Richard Henry Lee and Brutus was Abraham Yates. We now know, with some certainty, that Federal Farmer was not Lee and Brutus was not Yates.23 But we don’t know with certainty who they actually were. The problem is difficult because the literary evidence, assembled by Gordon Wood, Herbert Storing, Robert Webking, Joseph McGaughy, Michael Zuckert, and Derek Webb, and the statistical evidence, compiled by John Burrows, points to Melancton Smith as the author of both the Brutus and Federal Farmer essays.24 This is incredible, however. Why would the same man write two sets of essays, in different media, and under different pseudonyms? The Brutus essays were published in installments in the New York Journal between October 18, 1787 and April 10, 1788. The Federal Farmer essays were published as two pamphlets, the first on November 8, 1787, and the second on May 2, 1788.25 As Zuckert and Webb put the problem: “the two sets of essays are so substantively alike that they must have been written by one man, but so stylistically different that they could not have been.”26 Their solution, which I endorse, is the idea of the Melancton Smith circle: “one of the sets of essays was produced by another author or authors who were close to Smith; who discussed politics with him; and who shared an understanding, a mode of analysis, and a style of thinking.”27 Zuckert and Webb, perhaps prudently, refrain from speculating about who belonged to the Melancton Smith circle. They do, however, reprint all of Melancton Smith’s letters, which offer a few clues. Those to whom Melancton Smith wrote are clearly candidates. These include Henry Livingston, Abraham Yates, John Smith, and Gilbert Livingston. Indeed, in a January 23, 1788 letter

106  Trevor Latimer to Yates, Melancton Smith asked Yates and Samuel Jones for their “observations on this system, especially on the Judicial powers of it, about which very little has yet been written.”28 Additionally, because Melancton Smith was elected by Dutchess County, we can add his fellow delegates from Dutchess, including John De Witt, Jr. and Gilbert Livingston. Finally, Marinus Willett, John Lamb, and Samuel Jones were members, with Melancton Smith, of the Federal Republican Society of New York; Lamb, Smith, and Jones served on its correspondence committee.29 Beyond Melancton Smith’s correspondents, his fellow delegates from Dutchess Country, and the members of Federal Republican Society, we surely should include, as potential members of the Melancton Smith circle, any Anti-​ Federalist who used the concept of sympathy. Because the Brutus essays, the Federal Farmer essays, and Melancton Smith’s speeches are “so substantively alike,” as Zuckert and Webb insist, and since sympathy otherwise appears so rarely in the ratification debate, it seems quite plausible that Gilbert Livingston, John Lansing, Jr., and John Williams, each of whom used sympathy, were members of the Melancton Smith circle. Gilbert Livingston is especially promising, as he was from Dutchess County, a correspondent of Melancton Smith’s, and used sympathy at the New York Ratifying Convention.

3 The sympathy theory of representation Despite having introduced the Melancton Smith circle and collecting all its extant writings in a single volume, Zuckert and Webb only refer to sympathy in quotation—​never in their own voice. Nor does any other scholar of Anti-​Federalism single out sympathy as a distinctive feature in the writings of Melancton Smith and his circle. But sympathy is there, and it does important work. Here I reconstruct the sympathy theory of representation by taking up each reference to sympathy by the Melancton Smith circle, in chronological order. Sympathy first appeared in Brutus’s third letter “To the CITIZENS of the STATE of New-​York,” published in the New York Journal on November 15, 1787. Brutus begins with what I have called the “standard” Anti-​Federalist account of representation. He argues that with the small national legislature imagined by the new Constitution, the great body of the yeomen of the country cannot expect any of their order in this assembly…the distance between the people and their representatives, will be so very great, that there is no probability that a farmer, however respectable, will be chosen. The consequence being that “there will be no part of the people represented, but the rich.” This much the argument is familiar. Recall that according to the standard Anti-​Federalist account of representation the rich have distinct interests, so a

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  107 legislature controlled by the rich would inevitably neglect the interests of the lower orders.The standard account says nothing special about the rich, however. The same objection would apply to a legislature dominated by any class, rich, poor, working, or middle. Brutus doesn’t leave the matter there; he explains exactly why a legislature dominated by the rich is so problematic. Invoking sympathy for the first time in the ratification debate, Brutus says: “the well born, and highest orders in life, as they term themselves, will be ignorant of the sentiments of the middling class of citizens, strangers to their ability, wants, and difficulties, and void of sympathy, and fellow feeling.” We might say, on Brutus’s behalf, that the rich are deficient in two respects, one epistemological and one sentimental. The rich are deficient epistemologically because they lack sufficient knowledge of the abilities, desires, challenges, and opinions, of those in the middle classes. Presumably they are also ignorant of the opinions, abilities, desires, and challenges of the poor.30 The rich are deficient sentimentally because they lack sympathy and fellow feeling. The epistemological deficiency refers to facts; the sentimental deficiency refers to feelings. We should distinguish between epistemological and sentimental deficiencies because it’s possible for someone to be deficient in one respect but not the other. A representative might possess perfect knowledge of a group’s opinions, abilities, desires, and challenges without sympathizing with its members (i.e. without the appropriate feelings). Similarly, it’s possible to sympathize with the members of particular group without knowing much about them. Thus, when Brutus invokes sympathy in his criticism of the Constitution, he is making a subtle point, one that most of his fellow Anti-​Federalists failed to articulate. According to Brutus, the new national legislature would be dominated by the rich because it would be too small, and a legislature dominated by the rich would be epistemologically and sentimentally deficient. While Brutus extends the standard Anti-​Federalist account of representation by explaining why we should be wary of a small assembly dominated by rich men in particular—​because rich men typically lack sympathy for the lower orders—​he does not explain how rich men come to be sentimentally deficient. Federal Farmer gets us closer to an answer in “An Additional Number of Letters to the Republican,” published as a pamphlet on May 2, 1788. In Letter VII (dated December 31, 1787), he insists that members of the lower chamber “must possess abilities to discern the situation of the people and of public affairs, a disposition to sympathize with the people, and a capacity and inclination to make laws congenial to their circumstances and condition.” Instead of simply saying that the rich are “void of sympathy,” à la Brutus, Federal Farmer clarifies that representatives should have a disposition to sympathize with the people. Rich men are “void of sympathy,” according to Federal Farmer, because they don’t have the disposition to sympathize. Later in Letter VII, Federal Farmer alludes to a condition—​proximity—​ that facilitates sympathy between representatives and their constituents:

108  Trevor Latimer “a small representation can never be well informed as to the circumstances of the people, the members of it must be too far removed from the people, in general, to sympathize with them, and too few to communicate with them[.]” ‌As Federal Farmer sees it, since “a small representation” implies large constituencies, each representative would be further away from his or her constituents. In large constituencies, representatives must travel farther in order to gather information concerning “the circumstances of the people.” Indeed, with large constituencies, each representative “can only mix, and be acquainted with a few respectable characters among his constituents,” not all of them.31 Federal Farmer completes the argument in Letter XI (January 10, 1788), in a discussion of rotation in office: [O]‌ccasionally to be among the people, is not only necessary to prevent or banish the callous habits and self-​interested views of office in legislators, but to afford them necessary information, and to render them useful: another valuable end is answered by it, sympathy, and the means of communication between them and their constituents, is substantially promoted[.] This passage suggests, consistent with Letter VII, that being “among the people” facilitates sympathy. The structure of the passage indicates, furthermore, that sympathy is not reducible to information or communication; sympathy is “another valuable end.”32 Let me briefly restate the argument from Brutus and Federal Farmer, as I have reconstructed it thus far. First, small legislatures, as in the proposed Constitution, are dangerous because they tend to be dominated by rich men. Rich men make bad representatives because they typically lack the disposition to sympathize with the lower orders. Second, proximity between representatives and their constituents facilitates sympathy, and sympathy’s value is not reducible to that of information or communication. Five months later, at the New York Ratifying Convention (June 17–​July 26), Melancton Smith would use sympathy and its variants seven times, while his allies, John Lansing, Jr., Gilbert Livingston, and John Williams, would each mention sympathy once. We’ve already encountered, in the first paragraph of this article, Melancton Smith’s first reference to sympathy. That is the passage, where he insists that representatives should “sympathize in all their” constituents’ “distresses,” for which Smith is best known. Later in the same speech (June 21, 1788), Smith warns his fellow New Yorkers that they “ought to guard against the government being placed in the hands of ” the rich, for they “cannot have that sympathy with their constituents which is

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  109 necessary to connect them closely to their interest.” Sympathy here is a condition of interest representation. He also argues that the rich should not be trusted with the public’s finances: “Being in the habit of profuse living, they will be profuse in the public expences.They find no difficulty in paying their taxes, and therefore do not feel public burthens[.]‌”The middle class,“from their frugal habits, and feeling themselves the public burdens,” by contrast, “will be careful how they increase them.” This is an especially pregnant example of the function of sympathy in political representation. Melancton Smith argues that the rich will make bad representatives, especially with respect to financial matters, because their circumstances prevent them from sharing the feelings of “the middling class.” The rich will be careless with public funds, Smith suggests, because they don’t know what paying onerous taxes feels like; they don’t sympathize with overburdened middleclass taxpayers. Two days later, on June 23, 1788, Alexander Hamilton took issue with Melancton Smith’s characterization of the rich. Hamilton claimed, sincerely it seems, that “the sympathy of the poor is generally selfish; that of the rich a more disinterested emotion.” Melancton Smith responded by defending his earlier claims, using the concept of sympathy once more. The following day, Gilbert Livingston took up the relationship between sympathy and representation from a new angle. Livingston said that Senators would reside “in this Eden,” referring to the future District of Columbia, “with their families, distant from the observation of the people. In such a situation,” Livingston reasoned, “men are apt to forget their dependence—​lose their sympathy, and contract selfish habits.” Later that day, John Lansing, Jr. defended a proposed amendment to the Constitution to prohibit senators from serving more than six years in every twelve. This way, Lansing said, senators would “return, at certain periods, to their fellow citizens” so that they could “revive that sympathy with their feelings, which power and an exalted station are too apt to efface from the minds of rulers.”33 Sympathy appeared for the final time on June 27, 1788, in a speech by John Williams.Williams’s subject was Congress’s power to tax. He observed that people in England are “oppressed with a variety of other heavy taxes” in addition to “taxes for births, marriages and deaths.” “What reason,” he asked, “have we to suppose that our rulers will be more sympathetic, and heap lighter burthens upon their constituents than the rulers of other countries?” The question was of course rhetorical; its answer, assuming a small legislature populated by the rich, was “none.”

4  Melancton Smith, sympathy, and Adam Smith We’ve now seen how the Melancton Smith circle used the concept of sympathy in their theory of representation. Sympathy is how representatives represent well; sympathy is how representatives come to feel as their constituents do.

110  Trevor Latimer To recap, once again: according to the standard Anti-​Federalist account of representation, the national legislature should be large enough to represent every distinct interest and to avoid being dominated by the rich. Melancton Smith and his circle extended the standard account, in the sympathy theory of representation, by explaining why representatives from small districts would be more likely to represent their constituents’ “true interests,” and why rich men would ordinarily make bad representatives. I now argue that Adam Smith’s conception of sympathy, far more than David Hume’s competing conception, accounts quite naturally for what’s distinctive in the sympathy theory of representation. The contrast with Hume is for illustrative purposes. In general, Adam Smith’s account fares better than Hume’s because it is, as Stephen Darwall has suggested, “richer, more sophisticated, and, arguably, more suggestive for a wider range of issues,” including representation.34 Moreover, as Fonna Forman-​Barzilai observes, Adam Smith’s account of the relationship between sympathy and proximity “is richer and ultimately more provocative for us today.”35 More specifically, Adam Smith’s conception of sympathy fits quite naturally into the sympathy theory of representation because it hinges on imaginative “projection,” unlike Hume’s “contagion” conception.36 In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith claims that we sympathize with another person by “conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation.”37 We imaginatively project ourselves “into his body, and become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though weaker in degree, is not altogether unlike them.”38 For Smith, then, imagination is the mechanism through which sympathy takes place. Imaginative projection is how we sympathize. For Hume, by contrast, in the Treatise of Human Nature,39 “to sympathize with others” is “to receive by communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different from, or even contrary to our own.”40 “When any affection is infus’d by sympathy,” Hume explains, “it is at first known only by its effects, and by those external signs in the countenance and conversation, which convey an idea of it.”41 This means that for Hume to sympathize with another, one must be able to observe or otherwise receive “the external signs” of an affection in the other person. Once received, the recipient forms an idea of the affection from those external signs. That idea is then “converted into an impression.”42 Finally, the impression “acquires such a degree of force and vivacity, as to become the very passion itself, and produce an equal emotion, as any original affection.”43 Adam Smith’s is a projection conception of sympathy because, according to his view, people sympathize by projecting themselves, using their imagination, into the other; they adopt the other person’s perspective; they step into their shoes. Hume’s is a contagion conception because, according to his view, we sympathize by receiving, “by communication,” the feelings of the other

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  111 person. For Hume, we sympathize by “catching” the other person’s emotions, as revealed in external signs. *** The differences between Adam Smith’s projection conception and Hume’s contagion conception of sympathy matter, for our purposes, because in each case Smith’s conception accounts for or illuminates the sympathy theory of representation; Hume’s does not—​or does so less well. I consider three differences in the following. First, whereas for Hume proximity is a necessary condition for sympathy, for Smith proximity “seems to be neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for sympathetic response.”44 Second, for Hume, genuine sympathy is passive whereas sympathy, for Smith, is active. Third, Smith argues that the rich do not sympathize with the poor; for Hume, sympathy is symmetrical: the rich and the poor sympathize with one another. Let me say a bit more about each difference, beginning with proximity. Hume says that the success of sympathy depends on the strength of the relationship between the recipient and the original affection’s source: “The stronger the relation is betwixt ourselves and any object, the more easily does the imagination make the transition, and convey to the related idea the vivacity of conception, with which we always form the idea of our own person.”45 One of the “relations” that facilitates “the transition” in Hume’s associationism is resemblance. The greater the resemblance between two persons, the more easily affections are transferred between them. The effects of resemblance on sympathy are enhanced, Hume adds, “from other relations, that may accompany it,” e.g., contiguity, consanguinity, and acquaintance.46 Contiguity, in particular, is required for the sentiments of others to “communicate themselves entirely.”47 Proximity eases the transfer of sentiments because it is “natural for us to consider with most attention such as lie contiguous to us.”48 Presumably, when things are closer, we pay more attention to them and thereby make more detailed, and perhaps more accurate, observations of the relevant external signs. More detailed observations then generate more accurate ideas, and so on. Hume writes in these passages as though proximity merely facilitates sympathy. Hume had argued, however, that “any affection is…first known only by its…external signs.”49 It follows that if the potential recipient of an affection is far enough away that she cannot even observe the relevant external signs, sympathy will be impossible, not just less likely.50 That is, if one takes Hume’s contagion metaphor seriously, as a lay reader across the Atlantic surely would have, physical proximity is, for Hume, a necessary condition of genuine sympathy. Not so for Adam Smith. Note that for Adam Smith, “the imagination must do all of the work of sympathy.”51 The imagination is powerful, according to Smith. By contrast, Hume famously remarked, in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, that the imagination “is really confined within very narrow limits, and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials

112  Trevor Latimer afforded us by the senses and experience.”52 Because sympathy, for Smith, is wholly imaginative, it is not constrained by physical proximity the way it is for Hume, given the latter’s account of the imagination. If the Melancton Smith circle had been following Hume, rather than Adam Smith, on sympathy, they would have taken proximity even more seriously than they did. For representatives to sympathize with all their constituents’ distresses, à la Hume, they would have had to traverse their districts, exposing themselves to all—​every last one—​of their constituents’ affections. It’s curious, on this score, that when Melancton Smith suggested an amendment to increase the size of national legislature, he proposed that “the number of representatives be fixed at the rate of one for every twenty thousand inhabitants…until they amount to three hundred.” If we assume, for a moment, that representatives spend half their time in their home districts, at Melancton Smith’s ratio representatives would need to “catch” the sentiments of about 55 constituents per day. And by capping the representation at 300, that number would have increased as soon as the population of the United States reached 6 million.53 Had Hume been Melancton Smith’s inspiration on sympathy, he surely would have proposed even smaller districts. Melancton Smith’s proposal to increase—​modestly—​the size of the national legislature, by contrast, is perfectly consistent according to Adam Smith’s conception of sympathy. According to that conception, proximity facilitates but is neither necessary nor sufficient for sympathy. Sympathy, as Smith argues, “does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it.”54 Proximity, therefore, allows representatives to gather facts about the situation(s) of their constituents, which they can then use to imaginatively project themselves into all of them. On Adam Smith’s conception of sympathy, but not Hume’s, it makes sense that Melancton Smith wanted more proximity, but not to commit himself to minuscule constituencies. To be sure, something similar is possible under Hume’s conception of sympathy. Hume might have claimed that representatives could use a “general rule,” so as to “conceive a lively idea of the passion, or rather feel the passion itself, in the same manner, as if the person were really actuated by it.”55 This is sympathy “of a partial kind,” however.56 And this departure from Hume’s contagion metaphor isn’t easy to spot, especially for the lay reader. The second difference between Adam Smith’s projection conception and Hume’s contagion conception of sympathy is simpler than the first, and more important for my argument. Roughly speaking, sympathy for Smith is active whereas it is passive for Hume. When the Melancton Smith circle mentions sympathy as a desideratum of representation, they argue as though it is something representatives do rather than something that happens to them. They want representatives to go out and actively sympathize with their constituents. In their view, sympathy is not just a byproduct of other activities—​communication and information gathering, for instance. On this point, recall Federal Farmer’s claim that sympathy is “another valuable end,” not reducible to information or communication.

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  113 For that matter, when representatives actively and intentionally attempt to sympathize with their constituents, they can be seen doing so. When constituents see their representatives trying to sympathize in all their distresses, they, along with their representatives, are more likely to feel “the pleasure of mutual sympathy.”57 In modern parlance, people want to feel heard by their representatives. Representatives who make themselves seen in their districts, who ask their constituents detailed questions, who roll up their sleeves for local charities, who eschew ostentatious displays of wealth, and who shop for their own groceries are popular in part because sympathy goes both ways. People want representatives whose feelings they can share. This is why President George H. W. Bush was criticized for not knowing the price of a gallon of milk. It is also why videos of President Donald Trump callously—​dare I say unsympathetically—​throwing paper towels to hurricane victims in Puerto Rico are so grating.58 Hume’s passive conception of sympathy does not easily capture any of this. If sympathy is something that just happens, how do representatives make it clear to their constituents that they are sympathizing with them? Moreover, under Hume’s account, it’s not clear whether sympathizing with one’s constituents is distinct from communicating with them or learning about them. Presumably, representatives who communicate with their constituents and try to learn about them firsthand will also receive “by communication” their sentiments. But if sympathy is a necessary or unavoidable byproduct of other kinds of interactions, à la Hume, why did the Melancton Smith circle bother mentioning sympathy at all? Again, as Federal Farmer put it, sympathy is “another valuable end.” The Melancton Smith circle wouldn’t have added sympathy to the standard Anti-​Federalist account of representation if they had thought it came about, as Manin puts it, “spontaneously.” The third and final difference between Smith’s projection and Hume’s contagion account of sympathy concerns the capacities of the rich to sympathize with the lower orders. Smith’s conception, but not Hume’s, captures the Melancton Smith circle’s claim that small legislatures, dominated by the rich, are dangerous because the rich are less likely to be capable of sympathizing with the lower orders. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith has an extensive discussion of sympathy with the rich.59 Smith observes that “mankind are disposed to sympathize more entirely with our joy than our sorrow.”60 It follows, Smith argues, that people are naturally disposed “to go along with all the passions of the rich and the powerful.”61 Even when the great deserve our “fear, hatred, and resentment,” the people “are apt to relent every moment, and easily relapse into their habitual state of dependence to those whom they have been accustomed to look upon as their natural superiors.”62 Smith adds, in a key passage, that “the great never look upon their inferiors as their fellow creatures.”63

114  Trevor Latimer The rich and the great, because of their rank, can get by with “talents and virtues…not…much above mediocrity[.]‌”64 A person of inferior rank, by contrast, “must acquire superior knowledge in his profession, and superior industry in the exercise of it. He must be patient in labour, resolute in danger, and firm in distress.”65 The success of “men in the inferior and middling stations in life… almost always depends upon the favor and good opinion of their neighbors and equals; and without a tolerably regular conduct these can very seldom be obtained.”66 The rich man “shutters with horror at the thought of any situation which demands the continual and long exertion of patience, industry, fortitude, and application of thought.”67 Three features of Adam Smith’s account of the rich are worth noting. First, sympathy with the rich comes naturally to everyone. Second, the rich do not, at least ordinarily, sympathize with the lower orders. Third, unless people of inferior rank obtain wealth, they must acquire the admiration of their fellows through intelligence and hard work. These three features account for the Melancton Smith circle’s skepticism toward legislatures dominated by the rich. First, because sympathy with the great comes naturally, there is no need to worry that their interests will be neglected. Everyone sympathizes with the rich, but the lower orders, because of their upbringing and circumstances, are more likely to be able to sympathize with their own order, and that of the poor. Second, the rich typically make bad representatives because they “never look upon their inferiors as their fellow creatures.” Echoing Adam Smith, Brutus argued that “the well born, and highest orders in life…will be…void of sympathy, and fellow feeling.” At the New York Ratifying Convention, Melancton Smith claimed that the rich, “being in the habit of profuse living…do not feel public burthens.” Third, Adam Smith’s discussion of the virtues of the lower orders complements the Melancton Smith circle’s celebration of yeoman farmers. Men of the middling sort have “frugal habits” according to Federal Farmer, “probity and prudence, generosity and frankness” according to Adam Smith.68 And there are reasons to believe that men of the lower orders, having something to prove, will simply do a better job than the rich, to whom everything comes as a matter of course. Another way to state the difference between Adam Smith’s and Hume’s conception of sympathy, with respect to the rich, is that Smith’s account of sympathy between social classes is asymmetrical and Hume’s is symmetrical. For Smith, the lower orders sympathize with the rich, but the rich do not sympathize, or have difficulty sympathizing, with the lower orders. The poor man feels that his poverty “either places him out of the sight of mankind, or, that if they take any notice of him, they have, however, scarce any fellow-​feeling with the misery and distress which he suffers.”69 Rich men, to repeat, “never look upon their inferiors as their fellow creatures.” This is precisely why the Melancton Smith circle wanted a legislature populated by “the middling sort.”

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  115 Hume’s account of sympathy between social classes, by contrast, appears to be entirely symmetrical. In the Treatise, Hume remarks, “there remains nothing, which can give us an esteem for power and riches, and a contempt for meanness and poverty, except the principle of sympathy, by which we enter into the sentiments of the rich and poor, and partake of their pleasures and uneasiness.”70 Further evidence of symmetry can be found in Hume’s suggestion that the “minds of men are mirrors to one another…because they reflect each others emotions.”71 Although Hume argues that sympathy gives rise to contempt for meanness and poverty, he does not deny that we enter into the “sentiments of the…poor,” nor that we “partake of their…uneasiness.” Adam Smith, for his part, says “we feel for the misery of others,”72 but Smith and not Hume singles out the rich for their diminished capacity to sympathize with their inferiors. To summarize, Adam Smith’s projection conception of sympathy accounts for and illuminates the sympathy theory of representation far better than David Hume’s contagion conception because for Smith, proximity is neither necessary nor sufficient for sympathy; sympathy is active rather than passive; and sympathy between social classes is asymmetrical rather than symmetrical. The same is true for sympathy in the Melancton Smith circle’s theory of representation: proximity facilitates sympathy but isn’t necessary; sympathy is active rather than passive; and sympathy does not go both ways, between the rich and the lower orders.

Conclusion It’s not implausible to conclude from the foregoing that the Melancton Smith circle’s idea of sympathy—​the idea that distinguishes its theory of representation from that of countless other Anti-​Federalists, in a remarkably productive and sophisticated way—​is in every important respect the same as Adam Smith’s in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. To be clear, the evidence presented here demonstrates the striking substantive similarities between sympathy as it was used by a select group of Anti-​ Federalists and sympathy as it was used by Adam Smith. It does not establish that anyone in the Melancton Smith circle had ever read The Theory of Moral Sentiments or otherwise encountered Adam Smith’s ideas. But they certainly could have. The Theory of Moral Sentiments appeared in 16% of American libraries from 1700 to 1776 and in 31% from 1776 to 1790.73 David Lundberg and Henry F. May argue that among the writers of the Scottish Enlightenment, “the most popular book was Adam Smith’s work on moral philosophy.”74 According to Samuel Fleischacker, “John Witherspoon incorporated” The Theory of Moral Sentiments “into his teaching at Princeton,” Thomas Jefferson recommended it for a private library, John Adams discussed it in print, and Benjamin Rush quoted it in a lecture.75 And Melancton Smith, born in 1744, was eighteen years old when the first copies of The Theory of Moral Sentiments were advertised in British North America.

116  Trevor Latimer In 1773, George Washington ordered a copy of The Theory of Moral Sentiments for John Parke Custis, his stepson, for the latter’s use at King’s College (now Columbia) in New York City.76 Fleischacker interprets this as evidence that Smith’s book was “was used in college curriculums.”77 James Madison, who used sympathy nine times in the ratification debate, was a student of Witherspoon’s at Princeton from 1769 to 1771.78 Alexander Hamilton, who used sympathy four times, attended King’s College from 1774 to 1776. Gilbert Livingston, Melancton Smith’s ally at the New York Ratifying Convention, entered King’s College in 1756 and Marinus Willet, Melancton Smith’s fellow member of the New York Republican Society, matriculated at King’s in 1772.79 Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments appears in the catalog of the New York Society Library in 1773 and 1789. James Duane, Robert Livingston, Richard Morris, Samuel Jones, and Philip Livingston, all delegates to the New York Ratifying Convention, were subscribers to the New York Society Library in 1773.80 Unfortunately, the library was looted in 1776 by the British Army and was not reconstituted until 1788.81 However, as Robin Brooks notes, “Melancton Smith spent some of his early years in New York City”.82 He also served, along with Gilbert Livingston, Abraham Yates, Jr., and Robert Yates in New York’s Provincial Congress, held in New York City in 1775.83 The Theory of Moral Sentiments was advertised for sale in New York City in 1762 and repeatedly in 1786, when Melancton Smith was living there. Melancton Smith and his circle, then, had ample opportunities to get their hands on The Theory of Moral Sentiments, or discuss ethics and politics with someone who had. Even if the circumstantial evidence amounts to nothing, the striking substantive similarities remain. Indeed, the conception of sympathy at work in the writings of the Melancton Smith circle is far too nuanced to be that of sympathy in the generic sense afloat in the late eighteenth-​century. It’s worth taking another moment to consider how strange it is that a concept so pregnant with implications—​sympathy—​appeared so rarely in what is surely one of the most consequential debates in the history of the United States, and yet, when it did appear, was used by such a small and well-​connected group of people. Even if the connection between Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Melancton Smith circle’s sympathy theory of representation is spurious, the latter is clearly interesting and important in its own right. Sympathy is a neglected but fertile facet of representation; representatives, even today, can represent their constituents better by imagining what it would be like to be them. And there is no need to let Melancton Smith and his circle have the last word.They developed their theory amid the rough and tumble of practical politics, and like all theories, it was shaped by its context. There is value, I argue, in stepping away from the ratification debate to consider what a sympathy theory of representation might look like now.

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  117 The sympathy theory of representation goes beyond more familiar theories—​interest representation, virtual representation, actual representation, even descriptive representation—​by focusing on the interpersonal relationship between representatives and constituents. Descriptive representation supposes that representatives represent their constituents better when they are like them; sympathetic representation, by contrast, supposes that representatives represent their constituents better when they sympathize with them. Sympathetic representation specifies one mechanism through which descriptive representation works the way we think it should. Representatives who are like their constituents find it easier to step into their shoes. This matters all the more when the constituents in question are racial, cultural, or ethnic minorities. Female representatives may not agree on the issues with their female constituents, but at least they know something about what it is like be women. The sympathy theory of representation has another advantage. Even when representatives are in no way like their constituents, sympathetic representation does not leave the matter there. The sympathy theory tells representatives what they can do. A representative can “adopt the whole case of his companion with all of its minutest incidents; and strive to render as perfect as possible, that imaginary change of situation upon which sympathy is founded.”84 According to the sympathy theory of representation, then, resemblance is merely a means to an end.85 Resemblance is desirable when it eases the burden of imaginative projection. The sympathy theory also specifies a novel desideratum of political representation: imaginative dexterity.86 Good representatives, according to the sympathy theory, have well-​developed imaginative capacities. Because of their natural talents, dispositions, or their experiences, good representatives excel at imagining themselves as unfamiliar others. Through the two Smiths, then—​Melancton and Adam—​we have stumbled upon a theory of representation with considerable promise for our own time. In our increasingly fractured and fluid world,87 in which borders are simultaneously defended and porous, and in which the other is often our neighbor, we should demand sympathy and imagination from our representatives. More can and should be done the relationship between representation and sympathy. Melancton Smith and his circle argued, persuasively, that representatives represent well when they sympathize with their constituents. Adam Smith argued, persuasively, that we sympathize best when we imaginatively project ourselves into the situation of another. Representatives around the world, and theorists of representation, should take note: imagination is at least as important as principles, conscience, or expertise—​perhaps more so.

Notes 1 H. R. French, “Social Status, Localism and the ‘Middle Sort of People’ in England 1620-​1750,” Past & Present, no. 166 (2000).

118  Trevor Latimer 2 The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution Digital Edition, ed. John P. Kaminski, et al. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2009), emphasis added. Unless otherwise noted, quotations are from the searchable DHRC Digital Edition, http://​rotu​nda.upr​ess.virgi​nia.edu/​found​ers/​RNCN 3 Michael P. Zuckert and Derek A. Webb, eds., The Anti-​Federalist Writings of the Melancton Smith Circle (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2009). 4 I discuss what we know about Melancton in the conclusion. On Melancton, see Robin Brooks,“Melancton Smith: NewYork Anti-​Federalist, 1744-​1798” (PhD diss., University of Rochester, 1964); Robin Brooks, “Alexander Hamilton, Melancton Smith, and the Ratification of the Constitution in New York,” The William and Mary Quarterly 24, no. 3 (1967); Joel A. Johnson, “Disposed to Seek Their True Interests: Representation and Responsibility in Anti-​Federalist Thought,” Review of Politics 66, no. 4 (2004); Robert H. Webking, “Melancton Smith and the Letters from the Federal Farmer,” The William and Mary Quarterly 44, no. 3 (1987). 5 For a summary, see Saul Cornell, The Other Founders:Anti-​Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-​1828 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 30–​31. 6 The United States did not control the mouth of the Mississippi until acquiring the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. 7 Peverill Squire, “Historical Evolution of Legislatures in the United States,” Annual Review of Political Science 9, no. 1 (2006): 22. Pennsylvania and Georgia had unicameral legislatures in this period. 8 Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The House of Commons, 1754-​ 1790, 3 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 1:2. 9 Eric Nelson, The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014), 72. 10 Observations upon Some of His Majesties Late Answers and Expresses (London: 1742). Quoted in Nelson, The Royalist Revolution, 73. 11 “Thoughts on Government,” April 1776, in C. James Taylor, ed. The Adams Papers Digital Edition (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008–​ ), https://​rotu​nda.upr​ess.virgi​nia.edu/​found​ers/​ADMS 12 Herbert J. Storing, What the Anti-​Federalists Were For (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 43. 13 Thomas Paine, Common Sense; Addressed to the Inhabitants of America (Philadelphia: R. Bell, 1776), 4. 14 Cornell, The Other Founders. 15 Pauline Maier, Ratification:The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-​1788 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010). 16 Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist with Letters of “Brutus”, ed. Terence Ball (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 44. 17 See OpenSecrets, www.open​secr​ets.org/​perso​nal-​finan​ces 18 Bernard Manin, The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 111, emphasis in original. 19 Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-​1789, vol. 34 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904), 281–​282. 20 I used the search term “sympat*” so as to capture “sympathy,” “sympathetic,” “sympathize,” and “sympathise.”The asterisk operates as a wildcard and returns any word beginning with “sympat”. Searches using lowercase letters are automatically case-​ insensitive, so the search includes capitalized forms. Note, furthermore, that at the

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  119 time of writing, the digital edition included 28 of the 29 volumes in print.The search, therefore, excludes only one volume, “Ratification by the States: Confederation Congress and Vermont.” See www.wisco​nsin​hist​ory.org/​whspr​ess/​ser​ies.asp 21 See an “Extract of a letter from the Hon. William Pierce, Esq. to St. George Tucker, Esq. dated New York, Sept. 28, 1787,” published in the Gazette of the State of Georgia on March 20, 1788; “Samuel Chase: Objections to the Constitution, 24–​25 April 1788”; “David Ramsay Oration,” published in the Charleston Columbian Herald, on June 5, 1788. 22 Eran Shalev, “Ancient Masks, American Fathers: Classical Pseudonyms during the American Revolution and Early Republic,” Journal of the Early Republic 23, no. 2 (2003). 23 See Zuckert and Webb, The Melancton Smith Circle, xiv–​xvii, xxi–​xxv. 24 Literary evidence: Joseph Kent McGaughy, “The Authorship of ‘The Letters from the Federal Farmer’, Revisited,” NewYork History 70, no. 2 (1989); Herbert J. Storing, ed. The Complete Anti-​Federalist, 7 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); Webking, “Melancton Smith and the Letters from the Federal Farmer.”; Gordon S. Wood, “The Authorship of the Letters from the Federal Farmer,” The William and Mary Quarterly 31, no. 2 (1974); Zuckert and Webb, The Melancton Smith Circle. Statistical evidence: John Burrows, “The Authorship of Two Sets of Anti-​Federalist Papers: A Computational Approach,” in The Anti-​Federalist Writings of the Melancton Smith Circle, ed. Michael P. Zuckert and Derek A. Webb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2009). For a dissenting view, see Joel A. Johnson, “  ‘Brutus’ and ‘Cato’ Unmasked: General John Williams’s Role in the New York Ratification Debate, 1787-​88,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 118, no. 2 (2009). 25 The essays were, however, dated separately. 26 Zuckert and Webb, The Melancton Smith Circle, xxix. 27 Zuckert and Webb, The Melancton Smith Circle, xxix. 28 Zuckert and Webb, The Melancton Smith Circle, 333. 29 Zuckert and Webb, The Melancton Smith Circle, 377. 30 Samuel Chase makes this point explicitly: the “rich and wealthy...will be ignorant of the sentiments of the middling (and much more of the lower) class of citizens, strangers to their ability, unacquainted with their wants, difficulties and distress and need of sympathy and fellow feeling.” Objections to the Constitution, 24–​25 April 1788. 31 Federal Farmer repeats the point about “the want of sympathy, information and intercourse between the representatives and the people” once more in Letter VII. 32 Emphasis added. 33 Sympathy surfaces four more times in the DHRC entry for June 25. They appear in Melancton Smith’s notes for his speech, in which he more or less repeated Livingston’s and Lansing’s arguments. 34 Stephen Darwall, “Sympathetic Liberalism: Recent Work on Adam Smith,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 28, no. 2 (2005): 140. 35 Fonna Forman-​Barzilai, Adam Smith and the Circles of Sympathy: Cosmopolitanism and Moral Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 5. On distance, also see Maria Pia Paganelli, “The Moralizing Role of Distance in Adam Smith: The Theory of Moral Sentiments as Possible Praise of Commerce,” History of Political Economy 42, no. 3 (2010). 36 I borrow these labels from Samuel Fleischacker, “Sympathy in Hume and Smith: A Contrast, Critique, and Reconstruction,” in Intersubjectivity and Objectivity in Adam

120  Trevor Latimer Smith and Edmund Husserl: A Collection of Essays, ed. Christel Fricke and Dagfinn Föllesdal (Frankfurt: Ontos, 2012); Stephen Darwall, “Empathy, Sympathy, Care,” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 89, no. 2/​3 (1998). 37 Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982 [1759]), 9. 38 Smith, TMS, 9. 39 I use Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, even though it was not widely circulated in the United States, because it provides an explicit description of Hume’s associationist conception of sympathy. Some scholars have argued that the associationist account of sympathy—​what I am calling the “contagion” conception—​vanishes from Hume’s later work, notably the Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, which were more widely circulated than the Treatise in America as part of Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (1753, 1768). (On the availability of the Treatise in America, I thank Glory Liu.) This would be problematic for my argument if I were suggesting that Anti-​Federalists were drawing on the Treatise directly, and if only the Treatise contained the contagion conception of sympathy. Remy Debes has persuasively argued, however, that Hume simplified, but did not abandon, his associationist account of sympathy from the Treatise in the Enquiries. Remy Debes, “Has Anything Changed? Hume’s Theory of Association and Sympathy after the Treatise,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15, no. 2 (2007). The associationist/​contagion conception was therefore available, even if less obviously, to Americans who had not read the Treatise. 40 David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-​Bigge, 2nd edition with text revised and notes by P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978 [1739–​ 1740]), 316. 41 Hume, Treatise, 317. 42 Hume, Treatise, 317. 43 Hume, Treatise, 317. 44 Forman-​Barzilai, Adam Smith and the Circles of Sympathy, 141. 45 Hume, Treatise, 318. 46 Hume, Treatise, 318. 47 Hume, Treatise, 318. 48 Hume, Treatise, 340-​41. 49 Hume, Treatise, 317. 50 Hume says that “pity depends, in a great measure, on the contiguity, and even sight of the object[.]‌” Hume, Treatise, 370. 51 Fleischacker, “Sympathy in Hume and Smith,” 280, emphasis in original. 52 David Hume, Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-​Bigge, 2nd edition (Oxford:The Clarendon Press, 1902), 19. 53 The population of the United States was already 3,929,000 by 1790 and reached 6,000,000 by 1804, according to Census estimates. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1790, Bicentennial Edition, Part 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975), 9. 54 Smith, TMS, 12. 55 Hume, Treatise, 371, emphasis in original.

Melancton Smith, Adam Smith, and the sympathy theory  121 56 Hume, Treatise, 371. 57 Smith, TMS, 13. 58 David Nakamura and Ashley Parker, “ ‘It totally belittled the moment’: Many look back in dismay at Trump’s tossing of paper towels in Puerto Rico,” Washington Post, September 13, 2018, www.was​hing​tonp​ost.com/​polit​ics/​it-​tota​lly-​belitt​led-​the-​ mom​ent-​many-​look-​back-​in-​anger-​at-​tru​mps-​toss​ing-​of-​paper-​tow​els-​in-​pue​ rto-​r ico/​2018/​09/​13/​8a364​7d2-​b77e-​11e8-​a2c5-​318​7f42​7e25​3_​st​ory.html. The Washington Post article includes a link to a YouTube video of the incident. 59 I thank an anonymous reviewer for reminding me of these passages in TMS. 60 Smith, TMS, 50. 61 Smith, TMS, 52. 62 Smith, TMS, 53. 63 Smith, TMS, 55. 64 Smith, TMS, 54. 65 Smith, TMS, 55. 66 Smith, TMS, 63. 67 Smith, TMS, 56. 68 Smith, TMS, 54. 69 Smith, TMS, 51. 70 Hume, Treatise, 362, emphasis in original. 71 Hume, Treatise, 365. 72 Smith, TMS, 9. 73 David Lundberg and Henry F. May,“The Enlightened Reader in America,” American Quarterly 28, no. 2 (1976). Hume’s Essays and Treaties on Several Subjects, which contains Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, appeared in 25% of American libraries from 1700 to 1776 and in 24% from 1776 to 1790. 74 Lundberg and May, “The Enlightened Reader in America,” 268. 75 Samuel Fleischacker, “Adam Smith’s Reception among the American Founders, 1776-​1790,” The William and Mary Quarterly 59, no. 4 (2002): 898. 76 To Robert Cary & Company, Theodore J. Crackel, ed. The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008), https://​rotu​nda.upr​ess.virgi​nia.edu/​found​ers/​GEWN 77 Fleischacker, “Adam Smith’s Reception,” 898. 78 Ralph Ketcham, “James Madison at Princeton,” The Princeton University Library Chronicle 28, no. 1 (1966). 79 The Matricula or Register of Admissions & Graduations & of Officers Employed in King’s College at New York, (n.d.). Available at www.colum​bia.edu/​cu/​lweb/​digi​tal/​coll​ecti​ ons/​cul/​texts/​ldpd_​7441​339_​000/​index.html 80 The Charter, and Bye-​Laws, of the New-​York Society Library; with a Catalogue of the Books Belonging to the Said Library (New York: 1773). 81 Tom Glynn, Reading Publics: New York City’s Public Libraries, 1754-​1911 (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 265. 82 Brooks, “Melancton Smith,” 3. 83 New York Department of State, Calendar of Historical Manuscripts, Relating to the War of the Revolution, in the Office of the Secretary of State, Albany, N.Y., vol. 1 (Albany:Weed, Parsons and Company, 1868), 86.

122  Trevor Latimer 84 Smith, TMS, 21. 85 Although the effect of resemblance on distance is discussed explicitly by Hume, Smith is not unaware of the phenomenon. Fonna Forman-​Barzilai calls it “affective” distance. See Adam Smith and the Circles of Sympathy, 156. 86 I borrow this idea from Sheryll Cashin, Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy (Boston, MA: Beacon, 2017). 87 Daniel T. Rodgers, Age of Fracture (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2011).

 avid Hume and Adam Smith on D public debt and “American affairs” Ecem Okan

Introduction Hume and Smith are considered to be prime examples of public debt pessimists preceding Ricardo and other classical economists, and influencing public choice theorists like Buchanan and Wagner (Matsushita 1929; Salsman 2017). In 1857, John Ramsey McCulloch observed that Hume and Smith had erred in “overlooking those circumstances by which that influence [of the debt] might be, and has been, countervailed”, referring to the progress in manufactures (McCulloch 1857:x, cf. Winch 1998:10 n.19). A century later, Schumpeter (1986[1954]: 310) was somewhat puzzled by their treatment of public debt as “crushing burdens likely to produce bankruptcy and ruin”, though adding that “[t]‌hey hardly did more, however, than to express current opinion on the subject”. An important line of interpretation thus has been that both have failed to understand the nature and impact of the credit system and the capacity of the economy to bear the tax burden (e.g. Holtfrerich 2013). While their pessimism can hardly be overstated, its attribution to the limits of their economic analysis overshadows their consideration of public debt ultimately as a political problem. In the eighteenth century the question of public debt was, in Winch’s words, “bound up with politics in every conceivable sense of the term” (1998:4). Accordingly, a growing secondary literature highlights the crucial links between war, commerce and public debt in Hume’s and Smith’s thought (Walraevens 2017; Paganelli and Schumacher 2018, 2019; Diatkine 2018; Nohara 2018; Furuya 2018; Schabas and Wennerlind 2020:177–​ 207). In stressing that public debt constituted an important issue for Hume and Smith on political rather than economic grounds, this paper seeks to address two questions on which secondary literature in the history of economic thought does not elaborate much: the first one pertains to the fact that neither Hume nor Smith attempts to reconcile the negative effects of public debt on the economy with its positive effects, of which they are explicitly aware. The second one relates to the consideration of their different prospects about the North American colonies in assessing the different outcomes of public debt they predicted for Britain and its nascent empire.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-10

124  Ecem Okan Juxtaposing Smith with Hume on these issues provides a better understanding of the relatively neglected political dimension of Smith’s treatment of public debt compared to Hume’s. Pocock’s (1985:139) and Hont’s (2005:352) contention according to which Hume’s pessimism about public debt was not mainly a result of “a blockage in his economic thinking” is shown to be valid also for Smith. This article thus draws on several previous works which qualify The Wealth of Nations as a political (Fleischacker 2004; Phillipson 2010) as well as a rhetorical work constructed so as to launch “a very violent attack against the commercial system of Great Britain” (Corr 208:251)1 . An attack which reaches its climax in the its last and fifth book dedicated to “the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth which ends with the chapter on the public debt (Berdell 2017; Ortmann and Walraevens 2022: 31–65). In order to underline that Hume’s and Smith’s economic concerns about public debt were ultimately subordinate to their political considerations, the first section outlines their estimations of its negative and positive economic consequences after a brief discussion of the context.The second section discusses the political effects of public debt: whereas for Hume it threatened the “singular and happy government” of Britain (HE,5:114)2, for Smith it was politically ruinous insofar as it jeopardized the British Empire by fuelling the interests of the monopoly of colonial trade (Winch 1978: 121–​145; Diatkine 2018) and by serving to maintain an empire that was not beneficial. It is thereby argued that neither Hume nor Smith sought to reconcile the economic advantages of public debt with its disadvantages because public debt was a rather trivial economic issue compared to its political significance; an issue for which they sought solutions guided by their prior judgments concerning the future of the relationship between Britain and its, among others, North American colonies.

1  Hume and Smith on the economic effects of the British public debt 1.1 The debate on public debt Public debt grew exponentially with each war Britain fought during the eighteenth century. Between the beginning and the end of the century, it had increased fifteenfold in current prices (Brewer 1989: 93). Religious conflicts confronting the Protestant England (Britain after 1707) with the Roman Catholic European states, notably France, transformed into a struggle for dominating the colonial markets, which took place mainly in America (Pagden 1995:2).The expansion of British navy and army in size, and concomitantly the immense cost of waging war overseas, had doubled the public debt to an unprecedented level at the end of the Seven Years’ War (Brewer 1989:24). Against this background, whether public debt is harmful or not was a hot topic of debate among scholars as well as pamphleteers. The debate was an outgrowth of the modern system of public borrowing which had gained its

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  125 full force after the Glorious Revolution (Dickson 1967:9). This system was modern in the sense that an active secondary market in government securities enabled people to trade (Salsman 2017: 12–​15). Such a market, developed mainly by the Bank of England (1694), made the long-​term public debts “liquid for the individual”, thereby enabling Britain to borrow prodigiously (Dickson 1967:457; Brewer 1989:120; Carruthers 1996:80–​82; Des Roches 2006; Murphy 2009:58–​61).3 The expansion of public debt went hand in hand with a decrease in the interest rates (Homer and Sylla 2005: 145–​163), an efficient tax system and a significant increase in fiscal revenue (O’Brien 1988: 2; Brewer 1989:88). In the second quarter of the eighteenth century, against the common concern about the rising burden of the expanding public debt, the view that public debt enriched the nation was spreading (Matsushita 1929:20). Though not arguing that public debt was a net source of wealth, Melon (1734) suggested that public debt, if domestic, did not put a burden on taxpayers: “the debts of the state are debts from the right hand to the left, by which the body will be in no way weakened if it has the nourishment and knows how to distribute it” (Melon [1734]1966:802). This view was, for instance, promoted by the anonymous writer of An Essay on Public Credit, in a Letter to a Friend, Occasioned by the Fall of Stocks (1748:8) whom Rashid (1998:108) assumes to be Robert Walpole, the British Prime Minister between 1721 and 1741. The latter work was written “in order to dissipate the Fears of the Friends, and disappoint the Malice of the Enemies of the Public” (1748:5) and argued further that “it is to the National Debt we owe our Public Credit” and that discharging the whole public debt would bring about such losses to “Trade and Commerce” as to “greatly diminish the Riches of our Country” (1748:10). Similarly, in the third volume of The Querist (1843[1737]:254), Berkeley advanced that “the credit of public funds” were “a mine of gold to England” as “the circulating credit by paper” promoted industry and trade and thus may “be said to increase our treasure”. He argued that “such credit” was “the principal advantage that Britain hath over France” (1843:255). Another author which promoted the benefits of public debt was Isaac de Pinto who in his Traité de la Circulation et du Crédit argued that by every loan the English government created “a new, artificial capital, which did not exist before” and which became “permanent, fixed and solid” (1771:44). The interest payments of the debt were funded by earmarking specific taxes, thereby granting credit to government securities. Circulating in the economy by means of their credit, these securities were tantamount to a new capital which increased trade and industry just as if England had obtained a new real treasure (1771:44). Both Hume and Smith repudiated the view according to which national debt entailed just a transfer “from the right hand to the left”, or that it was a source of national wealth. Both believed that higher taxes required by the ever-​ increasing public debt would impoverish the nation. Observing that future tax revenues were already pledged to service the interest of the debt, they estimated

126  Ecem Okan that every new loan would necessarily entail further taxation and would overburden the taxpayers. Hume argued that duties on commodities consumed by the laboring poor would gradually increase which would either increase the wages and thus fall upon the employers or the laborers (E:355). The latter was more likely to the extent that “where the riches are in few hands”, rich people would “readily conspire to lay the whole burden on the poor, and oppress them still farther, to the discouragement of all industry” (E:265). Hume in fact did believe that some taxes could stimulate the laborers to work harder “without demanding more for their labour”, yet he confined this case to moderate and gradual taxes which were not levied on consumption goods (E:343). Moreover, he predicted that it would be gradually more necessary to “have recourse to the more grievous method of levying taxes [such as taxes upon possessions]” (E:356) which “hurts commerce and discourages industry” (E:358). Treating public debt as a kind of money Hume observed that public securities artificially increased the quantity money in circulation, and since prices depended on the proportion between money in circulation and goods in the country (E:290), without a proportional increase in the quantity of goods, prices rose gradually (E:355). Increase in the price of commodities triggered the rise of wages, thereby heightening the cost of merchants and manufacturers. The overall wage and price rise rendered the commodities less attractive in international markets; exports shrank relatively to imports, resulting in an outflow of species (E:355). Public debt thus deprived the nation of the precious metals which were the universal currency used for any international transaction such as foreign trade or the payment of mercenaries.4 On numerous occasions, he stressed that the only advantage of a greater quantity of species was the power it conveyed to the state “in wars and negotiations” with foreign states (E:282,284,316). The money left circulating in the country was thus the paper-​credit, “a counterfeit money, which foreigners will not accept of in any payment, and which any great disorder in the state will reduce to nothing” (E:284).5 Smith, on the other hand, maintained that oppressive taxes would reduce the revenue of the landlords and the owners of the capital stock, “the two original sources of all revenue both private and publick” (WN V.iii.53). As a result, investments would decrease and may “occasion both the neglect of land, and the waste or removal of capital stock” (WN V.iii.56) because the capital imposed would flee to a country where its owner “could either carry on his business or enjoy his fortune more at his ease” (WN V.ii.f.6). As the “capital stock pays the wages of productive labour, whether employed in agriculture, manufactures, or commerce” (WN V.iii.53), its decrease brings about the “ruin of trade and manufactures” which would follow “the declension of agriculture” (WN V.iii.55). Therefore, the idea that interest payments were just a transfer from the taxpayers to the creditors, for Smith, was “a sophistry of the mercantile system” (WN V.iii.52), and for Hume was based on “loose reasonings and specious

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  127 comparisons” (E:356). According to the former, public debt was unsustainable because all public expenditure was unproductive in the sense that it did not “produce or make available goods that can be used as capital” (Eltis 2000:78). Money lent to government “must have been employed, as all capitals are, in maintaining productive labour” but instead “a certain portion of the annual produce [was] turned away from serving in the function of a capital, to serve in that of a revenue; and … spent and wasted, generally in the course of the year, without even the hope of any future reproduction” (WN V.iii.47). In this respect, he rejected the argument that public debts were an “accumulation of a great capital superadded to the other capital of the country” (WN V.iii.47)—​an argument which is sometimes attributed to Melon or Berkeley (Smith 1976:924 n. 50; Rashid 1998:109), but as Popkin (1970:428 n.47), Winch (1998:14 n.31) and Cardoso and Nogueira (2005:283) assert Smith may be, foremost, referring to De Pinto. Rather than any increase in the national capital stock, an issue of new public debt only entailed a transfer of capital from the creditors to the government, and from other capital owners to the creditors who could either sell their public funds and acquire other people’s capital or borrow other people’s capital by using their public funds as a collateral (WN V.iii.47). Presumably, in the following ironic passage in his essay “Of Public Credit”, Hume was also addressing the same argument sponsored by, among others, De Pinto: What then shall we say to the new paradox, that public incumbrances, are, of themselves, advantageous, independent of the necessity of contracting them; and that any state, even though it were not pressed by a foreign enemy, could not possibly have embraced a wiser expedient for promoting commerce and riches, than to create funds, and debts, and taxes, without limitation? Reasonings, such as these, might naturally have passed for trials of wit among rhetoricians, like the panegyrics on folly and a fever, on BU S IR IS and NE RO , had we not seen such absurd maxims patronized by great ministers, and by a whole party among us. (E:352) Diverging with the recent interpretation of Paganelli (2012), this passage is arguably a part of Hume’s endeavor to condemn those who argue that public debt is advantageous not only for financing wars but also “for promoting commerce and riches” rather than as demonstrating Hume’s own preference for war debts over debts contracted for promoting commerce and riches. Note that the latter cannot be equated with today’s policy of public borrowing used to stimulate the economy as the nature of government expenditure was different: the total war expenditure roughly amounted to 90% of public expenses (O’Brien 1988: 2).6 Here Hume criticized the view that public debt brought about wealth by means of circulation which was advanced, among others, by De Pinto and deployed as an argument underlying Walpole’s policies.

128  Ecem Okan De Pinto and Hume were in close personal contact since 1764 and Hume had encouraged him to revise and publish his Traité and De Pinto, in turn, “hoped that Hume would change his mind about circulation and public credit” (Popkin 1970:424). He had also claimed that “he had convinced many people that England was not on the verge of bankruptcy” (Popkin 1970:420). Though Ross (2008) suggests that Hume’s skeptical view about the beneficial effects of circulation had changed after his acquittance with De Pinto—​Hume had withdrawn a lengthy passage questioning its benefits for the 1768 edition of his essay on public debt—​he concurs with the other commentators (Popkin 1970:424; Pocock 1985:139; Laursen and Coolidge 1994:145) that Hume’s pessimist attitude toward public debt remained unchanged. On the contrary, the additions he made to his essay after the Seven Years’ War show that Hume became even more pessimistic (Hont 2005: 325–​353). Now, while Hume’s attitude toward De Pinto was mild and receptive, his condemnation of Walpole’s debt policy was harsh: the argument that issuing public debt was beneficial for the economy was as “absurd” as arguments in favor of supporting tyrants such as Busiris and Nero. As Smith explained to his students in his lectures, the rising common concern about the burgeoning public debt had prompted Sir Robert Walpole “to shew that the public debt was no inconvenience, tho’ it is to be supposed that a man of his abilities saw the contrary himself ” (LJ (B) 270). In the follow-​up of the above passage—​ which was omitted after 1768—​Hume referring to Walpole as “Lord Oxford”, noted that “these puzzling arguments, (for they deserve not the name of specious) … served at least to keep his partisans in countenance, and perplex the understanding of the nation” (E: 636). In the contemporary political debate about public debt, Hume sided with the Country party which condemned the rise to power of financial or moneyed interest which was concentrated in London (Winch 1978:126, 1998: 10; Pocock 1985; Ross 2008:32–​33). After the Glorious Revolution, land tax increased enormously, thereby creating discontent among the defenders of “landed interest” such as Bolingbroke (Brewer 1989:163–​164). It was thought that landowners were punitively taxed in order to service the interest of public debt in contrast to financiers who benefited from public debt as creditors. The moneyed interest along with political patronage had helped Walpole to keep the Court Whig coalition together (Stasavage 2003:99–​100). Accordingly, for Hume,Walpole’s government embodied the abuse of public credit as illustrated by the outcome of the sinking fund. Under the guidance of Walpole the latter was created for reducing the size of the public debt. Rather than by a surplus public revenue over debt charges, the fund was sustained by reducing the interest rates on the old debt (Dickson 1967:84). However, as Smith expressed in his summary of the history of the British public debt, besides failing to achieve any significant reduction in debt, the fund was raided for current expenses and more paradoxically used to raise new loans (WN V.iii.27–​40). This “paradox of the sinking fund” (Levy 1986:94) stemmed from

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  129 the inability of the government to stick to the proper purpose of the fund. Indeed, writing after Walpole’s death, in a footnote withdrawn afterward, Hume wrote that “the not paying more of our public debts was … a great, and the only great, error in that [Walpole’s] long administration” (E:574-​5 n.1). Though Smith was not worried about the distributional effects of the tax burden, as Hume was concerning the land tax (Winch 1978:135; Dome 2004:42), he wholeheartedly shared Hume’s disbelief about the role of government frugality in bringing about any advances in the payment of the old debts. Governments tended to abuse the voluntary method of raising loans over the coercive method of taxation not only because it was simpler but also because in the case of an emergency a greater sum could be raised by “the ruinous practice of perpetual funding” (WN V.iii.26) or the “consols”. The latter arose from the inability of tax revenues to meet both the principal and the interest on short-​term debts like the Navy Bills: as a solution, these debts were transformed into longer term debts whose interest was to be paid by specific taxes and whose principal was almost never paid (WN V.iii.12-​26; Dickson 1967:405–​ 406; Brewer 1989: 92, 116; Carruthers 1996:73). The reimbursement of the debt was thus left to “the care of posterity” (WN V.iii.26); a posterity which would follow the footsteps of their ancestors and mortgage further the public revenue (E:350). 1.2  Hume and Smith on the beneficial effects of public debt Hume’s and Smith’s pessimism about public debt was paradoxically accompanied by an acknowledgement of its beneficial effects which by no means appear negligible. Indeed, both noticed that public securities yielded the creditors a constant revenue which when used as capital increased commerce and industry (Winch 1998: 14). More specifically, Hume observed that public securities had become “a kind of money” which “produces sure gain [to merchants], besides the profits of their commerce” and that this “must enable them to trade upon less profit” (E:353). Besides, public securities offered an opportunity for investment alternative to the purchase of land so that “[m]‌ore men … with large stocks and incomes, may naturally be supposed to continue in trade, where there are public debts” (E: 354). Consequently, profits would diminish and lower prices, consumption would increase, incentives to work as well as circulation of goods would multiply, thereby “spread[ing] arts and industry throughout the whole society” (E:353). Moreover, Hume had also remarked that the decrease of the general profit rate was accompanied by a decrease of interest rates: [T]‌he multiplicity of our public debts serves rather to sink the interest, and that the more the government borrows, the cheaper they may expect to borrow; contrary to first appearance, and contrary to common opinion. The profits of trade have an influence on interest. (E: 637)7

130  Ecem Okan In a letter dated 1749, Hume also criticized Montesquieu for finding only downsides to the public debt in his De l’Esprit des Lois (1748). Here, one sees that Hume was adamant early on that public securities provided a constant revenue to the creditors and the opportunity to make commerce for lower profits which was advantageous for commerce.While he was hesitant about considering them as a species of money, he still advanced that thus considered public debts would promote circulation and commerce and lower interests (L,1:137). Smith observed that “the subjects of a commercial state” were willing to lend to the government as the terms were “extremely advantageous to the lender” (WN V.iii.7):“[t]‌he merchant or moneyed man makes money by lending money to government, and instead of diminishing, increases his trading capital” (WN V iii.7). This was made possible by “the universal confidence in the justice of the state” which rendered the public funds “transferable” and gave the creditors the opportunity to sell them “in the market for more than was originally paid for it” (WN V.iii.7, cf.V.iii.35). Like Hume, he observed that interest rate had decreased—​ “since the Revolution has varied from eight to three per cent” (WN V.iii.13)—​ and that Britain borrowed more cheaply than France, which was indeed the case (Stasavage 2003:68–​98). As his history of the British debt indicates, Smith also seems to have noticed that public debt was managed by the administration of interest rates (WN V.iii.27). He observed, though disapprovingly, that the sinking fund was created by the decrease in the interest rates rather than any savings on the part of the government (WN V.iii.39). Contrasting with his negative stance on the sinking fund in The Wealth of Nations, he treated the subject of sinking fund in a more favorable light in his lectures given during 1763–​1764. He there remarked that the Parliamentary control of the sinking fund had introduced “a rational system of liberty” into Britain because the king was unable to encroach upon the fund as the latter was “generally managed by people of interest and integrity who possess their offices for life and are quite independent of the king” (LJ (B) 63). The mixed government of Britain was thus secure “because if a revolution were to happen the public creditors, who are men of interest, would lose both principal and interest” (LJ (B) 63). Smith seems here to echo Hume who had already noted since the first version of his essay “Of Public Credit” (1752) that the moneyed interest, fed by the system of public debt, favored political stability: The first visible eruption, or even immediate danger, of public disorders must alarm all the stockholders, whose property is the most precarious of any; and will make them fly to the support of government, whether menaced by Jacobitish violence or democratical frenzy. (E:355) Signorino (2016:552) traces Smith’s change of mind to his contention that while in his lectures Smith feared that the king could raid the sinking fund;

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  131 in The Wealth of Nations, he feared that the Parliament could raid it as well. Still, Smith’s attitude toward the sinking fund remains ambivalent in the Wealth of Nations because, as will be seen in the next section, Smith himself argued that a sinking fund supplied by a taxation reform within the British Empire could succeed at paying off the public debt, if correctly deployed for its purpose (WN.V.iii.90). Furthermore, though he believed that the British taxation system could be reformed (WN V.ii.b), he observed that it was more efficient than in other commercial states (e.g. V.ii.k.66) and praised it in the context of his analysis of public debt: To the honour of our present system of taxation, indeed, it has hitherto given so little embarrassment to industry, that, during the course even of the most expensive wars, the frugality and good conduct of individuals seem to have been able, by saving and accumulation, to repair all the breaches which the waste and extravagance of government had made in the general capital of the society. At the conclusion of the late war [Seven Years’ War], the most expensive that Great Britain ever waged, her agriculture was as flourishing, her manufacturers as numerous and as fully employed, and her commerce as extensive, as they had ever been before. (WN V.iii.58) He was therefore aware to a certain extent that economic growth enabled to bear the burden of debt: “Great Britain seems to support with ease, a burden which, half a century ago, nobody believed her capable of supporting” (WN V.iii.58). However, he added quickly that this did not mean “that she is capable of supporting any burden” nor “that she could support, without great distress, a burden a little greater than what has already been laid upon her” (WN V.iii.58). Although Hume was highly critical of the taxation system, he likewise observed that political power of the states relied on their power to raise revenues, which in turn proceeded from the growth of commerce (cf. Paganelli and Schumacher 2018a): “The more labour, therefore, is employed beyond mere necessaries [i.e. in trade and manufacture], the more powerful is any state” (E:262). In the case of a war, the sovereign would also impose a tax which “obliges all the people to retrench what is least necessary to their subsistence” (E:261). If the wealth is distributed somewhat equally among the people, the burden of the tax “feels light on every shoulder, and the taxes make not a very sensible difference on any one’s way of living”. “It also augments the power of the state, and makes any extraordinary taxes or impositions be paid with more cheerfulness” (E:265, italics in original). Accordingly, in the third appendix to his History of England, Hume observed that “there is a prodigious encrease of power … more perhaps than in any other European state, since the beginning of the last century… Such are the effects of liberty, industry, and good government!” (HE, 4:379). Again, in his essay on public debt he declared:

132  Ecem Okan I do not ask how the public is to exert such a prodigious power as it has maintained during our late wars; where we have so much exceeded, not only our natural strength, but even that of the greatest empires. (E:358) But in appraising Britain’s power Hume had to abstract “from the national debt” (HE,4:379), because “[t]‌his extravagance is the abuse complained of, as the source of all the dangers, to which we are at present exposed” (E: 358–​359). At any rate, what matters in this context is that neither Hume nor Smith attempted to reconcile the advantages of public debt with its disadvantages, which they evidently sought to highlight. Winch had already drawn attention to this in Hume’s case (1978:125). Indeed, Hume sought to minimize the advantages which were “perhaps of no very great importance” and he just assumed that they would be outweighed by “the many disadvantages which attend our public debts, in the whole interior œconomy of the state” (E:354). Smith, on the other hand, did not even draw such a comparison between the two effects. However, the beneficial effects of the public debt which both acknowledged concurred overall with the main argument of the proponents of public debt: public securities facilitated commerce by means of their returns and their circulation within the nation. Rashid (1998:110) remarked for Smith’s case that this was “enough to support the Berkeley-​Melon viewpoint”. Nevertheless, what interested them in the issue of the British public debt was principally informed by their political position. Hume clearly declared the negative effects of public debt on domestic economy and politics were though “not inconsiderable, … trivial, in comparison to the state considered as a body politic, which must support itself in the society of nations, and have transactions with other states in wars and negotiations” (E:355-​6).8 Similarly, according to Smith the fiscal problem was inherently linked to the ongoing colonial problem such that fiscal solution had to be linked to the colonial solution (Stevens 1975:208). Consequently, the importance of the question of the British public debt derived from its political dimension for the two Scots: it was embedded in the wider framework of Britain’s constitutional order.

2  Hume and Smith on the political outcomes of the British public debt 2.1  Hume’s solution: absolute monarchy Hume detected an antinomy between the constitution of government—​ combining monarchy, aristocracy and democracy—​and public credit which led him to famously prophesize that “either the nation must destroy public credit, or public credit will destroy the nation” (E:360–​361). According to Dome (2004:5), Hume had left a “legacy” to his successors who ought to endeavor to reconcile the liberal commercial society with the system of public borrowing.

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  133 Even though Hume noted that contracting public debt was “a practice, the more likely to become pernicious, the more a nation advances in opulence and credit” (HE, 2:454), what created the antinomy between the nation and credit was not the commercial society itself but “the conjunction of commercial society and the international power politics” (Hont 2005:326). The latter was not guided by a prudent logic of balance of power, Hume lamentably observed, but by a bellicose logic of imperial expansion (E:332). Such imprudent politics was the source of the rising British public debt: “Here then we see, that above half of our wars with France, and all our public debts, are owing more to our own imprudent vehemence, than to the ambition of our neighbours” (E: 339). Indeed, “[h]‌ow can it be expected, that sovereigns will spare a species of property [public debt], which is pernicious to themselves and to the public, when they have so little compassion on lives and properties, that are useful to both?” (E:362) Considering that “this or any future ministry” would not be “possest of such rigid and steady frugality, as to make any considerable progress in the payment of our debts” and that “the situation of foreign affairs” would not “for any long time, allow them leisure and tranquillity, sufficient for such an undertaking” (E: 360), Hume conjectured that the death of public credit would come about in one of the two ways: The “violent death of our public credit” (E:365): This worst-​case scenario corresponds to the situation where the public credit “destroys the nation”. In the case of an upcoming war threat, as the whole economy would already be overtaxed (land tax, customs and excises “screwed up to the utmost which the nation can bear” (E:357)), the only taxable revenue would be now left in the hands of stockholders. Since the latter are “chiefly those who have the highest offices” (E:96), it was likely that they would be unwilling to sacrifice their revenue to meet the preparatory military expenses. At any rate, “they will never be persuaded to contribute sufficiently even to the support of government” and hence “can never become the foundation of a constant national defence” (E:359–​360). The nation, in addition to being tired of conflicts and being unable to adopt the proper political strategy, would be incapable of financing defence and may lie “at the mercy of the conqueror” (E:365). ii The “natural death of public credit” (E:363): in this scenario the nation destroys the public credit and thus, in Hume’s eyes, is preferable to the one above. Hume presents “voluntary bankruptcy” (E:363) as the only solution for clearing the public debt: supposing, again, that the nation would be oppressed by excessive taxation, the funds earmarked for the interest payments would be seized in order to wage war. The stockholders which Hume estimates to amount to 17,000 at total (natives and foreigners) would thus be “sacrificed to the safety of millions” (E:364). As the repudiation of debt could never come about with the consent of the public creditors, this solution would entail the monarch to be absolute. i

134  Ecem Okan Hume also imagined another outcome which is not directly linked to war: public credit could “die of the doctor” (E:361). In other words, “visionary schemes” (E:361) devised for the payment of the debt such as capital levy may be the cause of the destruction of public credit.This scheme supposes “a degree of despotism, which no oriental monarchy has ever yet attained” as the property of the people would “lie at the mercy of the sovereign” (E:359). But as the interest of the state lied in preserving its credit, such interest could only be “overbalanced by a great debt, and by a difficult and extraordinary emergence” (E:364). This was the reason why he alarmingly predicted that the death of public credit would be “the necessary effect of wars, defeats, misfortunes, and public calamities, or even perhaps of victories and conquests” (E:361–​362). As abundantly showed by the secondary literature (Forbes 1975:173–​180; Winch 1978, 1996; Miller 1981:132–​137; Livingston 1983, 1990; Pocock 1985; Hont 2005), Hume’s repudiation of the British public debt policy ought to be considered not only in relation to Hume’s other essays but also in the wider background of contemporary political debates. Hume’s essays took part in the common practice of political essay writing which were steeped in party politics. But instead of fuelling partisanship for the Court or the Country parties of his day Hume sought to take an impartial point of view (Berry 2009: 13–​14; Harris 2015:166) and argued for a “just balance” (E: 64–​65) between the two pillars of government, i.e., “authority and liberty” (E:40–​41): Hume thought that these two principles were being taken to their extremes by political parties and were being justified by, respectively, the old Tory argument for “passive obedience” (E:488) which signified that people should obey the rulers no matter what, and by the old Whig argument for “original contract” (E:465) which was considered to convey people an “indefeasible right” (E:70) to defy authority in every breach of the so-​called contract between king and people. In short, authority was associated with the monarchical part of the British government whereas liberty was associated with the republican (E: 67–​69). The question of British public debt is so much rooted in such political reasoning that it has been argued that Hume had reduced the whole political crisis of his day to the single issue of public debt (Pocock 1985:140). Let’s reconsider the violent death scenario: it depicts a situation of excessive liberty which moves further away from the monarchical power so much as that it is the public creditors who decide the faith of the nation.This scenario has to do with Hume’s rising concern about a new social class constituted of public creditors whose interest lies not in the prosperity or the security of the nation but in the revenue they yield from public bonds. This moneyed interest was concentrated in London along with the commercial interest which both gained from William Pitt (the Elder)’s war policy for “dominating world trade” during the Seven Years’ War (Livingston 1990:141). These interest groups had also supported the radical movements in 1760s and 1770s, known as the “Wilkes and Liberty” affair, which, by challenging the authority of government, threatened, according to Hume, “the balance of constitution” (Miller 1981:183) in favor of excessive liberty and republicanism.

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  135 Although Hume thought that the ideal form of government would be republican (E: 512), and “though liberty be preferable to slavery, in almost every case”, Hume was adamant that Britain would be better off with an absolute monarchy rather than a republic (E: 51–​53). He envisaged that a republic in Britain would be chaotic and would eventually lead to anarchy and despotism: a historical example was the transformation of the Commonwealth of England into the military despotism of Cromwell (Phillipson 2011:16). On the other hand, absolute monarchy was preferable on numerous grounds, and as such was “the easiest death, the true Euthanasia of the British constitution” (E: 51–​53). Unlike many of his contemporaries, Hume did not think that all monarchies were arbitrary governments. Though the authority of the king is absolute, civilized monarchies—​epitomized by France—​were governed by the rule of law: “Property is there secure; industry encouraged; the arts flourish; and the prince lives secure among his subjects, like a father among his children” (E:94). Forbes (1963:287) therefore traces Hume’s ability to offer absolute monarchy as a solution with “such detachment” to his conviction that absolute monarchy was totally compatible with economically and socially thriving society. Moreover, while popular governments could not get rid of their debts so easily because of the political power of public creditors, Hume observed that “an absolute prince may make a bankruptcy when he pleases” (E:96). Against this background, Hume’s preference for voluntary public bankruptcy makes more sense: public debt was, a threat for the delicate balance between authority and liberty, and the evils that would arise from absolutism outweighed those that would be brought about by the “death” of the nation. Hence, his effort to make the natural death scenario more attractive: not only did he understate the number of public creditors (Weber 2017: 142 n.23), namely the group which would be sacrificed for the public good, but he also argued that public credit shattered by the voluntary bankruptcy could be revived easily (E:363). His case for absolute monarchy concurs with his discovery in his History of England of “a necessary, though perhaps a melancholy truth” about the nature of governments: “the magistrate must either possess a large revenue and a military force, or enjoy some discretionary powers, in order to execute the laws, and support his own authority” (HE, 5:129). Hume also suggested that free governments would treat their provinces more cruelly than absolute monarchies: “The conquerors, in such a government, are all legislators, and will be sure to contrive matters, by restrictions on trade, and by taxes, so as to draw some private, as well as public, advantage from their conquests” (E:19). Ireland illustrated such an oppressive treatment (E:21), so did the East India Company (L, 2:260). In a letter written in 1775, Hume observed that the same process was unfolding in the colonies of North America (L,2:301), which led him to argue for their independence from a very early date, since 1768, even when the colonists were not seriously thinking about it (Livingston 1990: 143). Pitt’s policy of imposing the monopoly of colony trade was futile in terms of economic gain as Hume believed “that we shoud preserve the greater part of this Trade even if the Ports of America were open to all

136  Ecem Okan Nations” (L,2:300). But it would be ruinous in terms of political outcomes: if victorious, British rule would become oppressive reminiscent of the Roman Empire (Robertson 1993:371) whose fall had proceeded from “an ill modelled government, and the unlimited extent of conquests” (E: 276). Moreover, this oppressive authority would be unsustainable because maintaining big armies overseas would be impossible “in the over-​loaded or rather over-​whelm’d and totally ruin’d State of our Finances” (L,2: 301). If, on the other hand, Britain would lose its American colonies, the worst Effect … will not be the Detriment to our Manufactures, which will be a mere trifle, … but to the Credit and Reputation of Government, which has already but too little Authority.You will probably see a Scene of Anarchy and Confusion open’d at home. (L, 2:304–​305) Therefore, though it is farfetched to attribute Hume’s growing support for absolute monarchy solely to his increasing concern about the burgeoning public debt (Forbes 1963), it is evident that Hume’s dismay about the latter was intensified by Britain’s imperial expansion and the upheavals in the American colonies. Hume’s support for American independence along with his repudiation of the public borrowing policy derived from his conviction that Britain should not expand its territories. Moreover, Hume seems to have acknowledged, from very early on, that “the Charter Governments in America are almost entirely independent of England” (Mossner 1948:504) and that their political structure would eventually lead to independence. In a letter to Strahan dated 1771, after reiterating the two scenarios that public debt would bring about, he observed that In other Respects the Kingdom may be thriving: The Improvement of our Agriculture is a good Circumstance; tho’ I believe our Manufactures do not advance; and all depends on our Union with America, which in the Nature of things, cannot long subsist. (L,2:237) Presumably, this is why Hume “must have considered frivolous the question whether Parliament had a right to tax the colonies” (Livingston 1983:28), a question most debated at that time. Hume thus dismissed any American solution to the British public debt and in order to prevent any future evils of excessive liberty, he hope[d]‌to see a public Bankruptcy, the Total Revolt of America, the Expulsion of the English from the East Indies, the Diminution of London to less than a half, and the Restoration of the Government to the King, Nobility, and Gentry of this Realm. (L, 2: 210)

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  137 2.2  Smith’s solution: an imperial union Smith, rather than foreseeing any corrosion of the British social and political structure which led to Hume’s “phobia” (Rashid 1998:109), contended with making more general remarks on its deleterious political effects. Observing that “[t]‌he practice of funding has gradually enfeebled the state which has adopted it” such as the United Province, Italian Republics or Spain (WN V.iii.57), he remarked that―though as “an introductory obiter dictum” (Nicholson 1920:3)―“the enormous debts ... at present oppress, and will in the long-​run probably ruin, all the great nations of Europe” (WN V.iii.10). He deduced from the history of public debts that when the accumulation of public debt reached to a certain level,“there is scarce … a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid”. Many countries had thus recourse to an “avowed bankruptcy” or more frequently to a “pretended payment” (WN V.iii.59). For Smith, the latter which consisted in “raising the denomination of coin” was more pernicious to the extent that it favored prodigal debtors at the expense of frugal creditors by “transporting a great part of the national capital from the hands which were likely to increase and improve it to those which are likely to dissipate and destroy it” (WN V.iii.60). This “jiggling trick” would undermine the public credit more than an avowed bankruptcy (WN V.iii.60). Smith’s mention of bankruptcy is reminiscent of Hume’s natural death scenario, whereas the other resembles to a visionary scheme that would destroy public credit according to Hume (Dome 2004:57). However, as already stressed by Nicholson (1920:11) and Dome (2004:57–​58), Smith neither defended voluntary bankruptcy nor the repudiation of the debt for the British debt. He had other schemes for paying it off. But, since it was “chimerical … to expect that the public debt should ever be completely discharged by any savings which are likely to be made from that ordinary revenue as it stands at present” (WN V.iii.47, my emphasis), extraordinary solutions were requisite for its discharge; either by a radical increase in public revenue or by a radical decrease in public expenditure (WN V.iii.66): i

Public revenue could only be increased by an extension of the British system of taxation to all the provinces of empire (WN V.iii.68). The land tax and stamp tax could be extended easily to Ireland, America and the West Indies (WN V.iii.70-​71). Custom duties could be extended to the provinces and would be advantageous to all, if, along with it, free trade would be established within the empire: the extension of the internal market would compensate for the increase of custom duties (WN V.iii.72). Excise duties could also be extended mainly on commodities other than the “necessaries of life” such as sugar, rum and tobacco (WN V.iii.75). As for the fiscal revenues collected in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa by the East India Company, which as diwani had the right to do so since 1765 (Diatkine 2018:39), Smith suggested that they ought to be increased “by preventing the

138  Ecem Okan embezzlement and misapplication of the greater part of those [taxes] which they already pay” (WN V.iii.91). Indeed, Smith noticed that the Company, rather than supporting the increase of the annual produce of land and labor in these territories and of private and public revenue, was keeping the market constantly understocked and selling commodities much above their natural price (WN IV.vii.c.101–​108). The subordination of “the great and permanent revenue of the sovereign” to “the little and transitory profit of the monopolist” (WN IV.vii.c.103) had destructive effects on “those which have the misfortune to fall under their government” (WN IV.vii.c.108). Still, if a fiscal reform could be implemented by following as much as possible the four maxims of equality, certainty, convenience of payment and economy in collection (WN. V. ii. b.2–​6), and by reducing the facility of smuggling (WN V.iii.77), an immense revenue could be collected. Smith calculated the latter by cross multiplying the estimated population of the whole British empire with Britain’s recorded public revenue and after deducing the expense of the whole empire proposed that a “great sinking fund” could be created with the resulting surplus revenue (WN V.iii.76). Public debt would be paid off in a few years (WN V.iii.76) by “a diligent and faithful application” (WN V.iii.90) of the sinking fund. ii The second option was to significantly reduce public expenses. The only article in public expenses which allowed such a reduction pertained to the cost of the colonies. In peacetime these costs—​payment of the soldiers, expense of artillery, of stores, of extraordinary provisions and of the naval force whose task was to guard the coasts from the “smuggling vessels of other nations” (WN IV. vii. c. 64)—​ were “very considerable” though “insignificant in comparison with what the defence of the colonies” had cost in time of war (WN V.iii.92). Smith observed that the Seven Years’ War “was undertaken altogether on the account of the colonies” and the War of Austrian Succession (1739–​ 1748) was also “principally undertaken on their account” (WN V.iii.92). The burgeoning of the public debt was the direct result of these wars: “Had it not been for those wars that debt might, and probably would by this time, have been compleatly paid; and had it not been for the colonies, the former of those wars might not, and the latter certainly would not have been undertaken” (WN V.iii.92). Therefore, if Great Britain could free itself from the expense of maintaining its colonies, Smith foresaw that public debt would gradually vanish as the costs of an even more expensive future war with the colonies, to which the “present disturbances” (WN V.iii.92) in the American colonies would eventually lead, could be prevented. Both these fiscal solutions pointed to a radical political change. The first one necessitated an imperial union where the different provinces would have access to “a fair and equal representation” in the British Parliament or in the “states-​general of the British Empire” in proportion to what they contribute

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  139 in taxes to the new empire (WN IV.iii.76). The second solution entailed, on the other hand, a voluntary separation of Britain from its colonies of America (WN IV.iii.92). Both these solutions derived from Smith’s political position on the American colonies in particular and on the system of British government in general. First, there is much evidence, as will be shown, which suggests that Smith “would have preferred to see the empire left intact” (Skinner 1990:159). Second, the much-​debated American question gave him the opportunity to expand on his repudiation of the monopoly of colonial trade and to strike the last and the strongest blow at the mercantile empire. Until the fifth book, Smith had already denounced the monopoly of the colony trade, “the sole engine of the mercantile system” (WN IV.vii.c.89) by mainly arguing that it was disadvantageous to the home economy. Monopoly, by raising the profit of colony trade drew capital from the sectors which provided the most employment of productive labor, namely agriculture, to those which provided the least, and had thus reduced the demand for labor and wages as well as the price of land and rents (WN IV.vii.c.57–​58). “[T]he mercantile system ha[d] not been very favourable to the revenue of the great body of the people” nor “to the revenue of the sovereign” (WN IV.ii.k.25)– which was the object of political economy (WN IV.1)–and that it diminished “instead of increasing the ability of the great body of the people to pay taxes” (WN IV.vii.c.67). Moreover, “the maintenance of this monopoly” had been “the principal, or more properly perhaps the sole end and purpose of the dominion which Great Britain assumes over her colonies” (WN IV. vii. c. 64). The last two wars were “a colony quarrel” (WN IV. vii. c. 64), deriving from “the impertinent jealousy of merchants and manufacturers” (WN IV.iii.c.9) whose interest lied in waging wars for the support of their colonial monopoly: For this purpose, and for this purpose only, in the two last wars, more than two hundred millions have been spent, and a new debt of more than a hundred and seventy millions has been contracted over and above all that had been expended for the same purpose in former wars. The interest of this debt alone is not only greater than the whole extraordinary profit, which, it ever could be pretended, was made by the monopoly of the colony trade, but than the whole value of that trade or than the whole value of the goods, which at an average have been annually exported to the colonies. (WN IV.viii.53) The burden of the debt which was contracted for financing these colonial wars fell upon, and would continue to fall upon, the taxpayers in the mother country and this burden was such that even the beneficial effects of the colony trade, which Smith paradoxically believed to counterbalance the bad effects of the monopoly (WN IV.vii.c.47), were not, and would not be, able to compensate for it. What Smith rhetorically aimed in this passage was arguably to convey

140  Ecem Okan the idea that the burden of the debt ought not only fall upon Great Britain but also upon the colonies. As regards to the fiscal problem what bothered Smith was less that colonies were a source of military expense than that they were not a source of revenue. In other words, military expenses financed by public borrowing constituted a waste in Smith’s eyes not because they were designed to support the monopoly of colony trade but because they were defrayed to maintain an empire which was not advantageous. Smith asserted that “[t]‌he common advantages which every empire derives from the provinces subject to its dominion, consist, first, in the military force which they furnish for its defence; and, secondly, in the revenue which they furnish for the support of its civil government” (WN IV.vii.c.11), yet the American colonies were neither contributing to the revenue nor to the military force of the empire (WN V.iii.92). Furthermore, the “present disturbances” in the American colonies had arisen because they were refusing to submit to British taxes without their consent. Then, the obvious solution was to grant the colonies representation in the British Parliament and make them contribute to the burden of the debt (WN IV.vii.c.73). Smith believed that Britain had a right to tax its American colonies as well as Ireland—​East India was already heavily taxed—​not only because huge debts were contracted “in defence of America” but also because both of them “owe [the government established by the Revolution] the liberty, security, and property” they enjoyed (WN V.iii.88). It is of interest to note that, in the fifth book Smith prefers to highlight that wars were waged for the defense of the colonies rather than for the support of the monopoly perhaps because it made more sense to show the possibility of their fiscal contribution in the context of a free-trade empire rather than in the context of mercantile regulations like the Navigation Acts–which he characterizes as “impertinent badges of slavery imposed upon them, without any sufficient reason” (WN IV.vii.b.44). In contrast to Hume then Smith’s proposal was to tax colonies by granting them representation, a position which remained the same “before, during and after the war of independence” (Winch 1998:17). However, as Stevens (1975:214) notes, by the time The Wealth of Nations was published, colonists were far beyond any economic solution or plan of imperial union. Smith was aware that a union of parliaments was unlikely to take place while he was writing the book (WN V.iii.68), and even less so after its publication in 1778 when he replied in a Memorandum to Alexander Wedderburn who as Solicitor-​ General in Lord North’s administration had consulted Smith’s expertise on the American question (Corr, Appendix B, 381). Still, he stood by his recommendation “as a solitary philosopher”, as “if it could be executed, [it] would certainly tend most to the prosperity, to the splendour, and to the duration of the empire” (Corr, Appendix B, 382). Smith argued that such a union would bring about political peace in Ireland by precluding the religious aristocracy from oppressing the people (WN V.iii.89), and in America by preventing the formation of “rancorous and virulent factions which are inseparable from small democracies” (WN V.iii.90). It would therefore complete and perfect the British

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  141 Constitution (WN IV.vii.c.73). A union was thus preferable according to Smith than a voluntary separation as the latter would “discredit the Government in the eyes of our people” (Corr, Appendix B, 383) and would be “mortifying to the pride” of the nation (WN IV.vii.c.66).

Conclusion In discussing the pressing problem of public debt, Hume’s as well as Smith’s primary concern was political and polemical such that their economic considerations about public debt remained at the background. For this reason only, it would be a mistake to attribute their negative stance on public debt to a blockage in their economic thinking. That is to say, even if they did appreciate the beneficial effects of public debt, they had no reason to pursue that strand of thought all the more so because their understanding of public debt was shaped by their concern for the outcome of the constitutional order of Britain. Hume viewed public debt as a threat to the balance of authority and liberty: the latter was a source of the strength and singularity of the British state but of its precariousness as well. Public debt not only altered the social dynamics of the nation but also deprived the nation of its capacity to sustain national defense. For Smith, on the other hand, public debt threatened the future of the British Empire. Though he was well aware that wars financed by public debt were undertaken for the maintenance of the monopoly of the colonial trade, through his analysis of public debt, he sought to show that the military expenses financed by public debt were not cost-​effective. In other words, the contemporary problem of public debt gave him the opportunity to conflate his case for empire and his critique of the mercantile system. Even though Smith “held less cataclysmic opinions” (Winch 1998:11; cf. 1978:135) than Hume, his analysis of public debt was no less political. Smith’s preference for union over separation proceeded from political reasons rather than economic, as both schemes envisaged free trade against mercantile policies. In this sense, Smith rightly observed that both were contrary to the “private interests of many powerful individuals” (WN V.iii.68; cf.WN IV.vii.c.66). Smith concurred with Hume in his fear of factionalism (Winch 1978:146–​163) as well as in his belief that a British victory, though improbable, would lead to a military and despotic government which “the Americans hate and dread the most” (Corr, Appendix B, 381). However, he diverged from Hume for whom Smith was “very zealous in American affairs”: Hume wrote in a letter dated 8 February 1776 to Smith that “the matter is not so important as is commonly imagin’d” (Corr,149:185). While contemporaries as well as posterity criticize their inability to propound sound theoretical considerations of public debt, one may give them their due on their prospects of North America: Hume foresaw that American colonies were bound to be independent whereas Smith predicted that their “extensive empire … seems very likely to become, one of the greatest and most formidable that ever was in the world” (WN IV.vii.c.75).

142  Ecem Okan

Notes 1 Corr refers to Adam Smith’s correspondence. Citations to the Wealth of Nations (WN) are by book, chapter and paragraph. His Lectures on Jurisprudence are denoted as LJ(B), B referring to the 1763–​1764 session of lectures. 2 Citations to David Hume’s History of England are denoted as HE, followed by the volume number. Citations to his Letters are noted as L, followed again by the volume number. Hume’s Essays Political, Moral, and Literary are referred to as E. 3 The importance of liquidity is succinctly expressed by Carruthers (1996:82): “Ownership of Bank of England shares was indirectly a long-​term loan, for the capital of the Bank had simply been passed on to the government in exchange for interest payments. However, the fact that company shares could be sold easily on the stock market meant that what was for the government a long term loan could be for the creditor as long or short term a loan as he or she wished. A creditor’s capital could be recovered simply by selling shares to a third party, with no need for the government to repay the loan.” 4 Rich commercial nations “employed mercenary troops, which they hired from their poorer neighbours” (Hume [1752c] 1985:282), since the price of labor was cheaper there. 5 For this reason, among many various interpretations, Hume has also been considered as a “practical metallist” (Caffentzis 2001; cf. Finlay 2013:61). Moreover, the importance he gives to gold and silver as an emergency reserve for war finance, and consequently, to a favorable balance trade as the only way to acquire gold and silver for a country with no mines like England (E:306), seems to have mercantile origins (see for example Henderson 2010:160–​161). Viner (1955: 84 n.30) and the editors of the Lectures on Jurisprudence (Smith 1978:507 n.28) argue that Smith presumably criticized Hume for “having gone a little into the notion that public opulence consists in money” (LJ (B) 253) by referring to these passages. Apparently, Smith couldn’t resist himself from targeting explicitly Hume on this matter—​something quite unusual—​despite the fact that he was at the same lecture praising Hume for his price-​specie-​flow mechanism. 6 During the three major wars of Hume’s and Smith’s lifetime, approximately 65% of the total government expenditures was allocated to military expenditures, and 25% was allocated to interest payments. During peacetime, military expenses diminished to around 40% whereas interest payments climbed up to about 40%. See O’Brien (1988:2). 7 Though this passage was omitted after 1764, it shows that Hume had acknowledged that the liquidity of public securities, stemming foremost by the role of Bank of England, decreased the interest rate (De Boyer Des Roches 2006). This is in line with what he wrote in his essay “Of Interest” (1752,1777): “No man will accept of low profits, where he can have high interest; and no man will accept of low interest, where he can have high profits. An extensive commerce, by producing large stocks, diminishes both interest and profits; and is always assisted, in its diminution of the one, by the proportional sinking of the other” (E:303). Commenting on Hume’s interest theory Rotwein (1955:lxx) notes that “as debt and equities are substitutable forms of investment”, returns on both are lowered, though he adds that Hume does not establish any other connection between the profit and interest rate other than arguing that they both depend on the economic development itself.

David Hume and Adam Smith on public debt and “American affairs”  143 8 Forbes (1975: 174) criticizes therefore the commentators who put more emphasis on its effects on domestic politics. As Hirschman (1997: 79) reminds us, this preoccupation with international relations was a commonplace concern for eighteenth century writers given the permanence of wars.

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University of Palermo Symposium Cross-​disciplinary studies on Adam Smith’s language and translated works

Introduction Palermo Symposium Cristina Guccione

The present collection lists five works by scholars belonging to different fields history, economics, language and translation studies. They are the results of research tasks presented at the Language Session of the conference “From Scotland to the South of [the] Mediterranean. The thought of Adam Smith through Europe and beyond” organized by the University of Palermo, Italy, in 2017. About fifty scholars from all over the world, interested in studying the international reception of Smithian thought, took part in the meeting at Palermo to share their ideas, methods, sources and knowledge. So, both the Language Session and this symposium have been conceived to encourage a multidisciplinary investigation between experts approaching distinctive perspectives of research, under the belief that the interplay between historical and linguistic analyses may interestingly contribute to the development of economic discourse and economic ideas over the centuries. Other contributions of the same conference have already been published in the previous Adam Smith Review 12/​2020 and in a special issue of History of Economic Ideas 2/​2020 by Fabrizio Simon who had carried out the project financed by the History of Economics Society and the following meeting at Palermo that was also supported by the International Adam Smith Society, the University of Richmond-​Jepson School of Leadership Studies, the Associazione Italiana per la Storia del Pensiero Economico (AISPE) and the Società Italiana di Studi sul Secolo XVIII. Thanks are due to The Adam Smith Review for hosting this symposium and to the scientific committee of the Palermo Conference –​ Christopher Berry, Giovanni Iamartino, Maria Pia Paganelli, Sandra Peart and Craig Smith –​for their useful advice. Special thanks are due to Prof. Iamartino for his encouragement to pursue our research and to Fabrizio Simon for his generous proposal to take part in interesting scientific ventures. The former part of Cross-​disciplinary studies on Adam Smith’s language and translated works refers to the papers by Iara Vigo de Lima and Luigi Alonzi. In “Adam Smith on language and some elements of his epistemology”, Iara Vigo de Lima focuses on the relationship between language and epistemology in the eighteenth century, comparing Foucault’s proposal in Order with Adam Smith’s Considerations in search of Smith’s conception of language and how he related it to the process of knowledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-12

150  Cristina Guccione In “Economy” and “Political Economy” in the Theory of moral sentiments and the wealth of nations, Luigi Alonzi analyses the semantic evolution of the word ‘oeconomy’ and the term ‘political oeconomy’ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by investigating their use in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations. The latter part of the symposium is an example of research tracing the international transmission of economic language through the study of the European flow that promoted Smith’s translated works in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Marco Guidi’s and Monica Lupetti’s paper, Translation as the convergence of politico-​economic and linguistic matters: The portuguese version of Adam Smith’s ‘Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages’, analyses the Portuguese translation of Adam Smith’s Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages (1761), translated by Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio (1741–​1812?) and published in Lisbon in 1816. Involving the reader in the life experiences of its translator, on his way to Amazonia, the authors highlight Sampaio’s observations on the economic life and language of indigenous peoples paying attention to the relationship between language and exchange. They carry out a philological reconstruction of the translation, which reveals Sampaio’s didactic aims and the possible connections between translation and his economic, ethnographic and linguistic considerations. In the same vein as the above contribution, Mauricio Coutinho, in his Colonies and slave labour in the first translation of The Wealth of Nations into Portuguese, deals with the first Portuguese translation of The Wealth of Nations by Bento da Silva Lisboa (1793–​1864). The last was published in Rio de Janeiro in 1811, when the city was the capital of a colony characterized by mining and agricultural activities, dominantly exercised by slave labour. Starting from this assumption, Coutinho examines how the translator –​surely supportive of the royal dynasty and of the landowner elites –​dealt with the several passages in which Smith expressed his overt criticism of slave labour offering the reader a good example of the criteria adopted in transcribing and suppressing some source-​text passages or in adopting specific translation strategies. Finally, the last paper, Economics terms from Scotland to Italy: The first Italian translations of Smith’s Wealth of Nations 1790/​91–​1851, by Cristina Guccione deals with the first two Italian translations of The Wealth of Nations printed in Naples (1790) and Turin (1851), respectively. The author focuses on the early rendering of Smith’s vocabulary from English into Italian, by analysing some extracts from Chapter II, Book I of Smith’s Wealth of Nations and by looking up entries of some key terms in the lexicographical sources of that time.

 dam Smith on language and his A epistemology Iara Vigo de Lima

Introduction The debate on Adam Smith’s epistemology has been intense, focusing on The History of Astronomy (Astronomy) and The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). Few philosophers and historians of economic thought have considered Smith’s writings and lectures on language pivotal to understand his methodology (exceptions are, for instance, Berry 1974, Brown 1994, Dascal 2006).This paper investigates Smith’s Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages (Considerations), looking for some elements that may help us to improve our understanding of his epistemology. Philosophers have historically wondered about the association between language and knowledge and this is certainly a very controversial issue. They have speculated about the nature of language and its role on thought, and, therefore, on the process of knowing. It has been claimed that language precedes and conducts the activity of thinking. And if it is a tool for thinking and communicating, it has a function in the process of knowing. If language interferes in the process of observing, analysing, formulating and evaluating theories, it has a fundamental role in knowledge that needs to be examined. The analytic philosophy, for instance, has analysed the relations among word, thought and language. Nonetheless, this is not our perspective in this paper.We will not be discussing the nature and function of language in the construction of knowledge. Instead, we will be claiming that an examination of the theory of language offers elements to identify the epistemology that underpins other areas of knowledge. Our aim is to develop an analogy between the theory of language in Adam Smith’s context –​which he himself helped to formulate –​and his way of thinking, suggesting that this could be used to explore the ontological and methodological conditions of his works.1 This was actually Michel Foucault’s insight in The Order of Things (hereinafter Order). Foucault used the theory of language to explore ontological and methodological conceptions underpinning knowledge at some moments in our history. He even mentioned Considerations as an exemplar of the system of

DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-13

152  Iara Vigo de Lima thought in the eighteenth century, although he did not analyze Smith’s work in this regard. Foucault justifies his view by saying that language is the most fundamental instance of our process of thinking and, therefore, it is of the very nature of science to enter into the system of verbal communications, and of the very nature of language to be knowledge from its very first word. Speaking, enlightening, and knowing are, in the strict sense of the term, of the same order. (Foucault 1970: 88–​89) Therefore, Foucault shares the view of other aforementioned approaches in philosophy concerning the issue of language playing a fundamental role in knowledge. However, the aim here is not to analyse the genesis of his beliefs, but to apply some of his ensuing claims to the work of Smith. Besides Adam Smith, many thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment taught and wrote about language and rhetoric, such as James Burnett (Lord Monboddo), Thomas Reid, Hugh Blair and James Dunbar. As Phillipson (2013: 28) claims, David Hume, for instance, had already ‘recognized the crucial importance of language in shaping our ideas and sentiments, and he used terms like “conversation” and “discourse” to indicate the character of his thinking about the process of linguistic exchange’. Smith certainly approached the relationship between language and thought and, for example, referring to William Ward’s An Essay on Grammar he wrote in a frequently mentioned quotation that he approved ‘greatly of his [Ward’s] plan for a Rational Grammar’ because he was convinced that a work of that kind would ‘prove not only the best System of Grammar, but the best System of Logic in any Language, as well as the best History of the natural progress of the Human mind in forming the most important abstractions upon which all reasoning depends’ (Corr. letter 69 –​emphasis added).This statement testifies the importance that Smith attributed to the study of language, but also that he saw a direct connection between language and reasoning. He is affirming that the grammar was analogous to a logic system whose study could allow the apprehension of the way that human reasoning had evolved in history. This is actually Foucault’s claim in Order, as mentioned above. In the same letter, Smith also recommended Girard’s Les Vrais Principes de La Langue Françoise to William Ward affirming that it had been the linguistic book from which he (Smith) ‘received more instruction than from any other’, and mentioning that Girard had defined in that book that speech was ‘the manifestation of thought through words’ (Corr. letter 69). Foucault (1970) investigates the writings on language of that moment in history, looking for some ontological and epistemological conditions that would have determined the interest in studying grammar and claimed that the act of knowing comprised a search for ‘a well-​constructed language’ at that moment

Adam Smith on language and his epistemology  153 in history. According to him, this would explain why a theory of language became so important in the eighteenth century, as exemplified by Smith’s own context in Scotland. The idea underpinning Foucault’s model based on the theory of language was that language was conceived at that moment as ‘the spontaneous form of science –​a kind of logic not controlled by the mind –​and the first reflective decomposition of thought’ (Foucault 1970: 83 –​emphases in the original). He was actually claiming that, despite the different content of discourses, they belonged to the same configuration of thought, forming what he called ‘interdiscursive practices’. In Order, he investigated philology, biology and economics as an interdiscursive practice, arguing that its epistemic context could be unveiled by an examination of the theory of language (grammar and philology). This paper explores Foucault’s suggestions and investigates Smith’s Considerations, aiming to unveil some elements that may help us to improve our understanding of Smith’s epistemology. Many of the elements identified in this study have already been pointed by renowned scholars of Smith. However, we believe that our study provides a clear view of some main elements of his epistemological disposition, offering additional potential explanations about why and how they were conducting his inquiries. Besides, these elements are here presented as a group of interconnected notions, identifying the relation between/​among them and some of their ontological and epistemological conditions. This paper is structured as follows.The next section summarizes the thought regarding the relationship between language and epistemology in the eighteenth century, following Foucault’s proposal in Order. The aim of this section is to investigate why language became such a fundamental issue and how a theory of language emerged and existed in that century.The following section explores Adam Smith’s Considerations, searching for his conception of language and how he related it to the process of knowledge. The last section contains important conclusions of this study regarding the relationship between Smith’s works on language and his epistemology.

A history of epistemology and ontology In Order (originally Les Mots et Les Choses), Foucault introduces an epistemological model, assuming that an investigation about the conception of language and the way that language used to be studied in some periods of the human history could provide elements to understand how the inquiry concerning other phenomena was pursued in different fields of knowledge. He actually designed a model for an analogy between the theory of language and other branches of knowledge (see Lima 2015). Foucault affirmed that he wanted to analyse the relationship between language and the perception of the phenomena in economics and biology in order to apprehend some rules that were guiding the choices of objects, concepts and

154  Iara Vigo de Lima procedures of theorizing in these disciplines (Foucault 2001: 804). While pursuing this objective, he provided a history of some ontological and epistemological conditions that were defining those choices. The relationship between language and knowledge was critical in Foucault’s work, particularly in what is called the first phase of his intellectual project, his archaeology. But a main issue became how he could examine the study of language with the purpose of apprehending the contemporaneous configuration of thought in other fields. For that, he chose some aspects to conduct his investigation: the belief regarding the capacity of human understanding; the definition of the major object of knowledge; the main procedure regarding external and internal elements of the object under examination; the significance of notions of time and space in the process of knowing; the function that man performed in that process; and the role of language in it. He identified the following conditions underpinning thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: 1 The main ontological principle guiding investigations was that there was a nature that had an ‘order’ (that is what led to the search for ‘laws’ and the conception of the world as ‘a machine’). Foucault denominated knowledge during that moment in history as ‘the science of order’. 2 If nature had an order, the main procedure should be ‘to analyze’ the object, and so ‘to discriminate’ its components. 3 But language played a fundamental role in the ‘analysis’ of the object. It was necessary to name those components, and the process of knowing was to establish taxonomy of the parts/​elements of that ‘order’. 4 The surface of things was more important than their inner constitution. To know was mainly to name what man could see (the visibility of things). 5 If ‘order’ was fundamental, space was more important than time. Foucault uses the metaphor of ‘map’. Knowing was ‘to map’ the object. 6 If taxonomy was essential, then language had a crucial role in the process of knowing. To know was essentially to establish the best language possible. This would be the main reason for the importance that the study of language had in history at that moment. That is what Foucault meant by saying that knowledge was a search for ‘a well-​constructed language’. The study of grammar became essential. And words possessed ‘some immediate discursivity’ on their own, as ‘by right of birth’ (Foucault 1970: 280). To know was to analyse the objects and build the correct language to describe it. 7 There was not limitation in the capacity of human understanding. Certain knowledge was possible. The act of knowing became the search for a ‘well-​constructed language’, Foucault claims. That is why ‘language’ could and should be studied, and, according to Foucault, a theory of language emerged (the study on grammar). Words, independently of particular languages, were conceived of as having

Adam Smith on language and his epistemology  155 more or less hidden or derived signification that had been given by a primitive designation. The idea underlying the study of language was that there was an original language that provided the initial bunch of roots and that some subsequent historical events (such as invasions, migrations, political freedom or slavery, advances in learning and so on) led to the differences between languages. Referring to that context, Foucault writes: knowing and speaking are interwoven into the same fabric; [...] Even when hidden, knowledge in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is discourse with a veil drawn over it. This is because it is of the very nature of science to enter into the system of verbal communications, and of the very nature of language to be knowledge from its very first word. Speaking, enlightening, and knowing are, in the strict sense of the term, of the same order. (Foucault 1970: 88–​89) But, when investigating the economic thought of that period in history, Foucault asserts that Smith was living in a moment of transition when those conditions were in a process of transformation. So, when analysing Smith’s writings on language, we have to consider the transformation. In the emergent configuration of thought: 1 The main ontological condition was changing from ‘order’ as the reference for knowing to a conception of a ‘historicity’ of the object. ‘Historicity’ was about to become the primary ‘mode of being’ of things and according to two main meanings: the object had an organic and temporal constitution. 2 This led to a focus on ‘invisible’ elements and ‘hidden forces’ of the object matter. For instance, in economic thought, production was a hidden force behind wealth and labour was an inner constituent of production.The object had an ‘organic structure’. Knowledge should look for an understanding of the inner relations between/​among elements of the object –​the ‘internal architecture’ –​so as to apprehend their functions. 3 And that organic structure had a temporal constitution. Any object has to be investigated along the lines of a process that happens in time. ‘Time’ became a fundamental variable to consider in any project of knowledge. ‘Time’ surpassed ‘space’ in the process. Thus, ‘historicity’ is related to the idea of an internal, systematic and organic structure, which started being perceived as existing within and having some relationship with time. 4 Also, one main aspect of that configuration of thought was that ‘man’ was to become an epistemological figure, since he was now conscious about his role in the process of knowing (the subject of knowledge) and that he realized that his power to know was limited (Kant had expressed this). The human sciences (psychology, sociology and linguistics) became necessary, because it was fundamental to know man in relation to his limitations. Other fields of knowledge had to think about man as a central and limited

156  Iara Vigo de Lima figure in the process of knowing. Man became the central object of biology (life), economics (labour) and linguistics (language). Man became the main object of knowledge. 5 This role of man led to the separation between science and philosophy. And here Foucault meant by ‘philosophy’ the emergence of a theory of knowledge and a branch of philosophy called ‘epistemology’. At the same time, man was converted into the philosophical foundation for the possibility of knowledge. One fundamental feature of knowledge endeavour will be anthropologism in the meaning of ‘logic of man’. A ‘logic of man’ will conduct the process. That is why epistemology emerged. The influence of this ‘logic of man’ in the process of knowing led to uncertainty. Man will be conscious of his limitations, including concerning his ability of dealing with his most basic problems regarding life (biology), labour (economic thought) and language (philology). Man is a finite being because he is limited by the environment, by the forces of production and by the linguistic heritage that had formed him. 6 As for language, this ‘logic of man’ is translated into a conception that it is man who gives meaning to words, which are then subjective. Philology emerges. In philology, language is no longer studied primarily as a system of representation and individual languages are treated as historical entities. The main change was that language also started being conceived of as having a ‘historicity’, in the same sense of a ‘temporal’ and ‘organic structure’ explained above. Language has to be studied within its internal organization (relationship between words, their meanings and their grammatical functions in a sentence, for instance). Language will be conceived of as it designates man’s ‘actions, states, and wishes’ (Foucault 1970: 289). Because of that, language would then start being studied as a formal structure: [L]‌anguage no longer consists only of representations and of sounds that in turn represent the representations and are ordered amongst them as the links of thought required; it consists also of formal elements, grouped into a system, which impose upon the sounds, syllables, and roots an organization that is not that of representation. Thus, an element has been introduced into the analysis of language that is not reducible to it (as labor was introduced into the analysis of exchange, or organic structure into that of characters). (Foucault 1970: 235) That may be why philology only emerged as a formal study of language, its literature and its historical and cultural contexts by the end of the eighteenth century. And Smith would have played a fundamental role in that process. Philology studies grammar, rhetoric, history, interpretation of authors and critical traditions associated with a given language. Philology begins studying

Adam Smith on language and his epistemology  157 language as a system that imposed its organization (‘organic structure’) upon sounds, syllables and roots. Foucault writes: now it is not a matter of rediscovering some primary word that has been buried in it, but of disturbing the words we speak, of denouncing the grammatical habits of our thinking, of dissipating the myths that animate our words, of rendering once more noisy and audible the element of silence that all discourse carries with it as it is spoken. (Foucault 1970: 298) Hence, it will be understood that language has ‘unconscious’ elements. ‘Unconscious’ here goes beyond the meaning that will have for Freud, for instance. It has the meaning of ‘unthought’, as mentioned above. And that happened because the fundamental ontological conception of man changed. Philology emerged in order to analyze what is said in the depths of discourse. Like the temporality of production in economic thought, languages change following the laws of temporal succession. Philology was to study the internal temporal mutations of language. According to Foucault, this happened in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and the protagonists of this change were Laurent Coeurdoux and Sir William Jones. Jones was considered a founder of comparative grammar, having studied the relationship between Indo-​European languages and the differences between Sanskrit and Greek. Nevertheless, Foucault claims that it was only after Jacob Grimm, Friedrich von Schlegel, Rasmus Rask and Franz Bopp that language became an object of study and philology emerged.

On Smith, on language and his epistemology It is well known that Smith displayed an early interest in studying language and placed much importance on the subject. As Schabas writes, for Smith, ‘[i]‌t is language and our propensity to “truck, barter, and exchange” that sets us apart from all other species and gives rise to commerce and trade’ (Schabas 2005: 92). Smith’s dissertation on language was first published in 1761 under the title Dissertation upon the Origin of Languages in The Philological Miscellany. The Dissertation did not receive much attention, and, after some editorial changes and additions, Smith instructed his publisher to add it to the third edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which appeared in 1767. This would attest the importance that he gave to his essay and can be seen as ‘a reminder to readers that his moral theory was heavily indebted to a distinctive theory of language’, as Phillipson (2013: 24) writes. The full title of his essay on language became Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages, and the different Genius of Original and Compound Languages. He also lectured on rhetoric from 1748 to 1751 in Edinburgh and continued doing that at Glasgow University through to 1763. His lectures were posthumously published under the title Lectures on

158  Iara Vigo de Lima Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (LRBL) based on students’ notes of his classes. Dugald Stewart, who was his first and greatest biographer, affirmed: It [Considerations] deserves our attention, less on account of the opinions it contains, than a specimen of a particular sort of enquiry, which, so far as I know, is entirely modern in origin, and which seems, in a peculiar degree to have interested Mr. Smith’s curiosity. Something very similar to it may be traced all his different works, whether moral, political, or literary; and in all of theses subjects he has exemplified it with the happiest success. (Stewart 1982: 292 –​emphases added) This quotation is usually interpreted as an emphasis on Smith’s innovative use of ‘conjectural history’, which he also applied to the understanding of the origin and development of language. Stewart’s statement can additionally be very suggestive of the potentiality of Smith’s essay as a sort of exemplar, whose examination may enable us to apprehend the sort of enquiry that he applied in the whole of his work. Adam Smith lectured and wrote about language and clearly made the connection between language and knowledge. According to Smith, language was a means of expressing knowledge and simplicity might suffice for that. This was in his belief that a clear, plain and perspicuous style would provide an author the best skills to deliver his ideas. That is why Smith seems to privilege communication rather than persuasion (Brown 1994). And as Dascal (2006) points out, Smith saw rhetoric slightly different from his contemporaries. Smith did not understand it as associated with the ‘ornamental’ role of language. Smith criticized his contemporaries and argued in favour of a ‘plain’ style, which ‘permitted him to recover the forgotten Aristotelian rhetorical tradition that emphasizes persuasion as a main discursive function’ (Dascal 2006: 105) Some scholars have pointed out that Smith’s interest in language could be explained by a pedagogical concern, as well as an issue related to his local environment of debate –​regarding, for instance, the use of Scotticisms and/​ or the concern with self-​improvement of the Scottish Enlightenment –​which have been considered the explanation for the popularity of Smith’s lectures at that time (see Howell 1975, for instance). But his interest in language went beyond a mere pedagogic concern or an interest related to his local environment. Haakonssen (2006: xvii) writes that Smith saw the study of language and literature as closely allied with moral theory –​and both of them as part of his grand scheme to replace traditional metaphysics of the soul with the empirical study of the social manifestations of the life of the mind. Smith placed great emphasis upon the means of communication as the key to ordering and comprehending concepts.

Adam Smith on language and his epistemology  159 Smith’s Considerations displays some of the fundamental epistemic conditions pointed by Foucault to characterize the process of knowing in the eighteenth century. Smith was investigating the ‘natural’ process of language through the analysis of an ‘order’ of its components (he was mapping its elements). Smith had an ontological perception of ‘order’ of nature conducting his investigations, which he applied to the study of language. The ‘order’ is evident in the way he introduces the elements of language (nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, singular and plural nouns, and pronouns). It is also explicit when he writes that [I]‌t is the application of the name of the individual to a great multitude of objects [...] that seems originally to have given occasion to the formation of those classes and assortments, which, in the schools, are called genera and species [...]. (Smith 1777, ‘Considerations’ 391–​392) In Considerations, Smith describes the main elements of language, their order in a sentence, their possible origins, how they are interconnected and how their emergence corresponded to certain human needs and desires. In other words, we may say that Smith had an ontological perception of language as having an ‘order’, an ‘organic structure’ and a ‘temporal’ constitution. But above all Smith is tracing the history of those elements, trying to explain how they emerged and how they changed over time. It is possible to trace a strict connection between those ontological precepts and the methodological procedures. Smith saw language as a system of ‘order’ that arose spontaneously from the needs of individuals and changed over time according to transformations of their needs. He was describing the ‘temporal’ configuration of language and its elements and saw it as an ‘organic’ structure that derived from ‘human’ logic. It is also possible to say that he was naming (taxonomy) the ‘inner’ elements of any language. Words and their use spontaneously emerge and change. The rules and conventions about how to use them also change in time. Nature –​which certainly was ‘one of the most frequently used words in WN’, as Fleischacker (2004: 30) points out –​order, time, organicism, inner constitution of the object and anthropologism were, then, fundamental principles conducting his inquiries in Considerations. There was ‘a conception of a human nature that was constant and uniform in its operating principles’, as Berry (2012) emphasizes. But it seems that these elements can easily be found in other works. Smith frequently used expressions like ‘order of society’, ‘the order of the world’, ‘the order of the universe’ and ‘the order of the whole machine of the world’. In History of Astronomy, Smith depicted philosophy as a process of knowing that connected and regularized the data of everyday experience. Might we say that Smith was searching for ‘ordering’ the elements of wealth in The Wealth of Nations? Smith actually defined moral philosophy as:

160  Iara Vigo de Lima The beauty of a systematical arrangement of different observations connected by a few common principles […] arranged in some methodical order, and connected together by a few common principles […] to arrange and connect the phenomena of nature.The science which pretends to investigate and explain those connecting principles, is what is properly called moral philosophy. (Smith 1976 WN V.i.f.25) And Smith adds to this statement that Hutcheson, referring to man’s ‘multiplicity of natural desires’, had written that: This complex view, I say, must at first make human nature appear a strange chaos, or a confused combination of jarring principles, until we can discover by a closer attention, some natural connexion or order among them, some governing principles naturally fitted to regulate all the rest. To discover this is the main business of Moral Philosophy, and to show how all these parts are to be ranged in order ... (Hutcheson apud Smith 1976 WN V.i.f.25, note 18 –​emphasis added). Possibly, the conception regarding the limitations of human understanding can explain, as Foucault argues in relation to the emergence of human sciences, Smith’s emphasis on the principles of human nature when approaching distinct subject matters. Smith had already considered the limitations of human reasoning. Although Smith declares his admiration for Newton’s system in Astronomy, he believed that scientific systems were creations of our imagination and that ‘no system is ever identical with the things it describes’ (Fleischacker 2004: 27). In The principles which lead and direct philosophical inquiries, he compares the thinker who wants to understand the world to the spectators of an opera concert. He affirms that the difference between those individuals is that the spectator can go behind the curtains to understand how the show was built, while the knower of the world cannot do that. Smith clearly was not only considering the surface of those elements. For him, to know was to trace a history of the ‘inner’ and/​or ‘hidden’ elements of the object of knowledge. As he stated in Astronomy: The supposition of a chain of intermediate, though invisible, events, which succeed each other in a train similar to that in which the imagination has been accustomed to move, and which link together those two disjointed appearances, is the only means by which the imagination can fill up this interval, is the only bridge which, if one may say so, can smooth its passage from the one object to the other. (Smith 1980, Essays on Philosophical Subjects (EPS), ‘Astronomy’ II: 7–​8) The role that Smith attributes to imagination is one more example of the anthropological character of his investigations. In Considerations, it is already

Adam Smith on language and his epistemology  161 possible to understand that Smith conceived the fundamental role of ‘human’ mind operations in all the process of creation and development of language. Smith was consistently seeking for the causes and characteristics of the emergence and existence of language in humans’ sentiments and dispositions. ‘Ordering’ and ‘naming’ the ‘inner components’ of an ‘organic’ object comprise an operation of analysis. But Smith was not only ‘analysing’ the object. This is particularly manifested when he considered the role played by humans in the constitution and operation of the object under scrutiny. In these cases, ‘interpretation’ and ‘analogy’ became also important procedures in the process of knowing. And for that, ‘imagination’ became crucial. For analysing, interpreting and making analogies, ‘man’ had to use imagination to find resemblances, differences and relations between/​among things and their elements. Human imagination had to connect and ‘order’ impressions. Smith is clear about this, for example, when he affirms that adjectives are ‘abstract’ words and that ‘[t]‌he invention, therefore, of the simplest nouns adjective, must have required more metaphysics than we are apt to be aware of ’ (Smith 1777, ‘Considerations’ 394–​ 395).This is one more example of the role that the human self had in the whole of his system and ideas. It is well known that Smith, referring to the sentiment of ‘wonder’, that is, the feeling provoked in man by something unknown to him so far, investigated the role of resemblance and imagination. Wonder is an emotion that incites a feeling of ‘unease’ within us and the ‘imagination feels a real difficulty in passing along two events which follow one another in an uncommon order’ (‘Astronomy’ II). This was also explicit in Considerations, being one more example of how a perception of that condition was underpinning his epistemology in different writings. Smith was also certainly aware of the studies on the origin of language and grammar of his own time and conceived of language as having the ‘historicity’ in the sense of ‘temporality’ and ‘organic structure’. Smith had read the articles on grammar in the French Encyclopédie and Abbe Girard’s Les Vrais Principes de La Langue Françoise. Although it may be said that Smith was writing before the emergence of linguistics, there was much in Smith’s reflections that place him in a context of transition to a modern conception of language. This seems to be the case particularly considering his LRBL, though it is possible, for example, to see aspects of this already in Considerations. In the latter, Smith already referred to a temporality of languages in the modern sense, dealing with the historical increasing of complexity particularly derived from the mixture of different languages. Also, Smith’s conception of language in the modern sense can be grasped by statements like: ‘The ingenious sophistry of his reasoning, is here, as upon many other occasions, covered by the ambiguity of language.’ (Smith 1777, ‘Considerations’ 312 –​emphasis added). Or when he writes in The Wealth of Nations: ‘It is the ambiguity of language only which can make this proposition appear either doubtful or paradoxical’ (Smith WN I.ii.a.12). Smith often refers and gives examples of the ‘ambiguity’ of language in Of the External Senses.

162  Iara Vigo de Lima Smith’s Considerations also put forward questions and a treatment of language that soon would be classified into the concerns of philology. Smith had a constant concern with the internal structure of languages and comprehended that language had to follow some grammatical rules to be able to communicate and persuade. Smith also sought an understanding of the internal relation between/​among elements of language in order to apprehend their functions as part of their temporality. Hence, Smith clearly saw language as historical in both meanings pointed out by Foucault: temporality and organic structure. Smith compared different systems of language. In Smith’s thought, communication is an empirical implication of language. As Bryce stated in the introduction to LRBL, for Smith, ‘language is organically related not merely to thought in the abstract […]; it bears the “the same stamp” as the speaker’s nature’.This is also explicit when Smith states that ‘stile… not only expresses the thought but also the spirit and mind of the author’ (Smith 1983, LRBL i.v.47). Smith refers to speech as ‘the characteristical faculty of human nature’ in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, as observed by Berry (2012: 475). Smith saw language ‘developing in step with man’s (and society’s) development’ (Berry 1974: 138). Man, his sentiments and cultural context, for example, were determining meanings. Smith wrote in LRBL: The perfection of stile consists in Expressing in the most concise, proper and precise manner the thought of the author, and that in the manner which best conveys the sentiment, passion or affection with which it affects or he pretends it does affect him and which he designs to communicate to his reader. (Smith 1983, LRBL i.133) Smith had a constant concern with spoken language and indeed analysed English language in terms of sounds. Smith’s concern with ‘the speaker’s “cast of mind”, his current interest and communicative intentions, the hearer’s capacity of understanding, and –​in general the context of use’ –​shows that he went beyond an interest in language structure and semantic towards an awareness of the language use or pragmatics. Therefore, it seems that Smith’s works on language contain elements that point to an awareness of the break of language with representation, a ‘fragmentation’ of language as put it by Foucault. But did Smith anticipate the thought about ‘the being of language’ as promoted by those thinkers of the ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophy? For Smith, there could be imperfections in language, but this was not due to a conception of language in which meanings may not be in the text, but are constructed by the process of reading. This can be seen, for instance, when Smith states that the reader did not indeed play a crucial role: ‘our words must also be put in such order that the meaning of the sentence shall be quite plain and not depend on the accuracy of the printer in placing the points, or of the readers in laying the emphasis on any certain word’ (Smith 1983, LRBL i.v.7). Keith Tribe (1999: 618) writes about that and claims that

Adam Smith on language and his epistemology  163 Smith was indeed looking for a set of rules towards the style of communicative discourse.

Final Remarks This chapter offers a perspective to think about Adam Smith’s epistemology exploring Foucault’s suggestion that the study of the theory of language can shed light on the epistemological conditions of each moment in our history. We may affirm that Smith was actually a systematic thinker who developed an ‘analysis’ (search for ‘the order’) and ‘taxonomy’ (‘well-​constructed’ language) of a ‘natural order’, which was proper of an ‘interdiscursive practice’ of his time. Actually, this may tell us why Smith, consciously or not, dedicated himself to understand language and to propose a theory of it. It is then possible to suggest that we can draw a parallel between his writings on language and his other inquiries. This study put forward the idea that it may be valuable to understand that ‘the historicity’ (in both meanings applied by Foucault: ‘temporality’ and ‘organic structure’) of the object under scrutiny in knowledge was fundamental in any inquiry of that period of time. This could explain why Smith gave so much importance in his writings on language and rhetoric to the study of different conceptions of language and how he conceived that man has historically dealt with it. An accurate analysis of Smith’s lectures on language showed that he already was aware of the historical character of languages, as temporal and distinct ‘organic’ structures. It is then possible to conjecture about how those ontological/​epistemological conditions determined Smith’s other intellectual concerns. The conditions, here identified, need to be appreciated in what relates to Smith’s approach to morality, law, politics and economics. The main object of economic thought was ‘wealth’. And, following that configuration of thought, economic thought consisted of identifying the elements of wealth (ordering/​analyzing wealth) and comprehending how they were ‘ordered’ in a system of exchange. Would it be possible to see the metaphor of ‘an invisible hand’ as a way of somehow representing a conception of order in market? We could, perhaps, also say that it was the perception of an ‘organic structure’ and ‘temporality’ of the object that led Smith to put emphasis on the process of ‘production’ of wealth. It is not that production was not considered in economic thought before Smith, but those conditions may have been translated into a conception of ‘wealth’ that results from production. And the organic architecture of production presupposes ‘internal elements’ that work in a temporal pace, and that is perhaps why a theory of labour value could emerge in the foreground of economic thought. Smith had to figure out the ‘historicity’ of wealth: production was a ‘temporal’ process and had an ‘organic’ structure (allowing him to think about ‘division of labour’, for instance). Smith’s ideas regarding language also show the centrality that he put on man’s essence. It may be said that Smith’s main goal was to understand man’s

164  Iara Vigo de Lima nature. Anthropologism in the meaning of ‘logic of man’ became one main characteristic of his thought. In relation to economic behaviour, he depicted man as following a natural drive to subsistence and trade. From this perspective, it may be easier to apprehend the full content of Haakonssen’s statement: While Smith certainly had normative concerns in morals, politics, and law, they have to be understood as dependent upon his overall system. For in Smith’s hands moral philosophy is first of all a grand anthropological theory within which language and literature, arts and sciences, politics and law, and, of course, economics are to be studied with the aim of establishing empirically –​mainly historically –​the balance between nature and culture. (Haakonssen 2006: xviii –​emphases added) In this statement, Haakonssen is attesting the central role of human nature in Smith’s intellectual project. The imperative of this condition of possibility is found in this economic thought, perhaps explaining his precedence of psychological and sociological elements in his analysis of economic phenomena. As Montes and Schliesser (2006: 5–​6) write: ‘In both his moral and economic theories Smith frequently praises the wisdom of nature while contrasting it with the folly of man’. All these conjectures regarding the association between Smith’s epistemology as inherent in his writings on language could then inspire other fruitful avenues of enquiry in relation to his other investigations.

Note 1 Ontology means here the perception of the being of the objects and epistemology as the methodological principles conducting their investigation.

Bibliography Berry, C. (1974) ‘Adam Smith’s Considerations on Language’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 35(1): 130–​138. —​—​(2012) ‘Adam Smith’s “Science of Human Nature”’, History of Political Economy, 44(3): 471–​492. Brown, V. (1994) Adam Smith’s Discourse. Canonicity, Commerce and Conscience, London: Routledge. Dascal, M. (2006) “Adam Smith’s Theory of Language”, in The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith, K. Haakonssen (ed.), pp. 79–​111, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fleischacker, S. (2004) On Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”: A Philosophical Companion, Princeton and Woodstock: Princeton University Press. Foucault, M. [1966] (1970) The Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, London: Tavistock Publications Limited. Haakonssen, K. (2006) ‘Introduction’, in Voices on Adam Smith, L. Montes and E. Schliesser (eds.), London and New York: Routledge.

Adam Smith on language and his epistemology  165 Howell,W.(1975)‘Adam Smith’s Lectures on Rhetoric:An Historical Assessment’,in Essays on Adam Smith, A. Skinner and T. Wilson (eds.), pp. 11–​43, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lima, I. V. (2015) ‘Economic thought in the 17th and 18th centuries: a linguistic approach’, On the Horizon, 23(3): 260–​70. Montes, L. and Schliesser, E. (eds.) (2006) New Voices on Adam Smith, London and New York: Routledge. Noordegraaf, J. (1977) ‘A few remarks on Adam Smith’s dissertation’, Historiographia Linguistica, 4(1): 59–​67. Phillipson, N. (2013) ‘Adam Smith: A biographer’s reflections’, in The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith, C. Berry, M.P. Paganelli and C. Smith (eds.), pp. 23–​35, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Schabas, M. (2005) The Natural Origins of Economics, London and Chicago:The University of Chicago Press. Schliesser, E. (2006) ‘Adam Smith’s benevolent and self-​ interested conception of Philosophy’, in New Voices on Adam Smith, L. Montes and E. Schliesser (eds.), pp. 328–​57, London and New York: Routledge. Smith, A. (1777) The Theory of Moral Sentiments to which is added Dissertation on the origin of languages, 6th ed., Dublin: Printed for J. Beatty and C. Jackson, No. 31, Skinner-​Row. —​—​—​ (1976) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner (eds.), 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon. —​—​—​ (1977) The Correspondence of Adam Smith, E.C. Mossner and I. Ross (eds.), Oxford Clarendon Press; reprinted, Liberty Classics (1982). —​—​—​ (1980) Essays on Philosophical Subjects,W.P.D.Wightman, J.C. Bryce and I.S. Ross (eds.); D.D. Raphael and A.S. Skinner (General eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. —​—​—​ (1983) Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, J.C. Bryce (ed.), also includes ‘Languages’: Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages [1761], Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stewart, D. (1982) ‘Account of the life and writings of Adam Smith’, in Essays on Philosophical Subjects, W.P.D. Wightman (ed.), Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Tribe, K. (1999) ‘Adam Smith: Critical theorist?’, Journal of Economic Literature, 37(2): 609–​632.

‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’ in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and in The Wealth of Nations1 Luigi Alonzi

Introduction Three years before the publication of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), there had been a French translation of the New General English Dictionary published by the reverend Thomas Dyche and by the gentleman William Pardon in 1735, which contained the following entry: OECONOMY (S.) Good Management, or Regularity in Private Families; also prudent Behaviour in any Affairs whatever; in Physick, the Animal Oeconomy is properly the Science of Anatomy enlarged, taking in not only the Structure and Parts of a human Body, but also their Use, together with the Nature and Causes of Life, Health, and Disorders that produce or cause Diseases, &c. In Architecture, ‘tis properly the Scientifick Part, which being duly applied, not only direct the proper Method of taking due Measures and Proportions, but also by considering the Materials ascertains the Charge of any Structure before ‘tis begun. In Scripture, the Legal or Jewish Oeconomy is that system of Laws or Observations, that Nation or People were obliged to perform and observe both in their Religious and Moral State; the Christian Oeconomy is the Dispensation of Grace and Mercy delivered to Mankind by Christ and his Disciples; in Oratory, ‘tis the regular ordering or disposing the Speech or Subjects according to the Rules of Art.2 Dyche and Pardon’s dictionary aimed particularly at practical ends, leaving aside grammatical and etymological refinements that readers could have been found in Bailey’s; this might explain the great success of their dictionary, which was reprinted several times during the eighteenth century.3 The entry ‘oeconomy’ excellently summarized the main features of the concept expressed from this term in that period, referring to notions such as order, rules, disposition, and the lexical trajectory that it had covered from the household management and the theological field to the ‘animal oeconomy’ and the ‘oeconomy of nature’. The word ‘oeconomy’ turned out to be fitting to represent some of the most important instances of eighteenth-​ century epistemology, being particularly DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-14

‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’  167 apt to express the constant rules and the rational functioning of systems that philosophers were greedy to find out. The general framework these philosophers make reference to was similar to that portrayed by some sociologists in the second half of the twentieth century through the ‘structure-​function’ relationship; according to this conception, there are structures, both material and theoretical, which fixed the limits and constituted the conditions for the development of every given phenomenon. At the same time, the above-​mentioned words refer to the functioning of these structures and to the operational mode through which the order can be managed (ménage) or directed (conduit). Within this general framework, for instance, it is possible to place a work such as François Quesnay’s Essai phisique sur l’économie animale, in which the French physician, well-​known for his bloodletting theory and later mainly famous for his Tableau oeconomique4, shaped his fundamental ideas based on the healing force of the nature. As a matter of fact, the concept of nature and the image of the circulatory system were two highways through which the term-​concept ‘oeconomia’ was metaphorically extended to different fields of knowledge; in the eighteenth century this conception had one of his most remarkable images in the graceful order of nature and of human body. Hence, to fully understand the meaning expressed by the term ‘economy’, it is necessary to keep in mind that it essentially referred to the idea of a perfect and efficient order. Indeed, the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, who exerted a great and discussed influence for the establishment of the living beings taxonomy, associated the term ‘economy’ with the ideas of nature and divinity, so expressing the idea of perfect order at the highest level; consistently, he opened his Specimen academicum de Oeconomia Naturae with the following words: Per OECONOMIAM NATURAE a) intelligimus Summi conditoris circa Res Naturales sapientissimam dispositionem, secundum quam illae aptae sunt ad communes fines & reciprocos usus producendos. a) Alio nomine Oeconomia Divina dictam. (Linnaeus 1749: 1)5 In this case, the word disposition, which was defined sapientissima with reference to the res naturales, addressed to the production of goods of mutual use for the public benefit; in other words, we are dealing with the concept of Mother Nature, a generous and productive nature which many considered as moved by the Providence for the fulfilment of the divine plan, having the man as its means. This conception might have inspired also the idea of a providential ‘invisible hand’, which had the fulfilment of the human needs as its goal, and that largely inspired the three or four stages theories spreading in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Meek 1976; Finzi 1982; Hont 1997). So no wonder that this same conception can also be found in some ‘economists’ of the eighteenth century, such as Richard Cantillon, who asked himself how to provide for the human material needs, and investigated the

168  Luigi Alonzi relationships men used to establish with nature to satisfy their needs. In opening his Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, Cantillon linked explicitly the concept of a providential Mother Nature, expressed by the lexeme ‘oeconomie’, with two other important lexemes of the eighteenth-​century economic discourse: commerce and wealth. La Terre est la source ou la matière d’où l’on tire la Richesse; le travail de l’homme est la forme qui la produit; et la Richesse en elle-​même, n’est autre chose que la nourriture, les commoditéz, & les agréments de la vie. La Terre produit de l’herbe, des racines, des grains, du lin, du coton, du chanvre, des arbrisseaux, et bois de plusieurs éspèces, avec des fruits, des écorces & feuillages de diverse sortes, comme celles du Meuriers pour les Vers a soies. Elle produit des Mines & Minéraux. Le travail de l’homme donne la forme de richesse à tout cela. Les Rivières & les Mers fournissent des Poissons, pour la nourriture de l’Homme, & plusieurs autres choses pour l’agrément. Mais ces mers & ces Rivieres appartiennet aux Terres adjacentes, ou sont communes; & le travail de l’Homme en tire le Poisson, et autres avantages. (Cantillon 1755: 1).6 This naturalistic approach nurtured between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while in the previous centuries the concept of ‘oeconomy’ had been mainly associated with the specific theoretical framework of the household management, in order to indicate a form of administration characterized, in the same way, by the idea of a hierarchic and efficient order. In the thirteenth century Saint Thomas Aquinas had reworked in theological terms this general conception applied to the cosmos and to the society, which was largely derived from Aristotle and Xenophon. Inside the concept of ‘economy’ associated with the perfection of the household management and with the idea of a divine and natural order, it was possible also to find a particular application of the word in the field of politics, that is in the management of the res publica; anyway, the term ‘political oeconomy’, which had found one of its main textual references in the second book of Pseudo-​Aristotle’s Oeconomica, was much less widespread than the general term ‘oeconomy’ (Alonzi 2022).7 During the eighteenth century the different meanings and traditions carried out by the word ‘economy’ intertwined and overlapped themselves, frequently making difficult their interpretation; modern historians and philosophers have not always been able to distinguish between these different meanings, often projecting backwards modern analytical categories. The Canadian philosopher of economics Margaret Schabas, who has conveniently pointed out the naturalistic imprinting of the concept of ‘economy’, has not always avoided misunderstanding between the eighteenth and nineteenth-​century concepts of ‘economy’ (Schabas 2005). On the other hand, Michel Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge, from which Schabas’ book draws inspiration, presented already the same semantic

‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’  169 and lexical drawbacks, leaving unsolved the passage from the eighteenth-​ century analysis of wealth to the nineteenth-​century political economy (Vigo De Lima 2010; Kologlugil 2010; Barkan 2016); this was especially due to the lack of distinction between semasiology and onomasiology, which affected the general reconstruction of a subject of inquiry not precisely defined.

The concept of economy Analysing the semantic evolution of the word ‘oeconomy’ and the term ‘political oeconomy’ in the second half of the eighteenth century is not a simple task; it goes without saying that the use of the term ‘oeconomy’ made in the TMS has nothing to do with the fact that Adam Smith has been considered the founding father of political economy. In the TMS, published in 1759, Adam Smith used the noun and the adjective ‘oeconomy’ in the above-​mentioned form and meaning, although the context of his discourse gave a new bent to his use of this traditional conceptualization. In chapter III, Part VII (section II), devoted to ‘those systems which make virtue consist in benevolence’, while greatly praising his master Frances Hutcheson, Smith took cautiously distance from some consequences of the latter system of moral philosophy, using twice the word ‘oeconomy’ in an important passage about the multiple relationships between benevolence and self-​interest: Regard to our own private happiness and interest too, appear upon many occasions very laudable principles of action. The habits of oeconomy, industry, discretion, attention, and application of thought, are generally supposed to be cultivated from self-​interested motives, and at the same time are apprehended to be very praise-​worthy qualities, which deserve the esteem and approbation of everybody. The mixture of a selfish motive, it is true, seems often to sully the beauty of those actions which ought to arise from a benevolent affection.The cause of this, however, is not that self-​love can never be the motive of a virtuous action, but that the benevolent principle appears in this particular case to want its due degree of strength, and to be altogether unsuitable to its object. The character, therefore, seems evidently imperfect, and upon the whole to deserve blame rather than praise. The mixture of a benevolent motive in an action to which self-​love alone ought to be sufficient to prompt us, is not so apt indeed to diminish our sense of its propriety, or of the virtue of the person who performs it.We are not ready to suspect any person of being defective in selfishness.This is by no means the weak side of human nature, or the failing of which we are apt to be suspicious. If we could really believe, however, of any man, that, was it not from a regard to his family and friends, he would not take that proper care of his health, his life, or his fortune, to which self-​preservation alone ought to be sufficient to prompt him, it would undoubtedly be a failing, though one of those amiable failings, which renders a person rather the object of pity than

170  Luigi Alonzi of contempt or hatred. It would still, however, somewhat diminish the dignity and respectableness of his character. Carelessness and want of oeconomy are universally disapproved of, not, however, as proceeding from a want of benevolence, but from a want of the proper attention to the objects of self-​interest (Smith 1761: 400)8. This passage has been largely quoted even for the importance that it plays in the whole Smithian perspective.9 From a lexicological standpoint the word ‘oeconomy’ was here used by Smith in a traditional bent, in the linguistic field circumscribed by the words ‘industry, discretion, attention, and application of thought’, as well as, it can be added, prudence and frugality. In another passage, circumscribing the idea of ‘moral sense’ worked out by Frances Hutcheson, Smith associated the concept of ‘economy’ with the idea of natural equilibrium and rational organization, as in the following phrase: ‘nature, they imagine [those who opposed to the idea of moral sense], acts here, as in all other cases, with the strictest oeconomy, and produces a multitude of effects from one and the same cause’, soon paralleling this concept with that of ‘sympathy, a power which has always been taken notice of, and with which the mind is manifestly endowed, [which] is, they think, sufficient to account for all the effects ascribed to this peculiar faculty’.10 In a nutshell, the sympathy is a power making possible the functioning of the mind with the strictest oeconomy, just like the nature does not permit the existence of unnecessary things, and forbid the waste of energy11; in those years these concepts were frequently expressed through the term ‘economy of the mind’ and ‘economy of the nature’. At the same time, it should be noted that, in the context of his ethics, Adam Smith did not take into account the word-​concept of ‘economy’ referring to the household management, still distancing himself from his master Frances Hutcheson, who had devoted an entire book of his Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy to the Principles of Oeconomicks and Politicks; particularly, the Short Introduction’s third book, on the wake of the Aristotelian tradition, was devoted to the marriage, the duties of parents and children, the duties of master and servants. It is important to observe that in the Wealth of Nations (WN) too,Adam Smith set completely aside the old concept of ‘economy’ linked to the Oeconomica, and that (due also to this reason) this work can hardly be located into the textual tradition of ‘political economy’; indeed, in the Smithian masterpiece it can be found only a sneaky reference to the fact that ‘what is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom’ (WN IV. ii. 12)12. As peremptorily stated by Moses Finley, ‘there was no road from the “oeconomics” of Francis Hutcheson to the WN of Adam Smith, published twenty-​four years later. Lexicographically the road began not with the literal sense of oikonomia but with its extension to any sort of organization or management. Thus, in the generation after Xenophon, a rival politician ridiculed Demosthenes as ‘useless in the oikonomiai, the affairs of the city’, a metaphor repeated two centuries later by the Greek historian Polybius’ (Finley 1973: 20)13.

‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’  171

The concept of political economy In fact, this long road had occasionally been interrupted since the Middle Age until Jean Jacques Rousseau, who categorically refused to extend the principles of the household management to the public economy, the updated subject which he brought to the attention of scholars on the pages of the Éncyclopedie (1756);14 anyway, the new subject of inquiry was not still surely catalogued under a clear label, least of all under the term ‘political economy’. Given this situation, it is very surprising the extensive use of the term ‘political oeconomy’ made in 1767 by James Steuart, who even entitled his book, An Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy: Being an Essay on the Science of Domestic Policy in Free Nations. In which are particularly considered Population, Agriculture, Trade, Industry, Money, Coin, Interest, Circulation, Banks, Exchange, Public Credit, and Taxes. It is worthy of note that during the sojourn of sir James Steuart in Paris, the term ‘économie politique’ had entered the debates of the lively salons scattered inside and around the Capital, but the term had appeared sporadically in printed publications. Therefore, the use of the term ‘political oeconomy’ made by James Stauart was quite new, considering in addition that it had not had great relevance in the English language. Interestingly, before the publication of his inquiry, the most extensive use of the term had been made, without any doubt, by the marquis of Mirabeau in his Philosophie rurale (1763).15 On the other hand, the latter book was quoted in one of the very few pages of the WN where the term ‘political oeconomy’ was employed by Smith, who owned in his library also the 1769 edition of the Ephemerides du Citoyen; the first eight numbers of this journal contained the important Notice abrégées des differents écrits modernes qui ont concouru en France à former la science de l’économie politique, written by Samuel Dupont de Nemours.16 It is also necessary to recall here another key player in the dissemination of the term ‘political oeconomy’, to whom Smith was acquainted: André Morellet. The abbot of Lyon advocated a French translation of the WN, even before its English publication, and his economic, political and religious difficulties notwithstanding, he continued in this endeavour after receiving the book, presumably, by Smith himself. The translation remained unpublished, just like the manuscript devoted by Morellet to the ‘science de l’économie publique en général’, in which, although he said to prefer the term ‘économie publique’, he defended the use of ‘économie politique’ against the criticisms raised by Ferdinando Galiani in the Discours sur le commerce des bleds.17 According to Morellet, the transition from the traditional science of commerce to the new ‘science de l’économie politique’ was mainly due to Vincent de Gournay; as summarized by Jacques Turgot, who made acquainted Morellet with Vincent de Gournay, découvrir les causes et les effets cachés de cette multitude de révolutions et de leur variation continuelles; remonter aux ressorts simples dans l’action,

172  Luigi Alonzi toujours combinée et quelquefois déguisée per les circonstances locales; diriger toutes les opérations du commerce; reconnaître ces lois unique et primitive, fondées sur la nature même, par lesquelles toutes les valeurs existant dans le commerce se balancent entre elles et se fixent à une valeur déterminée, comme les corps abandonnées à leur propre pesanteur s’arrangent d’eux même suivant l’ordre de leur gravitée specifique; saisir ses rapports compliqués par lequels le commerce s’enchaîne avec toutes les branches de l’économie politique […] c’est l’envisager en philosophe et en homme d’Etat. (Turgot 1759: 263) Morellet was extremely sensitive to the new meaning of that old term and, at least since his Prospectus d’un nouveau dictionnaire de commerce (1769b), he dealt with the different problems raised by the relationships between the traditional science of commerce and the new science of political economy.18 It is worth emphasizing that these problems encouraged an anonymous businessman to write against the Prospectus of Morellet and against the gens de lettres who were dealing with topics that (he said) they did not know; this stance was soon replied to on the Journal Encyclopédique (where the critique had appeared), defending Morellet and ‘les Oeconomistes’: ‘Pourquoi cette satyre contre ce qu’il appelle les Oeconomistes. Qui lui a dit que la discussion de leurs opinion formeroit une partie considerable de ce dictionnaire? Où confond-​il la science appellée Oeconomie politique avec ces opinions? Qu’est-​ce qu’il entend par la sphère ordinaire des gens de lettres?’19. Vincent de Gournay and François Quesnay’s followers (les Oeconomistes) were united in defending what they considered a new science and its methodological and epistemological implications. We find an echo of this debate in the Examen de la réponse de M. N. [Necker], published soon after in November 1769, where Morellet modestly advances a defence of his stance: ‘Je me défends sur-​tout de cette imputation, parce qu’elle me donne une importance que je n’ai point. Je ne suis qu’un homme de Lettres, vivant dans la retraite, & absolument éloignée de toute Administration. Je m’occupe, à la verité, depuis plus de quinze années de l’étude du commerce, & de l’économie politique’ (Morellet 1769a: 23). In Morellet, as in other authors, the conceptualization of the term ‘political oeconomy’ (or public economy) was linked to its differentiation from the traditional science of commerce, which was considered much more restricted in its horizon20. The answer of Morellet to Necker is quoted by Adam Smith in ­chapter 1, book V of the WN, in dealing with the analysis of the role played by the joint stock companies in the foreign trade. Although some information reported in his answer were criticized, Smith referred to Morellet as ‘an eminent French author, of great knowledge in matters of political economy’; as in other cases, Adam Smith made an use of the term ‘political oeconomy’ with reference to the author who had employed it. This is one of the two references made by Smith to the term ‘political oeconomy’ in the book V of the WN; almost all the few other references are

‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’  173 contained in the book IV, devoted to the Systems of Political Oeconomy. Anyway, in order to correctly understand the use of the term ‘political oeconomy’ made by Smith, it is not enough to restrict the textual analysis to this book or extend the notions here contained to the general horizon drawn by the Scottish philosopher; it is necessary instead to bear in mind the whole structure of the WN, the position and the significance of the single books, and the broader lexical and semantic context mentioned above. Undoubtedly, the Introduction to book IV, where Smith gives his definition of ‘political oeconomy’, is a central passage to understand how he used this term, but by considering the general Introduction and plan of the work it emerges clearly that the central concepts are ‘the annual labour of every nations’ and the subsequent distribution of the produce ‘among the different ranks and conditions of men in the society’, as well as the proportion between the labourers and ‘the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting them to work’. Now, taking into account the few definitions of ‘political economy’ or ‘économie politique’ outlined until then, it is difficult to encapsulate the subject matter approached by Smith into them; it was observed by Morellet, in his notes alongside the translation of the WN, that ‘le veritable titre de l’ouvrage de Smith seroit du travail et de ses produits et non pas de la richesse des nations’.21 Although Smith was substantially near to the normative principles envisaged by the abbot of Lyon, he linguistically took distance by André Morellet, who had tried to apply the term ‘political economy’ or ‘public economy’ to the whole science of wealth; rather, he followed the more restricted use of the term made by Sir James Steuart, who refers to the ‘political oeconomy’ as the art to manage the public resources. This, of course, does not mean that Smith shared the conception of Steuart. It was exactly the contrary. The restricted use made by Steuart explains why Smith refused to adopt the term ‘political oeconomy’ in order to qualify the subject matter of his book. Now it is necessary to pay attention to the definition of ‘political oeconomy’ given by Smith in his introduction to book IV: Political Oeconomy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence, for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistance for themselves; and secondly to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes both to enrich the people and the sovereign. The different progress of opulence in different ages and nations, has given occasion to two different systems of political oeconomy, with regard to enriching the people. The one may be called the system of commerce, the other that of agriculture. I shall endeavour to explain both as fully and distinctly as I can, and shall begin with the system of commerce. It is the modern system, and it is best understood in our own country and in our own times.

174  Luigi Alonzi This use of the term ‘political oeconomy’ is generally in line with the use of the term ‘political oeconomy’ made by sir James Steuart, who usually refers to it in association with the noun of ‘plan’ or ‘scheme’, or ‘system’, that is in the form of ‘plan of political oeconomy’ or ‘scheme of political oeconomy’, or ‘system of political oeconomy’. As we have already said, the occurrences of the term ‘political oeconomy’ in the WN were almost completely restricted to book IV, with reference to the ‘commercial or mercantile system’ and to the ‘agricultural system’ of the Physiocrats; we can add that, on the basis of Smith’s use, the term should be translated with our term ‘economic policy’, in the sense expressed by the subheading ‘domestic policy’ in sir James Steuart’s work, rather than with ‘our’ ‘political economy’. Adam Smith would have not acknowledged the dignity of science to ‘political economy’, but he used the term mainly to indicate a particular art of the Legislator; therefore, the definition of the term ‘political economy’ was directly involved with the fluctuating differentiation between science or art of the Legislator, where the science refers to almost unchanging and constant principles, while the art is the particular policy of any government, peculiar to every single State.22 This statement is confirmed by different considerations of linguistic nature. For example, Smith uses the term ‘political oeconomy’ in book IV almost always in association with the noun ‘system’, in accordance with the meaning of the word ‘policy’. This becomes particularly important if we consider that in the previous books he had used the term ‘policy of Europe’ many times and, in outlining the features of the French agricultural system, he had stated: ‘It is like the policy which would promote agriculture by discouraging manufactures’. In this phrase he specified in a very clear manner, although indirectly, what he would have defined ‘the system of political oeconomy of the Phisiocrats’ in book IV, that is the ‘agricultural system’.23 It is not by chance that Smith returns to deal with the definition of the term ‘political oeconomy’ especially in chapter IX of book IV, devoted to ‘the Agricultural System, or of those Systems of Political Oeconomy, which represents the produce of Land, as either the sole or the principal Source of the Revenue and Wealth of every Country’. Indeed, in a central part of this chapter he states: This system, however, with all its imperfections, is, perhaps, the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon the subject of political oeconomy, and is upon that account well worth the consideration of every man who wishes to examine with attention the principles of that very important science. [The members of the sect of ‘the Oeconomists’], in their works, which are very numerous, and which treat not only of what is properly called Political Oeconomy, or of the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, but of any other branch of the system of civil government, all follow implicitly, and without any sensible variation, the doctrine of Mr. Quesnai.

‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’  175 Smith is here clearly uncertain in the use of his language. This uncertainty was due to the vagueness of the term ‘political oeconomy’ and to the open-​ endedness of the new field of enquiry; anyway, he conferred a precise meaning to the term ‘political oeconomy’. As a matter of fact, Adam Smith did not like the use of the term ‘political oeconomy’ to point out the subject matter of his scientific inquiry, devoted to the nature and causes of the wealth of nations; he used the term ‘political oeconomy’ as a synonym for economic policy, especially in the fourth book of the WN or in other few cases with reference to the meaning implied in this chapter. Consequently, Smith absolutely would have not accepted to entitle his book with the term ‘political economy’. This statement can be fully understood keeping in mind the methodological and epistemological perspective developed by Adam Smith. In his view, the inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations would have to unveil the almost unchangeable rules that presided over the choices of the legislators in the field of the public economy and in the management of public resources; on the contrary, the term ‘political economy’ was intended by Smith exactly to indicate the policies really adopted in the previous centuries or that envisaged by the Physiocrats in this field, that is policies which frequently altered the system of natural liberty.

Conclusion During the eighteenth century, the word ‘economy’ referred to a concept of good disposition and efficiency, which had a strong relationship with the concept of Nature (mother nature, divine nature) and could be expressed, in terms of twentieth-​century scientific language, with the structure-​function relationship. In the previous centuries, the term-​concept of ‘economy’ had been used in different fields of inquiry, such as household management, architecture, military organization, theology and religion, human body and so on. On the contrary, the term ‘political economy’, widespread in classical Athens, did not play a significant role until the mid-​eighteenth century, when its meaning was still traditionally intended as ‘political administration’, that is, administration of the polis or the city-​State, whereby it was considered the field of inquiry of the political science. This was the general lexical framework available when Smith wrote the TMS and the WN. The word ‘economy’ was generally used in the above-​ mentioned traditional sense and, as such, it was employed by Smith in order to express a concept of perfect efficiency. The use of the term ‘political economy’ made by Sir James Steuart certainly reinforced the idea, in Smith, that his work could not be referred to that concept, if not critically. Thus, the title An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was intended to avoid any misunderstanding. On the other hand, the use made by Smith of the word ‘economy’, also in the extended form of ‘political oeconomy’, was hiding a tension. Surely, Smith rejected the ‘hommes à système’, as proved from his position towards

176  Luigi Alonzi the Physiocracy, but at the same time he was searching for rational and efficient (natural) systems. As known, the author of TMS and WN did not like the deductive method, which brought to interpret the reality on the basis of abstract schemes (a priori), but as many other eighteenth-​century philosophers, he based his inquiries on the experimental method; accordingly, he aimed at finding out rules (historical, natural, and relational constants) that presided over the functioning of sentiments (impartial spectator) and society (invisible hand).

Notes 1 An Appendix has been added to the article listing the occurrences of the terms ‘oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’ in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and in The Wealth of Nations. 2 A New English Dictionary (1735), s.v. OECONOMY. The French translation by Esprit Pézenas and Jean-​François Féraud was freely rendered as follows (Dyche 1756: 138): Oeconomie. S. f. lat. Oeconomia, ang. Oeconomy. Conduit sage, ménagement prudent qu’on fait de son bien ou de celui d’autrui. Il se dit aussi du bon usage qu’on fait de son esprit & de ses autres qualités; de la prudence à le bien placer ou à les bien ménager. L’économie animale en medicine est la disposition des parties du corps humaine, leur usage, la nature & la cause de la vie, de la santé & ce qui produit les maladies etc. C’est proprement tout l’objet de l’anatomie. En Architecture l’économie est la disposition de la belle & commode disposition des appartemens. Dans l’Ecriture, l’oeconomie legale ou juive est la manière dont Dieu jugea à propos de conduire son peuple tant par les loix cérémoniales pour la réligion que par les loix morales. L’économie chretienne est la dispensation de la grace & de la miséricorde par J. C. & ses Disciples. Dans l’Art oratoire, c’est l’ordre régulier ou l’arrangement d’un discours selon les régles de l’art. 3 As regards this dictionary, see DeWitt T. Starnes and Gertrude E. Noyes (2002). 4 As regards Quesnay’s transition from physician to ‘economist’, see Christensen (1994); Groenewegen (2001); and Vardi (1994); on the concept of animal economy, see Balan (1975; 1979; 2011), Cross (1981) and Wolfe (2008). As regards the idea of nature and of life sciences in the eighteenth century, see, at least, the classical works by Collingwood (1945), Gusdorf (1960), Ehrard (1963), Roger (1963), Lenoble (1969), and the more recent works by Reill (2005) and Wolloch (2017). 5 On this subject see Koerner (1999) and Müller-​Wille (2012). 6 The title of the first chapter was De la Richesse. 7 Among the recent editions of the Pseudo-​Aristotelian text, see Economici (2011) and Zöppfel (2006). Some useful semantic and lexical clarifications are in Aristoteles (2006: 49–​65). 8 The quotations are taken from Smith (1761: 366–​367); see also the recent edition Smith (2002). 9 As regards the relationships between the TMS and the WN, see Paganelli (2008) and Tribe (2015). 10 The word ‘oeconomy’ is also used on pages 84, 273, and 321.

‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’  177 11 As regards the application of this concept to the so-​called linguistic economy, see Vicentini (2003). 12 This passage has also been recalled with a different view by Boyer (2017: 136). 13 Some refinements on this fundamental work have been produced by Cartledge (2002). 14 As regards Rousseau’s entry oeconomy ou économy (politique et morale) and the Discours sur l’économie politique, see, especially, Bernardi (2002); for the relationships between Rousseau and Smith, see Rasmussen (2013), Kukathas (2013), Pignol and Walraevens (2017), Paganelli, Rasmussen, Smith (2018). For more on the term ‘political oeconomy’ in Adam Smith, see Alonzi (2020). For more on the term ‘political economy’ in Adam Smith, see Alonzi (2020) and Tribe (2022). 15 As regards the possible contact, in this period, between Steuart and Mirabeau, see Skinner (1993; 1999; 2006). 16 The catalogue of Adam Smith’s library lists the Ephemérides du citoyen complete for 1767, 1768, and 1769: see Yanaihara (1951: 98) and Mizuta (2000). 17 Morellet’s manuscript has been entirely published by Salvat (2003); see also his PhD thesis, Salvat (30 Mars 1992). Wide excerpts of Morellet’s manuscript were in Di Rienzo (1994: 121–​124); see also Di Rienzo (1988). 18 In the opening of this book, Morellet made a significant reference to the new term: ‘La Science de l’économie politique paroit être arrivée de nos jours a cette époque de ses progrès. Un nombre considerable de faits ont été mieux connu & mieux constatés; on en a recherché les causes avec sagacité, la pratique c’est étendue & la théorie s’est perfectionnée. Il est tems de réunir ces connoissances & de les déposer dans un Ouvrage qui par son étendue et par sa forme puisse les repandre & peut-​être en accélérer les progrès’. See Morellet (1769: 2); but we can find some hints on this subject already in Morellet (1764). 19 The two anonymous articles appeared in the Journal Encyclopédique, tome VII, partie I, octobre 1769, pp. 128–​132 and tome VIII, partie I, novembre 1769, pp. 130–​132. 20 The difference between the discourse on political economy and that concerning the science of commerce has not received sufficient attention yet; to give an example, in his interesting book Paul Cheney (2010) keeps on stating (inaccurately) that in the eighteenth century the term political economy was much more common than science of commerce. With regard to the textual tradition of the science of commerce, see Hoock, Jeannin, Kaiser (1991–​); see also Steiner’s studies (1988; 1998; 2011). 21 As regards the reception and criticisms of the WN by Morellet, see van den Berg and Salvat (2001) and Salvat (2000). 22 With reference to the introduction of book IV, Brown (1994: 112), has convincingly emphasised that this ‘reference to political oeconomy as a branch of the science of a legislator/​statesman is generally taken to provide a self-​description of WN itself. But in this passage only the mercantile and agricultural systems are identified as systems of political oeconomy; it is not stated that WN itself constitutes a distinct or third system of political oeconomy’; a contrary stance is held by Aspromourgos (2009). See also the recent article by Elazar (2022). 23 Accordingly, if Smith used the term policy of Europe in book III, we can find the following passage in book IV: ‘As the political oeconomy of the nations of modern Europe has been more favourable to manufactures and foreign trade, the industry of the towns, than to agriculture, the industry of the country. So that of other nations has followed a different plan, and has been more favourable to agriculture than to manufactures and foreign trade’.

178  Luigi Alonzi

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‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’  181 Tribe, K. (2015) ‘Das Adam Smith problem and the origins of Smith Scholarship’, in Idem, The economy of the word. Language, history, and economics, pp. 139–​ 162, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tribe, K. (2022) ‘Framing the Wealth of Nations’, History of Political Economy, 54(5): 951–973. Turgot, J. (1759) Eloge de Gournay in Oeuvres de Turgot, text établi par Eugène Daire (1844), pp. 262–​291, Paris: Guillaumin. van den Berg, R., and Salvat, Ch. (2001) Scottish subtlety: André Morellet’s comments on the Wealth of Nations, The European Journal of the History of EconomicThought, 8(2): 146–​185. Vardi, L. (1994) The physiocrats and the world of enlightenment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vicentini, A. (2003) ‘The economy principle in language. Notes and observations from Early Modern English Grammar’, Mots Palabras Words, 3: 37–​57. Vigo De Lima, I. (2010) Foucault’s Archeology of Political Economy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Wolfe, C.T. and Terada, M. (2008) ‘The animal economy as object and programme in Montpellier Vitalism’, Science in Context, 21(4): 537–​579. Wolloch, N. (2017) Nature in the history of economic thought. How natural resources become an economic concept, New York and London: Routledge. Yanaihara, T. (1951) Catalogue of Adam Smith’s Library, New York: Augustus M. Kelley. Zöppfel, R. (2006) Oikonomika. Schriften zu Hauswirtschaft und Finanzwesen, Berlin: Akademie Verlag.

Appendix (A) Occurrences of the term oeconomy in Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the second edition, London, printed for A. Millar, in the Strand; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh, MDCCLXI (1761): p. 84 ‘If we examine his oeconomy with rigor, we should find that he spends a great part of them upon conveniencies’; p. 273 ‘The rest is obliged to distribute among those, who preapre [continuare trascrizione fino a] which are employed in the oeconomy of greatness’; p. 321 ‘The rustic hospitality that is in fashion among the Poles encroaches, perhaps, a little upon oeconomy and good order’; p. 366 ‘The habits of oeconomy, industry, discretion, attention and application of thought, are generally supposed to be cultivated from self-​interested motives’; p. 367 ‘Carelessness and want of oeconomy are universally disapproved of, not, however, as proceeding from a want of benevolence, but from a want of the proper object of self-​interest’; p. 400 ‘nature, they imagine, acts here, as in all other cases, with the strictest oeconomy, and produces a multitude of effects from one and the same cause’. (B) Occurrences of the term political oeconomy in Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations; references are made also to the pages of The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, vol.

182  Luigi Alonzi II, R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner, and W. B. Todd editors, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976: p. 11 Introduction and Plan of the Work: ‘Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the private interests and prejudices of particular orders of men, without any regard to, or foresight of, their consequences upon the general welfare of the society; yet they have given occasion to very different theories of political oeconomy; of which some magnify the importance of that industry which is carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the country. Those theory have had a considerable influence, not only upon the opinions of men of learning, but upon the public contact of princes and sovereign states. I have endeavoured, in the Fourth Book, to explain, as fully and distinctly as I can, those different theories, and the principal effects which they have produced in different ages and nations’; p. 255 I, xi: ‘The greater part of the writers who have collected the money prices of things in ancient times seem to have considered the low money-​price of corn, and of goods in general, or, in other words, the high value of gold and silver, as a proof, not only of the scarsity of those metals, but of the poverty and barbarism of the country at the time when it took place. This notion is connected with the system of political oeconomy which represents national wealth as consisting in the abundance, and national poverty in the scarsity of gold and silver; a system which I shall endeavour to explain and examine at great length in the four book of this inquiry’; p. 372 II, v:‘The riches, and so far as power depends upon riches, the power of every country must always be in proportion to the value of its annual produce, the fund of which all taxes must ultimately be paid. But the great object of the political oeconomy of every country is to increase the riches and power of that country. It ought, therefore, to give no preference nor superior encouragment to the foreign trade of consumption above the home trade, nor to the carrying trade above either of the other two. It ought neither to force nor to allure into either of those two channels a greater share of the capital of the country than what would naturally flow into them of its own accord’; p. 428 IV, Introduction: ‘Political Oeconomy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistance for themselves; and secondly to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes both to enrich the people and the sovereign. The different progress of opulence in different ages and nation has given occasion to two different systems of political oeconomy with regard to enriching the people. The one may be called the system of commerce, the other that of agriculture. I shall endeavour to explain both as fully and distinctly as I can, and shall begin with the system of commerce. It is the modern system, and it is best understood in our own country and in our own times’; p. 430 IV, i: ‘Mr. Locke remarcks a distinction between money and other moveable goods […] Gold and silver, therefore, are, according to him, the most

‘Oeconomy’ and ‘political oeconomy’  183 solid and substantial part of the movable wealth of a nation, and to multiply those metals ought, he thinks, upon that account, to be the great object of its political oeconomy’; pp. 434-​435 IV, i: ‘The title of Mun’s book, England’s Treasure in Foreign Trade, became a fundamental maxime in the political oeconomy, not of England only, but of all other commercial countries’; p. 450 IV, i: ‘The two principles being established, however, that wealth consisted in gold and silver, and that those metals could be brought into a country which had no mines only by the balance of trade, or by exporting to a greater value than it imported, it necessarily became the great object of political oeconomy to diminish as much as possible the importation of foreign goods for home consumption, and to increase as much as possible the exportation of the produce of domestick industry. Its two great engines for enriching the country, therefore, were restraints upon importation, and encouragements to exportation’; p. 663 IV, ix Of the Agricultural System, or of those Systems of Political Oeconomy, which represent the produce of Land, as either the sole or the principal Source of the Revenue and Wealth of every Country. ‘The agricultural system of political oeconomy will not require so long an explanation as that which I have thougth it necessary to bestow upon the mercantile or commercial system’; pp. 672–​674 IV, ix ‘In what manner, according to this system, the sum total of the annual produce of the land is distributed above the three classes above mentioned, and in what manner the labour of the unproductive class does no more than replace the value of its own consumption, without increasing in any respect the value of that sum total, is represented by Mr. Quesnai, the very ingenious and profound author of this system, in some arithmetical formularies. The first of these formularies, which by way of eminence he particularly distinguishes by the name of Oeconomical Table, represents the manner in which […] Mr. Quesnai, who was himself a phisician, seems to have enterteined a notion of the same kind concerning the political body, and to have imagined that it would thrive and prosper only under a certain precise regimen, the exact regimen of perfect liberty and perfect justice. He seems not to have considered that in the political body, the natural effort which every man is continually making to better his own condition, is a principle of preservation capable of preventing and correcting, in many respects, the bad effects of a political oeconomy, in some degree, both partial and oppressive. Such a political oeconomy, though it no doubts retards more or less, is not always capable of stopping altogether the natural progress of a nation towards wealth and prosperity, and still less of making it go backwards. If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered. In the political body, however, the wisdom of nature has fortunately made ample provision for remedying many of the bad effects of the folly and injustice of man, in the same manner as it has done in the natural body for remedying those of his sloth

184  Luigi Alonzi and intemperance. The capital error of this system, however, seems to lie in its representing the class of artificers, manufacturers and merchants, as altogether barren and unproductive. The following observations may serve to show the impropriety of this representation’; pp. 678–​679 IV, ix: ‘This system, however, with all its imperfections is, perhaps, the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon the subject of political oeconomy, and is upon that account well worth the consideration of every man who wishes to examine with attention the principles of that very important science. Though in representing the labour which is employed upon land as the only productive labour, the notions which it inculcate are perhaps too narrow and confined; yet in representing the wealth of nations as consisiting, not in the unconsumable riches of money, but in the consumable goods annually reproduced by the labour of the society, and in representing perfect liberty as the only effectual expedient for rendering this annual reproduction the greatest possible, its doctrine seems to be in every respect as just as it is generous and liberal […] This sect, in their works, which are very numerous, and which treat not only of what is properly called Political Oeconomy, or of the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, but of any other branch of the system of civil government, all follow implicitly and without any sensible variation, the doctrine of Mr. Quesnai’. p. 679 IV, ix: ‘As the political oeconomy of the nations of modern Europe has been more favourable to manufactures and foreign trade, the industry of the towns, than to agriculture, the industry of the country; so that of other nations has followed a different plan, and has been more favourable to agriculture than to manufactures and foreign trade’; p. 748 V, i: ‘The miserable effects of which the company complained were the cheapness of consumption and the encouragement given to production, precisely the two effects which it is the great bussines of political oeconomy to promote’; p. 755 V, i: ‘An eminent French author, of great knowledge in matters of political oeconomy, the Abbé Morellet’.

 ranslation as the convergence T of politico-​economic and linguistic matters The Portuguese version of Adam Smith’s Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages (1816)1 Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi

Introduction This chapter studies the Portuguese translation of Adam Smith’s Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages (1761), published in Lisbon in 1816, but most likely made at the turn of the nineteenth century. The author of this translation is Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio (1741–​1812?), a prominent figure in the Portuguese administration between the time of Pombal and the decades of the late eighteenth century that followed the ascent to the throne of Dona Maria I and the dismissal of the Marquis in 1777. Sampaio had an important experience as an ouvidor and general intendant in the Amazon basin, then a colonial territory subject to the Portuguese crown, which he lived not only with enthusiasm, diligence, and economic and administrative competence, but also as an educated and curious observer, deeply influenced by the culture of the European Enlightenment. In carrying out our research, the study of a translation has therefore gradually evolved into a study of the uncommon figure who composed it, also because his administrative memories and his diaries of the colonial years contribute to explaining the reasons that led him to take an interest in Smith’s work and finally translate it. Like the Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse, the text that follows therefore offers a Chinese box narrative that examines one by one the different intertextual and inter-​contextual relations between Smith’s source text and the Portuguese translation, and uses them to explain the latter’s peculiarities. The analysis we propose in this paper suggests a convergence, frequent in eighteenth-​century and early nineteenth-​century culture, but even more accentuated in the case of Portugal: that between linguistic and economic interests, between the study of grammatical, lexicological, and traductological issues, on the one hand, and an attention to political economy and its applications to society, on the other. This interweaving is typical of those who, in Portugal, devoted themselves to the translation of economic texts, many of whom were DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-15

186  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi also authors of grammars and dictionaries or, as in the present case, of linguistic observations of an ethnographic and comparative nature.This paper attempts to show that one of the keys to this convergence is the intrinsically political nature, in modern Europe, of both the promotion of national economic development and the teaching and defence of national language. In the text that follows, the second section reconstructs Sampaio’s biography and illustrates the salient features of his experience in Amazonia; the third section dwells on Sampaio’s observations on the languages spoken by the indigenous nations, and on the relationships between language and exchange; the fourth section focuses on the economic reflections and development projects formulated by Sampaio in his activity as a colonial intendant; the fifth section offers a detailed contextual and philological reconstruction of the translation of Smith’s Considerations, as well as a macro-​and micro-​structural analysis of its characteristics, which reveals the didactic aims that Sampaio attributed to them; finally, the conclusions attempt an explanation of the possible connections between the intendant’s economic, ethnographic and linguistic observations and his translation of Smith’s work, which highlights the close association between political economy –​or “economic police” as Sampaio calls it –​and the politics of language in the European Enlightenment culture.

By canoe, along the Solimões At half past seven in the morning of 31 August 1774, Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio, at the time ouvidor and general intendant of the Capitania of S. José do Rio Negro, set sail from the shores of the vila of Barcelos, its capital, to begin a journey that was not without its pitfalls along the Dark River, and then ascending the golden Solimões –​as the Portuguese baptized, and still call today, the stretch of the Amazon River that flows from the border with the ancient Hispanic province of Mainas, today part of Peru,2 to the confluence of the Rio Negro, its main left-​hand tributary and, to say the least, 51st longest river in the world (the first is of course the Amazon River). This was Sampaio’s equipment: “Huma segura, e decente canoa de oito remeiros por banda, [...] e mais huma pequena para o serviço da viagem, caça, e pesca. Dois soldados, o escrivão, o piloto, a minha familia, sendo por tudo vinte e seis pessoas”3 (Sampaio 1825: 1). There were, to farewell him on the riverbank, “o Illustrissimo Governador desta Capitania”, Joaquim Tinoco Valente (Sampaio 1825: 104), “o R. Doutor Vigario geral”, José Monteiro de Noronha (1723–​ 1794) (Silva [Dias da] 1871: 135–​6),4 “os officiaes militares da guarnição, e todas as mais pessoas qualificadas da capital, accompanhando-​me hum grande numero dellas em diversas embarcações duas legoas de viagem”5 (Sampaio 1825: 1).This theatrical performance of a farewell ceremony had certainly been orchestrated, consistently with the practice of colonial power, to act as an investiture and reaffirm the official character of the mission, even though, as we shall see, it was not all gold that shone.

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  187 For six years by then, the Portuguese settlements along the great river had not received a visit from an official representative of the Capitania (Sampaio 1825: 1) and the main purpose of the trip was their inspection and surveillance (correição), a task that Sampaio diligently carried out. But a not secondary objective was also to reaffirm the official Portuguese position on the borders long disputed with the Spanish possessions in the west,6 as well as in the north, at the watershed between the (Portuguese) Rio Negro and the (Spanish) Orinoco basin (ibid.: 91), and finally with respect to the incursions and claims of the Dutch and French also from the north (Moretti 2019). However, as a man of the Enlightenment and an educated representative of the Pombaline bureaucracy, Sampaio took the opportunity to write, besides his official reports (Sampaio 1856a), also a Diário (Sampaio 1825), to which he reserved observations of an ethnographic, historical, statistical, botanical and zoological nature, as well as of an economic type. The narrative is that of a cultured account, accompanied by reflections and quotations, including an elegant and witty reference to Voltaire’s Candide about the myth of Eldorado7 and quotations from Montesquieu and Maupertuis to which we shall return. In the Proemio to the Appendix ao Diário da Viagem, Sampaio explains that he wrote the journal for reasons connected to the sphere of private and personal relationships: “dar algumas noções aos amigos com quem conservava honrosa correspondencia [to give some notions to the friends with whom he maintained honourable correspondence]” and to constitute “hum Deposito de observações, a que todo o tempo podia recorrer, quando o pedisse a precisão [a Repository of observations, to which he could have recourse at any time, when requested by necessity]” (Sampaio 1856a: 89). In fact, one of the censors questioned by the Academia Real das Ciências of Lisbon in October 1824, João Pedro Ribeiro, stated that he had read the manuscript, which had been handed to him by the author, “ha mais de vinte annos [more than twenty years ago]”.8 This takes us back to the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Sampaio had been back in Portugal for more than 20 years and held the role of Desembargador da Casa da Suplicação, the Portuguese Supreme Court (Anon. 1843: 404). Sampaio had therefore kept faith with the intention of circulating his journal privately. It is also probable that the option of publishing it was discarded or at least postponed, also in consideration of the matters of public interest dealt with, in a political regime characterized, before and after Pombal, by censorship and strict control over every act and writing of an official nature. The Diário was published posthumously,9 in 1825, by resolution of the Lisbon Academia das Ciências.10 The manuscript had been presented by one of its members, Tomás António de Vila Nova Portugal (1755–​1839),11 who had returned three years earlier from Brazil to Lisbon, where he would later fall into loneliness and poverty (Silva 1862: 335). Portugal had been a leading figure in the Portuguese court in Rio de Janeiro since 1817,12 Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and at the same time Minister of Finance and War of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarve, which King Dom João VI –​who had settled with the court in Rio de Janeiro in 1807 –​had

188  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi founded in the aftermath of the Restoration, in an extreme attempt to hold together the ancient homeland and the vast ultramarine colony. But let’s go back to the journey of Sampaio. Explaining in the first few lines of the account the reasons for his voyage, the ouvidor wishes to underline that he had been pushed to take that initiative by “as urgentes razões da minha obrigação [urgent reasons connected to my duty]”, also because of the long time that had elapsed since the last “surveillance” (1768). More important had been the “recomendações, que trazia do Illustrissimo, e Excellentissimo General do Estado [recommendations, which I brought from the Illustrious, and Excellent General of the State] João Pereira Caldas” (Sampaio 1825: 1). Sampaio tends in this way to link the visit to a mandate received, when he was sent to the Amazonian Capitania, directly from the Captain General of Grão-​Pará e Maranhão (1724–​1794), from which the Capitania of S. José do Rio Negro depended. These opening lines cannot but sound critical of Tinoco Valente, for some time by then a weak and unmotivated governor,13 with whom Sampaio would clash several times over disagreements about the means and energy to be dedicated to the development of the area. Francisco Xavier was born in Mirandela, vila of the province of Trás-​os-​ Montes, in northern Portugal, on 13 August 1741. He had studied at the University of Coimbra since 1757, where he is registered under the name of Francisco Xavier Ribeiro, son of Luis Ribeiro.14 As the biographies report, he had obtained the title of bacharel in law in 1762 (Anon. 1843: 404). However, the documents of the Archives of the University of Coimbra reveal that Sampaio had requested the transfer to the Faculty of Letters at the end of the academic year 1760–​176115 and had obtained a second title on 22nd June 1766. He had in the meantime obtained what could be called a habilitation to the judiciary with a dissertation read at the Desembargo do Paço on 23rd August 1764. Sampaio arrived in Barcelos in October 1773 from the Capitania of Pará, where he had served as juiz de fora and provedor da Fazenda Real.16 He had been appointed ouvidor, provedor da Fazenda Real and Intendente geral do Comércio, Agricultura e Manufatura of the Capitania of Rio Negro on 19th September 1772.17 He would remain in the Rio Negro until 1779. “Postquam enim consumptis annis duodecim cum mensibus decem in Regione Parahensi, pro numero mihi ibi injuncto, ad patriam redii”, as he wrote in a dedicatory letter in Latin (Anon 1843: 405) addressed to the 13th Viscount of Vila Nova de Cerveira, Tomás Xavier de Lima Teles da Silva, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and War from 1786-​88, then appointed Marquês de Ponte de Lima by queen Maria I in 1790. He landed on Portuguese soil in January 1780, taking up the position of provedor of the comarca of Miranda do Douro two years later. There, he distinguished himself, among other things, for the foundation of the Conservatory of the Fábrica de Sedas of Bragança (Anon. 1843: 404). In 1794 he passed to the Tribunal da Relação (court of second instance) of Porto and in 1800 to the Casa da Suplicação of Lisbon, with the title of Desembargador. According to Inocêncio da Silva, Sampaio was a member of the Academia Real das Ciências de Lisboa since its foundation (Silva 1859: 95).

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  189 Many were the pitfalls of the journey, which had to be faced thanks to “hum immenso trabalho de toda a esquipação, e com grande risco de vidas [a huge amount of work by the whole crew, and with great risk of lives]” (Sampaio 1825: 2). We can perceive from the narrative the fear and the threats that had to be faced: thick and enveloped algae that prevented the boat from proceeding and made it risk overturning (ibid.); trunks that accidentally fell from the shores on the canoes (ibid.: 12);18 sharp stones that dotted the rapid zones (ibid.: 15). But above all, the convoy was threatened by the possible ambushes by the Indian nations still at war with the colonisers, in particular the terrible Múra tribe, ... gentio de corço, e que somente vive de caça, e pesca, e frutas do mato. Accomete sempre a seu salvo, fazendo emboscadas, principalmente nas pontas de terra, em que costuma haver correntezas; porque, emquanto as canoas trabalhão a passalas, de cima despedem multidão de frechas. Os seus arcos excedem a altura de hum homem. As pontas das frechas são guarnecidas de largas tacoaras, isto he, pedaços de huma cana rija chamada tabóca, largos de quatro dedos, e compridos palmo e meio, com huma agudissima ponta, que penetra muito, e faz mortaes golpes. Não usão porem de frechas ervadas. Suppõe-​se que ignorão o segredo de fabricar o veneno, e não assaltão de noite. Estes são os inimigos, que temos de recear nesta viagem: principalmente no rio dos Solimões, que presentemente infestão em grande numero.19 (Sampaio 1825: 12. see ibid.: 14, 15) The danger of ambushes was great especially when, for days and days, navigation takes place “sem ver mais que agoa, terra, e irracionaes, sem encontrar ao menos hum passageiro [without seeing more than water, land, and animals, without finding at least one passer-​by]”, so that: “Tudo nos fazia appetecida a chegada ás povoações, não havendo huma só naquelle dilatadissimo intervallo, a que pudessemos aportar [Everything made us anxious to reach the villages, since there was not even one in that very long interval where we could land]” (Sampaio 1825: 22–​33). Another threat was the “praga [plague] dos mosquitos” (Sampaio 1825: 10), “chamados neste pais [called in this country] carapaná” (ibid.: 13), which cause “increivel mortificação: outro flagelo desta viagem, e que he necessario toda a constancia para o sofrer [unbelievable mortification: another scourge of this journey, and one that needs all the constancy to suffer it]” (ibid.). A further plague came from the pium,“insecto do corpo minutissimo, mas cuja mordedura faz uma chaga, tamanha da cabeça de hum alfinete, precedendo cruelissima dor [an insect whose body is very tiny, but whose bite makes a sore, so big as a pin’s head, preceding cruel pain]” (ibid.: 14). Still more the mutúca, “mosca grande, que somente persegue de dia, e faz com a sua mordedura huma chaga [big fly, which only chases by day, and makes with its bite a wound]” (ibid.: 15), the muruçóca, the mariuim. Not to mention poisonous snakes, like the jararáca, “que

190  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi se pode chamar vibora americana [what you might call an American viper]”, whose bite can be fatal (ibid.: 64–​65). The account of Sampaio’s journey is erudite and multifaceted, as befits the genre of the exploration journal. But one of its strong assets is the economic analysis of the Amazonian world, the object of Sampaio’s care as general intendant of the Capitania. In every place visited, Sampaio takes care of recording the different fertility of the soil, which makes survival easier in some places than elsewhere (Sampaio 1825: 64), the productive activities carried out and in particular the current crops and those that were feasible according to the different micro-​climatic conditions, especially in view of their exploitation through the Atlantic trade. These include tobacco (Sampaio 1825: 3), cotton (ibid.), guaraná juice (ibid.: 5–​6), cocoa, sarsaparilla, cupaiva oil from Purús (ibid.: 18), mandioca, coffee, anil (indigo) (ibid.: 36), maize, pineapple, passion fruit and other tropical fruits (ibid.: 57), traditional fine woods and sumaumeira, from the fruits of which a soft cotton “tão estimado na Europa [so highly regarded in Europe]” is extracted (ibid. 66), “gomma, ou resina elastica, chamada vulgarmente leite de seringa [gomma, or elastica resin, commonly called syringe milk]” (ibid.: 75), extracted and commercialised by the Cambébas Indians.These people also produce cotton, from which “as suas mulheres [their women]” weave “cubertas, a que chamão tapeciranas de varios matizes, panno para o uso domestico de fio finissimo, e outras semelhantes alfayas de algodão, com o que fazem utilissimo commercio [coverings, what they call tapestry of various shades, cloth for the domestic use of fine yarn, and other similar cotton implements, with which they make very useful commerce]” (ibid.: 75). The Cambébas are defined as “[e]‌ntre nações de indios [...] os mais civilizados, e racionaveis [among nations of Indians [...] the most civilized, and reasonable]” (ibid.: 74). Sampaio illustrates the difficulties linked to natural hazards and epidemics (Sampaio 1825: 64), but also the scarcity of population, the absence of Europeans who are ready to transform crops and rich mineral deposits into profitable commercial enterprises, the indolence and shyness of the native populations, sometimes caused by superstitious beliefs and customs –​such as the Tecúna people living in the border area of São José de Javarí, who believe in metempsychosis and a diabolical idol called Hó (Sampaio 1825: 68) –​and to the assaults of the Indian nations that have refused to integrate, such as the “géntio Mura” already mentioned earlier, whose extermination Sampaio repeatedly, and in no uncertain terms, advocates (Sampaio 1825: 3).20 Equally meticulously Sampaio annotates the characteristics of those indigenous peoples who are, like the Pariána, “inclinadissimos a agricultura, e habeis na pesca, e caça, e por meio da sua laborioza industria vivem abundantes [very inclined to agriculture, and fit for fishing, and hunting, and through their industrious labour they live abundantly]” (Sampaio 1825: 61). He also observes the Cambébas’ commitment to market-​oriented production:“Huma nação de indios fabricante, e commerciante, –​comments Sampaio –​pode-​ se ter por hum prodigio

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  191 [A nation of Indians manufacturers, and traders can be considered a prodigy]” (ibid.: 75). In the spirit of the Cameral Sciences that in those years, perhaps because of the importance of this tradition for the development of colonial production, was taking root in the Pombaline economic culture (Cardoso and Cunha 2012; Cunha 2017), Sampaio recommends cultivations of great commercial value “atéqui desprezadas, mas que agora se principião a cultivar [hitherto despised, but now beginning to be cultivated]”, especially cocoa, coffee (Sampaio 1825: 3) and anil, from which the indigo dye is obtained (ibid.: 36). Learning about a particular variant of the latter in Olivença, “chamado vulgarmente cartelhana [commonly known as cartelhana]”, Sampaio orders “to bring some plants to be propagated in our colonies” (ibid.: 74). He recommends populating some strategic vilas with a large number of “whites” who can manage commercial activities and develop agriculture. For example, in the case of Borba, located halfway along the Rio Madeira, a right-​hand tributary linking the Amazon river with the gold mines of Mato Grosso, which were at the time being discovered day after day and “cujo ouro he de finissimo quilate [whose gold is finest carat]” (ibid.: 11). Sampaio foresees its rapid expansion and advises: “Seria convenientissimo, que se lhe introduzissem cazaes de brancos; porque se acha muito falta de gente, que possa fazer florecer nella a agricultura, que em attenção á bondade das terras receberia extraordinario augmento21” (ibid.). Sampaio recommends the creation of new settlements to interrupt the long stretches of the river still at the mercy of hostile Indians (ibid.: 16), such as between the confluence of the Rio Negro and the Coarí (14 days of navigation –​ibid.: 22),22 a “falta bastantemente nociva ao bem da navegação, do commercio, e augmento desta capitania, e que só pode achar remedio na inteira destruição do gentio Múra, que impede os estabelecimentos naquellas terras, aliás fertilissimas23” (ibid.: 22–​23). In other passages the creation of settlements is recommended for more strictly economic reasons, i.e. to enhance fertile crops and trade, facilitating the “descent” of Indians from the surrounding forests (ibid.: 59).24 The trade relationship with the Indian nations is the subject of a precise colonial political economy, which includes, for example, the prohibition of trading with hostile native populations, but also actions –​typically defined, in the rhetoric of premialist political economy, as “wise”, “sound”, “prudent” and of “clear discernment”, although almost never effective –​encouraging production and population growth.25 Another topos of this political economy is the labour of the Indians, their integration with the settlers and their civil condition. As a man of the Enlightenment, but also as a faithful emissary of Pombal’s government, Sampaio fully approves the suppression of slavery and trafficking of indigenous peoples, which was made executive with the law of 6 June 1755, initially limited to the governorate of Grão-​Pará and Maranhão, and since 1758 extended to the whole of Brazil. In a panegyric of King José I (behind which one must always read a eulogy of the future Marquis of Pombal), Sampaio

192  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi underlines how the slave trade is contrary to “natural liberdade” and recalls how, years later, it continues to discourage trade relations and the urbanization of the Indians, “que ainda perguntão, se he certo abolir-​se entre nós a escravidão [who still ask, if it is certain that slavery was abolished among us]”, and nourishes an “odio entranhado, que contra nós conceberão por aquelle motivo [entrenched hatred, which they conceived against us for that reason]”. He therefore proposes that the law be posted in all the squares of the Pará and placed on “padrões em todos os rios da Capitania do Rio Negro [lapids in all the rivers of the captaincy of Rio Negro]” so that the Indians, by looking at them, may bury the hatred and “procurassem estabelecer entre nós huma união, e sociedade fundada na boa fé, de que devem nascer entre elles, e nós reciprocas utilidades [seek to establish among us a union, and a society founded on good faith, from which should arise among them, and us reciprocal utility]” (Sampaio 1825: 84).26 As mentioned, one of the main and certainly the most urgent tasks of the visit was to encourage the “descent” of the Indian peoples considered more industrious and peaceful from the depths of the forests into the settlements along the river, where they could be used in commercial productions. This delicate task required Sampaio to carry out a series of complex and structured negotiations, which involved various registers: the ostentation of the technological superiority of the colonisers (firearms, the sailing canoe, clothes, glass, but also alcohol) aimed more at arousing a feeling of wonder and admiration than at humiliating and frightening; the sending and exchange of gifts (“assucar, sal, espelhos, facas, anzoes, fitas [sugar, salt, mirrors, knives, hooks, ribbons]”) but also of words.The wisdom of the negotiating leader in this case lies in knowing how to use the right mediators (Indians already urbanised and belonging to the same nation as those to be persuaded) and the right intercultural approach,“com a exposição das razões em semelhantes cazos mais convenientes, e adaptadas aos costumes, e genio dos indios [with the presentation of the reasons in similar cases more convenient, and adapted to the customs, and genius of the Indians]” (Sampaio 1825: 75). Sampaio, an attentive reader of Montesquieu, whom he quotes in his account, in describing one of these negotiations, seems inclined to boast his own abilities in grasping and exploiting the different “genius of the peoples”.27 In fact, his account reveals a genuine effort to understand the culture of the Indians, and within them, the customs of the different nations that make up this people: religious beliefs, cosmologies, sexual and family customs, clothing, body modifications, tattoos, etc. And he comments: Todas estas nações observão os mesmos costumes geraes, diversificando somente em algumas circonstancias particulares. Nelles a religião he nenhuma. A sociedade imperfeitissima, e por consequencia pouco firme a obediencia aos chefes, ou principaes.Verdadeiramente se não podem chamar nações, mas sim familias, ou tribus, sem mais leis, que humas determinações momentaneas, expressadas de viva voz, quando a necessidade o pede para conservar a harmonia entre si. (Sampaio 1825: 81)28

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  193 Furthermore: Na guerra porem, a que dá motivo qualquer leve diferença, mostrão grande esforço, e conservão os rancores de nação a nação perpetuamente, que muitas vezes somente se terminão com a inteira destruição de alguma dellas. (ibid.: 82)29 With this remark Sampaio seems to subscribe to the general thesis, underlying, for example, Buffon’s reasoning, according to which violent and warlike passions are stronger and more marked in wild and barbaric peoples, whereas peaceful feelings of union and sympathy develop with commerce and civilisation.

A babel of languages The last reflections presented in the previous section allow us to put in the right perspective, and to some extent to resize, the apparent anthropological and cultural naivety that Sampaio reveals when he observes the custom of the exchange of gifts and the ceremonials it entails. As a representative of a commercial power and as a graduate in law of an ancient European university, he seems almost irritated by this practice, because he does not understand it, seeing instead an artfully chaotic mechanism and a fraudulent strategy aimed at maximising the profit of the exchange.30 Conversely, he seems to overlook the corruption introduced precisely by the contact with colonisers. It is not, as we have seen, that the ouvidor does not grasp the different “genius” of nations, but he is convinced of the universality of many traits of human nature. This belief has a precise philosophical foundation. Proof of it is a reflection of an entirely different subject regarding the value and heroism of the Manaus warriors and their leader Ajuricába. O Ajuricába –​argues Sampaio –​em todo o progresso da sua vida foi certamente hum heroe entre os indios: nome que muitas vezes merecem pelas suas acções, e que somente faz diversificar dos outros heroes, e homens famozos, a differença dos objectos, e não o principio, e origem das mesmas acções.31 (Sampaio 1825: 102) And he cites in support of his arguments a passage from Maupertuis’s Essai de philosophie morale, taken from ­chapter 5 on Stoicism, of which he provides a translation: Si vous allez dans le nord de l’Amérique, vous trouverez des peuples sauvages, qui vous feront voir que les Scevola, les Curtius, & les Socrates, n’étoient que des femmes auprès d’eux: dans les tourments les plus cruels, vous les verrez inébranlables, chanter & mourir. D’autres que nous ne

194  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi regardons presque pas comme des hommes, & que nous traitons comme les chevaux & les bœuf; dès que l’ennui de la vie les prend, la savent terminer” (Maupertuis 1756: 224–​225) Just as the virtue of courage, so the propensity to trade and barter is for Sampaio, on the eve of 1776, universal. But such is also the art of deceiving others. In fact, this is how he describes the welcome the women of the Comani nation gave him on 14th September at Silves, the extreme eastern settlement of the Capitania del Rio Negro: As mulheres desta ultima nação são formozas, e agradaveis. He costume de todas as Indias presentearem o Ministro nestas occaziões com frutas das suas roças, com mandiocas, beijús, que he o pão feito della &c., mas o fim destes prezentes he adquirir por elles algumas couzas, vindo a ser assim humas compras violentas; poisque he necessario dar-​lhe fitas, pentes, anzoes, pano de algodão, aguardente, a que todas são inclinadissimas, e o mais he que he necessario dar a cada huma de persi alguma couza, já para isso costumão vir cinco, e seis, aindaque seja hum só o prezente: e tambem se a familia he numeroza, divide-​se em dous, ou tres ranchos, e cada huma vem por sua vez. (Sampaio 1825: 4)32 “A violent shopping”, as if the love of brandy was a natural perversion of those ancient nations! And as if the gift did not in itself require, out of reciprocity, a greater gift (Cella 1977). Further on, arriving in the lugar of Nogueira, near the confluence of the Tefé, he expresses an even more exasperated annoyance: Erão continuas as vizitas das indias com prezentes. A varanda das cazas, em que rezidi, parecia huma feira. Estava cheia de paneiros de farinha de mandioca, de galinhas, frangos, e outras aves domesticas, de frutas principalmente ananazes, banânas, ambaúbas. Bem se entende, que tudo isto se paga. Dizião primeiramente que nada querião; porem logo querião tudo, quanto se podia imaginar, e ao mesmo tempo se satisfazião com o que se lhes dava, respondendo pela sua lingoa =​Eré; que quer dizer, está bom. (Sampaio 1825: 34–​35)33 And with these remarks we enter into one of the reasons that may have inspired in Sampaio the curiosity to read and then translate not Adam Smith the economist, but the author of Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages. Sampaio is in fact concerned on several levels, as mentioned above, with the integration between Indians and brancos, as he calls the Portuguese who, together with other Europeans, had colonized the Amazon basin and were, with extreme difficulty, bending it to their agricultural and commercial practices.

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  195 The ouvidor is, for similar reasons, intrigued by the languages of the native populations he encounters in various stages of his journey, each with its own customs and language. However, he also finds traces of the work previously done by the Jesuits –​expelled from the Kingdom and its colonial possessions since 1759 –​to make the Indians communicate with each other and with the Europeans through a language that was partly artificial, the língua geral dos Índios. In its Amazonian variant the língua geral was based on the idiom of the Tupinambá or Tupi nation. This language, he writes, “foi a mais famoza, e mais extensa do Brasil. A sua lingoa, chamada vulgarmente a geral, he a que ainda hoje se falla entre os brancos, e indios, como universal interprete34” (Sampaio 1825: 6). The brevity and perhaps the reticence of this statement should not deceive: Sampaio is communicating two things: (1) that the term língua geral has passed into use without the public necessarily knowing either its historical origin or the link with the presence of the Jesuits in the Amazon basin; (2) that the language is still spoken for the use for which it was spread, at the time when the journey is being made. This second information is particularly important in the light of the 1757–​1758 directive by which the future Marquis of Pombal imposed Portuguese as an administrative and teaching language in the American colony (Garcia 2007). The Portuguese and other European merchants who crossed the great river to purchase local production and the landowners who exploited the labour of Indians continued to follow the original Esperanto invented centuries earlier by the Jesuits to evangelize the indigenous nations. And, telling the story of the war that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, had opposed the Tupinambá to the Portuguese and, as a consequence of the defeat of the former, had caused their retreat into the depths of the forest –​towards the sources of the Tocantins and the Iguazù –​Sampaio connects the Tupi language to the primitive economy of those populations, assimilating them to the barbarians of the north who had invaded Europe at the end of the ancient age: Os desta povoação conservão ainda a memoria dos seus antepassados: fallavão lingoa geral: dizião que a cauza da sua dispersão pela maior parte da America meridional fora a difficuldade de subsisterem juntos, por serem muito numerozos: exemplo bem semelhante ás irrupções dos povos do norte da Europa, o que dá a conhecer que os Topinambás naquelle tempo ignoravão a agricultura, cauza verdadeira de similhantes transmigrações. (Sampaio 1825: 10)35 The exchange of gifts in the lugar of Nogueira, mentioned above, is concluded by an indigenous word, Eré, which intrigued Sampaio. As he observes, a single word is in fact equivalent in Portuguese to a locution composed of a verb +​ adverb (está bem [it’s all right]). In the economy of the exchange of gifts it has a fundamental value, because it means that the gift of reciprocity, regardless of its measure (what in the trade of commodities would be the value of exchange) is recognised and accepted, that the circle of gift has ended with consensual

196  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi satisfaction. Sampaio confuses value of exchange and reciprocity and therefore he finds irrational, contradictory, and at the end of the day harassing the insistence of the Indians, who want to be “paid dearly” on the one hand (probably a set of ritual signals inviting them to reciprocate), and end up accepting any kind of counter-​gift on the other hand. He does not understand that the essential expectation of the natives resided in the largesse (Starobinski 1994) of the act of reciprocity, and not in the amount of value received in exchange, measured according to a criterion of commutative justice. Beyond this misunderstanding, however, two important elements emerge: first, the exchange of words is a decisive component of any exchange of goods, and, in this case, it sanctions its accomplishment and acceptance; second, the natives do not need a complex and abstract language, not even with a foreign interlocutor, as long as they think to treat the latter according to their rules and customs. They do not have to measure, they do not have to count, they do not even have to negotiate, because they have not yet –​or at least not completely –​entered into the logic of the commodity, as Sampaio at least perceives. It is enough for them, therefore, to use what at first appears as a concrete and invariable term: eré. But Sampaio’s attention to the língua geral also takes on a political dimension, when, for example, he engages in a rebuttal of La Condamine’s errors about the limits of the Portuguese dominions in South America, and about the (wrong) claims of Spain on this account (Sampaio 1825: 37–​51). Everything is based on the meaning of the word “Paraguarí”, which La Condamine explains on the basis of his interpretation of the língua geral. “Quem ler a Mr. de La Condamine, e o vir decidir com tom indubio, e seguro, da natureza e genio da lingoa geral dos indios, julgará, que elle tinha grande conhecimento da mesma. Nada menos. Condamine confessa, que a ignorava, e assim o mostra a sua decisão36” (41). In short, La Condamine claims that this word means “Guariz river”. Sampaio, in his detailed reply, reveals instead that he has studied this language in its orthographic, grammatical, and pragmatic aspects, and –​on the canonical ground of Latin grammar –​ventures into an interesting comparison with the “genius” of modern English, a language which, as we shall see, he is able to handle with skill: Primeiro erro. Não se escreve (conforme a genuina orthografia e pronuncia da lingoa geral dos Indios do Brazil), Paraguarí, mas assim Parauarí sem a letra =​g =​o que bastaria para desfazer pelo fundamento todo o custoso edificio de Condamine. Segundo erro: a palavra, que significa rio, he =​ Paraná =​e não =​Pará. =​Terceiro erro: conforme o genio proprio da lingoa sobredita, e seu inalteravel uzo, para dizer rio dos Guariz, formarião assim a fraze =​Guaríparaná =​; pois juntando-​se dous substantivos, hum dos quaes haja de ser regido como o genitivo da lingoa latina, se antepõe sempre o genitivo ao nominativo, e por isso se havia de dizer =​Guaríparaná, e não Paraguarí. =​No que tem esta lingoa igual genio ao da ingleza, na qual se diz =​Snuff box =​para significar caixa de tabaco, antepondo-​se a palavra tabaco á de caixa; como dizendo, de tabaco caixa. Quarto erro: da

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  197 nação Guariz não ha noticia alguma, nem naquelle lugar, nem em todo o Amazonas. (Sampaio 1825: 42)37 Beyond the reflections on the língua geral, frequent in the text are also observations on the languages spoken by individual nations, such as the Uárú, “a que elles chamão Cóca, por cauza de repetirem esta palavra muitas vezes, que na sua lingoa quer dizer não38” (Sampaio 1825: 37). But above all, the journey allows Sampaio to experience first-​hand the fact that, within a few kilometres, passing from one indigenous nation to another, the spoken language changes, each community expressing itself in a language different from that of its neighbours. The migration of these nations into the same urban settlement, strongly desired by the Portuguese also in order to exploit the local labour force in the surrounding farms, poses a problem of intercomprehension. This is the case of the lugar of Fonte Boa, where the Sampaio convoy arrives on 29th October: Aos indios da fundação deste lugar se tem acrescentado hum avultado numero delles novamente descidos. Pelo que he huma confusão de lingoas. As nações, que o povoão, são Umáuás, ou Cambébas, Xáma, Xomáma, Passé, Tecúna, Conamána, Cumuramá, Payána. (57)39 Elsewhere he observes that between the languages of two neighbouring nations “tem pouca differencia [there is little difference]” (Sampaio 1825: 61), as in the case of the Cayuvicénas and the Pariána living along the Tonati River, a small left-​hand tributary of the Solimões, east of the more majestic Içá (Putamayo for Hispanics). These two nations –​reports Sampaio –​met and began to live together in the settlement of S. Fernando, founded in 1768 at the confluence of the Içá and the Solimões, probably the same municipality later called Santo Antônio do Içá. This village had been founded, “com a mais prudente e sabia politica [with the most prudent and wise policy]”, and populated with Indians by the then governor, Fernando da Costa de Ataide Teve, when the Castilians, in 1766, had abandoned the confluence of the Iça following the Treaty of Paris (10 February 1763). This treaty –​as part of the more complex negotiations for the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War –​had put an end to the so-​called “guerra fantástica” between the two Iberian nations and restored the Portuguese control over this stretch of the Amazon River. The ouvidor’s interest in native languages is present at other points of the narrative, sometimes translating into a real lexical study, as in the case of the language of the Xumána nation: A lingoa desta nação tem nomes de propriissima etymologia, e analogia. Chama ao Sol =​Simá=​que quer dizer, astro calido. A lua =​Uaniú=​ isto he, astro frio. As estrellas =​Uúeté=​que significa, astro luzente. Ao raio =​

198  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi Yuúi=​ou estrondo. Ao trovão =​Quiriuá=​que significa, indicio de chuva. Ao relampago =​Pelú=​isto he, couza pavoroza. A aurora =​Samatáca=​ que quer dizer principio do dia.40 (Sampaio 1825: 80) Similarly, in the Relação Geographica Historica do Rio Branco da America Portugueza, composed a few years later, Sampaio notes about the language of the Paraviana nation: A sua lingua é de facil pronunciação por causa das muitas vogaes longas. Por exemplo, ao sol chamam Veiú, á lua Noné, ás estrellas Siricurú, as Pleiadas Turramani, ao arco Iris Cauaranari, que quer dizer coisa de muitas côres; ao trovão chamam Carapiri, isto é estrondo medonho; ao raio Ui-​ui, que quer dizer pedra de trovão; ao relampago Uarucuru-​anari, que significa cousa espantosa.41 (Sampaio 1850 [1777]: 254) An opportunity to observe how many individual terms express concepts that in Portuguese require a periphrasis. A “Bacchic” chant recorded in the Relação provides another opportunity to highlight the obvious structural contrast between native and modern European languages, so much so that the translation sketched by Sampaio cannot but appear to be a real interpretation: Uauá xicarú, xicarú, Priué. Carimanarué Yacámená, yacamená Aritarué, yacamená O sentido d’esta cantiga é o seguinte: Em quanto estamos com saude, brinquemos e cantemos; porque quando estivermos doentes, não podemos brincar, nem cantar.42 (Sampaio 1850 [1777]: 255) Sampaio’s journey began on 31st August and ended on 8th December with the return of the convoy to Barcelos. In fact, since the entrance to the Rio Negro, which was crossed at five o’clock in the morning on the first of the same month, the group felt safe after so many dangers. Sampaio relates in detail the joy of the crew: Apenas os indios (sendo a maior parte do Rio Negro) avistarão as alegres collinas, que rodeão a margem septentrional deste rio; que tanto aformoseão a sua soberba entrada no Amazonas, e que meterão o remo na agua preta, não se pode expressar a alegria, comque logo clamarão a seu modo, aplaudindo esta entrada ao som do memby instrumento del folego, forte, e sonoro,

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  199 mas de facil fabrica. Eu proprio senti contentamento vendo-​me livre dos continuos perigos da navegação do Amazonas; postoque me restassem não poucos, comtudo menos atemorizantes, que o risco dos passados.43 (Sampaio 1825: 87) In reality the trip has an appendix, which should have taken place without interruption, but which Sampaio is forced to postpone, camping a “disturbance” that keeps him in bed for a month and a half, followed by “algumas occupações de officio [some bureaucratic jobs]” (Sampaio 1825: 105). The fact is that on 17th February, in an already much less favourable season, the convoy left for the northwest to complete the inspection of the Capitania. But it stopped a few days later, on the 22nd, at Lamalonga, where the 1868 inspection had also been arrested, blocked by the implacable flood of the river (ibid.: 110). All that remained to Sampaio was to collect indirect information on the settlements located upstream, in order to complete his official reports, as well as the description of the Amazon basin: Santa Isabel and fourteen other settlements –​including the Fort of São Gabriel da Cachoeira –​up to the Fort of São José de Marabitánas, fifteen kilometres from the current Cucui, founded in 1763 to protect the border with the Castilian domains of the Orinoco. He left back in the evening of 22nd February and, thanks to the impetuous current, was already in Barcelos the following morning, after 3 months and 16 days (not counting the interruption), and more than 3,000 km of distance (Figure 14.1)44.

Polícia económica and the politics of language What makes the testimony of the general intendant Sampaio extraordinary is the accurate separation of the statistical, economic and ethnographic surveys, entrusted to the Diário, from the official reports concerning his mission, which were entrusted to an Appendix ao Diário da Viagem, also left in manuscript and then published by the Academia das Ciências in 1856.This last text is to be read together –​at least in its programmatic part –​with another memory, composed a few years later, in 1777, and published posthumously in 1850 by the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro: the Relação Geographica Historica do Rio Branco da America Portugueza, a real programme for the development of the basin of this left-​hand tributary of the Rio Negro, an axis connecting the Amazon and the Orinoco, characterised in its eastern part by large prairies with high development potential, according to Sampaio. Speaking of the Law of June 7, 1755, which removed religious orders from the government of the Indians, and of the Diretório dos Indios issued by the Capitão General of Grão-​Pará e Maranhão, Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado (brother of the Marquis of Pombal), in 1857 and confirmed by the Alvará of August 17, 1758 (Furtado 1757; Raymundo 2006; Almeida 2017), Sampaio (1856a: 90) describes the scope of what he himself calls “huma Policia economica para a conservação, e augmento das [...] Povoações [an economic police for the conservation, and increase of [...] the villages]”: extension of crops,

200  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi S. Fernando, 20/11 Olivença, 15-19/11

Carvoeiro, 06/12

S. Matías, 24/11

Fonteboa, 20/11

Arvelos, 27/11

S. António, 24-25/11

Castro de Avelãs, 20/11

Moreira, 17-19/01

Airão, 05/12 Poiares, 08/12

Barcelos, 8/12

Fortaleza da B., 01-04/12

Moura, 06/12

Barcelos, 23/01 - Arrival

Tomár, 20-22/01 Lamalonga, 22/01

Alvaraes, 23/10 Castro de Avelãs, 05/11

Arvelos, 13-15/10

Fortaleza da B., 04-05/09

Fonteboa, 29-30/10 S. Fernando, 04/11 Olivença, 08/11

Ega, 19-21/10

Silves, 14-20/09 Borba, 27-29/09

Nogueira, 21-23/10

S. José de Javarí, 09-11/11 S. Franc. X. de Tabatinga, 12-15/11

Serpa, 21-22/09 Barcelos, 31/08 - Departure

Figure 14.1 Map of Sampaio’s journey along the Amazon River, 1774–​1775. Source: Our own treatment of Sidney Hall, Map of Brazil and Paraguay, London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green, 1828 (detail). Image: Courtesy of Eng. Jonildo Bacelar from Guia geográfico. História do Brasil, www.histo​r ia-​bra​sil.com/​mapas/​bra​zil-​ 1828.htm

promotion of the trade of drugs and other agricultural and forest products, introduction of uniform weights and measures, “descent” of the Indians from the forests, distribution of these people among the different settlements “ou para o commum trabalho das mesmas, ou para o serviço dos Particulares [either for the commons work of the same [Indians], or for the service of private individuals]”, construction of public buildings, schools, private houses by the Indians, authorisation for the brancos to build their own houses in the Indian villages, introduction of Christian marriage among the natives and encouragement of mixed marriages. It is this complex “economic police” that is the main object of Sampaio’s care, convinced, in the strictest premialistic logic of eighteenth-​ century political economy, that “o território da Colônia do Rio Negro he susceptível de grandes ameliorações, promovendo-​se nelle a agricultura pelo meio de huma bem entendida, e zelosa administração, que a proteja, e faça florecer”45 (Sampaio 1856a: 102), together with a substantive increase of trade. In chapter XI of the Relação, whose “matter” is considered “a mais essencial d’esta obra [the most essential of this work]” (Sampaio 1850 [1777]: 266), we

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  201 find the guidelines and sources of inspiration for this development strategy. First of all, the colonization of the Rio Branco has a strategic, military value, as it represents a barrier to the invasion of the Rio Negro (ibid.: 266–​267) by the neighbouring powers (Dutch and especially Spanish). But arresting the penetration of these foreign powers means above all avoiding its negative consequences on the commercial level: O mal, que d’aqui nos póde vir, é não sómente facilitar-​se-​lhes a entrada ao Rio Negro, mais muito principalmente privarem-​nos do abundante negocio das drogas d’aquelle rio, que que quasi todos produzem salsaparrilha, a qual clandestinamente tem vindo colher ao [...] Cavaburiz.46 “A attenção de conservar as colonias e fronteiras é importantissima ás metropoles, pois a riqueza, e ainda a mesma povoação d’estas, dependem da sua conservação”.47 The quotation contained in this passage is taken, as a note reveals, from Elementos do commercio (part 2a, ch. 6). For us who, a few years ago, studied the history of this text, reading this passage had the effect of an agnitio: Sampaio was referring precisely to the Portuguese translation of the Élémens du commerce by François Véron Duverger de Forbonnais, made in 1766 by a man who would shortly become the secretary of the Companhia Geral de Grão Pará e Maranhão, José Manuel Ribeiro Pereira! It is also remarkable that this chartered company had jurisdiction over trade with the area in which Sampaio was located. In a context in which the only texts on political economy written by Portuguese authors circulated as manuscripts in Court circles, responding mainly to a prince whispering function (Castro 1978: 88–​117), this translation, together with that of Claude-​Jacques Herbert’s Essai sur la police générale des grains, sur leurs prix et sur les effets de l’agriculture published the same year, represented the first economic treatise given to the press –​and thus addressed to a wider public –​in the Luso-​Brazilian Empire. We have long wondered about the reasons for this translation, about the nature of the processes that led to its authorisation by the Portuguese censorship, and finally about Pombal’s role as the undoubted director of that operation. We have surmised that the publication had to do in general with the justification, among the nascent Portuguese public opinion, of the policy of commercial power promoted by the Marquis, specifically with the foundation of the commercial chartered companies for the exclusive trade of colonial products from Brazil (Lupetti and Guidi 2014: 1180–​1181), but also that it could find its raison d’être in the more conjunctural context of the end of the Seven Years’ War (1756–​1763), when Portugal was forced to give Great Britain more space in colonial trade and Pombal caressed for some time the idea, defended by Forbonnais, of entrusting the trade of its colonies to competition between commercial companies from different foreign countries (Lupetti and Guidi 2016). The Relação seems to suggest a different hypothesis: the translation was authorised and published with the intention of making it a real manual for the intendants, the members of the Company and the other administrators of the colonial police, a set of guidelines to inspire and stimulate

202  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi their activity for the promotion of agriculture and trade in the territories under their government. And if the reception, following Hans Robert Jauss (1982), is the meaning of a text, Sampaio’s quotations reveal that what is highlighted in Forbonnais’ treatise is more the logic of jealous and muscular trade than the idea of “liberté et concurrence” voiced by the faction of Vincent Gournay’s group to which Forbonnais belonged (Alimento 2013; 2014). Incidentally, the quotations of a political economy treatise that we find in the Relação –​i.e. in a text of an official origin –​are a rare testimony to the impact of economic theories on political and administrative practices, the so-​called “performativity” of economics (Muniesa and Callon 2009; Augello and Guidi 2019).They reveal, at least in this case, the existence and effectiveness of a transmission chain from economic theory to policy projects and strategies, and from the latter to legislation and administrative decisions, which in turn have a direct effect on the private decisions and economic activities of a society. Forbonnais’ reflections constitute in fact the backbone of Sampaio’s reasoning, built around a rigorous chain of syllogisms. After repeating that if the Spanish or the Dutch invade the Rio Branco,“...nos põem em risco de perder o commercio das nossas conquistas [they put us at risk to lose the trade of our conquests]” (Sampaio 1850 [1777]: 267), he goes on dealing with the delicate question of the population of Amazonian settlements, both by attracting the forest Indians to them and by encouraging the arrival of the “familias européas (de que deverá resultar o maior beneficio) [European families (from which the greatest benefit should accrue)]” (ibid.). Sampaio is convinced that if potential European immigrants find it “convenient” to settle in the area, “não faltará com esta providencia o mais auspicatissimo governo, que nunca Portugal possuiu”48 (ibid.). But such convenience is given by the profitability of the agricultural and commercial activities developed there: “O fim das colonias é a cultura das terras e o commercio: este é a necessaria consequencia d’aquella”49; to stimulate agriculture and trade it is essential to create a strong internal market that consumes its products. Since (this step is actually implicit) the workforce is made up of the natives, it is particularly necessary to encourage their consumption. And here is Forbonnais again cited: “A perfeição d’este commercio consistirá em fazer com que estas nações gostem do superfluo e commodidade, que multiplicará as trocas, e lhes fará ter gosto de trabalhar”.50 [Elem. do comm. p. 2 cap. 6]” (ibid.: 268). But, the reasoning continues, the needs that can stimulate trade are superfluous and induced, consisting of consumer goods that the Indian nations would not feel the need for without having experienced them. And this is exactly the function of the European families settled in Europe, which with their consumption habits can trigger an emulation mechanism. Não é preciso agora mais do que applicar estas maximas á povoação do Rio Branco. Podemos facilmente fazer gostar aos Indios que o habitam o uso de andarem vestidos, e ainda o de outras commodidades, que sabemos lhes não desagradam. Para as adquirir basta fazel-​os industriosos, cultivando os

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  203 generos para que as terras são proprias: o cacáo, o café, o oleo de cupaíba, o urucú, o carajurú, o arroz, milho, legumes, a pesca, o azeite dos ovos de tartaruga, de que abunda o seu rio, etc.Todos estes generos são de consumo certo, e por isso o seu commercio facil. Com o producto d’este commercio jé tem com que alcançar os generos e mercadorias da Europa, por compra ou troca. Os jornaes na navegação, e outros servicios e officios, são tambem a origem de adquirirem. Assim multiplicam o consumo por diversos canaes, e se cumpre o util fim das colonias. (ibid.).51 A third quotation from Forbonnais summarises this reasoning: “A segurança interior das colonias dependerá do numero dos habitantes que se entregam á cultura, e da vantagem que achem os selvagens dentro para commerciarem”52 [Elem. do comm. p. 2 cap. 6]” (ibid.: 269). It is clear from this “manifesto” that the suggested policy contained a considerable dose of what Antonio Gramsci (1975: 1131) called “optimism of the will”, given that only two years earlier, in the Appendix, Sampaio had drafted a long list of complaints about the willingness of the native nations to undertake the path of integration outlined by the law of 1755 (Sampaio 1856a: 91). “Porém –​Sampaio commented –​esta execução tinha logo que expugnar, com hum muro de bronze, o genio, a natureza, e os radicados costumes dos Indios”53 (ibid.: 90–​91). Inapplicable to the case are the “principios de hum Homem profundo, e ingenhoso, que imputa a falta de Legislação a mudança daquelles costumes”54, because “a experiencia os desmente”55 (ibid.: 91). Not even schools have served to educate the natives, because even those who have learned some rudiments, forget it when “se passão a exercicios incompativeis com aquelle genero de educação [they engage in exercises that are incompatible with this kind of education]” (ibid.). A inclinação á agricultura –​Sampaio goes on –​se limita a quanto he necessário para a subsistência, sem que para elles este lucroso, e louvável exercício seja objecto de commercio. Para aquella subsistência pouco trabalho se necessita. “O que faz fazer tantas Nações Silvestres na America, diz judidosamente Montesquieu,56 he porque a terra produz de si mesma muitos fructos, com que se alimentão. Se as mulheres cultivão á roda da sua Cabana huma porção de terra, logo ahi cresce o Maiñ. A caça, e pesca acabão de trazer a abundância.57” (ibid.) And he adds: O Commercio das Drogas do Sertão, que he o mais avultado, he feito por obediência, e não por gosto. A mesma obediência obriga os índios, ou aos serviços geraes das Povoações, ou ao dos Particulares. Os pagamentos destes trabalhos são de pouco estimulo; porque são desnecessários a quem a

204  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi Natureza deo o preciso. Em Clima tão favorável, huma Cabana he habitação bastantemente reparada.58 (ibid.: 91–​92) This happens also because “Os índios, que habitão as Selvas, achão maior bem na liberdade do Homem, que na do Cidadão: por isso são dificultosos os Descimentos, sem outras causas que concorrão”59 (ibid.: 92). Using the leverage of religion as a stimulus is difficult, because it is almost impossible to take the indigenous nations away from their superstitions. Nor did the law authorising mixed marriages work, because it was the whites who reverted to a wild state! The administrators of the povoações are ignorant and poor, and poverty stimulates them to opportunism and corruption, not always easy to discover (ibid.). In one way or another, the police of the Portuguese government of Amazonia always revolves around the problem of assimilation and actual exploitation of the native nations, and is confronted with the difficulties arising from the irreducible conflict between the European culture and that of the Indians. This fact explains in part why Sampaio, at the very moment when he says that trafficking and slavery of the Indians is against “ás Leis Divinas e humanas, principalmente ás tão sabias, e piamente promulgadas pelo nosso Soberano, e ás ordens, determinadas em conseqüência dellas, pelos Senhores Generaes do Estado, e Senhores Governadores da Capitania”60 (Sampaio 1856a: 116), and he approves the law of 1855 which had abolished this “infame commercio [infamous trade]” (ibid: 94–​5), he is also in favour of the use of slaves of African origin on farms. The latter was promoted “com justas razões [with right reasons]” by the “Governador e Capitão general do Estado [Governor and general Captain of the State], João Pereira Caldas” (ibid.: 98), and “sem o que, nada se adiantará [without which, nothing will progress]” (ibid.: 141). The northern part of the Rio Branco basin is in fact, as mentioned above, characterised by grasslands and it is here that Sampaio plans to set up capital-​intensive farms for cattle breeding and the production of dried meat, leather and fat to be sold both on the local market and at longer distances through inland navigation. But meat is equally necessary to feed a high number of black slaves (Sampaio 1850: 271–​271). However, Sampaio is aware that we are far from this goal, with a decreasing population compared to the time of the Missions (Sampaio 1856a: 94–​95) and the total absence of rich and even simple “white” people who can invest their capitals (Sampaio 1850: 272).The only hope, as has already been said, is to attract new forces from outside. As far as the economy of the Amazonian forest is concerned, a fundamental point is, for Sampaio, to eradicate some deep-​rooted prejudices, such as the fact that coffee, cocoa, dye plants, and other genera grow spontaneously and it is not necessary to cultivate them intensively: Este engano se desfaz com facilidade: 1.° não pode haver riqueza sem propriedade. Se eu planto, por exemplo, hum caçoal, este caçoal he meu, posso vende-​lo, e tenho que deixar aos meus

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  205 herdeiros. Nada disto succede com o que está nos matos. 2.° Hum caçoal, plantado junto á minha habitação, facilita-​me a sua colheita, e beneficio; e alli mesmo, ou embarco, ou vendo o seu producto: não preciso dos grandes trabalhos da navegação para o sertão. 3.° Se as terras são povoadas, em razão da sua cultura, quanto mais se persuadir esta, mais augmentará a povoação. Os Hollandezes, e Hespanhoes observão esta máxima; porque tendo nas suas colonias igualmente generos silvestres, fundão-​se mais nos que agricultão. Bem sei que ha generos, que se não podem reduzir a cultura, como o cravo, a salsa parrilha; porêm o meu Discurso não se encaminha a prohibir a extracção daquelles generos dos matos, mas sim a persuadir, como mais útil, a cultura dos que a podem receber.61 (Sampaio 1756a: 100–​101) Returning to the difficulties of integration and involvement of the Indians, a last important problem is to implement a “language policy” (Certeau, Julia and Revel 1975) that replaces the native languages and the língua geral with Portuguese in public relations and economic relations, within the fragile urban network of the Amazon basin. Visiting various villages, Sampaio finds that the local schools and parishes, where they exist, have negligently carried out the task entrusted to it by Mendonça Furtado’s Diretório. At the end of the visit to Poiares, for example, he issued the following decision: Ordeno por isso ao actual Director, e aos que lhe succederem, que com o maior desvelo adiantem o conhecimento, e propagação da mesma lingua por meio das escolas publicas, e das doutrinas nas Igrejas, pedindo aos Reverendos Parochos que da sua parte cooperem para este fim tão necessário para o augmento espiritual, e temporal das povoações.62 (Sampaio 1856a: 102) Like many of Sampaio’s remarks, this also sounds like a Manzonian grida and reveals a greater difficulty than expected, although it is precisely to this political choice of Pombal that Brazil owes the fact that Portuguese has become its national language. What is interesting, however, from the point of view that interests us here, is the stark contrast between the curiosity for native languages that the ouvidor reveals in his Diário and Relação, and the official position that he holds when he takes up his duties: true, each native nation speaks its own language, Indians and Europeans still exchange goods with each other largely using the língua geral, but it is Portuguese that must be imposed as the official language of the colony.

The different genius of original and composed languages The return to Portugal and the election to the Academia das Ciências probably prompted Sampaio’s desire to enter the world of letters, and the project to publish his Amazonian memories must have been for a certain time

206  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi an element of it. However, with the exception of a brief memoir on the monastery of Castro de Avelãs (Sampaio 1793), his literary talent was mainly exercised in the translation of two English texts of some interest. These two works also remained unpublished and were issued posthumously by Sampaio’s son Francisco António. These are the translations of Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages by Adam Smith (1761), published under the title Observações sobre a Primeira Formação das Linguas[,]‌do Differente Genio das Originaes e Compostas (Smith 1816) and of Oration to the Memory of Peter the Great by Michail Lomonosov (1793), translated as Oração á Memoria de Pedro-​ Grande Imperador de Russia (Lomonosov 1816).63 The Observações were not the first translation of a work by Smith published in the Lusitanian area. In 1806 a fragment entitled “Do baile come arte de imitação”, corresponding to sections 1–​7 of the essay “Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called The Imitative Arts” –​later included in Smith’s Essays on Philosophical Subjects –​had appeared in number 1 (and the only one) of Jornal encyclopedico, edited by António Manuel Policarpo da Silva. The latter was a bookseller and publisher of Terreiro do Paço (today Praça do Comércio), with literary ambitions that led him to write a satirical work that met with some success, O Piolho Viajante (1802a), as well as a slightly less fortunate collection of Leituras Úteis and Divertidas Traduzidas em Vulgar, in four illustrated volumes (1802b). As a publisher he issued the entertainment periodical As Variedades (5 vols, Lisboa: na Offic. de Simão Thaddeo, 1802–​1805), of which António da Visitação Freire de Carvalho, together with his brother José Liberato, was the editor (Palma-​Ferreira 1973; Silva 1858, 295–​ 296; Silva 1868: 235–​236). More important was the publication of the Compêndio da Obra da Riqueza das Nações, a partial translation, as the title explains, of the Wealth of Nations, produced by a very young son of art, just nineteen years old at the time of its publication, Bento da Silva Lisboa, and published in Rio de Janeiro in 1811. This publication was part and parcel of a wider publishing initiative of the Impressão Régia directed by Bento’s father, José da Silva Lisboa, future baron and viscount of Cairu, author of the Princípios de Economia Política (Lisboa, 1804), follower and populariser of Smith and Censor Régio in the service of the Royal Court, which fled Portugal in November 1807 and settled in Rio (Coutinho 2019: 1). The work was largely ignored in Portugal, where readings for and against the Wealth of Nations were based on the original or on the available French translations (Reeder and Cardoso 2002). Among the aspects of interest in this Compêndio is the fact that, as the title page declares, it was “translated from the English original”, although the eulogy by Germain Garnier found in the opening pages of the work suggests, if only as a term of comparison, the use of the French translation published by the latter in 1802 (Coutinho 2019: 2). On the other hand, it does not seem, at a first survey, that the synthesis elaborated by Bento da Silva Lisboa is indebted to other compendiums circulating in Europe at that time. It consists of three volumes for a total of 516 pages, while A Complete Analysis or Abridgement of

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  207 Dr. Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Jeremiah Joyce (1797) consists of a single volume of 290 pages (Tribe 2012: 46). There is also a long extract from the translation of Roucher (Smith 1790a), integrated in the final part with that of Blavet (Smith 1779–​1780. See Tribe and Mizuta 2002: 234), published in volumes III and IV of the Bibliothèque de l’homme publique (Smith 1790b; see Carpenter 2002: 80–​82; Faccarello and Steiner 2002: 81–​82), which –​like the Luso-​Brazilian Compendio –​stops at the IV book of Wealth of Nations, and develops a total of 201 pages, and finally a Compendio de la obra inglesa intitulada Riqueza de las naciones, composed by Carlos Martínez de Irujo (1792) and largely based on the French synthesis, which the translator mistakenly attributes to Condorcet (Pisanelli 2015: 32; 2019). This version consists of 302 pages. Neither of these two works, however, bears significant similarities with Bento da Silva Lisboa’s synthesis.64 If we dwelt on these editions it is because the same scheme is reproduced in the case of Observações. With one important difference, however: while many translations of The Wealth of Nations were made in Europe and other parts of the world between the end of the eighteenth century and the entire nineteenth century, and the Compêndio represents the only Portuguese version of Smith’s economic opus for a long time available in the Lusitanian language, the Observações are, on the contrary, the only complete translation of Smith’s Considerations that was made outside the French-​speaking area for the whole nineteenth century and also for a large part of the twentieth century. There are in fact four translations prior to the date of publication of Observações, all in French: a first version is contained in t. II of the series dedicated to Grammaire et Littérature of the Encyclopédie méthodique, launched in 1782 by the bookseller and philosopher Charles-​Joseph Panckoucke. This version appears as a section of the entry “Langue” (Smith 1784). In 1796 a brochure edition (Smith 1796) was published, authored by Antoine-​Marie-​Henri Boulard, a bibliophile notary and prolific polyglot translator, who became mayor of the 11th arrondissement of Paris and, from 1800 to 1804, deputy in the Legislative Body (Robert and Cougny 1889: 424). Two years later, Sophie de Grouchy, Marquise de Condorcet, published the well-​known translation of the seventh posthumous edition of Theory of Moral Sentiments, identical to the sixth edition of 1790 (see Forget 2001, 2010; Bréban and Dellemotte 2017), with, in the appendix, “une dissertation sur l’origine des langues”, a version of Considerations (Smith 1798). Smith himself, in fact, starting from the third edition of 1867, had made TMS followed by a slightly revised edition of Considerations (see Smith 1761). Finally, in 1809, a new translation was published in Geneva by a young professor of literature from Lausanne, Jacques-​Louis Manget (Smith 1809), who appended to it the translation of Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier by Friedrich Schlegel (1808), thus offering an original “treatise” of historical and comparative grammar (Koerner 1989: 272). All these works were available at the time of the publication of Sampaio’s translation, although we do not know which of them were in existence at the time the translation was actually made. We must therefore ask ourselves two

208  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi questions: the first is whether it is possible to obtain from the text of the translation or its paratext any information about the date of composition; and the second is whether the declared translation from English was made in ignorance of the four French versions, or whether it was wholly or partly based on one of them. As for the first of these questions, the text is not without answers. To begin with, the translation is offered to the “Duque de Miranda de Corvo”, title designating the eldest son of João Carlos de Bragança e Ligne de Sousa Tavares Mascarenhas da Silva (1719–​1806), second Duke of Lafões, fourth Marquis of Arronches and eighth Count of Miranda do Corvo, related to the royal family. The latter is obviously the real target of the dedication. A member of “great aristocracy”, and a victim of Pombal’s persecution, the duke of Lafões was exiled to London, where he became a member of the Royal Society.Then he travelled around Europe. In 1777, following the ascension of D. Maria I to the throne and the dismissal of Pombal during the so-​called Viradeira, he was back to Portugal with honours, where he became co-​founder and, since 1780, Presidente perpétuo of the Lisbon Academia Real das Ciências (est. 1779). Appointed Minister in 1801, he soon resigned after the defeat of the Anglo-​Portuguese army in the so-​called Guerra das laranjas against the Napoleonic army. The dedication is therefore linked to the history of the Academia, of which Sampaio was or was to become a member. But there is a tragic detail that allows us to date with a certain exactitude, if not the whole translation, at least this paratextual item: José João Miguel de Bragança e Ligne de Sousa Tavares Mascarenhas da Silva, son of the Duke of Lafões and recipient of the title of Duke of Miranda do Corvo, was born in Lisbon on 20 June 1795 and passed away at the tender age of six on 15 November 1801. The dedication speaks of “seus tenros annos [his65 tender years]”, in which he revealed a perspicacia e viva penetração [...] para as Artes e as Sciencias, que hão de entrar no Plano da [sua] Educação [...] para o instruir naquelles conhecimentos; que lhe são precisos para o desempenho cabal dos Empregos da Monarchia, a que o chamão necessariamente o seu Alto Nascimento, e a estreita união de Sangue com que está ligado aos nossos Soberanos.66 (Smith 1816a: [i–​ii]) These can only be the last years of little José’s life, between 1800 and 1801, when he was just starting his education. It is possible in theory that the dedication was appended at a later date to a text composed at an earlier date. However, there are no indications in the text that may validate this hypothesis. This does not exclude two further questions: when did Sampaio learn about Smith’s text? And when did he conceive the project of translating it, eventually postponing its execution? In order to answer these questions, a little history of the editions of Considerations is required. Smith’s essay appeared for the first time in Volume 1 (and only one) of The Philological Miscellany, published in London in 1761. This

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  209 was an anthology which, apart from Smith’s essay, contained only translations of French texts originally published in Mémoires of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres of Paris (Bryce 1983: 26–​27; Gherity 1971: 139–​140). It is possible that an educated and ardent reader like Sampaio may have got hold of a copy of this book at an early stage, but this is unlikely, because, although a good connoisseur of the English language, in the Amazonian years Sampaio appears to have had a greater familiarity with French literature. Why would he need to read French articles translated into English? It seems therefore more proper to think that Sampaio’s encounter with Considerations took place thanks to one of its later editions, all of which are appended to TMS: the possibilities therefore extend from the third edition of 1767 to the sixth of 1790. Unfortunately, there are very few variations between these editions and they are mostly limited to upper/​lower case options and punctuation: traces, these, which in translation risk getting lost among the rules and usages of the target language and the translator’s preferences. The table in the appendix shows the comparison between the variants of the five editions published in life by Smith and the Portuguese translation. It reveals a higher, albeit weak, similarity with the fourth or fifth edition and, on the contrary, an indication that Sampaio is unlikely to have consulted the 1861 or 1867 edition.67 What makes this chain of events fascinating is the pure hypothesis that, if Sampaio could have purchased the Philological Miscellany or the third edition of TMS before leaving for Pará, he would be able to read Considerations before embarking on the journey along the Solimões. The references to the genius of language found here and there in the text (“[o]‌génio da lingoa geral dos indios”, Sampaio 1825: 41; “o génio proprio da lingoa sobredita”, ibid. 42), as well as the comparison between the latter, the Latin language and the “génio [...] da ingleza” (ibid.) could in fact recall the reference to the “Different Genius of Original and Compounded Languages” which forms part of the title of Smith’s Considerations.68 It has been seen, however, that Sampaio also uses the term “genius” in Montesquieu’s “ethnological” sense, while the locution “génio da língua” in the sense of “distinctive characters” or“structure proper to a language” (Graffi 2019: 97–​99) was quite widespread in the eighteenth century, being discussed, for example, in Les vrais principes de la langue françoise by Gabriel Girard (1747), in the entry “Langue” of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, authored by Nicolas Beauzée (1765), and in Condillac’s Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines (1798 [1746]: 370–​372, 432–​456). The latter connects the genius of languages to the genius of peoples in a way that directly recalls Montesquieu’s reflections and, through them, those of Sampaio in his Diário. Indeed, like Beauzée, Girard and Condillac in the chapter devoted to the genius of languages, Sampaio is interested in this question with a taxonomic and comparative rather than genetic approach: he is fascinated by the similarities and differences between Latin, English, and the Amazonian native languages, and between these and Portuguese, rather than being interested in the question of the transition from “original” to “composed” languages, to adopt Smith’s terminology.

210  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi It is therefore possible that Sampaio may have derived the notion of “genius of languages” from one of the above-​mentioned sources or, more simply, that he breathed it with the air of time. Conversely, the presence of that notion in Sampaio’s writings of the 1770s may explain why, when he read its title, he was attracted by Smith’s Considerations and considered translating and adapting it for the purposes we have indicated. One last element should be taken into consideration in this regard: in the dedication of Observações, Sampaio mentions both TMS and WN and attributes to Considerations the same “philosophical” approach that binds these works together (Smith 1816: [iv]). The knowledge of Smith’s “Economia Politica” (ibid.) therefore leads us to a date subsequent to 1776, while the reference to “Theoria dos sentimentos Moraes” (ibid.) reinforces the supposition that Sampaio “discovered” Considerations in one of the appendices to this work. One can therefore speculate that Sampaio discovered Considerations after his return to Portugal and that he drafted its translation, if not at the start of the ninenteenth century, in the years immediately preceding it. Postponing to a future work a textual comparison with the French translations that could highlight the possible filiation between the latter and Sampaio’s Portuguese version, we can observe that, after his return to Portugal, and particularly in the 1790s, the Portuguese magistrate had deepened his knowledge of the English language and culture. The other translation he made, that of Michail Lomonosov’s Oration to the Memory of Peter the Great, derives in fact from the English version, made by the Scottish polygraph Matthew Guthrie, and published under the pseudonym “Arcticus” in James Anderson’s (1739–​1808) The Bee, the famous weekly journal published in Edinburgh from 1790 to 1794, of which Guthrie was a regular contributor (Cross 1997: 150–​ 151; 2000: 92).69 It is not peregrine to think that Sampaio was in those years a regular subscriber and reader of The Bee, a journal that kept him informed on British culture and political economy, and which published a controversial account of some conversations with Adam Smith on literature, signed “Amicus” (1791) and a reply by Lord Buchan (1791, signed “Ascanius”) on Adam Smith’s last years and main contributions.70 The preceding analysis of the gestation of the Portuguese translation of Smith’s Considerations tells many things about its characteristics and aims. The latter, however, emerge even more clearly from a contrastive scrutiny of the macrostructures and contents of the source text and the translation. Smith’s work was originally an essay conceived as a chapter in a miscellany. This explains why the paratext is limited to some notes and bibliographical references, while any kind of introductory item is missing. The text is divided into 45 numbered sections and no discontinuity markers separate the three parts into which the essay is divided (Bryce 1983: 25–​26): the first part (§§ 1–​32) is dedicated to the original languages, spoken by “savage” people in the “early and rude stage” of society and is ideally divided into two sections, dedicated, respectively, to nouns, adjectives and prepositions (§§ 1–​25) and verbs and pronouns (§§ 26–​32). The method of “Theoretical or Conjectural History” that Dugald

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  211 Stewart, in Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith (1829 [1793]: II, §44–​ 56), attributes precisely to this text represents the backbone of these reflections. This method is appropriate in the absence of direct testimony and consists in considering “in what manner” human beings “are likely to have proceeded, from the principles of their nature, and the circumstances of their external situation” (ibid.: §56). It should be noted that this approach was the same implicitly adopted not only in the whole tradition of the Scottish Enlightenment (Bryson 1945), but also by Smith’s direct and indirect sources: Rousseau’s Discours sur l’origine et les fondemens de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (2008 [1755], quoted in Smith 1983 [1761]: § 2, p. 205) and its sources, the aforementioned works by Condillac and Girard. The reference to a human nature with invariable characteristics was well suited to the way in which linguistic phenomena were analysed in eighteenth-​century linguistic theory, in continuity with the Port-​ Royal School. The authors of this school had in fact contributed to consolidate the belief that all languages, regardless of their particular characteristics, had a common structure corresponding to the natural functions of human communication. The eighteenth-​century tradition of philosophical grammars, although divided between the rationalist approach, heir to Descartes’ thought, and the empirical approach, inspired by Locke, had contributed to consolidate this vision (Graffi 2019: 99–​102). Smith, who, as we know, belongs to the empirical tradition (Berry 1974), could therefore legitimately speak of the origin of language as a unique phenomenon, attributing to the particular circumstances of time and place the specific genius of each spoken language. In this first part of Considerations, Smith imagines communities of “savages” who live isolated from each other and who begin to communicate to meet their respective needs.Their ability to make abstractions is limited and therefore each individual phenomenon is given a particular verb and then a particular noun. Verbs and nouns are initially impersonal and indeclinable, respectively. They indicate the specific object and the particular event people are experiencing. The need to communicate gradually leads members of the same community to share these lexemes and to generalise their use until they designate classes of objects and phenomena of the same type. This is the first level of abstraction. The second ideal part of Considerations covers sections 33–​40 and deals with the origin of “compound languages”, which derive from the encounter between different peoples and the difficulty that each has at this stage to understand “the intricacies (as they see them) of each other’s speech-​structures” (Bryce 1983: 25–​26). The difficulty, in particular, of understanding declensions and conjugations leads people to introduce prepositions, putting them next to the nouns, and the verbs to be and to have as auxiliaries, associating them with past participles (Smith 1983 [1861]: 220–​221). The languages originated in this way from the composition of different languages are, in their structure, simpler than the original ones. And Smith concludes: In general it may be laid down for a maxim, that the more simple any language is in its composition, the more complex it must be in its declensions

212  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi and conjugations; and, on the contrary, the more simple it is in its declensions and conjugations, the more complex it must be in its composition. (ibid.: 221–​222) The third and last part covers sections 41–​45 and is the one that most closely links Smith’s reflection to his lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres. Smith argues that compounded languages are more verbose, less aesthetically pleasing and more rigid in word ordering than simple ones. Section 44 offers an interesting comparison between the simplification of languages and the simplification of “mechanical engines”. Both are the result of a natural evolution. However: “The simplification of machines renders them more and more perfect, but this simplification of the rudiments of languages renders them more and more imperfect, and less proper for many of the purposes of language” (Smith 1983 [1761]: 224).The examples given for this last purpose are linked to the eighteenth-​century grammar tradition. In Latin, for example, the sentence “Joannem verberavit Robertus” is identical to “Robertus verberavit Joannem”, as cases clarify the role of each term in the sentence (ibid: 225).The same is not true for modern “compounded” languages, as the positions in the sentence are the only way of indicating the grammatical role of single terms. This example, combined with the comparison between languages and machines, provides a possible evidence of some kind of (unacknowledged) intertextuality between Smith’s Considerations and Antoine-​Noël Pluche’s La Mécanique des Langues (1751).71 Smith concludes his comparison of modern and ancient languages by the following comment: How much this power of transposing the order of their words must have facilitated the composition of the ancients, both in verse and prose, can hardly be imagined. That it must greatly have facilitated their versification it is needless to observe; and in prose, whatever beauty depends upon the arrangement and construction of the several members of the period, must to them have been acquirable with much more ease, and to much greater perfection, than it can be to those whose expression is constantly confined by the prolixity, constraint, and monotony of modern languages. (Smith 1983 [1761]: 226) In its Portuguese translation, Smith’s Considerations undergo an initial adaptation of textual genre, evolving from a contribution to a volume into a short book. As already mentioned, however, the dedication reveals that the choice to publish the text as an autonomous small book is linked to a further change in its destination. From an essay of “philosophical grammar” aimed at an educated public, the text is bent on a pedagogical vocation. In short, it becomes a textbook aimed at young people. This choice involves numerous adaptations, which are reflected in the composition of the text and ultimately in its meaning.

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  213 From a macro-​ structural point of view, the new generic positioning is indicated by the detailed title page, which indicates that the translation was made from the English original, that it was dedicated to the Duke of Miranda do Corvo, that it was composed by Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio, “defunto [deceased] Desembargador da Casa da Supplicação”, finally that it was brought to light thanks to his son Francisco Antonio. Further indications come from an epigraph in the verso of the title page and by the dedication already mentioned, which develops a total of seven unnumbered printed pages. The main text, starting from page 1, is preceded by a repetition of the title (Observações sobre a primeira formação das linguas [e]‌do differente genio das originaes, e compostas), to which a subtitle foreign to Smith is affixed: com applicação á portuguesa. The paragraphs follow one another without numbering, up to page 57, where the translation of § 40 of the source text –​corresponding to the conclusion of the second “consideration”, according to Bryce’s scheme –​is abruptly and incomprehensibly interrupted in the middle of a sentence, as evidenced by the following synopsis: All the different modifications of meaning, which cannot be expressed by any of those three terminations, must be made out by different auxiliary verbs joined to some one or other of them (Smith 1983 [1761]: 223, our italics).

Todas as differentes modificações do sentido, que não podem ser expressadas por alguma (Smith 1816: 59).

This interruption –​while remaining meaningless –​is explained by the insertion of a “Nota do traductor” (preceded by a thread, but in the same body and layout of the main text) which occupies pages 60–​61. In itself this is a typographical choice (rather crude, indeed) that Sampaio Jr, perhaps due to editorial inexperience, also makes elsewhere in the text to introduce notes by Smith himself. For example, on pages 41–​42, the note on Francisco Sanchez in § 30 of Smith’s original (Smith 1983 [1761]: 217) is introduced as part of the main text and with an indent to the left, preceded by the notation “N.”. In this case, however, the sentence of the main text is correctly concluded. In the above case, instead, the sentence ends before the introduction of the independent clause, remaining in fact truncated. As a matter of fact, the translation of the end of this sentence is not missing,72 nor are the subsequent ones that conclude § 40, but the return to the main text takes place at the end of p. 61, preceded by a simple comma, which in turn suddenly interrupts the note/​interpolation of the translator. But this is not all: the translator’s note itself is not concluded, because on p. 62, once the translation of § 40 has been completed and before starting the translation of § 41 (but without going to the end), there are four lines, which once again are abruptly truncated,73 and which, in all evidence, represent the continuation of the translator’s thought.The inexperience of Sampaio Jr in interpreting the manuscript left by his father played a nasty trick in this case, making the Smithian text incomprehensible to the Portuguese reader, and at the same time making the boundary between Sampaio’s and Smith’s reflections opaque.

214  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi Clearer and more interesting are other interpolations, interspersed with the main text without any graphic marker. Like the already mentioned “Nota do traductor”, and like other microstructural variations that abound especially in this part,74 these insertions aim to achieve the purpose announced by the translation subtitle: applying Smithian reflections to the Portuguese language. There are two rather articulated examples at the end of § 43 of the source text, the first, about 8 lines, represented by a closed sentence (Smith 1816: 65), and the second, about 14 lines, introduced by a comma, as if to qualify Smith’s statement (ibid.: 65–​66). An interpolation on page 69 aims instead to replace Smith’s meticulous contrastive analysis of some verses by Milton, which represent a literal translation of an ode by Horace, with a more general and intelligible discourse for the Portuguese reader on the incomprehensible character of literal translations from Latin and Greek, among which that of “Millon” [sic] is only mentioned as an example.75 The meaning of all these adaptations is clear: they serve to bend Smith’s text to its function as an introduction to the study of the Portuguese language, compared with other ancient and modern languages, and, at the same time, to transform Smith’s essay into an introductory guide to grammar learning. The entire scope of the operation is summarised by the epigraph, freely derived from one of the founding texts of Portuguese grammar, Duarte Nunes de Leão’s Origem da Língua Portuguesa (1975 [1606]: 321): “Das Linguas a Latina he a mais prezada. E quanto mais a imita a Lusitana, tanto seu preço fica mais sublime” (Smith 1816: title page, verso).76 A reference to Duarte is on the other hand explicit in the “Nota do traductor”, in which Sampaio specifies: Porém da Latina he que tirou toda a sua analogia, e formosura, á qual se aproxima mais, que nenhuma outra Lingua moderna, de sorte, que ha Composições perfeitas, que se lêm, e entendem em huma e outra Lingua, como são aquelles versos, que nos conservou Duarte Nunes de Leão, na origem da Lingua Portugueza cap. 16.77 (Smith 1816: 60) Sampaio insists that although the Portuguese language also underwent the same transformation as all modern languages, it maintained “mais a concisão da Latina, do que o fizerão as outras [more the conciseness of the Latin, than the others did]” (ibid.). Por exemplo, nas conjugações, conserva mais a Lingua Portugueza a concisão da Latina, do que o póde fazer a Ingleza, que se vê obrigada a usar de sete, ou oito verbos auxiliares. O que muito, com outras causas, concorre para a harmonia, e valentia do verso Portuguez. (ibid.: 61)78 And after translating the passage in which Smith argues: “What a Roman expressed by a single word, amavissem, an Englishman is obliged to express

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  215 by four different words, I should have loved” (Smith 1983 [1761]: 224), Sampaio adds: Mas nesta parte segue a Lingua Portugueza a concisão da Latina, dizendo, amásse; ainda que esta palavra he na realidade composta [si intende: dalla radice e dalla desinenza, n.d.a.]; a pronuncia sómente a faz simples. O que melhor se conhece, quando o verbo se usa impessoalmente, porque então se devisa claramente a composição, como, ama-​se. (Smith 1816: 65)79 This was a traditional topic in the history of the discourse upon the Portuguese language at least since the sixteenth century, when João de Barros (Dialogo em louvor da nossa linguagem. 1540) and Pêro de Magalhães de Gândavo’s (Dialogo em defensaõ da lingua portuguesa. 1574) published their eulogies of the Lusitanian language (Lupetti 2011). But this discourse was renewed and became quite popular in the eighteenth century, during and after the age of Pombal (see Lupetti and Guidi 2014: 1171–​1180), until it became a commonplace in the nineteenth century. At every stage, the first meaning of these eulogies was patriotic and political. In the sixteenth century, they had been a way of vindicating the independence of Portugal from the Spanish monarchy, while in the eighteenth century, they had sustained the Marquis of Pombal’s efforts to strengthen the independence of Portugal and of its colonial trade from the influence and control of Britain in a first stage, and of France and the Bourbon “family compact”, during and after the Seven Years War. This “ideology of language” was revived during the Napoleonic wars, and in a sense the dedication to the son of the Duke of Laffões assumes a contemporary political meaning (assuming that it was written in 1800–​1801 ca.), as the Duke was at the time marechal general and commander of the Portuguese army. In the dedication to his son, Sampaio describes him as the “Grande Pai de Vossa Excellecia; [...] este Illustre Homem d’Estado, de Letras, e Armas, cujas virtudes Patrio[ti]cas para descrever, nem voz capaz, nem penna habil tenho”80, and again “o Pai da nossa Patria; Columna firme da Monarchia, que em todos os tempos a tem sabido defender com o seu braço, sustentar com o seu Conselho; e florecer com a decedida Protecção das Artes e Sciencias”81 (Smith 1816: [v]‌). This political interpretation of the question of the “genius of languages” explains why Sampaio thought of turning Considerations into a textbook for the education of the statesman. Sampaio believed that such education should be philosophical, leading the learner to know “as cousas pelo que ellas são na sua origem, e razão de existerem, e não pela superficie e catoviedade [sic]”82 (Smith 1816: [ii–​iii]). For this reason the text by Smith, “hum Filosofo destes tempos [a philosopher of this time]” (ibid.) can be useful: Sabendo [...] Vossa Excellencia já a sua Lingua, he justo, que tambem saiba por Principios a razão, os motivos, as causas deste Dom de DEOS, que distingue essencialmente o Homem; a Linguagem, com que communica ao

216  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi seu similhante os seus pensamentos, e entende os daquelle; venha no exacto conhecimento da sua primitiva Formação, Structura, e Progresso; observe a indole das Lingoas originaes, das compostas e das modernas, e que por degráos chegárão ao estado, em que se achão.83 (ibid.) The “philosophical” knowledge of language is therefore an essential requirement of the future statesman, a task to which the young Duke of Miranda is called by virtue of his origins and the example of his father and ancestors (ibid.: [vi–​vii]). Turning to microstructural aspects, the translation presents itself as a singular mixture of adaptation and inaccuracy. The strategy of adaptation is consistent with the aim attributed to the text. Cultural and lexical adaptation aims to make the book more attractive for a Portuguese learner. Accordingly, “Tejo” replaces “Thames”, “Português” often replaces “Englishman”, “tostões” and “reis” replace “shillings” and “pence”.A dash of patriotic pride hides behind the choice of translating the colours chosen by Smith (“green” and “blue” –​ and their corresponding abstract substantives, “greenness” and “blueness”) with the colours of the Portuguese flag (“verde” and “vermelho”, on the one hand, “verdura” and “vermilhão”, on the other hand). There is also a degree of political adaptation, revealed, for example, by the choice of omitting Smith’s (1983 [1761]: 205) reference to Rousseau, an author who was still prohibited by the Portuguese censorship, and whose ideas on inequality and property Sampaio deemed inappropriate for the education of a young aristocrat. On the morphological side, Smith’s (1983 [1761]: 208) discussion of derived diminutives associates Italian to “other languages” which employ such diminutives, while the Portuguese translation only mentions “outras Linguas” (Smith 1816: 15), probably because the translator was conscious that Portuguese and Spanish share with Italian this peculiarity. Finally, syntactic adaptation is applied to Smith’s discussion of the compulsory use of subject-​pronouns “in the English language” (Smith’s 1983 [1761]: 218) to distinguish the first from the second and third person. The Portuguese translator replaces “the English language” by “Línguas modernas” (Smith 1816: 45) in general, and Smith’s accurate example (“I came, you came, he or it came”) with a Portuguese example (“Eu vim, tu vieste, elle ou isto veio”) which is a grammatical nonsense, because neo-​Latin languages normally express the subject morphologically, by modifying verbal terminations. Inaccuracy is manifested both by some translator’s errors,84 and by numerous misprints,85 including misreading of Latin terms.86 Smith is sometimes correctly amended, when wrongly citing examples in Italian, but sometime new errors are added by the translator. For example, in one case Sampaio correctly replaces “ad Roma” with “a Roma” [=​to Rome]. But on another occasion he replaces Smith’s correct Italian preposition “di” (in “di Roma” [=​of Rome]) with the Portuguese corresponding preposition “de” (“de Roma”).87

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  217

Conclusions The Portuguese translation of Smith’s Considerations is a case in which the interest in a text of a linguistic nature, which offers a comparative reflection on the differences between primitive and modern languages, comes from an experience, such as that of a colonial intendant, which required an economic-​ political knowledge. Sampaio demonstrates that he had this knowledge and knew how to use it critically, in the spirit of the Enlightenment. Police and language politics were intertwined in this experience, not only in the conjuncture in which Sampaio’s colonial experience took place, that of Pombal’s domination, but also more generally, as it were for a philosophical reason. A reader of WN could not miss the link between conversation, persuasion, negotiation, and exchange of goods. And Sampaio had a direct experience of such a link during his official journeys along the Solimões. Accordingly, it can be said that the context of life and the Amazonian experience of this Pombaline colonial officer explain the uniqueness of this translation in the European cultural panorama, with the exception, as documented, of the French-​speaking world. Having returned Sampaio to Portugal and entered the sphere of the capital’s high hierarchies, his decision to translate Smith’s Considerations seems to have little to share with the motivations that inspired his observations on the conditions of the Amazonian settlements. But this is not the case, after all. The aim of proposing a “philosophical” introduction to the grammatical study of a young man of the court aristocracy led him to choose Smith’s text both because of the high esteem in which he held the Scottish philosopher, and because his “philosophy of language” could favour, in the future Portuguese statesman, a unique open-​mindedness suited to the tasks he would have to face, for example, in managing relations between the motherland and the colonies: to impose Portuguese as a universal language within its own domains, but at the same time to be aware of the structural characteristics of the “original languages” of the populations with which the Portuguese ruler came into contact. To combine Smith’s translation with the rhetoric –​itself politically marked –​of the superiority of Portuguese over other modern languages by virtue of its greater proximity to Latin, was ultimately functional to this design: Tu regere imperio populos romane memento. (Virgil, Æn.,VI 851)

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Professor José Luis Cardoso for his precious advice, Dr. Cristina Tomé and Dr. Ana Cunha of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa for their help in providing various documents from the archives of this prestigious institution, the staff of the Arquivo da Universidade de Coimbra for guiding them in the otherwise difficult interpretation of the official

218  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi documents cited in this work, Mara Guazzerotti of the Library of Economics of the University of Pisa for supporting them in the search for bibliographical material not otherwise available, Dr. Sinval Martins Filho of the Universidade Federal de Goiás for the conversations in which he opened them to the secrets of the languages spoken by the native Amazonian Indians, Cristina Guccione and Fabrizio Simon for the patient encouragement to complete this work and for their valuable advice. Usual disclaimers apply.

Notes 1 The essay is the result of research and reconstruction carried out jointly by the two authors. Monica Lupetti wrote the third and fifth sections and Marco Guidi wrote the second and fourth sections. Introduction and conclusions are in common. 2 The province of Mainas (Maynas) was part of the Audiencia of Quito and therefore of the Spanish [Viceroyalty] of Nueva Granada. On the history of the Amazon basin, see Livi Bacci (2012). 3 “A safe, decent canoe of eight rowers per band, [...] and another small one for the service of travel, hunting, and fishing. Two soldiers, the clerk, the pilot, my family, being twenty-​six people for all”. The canoe was also equipped with a sail (Sampaio 1825: 10). 4 “A safe, decent canoe of eight rowers per band, [...] and another small one for the service of travel, hunting, and fishing. Two soldiers, the clerk, the pilot, my family, being twenty-​six people for all”. The canoe was also equipped with a sail (Sampaio 1825: 10). 5 “...the military officers of the garrison, and all the most qualified people of the capital. A great number of them, in several boats, accompanied me for two leagues”. 6 Visiting the border fort of Tabatinga, founded by Captain General Fernando da Costa of Ataide Teve, Sampaio explains that it prevented “o passo aos castelhanos com a occupação daquelle importante posto [the Castilians from taking up that important post]” (Sampaio 1825: 70). At the same time he tends to reiterate the official position that the real border between the two dominions was further on the west, porque estes se estendem [...] pelo rio Napó acima até de fronte da barra do Aguaríco, onde o nosso inclito capitão Pedro Teixeira plantou os marcos, que havião servir de divisão entre as colonias de Portugal, e Castella [because they extend [...] along the river Napó up to the front of the bank of the Aguaríco, where our glorious Captain Pedro Teixeira planted the landmarks, which were to serve as a division between the colonies of Portugal, and Castilla]. (ibid.) 7 “Em fim o lago Dourado, se existe me persuado, que he somente nas imaginações dos hespanhoes, que tenho noticia certa ainda actualmente fazem diligencia pelo achar: mas na verdade esta materia só deve ser tratada pelo modo allegorico, e ironico, com que d’ella escreveo hum author famozo (M.e de Voltair: candide ou l’optimisme) [At the end I am persuaded that the Golden Lake, if it exists, it is only in the imagination of the Spanish, who –​I know for sure –​still make efforts to find it: but in truth this matter should only be treated in the allegorical and ironic way employed in the writings of a famous author (M. de Voltaire: candide ou l’optimisme)” (Sampaio 1825: 101).

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  219 8 Library off the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Archive, Carte di José Maria Dantas Pereira. 9 A diplomatic transcription of the manuscript of this text, preserved in the Arquivo Ultramarino, Lisbon, together with a circumstanced reconstruction, has been provided by Papavero, Chiquieri, and Teixeira (2015). 10 The resolution –​as reported in the printed edition (Sampaio 1825: [ii]) –​was signed by the Secretary of the Academy, José Maria Dantas Pereira on 8 November 1824. 11 Sampaio 1825: [ii]. According to the documents preserved in the archives of the Academy, the secretary had given notice of the sending in the session of 6th October 1824, together with the request made by Portugal himself to print the work with the privilege of the institution, of course “á custa de S. Ex.a [at the expense of H.E.]”. He then asked the members to authorize him “para poder distribuillo á censura, e por-​lhe depois o consequente despacho []” (“Report read by José Maria Dantas Pereira in the session of 6th October 1824 (item #6)”, Library of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Archive, Papers of José Maria Dantas Pereira. See also ibid., Actas da Academia das Sciencias, f. 230, Sessão Ordinaria de 6 de Outubro de 1824). In the following session of 3rd November 1824, Dantas Pereira communicated the positive and flattering opinions transmitted to the secretary by the two censors of the Desembargo do Paço, João Pedro Ribeiro (1758–​1839), who was also a member of the Academy, and Francisco Nunes Franklin (1778–​1833), chronicler of the house of Bragança and also a member of it (ibid. Papers of José Maria Dantas Pereira. See Silva 1859, pp. 19–​20), and declared that he had sent the work to print. See ibid., Actas da Academia das Sciencias, f. 231, Sessão Ordinaria de 3 de Novembro de 1824. 12 Before leaving for Brazil he had presented some memoirs to the Academia das Ciências, including “Memoria sobre a preferência que entre nós merece o estabelecimento dos Mercados ao uso das Feiras de ano para o Comercio intrínseco” (Portugal 1790), and “Memoria sobre os Juros, relativamente à Cultura das Terras” (Portugal 1791). See Silva (1862: 335); Cardoso (1990–​1991: II, 3–​12; III, 167–​74). 13 See 1772, Julho, 25,Vila de Barcelos. Ofício do [governador do Rio Negro, coronel] Joaquim Tinoco Valente ao [secretário de estado da Marinha e Ultramar], Martinho de Melo e Castro requerendo o regresso ao Reino em virtude dos serviços prestados. Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisboa (di seguito AHU), Pará, NV.748; 1775, Fevereiro, 12, Vila de Barcelos. Ofício do [governador do Rio Negro], Joaquim Tinoco Valente ao [secretário de estado da Marinha e Ultramar], Martinho de Melo e Castro a pedir o regresso ao Reino devido a doença, alegando ter já 50 anos de serviço. AHU-​Pará, cx. 750. 14 See 1772, Julho, 25,Vila de Barcelos. Ofício do [governador do Rio Negro, coronel] Joaquim Tinoco Valente ao [secretário de estado da Marinha e Ultramar], Martinho de Melo e Castro requerendo o regresso ao Reino em virtude dos serviços prestados. Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisboa (di seguito AHU), Pará, NV.748; 1775, Fevereiro, 12, Vila de Barcelos. Ofício do [governador do Rio Negro], Joaquim Tinoco Valente ao [secretário de estado da Marinha e Ultramar], Martinho de Melo e Castro a pedir o regresso ao Reino devido a doença, alegando ter já 50 anos de serviço. AHU-​Pará, cx. 750. 15 See 1772, Julho, 25,Vila de Barcelos. Ofício do [governador do Rio Negro, coronel] Joaquim Tinoco Valente ao [secretário de estado da Marinha e Ultramar], Martinho de Melo e Castro requerendo o regresso ao Reino em virtude dos serviços prestados. Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisboa (di seguito AHU), Pará, NV.748; 1775, Fevereiro, 12, Vila de Barcelos. Ofício do [governador do Rio Negro], Joaquim Tinoco Valente ao [secretário de

220  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi estado da Marinha e Ultramar], Martinho de Melo e Castro a pedir o regresso ao Reino devido a doença, alegando ter já 50 anos de serviço. AHU-​Pará, cx. 750. 16 Decree of 8th March 1767. See Anon. 1843: 404. 17 See 1772, Setembro, 19, Lisboa, Decreto do rei D. José a nomear o juiz de fora e provedor da Fazenda Real da cidade de Pará, bacharel Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio no lugar de ouvidor e intendente geral do Comércio, Agricultura e Manufactura, da capitania do Rio Negro, dispensando-​o de residência do cargo anterior. AHU: Rio Negro, cx. 2, D. 17. 18 See Sampaio 1825: 14:“Passavamos por baixo de arvores altissimas, que já ameaçavão momentanea cahida; porque o terreno pouco solido, as raizes já á superficie, e a agua successivamente minando, assim o indicavão, e a cada passo se vião terras precipitadas de fresco. Este he hum dos grandes perigos desta viagem, e que tem sido a cauza de muitos naufragios com perda de innumeraveis vidas” [“We passed beneath very high trees, which already threatened suddenly to fall; because the not very solid ground, the roots already at the surface, and the water successively undermining, so indicated, and at each step we saw lands precipitated of fresh. This is one of the great dangers of this journey, and it has been the cause of many shipwrecks with the loss of innumerable lives”]. 19 “[The Muras are] a corsair people, who only live by hunting, fishing, and bush fruits. It is always in its own rescue, making ambushes, especially at the ends of the ground, in which there are usually currents; because, while the canoes work to pass through them, from above they dismiss a multitude of arrows. Their bows exceed the height of a man. The edges of the arrows are adorned with broad taquaras, that is, pieces of a stiff cane called taboca, wide four fingers, and long one and a half palms, with a very sharp edge, that penetrates much, and makes deadly wounds. But they do not use herbal arrows.They are supposed to ignore the secret of making the poison, and they do not assault at night. These are the enemies that we must fear on this trip: especially in the Solimões River, which is currently infested by a great number of them”. 20 Arriving at Fonte Boa on his way back to home, Sampaio finds the local population “allarmada, e temeroza por cauza do gentio Mura, que tinha accometido. Contava esta povoação por felicidade não ser combatida dos Muras, e tratava das suas culturas com socego. Agora principia a experimentar os receios, que pedecião as mais daqui para baixo, e que tanto perjuizo causão á agricultura, e commercio desta capitania, que sem segurança não pode florecer [alarmed, and fearful because of the Mura people, who had attacked them. This village counted for happiness not to be fought against by the Mura, and dealt with their cultivations with tranquillity. Now they began to experience the fears, which those living downstream had experienced, and which cause so much harm to agriculture, and trade in this captaincy, which without security cannot flourish]” (Sampaio 1825: 75). And in the following paragraph: “Conjecturo, que se se não dá prompto e efficaz remedio para inteiramente profligar, e destruir esta nação, que por sua natureza conserva cruel, e irreconciliavel inimizade com todas as mais nações, não exceptuando os indios: que professa por instituto a pirataria, grassando por todos os lugares de publico transito, em que deve haver maior segurança: Que nas suas guerras, e assaltos usa a mais barbara tirannia, não perdoando aos mesmos mortos, em que commetem innarraveis crudeldades, esfolando, e rompendo os cadaveres: Que apenas dá quartel a algum rapaz, que depois de ferido, e impossibilitado a fugir, chega a captivar; e ainda assim para o reduzir a escravidão: Motivos estes que não somente justificão contra esta nação a mais infurecida guerra, mas que apersuade huma indespensavel obrigação

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  221 fundada no interesse, bem da paz, e segurança da sociedade universal das nações Americanas, e colonias deste continente: se não se dá, digo, remedio a tantos, e tão universaes damnos, ou se reduizirão a nada as colonias, e estabelecimentos dos rios Amazonas, Negro, Madeira, e Jupurá, ou experimentarão o estado de languidez, e diminuição, que necessariamente lhes causa o temor dos Muras, e por hum calculo bem moderado se pode inferir, que o augmento, que tem, seria quadruplicado, e se seguros os moradores se applicassem á agricultura, ao commercio, e á navegação, essencialmente necessaria neste paiz, para adiantar huma, e outro” [“I believe that if we do not give a prompt and effective remedy to completely profligate and destroy this nation, which by its very nature remains cruel and irreconcilable with all other nations, not excluding the Indians; which institutionally practises piracy, raiding all places of public transit, where there should be greater security; which in its wars and assaults employs the most barbaric tyranny, not pardoning even the dead, in which they commit innumerable cruelties, flaying and breaking up the cadavers; which only gives quarter to some boy, who after being wounded, and unable to flee, comes to capture, and yet to reduce him to slavery.These are reasons which not only justify the most raging war against this nation, but which reflect an undeniable obligation based on the interest, the good of peace, and the security of the universal society of the American nations and colonies of this continent. If there is no remedy for so many and such universal disasters, either the colonies and establishments of the rivers Amazonas, Negro, Madeira, and Jupurá will be reduced to nothing, or they will experience the languor and diminution which necessarily causes them the fear of the Mura. And it can be inferred from a very moderate calculation that the increase, which it has, would be quadrupled, if the residents were sure to apply themselves to agriculture, trade, and navigation, which would essentially be necessary in this country, to advance one and the other]” (Sampaio 1825: 75–​76]. 21 “It would be very convenient to introduce white couples into it, because there is a great lack of people who can make agriculture flourish there, which would receive an extraordinary increase in consideration of the goodness of the land”. 22 “[H]‌uma distancia não menos, que de cem legoas [a distance of no less than a hundred leagues]”, Sampaio declares that he uses as a unit of measure the “French league” (see Sampaio 1825: 71), which is equivalent to about 4.5 km. However, he probably uses something close to the Portuguese légua of 18 to a degree (6172.84 metres), because he estimates (ibid.) the distance between Tabatinga and Pará at 493 leagues (3,043.21 km), and the Brazilian section of the Amazon River measures 3,100 km. In fact, from Manaus to Coarì, there are 360 km as the crow flies, probably 600 km ca. following the bends of the river. 23 “a shortcoming which is very harmful to the good of navigation, trade, and the prosperity of this captaincy, and which can only be remedied by the complete destruction of the Múra people, who are preventing the settlements on those lands, which are otherwise extremely fertile.” 24 “No Jutahi principalmente que proveitosa seria uma povoação! Pelo meio desta podiamos conhecer, e descer as innumeraveis nações daquelle rio, facilitar a sua entrada para estender o commercio” (Sampaio 1825: 59) [“In Jutahi especially how profitable a village would be! Through it we could get to know, and get down to the innumerable nations of that river, facilitate their entrance to extend the trade”]. 25 “Os Maués são valerosos, com elles tinhamos commercio, o qual se acha prohibido, depoisque a falta de boa fé, que se experimentou nestes Indios, e por causa das

222  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi mortes, que fizerão em alguns cabos do mesmo commercio, mostrou, quão pouco util nos era a sua amizade. Esta proibição foi feita no anno de 1769 pelo Illustrissimo e Excellentissimo Governador e Capitão general deste Estado Fernando da Costa Ataide Teve, em uma carta instructiva, que circularmente enviou a todos os directores das duas capitanias do Pará, e Rio Negro: carta che comprehende alem da sobredita prohibição, outros muitos pontos interessantes em beneficio dos Indios das duas capitanias, e do aumento das suas respectivas povoações, e que sera sempre considerada como hum monumento lustrozo do solido pensar, sublime prudencia, e claro discernimento daquelle inclito General [The Maués are valiant, with them we had trade, which is now forbidden, after the lack of good faith experienced in these Indians –​also because of the deaths, which they made in some heads of the same trade –​showed how little use we made of their friendship. This prohibition was made in the year 1769 by the very Illustrious and Excellent Governor and Captain General of this State Fernando da Costa Ataide, in an instructional letter, which he sent to all the directors of the two captaincies of Pará, and Rio Negro. This letter comprehends, besides the aforementioned prohibition, many other interesting points for the benefit of the Indians of the two captaincies, and the increase of their respective settlements, and will always be considered as a magnificent monument of solid thinking, sublime prudence, and clear discernment of that illustrious General]” (Sampaio 1825: 6). 26 Once arrived at Alvaraes, Sampaio annotates: “Chamava-​se antecedentemente este lugar a Caycára, que quer dizer Curral; porque ali se fazião dos indios escravos, que se conduzião principalmente do rio Jupurá, naquelles infelices tempos, em que se traficava em homens nestes sertões [This place was previously called Caycára, which means Corral; because there the Indians, who were driven mainly from the river Jupurá, were made slaves, in those unhappy times, in which men were trafficked in these sertões]” (Sampaio 1825: 36). 27 This notion is commonly used in De l’esprit des lois, to mean the differences in character of different nations determined by climate and other circumstances. See Montesquieu (1748, B. 21, ch. 13, “Du génie des Romains pour la marine”; ch. 14, “Du génie des Romains pour le commerce”). It is striking to think that Sampaio’s journey took place in the same year, 1774, when Johann Gottfried Herder published Auch eine Philosophie der Geschicte, in which he maintained that each nation possessed a peculiar way of existing and evolving that made it unique. 28 “All these nations observe the same general customs, differing only in some particular circumstances. In them religion is nothing. The society is very imperfect, and consequently the obedience to the chiefs is not very firm. Truly one cannot call them nations, but families, or tribes, without more laws, than some momentary determinations, expressed of viva voce, when necessity requires to preserve the harmony between them”. Sampaio enriches these considerations with a quotation from Buffon, Histoire naturelle, t. 18, Paris, 1764, p. 147 (Buffon 1764: 145–​148), in which the author attributes the savage state of these nations to the weakness of sexual ardour and therefore of family unions (Sampaio 1825: 81–​82). It should be noted that Buffon, in this volume, never uses the word “génie” to describe the customs of the inhabitants of America. 29 “But in war, to which gives cause any slight disagreement, they show great effort, and preserve rancours among nations in perpetuity, which often end only with the entire destruction of some of them”.

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  223 30 For example, he notes that the gifts of the Indian women are delivered “com interessada liberalidade [with an interested liberality]” (Sampaio 1825: 24). 31 “Ajuricába in all the progress of his life was certainly a hero among the Indians: a name they often deserve for their actions. And it is only the difference between the objects, not the principle and origin of the same actions, that makes them different from other heroes and famous men”. 32 “The women of the latter nation are beautiful, and pleasant. It is the custom of all the Indian women to offer to the Minister on these occasions some fruits from their cultivations, with manioc, beijus, which is the bread made from it &c. But the purpose of these gifts is to acquire through them some things, thus becoming a violent shopping; since it is necessary to give them ribbons, combs, hooks, cotton cloth, brandy, to which all are very inclined, and what is more it is necessary to give to each one of them something, and for that they usually come five, and six, although it is only one the present: and also if the family is numerous, it divides itself into two, or three groups, and each one comes in its turn”. 33 “The visits of the Indian women with gifts were continuous. The balcony of the houses, where I lived, looked like a fair. It was full of manioc flour faggots, hens, chickens, and other domestic birds, and of fruits, mainly pineapples, bananas, and embauba fruits. It is well understood that all this is paid for. They said first that they wanted nothing, but soon they wanted everything, as much as one could imagine, and at the same time they were satisfied with what was given to them, answering by their language “Eré”, which means, “it is good”. 34 “[This language] was the most famous, and the most extensive in Brazil. Its language, commonly called the general one, is still spoken among whites, and Indians, as a universal interpreter”. 35 “Those of this village still preserve the memory of their ancestors: they spoke língua geral: they said that the cause of their dispersion throughout most of South America was the difficulty of surviving together, because they were very numerous: an example very similar to the irruptions of the peoples of Northern Europe, which makes it known that the Topinambás at that time ignored agriculture, the true cause of similar transmigrations”. 36 Whoever reads Mr. de La Condamine, and sees him decide with an uncertain and sure tone of the nature and genius of the general language of the Indians, will judge that he had great knowledge of it. No less. Condamine confesses, that he was ignorant of it, and this is how his decision shows it. 37 “First mistake. It is not written (according to the genuine spelling and pronunciation of the general language of the Indians of Brazil), Paraguarí, but thus: Parauarí without the letter =​g =​what would be enough to undo by the foundation all the arduous building of Condamine. Second error: the word, which means river, is =​Paraná =​and not =​Pará =​Third error: according to the genius proper of the above mentioned language, and its unalterable use, to say river of the Guariz, they would form thus the phrase =​Guaríparaná =​; because joining two nouns, one of which will be ruled as the genitive of the Latin language, the genitive always precedes the nominative, and for this reason one should say =​Guaríparaná, and not Paraguarí. =​In that this language has the same genius as the English one, in which it is said =​Snuff box =​to mean tobacco box, putting the word tobacco before the word box; as saying, tobacco box. Fourth error: there is no news of the Guariz nation, neither in that place, nor in the entire Amazon”.

224  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi 38 “...which they call Cóca, because they repeat this word many times, which in their language means no”. 39 “To the Indians of the foundation of this place there has been added a large number of new descendants. So it is a confusion of languages. The nations, that people it, are Umáuás, or Cambébas, Xáma, Xomáma, Passé, Tecúna, Conamána, Cumuramá, Payána”. Sampaio observes that Cambéba is the translation in língua geral of Umáuá, and both mean “flat head” because of this nation’s habit of compressing children’s heads to make them grow flattened (Sampaio 1825: 72). 40 “The language of this nation has names of its own etymology, and analogy. It calls the Sun =​Simá=​which means, quiet star. The moon =​Uaniú=​that is, cold star. The stars =​Uueté=​which means, shining star. The thunderbolt =​Yuúi=​or bang. The thunder =​Quiriuá=​which means, indicator of rain.The lightning =​Pelú=​ this he, something strutting. The aurora =​Samatáca=​which means the beginning of the day”. 41 “Their language is easy to pronounce because of the many long vowels. For example, they call the sun Veiú, the moon Noné, the stars Siricurú, the Pleiadas Turramani, the rainbow Cauaranari, which means something of many colours; the thunder they call Carapiri, which is a frightening bang; the ray Ui-​ui, which means thunder stone; the lightning Uarucuru-​anari, which means something astonishing”. 42 “The meaning of this song is as follows: When we are healthy, let us play and sing; because when we are sick, we cannot play, nor sing”. 43 “Once the Indians (most of the Rio Negro) saw the cheerful hills that surround the northern bank of this river; that so much shaped their superb entrance into the Amazon, and once they put the oar in the black water, one cannot express the joy, as they soon cried out in their own way, applauding this entrance to the sound of the memby, a wind instrument, strong, and sonorous, but of easy manufacture. I myself was happy to be freed from the continuing dangers of navigating the Amazon; since there were not a few of them left, although less frightening than the risk of the past ones”. 44 The Brazilian section of the Amazon River measures 3,100 km. The sum of the section of the Rio Negro from Barcelos to the confluence with the Amazon and the Solimões is little less, and we have to consider the various round trips the convoy made: on the Amazon from Fortaleza da Barra (presently Manaus) to Silves, and on various tributaries, like the Madeira up to Borba, the Coari up to Arvellos (Coari), and the canal Auatiparaná connecting the Amazon river to the Japurá river, and the latter from Santo Antonio to the confluence. 45 “...the territory of the Colony of Rio Negro is susceptible to great ameliorations, promoting agriculture through a well-​ understood and zealous administration, which protects it, and makes it flourish”. 46 He had previously spoken of the Spanish attempts to enter this river. 47 “The evil that can come from here is not only to make it easier for them to enter the Rio Negro, but most of all to deprive us of the abundant business of the drugs of that river, which almost all produce sarsaparilla, which has clandestinely come to harvest the [...] Cavaburiz. “The attention to preserve the colonies and borders is very important to the metropolis, because the wealth, and even the village itself, depends on their conservation”. 48 “The most desirable government, which Portugal has never had, will not be lacking in this measure”.

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  225 49 “The end of the colonies is the cultivation of the land and trade: this is the necessary consequence of that”. 50 “The perfection of this trade will consist in making these nations enjoy the superfluity and comfort that will multiply the exchanges and make them enjoy working.” 51 “There is no need now to apply these maxims to the population of Rio Branco.We can easily make the Indians who inhabit it like the use of dresses, and even that of other commodities, which we know do not displease them.To acquire them we just have to make them industrious, cultivating the foodstuffs for which the land is suitable: cocoa, coffee, cupaiba oil, urucu, carajurú, rice, corn, vegetables, fishing, turtle egg oil, of which their river abounds, etc. All these foodstuffs are of sure consumption, and therefore their trade is easy. With the product of this trade you have to obtain the foodstuffs and commodities of Europe, by purchase or barter. The shipping fees, and other services and offices, are also the origin of the purchase. In this way, consumption is multiplied through various channels, and the useful end of the colonies is fulfilled (ibid.)”. 52 “The domestic security of the colonies will depend on the number of inhabitants who commit themselves to farming, and on the advantage the savages find inside to trade”. 53 “However this implementation had to expel, with a bronze wall, the genius, nature, and the rooted customs of the Indians” (ibid.: 90–​91). 54 “principles of a deep and ingenious man, who imputed to the lack of legislation the change of those customs” (ibid.: 91). 55 “the experience denies them” (ibid.). 56 The reference is to Montesquieu (1757) [1748]: Book XVIII, Ch. IX, “Du terrein de l’Amérique”, p. 148. 57 “The inclination towards agriculture is limited to what is necessary for subsistence, without this profitable and commendable exercise being the object of trade for them. For that subsistence little work is needed. “What makes so many Wild Nations in America subsist, Montesquieu says judiciously, is because the land produces many fruits of itself, by which they are fed. If women cultivate a portion of land around their huts, soon Corn grows there. Hunting and fishing complete people’s abundance”. 58 “The Drug Trade of the Sertão, which is the largest, is made out of obedience, not taste. The same obedience obliges the Indians, either to the general services of the villages, or to that of private individuals. The payments for these works are of little stimulus; for they are unnecessary to those to whom nature has given the necessary. In such a favourable climate, a hut is a sufficiently repaired dwelling”. 59 “The Indians, who inhabit the forests, find greater good in the freedom of Man, than in that of the Citizen: that is why the Descents are difficult, without other causes that concur”. 60 “...the Divine and Human Laws, especially those so wise and so piously promulgated by our Sovereign, and [against] the orders, determined as a consequence of them, given by the General Lords of the State, and the Governors of the Captaincy”. 61 “This mistake is easily unravelled: 1st. There can be no wealth without property. If I plant, for example, cocoa trees, these cocoa trees are mine, I can sell them, and I have to leave them to my heirs. None of this happens to what is in the bushes. 2nd. Some cocoa trees, planted near my dwelling, make it easier for me to crop them and to benefit from them; and right

226  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi there, I either ship or sell their product: I don’t need the great works of navigation for the sertão. 3rd. 3. If the land is populated, by reason of its culture, the more we stimulate it, the more it will augment the population. The Dutch, and the Spanish, observe this maxim; for having in their colonies equally generous wilderness, they count more on those who are farmers. I know that there are products that cannot be reduced to culture, such as clove and sarsaparilla; but my speech does not aim to prohibit the extraction of these generous products from the forests, but to persuade, as the most useful, the culture of those which can receive it”. 62 “I therefore command the present Director, and those who succeed him, to foster with the greatest care the knowledge and propagation of such language [Portuguese] through the public schools and the catechism in the churches, asking the Reverend Parishers to cooperate to this end, which is so necessary for the spiritual and temporal improvement of the people”. 63 The two translations are announced jointly in the Gazeta de Lisboa, no. 161, 9 July 1816, pp. 3–​4, with an indication of the bookshops where they are sold and the unit price of 200 réis; In the Jornal de Coimbra, Vol. IX, no. XLVI,part II, pp. 277–​278, both works appear among those published between June and October 1816. 64 There are also two abridgments in German, but it seems unlikely that they were of any use to the eighteen-​year-​old Brazilian translator, if he ever had known them. See Sartorius (1796); Kraus (1808–​1811); Tribe (2002: 130–​137); Tribe and Mizuta (2002: 238, 245). 65 In the translation of this passage we employ “ele”, “seu”, and their inflections and derivatives, as “he”,“him”, and “his”, although the original text is addressed to “Your Excellency”, and therefore these pronouns should be more properly translated into English in the second plural person: “you” and “your”. 66 “Perspicacity and lively penetration [...] into the Arts and Sciences, which must enter the Plan of [his] Education [...] to instruct him in that knowledge; which is necessary for the full performance of the Jobs of the Monarchy, to which his High Birth necessarily calls him, and the close union of Blood with which he is linked to our Sovereigns”. 67 Among the most qualified examples, consider the following: in both 1861 and 1867 versions of § 8, Smith combines “the most important of all distinctions” with “seems”, while since the fourth edition of 1774 he combined it in the plural (“seem”) (Smith 1983 [1761]: 208). Sampaio (Smith 1816: 14) follows this last version. The misprint in the Latin morpheme “ningit” present only in the 1861 version (where “nigit” appears) (Smith 1983 [1761]: 215) is not repeated by Sampaio (Smith 1816: 37), who also makes (but in this case it is necessary to consider the possible inexperience of his son in correcting the drafts of the book) several transcription errors from Latin (“Tytri” instead of “Tityre”, ivi: 67, “Quimone” instead of “Qui nunc”, ivi: 69). On the other hand, the layout and punctuation of the quotations from Virgil (Smith 1983 [1761]: 225, See Smith 1816: 67) and Horace (Smith 1983 [1761]: 226, See Smith 1816: 69) place the sixth edition of TMS at a disadvantage as the source of the translation. 68 Note, however, that the term is never used, at least in this sense, in the body of the text. 69 Lomonosov’s discourse is a typical eulogy of enlightened absolutism that dwells on the exploits not only of Peter the Great, but also of his daughter Elizabeth in the field of arms, justice, internal order, productive arts and prosperity, taxation, science and the arts. In the typical economic-​political language of the 18th century,

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  227 both defence, taxation and the promotion of the sciences and the arts are seen as functional to the nation’s welfare and economic development. The English translator, Matthew Guthrie, was a Scottish doctor who lived in Russia for a long time and came into contact with both local court circles and the community of British subjects in the service of the Tsars. He was a regular correspondent for Anderson, publishing various articles and translations in The Bee. See Papmehl (1969). 70 To our knowledge, the identity of Amicus has never been seriously investigated in Smith’s scholarship. In a separate paper, we formulate some hypotheses on this subject. 71 Pluche employs a very similar example: “Puer perculit Allophylum /​Allophylum perculit puer”. And he makes similar examples in Italian, English and French. Pluche’s Mécanique is not in James Bonar’s Catalogue (1932 [1894]), but both the library of the University of Glasgow and that of the University of Edinburgh possess copies of it: the Latin version (1751) in Glasgow, and both the French and the Latin versions in Edinburgh. However, J. C. Bryce (1983: 26; 226n) suggests other sources that may have conveyed these ideas: besides various articles of the Encyclopédie and Girard’s, Les vrais principes de la langue françoise (1747), the Traité de la formation méchanique des langues et des principes physiques de l’étymologie (1765) by Charles de Brosses, whose manuscript copies circulated since 1751, and Jean-​ Baptiste Dubos’s Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture (1719), ch. xxxv of which is entitled: “Avantage des Poëtes qui ont composé en latin sur ceux qui composent en François”. 72 “...daquellas tres terminações, devem ser explicadas pelos diversos versos auxiliares, juntos a huma, ou outra dellas.” (Smith 1816: 61), corresponding to “...of those three terminations, must be made out by different auxiliary verbs joined to some one or other of them.” in the original (Smith 1983 [1761]: 223). 73 “Com estes auxiliares se denotão os tempos e modos, sem mudar a terminação do verbo principal. A lingua Portugueza... [With these auxiliaries the times and modes are shown, without changing the ending of the main verb. The Portuguese language...] (Smith 1816: 62)”. 74 For example, in the translation of § 43, the phrase “to express the same relation in English” (Smith 1983 [1861]: 224) is changed to “por representar a mesma correlação em Portuguez” (Smith 1816: 64). 75 As we have already said, not only the name “Milton” but also the only verse from Horace quoted in Latin are here clamorously mistaken, although we do not know whether this is due to Sampaio’s own ignorance (which we doubt) or to the incapacity and negligence of his son. 76 The original text, corresponding to some verses quoted by Duarte, sounds as follows: Das linguas, a latina é mui prezada, E, quanto mais a imita a lusitana, Tanto seu preço fica mais subido. [Of the languages, Latin is highly prized, And the more the Lusitanian imitates it, The more its price is higher]. 77 “But from the Latin language it took all its analogy, and beauty, to which it comes closer, than any other modern language, so that there are perfect compositions, which can be read and understood in both one and the other language, as are those

228  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi verses, which preserved us Duarte Nunes de Leão, in the origin of the Portuguese language ­chapter 16”. 78 “For example, in conjugations, the Portuguese language retains more the Latin conciseness than the English one, which is forced to use seven or eight auxiliary verbs. This, with other causes, contributes much to the harmony and strength of the Portuguese verse”. The same concept is repeated in the second interpolation on p. 65, where Sampaio, with some dosage of exaggeration, argues that Portuguese language has an “admiravel e facil elegancia [admirable and easy elegance]”, given by “a liberdade de antepôr ou pospôr os adjectivos aos substantivos [the freedom to prefix or postfix adjectives to nouns]” and other features that bring it closer to Latin (Smith 1816: 65). 79 “But in this part the Portuguese language follows the Latin concision, saying, amásse; although this word is in fact composed; the pronunciation only makes it simple. What is best known, when the verb is used impersonally, because then one must clearly devise the composition, such as, ama-​se”. 80 “This Illustrious Man of State, of Letters and Arms, to describe whose Patriotic virtues, neither capable voice nor skillful quill I have”. 81 “the Father of our Fatherland; the firm pillar of the Monarchy, which at all times has known how to defend it with his arm, to sustain it with his Advice; and to flourish with the decisive Protection of Arts and Sciences”. 82 “things for what they are in their origin, and why they exist, and not for their superficiality and ”. 83 “Knowing [...] Your Excellency already your Language, it is right that you also know by Principle the reason, the motives, the causes of this Gift of GOD, which essentially distinguishes Man; the Language, with which he communicates his thoughts to his fellow man, and understands those of that one; come to the exact knowledge of its primitive Formation, Structure, and Progress; observe the nature of the original languages, of the compound and modern ones, and that by steps arrived at the state, in which they are found”. 84 For example, “Cova” [=​pit] for cave; “enviação” [=​forwarding] for invention. 85 “Troncos” for “Francos” [=​Franks]; “io elli amato” for “io ebbi amato” [=​the Italian for “I had loved”]; “preposições de, e, a” for “prepositions of and to”. 86 “Planptrum” for “plaustrum”; “sacer Hercule” for “sacer Herculi”. 87 A similar case is the replacement of Smith’s correct passive Italian form “Io sono amato” with a nonsensical “Do som amato”.

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232  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi Pisanelli, S. (2015) ‘Adam Smith and the Marquis de Condorcet. Did they really meet?’, Iberian Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2(1): 21–​35. Pisanelli, S. (2019) ‘El papel de Condorcet en la difusión de la Wealth of Nations en España’, paper presented at the workshop La influencia de Adam Smith en España (1780-​1830), Nuevas perspectivas, Universidad de Zaragoza, 12–​ 13 settembre 2019, mimeo. Pluche, A.-​N. (1751) La Mécanique des langues et l’art de les enseigner, Paris:Vve Estienne et fils. Portugal, T. A. de Vila Nova (1790) ‘Memoria sobre a preferencia que entre nós merece o estabelecimento dos Mercados ao uso das Feiras de anno para o Commercio intrinseco’, Memórias económicas da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, para adiantamento da agricultura, das artes, e da indústria em Portugal, e suas conquistas, II: 1–​15. Portugal, T. A. de Vila Nova (1791) ‘Memoria sobre os Juros, relativamente á Cultura das Terras’, Memórias económicas da Academia Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, para adiantamento da agricultura, das artes, e da indústria em Portugal, e suas conquistas, III: 243–​252. Raymundo, L. de Oliveira (2006) ‘O Estado do Grão-​Pará e Maranhão na nova ordem política pombalina: A Companhia Geral do Grão-​Pará e Maranhão e o Diretório dos Índios (1755-​1757)’, Almanack braziliense, Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (IEB), Universidade de São Paulo, 3, May: 124–​134. Reeder, J. and Cardoso, J. L. (2002) ‘Adam Smith in the Spanish-​and Portuguese-​ speaking World’, in Tribe and Mizuta (2002): 184–​197. Robert, A. and Cougny, G. (eds.) (1889) Dictionnaire des parlementaires français [...] depuis le 1er mai 1789 jusqu’au 1er mai 1889,Vol. 1, Paris: Bourloton. Rousseau, J.-​J. (2008) [1755] Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les homes, Paris: Flammarion. Sampaio, Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de (1793) Memoria Sobre as Ruínas do Mosterio de Castro de Avelaãs, e do Monumento e Inscripçaõ Lapidar, que se acha na Capella mór da antiga Igreja do mesmo Mosterio, Offerecida à Academia, Jornal Encyclopedico, May 1790, and Memorias de Litteratura da Academia R. das Sciencias de Lisboa, t. V, 1793: 258–​263. Sampaio, Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de (1825) Diário da Viagem que em Visita, e Correição das Povoações da Capitania de S. Jozé do Rio Negro Fez o Ouvidor, e Intendente Geral da Mesma Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio no Anno de 1774 e 1775 , Lisboa: na Typographia da Academia. Sampaio, Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de (1850 [1777]) Relação Geographica Historica do Rio Branco da America Portugueza, Composto pelo bacharel Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio, sendo Ouvidor da Capitania de S. José do Rio Negro, Revista trimestral de historia e geographia ou Jornal do Instituto Historico e Geographico Brazileiro, s. 2, 6: 200–​273. Sampaio, Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de (1856a) Appendix ao Diario da Viagem, que em Visita, e Correição das Povoações da Capitania de S. José do Rio Negro, Fez o Ouvidor, e Intendente Geral da Mesma, Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio no anno de 1774-​1775. Trata das matérias relativas ás obrigações do Officio. Para dar completa idea do estado presente d’aquella Capitania, Colleçcão de Noticias para a Historia e Geographia das Nações Ultramarinas que Vivem nos Dominios Portuguezes ou lhes são Vizinhas,VI(II): 87–​142. Sampaio, Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de (1856b) Extracto da viagem, que em visita e correição das povoações da Capitania de S. José de Rio Negro, fez o Ouvidor e Intendente Geral da mesma Francisco Xavier Ribeiro de Sampaio, no anno de 1774

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  233 e 1775; a qual viagem existe manuscripta no Archivo de S. M. O Imperador, Revista trimestral do Instituto Historico e Geographico Brasileiro, 2a edição, I: 109–​122. Sartorius, G. (1796) Handbuch der Staatswirthschaft zum Gebrauche bei akademischen Vorlesungen, nach Adam Smith’s Grundsätzen ausgearbeitet, Berlin: Unger. Schlegel, F. (1808) Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier, Heidelberg:Verlag Mohr und Zimmer. Silva, A. M. Policarpo da (1802a) O Piolho Viajante: Divididas as Viagens em Mil e Huma Carapuças [...] Vertida da Lingua Piolha com Algumas Notas do Traductor. Lisboa: na Officina de Joäo Procopio Correa da Silva; other editions: Lisboa: na nova Of. de Joâo Rodr. Neves, 1803-​1805; Lisboa: Typ. Rollandiana, 1819; Lisboa: na Typ. de J.F.M. de Campos. Com Licença, 1826-​1827; Lisboa: na Imprensa Nevesiana; Viuda Neves e Filhos, 1846–​1854. Silva, A. M. Policarpo da (1802b) Leituras Uteis e Divertidas Traduzidas em Vulgar, Lisboa: na Officina de Joaõ Procopio Correa da Silva. Silva, I. F. da (1858), Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, Vol. I, Lisboa: na Imprensa Nacional. Silva, I. F. da (1859), Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, Vol. III, Lisboa: na Imprensa Nacional. Silva, I. F. da (1860) Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, Vol. IV, Lisboa: na Imprensa Nacional. Silva, I. F. da (1862) Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, Vol. VII, Lisboa: na Imprensa Nacional. Silva, I. F. da (1868) Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez, Vol. VIII, Lisboa: na Imprensa Nacional. Silva, M. F. Dias da (1871) Diccionario biographico de Brasileiros celebres nas letras, artes, politica, philantropia, guerra, diplomacia, industria, sciencias e caridade, desde o anno 1500 até nossos dias, Rio de Janeiro: Eduardo e Henrique Lammaert. Smith, Adam (1761). 'Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages, and the Different Genius of Original and Compounded Languages. By Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. Now first published, in The Philological Miscellany Consisting of Select Essays from the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres at Paris, and Other Foreign Academies, translated into English, with original pieces by the most eminent writers of our own country, London,Vol. I, pp. 440–​79. Also published as an appendix to Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 3rd edition, London: A. Millar; Edinburgh: A. Kincaid & J. Bell, 1767, pp. 437–​478; 4th edition, London: printed for W. Strahan, J. & F. Rivington, W. Johnston, T. Longman; and T. Cadell; and W. Creech, 1774, pp. 437–​476; 5th edition, London: printed for W. Strahan, J. and F. Rivington, T. Longman; and T. Cadell; and W. Creech at Edinburgh, 1781, pp. 437–​478; 6th edition, London: printed for A. Strahan; and A. Cadell; and W. Creech, and J. Bell & Co. at Edinburgh, 1790, vol. II, pp. 403–​462. Smith, Adam (1983) [1761]. Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages, and the Different Genius of Original and Compounded Languages. In appendix to Adam Smith, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Glasgow Edition, edited by J.C. Bryce. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 201–​226. Smith, Adam (1779-​80). ‘De la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations’, Journal de l’agriculture, Feb 1779 –​Dec. 1780; reprinted as Recherches sur la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations, traduit de l’anglois de M. Smith, 3 Vols. Paris, 1781. Smith, Adam (1784). ‘Considérations sur la première Formation du Langage et sur le génie divers des Langues, composées et primitives, par Adam Smith, professeur

234  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi de Philosophie morale à l’Université de Glasgow, part of the entry “Langue”, in Encyclopédie méthodique, Grammaire et Littérature, t. II. Paris: chez Panckoucke; Liège: chez Plomteux, pp. 422–​433. Smith, Adam (1790a). Recherches sur la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations, traduites de l’anglois de M. Smith, sur la quatrième édition, par M. Roucher; et suivies d’un volume de notes, par M. le Marquis de Condorcet, de l’Académie françoise, et secrétaire perpétuel de l’Académie des Sciences, 4 Vols. Paris: Buisson. Smith, Adam (1790b). Recherches sur la nature & les causes de la richesse des Nations, Bibliothèque de l’homme publique ou Analyse raisonnée des principaux ouvrages français et étrangers,Vol. III, pp. 108–​216;Vol. IV, pp. 3–​115. Smith, Adam (1980) [1795]. ‘Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called The Imitative Arts’, Essays on Philosophical Subject, Glasgow Edition, edited by W.P.D. Wightman and J.C. Bryce. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Part. III, sects 1–​7, pp. 207–​209. Smith, Adam (1796). Considérations sur la premiere Formation des Langues et le différent génie des langues originales et composées, traduites par A.M.H.B. … de l’anglais d’Adam Smith […]. Paris: chez Baillio et Colas [...] et chez Denis [...], an IV. Smith, Adam (1798). Théorie des sentimens moraux, ou Essai analytique sur les principes des jugemens que portent naturellement les hommes, d’abord sur les actions des autres, et ensuite sur leurs propres actions: suivi d’une dissertation sur l’origine des langues, par Adam Smith; traduit de l’anglais, sur la septième et dernière édition, par S. Grouchy de Condorcet, Elle y a joint huit lettres sur la sympathie. A Paris: chez F.Buisson [...], an VI de la République; Seconde édition, revue et corrigée. 2 tt., Paris: chez Barrois l’ainé, 1830; [new edition], précédée d’une introduction et accompagnée de notes par H. Baudrillart. Paris: Garnier, 1860. Smith, Adam (1802). Recherches sur la nature et les causes de la richesse des nations, par Adam Smith,Traduction nouvelle, avec des notes et observations, par Germain Garnier, [...] avec le portrait de Smith, 5 Vols. A Paris: chez H. Agasse. Smith, Adam (1806). ‘Do baile come arte de imitação’, Jornal encyclopedico ou Diario universal das sciencias e artes dedicado ao muito alto, e muito poderoso Principe Regente e senhor nosso, por Antonio Manoel Polycarpo da Silva, n. 1, Lisboa: na Typografia Lacerdina, pp. 86–​93. Smith, Adam (1809). Essai sur la première formation des langues, et sur la différence du génie des langues originales et des langues composées, traduit de l’anglais avec des notes, suivi du premier livre des Recherches sur la langue et la philosophie des Indiens, extrait et traduit de l’allemand de F[riedrich von] Schlegel, par J[acques-​Louis] Manget. Genève: Manget et Cherbuliez. Smith, Adam (1811). Compendio da Obra da Riqueza das Nac̨ões, 3 Vols. Rio de Janeiro: na Impressão Régia. Smith,Adam (1816). Observações sobre a Primeira Formação das Linguas[,]‌do Differente Genio das Originaes e Compostas, por Adam Smith, Traduzidas do Inglez para Portuguez e offerecidas ao Ill.mo e Exc.mo Senhor Duque de Miranda de Corvo pelo defunto Desembargador da Casa da Supplicação, F. X. R. de S. Paio; e dadas á Luz Por seu Filho Francisco Antonio Ribeiro de S. Paio. Lisboa: na Impressão Régia. Starobinski, J. (1994) Largesse, Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux. Stewart, D. (1829 [1793]) ‘Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith’, in The Works of Dugald Stewart,Vol.VII, Cambridge: Hilliard and Brown. Tribe, K. (2002) ‘The German Reception of Adam Smith’ in Tribe and Mizuta (2002): 120–​152.

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  235 Tribe, K. (2012) ‘Economic Manuals and textbooks in Great Britain and the British Empire’, in M. M. Augello and M. E.L. Guidi (eds.), The Economic Reader. Textbooks, manuals and the dissemination of the economic sciences during the 19th and early 20th centuries, London: Routledge, pp. 43–​75. Tribe, K. and Mizuta, H. (eds.) (2002) A Critical Bibliography of Adam Smith, London: Pickering & Chatto. Waltraud Grohs-​Paul, P. (1974) Los Indios del Alto Amazonas del siglo XVII al siglo XVIII. Poblaciones y migraciones en la antigua provincia de Maynas, Bonn: Estudios Americanistas. Wikipedia 2019. Capitania de São José do Rio Negro. [online] Available at: https://​ pt.wikipe​dia.org/​wiki/​Cap​itan​ia_​d​e_​S%C3%A3o_​Jos%C3%A9_​d​o_​Ri​o_​Ne​g ro. Accessed 12th July 2019.

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Table 14.1 Synopsis of variations between editions, and the Portuguese translation PM

TMS 3

TMS 4

TMS 5

TMS 6

Sampaio

PM

3

the river river names inegalité première &c. show The Grammarians and it is thus... substance. The seems above-​mentioned formation Substantives Man, … Woman of sex of prepositions relation; the would probably soon

the river river name inegalité première &c. show grammarians and as it is thus... substance, the seems above-​mentioned formations Substantives Man, … Woman of sex of prepositions relation; the would probably soon forest; Gender, Tho coeval Ningit

the river river name Inegalité première &c. show grammarians and as it is thus... substance, the seem above mentioned formations substantive man, … woman of the sex of the prepositions relation. The would soon probably forest, gender; tho coeval ningit

the river river name Inegalité première &c. show grammarians and as it is thus... substance, the seem above mentioned formations substantive man, … woman of the sex of the prepositions relation. The would soon probably forest, gender; tho coeval ningit

the river river name Inegalité Première &c. shew grammarians and as it is thus... substance, the seem above mentioned formations substantive man, … woman of the sex of the prepositions relation. The would soon probably forest, gender; Though coeval Ningit

O Rio rio nome -​ -​ etc. mostrão Os Grammaticos e assim... substancia, a parecem acima declaradas formações substantivos homem, … [...] do sexo das preposições comparação. E... seria

X

X

mata, genero; posto que coevos ningit

X

forest, Gender, Tho coeval nigit

-​ -​ X -​ X X -​ -​

4

5

6

X

X X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X

X

X

-​ -​ -​

-​ -​

X

236  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi

Appendix

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the Lion Verbs came; The words of which through … through ... through to be spoken … to to be spoken … to to be spoken … to to be spoken … to be spoken be spoken be spoken be spoken conjugation, conjugation, conjugation, conjugation; movements, movements, movements, movements; language language language language Give give give Gives Virgil: Virgil: Virgil: Virgil, Tityre tu patulae Tityre tu patulae Tityre tu patulae Tityre tu patulae recubans sub recubans sub recubans sub recubans sub tegmine fagi. tegmine fagi. tegmine fagi. tegmine fagi; We We We we Tyterus Tityrus Tityrus Tityrus [Milton’s lines] [Milton’s lines] [Milton’s lines] [Milton’s lines] language language language lahguage thee thee thee Thee Qui nunc te fruitur Qui nunc te fruitur Qui nunc te fruitur Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea credulus aureâ credulus aurea credulus aureâ Qui semper vacuam, Qui semper vacuam, Qui semper vacuam, Qui semper semper amabilem, semper amabilem, semper amabilem, vacuam, semper Sperat te; nescius auræ Sperat te; nescius Sperat te; nescius auræ amabilem, fallacis auræ fallacis fallacis Sperat te; nescius auræ fallacis the Lion Verbs came; The words which thro … thro ... thro

the Lion Verbs came; the words of which thro … thro ... thro

the Lion verbs came; the words of which thro … thro ... thro

O Leão verbos veio: […] palavras, que por

-​ -​ * -​

se fallou

-​

conjugação, movimentos: Linguagem de Virgilio. Tytri tu patulae, recubans sub tegmine fagi. Facilmente... Tytyro [...] [...] [...] Quimone te fruitur credulus aurêa

X

X X

X

X X X

X

X

X

X X** X X X

X X

X X

-​ -​ -​ -​

X X X≌

X≌

X≌

(continued)

The convergence of politico-economic and linguistic matters  237

the Lion Verbs came, their words which through … through ... through to be spoke … to be spoke conjugation, movements, Language give Virgil: Tityre tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi. We Tyterus [Milton’s lines] language thee Qui nunc te fruitur credulus aurea Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem, Sperat te; nescius auræ fallacis

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PM

TMS 3

TMS 4

TMS 5

TMS 6

Sampaio

English to do. Total scores Qualified scores (bold X)

English to do.

English to do.

English to do.

English to do:

Linguas modernas. X 10 1

Note: The last five columns indicate to which English editions the Portuguese translation seems to correspond more closely. Legenda: PM =​Philosophical Miscellany, 1761 3 =​TMS 3, 1767 4 =​TMS 4, 1774 5 =​TMS 5, 1781 6 =​TMS 6, 1790 […] omitted in the translation * Smith uses the form “to make use of ”, whereas Sampaio adopts the verb “usar” (to use). ** Sampaio may have considered “give” as simple past tense, translating it as “de” (gave).

PM

3

4

5

6

X 11 4

X 18 6

X 18 6

14 5

238  Monica Lupetti and Marco E.L. Guidi

Table 14.1 Cont.

 olonies and slave labour in the first C translation of The Wealth of Nations into Portuguese Mauricio C. Coutinho

Introduction The first translation of The Wealth of Nations into Portuguese was published in 1811 by the Royal Press in Rio de Janeiro. This city in that occasion held the position of seat of the Portuguese empire due to the flight of the Portuguese Court from Lisbon, as a consequence of the invasion of Portugal by Napoleon’s troops in the end of 1807. The translator, Bento da Silva Lisboa, was the son of José da Silva Lisboa, a top rank colonial official, at that time in charge of the Royal Press. Silva Lisboa’s father himself was an acknowledged enthusiast of Adam Smith, and the author of a pioneering political economy book, Princípios de Economia Política (Lisboa 1804). In supporting the initiative of translating The Wealth of Nations into Portuguese, José da Silva Lisboa was certainly backed by the Count of Linhares, Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, chief minister of the Portuguese government in Rio de Janeiro, who was a reader and admirer of Smith’s work. Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho and José da Silva Lisboa were representative of the Portuguese Enlightenment and of the spirit of the University of Coimbra after the reforms promoted by the Marquis of Pombal (Maxwell 1995). But both were, most of all, outspoken supporters –​not to say, mentors –​of the liberal trade policies that from 1808 onwards had been implemented in Brazil by D. João, the Prince Regent. It is arguable that the Portuguese version of The Wealth of Nations has been conceived as a complement to the effort of defending these very contestable liberal policies. Undoubtedly, the translation of The Wealth of Nations was intended as instrumental to the diffusion of the novel science of political economy within Portuguese-​speaking audiences, since at least a segment of the Portuguese elite, very well represented by Rodrigo Coutinho, held that an acquaintance with this science was essential to the exercise of good government. Even though the effective impact of the first official edition of The Wealth of Nations on Portuguese-​speaking audiences remains to be assessed, it certainly exceeded the very localised influence of some prior manuscript versions, reported by historians. Apparently, unofficial manuscript translations of The Wealth of Nations circulated in some fringes of the illustrated elite, in Portugal DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-16

240  Mauricio C. Coutinho and in its Brazilian colony. Paula (2016) reports that comments on The Wealth of Nations would have been written and circulated during the 1780s by Claudio Manoel da Costa, a poet and historical figure of the Brazilian Independence movement. Furthermore, Maxwell (1978) attributes a translation of The Wealth of Nations to Claudio Manoel da Costa. Another translation, by the lexicographer Antônio de Moraes e Silva, was presumably read by José da Silva Lisboa (Rocha 2001). If we add the access to the English original edition or to French translations to the circulation of these manuscripts, we may conclude that the 1811 edition did not represent a first contact of a circumscribed group of literati and liberal agitators in the Portuguese-​speaking world with Smith’s ideas. The circulation of the official edition, however, undoubtedly expanded the group of Smith’s readers in Brazil. It is important to stress beforehand some characteristics of the environment and personages involved in the 1811 edition, in order to situate the boundary lines, as well as the aims, of the present article. First of all, Rio de Janeiro was the capital of a colony characterised by mining and agricultural activities, dominantly exercised by slave labour. Not only was the Brazilian territory densely populated by Africa-​origin slaves, Rio de Janeiro itself was the biggest slave trade port in America. In the face of the dominance of slave labour in the colony, it is interesting to examine how the translators –​surely supportive of the Braganças’ (the royal dynasty) and of the landowner elites’ upholding of slavery –​dealt with the several passages of The Wealth of Nations in which Smith does not disguise his overt criticism of slave labour. It is also important to note that José da Silva Lisboa was not an overt opponent of slavery, although he believed in the superiority of free labour over slave labour, out of pragmatism or out of his inner convictions (Coutinho 2017). On the other hand, being José da Silva Lisboa and Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho overtly compromised with the liberal trade policies implemented in the colony in the period 1808–​1810, it is also interesting to keep an eye on the Wealth of Nations’ innumerable passages overtly referring to free trade and to the criticism of the mercantile system. These two issues –​slave labour and free trade –​will be the focus of our inspection of Bento Lisboa’s translation. In what refers to the personages directly involved in the 1811 edition, we have a contrast and a void. While José da Silva Lisboa, due to his intellectual achievements and political assignments in the 1800–​1831 period, is a well-​ studied personage (Penalves 2001), biographies of Bento da Silva Lisboa are scarce, or at least not concentrated on his youth. Bento da Silva Lisboa was to become Minister of Foreign Relations later, and as such his post-​1840 activities are well known (Almeida 2001). It is worth stressing that Bento Lisboa was born in 1793, which means the difficult task of translating The Wealth of Nations would have been attributed to an eighteen-​year-​old youngster, whose formation, acquaintance with political economy, and fluency in the English idiom, we are not able to fathom. As a poor compensation to our lack of knowledge of Bento Lisboa’s formation, and under the assumption that Silva Lisboa’s father would have inspired, or even acted as a guide to the translation,

Colonies and slave labour  241 remarks on the characteristics of José da Silva Lisboa’s works and thinking will surface the text. It must be stressed that the 1811 Portuguese edition represents an abridged version of the original Wealth of Nations. Book V was not included in this edition and the other four books and chapters were compacted to various extents. The title of the edition –​‘Compendio da Obra da Riqueza das Nações de Adam Smith’, or Compendium of the Work Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, –​ immediately suggests the abridged, or edited, character of the translation. Bento Lisboa’s Prologue to the Compendio informs us that the editors opted for suppressing passages and examples specifically referred to England, which would only make sense for English readers. As it will be argued, much beyond the mere avoidance of peculiar examples, the choice of passages to be suppressed might be revealing of the translator’s preferences and idiosyncrasies. This paper has five sections. Following the Introduction, the second section will make a brief account of the economic situation of the Brazilian colony at the beginnings of the nineteenth century, and of the life of José da Silva Lisboa, in order to situate the context of the country and of the personages behind the 1811 edition. The third section will present a measure of the degree of compactness in each chapter, in order to call attention to the varied patterns across the books and chapters. The fourth section will review a set of passages and chapters of The Wealth of Nations overtly referred to Smith’s comments on free trade, restrictions to free trade, and slave labour. These passages, located in Books III and IV, were certainly very sensible to the editors and to the reading public in Brazil and in Portugal. It seems that they offer a good example of the criteria adopted by the editors in transcribing/​suppressing passages and in adopting peculiar translation solutions. The analysis of the 1811 Portuguese edition of The Wealth of Nations, a project that has received my attention in the last four years, is far from completion. Admitting the hazards involved in anticipating conclusions, section five will nonetheless go beyond the paragraph-​ by-paragraph approach, venturing some broad comments on the general character of the Royal Press edition.

A brief account of the Brazilian political and economic situation in the early 1800s The most important of the Portuguese colonies, Brazil, was living a special situation in the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century. On the one hand, the mining activities, which had been an essential component of Portugal’s and Brazil’s economy in the 1700s, had lost importance due to the exhaustion of the main gold and diamond reserves. On the other hand, although the colony had long lost the international leadership in the sugar business, surpassed by its Caribbean competitors, the ups and downs of the Caribbean production in the period 1790–​1820 reopened spaces to the Brazilian product in the international market. The colony, as the independent Brazil after 1822, never abandoned the production of sugar and sugar brandy (‘cachaça’). Coffee, planted

242  Mauricio C. Coutinho around Rio de Janeiro, would emerge as an important crop only after 1820, that is, after Independence. Around 1800 other products, as tobacco, rice, cotton, were also important, but sugar brandy had, associated to tobacco, a decisive role in another, and decisive, Brazilian business, the slave traffic, since they served in Africa as means of exchange for slaves. It can be held that the slave traffickers formed the nucleus of the colonial mercantile interest, at least between 1760 and 1830. Their activities spread throughout other economic areas, since besides trading sugar brandy and tobacco, and acting as charterers or ship-​owners in the slave traffic, they were also financial agents within the colony. In other words, the colony had developed a commercial upper class that, in association with sugar producers, and agricultural producers in general, was entirely dependent upon slave traffic and slave labour. In spite of the growing economic importance of the colony, the political system was centralized in Portugal. Not only were the political agents chosen by the Portuguese crown; the colony was also deprived of an educational system that went beyond the entrance level education provided by the church. The educated elite was formed in the University of Coimbra, and the metropolis was the centre around which the colonial officials and intellectuals gravitated. One of the many Brazilians that went to Portugal in order to achieve grades and to make acquaintances, indispensable to get access to a top rank career in the colony, was José da Silva Lisboa. Born in Salvador in 1756, from a humble family, Silva Lisboa was sent to Coimbra, where, from 1775 to 1778, he studied Canons, Law, and Greek (Rocha 2001; Kirschner 2009). At this time, the University of Coimbra, reformed by the Marquis of Pombal, had severed its exclusively religious ties and opened to fresh Enlightenment winds (Maxwell 1995). Unsuccessful in his attempts to accede to a good position in Lisbon, after graduating in Coimbra, Silva Lisboa returned to Salvador, where for twenty years he taught Greek and Rational Philosophy. In 1797 he finally acceded to the top rank position of Secretary (chief) of the Board of Inspectors of agriculture and commerce. It is important to mention that before assuming this position he spent some time in Lisbon, where he met his Coimbra fellows, now in strategic positions in the Portuguese bureaucracy (Kirschner 2009). In this Lisbon spell he possibly got access to Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, who, after a diplomatic career, was a rising star in the Portuguese administration. In 1798, Silva Lisboa published in Lisbon a seven-​volume collection on mercantile law and maritime legislation, which conferred him some prestige. The eighth and final volume, which involved political economy, was at last published in 1804 in Lisbon as an independent book, the above-​mentioned Princípios de Economia Política (Principles of Political Economy), a pioneering Portuguese political economy book, and a defence of Adam Smith’s principles (Cardoso 1989; Almodovar 1993; Coutinho 2017). We should not forget that, as Secretary of the Board of Inspectors, Silva Lisboa had access to detailed information on the economic life of the captaincy

Colonies and slave labour  243 of Bahia and its capital, Salvador.The city had been the capital of the colony until 1763 and kept a thriving economic life. Surrounded by sugar cane plantations and sugar manufactures (‘engenhos’), besides tobacco and manioc plantations, its port sustained a fervid traffic with the metropolis and with the southern territories, including Rio de Janeiro and the La Plata Region. Salvador was also one of the main Brazilian slave traffic centres, holding intense commercial connections with the Central-​West Africa coast (Schwartz 1985). Due to his position in the colonial bureaucracy, Silva Lisboa was certainly knowledgeable about the intricacies of the colonial economic life. In this condition, and as a faithful subject of the Bragança dynasty, it was natural to be invited to join the Royal Court, when the Prince Regent D. João and part of his retinue, including Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, docked in Salvador in their way from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. Some historians sustain that Silva Lisboa was, if not one of the writers, at least a consultant to the elaboration and editing of the momentous Royal Act that opened Brazilian ports to friendly nations –​in this situation, England (Rocha 2011). By means of this act, the strict metropolitan control over the Brazilian colony started being eroded. It is important to consider that the transfer of the seat of the Portuguese empire to Rio de Janeiro in 1808 enfeebled not only the long-​established colonial statutes. In fact, D. João’s flee from Portugal enacted the unique episode of having a large empire administered, within a large interval (from 1808 to 1821), from a colonial siege. The consequences were a loss of absolute control over the political situation in the metropolis, as well as delays in local attempts to foster Brazilian independence –​an independence that would be declared only in 1822, after the king went back to Portugal in 1821. Anyway, and returning to José da Silva Lisboa, after being incorporated to the royal staff he immediately moved to Rio de Janeiro with his family. A class (‘aula’) of political economy was assigned to him, possibly by initiative of Souza Coutinho (Rocha 2001; Kirschner 2009). He was also given a position in the Royal Censorship and in the Administrative Board of the Royal Press, an institution that, using printing machines that had been transported from Lisbon, started publishing pamphlets and books in general, in addition to official decrees and texts. As censor and manager of the Royal Press, Silva Lisboa had ample access to international literature in politics and political economy, his favourite areas. Being a prolific author, he profited from his position publishing his own texts on the political and economic situation of the colony, generally papers in defence of the liberal external trade policies implemented by the Prince Regent, under the intense pressure of his English sponsors. In his many texts (Lisboa 1804; Lisboa 1810a; Lisboa 1810b; Lisboa1810c; Lisboa 1818; Lisboa 1819–​20), Silva Lisboa lifted the banner of free trade, responding to many criticisms, in general sponsored by the metropolitan and colonial commercial interests that had been crushed by the openness of the Brazilian markets to English merchants. It was in this exact context that the translation of The Wealth of Nations was commissioned to Bento da Silva Lisboa, the son of José da Silva Lisboa.We have

244  Mauricio C. Coutinho no information about the process of translation: when it was assigned to Bento Lisboa, the existence of a surrounding staff, the acquaintance of Bento Lisboa with political economy and with the English idiom. Bento Lisboa was already a public official, located at the Foreign Affairs ministry –​a position he possibly got hold of as a side courtesy to his father. It is worth noting that Rio de Janeiro, apart from being the colonial capital, was a thriving commercial centre, and that the arrival of the Royal Court and the openness of external trade to England crowded its port with English ships and traders. Many diplomats and English traders circulated in the city. It would not have been difficult to hire an able team to support the translation, but we do not effectively know to what extent Bento Lisboa was supported by a specific staff, in the non-​trivial task of translating The Wealth of Nations. Just to conclude, Silva Lisboa’s father was an enthusiast of the French economist Garnier, and, in the Prologue to the Portuguese 1811 edition, Bento Lisboa praises the excellence of Garnier’s translation of The Wealth of Nations. A cross comparison of Bento Lisboa’s and Garnier’s translations has not been done so far, but it is reasonable to suppose that French editions might have been taken as a model by both Lisboas. Anyhow, the Portuguese translation was, declaredly, directly made from the English edition.

A measure of the textual compressions in the 1811 edition As mentioned in the Introduction, the 1811 Royal Press edition is an abridged version of the original Wealth of Nations. Many passages of the first four Books of Smith’s work were suppressed (Book V was not translated). A general idea of the extent of the suppressions is shown in Tables 15.1–​15.4, which present a chapter-​by-​chapter account of the size differences between the original English edition and Bento Lisboa’s translation.These differences are synthesised by the degree of compactness, a measure of the suppressions from the original text. The measurement of the compressions in the 1811 Portuguese translation (hereafter CRN),1 compared to the English edition of The Wealth of Nations (hereafter WN), involves two elements. The former is the score of typographic spaces (letters and blanks) in each text. The latter is an adjustment of the scores, given the normal space differences between Smith’s English phrasing and Bento Lisboa’s Portuguese phrasing. This second adjustment implied the comparison of spaces in a sample formed by WN paragraphs and their correspondent CRN paragraphs, having been chosen only integral (that is, non-​compacted) paragraphs. The normal Portuguese phrasing was expected to be more extensive, in terms of space, than Smith’s phrasing; however, in the end the differences did not achieve 2%. Tables 15.1–​15.4 show the comparison and the compactness measures, in each chapter of the four books contemplated in Bento Lisboa’s edition. Each table corresponds to a book of The Wealth of Nations. Column A indicates the counting of spaces in both editions; column B, the relation of spaces between

Colonies and slave labour  245 Table 15.1  BOOK I

A

B

C

Chapter

Spaces

CRN/​ WN

CRN/​ Degree of WN corr. compactness

Degree of compactness corr.

18,214 14,720 7,836 7,514 9,373 8,072 13,679 7,407 35,484 16,335 15,033 15,443 19,400 17,987 49,254 27,688 24,148 15,455 94,963 35,261 191,813 69,274 479,197 235,156

0.81

0.79

21%

0.96

0.93

4.1%

6.9%

0.86

0.84

13.9%

16.4%

0.54

0.53

45.9%

47.4%

0.46

0.45

54.0%

55.3%

1.03

1.00

-​2.7%

0.3%

0.93

0.90

7.3%

10.0%

0.56

0.55

43.8%

45.4%

0.64

0.62

36.0%

37.9%

0.37

0.36

62.9%

63.9%

0.36

0.35

63.9%

64.9%

0.49

0.45

54.0%

55.3%

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI TOTAL

WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN

D

19%

E

Source: Elaborated by the author.

the two texts (CRN to WN); column C, the same indicator corrected by adjustment to standard patterns of phrasing in each text, in terms of spaces; columns D and E correspond to the degree of compactness, with and without adjustments. For instance, in chapter III Book I, the degree of compactness was 16.4%, which means 84 per cent of Smith’s original text was transposed into Portuguese. As we can see, the degree of compactness varied tremendously from chapter to chapter. The choice of passages to be excluded is obvious, or coherent, in some occasions. For instance, Smith’s text frequently recollects, or synthesises, what had been previously said; or anticipates points to be developed further. Bento Lisboa opted for cutting these textual recollections and anticipations. As an example, in the Introduction and Plan of the Work (‘The annual labour of every nation… .”), CRN follows WN in paragraphs 1, 2, 3, and 4. The fifth and following paragraphs, where Smith develops a very brief summary of each of the five books, were not transposed into the Portuguese edition.

246  Mauricio C. Coutinho Table 15.2  BOOK II

A

B

Chapter

Spaces

CRN/​ CRN/​ Degree of WE WN corr. compactness

Degree of compactness corr.

4,413 3,627 16,433 12,695 97,093 21,359 42,544 23,616 19,598 18,659 34,266 27,767 214,348 107,722

0.82

0.80

17.80%

20.20%

0.77

0.75

22.5%

25.00%

0.22

0.21

78.00%

78.64%

0.56

0.54

44.49%

46.11%

0.95

0.92

4.79%

7.57%

0.81

0.79

18.97%

21.33%

0.50

0.49

49.74%

51.21%

C

C

D

INTR. I II III IV V TOTAL

WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN

C

D

E

Source: Elaborated by the author.

Table 15.3  BOOK III

A

B

Chapter

Spaces

CRN/​ CRN/​ Degree of WN WN corr. compactness

Degree of compactness corr.

10,453 9,350 24,437 12,332 22,672 10,639 55,751 14,105 113,314 46,426

0.89

0.87

10.6%

13.2%

0.50

0.49

49.5%

51.0%

0.47

0.46

53.1%

54.4%

0.25

0.25

74.7%

75.4%

0.41

0.40

59.0%

60.2%

I II III IV TOTAL

WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN

Source: Elaborated by the author.

In the Prologue to the 2011 edition, Bento Lisboa explains the reasons for having compacted the original text: I’ve abbreviated it because in a Compendium of such doctrines, […] applicable to all States, […] it makes its reading softer, avoiding some prolix discussions, that

Colonies and slave labour  247 Table 15.4  BOOK IV

A

B

Chapter

Spaces

CRN/​ CRN/​ Degree of WN WN corr. compactness

Degree of compactness corr.

27,358 645 46,622 33,046 42,772 32,885 33,627 5,884 21,394 21,158 11,579 6,851 39,379 14,871 48,402 33,449 24,209 7,173 19,796 9,350 56,330 8,987 112,431 17,571 44,461 9,068 56,041 29,621 584,401 230,556

0.02

0.02

97.64%

97.71%

0.71

0.69

29.12%

31.18%

0.77

0.75

23.12%

25.36%

0.17

0.17

82.50%

83.01%

0.99

0.96

1.10%

3.98%

0.59

0.57

40.83%

42.56%

0.38

0.37

62.24%

63.34%

0.69

0.67

30.89%

32.91%

0.3

0.29

70.37%

71.23%

0.47

0.46

52.77%

54.15%

0.16

0.15

84.05%

84.51%

0.16

0.15

84.37%

84.83%

0.2

0.2

79.61%

80.20%

0.53

0.51

47.14%

48.68%

0.39

0.38

60.55%

61.70%

Introduction I II III PI III PII IV Va Vb VI VII PI VII P2 VII PIII VIII IX TOTAL

WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN WN CRN

C

D

E

Source: Elaborated by the author.

interest England specially, or that have been taken as less important, or not well demonstrated by reason and expediency… . (CRN,V) (BL’s emphasis)2 As the general tables show, Books I and II were less compressed than Books III and IV. Can Books I and II be considered theoretical and less applied and exemplified? Anyhow, within each book, the rates of compression vary dramatically across the chapters. For instance, chapters IV, V, VI, and VII of Book I are decisively general, or theoretical, and their degrees of compactness oscillate. As a matter of fact –​and anticipating some conclusions –​the character of the illustrations is complex, as far as historical inductions are part of the

248  Mauricio C. Coutinho argumentative method of Smith and of many of his Scottish Enlightenment fellows. Following this thread, it is reasonable to ask if examples and illustrations are mere additions to the general reasoning, or a decisive argumentative element of The Wealth of Nations. In the analysis of our specific issues, colonies and slave labour, we will come to this questioning.

Colonies and slave labour Given its status as a colonial slave labour economy, Brazil had a permanent interest in two issues, colonies and slave labour. For different reasons, these issues received special attention in Wealth of Nations. In my view (Coutinho 2015), Smith’s digressions on slave labour are part of his ample concern with the evolution of Western Europe, from the dissolution of the Roman Empire until modern times. Within this context, Smith emphasises the evolution and finally the erosion of the several forms of subordination of man to man, or the elimination of servitude, in England and in some other parts of Europe. ‘Commercial society’ was the accomplishment of independence, in what refers to personal economic relations. With regard to colonies, Smith’s obvious interest was the situation of England’s West Indies and mainland American colonies. The revision of modes of colonisation in Europe, starting by Ancient Greece and Rome, served as a contrast, or a backdrop, to his approach to modern colonisation. Colonies and slave labour emerge in a variety of WN’s passages, but most of all in Books III and IV. In order to analyse Bento Lisboa’s solutions when translating or not passages concerning slave labour and colonies, this section is a paragraph-​by-​paragraph revision of some decisive WN’s chapters.3

Book III –​Of the Different Progress of Opulence in Different Nations Chapter I (Of the natural progress of opulence) brings to our attention a question that might be considered important to José da Silva Lisboa and his critics: the realisation that manufactures would hardly prosper in Brazil, given the preference assigned to English merchandises in the commercial treatises signed up between Portugal and England in 1810. As a response to his critics questioning, José da Silva Lisboa argued (Lisboa 1810b) that Brazil would naturally, and to its advantage, specialise in rural manufactures, being not an able competitor to English metalwork, clothes, instruments, etc. Silva Lisboa saw in this specialisation not a drawback, but, contrariwise, a reaffirmation of Smith’s dictum that capital should be directed towards the most profitable branches. It is worth noting that in paragraph 1, as in the whole translation, profit is translated as proveito, and not as lucro, the immediate equivalent of profit. For instance, ‘ordinary profits of agriculture’ appears as ‘ordinarios proveitos da agricultura’. In Portuguese, proveito is less precise than lucro. It means gain or a generic benefit rather than profit, the specific revenue associated with stock or capital. In this long paragraph, only the last sentence was suppressed:

Colonies and slave labour  249 Among all the absurd speculations that have been propagated concerning the balance of trade, it has never been pretended that either the country loses by its commerce with the town, or the town by that with the country which maintains it. (WN III.i.377) Paragraph 2, presenting the priority of subsistence upon luxury, was almost entirely translated, with minor adaptations. Paragraph 3 brings us one of Smith’s favourite axioms: the preference for employing capitals in the cultivation of land, rather than in manufactures or in foreign trade. This paragraph was entirely (and very well) translated. Of course, this idea –​precedence of agriculture –​was crucial in the ongoing debates, in Portugal and Brazil, on the negative impacts of the commercial treaties firmed up between Portugal and England over Portuguese and Brazilian manufactures. The same with paragraph 4, which debates the agglomeration of offices in ‘commercial towns’. It was entirely translated –​although broken into two paragraphs in CRN. Paragraph 5 introduces an important question, the availability of lands in ‘our North American colonies’ (WN III.i.378). This was a very sensible question because in Brazil, despite the immense availability of land, its distribution had been concentrated in few hands since the discovery. In a way, and looking from the angle of access to land, Brazil and North America were antipodes. Smith introduces here another sensible issue, the contrast master (an independent planter) versus artificers, the latter being ‘servants of his customer’. The translation is almost integral, with a suppression of few words. For instance, Smith says that manufactures for distant sale have not been introduced in ‘any of their towns’ (WN III.i.378), and, in the whole sentence, BL suppressed these few words.The same pattern is followed in paragraph 6: small suppressions. The long paragraph 7 was divided into two paragraphs by BL. Again, a crucial paragraph, because it reintroduces the hierarchy manufactures –​foreign commerce, and shows indifference between the practice of foreign trade by nationals or foreigners. This was an extremely critical issue in Brazil, in the 1810/​1811 context, because Portuguese traders had been dislodged by English traders in the colonial trade. Almost entirely translated, except the two last sentences, one recalling ancient Egypt, China and Indostan, and the other applauding the importance of foreigner (non-​colonial) capitals in the development of North America and West Indies. Paragraph 8, which summarises the hierarchy agriculture –​manufactures –​ foreign commerce, was partially translated. Yet, the suppression of the central sentence of the ninth, and final, paragraph represents a real loss, since in this sentence Smith concedes that in ‘the modern states of Europe’ (WN III.i.380) that order had been inverted. Chapter II (Of the Discouragement of Agriculture…) is especially important, because it contains several passages on slave labour. Since it was nearly 50 per cent compacted, the exclusions deserve attention. It is important to have

250  Mauricio C. Coutinho in mind that these passages, as the chapter in general, delve into one of the favourite Scottish Enlightenment recurrences, the disintegration of the Roman Empire. Paragraph 1, that situates the fall into barbarism, and the emergence of large areas of uncultivated land, was translated with few compressions or adaptations. Paragraph 2 introduces a recurrent theme, the laws of inheritance or succession. As it is known, Smith favoured the division of assets and estates among the successors; and explained in which situations, and why, this preferable institution had not prevailed in European history. Of course, the Portuguese law of inheritance was specific, and it is difficult to equate it to old European, and even to modern English, institutions. Entails, a specific institution –​precisely, goods pro indivisos -​, was in this paragraph translated as substituições (literally, substitutions), which appears improper. Entails is a good example of the difficulties in transposing terms that had no direct equivalent in Portugal’s institutional framework. Paragraph 3, a long dissertation on primogeniture, was subdivided into two paragraphs by Lisboa. With some terminological adaptations, its content was integrally kept. The same may be said of paragraph four, in which Smith includes the important observation that ‘Laws frequently continue in force long after the circumstances, which first gave occasion to them, and which alone render them reasonable, are no more’ (WN III.ii.383). In paragraph five, BL keeps on translating entails by substituições, but he adds to Smith’s text an observation –​entails ‘… provide perpetual heirs to the families’ –​ which is not accurate. As a matter of fact, the last part of the paragraph, that was cut, specifies Roman institutions such as substitutions and fideicomisses. This passage effectively shows that Smith was meaning by entails and substitution-​ specific institutions, which was blurred by BL’s translation.Yet, in paragraph six the word ‘entails’ is translated as perpetuidades (perpetuities), which seems closer to its proper sense: a property that remains undivided, and in the hands of one single heir. A final and long part of this paragraph, dealing with England and Scotland, was cut. I think that it would have not been difficult for BL to differentiate Portuguese and English institutions, having the Roman legal structure as the basis. In avoiding doing so, the meaning attributed by BL to very specific institutions oscillates. It is interesting that paragraph 7, in which Smith exhibits his scepticism on the merits of great property, had its sense preserved by BL. As mentioned in the second section, great property was a basic colonial institution in Brazil. Curiously, José da Silva Lisboa himself defended immigration associated with distribution of land in small plots, but it is undeniable that the political and economic structure of the colony was based on an oligarchy of great landlords. Paragraph 8, which introduces slavery, has been entirely cut by BL. This paragraph contains some of Smith’s most important passages on slave labour, developing the consequences of the impediments of access to property –​slaves ‘could acquire nothing but their daily maintenance’ (WN III.ii.387). As known, this is

Colonies and slave labour  251 a central idea, because, in Smith’s view, the impossibility of acquiring property represented one of the main impediments to the efficacy of slave labour. Nevertheless, BL kept paragraph 9 that develops the issue, in a reasonably faithful translation. In it, Smith adds to the usual aversion of great proprietors to improvements the drawbacks of slave labour, concluding that ‘The experience of all ages and nations … demonstrates that the work done by slaves … is in the end the dearest of any’ (WN III.ii.387). BL specifies: ‘… vem a ser mais caro que o feito por pessoa livre’ (‘it is dearer than the one done by free people’). It is important to note that paragraph 9 partakes a sort of translation trap that pervades CRN. BL translates work as obra –​literally, something done, or a result of. Work may mean obra, but in many occasions Smith was clearly meaning by work simply personal action (labour). This seems to be the case in paragraph 9: ‘Whatever work he [the slave] does beyond what is sufficient […] can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own’ (WN III.ii.387–​8). BL’s option, obra, seems misguided. By the way, violence, which has an exact analogue in violencia, was translated as arbitrio, a word that simply means discretion, much softer than violence. Paragraph 10 is also decisive, for two reasons. First, Smith specifies the propensity of men to ‘domineer’ as a motive to pursue slavery, despite its cost-​ enhancing character. Second, Smith situates sugar and tobacco as typical slave labour products. As known, these products were protected, or traded by designated companies, and, as such, kept high monopoly prices –​an issue to be developed in Book IV. For Smith, as for many other economists (Coutinho 2015), monopoly prices and lack of competition explained the survival of an anti-​economical social relation, modern slavery. BL translates the paragraph until the sentence: ‘The planting of sugar and tobacco can afford the expence of slave-​ cultivation’ (WN III.ii.388). The rest of the paragraph, which develops the idea, was suppressed. Paragraphs 11 and 12, which contain interesting incursions into labour relations in Europe after the dissolution of Roman slavery, were simply excluded. Paragraph 14 penetrates into the evolution of England’s land tenure and had only its final part, beginning by ‘In England, therefore, the security of the tenants is equal to that of the proprietor’ (WN III.ii.392), translated. Again, BL’s translation misses the meaning of specific institutions. For instance, yeomanry is translated as agricultura (agriculture), which makes no sense. Paragraph 15, which continues the digression on English and Scottish institutions, was suppressed. Paragraph 16, which extends the discussion to other parts of Europe, was translated with a fatal error: BL writes ‘Inglaterra’ (England) as a substitute for Smith’s ‘that country’, clearly referred to France, the country designated in the previous sentence. All the remaining paragraphs until the 20th were excluded, and BL went directly to the last one, 21, which had its first half translated. In synthesis, in what refers to slavery, BL kept the general mood of the chapter, but omitted important passages. He also suppressed almost all digressions on the evolution of land tenancy and agrarian social relations in Europe. If one considers Smith’s emphasis on the evolution of social relations in Europe

252  Mauricio C. Coutinho after the debacle of the Roman rule essential, BL’s suppressions may be seen as hurtful to the general meaning of the Wealth of Nations. Chapters III and IV have been compressed to a further extent: precisely, 54.4 per cent and 74.4 per cent. As far as many paragraphs were entirely suppressed, it is more adequate to say that Bento Lisboa chose to keep a few specific topics, presenting them at a glance. In chapter III (Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns,…), BL jumps from the introduction, in paragraph 1 –​towns versus rural estates after the fall of the Roman empire –​immediately to paragraph 8, that presents vassalage and slavery as forms of protection. Even this paragraph was very partially translated. Paragraph 9, which mentions the ‘worst terms’ of the relation between princes and barons, was suppressed. And a part only of paragraph 10, which discusses the relation between the sovereign and the cities, was incorporated. Paragraph 12, however, was entirely translated. It presents some general conclusions on law, good government, industries, cities, being in fact an important paragraph, since Smith explains how the stocks ‘accumulated in the hands of the industrious part of the inhabitants of the country, … took refuge in the cities’ (WN III.iii.405) Paragraph 13 –​in which Smith situates the country as the necessary producer of subsistence, except only for cities on the seacoast and on the banks of navigable rivers –​was also translated at large, although the translation often sounds imperfect and the illustrations, representing the Greek empire, the Abbassids, Egypt, Barbary, Spain under the moors, were cut. Paragraph 14, on crusades, was entirely translated, which is curious since crusades were not such an important event in Portugal’s history. From paragraphs 14 to 19 we have partial transcriptions, with suppression of the rich exemplification. The final and very long paragraph 20 was only partially translated, but its general meaning –​the possibilities of developing manufactures upon a rural basis –​has been preserved. As mentioned, José da Silva Lisboa argued that the addition of rustic manufactures to rural production was not only possible in Brazil: it was the only efficient and commendable alternative, given the lack of capitals and population in the colony. In chapter IV (How the Commerce of the Towns Contributed to the Improvement of the Country) BL followed a different strategy: only the last part of the chapter was entirely suppressed –​the 24th and final paragraph was preserved –​but the others were severely edited. Smith begins presenting the different ways manufacturing and commercial towns contributed to the improvement of the countries. BL preserves this presentation, though cutting many passages. It is interesting to mention that in paragraph 3 BL translates capital as capital. We know that Smith used either stock or capital, with a precise meaning. Bento Lisboa translated capital as capital, and stock as fundo –​borrowing from the French term fond. However, Bento Lisboa oscillated between capital and fundo, without a precise contextual meaning. Paragraphs 9 and 10, which debate feudal law, are translated with compressions. Paragraph 10, particularly, that situates and contrasts foreign commerce and

Colonies and slave labour  253 manufactures, in the face of the ‘violence of the feudal institutions’ (WN III.iii.418), was edited and interrupted by explanations and complimentary texts, to a point that effectively harms its meaning. In paragraphs 11, 12, and 13 Smith reintroduces his ideas on surplus labour, pondering the alternative effects of dispending the land rent in the upkeep of tenants and retainers, or in the upkeep of tradesmen and artificers. His purpose was to show that the division of labour relates everybody to everybody, eliminating absolute dependency. BL’s translation of this part is not entirely faithful to the original text, but the contrast between obligation and dependency remains clear. In paragraph 14, however, ‘tenant at will’ is imprecisely translated as rendeiro, a generic term for lessee or tenant. Tenancy at will, of course, is a precise figure. Finally, BL suppressed the crucial and last sentence, in which Smith says that long-​term leases confer independence to the tenant at will. The next paragraphs were too much compacted, or, as observed above, suppressed from the 20th on.The exception is paragraph 24, the last one, almost entirely translated.

Book IV –​Of Systems of Political Oeconomy The revision of Book IV will require a different strategy, for two reasons. First, the book is rather long (584,401 spaces, see the table corresponding to Book IV), and the rate of compression, great (62 per cent, see the table corresponding to Book IV). Second, the subjects we are most concerned with –​colonies and slave labour –​are most of all located in the impressive Chapter VII, Of Colonies. This chapter must be examined, although it exhibits a high degree of compression, around 80 per cent. It is impossible also not to make comments on chapters I and II, the first because it contains Smith’s resounding manifesto against the mercantile system; the second, because José da Silva Lisboa abundantly utilised its propositions in his defences of free trade. Chapter I (Of the Principle of the Commercial, or Mercantile System) contains Smith’s notorious invectives against the commercial system in general and Thomas Mun in particular. It must be said that many Brazilians, and not only José da Silva Lisboa, felt quite comfortable in criticising the Portuguese commercial system, because it was supposed to protect the metropolitan interests only, leaving aside the interests of the populous Brazilian colony. If we add to this previous Brazilian malaise the fact that the flee of D. João to Brazil meant the effective rupture of the old colonial system, it seems clear that BL would not hesitate in trumpeting, by means of his translation of WN, the defective character of colonial dependency. A note of caution on the treatment given by BL to Smith’s anti-​mercantilist theses, however, is required, because Smith’s criticism, and the criticised theses, were referred to questions concerning monetary phenomena, especially scarcity or abundance of money or bullion. As the examining of the translation of Book I shows (Coutinho 2017), BL did not emphasise, to say the least, the monetary passages of Smith’s work. In his several

254  Mauricio C. Coutinho texts on political economy, José da Silva Lisboa himself avoided the treatment of monetary issues. Paragraphs 1 and 2, which are full of metaphors, were translated, unless for the final example about the Tartars. The third paragraph, in which Smith mentions Locke’s distinction between money and other moveable goods, was translated in its entirety, as well as the fourth that distinguishes the effects of money in closed and open economies, the typical quantity theory of money framework. Paragraph 5 is interesting because it mentions the prohibitions imposed by Spain and Portugal to the exportation of metals. BL kept this illustration, cutting the following one, which mentions Scottish acts of parliament prohibiting the evasion of metals. Paragraph 6, which mentions the merchants’ opposition to these constraints, as well as paragraph 7, which introduces Mun, were also translated. In paragraph 8, despite the suppression of the final examples, the discussion on the relation between balance of trade and inflows of metal was well translated. Since it introduces an old and eternally controversial issue, the determination of the rate of exchange, this is a decisive paragraph. The translation of paragraph 9, which mentions arguments ‘partly solid and partly sophistical’ (WN IV.i.433), does not transmit the sophism of the arguments adequately. Smith says that ‘the high price of exchange necessarily increased’, but BL substitutes total for high. The next sentence repeats the change. In the end, BL finally traduces high as alto, which is the correct formula. Paragraph 10 was cut. In this paragraph, Smith attributes the spread of the mercantile system dogma to parliament and merchants. CRN loses this argument, central to Smith’s theses. In the same way, the comparison with Holland and its liberty of trading precious metals was lost. Paragraphs 11 and 12 were kept, except for the examples. In these paragraphs, Smith introduces two important tenets: the equality between metals and merchandises in general, and the role of effective demand in determining the quantity of any commodity bought, including gold. This reasoning is complemented in the next paragraph by the example of the inability of Portugal and Spain in retaining their metals, despite the law. This example was kept by BL. In the same way, the important paragraphs 14 –​easy transportation of the metals, reasonable stability of their prices –​and 15 –​money substitutes –​ were translated, except for the interesting final segment of paragraph 14, which mentions the ‘revolution in commerce’ represented by the discovery of America. Paragraph 16 is also remarkable because the text is complex, and its general meaning remains reasonably preserved in CRN. Paragraphs 17, 18, and 19, which retake the nature of the exchange money versus commodities, were also well translated. The same may be said of paragraphs 20–​28, which introduce several issues: relation between money and wars; gold and silver accumulated; channels of circulation and the presence of bills; the meaning of modern public treasures; funds for foreign wars; bullion and coins, international circulation of bullion.

Colonies and slave labour  255 Curiously, paragraph 29 introduces a question that was sensible to the colonies –​commodities that can, or cannot, bear long-​distance transport –​and it was severely cut. The important distinction between returns to the country and returns to the merchant was also suppressed. The same with paragraph 30 that considers the exportation of natural products. An interesting contrast between wars involving primitive and commercial countries was also lost. The following paragraphs introduce points that were important, considering the colonial systems. Paragraph 31 mentions the benefits of external commerce in general, contrasting them with the supposed benefits of obtaining gold and silver. Paragraph 32 complements the argument, proposing that Europe was not enriched by the importation of gold and silver from America; on the contrary, the decisive element was the opening of markets. BL stresses this argument, printing a segment of the sentence in italics. The same in paragraph 33, where the following sentence was put under italics: ‘But rich and civilized nations can always exchange to a much greater value with one another, than with savages and barbarians’. However, the long paragraph specifies the several countries that would have been benefited by the discovery of America, and BL cut their names, preserving only Portugal. BL has also discarded a long argument on competition among governments. Paragraphs 34 and 35 synthetise Smith’s central objections, which were: gold and silver, or coin, define wealth; metals could be brought only by balance of trade surpluses. These paragraphs were preserved. The following paragraphs that announce issues to be debated in further ­chapters –​drawbacks, bounties, etc. –​were not incorporated into CRN. Just to conclude the comments on the translation of chapter I, the general impression is that the main arguments were well developed by BL. The text captures Smith’s criticism and the spirit of his anti-​mercantilist manifesto. Unfortunately, many examples involving America were suppressed, or were very partially utilised. It must be admitted that BL’s translation was honest enough to preserve Smith’s criticism to Spain’s and Portugal’s policy follies concerning metals. As mentioned above, chapter II (Of Restraints upon the Importation from Foreign Countries of such Goods as Can be Produced at Home) summarises many of the theoretical formulae that would be employed by José da Silva Lisboa, in his defence of free trade. This chapter suffered a soft compression, approximately 25 per cent. However, in paragraph 1, which explains that restraints either by high duties or through absolute prohibitions induce monopoly at the home market, BL kept the first sentence only. Most passages and a long exemplification concerning cattle, salt, and woollen in Great Britain, were suppressed. Smith’s main theme is ‘the monopoly of the home-​market’, what is reinforced in paragraph 2, adequately translated in CRN. Smith proposes that monopolies benefit particular branches of industry, to the detriment of the ‘general industry of the society’ (WN IV.ii.453), and applies a general formula that would be time and again repeated by José da Silva Lisboa: the protected branch would employ

256  Mauricio C. Coutinho a ‘greater share of labour and stock that would otherwise go to it’ (VW IV.ii.453). In other words, protection implied an inefficient employment of labour and capital. Paragraph 3 presents another formula, exhaustively repeated by José da Silva Lisboa:‘The general industry of the society never can exceed what the capital of the society can employ’ (WN IV.ii.453). For instance, and according to Silva Lisboa, the protection (by high import duties) of internal manufactures in Brazil drained capitals that would otherwise be directed to their most efficient employment, agriculture. Paragraph 4, entirely transposed to CRN, rephrases –​in this context, referred to the employment of capital –​the idea that individuals are driven by self-​interest. Paragraph 5, which simply restates the preference of every individual for employing his capital near home, developed in WN Book III, was also transposed. Paragraph 6, however, that emphasises the preference for home-​trade vis-​à-​vis foreign trade, and that complements Smith’s hierarchy –​ agriculture, internal business, and external trade –​was expunged of its several and very significant examples. Additionally, it must be recalled that Smith’s conception that merchants prefer to operate in the internal market contradicts the experience of Brazil, and possibly of most colonies. This is a typical case of inadequacy of Smith’s thesis to colonial countries, but BL goes ahead blindly. He does not even add one of the many complementary notes usually inserted whenever he felt WN’s text should be put in context. Paragraphs 7 and 8 were entirely translated.They put forward and sometimes develop some elaborations of the general theory of Book I. First, it is affirmed (paragraph 7) that, in employing their capital, individuals envisage, or obtain,‘the greatest possible value’ (WN IV.ii.455). Second, profits are proportional to value; thus, the search of the highest profit possible produces the greatest exchangeable value, or revenue. These somehow controversial WN theses, developed by Smith in paragraphs 7, 8, and 9, were entirely translated. Paragraph 9, a large paragraph that ends up reaffirming the maxim that the pursuit of self-​interest promotes the benefit of the society, was translated in its entirety. The same may be said of paragraph 10, which represents a sort of apex, or complement, to the self-​interest principle: the statesman should not attempt to direct the employment of private capitals. Again, if this represented a debatable thesis in 1776 England, much more contestable was it in 1811 Brazil and Portugal. The Portuguese political and economic regime was far from liberal. Despite the differences between England and Portugal, BL’s translation is accurate. Paragraphs 11, 12, 13, and 14 represent developments of some general ideas, such as the benefits of division of labour; similarity in this respect between private families and kingdoms; dependency of employment (industry) on accumulation of capital; detrimental character of interventions, which squeeze revenue. The translation of these paragraphs was complete. Defence of free trade, in consequence of the advantages of specialisation, is the conclusion arrived at in ­chapter 15 –​again, adequately translated by BL.

Colonies and slave labour  257 Curiously, BL cut the initial sentence of paragraph 16, ‘Merchants and manufacturers are the people who derive the greatest advantage from this monopoly of the home market’ (WN IV.ii.459). Smith puts forward in this paragraph a very specific argument concerning cattle, salt, and corn, and BL follows the original WN text.Yet, the first sentence of paragraph 17, referring to the importation of cattle by England, was cut. England and Ireland, the centre of Smith’s concern in these passages, were not mentioned in CRN. Paragraphs 18 and 19, as many others in this chapter, are very specific to England. Smith is firmly concentrated on commodities and trades that affect the England–​Ireland relation, and the England–​France relation. Sometimes, as in paragraphs 19 and 20, BL cuts the examples. Paragraph 20, for instance, populated by examples, was harshly cut. But in other occasions BL repeats the examples. Anyway, to the extent that Smith’s general theoretical formulae seem, at least in this chapter, to be dependent upon the examples, it is important to ask if their elimination did not harm the text; or, otherwise, if some of Smith’s theoretical formulae can be kept separated from the examples. The same may be said of conclusions that seem suited to England’s social tissue. For instance, in paragraph 21 Smith proposes that country gentlemen and farmers are least inclined to defend monopoly. It follows a very interesting discussion on social classes, simply swept away by BL, perhaps because Brazil’s and Portugal’s social structures completely differed from that of England. However, the culmination of the very long, cultivated, and full of examples, paragraph 21, the short paragraph 22, was not only entirely translated, but emphasised by means of italics: ‘To prohibit by a perpetual law the importation of foreign corn and cattle, is in reality to enact, that the population and industry of the country shall at no time exceed what the rude produce of its own soil can maintain’ (WN IV.ii.463). It should be noted that importation and exportation of corn and cattle were a nonissue in Brazil and in the Portuguese empire in general. In paragraph 23 and in the following paragraphs, Smith exposes the admitted exceptions to the general rule of keeping imports unimpeded.The first envisages the defence of the country and the upkeep of a strong navy. Commercial navy was perceived as essential to the formation of the Royal Navy crews. Smith defends the Navigation Acts, which consisted in an ample arch of measures restraining the utilisation of ships and crew from abroad. BL does not enter into details, and as such he translated paragraphs 23 and 24, of a more general character, but cut paragraphs 25 to 29.Yet, paragraph 30, which admits that the Navigation Acts were not favourable to external trade, was translated –​and even had its first sentence stressed in italics. Paragraph 32 exposes the second pillar of the admitted restrictions: the imposition of taxes on imported products whenever similar domestic products were internally taxed. Only the last sentence of this paragraph was excluded. Paragraph 33, which debates the extension of such taxation to whatever products, whenever necessaries of life were themselves taxed, was translated. Paragraphs 34, 35, and 36, where Smith debates the characteristics and effects of these taxes, were almost entirely preserved by BL.

258  Mauricio C. Coutinho Smith presents in paragraphs 37, 38, 39, and 40 special cases or cases that may be matter of deliberation.The first one involves retaliation against other nations’ prohibitions. BL’s translation cut some examples, including an extensive one (paragraph 38) on Colbert’s France. The second one (paragraph 40) concerns the propriety of restoring free importation, after an interruption, in the situations national industry ended up employing many hands. Paragraphs 41 and 42 ponder on the effects of these prohibitions on employment. BL translated these paragraphs with few cuts. Special attention should be given to paragraph 42, which was very well translated and repeats some general maxims, like ‘The capital of the country remaining the same, the demand for labour will likewise be the same…’ (WN IV.ii.470); or ‘Natural liberty … break down the privilege of the corporations…,’ (WN IV.ii.470). Paragraph 43, which represents the culmination of Smith’s arguments, had its symbolical initial sentence curiously cut off: ‘To expect, indeed, that the freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established on it’ (WN IV.ii.471). In fact, BL kept the middle of the paragraph, since he also cut its final part, which considers the political interests and strategies behind the constraints to external trade. Finally, paragraph 44, which distinguishes great and small manufactures, and fixed and mobile capital, was translated. Paragraph 45, which only announces that the effect of taxes on public revenue would be considered later, was suppressed. BL’s translation of chapter VII (Of Colonies) implied a drastic reduction. Part 1 of this chapter was reduced to less than half the original, and parts 2 and 3 lost approximately 85 per cent and 80 per cent of their original content. Given so many exclusions, we would rather concentrate on paragraphs that directly refer to colonies in modern America and slave labour. Other passages will be only cursorily referred to. In Part First, BL translated with minor cuts the three first paragraphs, which developed the reasons for the establishment of colonies in ancient Greece and Rome. In paragraph 4, Smith argues that colonies as America and the West Indies, contrarily to the ancient Greece and Rome examples,‘arose from no necessity’ (WN IV.vii.558), that is, without a measurement of their utility. This paragraph was entirely transposed, but the next one, which situates the beginnings of modern Europe expansion in the Venetian spices trade, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries –​an important topic, considering the subsequent Atlantic expansion –​had only its first sentence translated. Paragraph 6 introduces ‘the avidity of the Portuguese’ (WN IV.vii.558) and their expansion throughout the Atlantic. Again, irrespective of the importance of this paragraph to Portuguese-​speaking readers, its second half was simply cut. And paragraph 7, which introduces Columbus, was very compacted. Paragraphs 9–​13, which contain many interesting illustrations on the adventures of Columbus and of the Portuguese, were simply ignored, even though paragraph 13 introduces us to cotton, a product that would emerge as a decisive

Colonies and slave labour  259 nineteenth-​century commodity. Considering the Iberian history, as well as the Brazilian colonial experience, it is difficult to explain the suppression of so many significant examples and historical excursuses. Paragraph 15 introduces another very important topic –​gold –​and was also adapted, whereas paragraphs 16 and 17, which developed the adventures of Columbus and of the Spanish, were suppressed. In paragraph 18, BL retakes the translation, although suppressing its final. This paragraph somehow summarises Smith’s scepticism relatively to metals: ‘Of all those expensive and uncertain projects … there is none perhaps more perfectly ruinous than the search after new silver and gold mines’ (WN IV.vii.562). Paragraph 19 that complements Smith’s pessimism and scepticism about the possibility of prevalence of reason, was also partially translated: ‘But though the judgment of sober reason and experience concerning such projects has always been extremely unfavourable, that of human avidity has commonly been quite otherwise’ (WN IV.vii.563). Only in paragraph 22, and final, BL reconnects to Smith’s text, extending to other countries and people the chimerical character of the adventures in America. It seems that Chapter VII, at least in its first part , means a continuity of Smith’s invectives against the Midas fallacy developed in Chapter I. Of course, if the historical adherence of Smith’s account can be assumed as questionable in general, to Portuguese and Brazilian readers it would have been seen as entirely erroneous. It is an undisputed matter that gold in Brazil represented a tremendous benefit to the Portuguese. Anyhow, and as seen, BL’s translation suppressed many passages that had strict connections to America. Part 2 (Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies) was compressed to a high extent. Its first and second paragraphs, proposing that colonies in thinly populated areas tend to progress more rapidly, were translated. Paragraph 3 is much more complicated since it introduces the opposition of rent and profits to wages. It was anyway translated, except for the two last sentences that complement Smith’s explanation on the effects of high wages. In this paragraph, BL once more translates profits as proveito, a word that lacks precision. Paragraphs 5 and 6 reset Smith’s paradigm –​ancient Greek and Roman colonies –​and were suppressed. Surprisingly, paragraph 6, which advances into America and West Indies, and paragraph 7, an extensive and rich debate on Spanish colonisation, were also cut. Only in paragraph 8, which presents the case of Portugal, BL reconnects to the original text. One may guess that BL’s purpose was to highlight Portugal’s conflicts with the Dutch –​a symbolical Portuguese colonisation episode –​since he stresses in italics the following (and long) sentence, before cutting its sequence: But the Dutch government soon began to oppress the Portugueze colonists, who, instead of amusing themselves with complaints, took arms against their new masters, and by their own valour and resolution, with the connivance, indeed, but without any avowed assistance from the mother country, drove them out of Brazil. (WN IV.vii.569)

260  Mauricio C. Coutinho Paragraph 9, which emphasises the strength of the Spanish and Portuguese naval power, was translated until the point Smith mentions the defeat of the Invincible Armada. Paragraphs 10 and 11, about the American colonies of Swedes and Danes, were suppressed; and paragraph 12, about Dutch settlements, severely compacted. The English colonies in America and the West Indies, Smith’s main theme, were reintroduced in paragraph 15, a short sentence that BL did not transpose. Yet, paragraphs 16 and 17 were translated. These paragraphs are important, because they confront political institutions and abundance of good land, a typical framework of the American English colony, but much more of Portugal’s and Spain’s colonies. As known, Smith emphasises the role of political institutions in the progress of England and extends to the colonies the same pattern. In four paragraphs, the main institutional features that underlay the success of England’s colonisation were presented. BL translated the first paragraph that debates the restriction to the engrossment of uncultivated lands, but he cut the others, which present: the inexistence of the right of primogeniture and the possibility of dividing lands in Pennsylvania and, to some extent, in other colonies (against the adoption of Jus Majoratus, in Spain and Portugal); moderation of taxes; the availability of a bigger market for English colonial products. And that is all. BL immediately jumped to WN’s paragraph 40 (a very short stretch was translated) and finally to 44, where the following sentence was written in italics: To prohibit a great people, however, from making all that they can of every part of their own produce, or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a manifest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. (WN IV.vii.582) This paragraph was, of course, instrumental to the Brazilian defence of its rights and initiatives, against the Portuguese rules. The omitted paragraphs, however, contain several important topics. For instance, paragraph 22 chastises exclusive companies, while paragraphs 23 and 24 chastise the concentration of colonial trade in specific ports, and paragraphs 25 and some others discuss the existence of enumerated versus non-​enumerated commodities (a typical English institutional arrangement). Other paragraphs follow the enumerated versus non-​enumerated commodities debate, bringing to the fore commodities such as sugar, rum, pig, and bar iron, and so on. And finally, from paragraphs 44 to 64, the last one, nothing was translated. Again, important topics were part of these discarded paragraphs. Among them, further comparisons between the British colonial rule and other countries’ rules, and a comparison of modes of colonial government employed by England, Spain, Portugal, and France. It is important to stress the latter topic, because it was exactly in the comparison between British and French colonial government

Colonies and slave labour  261 institutions that two very celebrated passages on slave labour emerged. Despite their importance to Brazil, they were simply suppressed. In paragraph 54 Smith develops Montesquieu’s thesis on the non-​adaptability of Europeans, and adaptability of Africans, to toil under the tropics in sugar cane plantations: ‘In all European colonies the culture of the sugar-​cane is carried on by negro slaves. The constitution of those who have been born in the temperate climate of Europe could not […] support the labour of digging the ground under the burning sun of the West Indies […]’ (WN IV.vii.586). In paragraphs 54, and 55, Smith explains that ‘the condition of a slave is better under an arbitrary than under a free government…’ (WN IV.vii.587), the reason why French slaves were better managed and treated than English slaves. These two crucial paragraphs on slave labour were not translated by BL. Part 3 (Of the Advantages which Europe Has Derived from the Discovery of America…) was also extremely compressed. In the four initial paragraphs, Smith rhetorically asks what advantages Europe derived from colonising America. This paragraph was severely adapted. Paragraphs 5, 6, 7, and 8 were preserved, with minor cuts. Their texts present a sort of Smithian paradox, in which the author tries to show that, although the colonising countries had access to the surplus product of America, other European countries had their industry also ‘encouraged’ by American commodities. That is, American commodities have spread throughout Europe, irrespective of who had initial access to them: ‘Those great events may even have contributed to increase the enjoyments, and to augment the industry of countries which, not only never sent any commodities to America, but never received any from it’ (WN IV.vii.592). Paragraph 9, also (partially) transcribed, was aligned with the spirit of José da Silva Lisboa’s texts, which criticised the colonial prohibitions. It situates the exclusive trade as a ‘dead weight’ that elevates the prices of colonial products. Paragraphs 10 and 11 classify the advantages derived by colonising countries in two brackets: common and peculiar. The common advantages are related to territorial defence, and Smith repeats several times –​including in paragraph 12 –​his complaint about the non-​participation of the American colony in England’s general defence. Translation of paragraph 12 was integral. Paragraph 13, which includes Spain and Portugal’s colonies in the discourse on defence financing, was cut off. All in all, colonies were a source of expenditure, and not of revenue, was Smith’s conclusion, translated by BL. Thus, only the peculiar advantages, subordinated to the exclusive trade, remain. This conclusion, in paragraph 14, was transposed into CRN. Paragraphs 15 and 16, which return to the particular English system –​enumerated versus non-​enumerated commodities –​were improperly transposed, since the 16th represents a complement to the 15th. The 15th was suppressed, but the 16th was nonetheless transposed. Paragraph 17, referred to the tobacco of Maryland and Virginia and to monopoly, was translated. However, the important final segment of the paragraph, a speculation on the possible advantages of a non-​monopoly tobacco trade, was suppressed.

262  Mauricio C. Coutinho Paragraph 18, which compares relative and absolute advantages, was translated. Equally translated was the important paragraph 19, which reintroduces the Acts of Navigation and the withdrawal, or substitution, of capitals. Surprisingly, paragraph 20, which well synthetises the ‘double effect’, was not transposed. It goes as follows: This double effect, of drawing capital from all other trades, and of raising the rate of profit somewhat higher than it otherwise would have been in all trades, was not only produced by this monopoly upon its first establishment, but has continued to be produced by it ever since. (WN IV.vii.596) Paragraphs 21–​25 were discarded. In them, Smith deepens his analysis of the effects of ‘this monopoly’ in drawing capital from other trades, including what seemed to him a very important effect, the differentiation of the rates of profit. BL returns to the WN text only in paragraph 26 (that corresponds to CRN 16). This paragraph introduces the ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ disadvantage of the artificially high rate of profit. The absolute disadvantage, exposed in paragraph 27, corresponds to the hike of prices, while the relative, in paragraph 28, involves competition with other countries, and the possibility of being undersold. Paragraph 29 introduces the high wages of British labour and was discarded, as well as paragraphs 30–​34, a comment on the ultimate results of the colonial trade monopoly to Great Britain. BL reconnects to WN in paragraph 35, which sustains that the most advantageous employment of capital to the country is the one that absorbs labour and increases the annual produce. But this paragraph has only its beginning transcribed, and CRN immediately jumps into WN paragraph 43 (CRN 20), which says that the monopoly of colonial trade broke the ‘natural balance’ of the distribution of capital among branches in Great Britain. All further details about Great Britain, abundant in the paragraph, were cut. In general, this paragraph, as others in Part 3, was too much adapted. Contrary to what can be observed in other chapters, Chapter VII involved not only the translation of selected passages, but also adaptations. Paragraph 44 had its beginning, in which Smith proposes a relaxation of the laws that enforced the exclusive trade, partially transposed. Smith proposes a gradual change, and CRN text begins exactly in the passage ‘To open the colony trade all at once to all nations, might … occasion … a great permanent loss to the greater part of those whose industry or capital is at present engaged in it’ (WN IV.vii.606). Paragraphs 45, 46, and 47, which explore the difference between colony trade and monopoly of trade, were discarded. CRN returns to the original WN in a paragraph (48) that proposes that the effect of the colony trade is the opening of new markets. It is interesting to note that, in an apparent effort to generalise conclusions applied by Smith to his country, BL substitutes ‘metropolis’ for Great Britain, in some passages. CRN skips WN paragraphs 49, 50, 52, and 53, the latter referred to the bad effects of monopoly in Spain and Portugal. It also skips paragraphs 54 to 63,

Colonies and slave labour  263 even though paragraph 61 involves Portugal and Spain. A small segment of paragraph 64 appears in CRN 23, but, finally, all the remaining paragraphs, from 65 to 108, were discarded. Among the issues dealt with in these paragraphs we have revenue and expenditures with colonies; political representation; taxation, monopolies in East and West; and colonies in Africa and in the West Indies. One of the important themes on the background –​sometimes coming to the front line –​is the tension between North America and England, a matter that decisively did not interest BL.

Conclusions The just presented comments and measurement of the 1811 Portuguese edition of the Wealth of Nations were built upon some premises, or guesses. First, that the translation was not immune to some idiosyncrasies of its presumed inspirer, José da Silva Lisboa. Second, it is assumed that the ideology and political strategies of Silva Lisboa’s father and of Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho were in the background of the Royal Press initiative, having possibly influenced its results. The choice of segments to be translated or discarded, and the emphasis conferred on some passages, may reveal the inclinations of the translator and supporters of the initiative. As shown in section 3, the rates of compression vary immensely across the chapters. Bento Lisboa’s prologue informs that passages referring particularly to England specificities were dismissed. Besides, it is perceptible that the Portuguese edition systematically avoided recapitulations and synopses of contents, a characteristic of Smith’s writing. However, and as remarked, Bento Lisboa was not entirely faithful to his promise, since many examples, inclusively those referred to England, remained in the text. Curiously, but maybe suggestively, not few references to Portuguese and Spanish colonies, in principle relevant to Portuguese-​speaking readers, were cut. Additionally, the method of skipping illustrations many times harms the structure of Smith’s argumentation, which is dependent upon this sort of inductive excursions. Third, and as a continuity to what has been just proposed, the cascades of references to ancient Greece and Rome, most of them suppressed in CRN, represent an important element of Smith’s discourse. Indeed, they represent an indispensable element in the case of the two tackled issues, slave labour and colonies, since it is from the contrasts with ancient Greece and Rome that Smith’s reader is bound to understand his comprehension of two phenomena which, re-​enacted in modern times, entirely differed from their ancient modes. At least in this sense –​in specifying a contrast with modern institutions –​ discarding references to ancient Rome and Greece represents a loss. The appeal to (and knowledge of) Classical Roman and Latin literature and history are a decisive and not dismissible element of Scottish Enlightenment in general and of Smith’s works in particular (Vivenza 2001). As far as Smith was especially preoccupied with England’s North American and Caribbean colonies, the suppression of an expressive amount of digressions

264  Mauricio C. Coutinho on these two regions subtracts from Portuguese-​speaking readers the opportunity of drawing conclusions from comparisons. This is a curious result, because many of José da Silva Lisboa’s texts made special references to North America; by emphasizing, for instance, the positive impacts of small property and free labour, or stressing the effects of scarcity of capital on the economy of the country. José da Silva Lisboa’s descriptions of North America were not always accurate –​for instance, he scarcely referred to North America’s slave regime (Coutinho 2017) –​but at least his comparison of colonial territories of different origins was an enriching resource. Yet, the opinion of Silva Lisboa’s father on colonies and slave labour is very well known. As a Smithian, he praised the superiority of free labour vis-​à-​vis slave labour. As a conservative and faithful follower of the Braganças, he could not abhor modern slavery, and even slave traffic, in a period (from 1810 onwards) England started pressing Portugal and Brazil to extinguish slave traffic (Bethell 1970), and the Brazilian elite congregated around the defence of slavery. In fact, and as the article has tried to show, the abrasiveness of Smith’s references to slavery in WN was softened in CRN. On the other hand, as a defendant of the liberal commercial treaties the Braganças signed up with England, Silva Lisboa appealed to all possible arguments, and most of all to Smith’s teaching, to attack the Portuguese and Brazilian merchants and manufacturers who defended additional protection to their businesses. BL’s translation kept at least the major arguments Smith forged to fight monopolies, and, most of all, it kept a good number of Smith’s general ideas, such as precedence of agriculture, effects of the scarcity of capital and labour, and advantages of free trade, in order to justify the policies implemented by the Portuguese regime in the two last decades of Brazilian colonial life. In this sense, it is tempting to conclude, as proposed in the first and second sections, that the translation of the Wealth of Nations was a piece in defence of a determinate political position, and that José da Silva Lisboa’s texts –​especially Lisboa (1810c) and Lisboa (1831) –​complemented WN’s translation. In conclusion, despite the above listed caveats, it must be admitted that the 1811 Portuguese edition is a gigantic, erudite and surprising work. Not only did it put Smith’s ideas at disposal of regular Portuguese-​speaking readers, but its discourse is in general faithful to the original edition, elegant and readable. Some words and concepts, as mentioned above, are dubious and even misguiding, and the suppression of passages many times thwarts the comprehension of Smith’s arguments. Nevertheless, it is important to highlight that some undesirable results cannot be attributed to the translator’s deficiencies and idiosyncrasies but to characteristics of the Portuguese idiom of Bento Lisboa’s times, that contrasted with the identity and precision that English political economy terminology was acquiring in Smith’s times. Some terminological imprecisions have been mentioned –​in words such as work, profit, capital, tenant, entails. Some of them should be attributed to the Portuguese idiom itself, others to the fact that languages do not absorb at once the specialised

Colonies and slave labour  265 vocabulary of a novel science. Some other imprecisions should be attributed to the specificities of economic and legal institutions. England and Scotland developed legal traditions and institutional arrangements that differed from those developed in Portugal and Brazil. In my view, Bento Lisboa should have more frequently appealed to the Roman law, in order to situate England and Portugal’s legal specificities. Last but not least, the vocabulary of BL’s edition may have been influenced by a possible cross-​reading and use of the French translation solutions, but this is a hypothesis that remains to be specifically tested, in future works.

Notes 1 Whenever necessary, Bento Lisboa will be indicated by BL; Adam Smith by AS. 2 All translations from Bento Lisboa’s Compendium into English are mine (MCC). 3 The enumeration of paragraphs in the below revision is referred to the definitive (third) edition of The Wealth of Nations, upon which Bento Lisboa’s translation was declaredly made.

References Almeida, P.R. (2017) Formação da Diplomacia Econômica no Brasil, S. Paulo: Senac/​Fag. Almodovar, A. (1993) ‘Introdução’, in Lisboa, J.S. (ed.), Escritos Económicos Escolhidos (1804-​1821), Lisboa: Banco de Portugal. Coleção de Obras Clássicas do Pensamento Econômico Português 5. Almodovar, A. and Cardoso, J.L. (1998) A History of Portuguese Economic Thought, London, Routledge. Bethell, L. (1970) The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cardoso, J.L. (1989) O Pensamento Económico em Portugal nos Finais do Século XVIII –​ 1780-​1808, Lisboa: Editorial Estampa. Cardoso, J.L. (2001) ‘O liberalismo económico na obra de Joséda Silva Lisboa’, História Econômica e História de Empresas, 1: 147–​164. Coutinho, M.C. (2012) ‘‘Compendio da Obra da Riqueza das Nações de Adam Smith’(1811): A primeira versao em português da obra de Smith, por Bento da Silva Lisboa’, unpublished, Lisboa: AIHPE Conference. Coutinho, M.C. (2015) ‘Classical Political Economy and Slavery’, unpublished, Rome: ESHET Conference. Coutinho, M.C. (2017) ‘Silva Lisboa on free trade and slave labour: the fate of liberalism in a colonial country’, in A. M. Cunha and C. E. Suprinyak (eds.), The Political Economy of Latin American Independence, Abingdon: Routledge. Florentino, M., Ribeiro A.L., and Silva, D.D. (2004) Aspectos Comparativos do Tráfico de Africanos para o Brasil (Séculos XVIII e XIX), Rio de Janeiro: Afro-​Ásia. Kirschner, T.C. (2009) Joséda Silva Lisboa, Visconde de Cairu –​Itinerários de um Ilustrado Luso-​Brasileiro, S. Paulo: Alameda. Lisboa, J.S. (1804) ‘Princípios de Economia Política’, in Lisboa, J.S. Escritos Económicos Escolhidos (1804-​1821), vol. 1. Coleção de Obras Clássicas do Pensamento Econômico Português 5 (1993), Lisboa: Banco de Portugal.

266  Mauricio C. Coutinho Lisboa, J.S. (1808–​1809) ‘Observações sobre o Comércio Franco do Brasil’, in Lisboa, J.S. Escritos Económicos Escolhidos (1804-​1821), vol. 1. Coleção de Obras Clássicas do Pensamento Econômico Português 5 (1993), Lisboa: Banco de Portugal, 1993. Lisboa, J.S. (1810a) ‘Observações sobre a Prosperidade do Estado pelos Liberais Princípios da Nova Legislação do Brasil’, in Lisboa, J.S. Escritos Económicos Escolhidos (1804-​ 1821), vol. 1. Coleção de Obras Clássicas do Pensamento Econômico Português 5 (1993), Lisboa: Banco de Portugal. Lisboa, J.S. (1810b) Observações sobre a prosperidade do Estado pelos liberaesprincípios da Nova Legislação do Brasil.Rio de Janeiro:Impressão Regia. Available at www.bra​sili​ana.usp. br/​bbd/​han​dle/​1918/​03878​600 (accessed 12 July 2017). Lisboa, J.S. (1810c) ‘Observações sobre a Franqueza da Indústria e Estabelecimento de Fábricas no Brasil’, in Lisboa, J.S. Escritos Económicos Escolhidos (1804-​1821), vol. 1. Coleção de Obras Clássicas do Pensamento Econômico Português 5, (1993) Lisboa: Banco de Portugal. Lisboa, J.S. (1818) Memoria dos Benefícios Políticos do Governo de El-​Rey Nosso Senhor D. João VI. Rio de Janeiro: Impressão Regia. Available at www.bra​sili​ana.usp.br/​bbd/​ han​dle /​1918/​00859000 (accessed 10 July 2017). Lisboa, J.S. (1819–​1820) ‘Estudos do Bem-​Comum e Economia Política’, in Lisboa, J.S. Escritos Económicos Escolhidos (1804-​1821), vol. 2. Coleção de Obras Clássicas do Pensamento Econômico Português 5 (1993), Lisboa: Banco de Portugal. Lisboa, J.S. (1831) ‘Da Liberdade do Trabalho’, in Rocha, A.P. (2001) Joséda Silva Lisboa, Visconde de Cairu, S. Paulo: Ed. 34. Maxwell, K. (1978) Devassa da Devassa. 2nd edn. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra. Maxwell, K. (1995) Pombal –​Paradox of the Enlightenment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paula, J.A. (2016) ‘Indícios de uma Presença Antiga: Adam Smith no Brasil’, unpublished, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). Rocha, A.P. (1996) A Economia Política na Sociedade Escravista. S. Paulo:Hucitec. Rocha, A.P. (2001) Joséda Silva Lisboa,Visconde de Cairu, S. Paulo: Ed. 34. Schwartz, S.B. (1985) Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society, Bahia 1550-​ 1835, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schwartz, S.B. (1987) ‘Plantations and Peripheries, c. 1580 –​c. 1750’, in Bethell, L. (ed.), Colonial Brazil, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Smith, A. (1811). Compendio da Obra da riqueza das Nações de Adam Smith –​traduzida do original inglez por Bento da Silva Lisboa, Rio de Janeiro: Impressão Régia. Smith, A. (1976) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press.Vivenza, G. (2001) Adam Smith and the Classics –​The Classical Heritage in Adam Smith’s Thought, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

 conomics terms from Scotland E to Italy The first Italian translations of Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1790/​91–​1851) Cristina Guccione

Introduction Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith 1776, WN) has always been recognized as the first economic treatise that systematized political economy comprehensively by replacing mercantilist and physiocratic theories at the dawning of the Industrial Revolution. Broadly speaking, Smith’s masterpiece describes what builds the wealth of nations, pursuing the essential idea that an economic system, if left substantially free, is able to regulate itself and ensure maximum efficiency. Nevertheless, monopolies, lobbies and tax preferences –​privileging ‘merchants and manufacturers’ at the expense of other members of economy –​threaten the self-​regulation of the system. The WN also continued the philosophical theme begun in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (Smith 1976 [1759], TMS) in which the Scottish philosopher had originally theorized how self-​seeking men are often ‘led by an invisible hand […] without knowing it, without intending it, [to] advance the interest of the society’ (Smith 1976 [1759], TMS IV.i).1 After its first publication in 1776, British friends and followers of Adam Smith welcomed the WN immediately and successfully, so much so that five partly revised editions were published during Smith’s lifetime in 1776, 1778, 1784, 1786 and 1789 (Cannan 1904).2 The work also received rapid acclamation overseas in the USA and in continental Europe, especially in France, Germany and Italy, where most intellectuals had already known Smith by reading his TMS in English or in vernacular languages if translations existed. Consequently, Adam Smith’s WN is undoubtedly one of the masterworks that significantly contributed to the spreading of philosophical and scientific discourse in different languages during the Enlightenment. The most recent studies on Smith’s translations have been carried out so far by economic historians, whose research on this field has worthily traced the influence of Smith’s thought across time, countries and continents. Their studies have mainly paid attention to what works have been translated in a given geographical area, under what circumstances and in what social and DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-17

268  Cristina Guccione political environment during a given period (Gioli 1972; Tribe and Mizuta 2002; Barucci 2003; Lai 2003; Augello and Guidi 2007). Taking into consideration the research field of Translation Studies (Malmkjaer 2003, 2004; Baker 2000, 2001 [1998]), this paper refers to the first two Italian translations of the WN printed in Naples (Smith 1790) and Turin (Smith 1851), respectively. It mainly focuses on the early rendering of Smith’s vocabulary from English into Italian, by analysing the translations of some extracts from Chapter II, Book I of Smith’s WN and by looking up entries of some key terms in the lexicographical sources of that time. Entitled Of the Principle which gives Occasion to the Division of Labour, Chapter II, Book I has been chosen because the division of labour is among the main topics through which Smith contributed to developing modern economic ideas. Furthermore, a project – at the Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne3 – has made the original English version of Chapter II, Book I and its first five French translations available online, by creating a platform that allows users to read each text individually and compare the translations with the original text or between them. The Advertisement project specifies the reasons that induced the Parisian researchers to choose and compare the several representations of this part: Chapter II, Book I is short and was not particularly modified in the several editions of the WN published during the author’s lifetime; similarly, in the five French translations, this part offers some insights on the rendering of specific core terms. Division of labour is, for example, translated partage du travail by the anonymous M*** (1778) and Morellet (1778–​1779[?]‌) or division du travail by Blavet (1779–​1780), Roucher (1790–​1791), Smith (1802), whilst other terms such as self-​love received three literal translations, i.e. amour-​propre (M***, Blavet, Roucher), propre intérêt or avantage (Morellet), and intérêt personnel or égoïsme (Garnier). As an attempt to outline the tour that some core terms of economics made from Scotland to Italy, Part II of this study provides some necessary background on the eighteenth-​century European translation workflow of philosophical and scientific texts that allowed the English language and British authors to influence the book market and culture of that period. Part III outlines the cultural value of Smith’s WN, printed and translated all over Europe many times, giving more details on the French editions and the first Italian translations. Parts IV and V investigate Chapter II, Book I, of the WN through a comparison between the Italian and the aforementioned French translations.

The European translation market in the eighteenth century After 1750, for the first time in history, Europeans started a cosmopolitan conversation that resulted in a gradual forsaking of Latin and French, the traditional vehicular languages for international readership since the seventeenth century until then. The number of translations from Latin and Greek lessened gradually, representing a small amount in comparison with the unforeseen number of books rendered from and into modern languages (Oz-​Salzberger 2006: 387).

Economics terms from Scotland to Italy  269 As a matter of fact, this European cosmopolitan exchange was primarily achieved by rendering old and new books into modern languages, e.g. Italian, German, Dutch and English to such a great degree that, in a short time, all the European languages –​having solid linguistic standards and sufficient lexicographic tools –​were enriched by literary, scientific and philosophical discourse from all the European cultures. Great centres of multilingual translation developed in Paris, London and Leipzig; secondary centres arose in Zurich, Amsterdam (or other Dutch cities) and Hamburg; and, finally, smaller centres, such as Lisbon, Naples, Dublin, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin and Saint Petersburg, participated in the eighteenth-​ century translation flow by promoting their vernacular languages. On this occasion, English ‘blossomed into continental recognition suddenly and dramatically’ (Oz-​Salzberger 2006: 388), becoming for the first time in its history one of the major source languages of Europe’s literary and scientific translation market. If French never lost its lead until the end of the nineteenth century, secondary translation from French was largely abandoned after 1750, paving the way for English and German. The members of the Enlightenment circle, who used to read their mentors in the original, and translators of foreign texts into vernacular languages promoted the spreading of target-​texts mirroring their source-​text more faithful than the previous translations, which had privileged the aesthetic qualities of the target language. Moreover, on this basis, the Enlightenment circle opened the way to a debate on translation methodology that was later to focus on the purpose of translations, the nature of their readership and the typology of texts translated. For example, adaptation was to be considered more appropriate for plays and poetry genre. Idiomatic translation was to become useful for some specialized texts spreading ideologies. Meanwhile a new and different treatment was to be conceived for the translation of scientific works that needed a particular attention on terminology. With regard to the language of economics, general language was the main source of the economics terminology, so much so that terms such as wealth, capital, labour or value lacked universally accepted definitions.4 This resulted in the arising of an international debate, in which well-​known economists such as Smith and his followers or antagonists took part in favour of economics language systematisation by recommending precision in economics language and by proposing different methodological approaches to remedy its current polysemy (Maccabelli 1998). Smith and his followers, in particular, promoted ‘a conventional language in which the free use of terms and definitions was allowed to scholars under the condition that each term, once defined, was used coherently throughout the work’ (Guccione 2014: 119ff). This linguistic debate ran parallel to the cosmopolitan exchange of philosophical and economic translated texts carried out by the above-​mentioned European centres. In Italy, four cities –​Florence, Milan, Venice and Naples –​represented the places interested in spreading the most appreciated literary and scientific works of the continent for a local and expanding readership through

270  Cristina Guccione translation market. In particular, Naples, one of the most mentioned Italian editorial centres of the eighteenth century, has inspired interesting studies that have found analogies between the Neapolitan cultural environment and the Scottish Enlightenment (Robertson 2005). As a matter of fact, several political issues regarding the Reign of Naples (e.g. the relationship between the Feudal heritage and the organization of the Modern State) allowed intellectuals from Naples to feel themselves very close to and interested in the issues debated by the contemporary Scottish Enlightenment philosophers. And, it was not by chance that many scientific translations and also the first complete translation of Smith’s WN were published in Naples in 1790, fostering internal debates and comparison with the foreign theories developed abroad (Robertson 2005; Castagnino 2014: 14, note 19).

On The Wealth of Nations: editions, translations and re-​translations (1776–​1851) As mentioned above, the WN was an immediate success in Great Britain, Europe and overseas in the USA. In France, Germany and Italy, most intellectuals had already known Smith and used to read his works in English or in vernacular languages when translations of them existed. In this regard, the WN was firstly translated into German (1776), French (1778), Danish (1779) and Italian (1790) and later, to give just an idea about time gaps of Smith’s translated works, in Spanish (1792), Swedish (1800), Portuguese (1811) and Polish (1927). Several translations and re-​translations have followed these first renderings so that scholars reasonably say that the WN has been ‘the most translated, although not necessarily the most read, economics book in history’ (Lai 2003: XV). Moreover, according to scholars the time gap between the English edition and the spread of translations on the continent was much shorter for the WN than for the TMS. Presumably, the ‘speed with which the WN was translated into the major European languages may have owed much to Smith’s previous Theory of Moral Sentiments, which had been published in 1759 and well received by the European intellectual community’ (Lai 2003: XV). The spread of Smith’s original works and translations in France also reflected the cultural activity of the country and its participation in the Enlightenment debates. As a matter of fact, not only had French readers already known Smith from his TMS translated in 1764, fourteen years before the circulation of the WN, but several intellectuals had carried out complete or partial translations of the WN from its first publication in 1776 onwards. The first French version of the WN appeared anonymously, signed M***, in 1778–​1779 in The Hague, Holland. It was the first of five other translations published in the last thirty years of the eighteenth century and during Bonaparte’s Consulate in 1802. These were carried out by the Abbé Jean-​Louis Blavet (1779–​1780), the Abbé André Morellet (1778–​1779[?]‌), the

Economics terms from Scotland to Italy  271 poet Jean-​Antoine Roucher (1790–​1791) and by Smith (1802), respectively (Lai 2003: XIX; Faccarello Steiner 2002; Carpenter 1995; 2002). Blavet’s WN firstly appeared, anonymously, in the Journal d’agriculture, du commerce, des arts et des finances and was later reprinted in pirate editions originally published in Switzerland. The third translation by the Abbé Morellet was never published and it was presumably uncompleted, because its manuscript lacks the last two chapters of Book V. The versions of the Wealth of Nations edited by Roucher in 1790 and by Garnier in 1802 were those that gave Smith’s work fame and wider circulation (Faccarello and Steiner 2002; Carpenter 1995, 2002).5 In particular, Garnier’s translation reached supremacy over the three foregoing translations, becoming the official French language version of reference, particularly when Adolphe-​ Jérôme Blanqui (1798–​1854) presented its revised edition in 1843 (Faccarello Steiner 2002: 6).6 With regard to the Italian peninsula, the intellectual environments had already known the WN due to some reviews of it, such as the mention by the Abbé Luigi Riccomanni in Diario economico di agricoltura, manifattura e commercio; or due to the analysis of men of letters such as Galeani Napione who quoted the Scottish author in his Elogio to Giovanni Botero or Giovan Battista Vasco who recalled some of Smith’s considerations in his two works: Saggio politico della cartomoneta and Delle Università delle arti e dei mestieri (Gioli 1972; Castagnino 2014: 166–​167). Nevertheless, there is no trace of complete translations before 1790, when the Italian version of the WN was published in Naples by Giuseppe Policarpo Merande, ‘negoziante di libri dirimpetto la chiesa di Sant’Angelo-​a-​nido’. Its title, Ricerche sulla Natura e le Cagioni della Ricchezza delle Nazioni, is followed by the subtitle ‘tradotte per la prima volta in italiano dall’ultima edizione inglese’ (Smith 1790). From a historical standpoint, the 1790 Italian edition of the WN was clearly an important event. The translator introduced Smith to the Italian reader as a ‘great philosopher and first-​rate politician’ (author’s translation) proving that not only intellectuals in Naples were participating intensively in the cultural renewal of the Enlightenment movement, but also that Italians had immediately appreciated the political economic aspects of Smith’s thought (Gioli 1993: 227). In his four-​ page preface, entitled Il traduttore italiano a chi leggerà, the anonymous translator refers to British scholars as the particularly interested authors in writing books on public economy and he claims that the WN is the greatest work ever written about the topic. So he had faithfully translated it from English into Italian, after having consulted the Scottish philosopher by letter to receive from Smith notes or additions that he would have translated (Smith 1790, Preface: ii). Moreover, the translator states that, as happened for other current volgarizzatori (vulgar translators) of philosophical subjects, his aim was to offer his mother country the best work ‘che il cielo donò ad altri paesi’ (Smith 1790, Preface: iv). By doing so, he emphasized that he had translated in a simple and clear style suitable for such serious subjects; and, he had rendered

272  Cristina Guccione some English commonplace expressions that, if transferred literally into Italian, would become hard and unintelligible, as much as possible closer to the taste of the Italian readers (Smith 1790, Preface: iv). This first Italian version of the WN was also the ‘result of wide knowledge of the original and the French editions of this work’ (Gioli [1972] 2003: 154). As a matter of fact, the translator himself quotes the several existing translations all over Europe and refers to some French considerations on Smith’s work, highlighting that although French intellectuals have always been ‘scarsi lodatori’ of the English world, they have already recognized Smith’s superiority of wit appreciating his clarity, organization and knowledge in dealing with the most important economic matters (Smith 1790, Preface: iii). The second Italian translation of Smith’s WN came out in 1851 as part of La Biblioteca dell’Economista (BE), a first collection of about 150 economic treatises translated from modern languages into Italian between 1851 and 1922, to carry out the ambitious project of its well-​known publisher Giuseppe Pomba, inspired by the current Parisian Collections des principaux economists published between 1840 and 1848 by Guillaumin (Augello and Guidi 2007; Barucci 2009; Faucci 2014; Guccione 2011, 2014). Smith’s masterpiece was included in the first series of the BE among the so titled Trattati complessivi with other nineteen works by British and American economists. As happens for most of the BE translations, a four-​page note introduced Smith’s Ricerche sopra la natura e le cause della ricchezza delle nazioni providing interesting information on the source-​texts and the other translations consulted to obtain the best target-​text possible. Entitled ‘Avvertimento per la presente edizione’, Francesco Ferrara’s7 introduction quotes the famous English version commented on by McCulloch (Smith 1828) as the main source-​text consulted.The French translations by Blavet (Smith 1781) and Roucher (Smith 1792) are quoted as reference texts, although the more accurate translation by Garnier (Smith 1843) is referred to as the main tool of comparison. Ferrara’s note also reveals the particular attention paid to the relationship between the translator and the reader as shown by the following passage: La mano intelligente che l’ha eseguita e la cura che ha messo a confrontarla con le antecedenti traduzioni, ci fan lusingare di aver reso alla gioventù italiana un servigio di cui si faceva tanto più vivo il bisogno, quanto più con l’andare del tempo è cresciuta la fama di Smith, e cresciuto il bisogno di studiare la sua grande opera. (Smith 1851, Intro: LXXII) The BE Avvertimento to Smith’s work and the translation itself show that the rendering from English into Italian was conceived as a means or –​using Ferrara’s words –​as a ‘service’ to initiate the young into mastering economics. On the basis of these assumptions, the following section compares Smith’s Chapter II, Book I of the WN (Smith 1776) and the above-​mentioned first Italian translations. Comparison also takes into consideration the French versions of the WN that scholars or translators have indicated as foreign

Economics terms from Scotland to Italy  273 reference target-​texts. The analysis has had three aims: identifying the source-​ text, detecting to what extent translators made themselves visible or invisible in their target-​text (Venuti 1995) and highlighting the Italian rendering of the Scottish economist’s vocabulary, focusing mainly on some key words such as labour, contract, produce, self-​love and own interest.

Ricerche sulla Natura e le Cagioni della Ricchezza delle Nazioni (Napoli 1790) The historian of economic thought Gabriella Gioli (1972) has labelled the first Italian anonymous translation, Ricerche sulla Natura e le Cagioni della Ricchezza delle Nazioni (Smith 1790), as a false edition, because according to her study the source-​text was Blavet’s French translation and not the English one as the translator himself had stated in his introduction. Comparison between some extracts of Smith’s Chapter II, Book I, with the 1790 Italian translation and Blavet’s French version has revealed that Blavet (Smith (1786 [1779–​1780]) respected the syntactic organization of the source-​ text without any considerable domestication. The Neapolitan translator did substantially the same, although he sometimes thought it necessary to make himself visible to the reader. An example is given by the first paragraph of Chapter II, when Smith defines the division of labour as ‘the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another’8 (Smith 1776, I.ii.17). On this occasion, the Italian translator did not reproduce the above-​ mentioned Smith’s affirmative statement, that Blavet had respected in ‘Elle est la suite nécessaire, quoique lente & graduelle, d’un certain penchant dans la nature humaine’ (Smith 1786 [1779–​1780], I.ii.24). He preferred to introduce the adversative conjunction ‘ma’ and he explicated the concept by the conjunctive clause ‘vò dire’ when referring to the human propensity to truck, barter and exchange: Questa divisione del travaglio, d’onde si ricava tanto vantaggio, nella sua origine non è effetto della saviezza umana, la quale prevegga, e si proponga per iscopo l’opulenza universale, che ne risulta. Ma è la conseguenza necessaria, sebben lenta, e graduale, di una certa inclinazione della natura umana, la quale riguardo all’utilità non vede tanto di lontano, vò dire, l’inclinazione di far baratto, di rivendere, e di permutare una cosa per un’altra. (Smith 1790, I.ii.17–​8) In other parts, such as in the important passage in which Smith explains the behaviour of greyhounds to introduce similar but different elements in human life It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two

274  Cristina Guccione greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. (Smith 1776, I.ii.17, emphases added) The Italian translator followed Blavet’s rendering of Smith’s allegory. In detail, the French translator introduced the reference to what men can believe looking at the two greyhounds by translating ‘a voir deux levriers courir le même lievre, on seroit quelquefois tenté de croire qu’il y a quelque concert entr’eux’ (Smith 1786 [1779–​ 1780], I.ii.25); and, the Italian translator mirrored the French version writing ‘nel vedere due veltri9 correre dietro alla stessa lepre, saremmo qualche volta tentati a credere, che vi fusse qualche accordo tra loro’ (Smith 1790, I.ii.18). The only addition he made in the first part of Smith’s sentence was the subject ‘una tale inclinazione’ (this propensity) instead of leaving the WN anaphoric pronoun ‘It is common to all men’ as Blavet had made with ‘Il est commun à tous les hommes’. On this occasion, the Italian translator’s repetition can be considered a stylistic tool to attract the reader’s attention on the key word inclinazione (propensity). The tendency to follow Blavet’s translation is more evident when the anonymous translator deals with the core terminology of Smith’s work from English into Italian. Division of labour, for example, translated by Blavet with division du travail (Smith 1786 [1779–​1780], I.ii.24), is similarly rendered in Italian by divisione del travaglio. On this occasion, the Italian term travaglio (Fr. Travail, Lat. Tripaliare) was to suggest hard and material labour considered different from a lighter, less tiring type of work usually labelled by the Italian term lavoro. This consideration can be confirmed looking at the well-​known French and English monolingual dictionaries on trade vocabulary of that time: the French Dictionnaire Universel de Commerce (1742 [1723]) by Jacques Savary des Brulons (1657–​1716) and, its translation and adaptation for British readers The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (1774 [1751–​1755]) by Malachy Postlethwayt (1707–​1767).10 As a matter of fact, their entries, under the headwords TRAVAIL and LABOUR, referred to the ‘material work’ affecting trade. In detail, Savary defined TRAVAIL as the ‘occupation, application à quelque exercise, métier on ouvrage’, highlighting the material effort by introducing the following example on the craftsman work ‘On dit qu’un ouvrier, un artisan, est d’un grand travail, pour dire, qu’il souffre dans peine une longue application à l’ouvrage de sa profession’ (Savary 1742 [1723], under T RAVA I L ). On the other hand, Postlethwayt defined LABOUR as ‘the price of the produce of land, and all the commodities which depend upon the mechanical and manufactural arts affecting trade in general’ (Postlethwayt 1774 [1751–​1755], under L A BO UR )11. With regard to terminology in the 1790 translation, it is also interesting to underline the rendering of Smith’s contract with the corresponding Italian contratto as Blavet’s contrat, in expressions like ‘other species of contracts’ (Smith 1776, I.ii.17) or ‘the effect of any contract’ (Smith 1776, I.ii.17) that were translated, respectively, ‘espece de contrats’ and ‘l’effet d’un contrat’ into French as well as ‘specie di contratti’ e ‘l’effetto di un contratto’ into Italian.

Economics terms from Scotland to Italy  275 Taking into consideration the entry of contratto in the historical dictionary of ancient Italian (TLIO),12 it confirms that the Italian term contratto has always carried with it a legal sense, and this appears clearer just reading the TLIO’s first definition: ‘[Dir.] Atto con il quale due o più persone si impegnano ad agire in un certo modo, accordo, patto’ (TLIO, under C O N T R AT TO ). On the other hand, the English term contract has not the same meaning if used in Civil Law contexts. The English contract is a voluntary obligation that does not involve only the obligatory contract, but also a unilateral act, that is, the promise causing an obligation without the need for acceptance (De Franchis 1984, under C O N T R AC T ). In Savary’s Dictionnaire, the headword CONTRAT is in general defined as un consentement de deux ou de plusieurs personnes, qui s’obligent, ou qui promettent de leur bon gré de faire quelque chose, ou de payer une somme. Il se dit aussi de l’instrument par écrit, qui sert de preuve consentement prêté, & de l’obligation passée par les Parties. (1742 [1723], under C O N T R AT ) On the other hand, Postlethwayt (1774 [1751–​1755]) did not list the headword CONTRACT, but he referred to the different implications of this term under the verb TO AGREE defined as follows: ‘in French commerce, is to approve, ratify, or confirm, a contract for delay of payment. They say, by way of proverb, that the debtor must either pay or ratify; that is, a debtor ought to satisfy his creditor, either with money, or with good words’ (Postlethwayt 1774 [1751–​1755], under TO AGR EE ). We can conclude that the Neapolitan translator disregarded the difference in meaning between the two terms, presumably relying on Blavet’s French rendering of the English term contract. Similarly, Smith’s phrases like ‘all that surplus part of the produce of his own labour’ or ‘such parts of the produce of other men’s labour’ (Smith 1776, I.ii.19), which in Blavet’s French version are rendered by ‘le surplus de son travail’ and ‘la portion du produit du travail’, were translated into Italian with ‘il superfluo del prodotto del proprio travaglio’ and ‘una porzione del travaglio altrui’, by translating Smith’s produce with prodotto and porzione, respectively. Blavet’s terminological choices are again followed with regard to terms such as self-​love and own interest by providing literal equivalents from French like amor proprio and interesse personale on the basis of Blavet’s amour-​propre and intérêt personnel. Or, once again, when the anonymous translator renders Smith’s tautology ‘accommodation and conveniency’ (of the species) with ben essere della specie following Blavet’s translation bien-​être de l’espèce. In conclusion, from a stylistic standpoint, the comparison between source-​ text and target-​texts of Chapter II has shown that the Neapolitan translator used Blavet’s translation as the main tool of comparison. From the terminological standpoint, he undoubtedly followed Blavet’s terminological choices, by translating some terms with apparently English-​Italian equivalents, disregarding the cultural implications across languages. He also, most likely, considered the

276  Cristina Guccione French language as the linguistic bridge of lexical innovation in processing translation from modern languages.13

Ricerche sopra la Natura e le Cause della Ricchezza delle Nazioni (Torino 1851) With regard to the same passages of Chapter II, Book I and its terminology, we can find more accuracy in Francesco Ferrara’s translation. His attention to technical terms was certainly due to the goal pursued by the Biblioteca dell’Economista. Ferrara’s translations aimed at fostering the study of the science of economics in his politically young country, in which governors and governed, who were tackling the new political reality, lacked a basic education of economics (Guccione 2014: 106). So the BE represented an early example of specialized translation when economics was becoming a science and its language was developing all over the western world. The didactic purpose of the BE is clear in most introducing notes to translations edited by Ferrara himself, in which he also recommended precision in the use of terms and assured his readers that he had always aimed at translating texts into Italian as faithfully as possible, unless a literal translation would make the original author’s considerations unclear. Introductions, often, reveal that Ferrara used to translate from the most authoritative original editions of each English text, but he used to compare them with French translations (if they existed). Nevertheless, in analysing the first extract of Chapter II, Book I, Ferrara seems to follow Garnier’s translation even in the grammar structure of the text. He, for example, avoided translating the emphasizing adverbs ‘so’ in Smith’s ‘so many advantages’ and ‘very’ in ‘very slow and gradual consequence’: Questa divisione del lavoro da cui “tanti vantaggi” sono derivati, non è originalmente l’effetto dell’umana saggezza che prevede e prende di mira quella generale opulenza che ne è cagionata, ella è la necessaria conseguenza, “avvegnachè lenta e graduale”, d’una certa tendenza dell’umana natura, la quale non ha in vista quella estesa utilità, la tendenza a trafficare, barattare e cambiare una cosa con un’altra. (Smith 1851: 10, emphases added) Besides the literal translation of Smith’s text, the aforementioned passage also reveals that the rendering of terminology was what made a real difference between the 1790 and the 1851 translations. The expression division of labour, translated with division du travail by Garnier, is rendered by divisione del lavoro in the BE avoiding the use of the French borrowing travaglio found in the 1790 translation. This choice was mainly due to Ferrara’s considerations on distinguishing the meaning between the Italian terms travaglio and lavoro in everyday language and in economics. In general Italian, Ferrara recognized the meaning ‘hard, painful and material’ work for the word travaglio, and ‘a lighter, less tiring type of work’ for lavoro.14 On the contrary, in the language of economics, Ferrara thought that it was a lack of precision to distinguish between

Economics terms from Scotland to Italy  277 different kinds of labour and it was better to use only one term, lavoro, referring to both concepts. His opinion is confirmed in the entries under TRAVAGLIO and LAVORO given by the well-​known Vocabolario della Lingua Italiana of Tommaseo and Bellini (1977 [1865]), to which Ferrara and his friends contributed terms of law, philosophy and economics (Guccione 2011: 373). In Tommaseo’s lexicographical work, the term TRAVAGLIO is a French borrowing meaning a type of labour that is ‘faticoso e penoso’ (hard and painful), while the headword LAVORO is defined as ‘work done, that one does or to be done, both material and spiritual’ (Tommaseo 1977 [1861–​1879], under T RAVAG L I O and L AVO RO , emphases added). Considering the second extract in which the term contract appears, it is clearer the tendency of the BE translator to choose Italian terms of wider and more general meaning, which can be linguistically classified as hypernyms. Smith’s expressions ‘any other species of contracts’ and ‘not the effect of any contract’ rendered by Garnier with ‘ce genre de contrat’ and ‘ce n’est toutefois l’effet d’aucune convention’ (Smith 1843) are replaced with ‘né altra specie di convenzioni’ and ‘non è l’effetto di alcuna convenzione’ in Italian. In both cases, Ferrara uses the hypernym convenzione that does not refer to legal obligations, and avoids including the juridical connotation of the Italian contratto. As a matter of fact, looking at the headwords CONTRATTO and CONVENZIONE in Tommaseo’s vocabulary (1977 [1861–​1879]), CONTRATTO is defined as ‘una convenzione per cui una o più persone si obbligano verso una o più a dare, a fare o a non fare, qualche cosa’; while under the term CONVENZIONE, considered a way through which people agree without necessarily achieving a binding agreement, the definition given is ‘azione del convenire più pers. accordandosi in cosa alquanto importante, per contrarre, estinguere o variare qualche obbligo. Obbliga da ambe le parti. […] La convenzione precede all’accordo; non sempre questo succede a quella’ (Tommaseo 1977 [1861–​1879], under C ONVENZI O N E ). The unique case in which the BE translator believes it useful to introduce the Italian term contratto is when he translates bargain, when Smith discusses the causes of the division of labour in the sentence: ‘Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want…’ (Smith 1776, I.ii.18). Garnier had translated bargain with un marché15 that Savary describes in general as ‘un traité par le moyen duquel on échange, on troque, on achéte quelche chose, ou l’on fait quelque acte de Commerce’ (Savary 1742 [1723], under M A R C H È’ [ entry 1] ) and in detail as a term used among traders to mean ‘des conventions qu’ils font les une avec les autres, soit pour fournitures, achats ou trocs de marchandises sur un certain pié, ou moyennant une certain somme’ (Savary 1742 [1723], under M A R C H È [ entry 2] ). On the other hand, interesting information about the meaning of bargain in the eighteenth-​century English can be found by looking up it in Postlethwayt’s Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce. On this occasion, Postlethwayt lists BARGAIN twice, adding even some ‘remarks’. In both entries, the lexicographer refers to it as a contract or agreement, but it is the second meaning that is more interesting for the aim of this study, in which BARGAIN is defined as

278  Cristina Guccione also a contract, or agreement, to give a certain merchandize for a certain price; whereas the French call it contract de vente, a contract of sale. So that there are three things chiefly requisite to make a bargain complete, or perfect. 1. The merchandize sold. 2. The price. 3. The mutual agreement, or consent. (Postlethwayt 1774 [1751–​1755], under BA R G A I N [entry 2]) Consequently, translating bargain with contratto the BE translator referred to the ‘contratto di compra e vendita; [che] comprende le relazioni del patto reciproco’, which Tommaseo’s dictionary (1977 [1861–​1879]) defines under the headword VENDITA – ​ a concept that is today expressed, even in the Italian translation of Smith’s WN, with transazione (Smith 2001: 92). At that time, the latter –​nowadays expressed as ‘(econ.) [operazione commerciale]=​affare, compravendita’ (Treccani online, under T RA N SA Z I O N E ) –​had a meaning closer to conciliation that is ‘termine legale, vale Trattato o Composizione, fatta tra i contendenti, i quali rimettono ciascuno qualche sua pretensione per is fuggir lite, per terminarla d’accordo […]’ (Tommaseo 1977 [1861–​1879], under T RA N SA Z I O N E ). With regard to other terms, such as Smith’s self-​love and own interest Ferrara translated them with the Italian literal equivalents amor proprio and proprio interesse as Blavet had translated them with amour-​propre and intérêt personnel. He disregarded Garnier’s rendering of self-​love and own interest with intérêt personnel and égoïsme. In this regard, economic historians, such as Tribe (2015: 199) and mainly Force (2006) have carried out interesting considerations on Garnier’s choice of words (intérêt personnel and égoïsme) by analysing the history and the distinct connotations referred to ‘amour-​propre’ and ‘intérêt personnel’ during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Finally, Smith’s phrases like ‘all that surplus part of the produce of his own labour’ or ‘such parts of the produce of other men’s labour’ (Smith 1776, I.ii.19) were translated as ‘la rimanente parte del prodotto del suo proprio lavoro’ and ‘parti ugualmente rimanenti del prodotto del lavoro degli altri’, while Garnier translated ‘tout le produit de son travail, qui excède sa propre consommation’ and ‘un pareil surplus du produit du travail des autres’. So, in the BE translation the noun produce is rendered by prodotto, and it is interesting to underline as the English adjective surplus is rendered by the periphrasis ‘la rimanente parte’, avoiding the 1790 negative connotation of the Italian noun ‘superfluo’, nowadays referring to something that is in excess and for this reason without advantage or not useful (Treccani online, under S U R P LU S )16

Conclusive remarks In his edition of Smith’s works, McCulloch (Smith 1828, Intro: XXVIII–​XXIX) quoted an article by Sir James Mackintosh, who had listed Smith among those men of science –​Grotious, Locke and Montesquie –​whose works had greatly influenced the general culture of Europe in the centuries following their publication. In considering the great value of their works, Sir Mackintosh refers to

Economics terms from Scotland to Italy  279 the authors’ use of technical terms and he highlights some features of their style that, in his conclusion, facilitated the spreading and knowledge of their theories. He writes: None of them are happy in the choice, or constant in the use, of technical terms; and in none do we find much of that rigorous precision which is the first beauty of philosophical language. Grotius and Montesquieu were imitators of Tacitus, the first with more gravity –​the second with more vivacity; but both were tempted to forsake the simple diction of science, in pursuit of the poignant brevity which that great historian has carried to a vicious excess. Locke and Smith chose an easy, clear and free, but somewhat loose and verbose, style –​more concise in Locke –​more elegant in Smith, in both exempt from pedantry, but not void of ambiguity and repetition. Perhaps all these apparent defects contributed in some degree to the specific usefulness of these great works; and, by rendering their contents more accessible and acceptable to the majority of readers, have more completely blended their principles with the common opinions of mankind. (Smith 1828, Intro: XXVIII-​XXIX)17 Beyond Smith’s style and the great fame that his considerations were to be achieved in the centuries following the first publication of his masterpiece, the WN has been recognized as the most translated economics book of its time, fostering significantly the spreading of philosophical and economic discourse in different languages during and after the Enlightenment. Nevertheless, without doubt Smith’s translated works allowed the English language to develop as source language internationally. Meanwhile, several debates arose on the right use of economics terms, which needed to refer to single and well-​accredited concepts. Economic historians also agree that Smith’s ideas became largely known due to the efforts of translators and commentators (Tribe and Mizuta 2002). In particular, they recognize Jean Baptiste Say’s commentary and interpretation of Garnier’s translation (Smith 1843) as the most available guides to Smith’s WN. Thus, not only was French the lifelong language of choice for intellectual exchange and the vehicular language par excellence of Smith’s theories all over Europe, but also it was the most influential reference language introducing new economic concepts and terminology in other modern European languages. As occurred in other European countries the first Italian translation of Smith’s WN (Smith 1790) represented an important event, which showed the participation of the Neapolitan intellectuals in Scottish Enlightenment debates. On the other hand, the second translation (Smith 1851), coming out many years later in a different political environment, was particularly important for the educational goal and the major accuracy in finding translation equivalence by his editor and translator. Comparison between the two Italian translations of Chapter II, Book I of the WN has not given evidence of a peculiar use of language by a translator

280  Cristina Guccione in comparison with others. Presumably, it was due to the plain style of Smith’s work that undoubtedly made it easier to transfer syntactic structures from English into Italian. Moreover, from a stylistic standpoint both the anonymous translator and the BE translator certainly followed the previous French translations (mainly by Blavet and Garnier) as texts of reference. As a matter of fact, taking into consideration the French translations quoted by scholars or the Italian translators themselves (in their prefaces to translations) and focusing on terminology, after consulting some lexicographical sources of that time, it is possible to highlight that the anonymous translation (Smith 1790) rendered Smith’s terminology by mirroring Blavet’s terminology, even when there was no direct equivalence between English and Italian terms. Otherwise, the BE translation (Smith 1851) showed more accuracy in translating terms privileging the use of hypernyms and so revealing, in most cases, more attention to the semantic and cultural implications of names and definitions across languages. Presumably, the Neapolitan translator was likely interested in spreading Smith’s ideas (the already well-​known author of the TMS) in the Neapolitan intellectual environment quickly, so he found it easier to rely on Blavet’s French translation rather than find the right translation equivalence between English and Italian. On the other hand, the BE translator and ‘the intelligent hand’ which carried out Smith’s translation addressed their work to non-​specialist readers who needed to master their knowledge in the field of economics and, for this reason, the BE editor considered it important to pay attention to the naming of new concepts promoting directly and indirectly the development of the language of economics in the Italian idiom. Research has finally shown, on this occasion, that the French language, thanks to the scientific reputation of numerous French scholars, influenced the development of the Italian economics language through translation.

Notes 1 As guides to the current studies on Smith, see Haakonssen (2006), Young (2009), Berry, and Paganelli and Craig (2013). 2 Edwin Cannan (1861–​ 1935), economist and historian of economic thought, collected the first five editions of the WN. After analysing their differences, he wrote interesting introductory remarks on the several editions in his Preface (Cannan 1904). 3 See Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations: traductions françaises parallèles 1778/​1802. Available online: www.taieb.net/​aute​urs/​Selfl​ove/​RdN.html (last access December 2018). 4 For an overview on the history of economics language, see Rainer (2017). 5 In a letter to Blavet of 1782, Smith also referred to another translation by the comte du Nort, but for which no manuscript has ever been found. 6 For further information on the reception of WN translations in France, see Faccarello Steiner (2002: 14–​26); see Carpenter (1995) to read the several reviews on translations and the following debates.

Economics terms from Scotland to Italy  281 7 Francesco Ferrara (Palermo 1810 –​Venice 1900) was an Italian economist and politician under whose leadership the first series of La Biblioteca degli Economisti was launched and edited from 1851 to 1868. See Asso and Simon (2012). 8 The edition of Smith’s WN (1776) used to compare source-​text and target-​ texts is the one available on the Panthéon-​Sorbonne University website, An Inquiry into the Nature of the Wealth of Nations, London, Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell in the Strand, www.taieb.net/​aute​urs/​Selfl​ove/​RdN.html (last access December 2018). 9 It is interesting to highlight that, in ancient Italian, the noun veltro (from French vautre; Lat. vertragus), which referred to dogs for tracking (current synonym the French loanword ‘levriero’), had a metaphorical connotation deriving from Dante’s literary use and later occurring in Foscolo (1778–​1827) and Carducci (1835–​1907). Metaphorically, veltri represent those dogs that, combining strength with speed in running, drive the hunting of the prey (usually hares) re-​establishing order and justice against greed and avarice (Treccani online, under V ELTRO ). 10 The two dictionaries have been chosen as the main sources for this discussion since historians consider Savary’s Dictionnaire universal de commerce the principal early lexicographical work in the area of trade. The alphabetical order of its headwords represented a novelty in the field of economics, allowing non-​specialist readers to acquire information on different topics quickly (van de Berg 2017); Postlethwayt’s Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce was considered one of the most complete eighteenth-​century works on trade in the English language and recently ‘the key text of English commercial knowledge from the mid eighteenth century’ (Holdsworth 2016:142). Also, on 25 March 1767, Adam Smith, who was working on his WN, mentioned Postlethwayt’s Dictionary in thanking his publisher Cadell for providing him with the book and Anderson’s History of Commerce (Cannan [1895]; van den Berg 2017: 1168). Both works are listed in Smith’s library (Mizuta 2000). For a detailed and interesting discussion on Postlethwayt’s Dictionary, see van den Berg (2017). 11 For a detailed discussion under a lexicographic perspective on some lexemes, such as labour, commerce or manufacturers concerning the English term ‘wealth’ and its conceptual/​lexical representation in the second half of the eighteenth century, see Lonati (2012). 12 TLIO -​ Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini, http://​tlio.ovi.cnr.it/​TLIO/​ (last access December 2018). 13 On the reception of Smith’s translated Wealth of Nations in France and on how early translations were evaluated at that time, see Faccarello and Steiner (2002). On the historical role of the European languages in the field of business and economics, see Rainer (2017). 14 With regard to the terms travaglio and lavoro in Ferrara, Faucci (2014: 103) writes: ‘Ferrara’s vision was one in which everyone toils [travaglia] both in producing and in consuming. In either case, each of us undergoes pain in order to obtain a pleasure; even the very act of eating requires some pain in order to satisfy hunger. Nor does opposition exist between labour and utility; travaglio, in Ferrara’s approach, represents any sacrifice of utility that is accepted for the sake of obtaining another (greater utility), and labour employed for productive purposes is but a special case of transformation of given utilities into other utilities’. 15 Blavet translated bargain with un marché. The Napolitean translator rendered it with contratto.

282  Cristina Guccione 16 The noun‘surplus’ entered the Italian language from French, maintaning its original spelling and pronunciation . It is labelled as less common than the Italian synonym sovrappiù. It is today recognized as a more technical term and defined as ‘eccesso di crediti sui debiti nella bilancia dei pagamenti, cioè saldo attivo’ (Treccani online, under S U R P L U S ). Meanwhile, the OED refers to Marx’s surplus value defined as ‘that part of the value of the results of human labour which accrues beyond the amount needed to reproduce the initial labour power’ (the surplus produce of man’s labour). (OED, under S U R P L U S ) 17 According to McCuloch quotation the article is ascribed to Sir James Mackintosh (1765–​1832), Mr. Stewart’s View of the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Science, published in the 71st number of the Edinburgh Review.

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Articles

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy A legacy of Adam Smith’s last teachings Lorenzo Garbo

I Introduction The path toward wisdom introduced by Adam Smith in the sixth edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) has been described as Smith’s response to the moral failure of social mirroring at a time in which the taste for luxury turned contagious and opportunities for socioeconomic mobility developed throughout the country (McKendrick, 1982; Dickey, 1986; Garbo, 2016). In a society increasingly obsessed with image, the propriety of one’s conduct and character could not be effectively ascertained by other-​approbation, and most of the references to “society as a mirror” used by Smith in the first edition of TMS (1759) were in fact dropped in the 1790 edition. Individuals interested in living wisely had to learn to juxtapose to social approbation their own “natural sense of merit and propriety,” and recognize the voice of the “demigod” within the breast (Smith, [1790] 1976, VI.iii.25, p. 247) as the ultimate judge of whether and when each of their “senses, passions, and appetites” was to be either “indulged or restrained” (Smith, [1790] 1976, III.5.6, p. 165). The “bustle and business of the world” (Smith, [1790] 1976, III.3.25 p. 146) and “hardships, dangers, injuries, misfortunes” (Smith, [1790] 1976, III.3.36 p. 153) provided unlimited opportunities for self-​examination, and the “great school of self-​ command” (Smith, [1790] 1976, III.3.25 p. 146) became the space for a dialectical process capable of transforming individual dependence on social praise into a dialogue between materialistic concerns and conscience.1 This paper builds on the analysis of Smith’s dialectical wisdom contained in Garbo (2016), and follows a hint provided by Laurence Dickey (1986, p. 599) who, by interpreting the figure of the “wise man” of the 1790 edition of TMS as “a metaphor for a moral and/​or cultural elite,” suggests continuity of Smith’s last teachings in the idea of clerisy first alluded to by S.T. Coleridge in the Second Lay Sermon of 1817. The paper focuses on Thomas Chalmers (1748–​1847) and offers an interpretation of the clerisies of deacons, elders, and “visitors” he envisioned and established in the first decades of the nineteenth century as an example of continuity and development of Smith’s late moral concerns. The characterization of the man on the path to wisdom introduced by Smith in the sixth edition of TMS provides the starting point of the present DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-19

288  Lorenzo Garbo inquiry.This is the “man of real constancy and firmness,” the man of conscience, whose moral judgment of his own character and conduct reflects a consistent engagement of the “awful and respectable judge” who lives within his breast. He “almost identifies himself with, ... almost becomes himself that impartial spectator, and scarce even feels but as the great arbiter of his conduct directs him to feel” (Smith, [1790] 1976, III.3.25, 26, pp. 146–​147). This “imaginary and idealized Impartial Spectator” arises as the product of a gradual, internal process of averaging and then abstracting from judgments of actual spectators encountered in the course of one’s life, and becomes “one’s conscience” (Otteson, 2011, p. 95). Thus, in order for conscience to arise and wisdom to deepen, an individual must hear and pay attention to the voice within, so that he may “endeavor[s]‌as well as he can, to assimilate his own character to this archetype of perfection, imitating the work of a divine artist which can never be equalled” (Smith, [1790] 1776,VI.iii.25, p. 247).2 Smith himself became increasingly skeptical about the individual ability to hear and abide by this internal voice (Smith, [1790] 1976, VI.ii.1.20 p. 226); it must have seemed even more unlikely that ordinary individuals could independently maintain moral autonomy vis-​à-​vis the utilitarian, opportunistic culture and the socioeconomic ruptures of early nineteenth-​century Britain. In addition, the increased social class segregation that occurred with the industrial revolution homogenized the moral feedback one would be exposed to in the course of ordinary life, thus reducing, especially for the poorest segments of the population, the opportunity to develop that generalized perspective which is at the basis of the formation of conscience. In a discussion of the individual and social implications of the standard of “exact propriety and perfection” introduced by Smith in the last revisions to TMS (Smith, [1790] 1776,VI.iii.23, p. 247), Dickey expresses this concern too clearly not to quote the brief passage in full: Toward the end of the 1780s, Smith was becoming increasingly alarmed by what Hirsch has called ‘the depleting moral legacy’ of commercial society. Smith’s new concern, I think, derived from the perception that for a commercial society to function properly-​-​in a ‘civilized’ way-​-​it would have to maintain a high degree of collective vigilance and ‘propriety’ with regard to its morality.The problem, of course, was that the actual interplay between commercial and moral values in society was tilting the balance between the two toward the pursuit of the former at the expense of the latter. (Dickey, 1986, pp. 608–​609; italics in original) As materialistic strategies increasingly pervaded all aspects of life, the “overbalance of the commercial spirit” found nothing but “absence or weakness of the counter-​weights” (S.T. Coleridge, [1817] 1972, p. 169). In order to be heard in the midst of such materialistic clamor, the voice of conscience had to become proportionally louder, to be externalized and socialized. The “excess” of the “commercial spirit,” as Coleridge put it, could “only be remedied” by the

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  289 influence of an equally external and sufficiently loud moral voice unadulterated by the logic of the market, that is, by a clerisy (S.T. Coleridge, [1817] 1972, p. 169).3 The idea of clerisy was first alluded to by Coleridge in the Second Lay Sermon of 1817, and then fully spelled out in On the Constitution of Church and State ([1830] 1976, p. 46): The clerisy of the nation, or national church in its primary acceptation and original intention comprehended the learned of all denominations-​-​ the sages and professors of ... all the so called liberal arts and sciences, the possession and application of which constitute the civilization of a country, as well as the Theological. The clerisy was seen as able to counteract the “excess in our attachment to temporal or personal objects” with “a pre-​occupation of the intellect and the affections with permanent, universal, and eternal truths” (S.T. Coleridge, [1817] 1972, p.173; see also the letter by S.T. Coleridge dated 10 April 1832, in H.N. Coleridge, 1917, p. 164). It was envisioned as a non-​coercive, institutionalized body tasked with awakening, engaging, and supporting the moral capacity of the ordinary person, thus exercising a “last-​ditch defence of an idea of wisdom” based on the dialectical engagement of the moral and spiritual nature of man in the face of materialist determinism (Knights, 1978, p. 13). This idea of wisdom as search for social harmony between two magnetic poles (the commercial and the moral-​spiritual) mirrors Smith’s last teachings on wisdom, where the tension between “wish[ing] to appear to be fit for society” and “be[ing] really fit” (Smith, [1790] 1976, III.2.7, p. 117), between love of praise and love of praiseworthiness, was positively dealt with by the individual willingness and ability to harmonize antagonistic and recurrent pressures arising from external and internal feedback, a process that would take place at the “great school of self-​command.” The precondition of such process is that the voice within be actually heard and paid attention to; the function assigned to a clerisy is precisely the fulfillment of this precondition. The idea of clerisy took a variety of forms in the first half of the nineteenth century. Among them, S.T. Coleridge’s national church, Thomas Carlyle’s literary guild, Matthew Arnold’s saving remnant, and John Stuart Mill’s clerisy of educators have received the greatest scholarly acknowledgment and scrutiny. Yet, the need for a clerisy was more widely felt than these four examples may suggest. It was the response of a subset of the British philosophic and religious class to a “deeply rooted dread of personal disintegration on the face of uncontrollable forces,” and to the conviction that “the clerisy was to do for society something that society, unaided, could not do for itself ” (Knights, 1978, pp. 16 and 8). A number of intellectuals, possibly also influenced by German idealism, took upon themselves the duty of antagonizing the progressive moral and spiritual degradation of the commercial society, thus keeping alive the dialectical tension between the noumenal and phenomenal realms of existence (see

290  Lorenzo Garbo Knights, 1978, pp. 18–​36).4 The method, to say it with Carlyle, was to utilize “whatever speaks to the immortal part of men” (quoted in Knights, 1978, p. 7). All models of clerisy, therefore, inevitably contained some degree of overlap between secular intents (the pursuit of the social and moral health of the commercial society) and pastoral functions (as mediation between the materialistic and the spiritual aspects of human experience).5 This paper focuses on the Scottish intellectual and theologian Thomas Chalmers (1780–​1847), whose extensive writings manifest a concern for the moral and spiritual health and sustainability of the liberal society altogether aligned with the better-​known advocates of a secular clerisy, and who devoted much of his life to awaken the dormant conscience of ordinary people –​the voice of the most idealized level of Smith’s impartial spectator –​with a Christian clerisy.6 Described by Wilson and Dixon (2004, p. 121) as a “disciple” of Adam Smith, especially the Smith of the latest TMS, Chalmers was, according to Hilton (1985, p.142), the most “complete exponent” of that form of liberal political economy that had its philosophical basis in the “notion of economic conscience.”7 A review of his collection of writings, discourses, and depositions; interpretations of his work by Hilton (1985, 1988), Rice (1971, 1979), Searle (1998), Waterman (1983, 1991, 2002, 2006), and Wilson and Dixon (2004, 2010); and biographies of him by Hanna (1849), Blaikie (1896), and Brown (1982) reveal a doctrine of conscience and formation of character altogether similar to the Smithian path toward wisdom, where the role assigned by Smith to the idealized impartial spectator –​the demigod within the breast, conscience –​is awakened, energized, and mediated by a clerisy of Christian educators. Chalmers’ evangelical orientation and the “eminently practical character of his mind” (Rice, 1971, p. 45) led him to maintain that “human nature is endowed with conscience which, if properly appealed to, possesses the capacity of bringing the religious inquirer into a confrontation with his manifold deficiencies” (Rice, 1979, pp. 185–​186; italics: added). Once awakened, people’s “own consciousness,” Chalmers wrote, will tell how short, nay how contrary they are, from the standard and rule of their own consciences; and by their disobedience to the voice of the monitor within, will they estimate the measure of their disobedience to the counterpart voice of the Divinity above them. (Chalmers, 1949,Vol. I, p. 151) First, however, conscience had to be “appealed to” in those individuals who appeared deaf to its voice, and Chalmers charged his lay Christian clerisy with such task. Once attention is directed toward the “monitor within” and the internal dialogue between the voice within and external stimuli is encouraged, the individual may enter the dialectical path toward “exact propriety and perfection” (Smith, [1790] 1976, VI.iii.23, p. 247). The inner transformation foreseen by Chalmers is the evangelical translation of the impact Smith assigns to the “slow, gradual, progressive work of the great demigod within the breast, the

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  291 great judge and arbiter of conduct” on one’s conscience (Smith, [1790] 1976, VI.iii.25, pp. 247).8 In Smith’s words: The wise and virtuous man directs his principal attention to ... the idea of exact propriety and perfection. . . . Every day some feature is improved; every day some blemish is corrected. . . . He endeavors as well as he can, to assimilate his character to this archetype of perfection. But he imitates the work of a divine artist, which can never be equalled. He feels the imperfect success of all his best endeavors, and sees, with grief and affliction, in how many different features the mortal copy falls short of the immortal original. He remembers, with concern and humiliation, how often, from want of attention, from want of judgment, from want of temper, he has, both in words and actions, both in conduct and conversation, violated the exact rules of perfect propriety; and has so far departed from that model, according to which he wished to fashion his own character and conduct. (Smith, [1790] 1976,VI.iii.25, pp. 247–​248) The most immediate function of Chalmers’ clerisy is not conversion to Christianity, but the fulfillment of a precondition to Christianization; it is to “make it possible for a man to give his hand to the duties of his secular occupation, and, at the same time, to maintain the sacredness of heart,” to awaken the awareness of the “concrete, distressing qualities of human life,” of “alienation,” that would only then become the “starting point for theological reflection” (Rice, 1979, pp. 183 and 185; Chalmers, [1820] 1836, pp. iii–​v).9 In other words, the fundamentally practical function of the clerisy is to help the individual recognize misleading sympathetic mirroring; avoid confusions between narrow self-​interest and moral alignment; and enter a path towards wisdom that Chalmers calls “the school for nobleness of character” (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, p. 138).10 The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: the next section introduces Thomas Chalmers as a leading member of the Scottish post-​ enlightenment intellectual class and evangelical tradition; the third section develops an argument of continuity between Adam Smith’s last teachings on wisdom and Chalmers’ approach to the development of character; the fourth section explores Chalmers’ idea of, and experiments with, a clerisy; the final section provides some concluding remarks.

II Thomas Chalmers: Evangelical divine rooted in enlightened secularism Thomas Chalmers is rarely included among the leading contributors to the political economic discourse of the turn of the nineteenth century, and yet his character and work greatly illuminate the complexity of the evolution of political economy in Great Britain in the aftermath of Adam Smith’s death. Mostly known in theological circles as a stalwart evangelical preacher dedicated to

292  Lorenzo Garbo the grand scheme of a general Christianization of Scotland and as the leader of the Church of Scotland’s Disruption of 1843, Chalmers produced a vast collection of texts, reports, and sermons attesting to intellectual and political economic interests that were deeply rooted in the secularism of the earlier Scottish enlightenment. Even though he undertook a religious path “from his boyhood” (Blaikie, 1896, p. 10), until about 1814 Chalmers’ pastoral endeavors remained secondary to a passion for the typical enlightenment diet and a desire to embark on an academic career. His earlier studies were mostly dedicated to mathematics, chemistry, moral and natural philosophy, and political economy (Blaikie, 1896, p. 17;Waterman, 2006, pp. 178, 183). He applied for presbytery in 1799, but in the same year also accepted his first academic position in mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. After four years, while holding a full-​time professorship in chemistry at the University of St. Andrews, he was ordained minister at Kilmany, becoming a living example of the highly debated pluralities he then strenuously defended.11 Reserving only weekends for his congregation and the pulpit, his primary intellectual investment was undoubtedly academic and secular. Chalmers’ intellectual and spiritual interests became profoundly intertwined during the second decade of the nineteenth century, after he experienced first-​ hand the power of faith in strengthening one’s ability to face difficulty, disease, and death. Such realization (known as his conversion) brought Chalmers to consider religious education as essential in awakening and empowering conscience and character, and as necessary for the fruitful participation of all individuals in the commercial society (see, for instance, Hilton, 1988, pp. 69, 70).12 Along with the other advocates of a clerisy, he conceived the commercial world as a grand manifestation “of the deceitfulness of that moral complacency with which he [man] looks to his own character, and his own attainments,” (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, p. 77) and he saw deep synergies between commerce and Christianity.13 In his view, the exercise of conscious choice trained the mind to move beyond the materialistic sphere into a space that included other men and minds, setting up a process of adaptation to the external world that relied upon the capacity for sociability that inhabits every human being. This process developed character, and with it a self that was able to act both freely and with integrity, and thus to “nurture and sustain a liberal economic order” (Wilson and Dixon, 2004, p. 130). Chalmers took a stand as a liberal political economist to prove the importance of freeing the “process of political economy” from man-​made interference (Chalmers, 1826, p. 380; Dixon and Wilson, 2010, esp. pp. 724–​727 and 757), so that market stimuli would reach individuals undistorted; and he worked as a theologian to create and inspire a clerisy of Christian educators that would assist humanity in realizing their own moral potential. Christian education and the stimuli provided by the commercial society were both essential and interdependent for the success of Chalmers’ policy agenda, as he succinctly expressed it: “For the economic well-​being of a people, their moral and religious education is the first and greatest object of national policy” (Chalmers, [1832] 1968,

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  293 pp. iv, 420, 436–​437; see also Waterman, 2006, p. 179 and pp. 183–​184; see also Chalmers, [1832] 1856, p. 351).14 In 1825–​1826, while holding a professorship in moral philosophy at St. Andrews, he offered a series of lectures for which he adopted Adam Smith’s WN as the textbook of reference. Chalmers was also well acquainted with all the first six editions of TMS. In the second volume of The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man (1835b, pp. 293–​297) he not only fully quoted three pages from the first edition of TMS, but also lamented that the excerpt (on the idea of revelation) was eliminated in the following editions. While liberal political economists recognized WN as the only mother ship, Chalmers brought forward the complete teachings of Adam Smith, not only in relation to the market, but also to the individual within the market. The next section discusses Chalmers’ approach to the formation of character as an example of continuity and development of Adam Smith’s last teachings on wisdom.

III A follower of Adam Smith’s last teachings on wisdom In the Smithian universe, most individuals rely on their logical abilities to react rationally and independently to external stimuli: these individuals are said to pursue an inferior form of prudence. A few others utilize stimuli to engage in an internal dialogue aimed at deciphering a course of action that is not only logical but also well-​aligned with their conscience –​the idealized, impartial spectator. These are individuals on a path toward a superior form of prudence. These different attitudes toward external stimuli have been studied by David Wilson and William Dixon (2004 and 2010), who traced the engagement of conscience, or lack thereof, in decision-​making to the two different interpretations of Smith’s concept of self that gave rise to the “Adam Smith Problem.” If Adam Smith had only written WN, Wilson and Dixon argue, his concept of self might have been correctly conceived as “a set of interests, passions or preferences” combined with “the capacity to reflect on alternative courses of action” that would best satisfy those drives (Wilson and Dixon, 2004, p. 129). Smith’s concept of the human self however becomes much more complex when the “ready-​made” self of WN is combined with the “always-​already moralized self ” of TMS. (Wilson and Dixon, 2004, p. 130; see also Raphael, 2007, pp. 12–​20; and Norman, 2018, pp. 160–​166). Chalmers is one of the few political economists who inherited and advocated for this more complex, specifically human, concept of self, and Smith’s differentiation between inferior and superior prudence became Chalmers’ distinction between mental endowments that have practical and moral objects. On the two levels of prudence, Smith writes: Prudence, in short, when directed merely to the care of the health, of the fortune, and of the rank and reputation of the individual, though it is regarded as a most respectable and even, in some degree, as an amiable

294  Lorenzo Garbo and agreeable quality, yet it never is considered as one, either of the most endearing, or of the most ennobling of the virtues. It commands a certain cold esteem, but seems not entitled to any very ardent love or admiration. Wise and virtuous conduct, when directed to the greater and nobler purposes than the care of the health, the fortune, the rank and reputation of the individual, is frequently and very properly called prudence. . . . This superior prudence, when carried to the highest degree of perfection, necessarily supposed the art, the talent, and the habit or disposition of acting with the most perfect propriety in every possible circumstance and situation. It necessarily supposes the utmost perfection of all the intellectual and of all the moral virtues. It is the best head joined to the best heart. It is the most perfect wisdom combined with the most perfect virtue. (Smith, [1790], 1976,VI.i.14–​15, p. 216) Similarly, Chalmers distinguishes between those mental endowments of our own species which have but for their object the comfort and protection, and those which have for their object the character of men. . . . The latter are peculiar to our race, and are indicated by certain phenomena of our mental nature, ... by the conscience within us, asserting its own supremacy over all our affections and doings; by our capacity for virtue and vice, along with the pleasures and pains which are respectively blended with them; and finally by the operation of habit, whose office, like that of a schoolmaster, is to perfect our education, and to fix, in one way or another, but at length immovably, the character of its disciples. (Chalmers, 1835b, pp. 65–​66; italics added) This “fixing” of an individual’s character, a process that Chalmers calls “formation of character,” fulfills the same purpose as the pursuit of Smith’s superior form of prudence; and while in Smith the process unravels through the “great school of self-​command,” in Chalmers it takes place at the “school for nobleness of character.” (Chalmers, 1835b, p. 55; Smith, [1790], 1976, III.3.25–​26, pp. 146–​147; and VI.iii.1–​25, pp. 237–​247; see also Garbo, 2016, pp. 48–​50). In both instances, as the individual ponders the best response to a stimulus, the ensuing dialogue among the instinctual part of the self, the real spectator, and the ideal spectator (Smith’s “demigod within the breast,” or Chalmers’ “monitor within”) deepens the individual’s ability to exercise self-​command (character, in Chalmers) and act more wisely. Chalmers beautifully describes this mental process: When the mind has retired from direct converse with the external world, and brought to its own inner chamber of thought the materials it has collected there, it then delivers itself up to its own processes-​-​first ascending analytically from observed phenomena to principles, and then descending

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  295 synthetically from principles to yet observed phenomena. We cannot but recognize it as an exquisite adaptation between the subjective and the objective, between the mental and the material systems –​that the results of the abstract intellectual process and the realities of external nature should so strikingly harmonize. (Chalmers, 1835b, p. 157) Once the voice within is awakened and attended to, both the “great school of self-​command” and the “school for nobleness of character” become available to all, independently of rank, education, and religious faith.15 And in both schools the opportunities to train come from the world of affairs, the “bustle and business of the world” in Smith ([1790] 1976, III.3.25, p. 146; see also III.3.7 p. 139, and III.3.38, p. 153), and “the familiar and week-​day scene. . . . the very humblest occupations of human life” in Chalmers ([1820] 1836, pp. 134–​135). The impact of Smith’s last teachings on Chalmers’ idea of a progressive alignment between external reality and conscience is especially clear in the second volume of The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man (1835b) and in The Application of Christianity to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life, in a series of discourses ([1820] 1836), where individuals are described as naturally capable of recognizing harmonious responses to external stimuli, and where repeated interactions between observed phenomena and principles turn dialectical.16 Habit, or the determination to abide by the voice of the demigod within the breast, is quintessential in both Smith’s and Chalmers’ processes. In Smith’s words: The wise and just man who has be thoroughly bred in the great school of self-​command, in the bustle and business of the world ... has never dared to forget for one moment the judgment which the impartial spectator would pass upon his sentiments and conduct. He has never dared to suffer the man within the breast to be absent one moment from his attention. . . .This habit has become perfectly familiar to him. He has been in constant practice ... of modelling ... not only his outward conduct and behavior, but, as much as he can, even his inward sentiments and feelings according to those of this awful and respectable judge. (Smith, [1790] 1976 III.3.25, pp. 146–​147) Chalmers’ path of the formation of character is strikingly similar: Such is the delicacy of the principle within him [the man who is altogether freed from the mixture of unworthy and interested feelings], that he could not have peace under the consciousness even of the minutest and least discoverable violation. . . . He cannot rest, so long as there is a single article unmet, or a single demand unsatisfied. . . . He could not bear the whisperings of his own heart, if it told him, that, in so much as by one iota

296  Lorenzo Garbo of defect, he had balanced the matter unfairly between himself and the unconscious individual with whom he deals. (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, pp. 106–​109) The legacy of Smith’s last teachings is apparent also in the social role and corrupting effects attributed by Chalmers to inferior prudence. In the first four discourses of The Application of Christianity to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life ([1820] 1836), the man who has not yet entered the path toward virtue and wisdom is presented as a mixture of spontaneous self-​interest and a love of praise, with instinctive abilities to recognize virtue and praiseworthiness. This is the man seen by Smith as abiding by inferior prudence; and in Chalmers as in TMS (for instance, [1790] 1976,VI.ii.2.20, p. 226;VI.iii.30, p. 253), minding one’s own business is acknowledged as essential for an orderly society. Smith writes: Nature has wisely judged that the distinction of ranks, of peace and order in society, would rest more securely upon the plain and palpable difference of birth and fortune, than upon the invisible and often uncertain difference of wisdom and virtue. The undistinguishing eyes of the great mob of mankind can well enough perceive the former. (Smith [1790] 1976,VI.ii.20, p. 226) Similarly, Chalmers states that it is “reciprocal advantage” that holds “society together in the exercise of the relative virtues,” and “much of the honourable practice of the world rested on the substratum of selfishness” (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, p. 103). Love of praise, more than praiseworthiness, characterizes the prudent man in Chalmers as it does in Smith: it is a “man’s own interest” that provides the incentive to uphold “average equities in the neighborhood around him,” as he would otherwise “be abandoned by the respect, and the confidence, and the good will, of the people with whom he had to do” (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, p. 103). At the same time, the “competency of men to estimate the lovely and the honourable of character,” those “principles of feeling and action” that “lay scattered among the species” (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, p. 11), occasionally allow the uncultivated person to practice what is just and true, and to bring the “moral question to the standard of his own interest” (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, p. 105; see also p. 104). There is also continuity with Smith’s last teachings in Chalmers’ identification of the two greatest challenges to enter and continue on the path toward a wiser existence: the delusional effects of social mirroring (for instance, Smith, [1790] 1976, III.3.41, p. 154; and III.4.6 pp. 158–​159) discussed in the Sixth Discourse of The Application of Christianity to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life, and the confusion between wealth and wisdom (for instance, Smith [1790] 1976, III.5.8 p. 166) elaborated in the Eighth Discourse. According to Chalmers, social mirroring is effective when it refers to behaviors that abide by inferior prudence (“integrity of character”), while it provides delusional feedback in

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  297 situations of “sobriety of character” because, in the eyes of the spectators, these situations do not directly affect their own self-​interest (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, p. 177).17 Confusion between wealth and wisdom is described by Chalmers as a “disease as near universal as it is virulent” ([1820] 1836, p. 272), echoing one of the best-​known passages of TMS: This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. (Smith [1790] 1976, I.iii.3.1, p. 61) The root of such confusion lies in that perverse operation of the principle of association that leads individuals to substitute the end with the means.18 The only escape from these mental and social traps is provided by proper examples that can remove the “impalpable veil” that lies between wisdom and “the eye of the senses” (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, p. 274). “Much can be done even by the mere power of example,” Chalmers admonishes, and appropriate examples must begin early in life (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, pp. 196, 205–​208). Smith was also well aware of the dangers of moral contagion and of the power of example, as he wrote: This natural disposition to accommodate and to assimilate, as much as we can, our own sentiments, principles, and feelings, to those which we see fixed and rooted in the persons whom we are obliged to love and converse a great deal with, is the cause of the contagious effects of both good and bad company.The man who associates chiefly with the wise and the virtues, though he may not himself become either wise or virtuous, cannot help conceiving a certain respect at least for wisdom and virtue; and the man who associates chiefly with the profligate and the dissolute, though he may not himself become profligate and dissolute, must soon lose, at least, all his original abhorrence of profligacy and dissolution in manners. (Smith, [1790] 1976,VI.ii.17, p. 224) Chalmers’ clerisy is charged with providing guidance and examples through virtuous mirroring and education; it initially fulfills the function given by Smith to the voice within, with the ultimate objective of awakening it, thus enabling any ordinary individual to move toward a wiser and virtuous existence.19 The clerisy would assert itself as a dialectical force against the idolization of economic success, the hopelessness of economic and social marginalization, and the delusional effects of social mirroring (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, pp. iii–​v). The greatest beneficiaries of its activity would therefore be people caught in “a feverish and diseased activity” as they pursue their “worldly ambitions,” and the

298  Lorenzo Garbo disenfranchised, uneducated, poor and indigent people who have lost or have never been aware of their own moral strength (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, p. iii).

IV  Primary roles of Chalmers’ clerisy: Training of attention and habit Chalmers envisioned the Christian clerisy as a body of elders and deacons dedicated to the training of attention and habit of people who cannot independently align their moral potential to the demands of the commercial society. All human beings, according to Chalmers, are inherently capable of moral judgment: “Peasants” and “philosophers,” he wrote, have equal capacity to “seize on the real moral characteristics of any action” (Chalmers, 1835b, p. 224). The most immediate task of the clerisy was then to awaken the individuals’ natural ability to formulate moral judgments. The strategy to pursue this goal was provided by the Scottish philosophy of the mind. When an action is deemed wise or unwise, virtuous or vicious, a moral judgment is delivered on the state of emotion that produced it,20 where the state of emotion itself is the response to a mental state that is aroused by the perception of a certain “object” (stimulus) (Chalmers, 1835b, pp. 183, 234). Looking at this process in reverse, the exposure of the mind to a certain object triggers a mental state; and this mental state then generates both a state of emotion, which can be virtuous or not, and the consequential will to act (Chalmers, 1835b, pp. 183–​218).Yet, the simple existence of an object in the proximity of an individual does not necessarily imply that his mental susceptibility is in fact hit. In order for that to happen, attention has to be paid to the object. Attention, according to Chalmers, is the link between the percipient and the pathematic areas of our nature: it is the transformer of the intellectual into the moral. And attention can be trained: “It is the control which the will has over” the faculty of attention that makes man “responsible for the objects which he chooses to entertain, and so responsible for the emotions that pathologically result from them” (Chalmers, 1835b, p. 239; see also p. 254). Chalmers therefore concludes that “a great part of wisdom and virtue consists in giving the proper direction” to attention.21 While attention is the gateway to conscious choices, habit of conscious choices leads to the formation of character. Conscience acquires and develops character through the exercise of choice free of interference, through the actions and reactions that take place among individuals in society. The repetition of conscious acts feeds a process of reinforcement, so that isolated choices become habits, and habits become character.22 Thus, Chalmers’ concept of character, as Smith’s idea of wisdom, is the result of dialectical interactions between external stimuli and conscience. The dialectical element of the process consists in the progressive training of attention, as one cannot engage in a dialogue without first recognizing the voices at play, and habit is the force that increasingly facilitates recognition and propels the process forward. Training attention to helpful objects is the fundamental curriculum of Chalmers’ school for the nobleness of character (Chalmers, 1835b, p. 259). Too arduous a task for the

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  299 great majority of mankind, such training requires wise guidance, encouragement, and constant reminders.The training of attention and habit is the primary role Chalmers assigns to the clerisy. The main objective of Chalmers’ clerisy was therefore preeminently secular, the manifestation of Wilberforce’s idea that the practical effects of Christian teachings are far greater than the likelihood of Christianization, an idea supported by the belief that “the effect of one’s Christian example” may raise “the standard of morality among many who are not Christians” (Chalmers, 1823a, p. 48). Chalmers emphasized the “collateral influence [of a Christian education], by which it reclaims its thousands and tens of thousands, from what is evil to what is good, on the lower ground of civil usefulness” (Chalmers, 1823a, p. 33). His clerisy would “regenerate the few for heaven” and reform “the many into frugality, and the industry, and the relative duty, and all the other moralities which stand allied with self-​respect and decency of character upon heart” (Chalmers, 1823a, p. 69). Creating good civic habits requires intensity and perseverance, especially when counteracting a pervasive system that encouraged “dissipation, idleness, and discontent” (Chalmers, 1823a, p. 34). Without a frequent and intimate training toward a “soberness of habit,” and exposure to the “humanizing, that is far short of a Christianizing, influence” of the clerisy (Chalmers, 1823a, p. 33), the generality of people may never find the strength to corroborate passion with reason, would abandon or never undertake the path that leads to the formation of character, would forget that they are capable of wisdom. And habit, as seen earlier, is fundamental to the formation of character (Chalmers, 1835b, p. 66). Chalmers therefore develops an argument that emphasizes the importance of locality and frequency of interaction between the clerisy and individuals in need of moral awakening. He sees opportunities for assistance in the formation of character across all classes; yet, his main concern and experimental work, expounded in the second volume of The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns, specifically addresses the feeble desire of the disenfranchised to help themselves (Chalmers, 1823a, p. 16). As soon as the habits of some people begin to display the positive impact of the teachings of the clerisy, a virtuous cycle within the community has the potential to affect the habits of many people (see Chalmers, 1823a, especially pp. 3–​6, 25, 34). Chalmers dedicated both the first and last years of his ecclesiastical endeavors to establish a clerisy that would encourage the wretched and disenfranchised to regain that “independence” and “spirit that still remain[s]‌with the very humblest of our peasantry, and are enough to indicate such elements of moral greatness, as only need to be called back again from ... dormancy” (Chalmers, 1823a, p. 80).23 He experimented twice with the establishment of a clerisy: in Glasgow (1816–​1823), as minister of the Tron Church and later St. John’s parish; and in the West Port district of Edinburgh (1844–​1847), while he was Principal of Divinity at New College of the Free Church of Scotland.24 The two experiments shared the fundamental objective of awakening, modeling, and supporting a Christian conscience in populations characterized by extreme poverty and absolute lack of morally sound social mirroring; yet, the historical,

300  Lorenzo Garbo socioeconomic circumstances of St. John parish and West Port, and the experience accumulated by Chalmers with the Glasgow experiment and the Church Expansion Campaign of the 1830s, informed the two clerisies with different principles. While in the Glasgow experiment the clerisy of deacons and elders was ultimately charged with an individualized administration of poor-​relief aimed at minimizing the population’s reliance on charity, the West Port clerisy of “visitors” was altogether discouraged from distributing material relief, and specifically charged with the responsibility of awakening the desire for self-​ respect and of “permeating the district with religious and moral principles, creating a demand for a church and school, and encouraging communal cohesion and responsibility” (Brown, 1982, p. 355). The aim of community regeneration, marginal in the St. John’s experiment, was essential at West Port. The Glasgow clerisy consisted of the deacons and elders of St. John’s parish, while the West Port clerisy of “visitors,” named “West Port Local Society,” included middle-​class professional men from New Town and a few “respectable West Port inhabitants” who were also members of a nearby congregation (Brown, 1982, p. 355).25 Chalmers spelled out the duties of the clerisy quite clearly, while the training of its members remained fairly discretionary. The Glasgow clerisy oversaw twenty-​five districts, called proportions, of sixty to one-​hundred families each. Reviving the ancient order of deacons, which in the Scottish Presbyterian practice had long fallen into disuse, Dr. Chalmers appointed over each of these districts an elder and a deacon; the spiritual interests of his proportion being committed to the former, and its temporal interests to the latter. (Hanna,Vol II, pp. 292–​293) The first ordination of elders occurred on 20 December 1816, but no information can be found on the specific training Chalmers required of them;26 deacons, on the other hand, appeared to be trained by his own “general instructions, and occasionally guided and stimulated by ... private letters” (Hanna, vol. II, p. 306; see also Chalmers’ reference to the system of deacons established by John Knox in his “Address to the Convocation of November 1842,” reported in Hanna,Vol. IV, pp. 556–​7). The West Port district was instead subdivided into twenty proportions of about one-​hundred inhabitants each, and each “visitor” was assigned regular household visitations in his district; in addition to providing healthy mirroring and moral support, visitors’ duties included “seek[ing] jobs and apprenticeships for the unemployed,” “encourage[ing] the poor to develop habits of regular savings,” and so on. Chalmers gave minimal, practical instruction to his “visitors,” who were expected to rely mostly on their own sensibility and Christian principles, and on each other’s experiences that were exchanged at their weekly meetings (Brown, 1982, pp. 356–​357). The activities of his Glasgow clerisy and its impact on the lives of the very poor are best described by the deacons’ responses to a questionnaire administered by Chalmers himself and reported in the Statement in regard to the Pauperism of

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  301 Glasgow, from the experience of the last eight years (1823). Overall, the deacons’ words attest to the humanizing effects of sustained kindness, as a representative of the clerisy may stimulate the cause of education—​he may give direction to the habits of economy ... he may, even without the expenditure of money, diffuse a moral atmosphere, that will soften and humanize even the most hard-​ flavoured of his people. (Chalmers, 1823b, p. 54)

V Conclusion The impact of the consumer revolution of the second half of the eighteenth century on the moral character of “the great mob of mankind” prompted Adam Smith to revise and raise the moral standard of reference in the last edition of TMS. As wisdom and virtue became increasingly confused with wealth and greatness, social mirroring proved progressively less effective in keeping society away from foolishness and moral deception. Smith therefore introduced a more complex standard of moral approbation that would require individuals to train at the great school of self-​command in order to learn to mediate between materialistic stimuli and the voice of conscience arising from the “man” or “demigod within the breast.” The recurrence of these antagonistic pressures has been described as a process of dialectical wisdom (Garbo, 2016, pp. 42–​ 43; Smith, [1790] 1976, p. 216), a process that aligns very well with the post-​ Humean tradition according to which a life of virtue had to be based on the “moral wisdom men acquired in the course of ordinary life” (Phillipson, 1983, p. 181; Norman, 2018, esp. p. 132). Smith’s last teachings were in fact meant to enable individuals who were fully immersed in the “bustle and business of the world” (Smith, [1790] 1976, III.3.25, p. 146) to be less susceptible to the deceptions of the commercial society, and maintain “the genuine truth and solidity” of their own moral character (Smith, [1790] 1976, p. 253). The demands of self-​awareness, discernment, and self-​command required of an individual by Smith’s dialectical wisdom, however, could not be met by the great majority of people even during the later years of his life (Smith, [1790] 1976, VI.ii.1.20 p. 226). The materialistic clamor, pervasiveness of the market logic, and economic and political turmoil of the years that followed Smith’s death must have further decreased the likelihood that individuals could independently recognize and engage with the ideal spectator, the demigod within their breast. The voice of conscience had to be externalized and socialized in order to be heard, a role assigned to a clerisy by various members of the British intellectual elite of the first half of the nineteenth century. Thomas Chalmers assigned this role to a clerisy of deacons, elders, and members of the Christian middle-​class (called “visitors”). His idea of the clerisy moved from the belief that a capillary, localized Christian education, would do for most individuals what political economic pamphlets, in and of themselves, would never be able

302  Lorenzo Garbo to do: it would engage their self-​respect and self-​command (Chalmers, 1826, p. 381; see also 1844, p. 7), and it would awaken and support their natural ability to elevate their moral character as they learn through the opportunities and challenges offered by the process of political economy. The role Chalmers assigned to the clerisy is therefore primarily secular: it is to help the individual recognize misleading sympathetic mirroring, and avoid confusions between narrow self-​interest and moral alignment. Smith’s great school of self-​command becomes Chalmers’ school for nobleness of character; its curriculum consists in redirecting individuals’ attention to the voice of the monitor within (Chalmers, 149, Vol. I, p.151), and creating habits able to form and sustain the individuals’ inherent capacity for moral behavior. Chalmers’ concept of character, like Smith’s idea of wisdom, is the result of dialectical interactions between external stimuli and conscience. The dialectical element of the process consists in the progressive training of attention, while habit is the force that deepens and propels the process further. Chalmers saw opportunities for assistance in the formation of character and virtuous mirroring across all classes, but his main concern and experimental work in Glasgow (1816–​1823) and in the West Port district of Edinburgh (1844–​1847) addressed the fragility of the voice of conscience stifled by the culture of pauperism, dependence, and destitution. His experiments with a Christian clerisy were successful, although relatively short-​lived. In 1833, Mr. Tufnell, an English Poor-​Law Commissioner, reported: ‘The system has been attended with the most triumphant success; it is now in perfect operation, and not a doubt is expressed by its managers of its continuing to remain so.’ (Blaikie, 1896, pp. 56–​57) When in 1837 all the parishes of Glasgow lapsed into the general assessment for the poor, Chalmers’ experiment began to decay. The final blow came in 1844, when, because of the widespread and dreadful conditions of the very poor, a law was passed in the Scottish parliament that increased the yearly provision for the Scottish pauperism by more than 500 percent. For Chalmers, this was the beginning of the end of any possible success of his clerisy: even though he saw the widening of pauperism as causing “an immediate improvement in the condition of the poor ... it must be at the sacrifice of many of the virtues that went to elevate them” (Blaikie, 1896, pp. 97–​98). At West Port, the goal of proving that religious and moral instruction alone would be sufficient to transform the most destitute and crime-​r idden neighborhood of the city into a closely knitted community lost hope with Chalmers’ death in 1847, and was never to be fulfilled (Brown, 1982, p. 363). The very idea of a Christian clerisy began to lose traction with the decline of Christian economics, which according to Waterman began with the “disappearance of the Jacobinical threat” after 1832 (Searle, 1998, p. 15). By then, the Political Economy Club was in full swing. The rising paradigm of political

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  303 economy became less and less concerned with enabling individuals so that they could participate in the commercial society with profit and integrity. A legacy of Adam Smith’s last teachings began to fall into oblivion: “The duty of the economist,” Ricardo reminded Malthus, is “to tell you how you may become rich, but he is not to advise you to prefer riches to indolence, or indolence to riches” (Winch, 1996, p. 286).

Notes 1 By integrating the path to opulence spelled out in the Wealth of Nations (WN) with the moral admonitions of TMS, Smith’s dialectical wisdom could have altered the course of political economy, as a path still informed by self-​interest but mediated by (rather than divorced from) virtue. With an initial run of 1,000 copies (1790) and 6,000 more copies printed between 1792 and 1811 (St Clair, 2004, pp. 651, 652), the latest version of TMS obtained wide readership. Yet his latest teachings seem to have been ignored, at least publicly, in contemporary political economic circles, where Smith’s legacy increasingly solidified around a conservative reading of WN. On the mainstream legacy of Smith’s thought, see, for example, Rothschild, 2001, pp. 52-​71, and the excellent chapter “Reputation, Fact and Myth” in Norman (2018, pp. 143–​173). 2 How much perfection can be actually expected from the impartial spectator? Given that individuals develop the voice of the impartial spectator through experience, one has to wonder how such standard of idealized perfection may come into being in one’s mind. Dickey, for instance, reads in Smith’s “approximationism” the “mainline Protestant theology shaped in the image of the theology of the divine economy” (1986, p. 608). Along similar lines, Otteson suggests that, “perhaps,” there is reason to consider the voice of the Impartial Spectator as a human approximation of divine intervention, if not itself a direct representative of the Divinity” (2011, p. 96). The role of Divinity in TMS has long been a subject for comment and debate among scholars, and it is no part of the object of this paper to unravel it. 3 Coleridge made it very clear that advocating for a clerisy did not imply going against the commercial society, but rather making the commercial society more humanly sustainable: My opinions would be greatly misinterpreted if I were supposed to think hostilely of the spirit of commerce to which I attribute the largest proportion of our actual freedom . . . and at least as large a share of our virtues as of our vices. Still more anxiously would I guard against the suspicion of a design to inculpate any number or class of individuals. It is not in the power of a minister or of a cabinet to say to the current of national tendency, stay here! Or flow there!. (S.T. Coleridge, 1817, p. 169) 4 Suggestively, Oncken (1897, p. 444) wrote: “If Smith is studied without prejudice, many passages will be found to prove him to have been a forerunner of Kant, the idealistic philosopher. This specially applies to his Doctrine of Conscience.” 5 J. Robert Barth SJ, for instance, writes of the “secular side of Coleridge’s idea of the Church, that is, his insistence not only on the spiritual responsibilities of the Church but on the clerisy as an active social force,” offering in his Constitution of the Church and State, “a new model for thinking about . . . the place of religion, education, and

304  Lorenzo Garbo culture in the life of any civilized community” (1990, pp. 305, 306). On Coleridge’s disciple F.D. Maurice, Barth adds: Maurice had learned from Coleridge of the unity of human experience and the ultimate source of that unity in the Godhead. ‘This indeed’, Steve Prickett writes, ‘is what the kingdom of Christ is all about. It is, for Maurice, the paradigm of the inescapable and irresolvable polarity of all human experience. The universal spiritual society, as yet existing in potential rather than in actuality, is of a piece with the rest of existence, but immanent in it, shaping and organizing it into an organic whole.’ (1990, p. 305) Duncan Bell (2016, p. 278) points out that “Coleridge had argued that the Church of England should be legally recognized as an integral component of the constitution, as a balance to the great landed and commercial interests of the country”; and continues with, Arnold went further, arguing that church and state were in a sense ‘perfectly identical’ and, in his Postcript to Principles of Church Reform (1833), that ‘the state in its highest perfection, becomes the Church’. Maurice, meanwhile, provided a forceful exposition of a spiritual nation, in which church and state were coterminous and mutually constitutive. 6 See, for instance, Blaikie (1896, p. 99). According to Phillip Connell (2001, p. 119), Chalmers . . . made a strict distinction between the unrestrained market forces guiding the moral and spiritual culture of society at large, and the necessity for an endowed class of clerical scholars and educators charged with regulating the ‘moral economy’ of commercial society so as to promote the cause of both Christian virtue and theological enquiry. Now these concerns-​–​with church establishment, the corrupting influence of the marketplace upon literature and learning, and the intellectual and spiritual function of an endowed intelligentsia-​ -​ have all traditionally been identified far more with the ‘Romantic’ social criticism of ST Coleridge. JS Mill certainly recognized this parallel, when he compared Coleridge ‘to the other great defender of endowed establishments, Dr. Chalmers’ (JS Mill ‘Coleridge’, London and Westminster Review, 33, March 1840). . . . But on the important point of education, both evangelical political economists and the Lake poets argued for the suspension of the laws of the market; and it is here that we can see the common political and intellectual ground behind their shared reliance on the rhetoric of ‘cultivation’ –​namely, a belief in an active, interventionist process of moral, civic, and spiritual nurture. There were frequent letters, visits, and expressions of admiration among Carlyle, Chalmers, and Coleridge: see Hanna (1849–​1852). 7 Chalmers is known as the strongest proponent of the evangelical free market ethic that has “not self-​interest but the supremacy of economic conscience” as “its psychological premiss” (Hilton, 1986, pp. 69,70). 8 The consideration of the will of God as the supreme rule of our conduct –​for those who believe in his existence –​is acknowledged by Smith in the following passage of TMS: When the general rules which determine the merit and demerit of actions, come thus to be regarded as the laws of an All-​powerful Being, who watches

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  305 over our conduct, and who, in a life to come, will reward the observance, and punish the breach of them; they necessarily acquire a new sacredness from this consideration.That our regard to the will of the Deity ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct, can be doubted of by nobody who believes in his existence. . . . The idea that, however we may escape the observation of man, or be placed above the reach of human punishment, yet we are always acting under the eye, and exposed to the punishment of God, the great avenger of injustice, is a motive capable of restraining the most headstrong passions, with those, at least, who, by constant reflection, have rendered it familiar to them. It is in this manner that religion enforces the natural sense of duty: and hence it is, that mankind are generally disposed to place great confidence in the probity of those who seem deeply impressed with religious sentiments. (Smith, [1790] 1976, III.5.12, p. 170) 9 Daniel Rice (1971, p. 41) writes: What Chalmers is clearly after is a refutation of the self ’s self-​exoneration when, in the midst of its own dereliction, it proclaims itself innocent by virtue of the absence of an immediate awareness of the will of God. Being what we are ‘by nature’, we are unable to escape the burden of responsibility appropriate to that nature. The character of what is ‘right’ in the structure of existence is tangential to the individual self at the point of conscience. . . . He is affirming the existence of a moral sense that is justified by, and grounded in the nature of conscience. This is based on the idea that natural theology is the precursor of Christianity, not in the sense of possessing logical priority, but in the sense of its historical priority. By this Chalmers is attempting to recognise that man is natural man before he is a man of faith. The mind of the inquirer is that of a natural man and the ‘natural precedes the Christian theology, just as the cry of distress precedes the relief which is offered to it’. (Rice, 1971, p. 38) 10 In the Smithian universe, moral norms originate from actual spectatorship, and thus alternative spectatorships change norms. Through appropriate mirroring, the clerisy kick starts the evolution of the voice of conscience in the context of one’s life experience. See Norman (2018, pp. 268–​269) for a synthesis of the process of norm formation in Smith. 11 Pluralities were arrangements that allowed an ordained minister to hold a professorship in a locality away from his congregation. See Chalmers’ pamphlet in favor of pluralities, published anonymously, entitled “Observations on a passage in Mr. Playfair’s Letter to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, relative to the Mathematical Pretentions of the Scottish Clergy,” 1805, written in defense of Rev. Macknight’s application to a chair of mathematics (Blaikie, 1896, p. 35). In these years Chalmers also published his first treatise on political economy, suggestively entitled An Inquiry into the Extent and Stability of National Resources. 12 The importance of religious education on the development of moral character goes back to the outset of the Scottish Reformation, as evidenced in John Knox’s First Book of Discipline (1560). See also Davie (1961).

306  Lorenzo Garbo 13 Chalmers considered commercial society as a unique historical opportunity for the development of attention, habit, and thus character.The market imposes choices and actions that are similar to Sumner’s “severe trial,” which “is absolutely requisite to purify and establish the human character” (Sumner, [1816] 1833, p. 210). Nothing for Chalmers could be more deleterious to human potential and economic wellbeing than those policy interferences (such as Poor Laws, tithes, and Corn Laws) which transverse natural laws and limit the space to exercise choice. 14 Chalmers was the most vocal and oratorically gifted Evangelical divine to speak as a political economist, and “long enjoyed a high reputation” (Searle, 1998, p. 19). During the “rage for Christian economics” (Searle, 1998, p. 9) of the first decades of the nineteenth century, the influence of the famous political economists of the Club on “the backbench MPs and the pens of quarterly scribblers” paled in comparison with the influence of churchmen such as Thomas Chalmers (Hilton, 1985, p. 142). His agenda became clearer in his first post-​conversion publication, entitled The Influence of Bible Societies on the Temporal Necessities of the Poor (1814), where he wrote: “Could we reform the improvident habits of the people, and pour the healthful infusion of Scripture into their hearts, it would reduce the existing poverty of the land to a very humble fraction of its present extent” (pp. 14–​15; see also Hilton, 1988, p. 87; Waterman, 2006, p. 179). 15 Chalmers wrote: “Nobleness of condition is not essential at a school for nobleness of character; nor does man require to be high in office, ere he can gather around his person the worth and the lustre of a high-​minded integrity” ([1820] 1836, p.135), and, It is delightful to think, that humble life may be just as rich in moral grace, and moral grandeur, as the loftier places of society; that as true a dignity of principle may be earned by him who, in homeliest drudgery, plies his conscientious task, as by him who stands entrusted with the fortunes of an empire. ([1820] 1836, pp. 138, 139) It should be noticed that there is nothing specifically Christian in this passage. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer of this paper for pointing out that “principles” was a term much used by Jonathan Edwards, Scotland’s favorite theologian in the eighteenth century, and a great source of inspiration for Chalmers, as he confessed to Rev. Gemmel of Fairlie on May 30, 1847, the day before his death: “My theology is that of Jonathan Edwards” (Hanna,Vol. II, p. 773). 16 Those principles which shut a man up unto the faith, do not take flight and abandon him, after they have served this temporary purpose.They abide with him, and work their appropriate influence on his character; and serve as the germ of a new moral creation; and we can afterwards detect their operation in his heart and life; . . . this sensibility [to the evil of sin] grows with the growth, and strengthens with the strength, of his Christianity. (Chalmers, [1820] 1836, pp. 132–​134) 17 A great example of the inability of a person to individually choose “sobriety of character” over a sense of belonging to their community, albeit corrupt, is given by the story of Paisley in Chalmers’ “The Supreme Importance of a Right Moral to a Right Economical State of the Community” ([1832] 1856) and in “The Political Economy of the Bible” (1844).

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  307 18 Chalmers wrote: As we have already remarked, the love of money is one affection, and the love of what is purchased by money is another. It was, at first, we have no doubt, loved for the sake of the good things which it enabled its possessor to acquire. But whether, as the result of associations in the mind so rapid as to escape the notice of our own consciousness—​or as the fruit of an infection running by sympathy among all men busily engaged in the prosecution of wealth, as the supreme good of their being—​certain it is, that money, originally pursued for the sake of other things, comes at length to be prized for its own sake. ([1820] 1836, pp. 265, 266) See Smith ([1790] 1976, I.iii.2.1, pp. 50, 51) for an analogous passage. Chalmers had attended Thomas Brown’s lectures on the philosophy of the mind at the University of Edinburgh, which were themselves inspired by the teachings of Dugald Stewart, Brown’s professor in 1794 and his colleague by 1810.The second part of the second volume of Adaptations opens with: “The law of most extensive influence over the phenomena and processes of the mind, is the law of association, or, as denominated by Dr. Thomas Brown, the law of suggestion” (1835b, p. 135). Garbo (2012) surveys the intellectual process that translated the principles of association into the assumption of non-​satiation in political economy. 19 It must be remembered that also Smith considered religious education as intellectually stimulating, especially for the poor. Norman, for instance, writes: Smith praises moderate religious observance on occasion, specifically because it stimulates the mind. Children of poor families should, he says, receive ‘the benefit of religion, which is a great advantage, not only considered in a pious sense, but as it affords them subject for thought and speculation.’ (Norman, 2018, p. 287) 20 The “great inquiry,” according to Thomas Brown, is about “the propriety or impropriety” of our “passions and affections” and, of the conduct to which they lead. . . . Every enjoyment which man can confer on man, and every evil which he can reciprocally inflict or suffer, thus becomes the object of two sciences—​ first of the intellectual analysis which traces the happiness and misery . . . as mere phenomena or states of the substance mind; -​-​and secondly, of that ethical judgment, which measure our approbation and disapprobation, estimating, with more than judicial scrutiny, not merely what is done, but what is scarcely thought in secrecy and silence and discriminating some element of moral good or evil . . . which it is in our feeble power to execute, or in our still frailer heart to conceive or desire. (Brown, [1820] 1846, quoted in Chalmers, 1835b, pp. 223–​224) 21 The similarities with the choice of which standard one adopts in Smith’s last teachings are extraordinary (for instance, Smith [1790] 1976, VI.iii.23, p. 247). Consider also the role of attention given by Adam Smith in the judgment of “propriety” of the sentiments of another, when the objects that excite them have no “peculiar relation, either to ourselves or to the person whose sentiments we judge of ”:

308  Lorenzo Garbo If, notwithstanding, we are often differently affected, it arises either from the different degrees of attention, which our different habits of life allow us to give easily to the several parts of those complex objects, or from the different degrees of natural acuteness in the faculty of the mind to which they are addressed. (Smith, [1790] 1976, p. 19) 22 Conscience, however, may never develop character. It may be that the process of the formation of character never begins, that the individual may not recognize the voice within (thus the importance of attention training); or that the individual’s attention may be derailed by the presence of laws and policies that crowd out the inherent human capacity to detect deceptive social mirroring. (Chalmers, 1835b, pp. 8, 9) 23 Pauperism was for Chalmers the “deadly antagonist to the morality” of the nation that had slowly and subliminally destroyed “the character of man” (1823a, pp. 86–​ 87; see pp. 90–​135 for a detailed explanation of his views on the administration of the Poor Laws in England and Scotland, with a specific breakdown of the Glasgow system). 24 In October 1816, Chalmers delivered two sermons at his Tron Church on the secular services of ministries, followed by an address at the Anniversary Meeting of the Glasgow Bible Society, in which he summoned “his fellow-​citizens to the help of an overburdened ministry,” and wished that “the administration not only of the benevolent but also of the religious institutions of the city [should] be thrown mainly, if not wholly, upon laymen” (Hanna, vol. II, p. 130; see also pp. 122–​131). 25 Further details on objectives, structure, and results of the Glasgow experiment are available in the second volume of The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns (1823a, pp. 90–​133), and in the Statement in regard to the Pauperism of Glasgow, from the experience of the last eight years (1823b). More on the objectives and structure of the West Port experiment can be found in Blaikie (1896, pp. 141–​144) and Brown (1982, pp. 353–​363). 26 The functions of the elders were very similar to those originally established by John Knox in the Second Book of Discipline (1578, c­ hapters 6–​8); Chalmers’s deacons were instead engaged much more in the practical support of the parish community than in the simpler, traditional collection and administration of alms. The specific charge given to the elders is available in its entirety in Appendix F of the second volume of Hanna’s Memoirs.

Bibliography Barth, J. Robert, SJ. 1990. “Coleridge and the Church of England.” In Richard Gravil and Molly Lefebure (Eds.) The Coleridge Connection. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 291–​307. Bell, Duncan. 2016. Reordering the World. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press. Blaikie, William G. 1896. Thomas Chalmers. Edinburgh: Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier. Brown, Stewart J. 1982. Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown,Thomas. [1820] 1846. Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind.Two Volumes. Sixteenth Edition. Edinburgh: William Tait.

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  309 Chalmers,Thomas. 1805. Observations on a passage in Mr. Playfair’s Letter to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, relative to the Mathematical Pretensions of the Scottish Clergy. Cupar: Tullis. Chalmers, Thomas. 1808. An Enquiry into the Extent and Stability of Natural Resources. Edinburgh: Oliphant Anderson. Chalmers, Thomas. 1814. The Influence of Bible Societies on the Temporal Necessities of the Poor. Cupar: Tullis. Chalmers, Thomas. [1820] 1836. The Application of Christianity to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life, in a series of discourses. Fifth Edition. Glasgow: William Collins. Chalmers, Thomas. 1821. The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns. Volume I. Glasgow: Chalmers and Collins. Chalmers, Thomas. 1823a. The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns. Volume II. Glasgow: Chalmers and Collins. Chalmers, Thomas. 1823b. Statement in regard to the Pauperism of Glasgow, from the Experience of the Last Eight Years. Glasgow: W. Collins and Co. Chalmers, Thomas. 1826. The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns. Volume III. Glasgow: William Collins. Chalmers, Thomas. [1832] 1856. “The Supreme Importance of a Right Moral to a Right Economical State of the Community; with observations on a recent criticism in the Edinburgh Review.” In William Hanna (Ed.), Selected Works of Thomas Chalmers.Vol. IX. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable & Co. Chalmers, Thomas. [1832] 1968. On Political Economy, in Connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society. New York: Augustus M. Kelley. Chalmers, Thomas. 1835a. The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man.Volume I. London: William Pickering. Chalmers, Thomas. 1835b. The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man.Volume II. London: William Pickering. Chalmers, Thomas. 1838. Lectures on the Establishment and Extension of National Churches; delivered in London from April 25th to May 12th, 1838. Glasgow: William Collins. Chalmers, Thomas. 1844. “The Political Economy of the Bible.” North British Review (November): 1–​52. Chalmers, Thomas. 1848. The Parochial System without a Poor Rate, with two essays on cognate subjects. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox. Chalmers, Thomas. 1849. Institutes of Theology. Edited by William Hanna. 2 Volumes. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable. Cheyne, A.C. (Ed.) 1985. The Practical and the Pious. Essays on Thomas Chalmers (1780-​ 1847). Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press. Coleridge, Henry Nelson. 1917. The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. London: Humphrey Millford, Oxford University Press. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. [1817] 1972. Lay Sermons. In The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Volume 7. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. [1830] 1976. On the Constitution of Church and State. In The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Volume 10. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.Collini, Stefan, Richard Whatmore, and Brian Young (Eds.) 2000. Economy, Polity, and Society. British Intellectual History 1750-​ 1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davie, George Elder. 1961. The Democratic Intellect. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dickey, Laurence. 1986. “Historicizing the ‘Adam Smith Problem’: Conceptual, Historiographical, and Textual Issues.” Journal of Modern History 58: 579–​609.

310  Lorenzo Garbo Dixon, William and David Wilson. 2010. “Thomas Chalmers: The Market, Moral Conduct, and Social Order.” History of Political Economy 42(4): 723–​746. Garbo, Lorenzo. 2012. “Early Evolution of the Assumption of Non-​Satiation.” Review of Political Economy 24(1): 15–​32. Garbo, Lorenzo. 2016. “Adam Smith’s Last Teachings: Dialectical Wisdom.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 38(1): 41–​54 Hanna, William. 1849-​1852. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers, D.D. L.L.D. 4 Volumes. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable. Hilton, Boyd. 1985. “Chalmers as Political Economist.” In A.C. Cheyne (Ed.), The Practical and the Pious. Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, pp. 141–​156. Hilton, Boyd. 1986. The Age of Atonement. The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1785-​1865. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hont Istvan and Michael Ignatieff. 1983. Wealth and Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Knights, Ben. 1978. The Idea of the Clerisy in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Knox, John. 1560. First Book of Discipline. Still Waters Revival Books: www.swrb.com Knox, John. 1578. Second Book of Discipline. Still Waters Revival Books: www.swrb.com McCulloch, J. R. 1833. “On Political Economy, in connexion with the Moral State and Moral Prospects of Society.” The Edinburgh Review, LVI: 52–​72. (October 1832) McKendrick, Neil. 1982. “The Consumer Revolution in Eighteenth-​century England.” In Neil McKenrick, John Brewer, and John Harold Plumb (Eds.), The Birth of a Consumer Society. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 9–​33. Milgate, Murray and Shannon C. Stimson. 2009. After Adam Smith. A Century of Transformation in Politics and Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Norman, Jesse. 2018. Adam Smith. What He Thought, and Why It Matters. London: Allen Lane. Oncken, August. 1897. “The Consistency of Adam Smith.” The Economic Journal 7, 27 (September): 443–​450. Otteson, James. 2011. “How High Does the Impartial Spectator Go?.” in Paul Oslington (Ed.), Adam Smith as Theologian, New York: Routledge, pp. 92–​97. Phillipson, Nicholas. 1983.“Adam Smith as Civic Moralist.” In Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff (Eds.), Wealth and Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 179–​202. Raikes, Richard. 1806. Considerations on the Alliance between Christianity and Commerce. London: Cadell and Davies. Raphael D.D. 2007. The Impartial Spectator. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reid, Thomas. 1788. Essays on the Active Powers of Man. London: John Bell and G.G.J. & J. Robinson. Rice, Daniel F. 1971. “Natural Theology and the Scottish Philosophy in the Thought of Thomas Chalmers. Scottish Journal of Theology 24: 23–​46. Rice, Daniel F. 1979. “An Attempt at Systematic Reconstruction in the Theology of Thomas Chalmers. Church History 48(2): 174–​188. Scotland, Nigel. 1990. “John Bird Sumner in Parliament.” Anvil 7: 2. Searle, Geoffrey R. 1998. Morality and the Market in Victorian England. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Smith, Adam. [1776] 1976. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edited by R.H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Thomas Chalmers’ clerisy  311 Smith, Adam. [1790] 1976. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Sixth Edition, Edited by David D. Raphael and Alec L. Macfie. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sumner. [1816] 1833. A Treatise on the records of creation, and on the moral attributes of the Creator; with particular reference to the Jewish history, and to the consistency of the principle of population with the wisdom and goodness of the Deity. Fifth Edition, 2 Volumes. London: J. Hatchard and Son. Waterman, A.M.C. 1983. “The Ideological Alliance of Political Economy and Christian Theology 1798-​1833.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 34, 2 (April). Waterman, A.M.C. 1991. Revolution, Economics, and Religion: Christian Political Economy, 1798-​1833. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waterman, A.M.C. 2002. “Economics as Theology: Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.’ Southern Economic Journal 68(4): 907–​921. Waterman, A.M.C. 2006. “The place of Thomas Chalmers in Scottish Political Economy.” In Alexander Dow and Sheila Dow (Eds.), A History of Scottish Economic Thought. London: Routledge, pp. 178–​197. Wilberforce, William. 1797. A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in this Country, contrasted with Real Christianity. Dublin: B. Dugdale. www.gutenb​erg.org. Wilson, David and William Dixon. 2004. “The Irreducibly Social Self in Classical Economy: Adam Smith and Thomas Chalmers meet G.H. Meade.” History of Economics Review 40(1): 121–​136. Winch, Donald. 1996. Riches and Poverty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 theory of sociality, morality, and A monsters Adam Smith and Mary Shelley Jan Osborn, Bart J.Wilson, Mitchell Briggs, Alison M. Lee, and Alec Moss

Just as Robert Walton wrote to his sister Margaret as he commenced his journey of discovery, we, dear readers, address you with hopes that our expedition will not be regarded with evil forebodings once you are apprised of our destination; for we, too, are attempting to satiate our ardent curiosity as we read, in dialogue, two important texts from different disciplines, seemingly different ideologies1; from authors, we argue, often misunderstood, their shared understanding of human sociality reduced to rather trivial popular misconceptions. In his work with myth as a social foundation, Northrop Frye argues that as cultures develop, their mythologies divide into literature, on the one hand, and the disciplines of philosophy, political theory, and even science, on the other hand; with the starting point of most mythologies a creation story, “the story of how things came to be” (5). In his discussion of Romanticism as a cultural and historical term, Frye claims that “a new kind of sensibility” comes into Western literatures around the end of the eighteenth century (4). David Marshall suggests that “eighteenth century works of fiction, autobiography, autobiographical fiction, aesthetics, and moral philosophy often turn and return to the question of the effects of sympathy,” that a consideration of sympathy can help make sense of the “parallels between fiction, aesthetics, epistemology, and moral philosophy” in works of the eighteenth century (3).2 Two major works from this general time period embody this “new kind of sensibility,” this turning “to the question of the effects of sympathy,” one from philosophy/​political economy—​Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in six editions from 1759 to 1790; and one from literature—​Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published anonymously in 1818. Both explore the human condition, how human beings function in a society. Both imagine human motivation, how human conduct is motivated by our interactions with others and our desire to live in their company.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-20

A theory of sociality, morality, and monsters  313

Traversing the poles And so we begin, dear reader, having hired a vessel, so to speak, and must attend to our inquiry. What do the two have to say to one another? Does Shelley’s story support Smith’s theory? Does Shelley’s story challenge Smith’s theory? Or maybe embody it? Let us prepare our ship. Ask a group of people what they know about Adam Smith, and you are bound to hear one, if not all, of the following words and phrases: “selfishness,” “greed,” “free-​market,” “invisible hand,” and “laissez faire capitalism.” These associations, reflecting the popular (nonacademic) notion of Smith, however, are troublingly reductive caricatures of Smith’s ideas in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, while minimizing his lifelong work in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.3 In addition to founding the field of economics, Adam Smith studied and carefully refined earlier moral philosophies of the human condition. His theory of morality builds on the moral arguments of Aristotle through those of such contemporaries as Hume and Hutcheson, culminating in the foundational claim, “[W]‌e are but one of the multitude,” the foundation of the theory of human morality that Smith proposed in this first book (The Theory of Moral Sentiments III.iii.4). As one of that multitude, our happiness is dependent upon the happiness of others. This idea is the basis for Smith’s theory of human morality, and, as such, is appropriately expressed in the opening line of the book: How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. (I.i.1.1) Smith argues that morality comes from sociality, that, “A moral being is an accountable being,” accountable to “his fellow creatures” (III.i.[3]‌). At the center of morality, therefore, is sociality—​humanity’s mutuality. “All the members of human society,” Smith says, “stand in need of each other’s assistance, and are likewise exposed to mutual injuries” (II.ii.iii.1). When the assistance is “reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the society flourishes” (II.ii.iii.1); and when it is impersonal, as in commerce, the human bonds are still there.4 It is when there is no mutuality, however, that society cannot stand, when “the bands of it are broke asunder” (II.ii.iii.3).When our sentiments no longer correspond to others, when our bonds of fellow-​ feeling are broken, society is broken, for when we do “real and positive hurt ... from motives which are disapproved of,” we are mutually injuring one another and breaking the bonds of society (II.ii.i.5); we are moving from the virtue of justice to injury, the “violation of justice” (II.ii.i.5). Smith observes that “the

314  Jan Osborn et al. foundation of justice and humanity” is in our regard for others. In solitude we may “feel too strongly whatever relates to ourselves” to concern ourselves with justice and humanity (III.iii.38). When we no longer consider ourselves “but one of the multitude” (III.iii.4), when we no longer are accountable to our fellow beings, when we do not “humble the arrogance of [our] self-​love” (II.ii.ii.1), we cannot be an impartial spectator, and the connection between morality and sociality becomes evident. In a consideration of Adam Smith and Mary Shelley, we are immediately struck by Smith connecting injustice with “deformity” (III.iii.4). He imagines what it would be like for a “human creature” to grow up “in some solitary place” (III.i.3) without the benefit of others. Smith posits, that a human “first views the propriety and impropriety of his own passions, the beauty and deformity of his own mind” (III.i.3) through their interaction with others. His theory of morality is built upon the concept of fellow-​feeling, a being part of the multitude, connecting how others are feeling to our own imagination as one of the “we.” Smith uses the word sympathy to “denote our fellow-​feeling” (I.i.i,1). He does not put morality into a deity; he puts it within human beings, in the way we interact with one another. This new sensibility is, indeed, a thinking through of the human condition, an exploration of our humanity, our sociality, our morality. Within such a theory of moral sentiments, we find Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with Victor Frankenstein, a character who has community and society yet rejects it for a “resistless, and almost frantic impulse” (36), for an I-​ness—​“I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret” (34)—​which breaks the bounds of sociality. And the creature—​a “human creature” who yearns for such community, yearns to “becom[e]‌one among my fellows” (97)—​a creature deprived of the bonds of sociality. Shelley, too, considers the mirror of society, the creature asking for fellow-​feeling, asking that others “overlook the deformity of my figure” (90). But when reflected in people’s ill, injurious conduct towards him—​when rejected from the sociality he so desires—​the creature goes from asking “What was I?” (96, 97, 104), to explaining how rejection from sociality, “made me what I am” (92). Is not Shelley posing the critical question, “what constitutes humanity?” (Pon 36).

Already far north As we desire the company of those who may sympathize with us, we shall explore morality, possibly with an albatross around our necks, but explore we must, looking more closely at our two authors and their “new kind of sensibility” (Frye 4). Let us begin with Smith’s theory. Smith opens The Theory of Moral Sentiments questioning the Hobbesian assumption that human life is a war of all against all. He argues that, despite how much discord arises from our supposed selfishness, humans are in fact social beings—​we naturally desire to be in one another’s company. Smith identifies

A theory of sociality, morality, and monsters  315 our capacity for sympathy, or fellow-​feeling, as necessary for rendering humans “fit for that society for which [they] were made” (III.ii.7). He claims that when we observe the conduct of another person, we imagine “what we ourselves should feel in the like situation,” and “become in some measure the same person with him, and thence form some idea of his sensations, and even feel something which, though in weaker degree, is not altogether unlike him” (I.i.i.2). We find the process of sympathizing satisfying because correspondence between our own sentiments and those of others is a cause of pleasure. “Sympathy,” Smith asserts, “enlivens joy and alleviates grief ” (I.i. ii.2). This harmony of sentiments is “the perfection of human nature” (I.i.v.5). It comes from the compassion of the spectator imagining what they would feel if in the same situation as another; it is a sympathy, a fellow-​feeling with the sentiment of another, a “conceiving what we ourselves should feel in like situation” (I.i.i.2). When the conduct of the person actually involved in the situation is in accord with our own sympathetic emotions, they appear “just, proper, and suitable” (I.i.iii.1). Our approval, therefore, is founded upon a correspondence between human sentiments, between human beings. As social beings we need to be in the company of others to determine this human correspondence, this harmony of sentiments, to determine what is virtuous and what is vicious, with virtue promoting and vice “disturb[ing] the order of society” (VII.iii.i.2). Such correspondence, however, has a catch: just as we are pleased “to observe in other men a fellow-​feeling with all the emotions of our own breast,” we are equally “shocked…by any appearance to the contrary” (I.i.ii.1).5 Although our aversion to being out of sympathy with others may seem like a weakness, it actually serves society in an ingenious way; for it is from such an aversion that our disapproval for disagreeableness is formed, and it is from this disapproval for disagreeableness that our guidelines for morality are born. For Smith, disagreeable actions are those that put strain on our relationships with others, and, since such actions threaten to dissolve the bonds within our communities, we judge them as improper. Conversely, we judge as proper those actions that maintain or strengthen said bonds. Such rules of morality allow us to maintain our connection with one another by encouraging the harmonization of conduct within society. Smith’s theory does not posit that the human condition is based in the individual; rather, he considers humans in interaction with one another. To be human is to be social, and to be social is to be moral. Of course, we do not only judge others’ conduct as proper, suitable, or fit for a situation; we judge ourselves by these principles as well.6 According to Smith, human beings are naturally predisposed to this habit: Nature, accordingly, has endowed him, not only with a desire of being approved of, but with a desire of being what ought to be approved of; of being what he himself approves of in other men (III.ii.7). In response to these desires, “[w]‌e endeavour to examine our own conduct as we imagine any other fair and impartial spectator would examine it” (III.i.2). It is important to note that Smith uses “fair and impartial spectator” to refer to an imagined, third-​party judge that transcends all human ego:

316  Jan Osborn et al. [W]‌e must look at ourselves with the same eyes with which we look at others: we must imagine ourselves not the actors, but the spectators of our own character and conduct, and consider how these would affect us when viewed from this new station, in which their excellencies and imperfections can alone be discovered. (III.i.[2]‌) By analyzing our conduct with some distance, we are able to make judgments regarding the morality of our own actions. Although this process occurs entirely within the individual, human sociality is necessary. In order to understand how a fair and impartial spectator would evaluate our conduct, we need to look deeply into the looking glass of society, for it is only “with the eyes of other people” that we can determine the propriety of our actions (III.i.5). Put simply, without others we would have no way to judge ourselves. Smith plays with this idea, offering a counterfactual thought experiment: 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 or deformity of his own face. All these are objects which he cannot easily see, which naturally he does not look at, and with regard to which he is provided with no mirror which can present them to his view. Bring him into society, and he is immediately provided with the mirror which he wanted before ... it is here that he first views the propriety and impropriety of his own passions, the beauty and deformity of his own mind. (III.i.3) The mirror of a society is the means by which we judge and adjust our own conduct. Naturally, we may not always like what we see in the mirror; but look we must.

Surrounded by mountains of ice We write a few lines to say we are well-​advanced on our voyage, aware of the floating sheets of ice that continually pass, indicating the dangers of the region towards which we are advancing, the fear that our waters are too shallow, our shore a mirage. Come along, dear reader, let us go forth in good spirits in spite of the dangers ahead. Let us continue our expedition by exploring Shelley’s Frankenstein with this “new sensibility.” In a fantastical realm of monster and man, Mary Shelley creates an elaborate story that embodies, and possibly complicates, Smith’s theory of morality.7 As we have established, Smith’s theory is based upon the idea that humans are social beings.

A theory of sociality, morality, and monsters  317 Again, in that famous opening line regarding human nature, Smith claims that humans are interested “in the fortune of others” (I.i.i.1).We derive joy from the joy of others, and derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, through an imaginative process involving our own senses. Humans depend upon one another for the very foundation of morality. Shelley’s novel poses a tragic thought: what if a human, naturally interested in the fortune of others, were rejected by society? The creature, though animated by human intervention, is naturally interested in the fortune of others; however, he is rejected by all who see him, never allowing him an opportunity to develop the moral sentiments required of a member of society. By the time of his meeting with Walton, he is a true creature of isolation, outside society. Smith’s thought experiment is hauntingly similar to Shelley’s (chronologically, Shelley’s hauntingly similar to Smith’s). Humans form judgments about our conduct because we are able to view ourselves from the eyes of others. But, Smith argues, if a person were never exposed to society, if a person grew up in solitude, she would be unable to judge her own conduct and mind. To understand Shelley’s creature, we must examine his few and fleeting encounters with society, beginning with the moment life floods his inanimate figure.This is the moment when creator meets creation, when creation is tragically abandoned; for when the creature awakens,Victor Frankenstein is terrified. Though the creature crudely resembles the human form, he is considered hideous by his creator: His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion, and straight black lips. (39) And though Victor is immediately repelled, the creature reaches out: He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me… He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed downstairs. (40) Consider that the creature, with, “one hand stretched out,” did not mean to detain Victor. What if the creature were reaching out to Victor, like Adam reaching out to God in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam? But Victor, prejudiced by the creature’s external appearance and perhaps the horror of his own conduct, refuses to see good in something seemingly abhorrent. Instead, he runs away in fear, leaving the new creature helpless and alone. Victor’s response to the creature sets an unfortunate precedent; every subsequent interaction between creature and humankind follows suit. Shocked

318  Jan Osborn et al. by a rush of senses, the creature wanders into the forest near Ingolstadt, when, overcome by thirst and hunger, he innocently roams into an old man’s hut. “[O]‌n hearing a noise,” the old man “shrieked loudly, and, quitting the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated form hardly appeared capable” (83). The creature is greeted with similar shock and hostility when, tempted by the possibility of food, he enters a cottage: “But I had hardly placed my foot within the door, before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted” (83). In fact, along with the residents of the cottage, “the whole village was roused,” tormenting the creature until he is forced to flee (83). At the margins of society, the creature knows only suffering, fear, hostility, and rejection. The creature encounters the beauty of human society for the first time when he discovers the De Laceys. After escaping the village, he takes refuge in a hovel next to a cottage. Peering into the cottage, he witnesses an interaction between father and daughter, quintessentially benevolent and lovely: He raised her, and smiled with such kindness and affection, that I felt sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature: they were a mixture of pain and pleasure, such as I had never before experienced, either from hunger or cold, warmth or food; and I withdrew from the window, unable to bear these emotions. (85) He also recognizes the beauty in the father and son’s relationship: The old man walked before the cottage in the sun for a few minutes, leaning on the arm of the youth. Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast between these two excellent creatures. (86) He discovers the power of the human bond. Felix De Lacey, even when faced with the extraordinary demands of a life impoverished, is compassionate: taking his father, who has lost his sight, for walks in the sunshine, bringing his sister the first flower of spring (89). In the De Lacey family, the creature observes unyielding devotion, kindness, and love. He spends the winter observing the family, “observing my friends” as he reports, learning language, longing to “discover the motives and feelings of these lovely creatures,” thinking it might be within his power “to restore happiness to these deserving people” (91). The creature’s observations of society represent regular conduct within Smith’s theory. His fellow-​feeling is made clear: The gentle manners and beauty of the cottagers greatly endeared them to me: when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathized with their joys. (Shelley 89)

A theory of sociality, morality, and monsters  319 The creature comes to understand that people’s perception of him is separate from his intentions. He has been helping the family: gathering wood, clearing the snow—​tasks “performed by an invisible hand” (91).8 He even hears Felix and Agatha on occasion say, “good spirit, wonderful,” as if his actions were divine intervention. He imagines how the family might react to meeting him, how he might “win their favour, and afterwards their love” (91), how they might “overlook the deformity of [his] figure” (90). When viewing himself in a pool, he questions not only his face but his very being: [B]‌ut how was I terrified, when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. (90) The tragedy lies in how, upon viewing himself in a reflective pool and having been denied human affection out of no fault of his own, he wants to understand. While observing his “beloved cottagers,” the creature is also reading Milton, Plutarch, and Goethe, discovering an “infinity of new images and feelings” (103). The creature has a beautifully human curiosity and desire for fellow-​feeling, for a society of fellows, but no evidence on the part of others, whom he desires to call his affectionate fellows, acting upon those same principles. From the moment of seeing his reflection, the creature asks again and again, “Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination” (96, 97, 104). The creature comes to realize that he is “[l]‌ike Adam... created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence... wretched, helpless, and alone” (105), further realizing that his rejection from society “made me what I am” (92). Just as any human exposed to society would, the creature yearns to be included in it.The creature sees that the family loved one another,“sympathized with one another” (107), but his appearance casts its shadow over his hope for companionship. The creature continues to watch the De Laceys from afar until that fateful day when he finally makes his presence known. Approaching blind Mr. De Lacey alone, he is welcomed into their home; however, as soon as the rest see him, he is rejected: Who can describe their horror and consternation on beholding me? Agatha fainted; and Safie, unable to attend to her friend, rushed out of the cottage. Felix darted forward, and with supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung: in a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground, and struck me violently with a stick. (110) The De Laceys quit the cottage. The creature imagines their thoughts and considers their propriety. He knows they know the sting of “a traitor to good

320  Jan Osborn et al. feeling and honor” (101); he had trusted their “benevolence and generosity” (102); he had “sympathized with, and partly understood them” (103–​104), but to no avail. Although Shelley’s creature has the De Lacey family to observe, he remains on the margins of society, an outsider looking in but never included. He has “learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire their virtues, and to deprecate the vices of mankind” (102), and when night approaches, the heartbroken creature sets their cottage on fire: “finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me” (111). Because no one, with the exception of the blind man, so much as voluntarily engages with the creature upon seeing him, let alone for long enough for his intentions to be discovered, he both resents those who might find a useful friend in him and also questions his own making, identity, and purpose. He resolves to pursue his creator: I was alone. I remembered Adam’s supplication to his Creator; but where was mine? He had abandoned me, and, in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed him. (106) William’s death marks the beginning of the creature’s rampage, as he seeks to eliminate every member of his creator’s small society. It is easy to say that the creature is simply inhuman when he strangles William, when he drowns Victor’s dear friend Henry Clerval, when he strangles Elizabeth on the night of her wedding. But that is a superficial observation. To say that the creature is inhuman is to ignore his uniquely human desire for companionship, for approbation. “Nature,” Smith writes, when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren…She rendered their approbation most flattering and agreeable to him for its own sake; and their disapprobation most mortifying and most offensive. (116) But Nature did not create the creature as she did the rest of humanity. The creature is created by Victor Frankenstein. While the creature listens to Felix instructing Safie, he learns of the “system of human society” (96) and realizes that he is not like other humans: And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endowed with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. (96)

A theory of sociality, morality, and monsters  321 Still, he desires companionship, a human society: “Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some existing thing; do not deny me my request!” (120). He has been “reaching out” all this time, rejected in every case, yet he still desires society. “In solitude,” Smith explains,“we are apt to feel too strongly whatever relates to ourselves: we are apt to over-​rate the good offices we may have done, and the injuries we may have suffered: we are apt to be too much elated by our own good, and too much dejected by our own bad fortune” (III.iii.38). Rejected from society, the creature remains unexposed to the misery of disapprobation or the enjoyment of approbation. He is thus untrained in that “great school of self-​command” (Smith III.iii.22), where every human learns to “bring down” their delusions of self-​love to earn the approbation of the impartial spectator and their fellow creatures. Smith reasons, “Nature has established for the acquisition of this and of every other virtue; a regard to the sentiments of the real or supposed spectator of our conduct” (III.iii.21). The creature desires companionship. Without it, he lacks the instinct that Nature has ascribed to mankind, “a regard to the sentiments of the real or supposed spectator of our conduct.” And while Smith claims that “Nature formed man for society” (III.ii.6), Shelley tells the story of a man without a society. The creature, denied humanity, acts viciously in the heat of misery and rage, “like a wild beast” (111). That vengeful passion eventually dies, however, and the creature reflects upon his actions. He is not inhuman, for he feels the anguish of remorse that he so endearingly expresses to Robert Walton after his creator’s death. Rather, he is unsocialized to the duties of being human. The creature has no impartial spectator, or at least none that would be able to correct his conduct in moments of passion. He does not have the connections necessary to learn the rules to judge his own conduct, to develop his own impartial spectator. He does not have the ability to step outside of himself and view his conduct as a bystander, to make those essential judgments that prevent most humans from committing heinous acts. He has never had a society of fellows. Smith considers how one with a society of fellows might conduct himself: A “man of furious resentment” might consider the murder of his enemy as compensation for the wrong he believes he has received, but “his observations upon the conduct of others, have taught him how horrible all such sanguinary revenges appear,” and he has “laid it down to himself as an inviolable rule, to abstain from them” (III.iv.12).The creature is unsocialized to the duties of being human. He does not have a repertoire of human interactions like the rest of humanity, no trial and error, no pleasure from the approbation or pain from the disapprobation of his fellow creatures. Every attempt to enter into society is met with tragic rejection: “I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all human kind sinned against me?” (189). With his creator—​that “self-​devoted being” (187)—​dead, the creature springs from the vessel, “lost in darkness and distance” (191).

322  Jan Osborn et al. It is Victor Frankenstein who creates the monster, Victor Frankenstein who abandons him, who denies him that first mirror where he might view the propriety and impropriety of his own passions.The creature was just that, a creature like any person is a creature, until he was denied his humanity: And what was I? Of my creation and my creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. . . . Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned? (96) Without a society, the creature turns to monstrosity. Yet Victor, who has a society of fellows, removes himself from society in a selfish quest for glory. Shelley clearly establishes Victor’s society, for he is surrounded by a loving family. “No creature,” he tells Robert Walton, “could have more tender parents than mine” (19). He has a close “domestic circle” (22): Elizabeth, his “friend” and “future wife” (20); Henry Clerval his schoolfellow and friend; his younger siblings, Ernest and William. At the age of seventeen he is sent to the University of Ingolstadt where he was alone because he “believed [him]self totally unfitted for the company of strangers” (28). And it is here where Victor turns from society to self, to an obsession regarding the generation of life: “I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret” (34). Shelley describes Victor as “alone,” “secret,” “turning away from “human nature.” He becomes “engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit” (37), turning away from his family and friends, aware that he is blameworthy and even connecting his own pursuit to historical events that caused great harm, “moralizing” his tale (38). This is Shelley connecting her protagonist to Smith’s idea that “A moral being is an accountable being” (III.i.[3]‌); for as Victor removes himself from society, he is accountable to no one. And even as he creates life, he abandons it, running from the accountability he owed his creation; his lack of accountability to others, his isolation and selfishness leading to the destruction of the very society from whence he came—​the death of William and Justine and Henry and Elizabeth; his “own spirit let loose from the grave and forced to destroy all that was dear to [him]” (57). Victor removes himself from the community of humanity, denies a spectator to his deeds, creates and rejects his creation, thinking he can be free of the consequences of his actions. And just as Victor’s selfishness propels him, the creature, once rejected, is motivated by “A frightful selfishness” (188) and one-​by-​one severs the bonds that “bind one human being to another” (97) as he exacts his revenge, no longer seeking “fellow-​feeling” in his misery, looking for no “sympathy,” feeling only “abhorrence and opprobrium” for his actions (189).

Yet at sea And so, dear reader, you have read this strange and terrific story, and we near the end of our expedition. The connections between novel and moral philosophy have been

A theory of sociality, morality, and monsters  323 negotiated; the writers’ exploration of the human condition, their questioning how human beings function in a society, examined as a means to address how Smith and Shelley, with a “new sensibility,” as Frye suggests, think about our humanity and the bonds we have to one another. So seldom have these connections been considered that you may remain skeptical.9 We will, therefore, head towards shore. Both Smith and Shelley contemplate the nature of humanity in their works. Victor Frankenstein, before sharing his “memory of these evils” with Robert Walton, explains, “I believe that the strange incidents connected with it will afford a view of nature, which may enlarge your faculties and understanding” (Shelley 17). In like fashion, Smith opens his book by considering “some principles in his [human’s] nature” (Smith I.i.i.1). Shelley’s main characters are in solitude. They do not have the presence of spectators; the propriety of their moral sentiments is corrupted (Victor) or uninstantiated (the creature). Both Victor Frankenstein and the creature injure others:Victor abandoning his creation, forsaking Justine, denying his family and friends the safety of the truth; the creature avenging his abandonment with murder. Both prefer self to others. Although Smith is often regarded as a proponent of “selfishness,” he clearly is not.10 In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, selfishness is the foundation of injustice and inhumanity: “one individual must never prefer himself so much even to any other individual, as to hurt or injure that other in order to benefit himself ” (III.iii.6). He argues that sympathy—​this “imaginative identification of the self with another” (Brewer 91)—​is, in fact, unselfish: Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish principle. . . . though sympathy is very properly said to arise from an imaginary change of situations with the person principally concerned, yet this imaginary change is not supposed to happen to me in my own person and character, but in that of the person with whom I sympathize. . . . My grief, therefore, is entirely upon your account, and not in the least upon my own. It is not, therefore, in the least selfish. (Smith VII.iii.i.4) Smith contends that those who argue for an account of human nature based on self-​love11 seem to have come from “some confused misapprehension of the system of sympathy” (VII.iii.i.4). It is our sociality, our mutuality, our shared feelings from which our morality arises. And here we see Shelley’s story of Frankenstein and his creature, both made monsters, either by shunning human society or being shunned by it, by dwelling in their own passions. In solitude, they each feel too strongly what relates to them. Frankenstein overrates what he, alone, could do: “I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret” (34). The creature is hurried on by a “frightful selfishness” (188), realizing that sympathy for his misery is

324  Jan Osborn et al. no longer his desire. He had desired fellow-​feeling for his virtues, his love of humanity, but when that was not forthcoming, his vices manifested—​“the children of a forced solitude” that he abhorred (121). Once beyond some of the misconceptions, the reductive meanings—​Smith reduced to a theory of “selfishness,” a “selfish capitalism,” his ideas parodied, pilloried, maligned; Shelley “depoliticized and domesticated... as a devoted if, in some versions, unworthy wife to P.B. Shelley” (Graham 1), her novel reduced to a tale of terror or a warning against technology—​the moral significance of the authors can be contemplated. Both seek “to engage with affairs and issues of the real world, and of the psychology of real people” (Hindle 4). Both raise challenging questions for the twenty-​first century: How can human beings function in contemporary society? To whom are they “accountable”? How does sociality and morality, humanity and mutuality work in this century, in this socially networked, global society? What constitutes humanity now? Is there a “mirror” for us in such a society, or has it been fractured beyond recognizability? We imagine that human bonds would be strengthened with the interconnectedness of the internet, the mirror ever larger, more reflective of difference and multiplicities, a means to judge and adjust our own conduct with enhanced scope. It seems, however, that though we are connected with ever more human beings via the web, we have abandoned the capabilities of the creation. Just when we have the means to learn from others who are not like us, we break the bands asunder, we deny the opportunity to develop the fellow-​feeling that Smith says undergirds our morality. The internet allows users and providers to engage in selective exposure (Weeks, Lane, Kim, Lee & Kwak 363), purposefully selecting messages that match beliefs rather than challenging them, a kind of socially networked isolation. Just as we are capable of forming judgments about our conduct from multiple points of view, we seem to have broken the mirror, choosing instead to reflect upon only those ideas that reinforce our existing point of view. We are constantly fed the news that augments the news we looked at yesterday, accepting algorithms that restrict our sociality rather than expand it, searching for voices that echo our own rather than seeking new ideas—​like an angry mob, trying desperately to make their truth the truth. If we reject others as “monsters,” we isolate ourselves even while surrounded with a vast network of connectability. Victor Frankenstein had a social network, but he isolated himself to avoid their judgment. It was this decision, this attempt to avoid accountability that was his monstrosity. It may be no error, therefore, that so many refer to Frankenstein as the monster in Shelley’s novel. When we do not interact with others, preferring to imagine or fabricate who they are and what their ideas are, we are no different than Victor, believing we “alone” have the answers, the way forward. Victor turned away from the connections his society afforded him; he broke the mirror available to him. Smith and Shelley remind us that we may not like what we see in the mirror; but look we must.

A theory of sociality, morality, and monsters  325

Notes 1 Note that we have no “ideological axe to grind” in our analysis (Hindle 2), nor are we suggesting “a single, closed, interpretatively finalized reading” (Botting 10). 2 Although Marshall focuses on (1) the sympathy of the audience, on theatricality in particular, considering what happens when an audience confronts suffering—​ “the effects that a work of art had on its reader or beholder” (2); and (2) the figure of Rosseau in Frankenstein (182), the significant connection our inquiry makes is between human conduct in fiction and moral philosophy.While Samuel Fleischacker carefully connects Smith’s work to literary fiction and drama, he doesn’t, for obvious reasons, consider the reverse connection from Adam Smith’s moral philosophy to a specific piece of early nineteenth century literature. 3 Charles L. Griswold argues that “misinterpretations of Smith are striking” (9). A full integration of the first book into the second would dispel these mischaracterizations (see, e.g., Smith and Wilson 2019). 4 “Give me that which you want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of” (Wealth of Nations I.ii.2, our italics). 5 We are well aware that complexities of power and social norms are in play when considering sympathy and fellow-​feeling. While the scope of this paper, focused as it is on sociality, does not engage with those tensions as much as we might with another focus, we see Mary Shelley complicating the ideas of impartiality and sympathy as the socially privileged Victor Frankenstein and the DeLacey family reject the creature, ultimately rejecting his humanity, culminating in consequences that cannot be ignored when circling back to power and the bonds and accountability we have to one another. 6 Connecting Smith’s theory to nineteenth century realism, Rae Greiner’s “Sympathy isn’t something you feel but something you do” (901) calls upon this gauging of propriety, this model of morality. 7 Certainly, other writers have connected Shelley’s novel to Smith’s theory but with a focus on the structural elements of the novel (e.g., Britton 2009), on Smith’s sympathy as a narrative device (e.g., Marshall 1988), or on the creature’s affect (e.g., Hatch 2008). We attempt a close bidirectional reading of Smith and Shelley to explore a theory of morality situated in sociality. Where Smith’s thought experiment is set out in a paragraph, Shelley explores the idea through a novel. 8 A possible allusion to Smith’s A Wealth of Nations, the phrase repeated twice (90, 91). 9 See Brewer (2001). 10 See, for example, Becker (1981). 11 Those, like Hobbes, who have “made so much noise in the world” (VII.iii.i.4).

Works Cited Becker, Gary S. “Altruism in the Family and Selfishness in the Market Place.” Economica, vol. 48, no. 189, Feb. 1981, pp. 1–​15. Bennett, Betty T. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: An Introduction. John Hopkins University Press, 1998. Botting, Fred. Making Monstrous: ‘Frankenstein,’ Criticism, Theory. Manchester University Press, 1991.

326  Jan Osborn et al. Brewer, William D. The Mental Anatomies of William Godwin and Mary Shelley. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001. Britton, Jeanne M. “Novelistic Sympathy in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Studies in Romanticism, vol. 48, no. 1, Spring 2009, pp. 3–​22. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/​sta​ble/​ 25602​177 Fleischacker, Samuel. On Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”: A Philosophical Companion. Princeton University Press, 2004. Frye, Northrop. A Study of English Romanticism. The Harvester Press, 1968. Graham, Allen. Mary Shelley. Critical Issues Series. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Greiner, Rae. “The Art of Knowing Your Own Nothingness.” ELH, vol. 77, no. 4, Winter 2010, pp. 893–​914. Project Muse, www.acade​mia.edu/​16430​463/​The_​Art_​ of_​K​nowi​ng_​Y​our_​Own_​Noth​ingn​ess Griswold, Charles L., Jr. Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Hatch, James. “Disruptive Affects: Shame, Disgust, and Sympathy in Frankenstein.” European Romantic Review, vol. 19, no. 1, January 2008, pp. 33–​49. DOI: 10.1080/​ 10509580701844967 Hindle, Maurice. Mary Shelley: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Penguin Critical Studies, 1994. Marshall, David. The Surprising Effects of Sympathy: Marivaux, Diderot, Rousseau, and Mary Shelley. University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pon, Cynthia. “ ‘Passages’ in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: Toward a Feminist Figure of Humanity?” Modern Language Studies, vol. 30, no. 2, Autumn 2000, pp. 33–​50. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/​sta​ble/​3195​378 Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Oxford University Press, 1818/​ 2008. Smith, Adam. “The History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects, Edited by W.L.P.D. Wightman, Liberty Fund, 1982, 33–​105. Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie, Liberty Fund, 1790/​1976. Smith, Vernon L. and Bart J. Wilson. Humanomics: Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations for the Twenty-​First Century. Cambridge University Press, 2019. Weeks, Brian E., Daniel S. Lane, Dam Hee Kim, Sigi S. Lee, and Nojin Kwak.“Incidental Exposure, and Political Information Sharing: Integrating Online Exposure Patterns and Expression on Social Media.” Journal of Computer-​Mediated Communication, vol. 22, no. 6, 12 October 2017, pp. 363–​379.

 oral innovation and the man M within the breast Dylan DelliSanti

1 Introduction Since the publication of Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the place of the impartial spectator in the development of our moral sentiments has been a hotbed of debate. Specifically, scholars have called into question the impartialness of the impartial spectator. Sen (2009) sees the impartial spectator as a device individuals can use to judge and criticize the norms of their community. Several scholars, notably Fleischacker (2016) and Rasmussen (2013), emphasize that the impartial spectator is necessarily a product of our community and is thus of limited use in criticizing the norms of our community. I argue that the truth is somewhere in between. It is true that each individual’s “man within the breast” is dependent upon the customs and traditions of that individual’s community. The man within is necessarily path dependent, because we develop our respective men within the breast by observing and interacting with others. However, the socially constructed nature of the man within the breast does not mean that individuals are helplessly bound to their community’s traditions. Indeed, not all individuals live in monolithic, all-​encompassing communities, but can have at their disposal a variety of cultural resources. Choosing among these cultural resources is part of the process of developing our man within the breast. By drawing on insights from other communities, individuals can generate moral innovations –​moral insights that call into question established customs. Although the individual is never free from custom (and never could be), he has some latitude to question, to criticize, to deviate from, and to improve upon some of them. Smith urges us to sensibly navigate the trade-​off between fitting in and conforming to custom on the one hand and innovating on customs on the other. We need customs to make communities cohesive, but too strict an adherence can lead to, or perpetuate, gross moral perversion (like infanticide or the slave trade). Smith wrote at the dawn of cosmopolitanism. Although Smith’s main concern in The Theory of Moral Sentiments is with how communities can be cohesive, he also pushes his readers to adopt a more cosmopolitan mindset –​in essence, giving readers the tools to develop men within the breast that were not mere reflections of their given communities. The rise of commerce expanded DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-21

328  Dylan DelliSanti the potential cultural sources which individuals could draw upon to shape their respective men within the breast. Smith saw both promise and peril in the expansion of our cultural resources –​the promise that bad customs and traditions might get weeded out, but also the peril that more diverse societies might also be more contentious.

2 The literature In The Idea of Justice (2009) Amartya Sen argues that Smith’s impartial spectator was a “reflective device” which allowed individuals to “go beyond reasoning that may –​perhaps imperceptibly –​be constrained by local conventions of thought, and to examine deliberately… what the accepted conventions would look like from perspective of a ‘spectator’ at a distance” (p. 125). Sen’s larger argument is that Smith’s impartial spectator is a device for “open impartiality,” whereas social contractarianism –​especially of the Rawlsian variety –​constitutes a device for “closed impartiality.” Sen argues that Rawls’s original position is a more limited device than Smith’s impartial spectator; Rawls’s position can lead to exclusion of those not part of the group, while Smith’s allows for comparing conventions between different communities. Although I think Sen is correct in identifying the impartial spectator as a device for open impartiality, I think he overestimates the ability of the impartial spectator to make judgments between communities, and in doing so, understates the socially contingent nature of the impartial-​spectator procedure. Several scholars of note have pushed against the idea of the impartial spectator as somehow objective or outside of society. Indeed, Raphael (2007, p. 37) argues that Smith had to tow the line between the traditional view that the voice of conscience represents the voice of God and is superior to popular opinion. On the other hand, he believed that conscience is initially an effect of social approval and disapproval; in the first instance, vox populi is vox Dei. Golemboski (2015) argues that, since the impartial spectator is a product of socialization, the impartial spectator necessarily serves to inculcate a community’s conventions. In Golemboski’s understanding, Smith’s impartial spectator is particularly useful at bringing about coordination and cooperation within a given community, but not so useful at transcending and criticizing a certain community’s conventions. Similarly, Smith, argues Fleischacker (2011), understands our moral sentiments to be constructed out of everyday life. Smith’s sensitivity to everyday life, and his insistence upon giving a realistic account of the development of our moral sentiments, presents the possibility of relativism. Smith saw the rules which develop within each community as well-​suited to that community; however, Smith seemingly gives us little in the way of pronouncing the rules in one community as superior to the rules in another.

Moral innovation and the man within the breast  329 For instance, Smith argues that the impartial spectator might consider infanticide necessary in certain circumstances, such as when the mother must choose to die with the child or live on without (TMS, p. 210). If such circumstances are persistent, such as in a poor community, infanticide might become custom. Customs, Smith recognizes, are stubborn. Even when that society grows to a state of opulence in which infanticide is no longer necessary, the custom might remain. As Fleischacker (2011) argues, since Smith sees moral approval as originating in the community, it is difficult for people to amend old customs. Our sense of right and wrong, and our ability to act in the way in which an impartial spectator might dictate, comes from our experience in the world and our observations of others. By observing the actions of others we form general rules which “are of great use in correcting the misrepresentations of self-​ love…” (TMS, p. 160). That our conscience is formed through our experiences in society makes us well-​suited for judging what is proper or improper conduct within that community, but not necessarily for judging the rules of that community. Even the impartial spectator who implores us to consider ourselves as “but one of the multitude” will not always suffice (TMS, p. 137). As Fleischacker (2011) writes: If the moral standards, the basic moral sentiments, of a society are profoundly corrupt—​if a feeling of contempt for Africans or hatred for Jews or homosexuals, say, has been taken for a moral feeling, and a society’s judgments of these people’s actions have been comprehensively skewed as a result—​the impartial spectator within each individual will share in, rather than correcting for, that corruption. (pp. 28–​29) Thus, although Smith is confident that, on the whole, a community’s general rules will be well-​suited to their situation, some destructive customs –​what Smith calls “particular usages,” will remain (TMS, p. 211.). A “particular usage” of Smith’s time would be the slave trade. Slavery, while it harmed the slaves, did not necessarily harm the rest of society. As Hurtado (2016) points out, the sympathetic process can fail if certain people are left outside the social body. Many other cases of norms harmful enough to make the lives of many in a society miserable, while not seriously destroying the fabric of that society, abound. Confronted with such cases, it seems that Smith left individuals with few means to escape the norms of their community. They can retreat to their conscience, but their ability to communicate with a truly impartial spectator is limited at best, and always constructed by their experiences in society. Fleischacker is among a chorus of voices, including Cropsey (1957), Griswold and Den Uyl (1996), Forman-​Barzilai (2010), and Rasmussen (2013) who emphasizes that Smith was primarily concerned with social coordination. I think those authors who have emphasized the socially constructed nature of the impartial spectator have highlighted an important aspect of Smith’s thoughts on moral development. But I think they are mistaken to construe the

330  Dylan DelliSanti community as an all-​encompassing entity. The impression we are given is that the individual is born into a community, his impartial spectator is developed within it, and as a result, he is bound to conform to that community. There is no doubt a strong flavor of conformity in Smith. We necessarily conform to some set of customs and it is beneficial that we do, otherwise societies might devolve into anarchy. But although moral homogeneity might be true of some communities –​such as pre-​commercial, traditional ones –​it is not true of all communities. Although our community always shapes our impartial spectator, there can also be variation within our community. In commercial society, individuals are confronted with a cornucopia of different communities within their larger society. People can identify with these different communities, picking and choosing desirable qualities from each and thus generating moral innovations –​in effect, improvements of the man within the breast. Although these moral innovations were not the focus of Smith’s theory of moral development –​I think he was much more concerned with how it was that any community could have cohesiveness –​it is important to highlight those mechanisms by which Smith thought we might overcome our partial prejudices. I do not think that Smith believed that individuals were hopelessly bound to their society’s customs. Smith’s account of moral innovation parallels Kuhn’s account of scientific revolution. For Kuhn, scientific revolutions don’t come about from a conscious effort to break away from the establishment; instead, scientific revolutions are usually brought about by scientists working within the established tradition. Kuhn (1977: 234) writes that: …the ultimate effect of this tradition-​bound work has invariably been to change the tradition. Again and again the continuing attempt to elucidate currently received tradition has at least produced one of those shifts in fundamental theory, in problem field, and in scientific standards to which I previously referred as scientific revolutions. Tradition-​bound work contributes to revolution because only tradition-​bound work allows for isolation of “continuing and concentrated attention those loci of trouble or causes of crisis upon whose recognition the most fundamental advances in basic science depend” (ibid). Similarly, Smith saw moral innovation as arising within traditions; people test out general rules or norms within varying situations, adjusting for changes in context along the way. In addition to overlooking variation in communities, I think the authors who have emphasized the problems of relativism in Smith’s system have failed to view the impartial spectator and the man within the breast as distinct, though related, entities. Smith writes of the man within the breast as being the “representative of the impartial spectator” (TMS, p. 215). Smith is suggesting that the supreme impartial spectator –​the one who really does view the world impartially –​is beyond the reach of individuals here on earth. Instead, we have the man within the breast. How well our man within the breast approximates the

Moral innovation and the man within the breast  331 impartial spectator depends upon the development of our sympathetic imagination, which, in turn, is a function of the communities we are able to associate with and the exemplars we emulate. We can never have complete autonomy free of our social influences. As such, we can never have a truly impartial spectator who can criticize the norms of different societies as if from the outside, as Sen suggests. We can, however, strive for a sort of autonomy through our community as suggested by Hurtado (2016) and Macedo (1991). Hurtado writes that “[The sympathetic process] involves us in a moral education that gives us perspective, helps us form a general point of view that may tend towards universality but is always context dependent, and forms our character” (p. 303). Similarly, Macedo writes that: The ideal of autonomy is the autonomy of one informed by different standards and ideals. It stems from the ability to establish a reflective distance from our desires and to deliberate on them and on ourselves more broadly. Deliberation is conducted in an inherited moral language… . Liberal autonomy is not a matter of transcending contingency or of inhabiting a world beyond our own… . [It] is a way of comporting ourselves in our liberal, pluralistic, community –​critically playing off one aspect of our culture against other aspects and against our own experience. (p. 218, emphasis added) Smith sees the development of our man within the breast in a similar light. By drawing upon, and comparing, the standards of different communities, we shape our man within the breast. As Macedo (p. 235) writes, “The development of reflective capacities,” which we might construe as the development of our man within the breast, “also requires the existence of a number of live ethical options. In a pluralistic and sufficiently tolerant social milieu one may seriously consider and actually choose among a variety of options and lifestyles.” Smith saw that the increase in live ethical options, combined with an attitude of tolerance and curiosity, could be of great using in improving our men within the breast. Forman-​Barzilai (2010, p. 76) argues that Smith wrestled with balancing conventionalism with autonomy throughout his life, as evidenced by his many revisions of Moral Sentiments, writing that “Smith became increasingly anxious about his sociological theory of conscience once critics level charges of moral conventionalism against the first edition of his book.” Over the course of his revisions, Forman-​Barzilai argues that Smith worked toward establishing some independence of the conscience, or moral maturity, often through quasi-​ theological terms. I follow Forman-​Barizali’s reasoning that Smith wanted to establish space for autonomy while recognizing that individuals are largely constrained by their upbringing and community. Where Forman-​ Barzilai focuses on the role God played for Smith in the maturation process, I want to focus on the resources that Smith believed individuals could make use of on this Earth for cultivating wisdom and virtue.

332  Dylan DelliSanti We must always make do with the customs we inherit, but we can improve upon them –​especially if we can move more easily between communities, or if our society has a fair degree of variation among its communities. In societies in which individuals are beholden to one highly cohesive community, or where obstructions prevent individuals from seeking out other communities, the development of the man within the breast will be stunted, and the problems of partiality and moral relativity raised by Fleischacker, Rasmussen, and Golemboski come to the fore.

3 The development of the man within the breast My contention is that, although the man within the breast is necessarily a product of socialization, individuals are not necessarily constrained to the norms and standards of their community, narrowly considered. To make my argument, we have to consider what role the man within the breast plays in our moral judgment, and how the man within the breast is formed. Smith’s starting point is man’s natural sociability. He writes that “Nature, when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren” (TMS, p. 116). We seek praise and avoid blame in an effort to please those we live with. But men not only desire praise and avoid blame, but also have a natural desire to become praiseworthy and avoid becoming blameworthy. We want not only want to be praised, but to be deserving of praise. Unmerited praise gives us no lasting satisfaction. The love of praise and avoidance of blame might encourage people to “the affectation of virtue, and to the concealment of vice,” but the desire to become praiseworthy encourages “the real love of virtue” (TMS, p. 117). The fear that we might be discovered to be frauds fills us with anxiety, and so we work toward praiseworthy conduct. In identifying that which is truly praiseworthy and blameworthy, we are guided by the man within the breast. The man within the breast views our actions from an impartial perspective, or at least attempts to. His judgment determines if our conduct and character are truly praiseworthy or blameworthy. When we seek to become praiseworthy, we seek the praise of the man within. Although we all have the capacity to consult with the man within the breast, we are not born with a ready-​made man within the breast who can perfectly judge the propriety of our conduct. Only through time, experience, practice, and habituation do we build an impartial perspective. Smith illustrates the development of our man within the breast. When we are toddlers, we feel little need to moderate our passions or partiality. But when we first attend school, we find that our classmates “have no such indulgent partiality” (TMS, 145). For our own good, we moderate our selfishness to obtain their approval. It is here that we enter, what Smith calls, “the great school of self-​command” (ibid). In the great school of self-​command, we learn to adopt an impartial perspective. We are constantly thinking about how our actions must look from the standpoint of a disinterested third party. By habitually adopting this perspective we come

Moral innovation and the man within the breast  333 to have some distinction between praiseworthy and blameworthy conduct. We create, within ourselves, our own judge. As Smith writes: when I endeavour to pass sentence upon [my own conduct], and either to approve or condemn it, it is evident that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of. The first is the spectator, whose sentiments with regard to my own conduct I endeavour to enter into, by placing myself in his situation, and by considering how it would appear to me, when seen from that particular point of view. The second is the agent, the person whom I properly call myself, and of whose conduct, under the character of a spectator, I was endeavouring to form some opinion. The first is the judge; the second the person judged of. But that the judge should, in every respect, be the same with the person judged of, is as impossible as that the cause should, in every respect, be the same with the effect. (TMS, p. 113) The praise or blame of real spectators plays a role in the development of this judge, or of the impartial perspective. When we are uncertain of the propriety of our conduct, we use praise and blame to guide us. Smith likens our uncertainty concerning our conduct to the anxiety a young artist might feel in presenting his work to his friends. Art requires delicate judgment; unlike mathematics, it does not have clear, right-​and-​wrong answers; as such, young artists rely on the praise and criticism of their companions in trying to refine their artistic sensibilities. As the artist grows, “experience and success… give him a little more confidence in his own judgment” (TMS, 123). Only with some experience in the world does the artist build his independent judgment. In the same manner, we rely on the praise and blame of those we live with to guide our moral judgment. We do not necessarily value praise in and of itself, but as an indication of the rightness or wrongness of our actions. The praise or blame we receive from others acts as feedback that we use to shape our man within. Through the practice of constantly viewing our situation the way in which others view us, we gradually move from a state of weakness and dependency upon the opinions of others to a state of a little more firmness and independency. A select few of us will reach a state of wisdom in which we need only the approbation of the man within.These wise men have “been thoroughly bred in the great school of self-​command, in the bustle and business of the world,” and have reached a state of “real constancy and firmness” in which their actions are entirely approved of by the impartial spectator (TMS, 146). Additionally, we watch the behavior of others as a way of modeling our own. Smith recognized that, even when we try to be impartial in reflecting upon our past actions, “it is so disagreeable to think ill of ourselves,” that we often “persevere in injustice, merely because we were once unjust” (TMS, 158). However, by observing the actions of others, the circumstances in which they

334  Dylan DelliSanti acted, and reflecting upon how these actions invoke praise or blame, from ourselves or from others in society, we form general rules that we use to judge the future actions of ourselves and others. Smith’s account of general rules shows how our social standards can adapt to new circumstances and help correct “the misrepresentations of self-​love” (TMS, 160). What is notable about Smith’s account of how our man within the breast develops is the necessarily social aspect of the man within. Although we strive for an impartial viewpoint, we are never completely isolated from the community we have developed in. When we are young and uncertain of the propriety of our conduct, we look to the community for guidance. We use real praise and blame to shape our judgment. We follow the general rules of our society. Although we might reflect on the reactions of real spectators and the general rules of our society in other moments, our man within will be indelibly shaped by our community. The necessarily social aspect of the man within the breast raises the problem of relativism. Smith recognizes that the man within the breast is a product of socialization –​a result of our interactions with our larger community.We might immediately think of the community as being some monolithic entity, but it’s not entirely clear that Smith had this in mind. On the one hand, it would make sense that Smith might think of the community in this monolithic way. In Smith’s time, the average person probably did not communicate much with outsiders. Indeed, most of human history has been spent in small groups with shared values. But Smith’s era was one of change. Increases in commerce and inventions like the printing press made communication across groups more likely. Additionally, not only could people more easily encounter cultures outside their own, but individual societies were also becoming more diverse internally. Smith touches on this increased diversity in the Wealth of Nations. In Smith’s view, people are not much different from one another at birth. It is only because of exchange and variable life experiences that people gain different talents “till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance” to the street porter (WN, 29). Different professions, as Smith recognized, have their own customs and manners according to the different situations those in each profession find themselves in: The objects with which men in the different professions and states of life are conversant being very different, and habituating them to very different passions, naturally form in them very different characters and manners. We expect in each rank and profession, a degree of those manners, which, experience has taught us, belong to it. (TMS, 201) Smith compares clergymen and military officers. The former always have a grave countenance, since their job is to “keep the world in mind of that awful

Moral innovation and the man within the breast  335 futurity which awaits them,” while military officers, who must conquer the fear of death, often “wrap themselves up in careless security and indifference, and to plunge themselves, for this purpose, into every sort of amusement and dissipation” (TMS, 202–​203). As societies develop economically, as the division of labor matures and becomes more diverse, the individuals within society become more diverse as well. The world Smith is writing for is one in which people had more choice in terms of the communities they could sympathize with. Although each individual community might be bound by certain customs, individuals within each community now had some latitude to move between them, or to simply copy customs they found desirable in other communities. By drawing on different communities and fashioning our man within the breast in our own way, we can reach a sort of independency which might allow us to overcome moral weaknesses of any individual community. And indeed, I think Smith had such a process in mind. He frequently emphasizes the importance of choosing who to follow, choosing whose feedback to consider important, and choosing the right exemplars. When we admire someone, they leave an impression on our man within the breast, which influences our future behavior: The man whom we believe is necessarily, in the things concerning which we believe him, our leader and director, and we look up to him with a certain degree of esteem and respect. But as from admiring other people we come to wish to be admired ourselves, so, from being led and directed by other people, we learn to wish to become ourselves leaders and directors. (TMS, p. 336) Although we will always be affected by someone’s influence, we have some latitude to choose who influences us. In choosing our influences, we seek not only to imitate them, but also to become influencers ourselves. We try to build off our influences –​improving upon them as we can. Moreover, we can pick and choose qualities from our influences.You might, for instance, admire the philosophy of Rousseau, while also finding his personal life repugnant. You might instead opt for the reserved lifestyle of a priest from your childhood, even if you find his views on abortion to be misguided. You eventually come to internalize these influences and they become part of your man within the breast.You reflect on them and wonder “WWJJD (What would Jean-​Jaques Do?) in such a situation?” In reflecting on these influences, you might come to new insights –​moral innovations –​that help you overcome the biases of your upbringing or help you to adapt to unique situations. Smith saw how this process of learning from our influences worked not also in morals and conduct, but also in the arts. Our judgments concerning artistic beauty are driven by custom in the same way that our judgments concerning morals are. Smith cites several examples:

336  Dylan DelliSanti Can any reason, for example, be assigned why the Doric capital should be appropriated to a pillar, whose height is equal to eight diameters; the Ionic volute to one of nine; and the Corinthian foliage to one of ten? The propriety of each of those appropriations can be founded upon nothing but habit and custom. (TMS, p. 196) Most people in any given generation will follow the established customs, but, from time to time, “an eminent artist will bring about a considerable change in the established modes of each of those arts, and introduce a new fashion of writing, music, or architecture” (TMS, p. 197). Although these eminent artists inherit certain customs, their steady development in their respective fields allows them to innovate. A comparison with popular music might be helpful: in early Beatles albums, there was little in them that could not also be found in Elvis or Chuck Berry albums. But as they progressed as artists, they formed their own independent judgment and style, picking and choosing qualities not only from 1950s rock, but also American country, Indian music, and even from their contemporaries in the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan. Eventually, they generated innovations which forever influenced musicians in their wake. Smith writes that, “After the praise of refining the taste of a nation, the highest eulogy, perhaps, which can be bestowed upon any author, is to say, that he corrupted it” (TMS, pp. 197–​198). Indeed, The Beatles, and other rock artists from the 1960s, were often seen as corrupting music in their time; now they are the standard which contemporary artists are compared to. Smith writes that the principles of custom and fashion “extend their dominion over our judgments concerning beauty of every kind” (TMS, p. 194). As such, custom has an influence over our judgments concerning the beauty of conduct –​our notion of propriety –​as well. But here, as in the arts, we are not wholly bound to custom. Smith uses an artistic metaphor to explain how we improve our idea of propriety. Every man has an idea of: exact propriety and perfection… gradually formed from his observations upon the character and conduct both of himself and other people. It is the slow, gradual, and progressive work of the great demigod within the breast, the great judge and arbiter of conduct. This idea is in every man more or less accurately drawn, its colouring is more or less just, its outlines are more or less exactly designed, according to the delicacy and acuteness of that sensibility with which those observations were made, and according to the care and attention employed in making them. (TMS, p. 247) Our image of exact propriety comes from our observations of the world; the clearness of that image is a function of our ability as an artist –​in a sense, our judgment. “In the wise and virtuous man,” writes Smith, this image of exact propriety has been drawn with “the utmost care and attention… every day

Moral innovation and the man within the breast  337 some feature is improved –​every day some blemish is corrected,” and in doing so, the wise and virtuous man “imitates the work of a divine artist” (ibid). Our ability to imitate the “divine artist” rests on our observations of ourselves and others, and what we make of those observations. As such, individuals do not merely absorb the customs and morals of their community. Those we observe and those we choose to imitate leave an impression on us and allow us to go beyond the morals of our community. Throughout TMS, Smith emphasizes the importance of choosing the right exemplars. A recurring theme, for instance, is in choosing to follow and imitate the wise and virtuous rather than the rich and powerful. Most people will be predisposed to follow the great in any society, as greatness is an easily observable focal point which most people can grasp. Wisdom and virtue, on the other hand, are more difficult to notice. Those of us who admire the wise will, themselves, internalize wisdom as something to be valued and thus might become wise men themselves. “To a real wise man,” writes Smith, “the judicious and well-​weighed approbation of a single wise man, gives more heartfelt satisfaction than all the noisy applauses of ten thousand ignorant though enthusiastic admirers” (TMS, p. 253). Smith tells a story of Parmenides, who, in giving a lecture on philosophy, saw his audience dwindle down to one single listener –​Plato.1 Nevertheless, “Plato alone was audience sufficient for him” (ibid). For Smith, if we direct our attention and admiration to the right people –​the wise and virtuous –​even if we do not become wise and virtuous, we “cannot help conceiving a certain respect, at least, for wisdom and virtue” (TMS, p. 224). We learn not only from those we associate with and admire in reality, but also with those we admire in fiction. Literature and the theater seem to play special roles in Smith’s understanding of our moral development. As Skwire (2017, p. 245) points out, only four paragraphs into TMS, “Smith moves from describing the ways in which observing the sufferings and joys of our fellow humans affects us to discussing how interacting with literature replicates these same effects.” Indeed, Smith recognizes that humans, as the imaginative animal, can enter into the situations of real and fictional people alike. Our joy for the deliverance of those heroes of tragedy or romance who interest us, is as sincere as our grief for their distress, and our fellow-​feeling with their misery is not more real than that with their happiness. We enter into their gratitude towards those faithful friends who did not desert them in their difficulties; and we heartily go along with their resentment against those perfidious traitors who injured, abandoned, or deceived them. (TMS, p. 10) Griswold observes that literature holds a special place in Smith’s theory of our moral development. In literature, the complexity and context of any situation can be fully explored. Part of good moral judgment requires that we properly account for context in making our assessments, and literature is well-​suited to the task. As Griswold (1999, p. 215) writes:

338  Dylan DelliSanti For study of literature teaches us how ethically complex human situations can be, how to stretch the moral imagination so as to size up the relevant factors, how to carry on a conversation about the competing claims of the dramatis personae. Smith even seems to favor literature as a source of moral development over philosophy. Philosophy is often carried out in abstract terms, without regard for context or human motivation. The rules that philosophers generate will be of little use in everyday life. Moral judgment is a matter of delicate sensibility, not mathematical precision. Smith boldly declares that: The poets and romance writers, who best paint the refinements and delicacies of love and friendship, and of all other private and domestic affections, Racine and Voltaire, Richardson, Marivaux, and Riccoboni, are, in such cases, much better instructors than Zeno, Chrysippus, or Epictetus. (TMS, p. 143) Smith references literary works throughout TMS. Literature allows us to see the context of a character’s actions, to see the various circumstances that affect the character, and then allows us to judge, from an impartial perspective, whether we think the character’s actions are justified. Through literature we have the advantage of feeling warmly a character’s motives, emotions, and context, but also judging coolly from a disinterested perspective. And as literature can allow for a great variety of context, it can be an important source of exercise for our moral imagination.The insights we take from literature can train us to view our own actions in an impartial light, difficult though this task may be. For Smith, our man within the breast is a product of the exemplars, real and fictional, we have chosen to draw from, and how we have mixed aspects of these exemplars together. Thus, although our man within the breast is socially constructed, he is not a mere reflection of whatever prevailing norms happen to exist in a community at a given time. If such were the case, little moral development would ever be possible. By choosing different exemplars, by identifying with different communities, we exercise some control over how our own conscience is formed. Smith’s account of our moral development gives us reason to find both promise and peril in commercial society.The promise is that more diverse communities, with more open communication between communities, will allow for greater moral competition and thus innovations that allow us to overcome narrow, tribal identities. But also peril –​the peril that diverse societies might be more factious and contentious.

4 The promise and peril of commercial society Commercial society brings with it great hopes but also unique problems. As societies develop, individuals are freed from the circumstantial attachments

Moral innovation and the man within the breast  339 that suppress autonomy in more traditional societies. People are freed to shape themselves in new and innovative ways. Old bigotries and damaging customs are steadily weeded out. But traditions and attachments which created a sense of cohesion are also overturned by commerce.The familiar problem of atomism arises. Societies grow large, diverse, and splintered. Smith welcomes the potential of commercial society, but also worries about the perils which may accompany it. To adapt ourselves to commercial society, we must wisely manage the trade-​ off between adhering too faithfully to established conventions (or “usages”) and of paying too little regard to custom and expectations. As I have argued, and as I think Smith recognized, developed societies naturally become more diverse. When the division of labor expands, new professions and lifestyles emerge. Individuals are freed to develop their own personality and aren’t beholden to the circumstantial attachments which they were born into. The freedom to shape our personality can allow us to escape damaging established conventions. For instance, Smith recognizes that “particular usages,” established customs “which shock the plainest principles of right and wrong,” will still sometimes persist (TMS, p. 209). Smith discusses infanticide in Ancient Greece as one “particular usage” and Fleischacker (2011, p. 36) argues that the impartial perspective wouldn’t enable individuals to overcome this practice –​“The Greeks, after all, presumably believed that any child could be exposed.” However, as societies become more diverse, or as a given society is enabled to communicate more with other societies, individuals within these societies are enabled to take on different perspectives, to see their society’s “particular usages” in a new light and potentially overcome them. The better enabled we are to see our customs impartially, the more likely we are to correct those customs. In general, Smith sees great value in being among strangers. Indeed, our development of the impartial perspective depends on our ability to encounter the novel and the strange. As Smith advises in TMS: Are you in adversity? Do not mourn in the darkness of solitude, do not regulate your sorrow according to the indulgent sympathy of your intimate friends; return, as soon as possible, to the daylight of the world and of society. Live with strangers, with those who know nothing, or care nothing about your misfortune; do not even shun the company of enemies; but give yourself the pleasure of mortifying their malignant joy, by making them feel how little you are affected by your calamity, and how much you are above it. (p. 154) To many of us, Smith’s counsel might seem counterintuitive. It is in times of sorrow in which we normally seek out the company of our friends. But Smith advises the opposite. Our friends will excessively indulge our sorrow, they might be reluctant to criticize, and they might even tell us we’re in the right simply to placate us. When we stay among our own company, we’re apt to lose sight

340  Dylan DelliSanti of how strangers might see us –​we diminish the development of the impartial perspective. Strangers won’t indulge us in the same way. They care little for our troubles and have no reason to take our side.Thus, among strangers, we learn to see ourselves as others do. Commercial society leads to the creation of a society of strangers –​a society of people living together in close geographic proximity, but not necessarily related to or attached to one another. In such a society, people must learn to adjust their behavior such that unfamiliars can approve of it. Additionally, we’re given a variety of perspectives to adopt which allow for the development of the man within the breast. As a result, our myopic and tribal prejudices are constantly challenged in commercial society. As we’re forced to rely upon other strangers in society, we continually learn that they are no different than us, and that we are “but one in the multitude, in no respect better than any other in it” (TMS, p. 137). But this story is not entirely happy. As a society develops and diversifies, the individuals within it will lose a sense of cohesion and community. No longer will they be living among cousins and second-​cousins, but among strangers. The old bonds of traditional society, which gave ordinary citizens meaning, will erode, and as a result, people may lose their character and purpose. Smith observed that “a man of low condition… while he remains in a country village” and is held accountable by his close-​knit community “may have what is called a character to lose” (WN, p. 795). But the rise of cities, a concomitant of the rise of commercial society, threatens the man of low condition’s character: “as soon as he comes into a great city, he is sunk into obscurity and darkness” (ibid). The danger of people losing their sense of meaning and purpose in commercial society is a real one. And it yields a further danger. Smith observed that, at least in countries in which religious sects were allowed to propagate freely, people could find a sense of meaning by joining a small church. For instance, Smith’s “man of low condition,” who left his quaint country village for the impersonal and anonymous city, ends up finding community in the form of a small church. On the one hand, contra Hume, Smith believed that vigorous competition among many small churches would lead the clergy to embrace “candour and moderation” instead of superstition and fanaticism (WN, p. 793). Smith even expresses the hope that competition among the small churches, “might in time probably reduce the doctrine of the great part of them to that pure and rational religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture, or fanaticism” (ibid). Smith here expresses some optimism that an open marketplace of ideas, even in a field as fraught with superstition as religion, might inch closer toward civility. But on the other hand, Smith worries that these churches, in an effort to appeal to poorer people, who usually embrace the austere virtues, will often carry doctrines of austerity to “disagreeably rigorous and unsocial” heights (WN, p. 796). These small churches, an outgrowth of the loss of purpose many in commercial society might feel, end up becoming a source of conflict.

Moral innovation and the man within the breast  341 As societies grow larger and more diverse, individuals will be able to join increasingly diverse groups with increasingly disparate ends, such as churches. The potential for social conflict can be high. Here, one aspect of the liberal plan –​the rule of law –​becomes important. Where “politicks” is made to serve one group over the others, the potential for violence among the factions becomes great, as the winning faction will use the state’s monopoly on violence to “silence and subdue all their adversaries” (WN, p. 792). Thus, the potential for conflict can be mitigated by treating the various groups equally –​by maintaining the rule of law. But the rule of law alone will not save us from conflict. Even where the government is largely impartial, factions can exert an unfortunate influence on their members’ moral sentiments. These groups often act as echo chambers and heighten the biases of their members. As Peart and Levy (2009, p. 337) write, factions “indulge the misbehavior of those inside the group” and increase the social distance between those inside the group and those outside of it. The insiders come to have a dogmatic confidence in their beliefs, and in the wrongness of outsiders, and are thus willing to sanction the immoral actions of the insiders in pursuit of group goals. Eventually, these groups can become a major source of conflict in society, and that conflict can threaten the liberal plan. As Smith writes, “Of all the corrupters of moral sentiments… faction and fanaticism have always been by far the greatest” (TMS, p 156). Although commerce frees us from our old prejudices, it can also become a source of new ones. Aside from the rule of law, Smith recommended two remedies to combat the “disagreeably rigorous… morals of all the little sects into which the country [can be] divided” (WN, p. 796). The first is “the study of science and philosophy” and the second is “the frequency and gaiety of publick diversions” (ibid). By the first suggestion, Smith means something like schooling, which, by introducing people to science and philosophy, could help prevent “enthusiasm and superstition” (ibid). This first suggestion is tailored more specifically to the problem of religious conflict which had plagued Europe in the preceding centuries. However, the study of science and philosophy can also apply to secular sources of faction. Members of factions are often quite convinced of the rightness of their beliefs (and the wrongness of everyone else’s). By studying philosophy, members of factions can come to see the extent of their ignorance and gain some epistemic humility. Indeed, Smith’s Wealth of Nations might be viewed as an attempt to show people “how little they really know about what they imagine they can design” (Hayek, 1991). When people appreciate the complexities of spontaneous orders, they might be less likely to believe that their beliefs are infallible, and thus less prone to faction and fanaticism. By the second remedy, Smith argues that the government should give “… entire liberty to all those who for their own interest would attempt, without scandal or indecency, to amuse and divert the people by painting, poetry, musick, dancing” (ibid). At first, it might not seem obvious why these various sources of entertainment would be useful in combating the problems of faction and fanaticism. Smith writes that these:

342  Dylan DelliSanti [D]‌ramatic representations and exhibitions, would easily dissipate… that melancholy and gloomy humour which is almost always the nurse of popular superstition and enthusiasm. Publick diversions have always been the objects of dread and hatred, to all the fanatical promoters of those popular frenzies. The gaiety and good humour which those diversions inspire were altogether inconsistent with that temper of mind, which was fittest for their purpose, or which they could best work upon. Dramatick representations besides, frequently exposing their artifices to public ridicule, and sometimes even to public execration, were upon that account, more than all other diversions, the objects of their peculiar abhorrence. (WN, pp. 796–​797) There are two points of note here. The first is that dramatic representations can combat faction because they tend to be lively and gay, while the livelihood of the fanatical sects depends upon keeping their members in a “melancholy and gloomy humour” (ibid). These public diversions encourage fanatical group members to escape their splenetic worldview and see the humor and joy in the world. In doing so, they might realize that their cause, whatever it happens to be, is not so dire or important as they originally imagined. The second noteworthy point is that public diversions can also expose fanatical sects to public ridicule. These public diversions expose insiders to the gaze of society and force them to see themselves the way that others do. Once again, Smith is trying to encourage the development of the impartial perspective. Overall, the story we get from Smith is that commercial societies will grow highly diverse and fragmented. People will have at their disposal many “live ethical options,” other communities outside their own which people can draw from and which allow people to reconsider their inherited moral beliefs. However, these live ethical options can also be a source of conflict in the form of faction. Rule of law and equal treatment can go a long way in preventing conflict among groups, but these liberal institutions are not always sufficient. People will still struggle for their group’s dominance and, in doing so, generate turmoil. To prevent this conflict, we must inculcate norms of tolerance, openness, and humility. The difficulty of maintaining these norms in diverse societies cannot be understated. Moral innovation, then, is not merely a function of having “live ethical options,” but of having the right attitudes of tolerance and openness as well. As Macedo (1991, p. 235) writes, “What is needed is not only competition among ideals, but respectful competition and a certain attitude toward change: a mutual willingness to try new things, to entertain various ideals.”The existence of “live ethical options” itself may impel people to reconsider their own beliefs, but they may sometimes be insufficient. Thus, Smith recommends myriad ways of encouraging people to be open to the “live ethical options” at their disposal: literature and theater, education, public diversions, and so on. We might also read The Theory of Moral Sentiments as a protreptic work which encouraged readers, in more subtle ways, to adopt attitudes of tolerance and

Moral innovation and the man within the breast  343 openness. In Part V, Chapter II, Smith considers the influence of custom on our moral sentiments. He observes that “the different situations of different ages and countries” often give rise to different customs and character; for instance, “that degree of order and frugality, which, in a Polish nobleman, would be considered as excessive parsimony, would be regarded as extravagance in a citizen of Amsterdam” (TMS, p. 204). He makes the more general observation that in poorer, less refined countries, “the virtues of self-​denial are more cultivated than those of humanity,” while in richer countries the opposite is typically true. Following this observation, Smith indulges in a rich description of life among Native Americans, detailing the coldness of their courtships and the magnanimity with which they face captors when they are prisoners of war. Native Americans, he claims, show little fear when they are tortured by their captors, and even deride their captors while they are slowly burned to death. But it is not only Native Americans who have a “contempt of death and torture,” but all “savage nations:” He then praises the self-​command of the African slave (and simultaneously condemns the soul of his captor): There is not a negro from the coast of Africa who does not, in this respect, possess a degree of magnanimity which the soul of his sordid master is too often scarce capable of conceiving. Fortune never exerted more cruelly her empire over mankind than when she subjected those nations of heroes to the refuse of the jails of Europe, to wretches who possess the virtues neither of the countries which they come from, nor of those which they go to, and whose levity, brutality, and baseness, so justly expose them to the contempt of the vanquished. (TMS, pp. 206–​207) Following his praise of the African slave, Smith describes the more effeminate character of people from more polished nations. In two examples, Smith contrasts the more masculine character of the English against the more effeminate character of the French and Italians: “An Italian, says the Abbot Dû Bos, expresses more emotion on being condemned in a fine of twenty shillings than an Englishman on receiving the sentence of death” (ibid). He adds that “This animated eloquence, which has been long practised, with or without success, both in France and Italy, is but just beginning to be introduced into England” (TMS, p. 208). I think Smith chose his examples very carefully in this chapter. However much self-​command the English might possess relative to their European peers, Smith is also reminding his readers how much more self-​command Native Americans and Africans possess. In doing so, I think he is attempting to show the common humanity which exists among races and encourage his readers to adopt a more cosmopolitan outlook –​the sort of outlook needed to make the most of a pluralist society with a bevy of “live ethical options.” Without an attitude of tolerance and openness, people will be reluctant to make use of the “live ethical options” at their disposal, no matter how many might exist.

344  Dylan DelliSanti Finally, Smith’s discussion of the “man of system” versus the “man of public spirit” acts as a guide to navigating the tumultuous nature of social fragmentation. Smith observed that people have a natural affection for the region or country in which they were born in: The state or sovereignty in which we have been born and educated… is, in ordinary cases, the greatest society upon whose happiness or misery, our good or bad conduct can have much influence. It is accordingly, by nature, most strongly recommended to us. (TMS, p. 227) Our natural love for our country yields two, sometimes opposing, sentiments. The first sentiment is a conservative one: “a certain reverence or respect for that constitution or form of government which is actually established”. The second sentiment is a progressive one:“the earnest desire to render the condition of our fellow-​citizens as safe, respectable, and happy as we can” (TMS, p. 231). In peaceful times, the two sentiments will coincide. But “in times of public discontent, faction, and disorder,” these two sentiments will clash (ibid). It is during these times that the desire for improvement, however noble it may be supposed, is carried to excess. Utopian “systems” are dreamed up and disseminated among the citizens; radicals promise to “new-​model the constitution”; and many of the reformers become “intoxicated with the imaginary beauty of this ideal system, of which they have no experience, but which has been represented to them in all the most dazzling colours in which the eloquence of their leaders could paint it” (TMS, p. 232). The diversity and relative freedom of commercial society often invites and promotes what Smith called the “spirit of system” (ibid). When people are free to express their ideas, form organizations, and participate in government, they will sometimes be carried to fanaticism. It is during these factious times that finding the right balance between conservatism and the “daring, but often dangerous spirit of innovation is of the utmost importance” (TMS, p. 232). Finding a balance, of course, is no easy task. In times of faction, the “spirit of system,” the belief that society can be rearranged purely by reason, mixes “with that public spirit which is founded upon the love of humanity, upon a real fellow-​feeling with the inconveniencies and distresses to which some [of] our fellow-​citizens may be exposed” (ibid). Smith advises that we imitate those “whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence,” and who are willing to “respect the established powers and privileges” (TMS, p. 233). He recommends Solon as an exemplar, who “when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will endeavor to establish the best that the people can bear” (ibid). By paying due reverence to the established powers, emulating the prudent leaders of the past, and by recognizing the limits of our reason to reconstruct society in a radical way (which we might view as one of the motivations behind the Wealth of Nations), we might be able to mitigate the unfortunate side effects of moral innovation.

Moral innovation and the man within the breast  345

5 Conclusion After Smith’s death, The Theory of Moral Sentiments was widely criticized for its use of vague metaphorical and allegorical language –​especially in the figures of the man within the breast and the impartial spectator (Klein 2018). Indeed, contemporary debates concerning the nature of the man within the breast might give some credit to the criticism. Yet, I see Smith’s apparent vagueness concerning the man within the breast as a feature, not a bug. The development of the man within the breast is highly contextual and largely dependent on the cultural resources at our disposal; it is not an infallible device for divining universal laws. Thus, the specter of relativism raised by Fleischacker (2011) has some merit. Nevertheless, moral innovations that allow us to see beyond our circumstantial attachments are still possible under the right circumstances. Individuals, though they are never free from social influences, need not be oppressed by the norms of the community they were born into. Increasing commerce, as it allows for increasing diversity, also allows for greater moral innovation –​greater refinements of the man within the breast. It is for this reason that I think Smith was cautiously optimistic about the influence of increased material wealth on our moral development.

Note 1 The story Smith is recounting is actually about Antimachus.

References Cropsey, Joseph. 1957. Polity and Economy: An Interpretation of the Principles of Adam Smith. Martinus Nijhoff. Den Uyl, Doug and Charles Griswold. 1996. Adam Smith on Friendship and Love. Review of Metaphysics, 49, 609–​637. Fleischacker, Samuel. 2011. Adam Smith and Cultural Relativism. Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 4, 20–​41. Fleischacker, Samuel. 2016. Adam Smith’s Impartial Spectator: Symposium Remarks. Econ Journal Watch, 13, 273–​283. Forman-​Barilai, Fonna. 2010. Adam Smith and the Circles of Sympathy: Cosmopolitanism and Moral Theory. Cambridge University Press. Griswold, Charles. 1999. Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment. Cambridge University Press. Hayek, F.A. 1991. The Fatal Conceit. University of Chicago Press. Hurtado, Jimena. 2016. Adam Smith’s Impartial Spectator: Autonomy and Extended Selves. Econ Journal Watch, 13, 298–​305. Klein, Daniel. 2018. Dissing the Theory of Moral Sentiments: Twenty-​Six Critics, from 1765 to 1949. Econ Journal Watch, 15, 201–​254. Kuhn, Thomas. 1977. The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change. The University of Chicago Press. Macedo, Stephen. 1991. Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism. Clarendon Press.

346  Dylan DelliSanti Raphael, D.D. 2007. The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith’s Moral Philosophy. Oxford University Press. Rasmussen, Dennis. 2013. The Pragmatic Enlightenment: Recovering the Liberalism of Hume, Smith, Montesquieu, and Voltaire. Cambridge University Press. Sen, Amartya. 2009. The Idea of Justice. Harvard University Press. Skwire, Sarah. 2017. Invisible Shakespeare: Shakespeare in Adam Smith. In A Companion to Adam Smith. Edited by Julio H. Cole. Universidad Francisco Marroquin. Smith, Adam. 1976a. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edited by R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner. Oxford University Press. Smith, Adam. 1976b. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie. Oxford University Press. Smith, Adam. 1982. Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Edited by W.L.D. Wightman. Oxford University Press.

Machine and system Adam Smith and the encyclopédistes1 Pedro Pimenta

According to Ronald Meek,2 the idea that a system of social or economic relations operates as a kind of machine is an assumption of political economy in its classical period. In Meek’s account, the idea has two different versions. In the first, espoused by the Physiocrats, the machine is the product of government regulation and is subsequently comparable to human-​made artefacts. As such, it must be constantly and carefully adjusted in order to produce the expected outcomes. Contrary to this conception, Smith thinks that a system of social or economic relations would result from spontaneous interaction between individual agents pursuing their own objectives. In this latter version, the orderly outcome of the machine displays itself in three different effects: ‘a more or less regular sequence of different systems of law and government’, ‘a rational allocation of resources’, and ‘overall economic growth’.3 Taking this general observation as a point of departure, I would like to show that Smith’s idea of a machine is of a rather complex conceptual device, and one that is far from being simply mechanistic. As I will show, his conception shares interesting similarities with some articles from the French Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’Alembert, especially those that treat machines as kinds of systems. It is a known fact that Adam Smith had direct knowledge of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie.4 There are some clear references to that work in Smith’s writings.5 The first comes from the Letter to the Edinburgh Review, published in 1755, in which Smith comments on the state of the sciences in Britain and France, and on the rivalry between the two nations in intellectual matters. Smith begins his eulogy of the Encyclopédie observing ‘with pleasure (…) that the new French Encyclopedia’ absorbs ‘the ideas of Bacon, Boyle, and Newton’, consigning Cartesian science (if not philosophy) to a secondary role (EPS Letter: 245–​246; Smith 1982). Smith sees this as a recognition by the French of ‘the superiority of the English philosophy’, to which they add, however, a merit of their own, or as Smith puts it, ‘that order, perspicuity and good judgment, which distinguish all the eminent writers of that nation’ (EPS Letter: 245; Smith 1982). One of the main features of the Letter to the Edinburgh Review comes thus from Voltaire’s own Lettres philosophiques (1726), in which the philosopher comments on the DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-22

348  Pedro Pimenta possible alliance between English genius and French method; a topic to which Smith adds an original turn: It seems to be the peculiar talent of the French nation, to arrange every subject in that natural and simple order, which carries the attention, without any effort, along with it. The English seem to have employed themselves entirely in inventing, and to have disdained the more inglorious but not less useful labour of arranging and methodizing their discoveries, and of expressing them in the most simple and natural manner. (EPS Letter: 245; Smith 1982) He goes on to describe in some detail the plan of Diderot and d’Alembert’s work, and comments on the published volumes and on the criticism directed at them. He also notes the difficulties the editors had to overcome due to religious and political interference. Finally, he adds that the Encyclopédie, once published, ‘promises indeed to be in every respect worthy of that magnificent eulogy which Mr.Voltaire bestows upon it’, when, in the last pages of Le siècle de Louis XIV (1751), he refers to it as ‘an immense and immortal work, which seems to accuse the shortness of human life’ (EPS Letter: 247; Smith 1982). The second reference to the Encyclopédie occurs amid the discussion on utility and pleasure in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. It is then that Smith employs the expression ‘spirit of system’, which one is tempted to take as a direct translation of the French ‘esprit de système’, which d’Alembert employs in a famous passage of his Discours préliminaire. However, that is not the case, as we shall see from a close reading of texts. Let us begin with Smith’s: We take pleasure in beholding the perfection of so beautiful and grand a system, and we are uneasy till we remove any obstruction that can in the least disturb or encumber the regularity of its motions. All constitutions of government, however, are valued only in proportion as they tend to promote the happiness of those who live under them. This is their sole use and end. From a certain spirit of system, however, from a certain love of art and contrivance, we sometimes seem to value the means more than the end, and to be eager to promote the happiness of our fellow-​creatures, rather from a view to perfect and improve a certain beautiful and orderly system, than from any immediate sense or feeling of what they either suffer or enjoy. (TMS IV.1.11; Smith 1976a) Now compare this with d’Alembert: Thus, it is not at all by vague and arbitrary hypotheses that we can hope to know nature; it is by thoughtful study of phenomena, by the comparisons we make among them, by the art of reducing, as much as that may be possible, a large number of phenomena to a single one that can be regarded as

Machine and system  349 their principle. Indeed, the more one reduces the number of principles of a science, the more one gives them scope, and since the object of a science is necessarily fixed, the principles applied to that object will be so much the more fertile as they are fewer in number. This reduction, which, moreover, makes them easier to understand, constitutes the true ‘systematic spirit.’ One must be very careful not to mistake this for the ‘spirit of system’, with which it does not always agree. (D’Alembert 1995, I, vi) For d’Alembert, esprit de système and esprit systématique are not necessarily opposed to each other. There is nothing wrong with a spirit of system that proceeds from principles first established by means of an inquiry conducted in a systematic spirit, that is, one that aims at extracting such principles from a careful analysis of experience. The best example of this is the application of mathematics to physics. The same applies to the spirit of system mentioned by Smith in the passage just quoted from The Theory of Moral Sentiments. As Eric Schlisser notes,6 this ‘love of art and contrivance’, which Smith equals to a ‘spirit of system’ is not necessarily a negative trait. It can certainly be seen as such, as when applied in the WN to the defenders of the mercantile system or to certain tenets of the physiocratic school. But also, and importantly, it is a positive quality that enables the person that has it to perform actions beneficial to the public good. Hence the distinction made in TSM (VI.ii.2.8) between the man of public spirit and the man of system, which mirrors D’Alembert’s own distinction between esprit systématique and esprit de système. For the man of public spirit is nothing but the legislator that has a general view of society and acts according to the way he finds it structured, rejecting the idea of changing it completely according to a general plan that does not conform to experience. In that, he is a figure exactly the same as D’Alembert’s physician, who applies mathematics to experience by inference from and not imposition to it. The passage in question (TMS VI.ii.2.15; Smith 1976a) is usually seen as a critique of the French Revolution, whose political motivations, as Smith sees them, are purely abstract and do not take into account political institutions already in place. This is not the same esprit de système to which he refers in the discussion on utility and beauty, where the expression means a natural predisposition of the human imagination to organize its perceptions from principles and to fashion them into intricate contrivances. Once in place, these are usually seen as having a value in themselves that surpasses the merit of utility –​ that, nonetheless, must be regarded, otherwise the system in question would be merely hypothetical. As Smith says, in accordance with Hume, the fitness of any system or machine to produce the end for which it was intended, bestows a certain propriety and beauty upon the whole, and renders the very thought and contemplation of it agreeable, is so very obvious that nobody has overlooked it. (TMS IV.i.1; Smith 1976a)

350  Pedro Pimenta But if, according to Smith, ‘the exact adjustment of the means for attaining any convenience or pleasure’ is ‘frequently more regarded than that very convenience’ in itself (TMS IV.i.1; Smith 1976a), it is at least in part due to the fact that systems achieve in their own terms the same level of intricacy that humans contemplate in natural phenomena. Art imitates nature but is not a copy of it. It is rather an ingenious reordering of elements, which makes their relations clear and allows us to make sense of phenomena. In that sense, we admire a system and bestow value to it in accordance with the difficulties it surmounts in its ordering of phenomena.7 As Daniel Diatkine among others has shown (Diatkine 2019: chap. 3), the psychology of system forms a distinctive part of Smith’s discussion in the Theory of Moral Sentiments relating to utility. There is nothing in the Encyclopédie comparable to it. Nonetheless, the encyclopédistes partake with Smith of the notion that the value of a system goes beyond its utility and lies ultimately in its intricacy and complexity, qualities that complement the usefulness and convenience to which systems must necessarily answer. For example, the sock-​loom is for Diderot a cause of admiration not for the fact that it makes socks or that it does so in a more efficient manner than the previous one, but rather, because it performs this by means of an intricate system produced by human reason. What’s more, insofar as such a system has organic features, that is to say, is a whole in which each part relates to all others, it has a kind of refinement that makes it comparable to that of natural, living productions (Diderot and d’Alembert 1751, ‘Bas, Métier à’, II: 98a–​b).8 In the same manner, he admires Vaucanson’s automata for the manner in which they imitate natural actions by means of a system of wholly artificial devices (Diderot and d’Alembert 1751, ‘Automate’, I: 896–​897). In that sense, machines, as systems devised by the human imagination, are the best illustration of the resources it disposes to organize experience in ways that conform to nature without reproducing it. We shall come back to that point later in this discussion. The third mention of the Encyclopédie in Smith’s pages comes from a letter written to George Baird in 1763 in which he recommends the articles on Grammar, which he found ‘very interesting’ (Corr. Letter 69: 87–​88, Smith 1987). This could refer not only to the many articles written by Dumarsais (A-​G) and Beauzée (H-​Z) but also to others that comment on questions of philosophical grammar, such as ‘Dictionnaire’ by d’Alembert (1754, IV: 958–​ 969), ‘Encyclopédie’ by Diderot (1755,V: 635–​662) and ‘Étymologie’ by Turgot (1756, VI: 98–​125). However different they may be in other aspects, all these partake of the idea that languages are the means by which knowledge as such is organized and in which it evolves.9 The point is important to Smith, as is clear from the criticism, also published in the Edinburgh Review, of Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language: Those defects [of Johnson’s Dictionary] consist chiefly in the plan, which appears to us not to be sufficiently grammatical.The different significations of a word are indeed collected; but they are seldom digested into general

Machine and system  351 classes, or ranged under the meaning which the word principally expresses. And sufficient care has not been taken to distinguish the words apparently synonymous. (EPS Letter: 232–​233; Smith 1982) The logical criteria that Smith stipulates in this passage for the structuring of a canon of the English language closely follow those established by d’Alembert in the section ‘Dictionnaire de langues’ of d’Alembert’s article ‘Dictionnaire’ (1754, IV: 958–​960), published almost a year before Smith’s criticism of Johnson. The point for both Smith and d’Alembert is that languages have their own logical rules and one must adhere to them if one hopes to attain to a rigorous exposition of any science whatsoever. This gives a new perspective on the interest Smith shows for language and grammar. Far from being a marginal topic to which he gave passing attention, language is for Smith the first theoretical system devised spontaneously by the human imagination and as such offers the best example of the principles by means of which a system comes to be and develops itself. This point has not escaped the attention of Andrew Skinner (1996), whose A System of Social Science remains one of the best accounts of the evolution and principal features of Smith’s philosophical thought.10 As Skinner shows, for Smith, languages are kinds of machines, made of signs, that is to say, of sensible perceptions of hearing whose analogy to perceptions of other senses is the first step in the systematizing of experience. This is not according to a plan, but rather to a natural bent.11 By virtue of analogy, language not only organizes and forms perceptions but also allows humans to analyse these and rearrange them according to their own needs and wants. As will be seen in what follows, this is the very principle beyond the idea of the division of labour in The Wealth of Nations. Thus, to the idea of system as machine, Smith gives a reach and an importance that go way beyond that of the Encyclopédie. For this reason, our exposition begins and ends with reference to the opening pages of The Wealth of Nations on the division of labour. In speaking of division of labour in Chapter 1 of the Wealth of Nations, Smith invites us To take an example from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-​maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out

352  Pedro Pimenta the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size.Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-​eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-​eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and combination of their different operations. (WN, I.1; Smith 1976b) The idea is clear enough: division of labour enhances productivity, that is, it allows the production of a greater number of pieces of a determined commodity in less time than one person would take, were they to produce the whole artefact by themselves. It is a general effect, of which pin making offers but an instance, albeit perhaps the clearest, that extends to ‘other trades and employments’. Before the advent of commercial society, division of labour occurred mainly within the different members of society that applied themselves to the production of so many different conveniences of life. Smith also has that sense in view, but in ­chapter 1 he is thinking mainly about something new, a phenomenon that occurs within the framework of the production of one single object, such as a pin. Before the division of labour, the same person had to learn and perform all the stages in the production of a pin. They had to combine them into a process that equated to a set of successive multiple activities, performed as extensions of the physiological functions of their own body. The consummation of this process came in the form of the object produced. With the introduction of the division of labour, multiple workers come to task, each of them with a particular knowledge of one stage only and performing a particular operation that reduces the physiology of their movements to a continued repetition of the same task. Their operations are neatly divided, they

Machine and system  353 employ tools of varied complexity, and the sole person who has a notion of the process in general is the supervisor responsible for the production of the finished object. But even this person has no more than an abstract idea of the process as a whole, and certainly they do not have all the required skills to manufacture a piece in each stage of its fabrication. The difference between the two processes is clear. Division of labour makes things more complex in principle –​since each worker has a particular task, the production becomes rather complicated –​but simpler in the composition, resulting in an enormous increase in efficiency in the multiple production of objects that look and effectively are rather identical to each other. The division of labour is part of an argument that comprises the whole of ­chapter 1 of the Wealth of Nations and is a central element in the analysis that Smith sets forth in Book I. As such, it has been the object of many studies.12 In addition, there are many important precedents to Smith’s discussion, but it is fair to say that he had in view the detailed discussion of the topic by Mandeville in his Fable of the Bees, where the production of manufactures by means of the division of labour is seen as one of the main features of modern, European political societies. As such, it becomes worthy of philosophical consideration by moralists as well as by political theorists. Our main interest, however, is to enquire into some conceptual precedents to Smith’s text. As Edwin Cannan has pointed out, the passage in question seems to be referring to an article in Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, ‘Pin’ (Épingle) by Delaire (Diderot and d’Alembert 1755, V: 804a; WN, I.1: 5; Smith 1976b), a descriptive text that offers Smith the basic scheme to which he alludes in his own text.13 There is ample evidence that this is the case. First, Smith derives from Delaire the peculiar notion, which is not to be found in other sources (such as Réaumur’s Art de l’épinglier, first published in France in 1761 but read years before in a séance at the Académie Royale des Sciences), that the manufacturing of pins takes ‘about 18 operations’. In the second paragraph of Delaire’s article, we also find the idea that pin making is ‘a very trifling manufacture’, in the sense that it is a feature of common, domestic experience, which nonetheless requires a very complex and organized system of production: Among mechanically manufactured objects, the pin is the smallest, the most common, the less precious and, nonetheless, perhaps one of those that demand the most extensive number of combinations. It is thus that art as well as nature is most prodigious in smaller things, and industry, when constrained is this way, exhibits its most admirable resources; for the manufacturing of the pin goes through eighteen steps before it is ready to be put up for sale. (Diderot and d’Alembert 1755,V: 804) As Delaire makes it clear, the art and combinations required in the production of pins is a kind of logical answer to a particular problem: how to obtain, in the most efficient possible manner, an object such as a pin in its most perfect

354  Pedro Pimenta possible form; that is to say, the most efficient and standardized one. The conceptual vocabulary that Delaire deploys in this passage (arts, combinations, resources, operations, etc.) is a strong indication that he is following Diderot and d’Alembert’s hints, as they appear in some articles in the Encyclopédie concerning the manner in which a philosophical dictionary should address machines –​not only as objects, but also as concepts. For as we shall see, Delaire’s manufactory, as seen through Smith’s lenses, is nothing but a machine-​like system. Let us start with Diderot’s article ‘Bas, Métier à’ that deals with the sock-​ loom, a very complex machine, ‘perhaps the most interesting and complicated that we have’, as he puts it (Diderot and d’Alembert 1751, II: 98a–​b).14 In it, the encyclopédiste shows the manner in which interconnected multiple engines perform tasks previously assigned to one single person, allowing for the production of numerous objects in the interval of time that one worker would take to produce only one object. The complex interconnection between the many parts of the machine finds an exact compensation in the simplicity with which it is operated by a person, not an artisan, but a manual worker of a different kind, a substitution that allows for the production of many identical objects that answer to the same end. Division of labour improves on that principle, in taking machines devised for particular tasks as so many different links in a long and complex chain of manufacturing. If you allow me the expression, the sock-​ loom is a simultaneous machine, or, to employ Diderot’s terms as they appear elsewhere, it is an ideogram; whereas the pin-​factory is a successive one, such as the art of writing as it reproduces verbal discourse (see his Lettres sur les sourds-​ mouets). The underlying principle, however, is the same. Returning to the sock-​loom, Diderot says that it can be seen as a sole and unique reasoning, whose conclusion is the manufacturing of the product. Likewise, there is such a close interdependence among its parts, that subtracting one we judge less important, or altering its form, would be damaging to the entire mechanism. (Diderot and d’Alembert 1751, II: 98a) Or, to put it in other terms, when we look at the product as the result of a process performed by multiple parts, we understand that it is the consequence of a series of propositions, put together in an order that accords with the role they play in the process as a whole. A machine, then, is a reasoning on the very precise sense that it is a system that answers to a logical imperative that gives it coherence and renders it effective in view of a certain set of ends or even for one single end. The same can be said of the production that takes place in the pin-​manufacturing process which Smith refers to. It is a kind of reasoning, in the sense that each of its parts has its due place and the object that results from it is the conclusion of a determined, necessary sequence. This sequence is in accordance to rules and proves to be effective, for the very existence of a useful product means that the reasoning behind it is good. In that sense, a machine or a workshop is like an empirical, experimental system that organizes certain

Machine and system  355 material elements in order to produce certain results. It renders the experience of manufacturing more regular and foreseeable than it would otherwise be. In order to understand this organizing principle that answers for the increase in the effects of manufacturing from handiwork to mechanized manufacturing, we should look no further than to the definition of machines as objects offered by d’Alembert, for he shows that it is a simple mechanical question: In a general sense, the word machine means something that increases and regulates the moving forces, or any instrument designed to produce such movement in a way that saves either the time in the execution of this effect or the force in the cause. This word comes from the Greek μηχανή, machine, invention, art. Therefore, a machine depends much more on the art and the invention than on the force and the solidity of the materials used in its construction. (Diderot and d’Alembert 1765, IX: 794a) The word has a particular, concrete meaning, but also points to a more general, conceptual sense that connects the idea of machines to art and invention, that is, to certain powers of human imagination or understanding. In that sense, machines are to be understood as contrivances devised in order to spare time and force, and to facilitate the task of organizing experience as humans find it. Machines devised to lift heavy objects perform the task ascribed them by mechanics by means of the same conceptual principle that allows for the production of socks or for philosophers to solve their problems by means of intricate arrangements of ideas. D’Alembert himself expands that conception to philosophical matters, when discussing the conceptual problems implied in the framing of a philosophical dictionary such as the Encyclopédie: In order to have an idea of a complex machine we should begin by dismantling and showing all its pieces separately and distinctly, and then explaining the relation that each one of them bears to the others. This would allow us to see clearly how the machine operates as a whole even without reassembling it. In likely manner, the authors of an encyclopaedic dictionary must begin by making a general tableau of the main objects of human knowledge in order to give us the main parts of the dismantled machine. Then they must proceed to the minute parts of the machine, dismantling the main ones in the same manner as they did with the machine as a whole and offering a detailed tableau of our knowledge. (D’Alembert 1995, IV: 968) The philosophical dictionary is a machine for the dismantling and reordering of so many machines given in experience; or, in Diderot’s words, it takes hieroglyphs and turns them into discursive language. Of course, given that the Encyclopédie has both a methodical and an alphabetical order, to say nothing of a figurative

356  Pedro Pimenta presentation of the system of human knowledge, things are not quite as simple as I am making them appear.15 Nevertheless, the general principle stands its own. In going beyond the usual, concrete signification of the word ‘machine’ as a mechanical object made by human intelligence, d’Alembert is able to show first that the phenomena that present themselves to human imagination can be taken as machines in the sense of things to be analysed in order to be understood, and secondly, that in order to do so, the understanding creates another kind of machine –​one in which parts previously connected in a given manner are rearranged so as to produce another, entirely different order that relates in the strictest manner to the one it modifies. In this latter sense, machines are indeed kinds of systems; an idea that is illustrated in the Encyclopédie by reference to astronomical systems, which are, so to speak, systems by excellence, inasmuch as they describe to the understanding something that is already seen, but not comprehended, by the senses.16 That is exactly what Smith expects from a system, irrespective of its peculiar features and particular ends. In the History of Astronomy, published posthumously in 1795, he defines philosophy as ‘the science of connecting principles in nature’. The role of philosophy is to bind ‘discordant appearances’, for they are, as such, an encumbrance to the ‘easy movements of imagination’; it suppresses the ‘uneasiness’ by ‘representing invisible chains’ that are not given to perception and that must be thus introduced by human understanding (EPS Astronomy II.12; Smith 1982). Philosophy is the ‘art’ –​in Diderot’s sense: the technique –​ that allows human imagination to retrieve its own natural tenor or ‘tone’ (EPS Astronomy II.12; Smith 1982). Taken as such, systems are the products of a certain kind of art, or, as Smith puts it, ‘inventions of the imagination’ (EPS Astronomy IV.76; Smith 1982). It is on this basis that Smith establishes the analogy between systems and machines: Systems in many respects resemble machines. A machine is a little system, created to perform, as well as to connect together, in reality, those different movements and effects which the artist has occasion for. A system is an imaginary machine invented to connect together in the fancy those different movements and effects which are already in reality performed. (EPS Astronomy IV.19; Smith 1982) When Smith says that a system is an ‘imaginary machine’, he does not mean it is some kind of chimera. On the contrary, a machine devised by imagination to ‘connect together’, in a new order, things that are already connected in nature, is a product of what d’Alembert calls the ‘systematic spirit’, esprit systèmatique (Diderot and d’Alembert 1751, I: 31). As Smith shows, systems themselves, as ‘imaginary machines’, function according to a precise logic, through which mechanisms of complex structures account –​with various degrees of elegance and parsimony –​for a very complex array of movements and effects. Smith sees in systems of astronomy the best illustration of how this happens (EPS Astronomy IV.19; Smith 1982; Biziou 2003: chap. 2).

Machine and system  357 There are, however, some important structural differences between the kinds of systems so far alluded to. For while some of them (imaginary machines, systems, objects of art) are the products of a plan, design or intention, and allow one to reorganize, through peculiar principles, things that present themselves as ordered to the observation, the same cannot be said of a system such as the manufacture. For it answers to a convenience, is the product of an original invention, but is not the product of a design or intention as such. For as Diderot says in the article ‘Art’, machines are inventions of men, and these inventors should be lauded, in his opinion (and following Bacon’s recommendation) as the true heroes of modern times (Diderot and d’Alembert 1751, I: 714a). Another set of heroes celebrated by Smith on the essay on astronomy are astronomers and physicists from Aristotle to Newton, for their successive, and, in their own terms, successful attempts at substituting ‘wonderment’ and ‘superstition’ for a calm and regular apprehension of the most diverse natural phenomena (see, for instance, EPS Astronomy IV.6; IV.9; IV.27; IV.44–​ 45; Smith 1982). Workshops and manufactures, on the other hand, stem from necessities that arise once men find themselves in a peculiar stage of social organization (as Mandeville noticed). Now, if one turns to the Encyclopédie, it is clear that ‘manufactures’ as places where division of labour takes place are, together with the improvements resulting from them, the effects of the search for the satisfaction of necessities that arise from man living in a state of society regulated by laws and customs, that is to say, ‘policé’.17 In other words, manufacture arises from circumstances in which a certain set of laws and institutions combine to make it possible and even, in due time, necessary for the satisfaction of needs (besoins) proper to the state of society. Once manufactures are in place, practice improves them, and it is by means of this that rudimentary production slowly but steadily gives place to the division of labour. As Smith says in ­chapter 1 of the Wealth of Nations, The division of labour, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour. The separation of different trades and employments from one another, seems to have taken place, in consequence of this advantage. This separation too is generally carried furthest in those countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry and improvement; what is the work of one man in a rude state of society, being generally that of several in an improved one. (WN I.i.4; Smith 1976b) The same principle that operates inside the workshop soon imposes itself on all branches of economic activity; and all commercial transactions, as a whole, tend to be determined by this very same principle (not to mention public administration). Division of labour as a technical device becomes the principles of division of labour as a social feature. A small machine becomes a whole system, which shows that Smith goes beyond anything the Encyclopédie says concerning the division of labour, which is for Delaire a purely technical and commercial,

358  Pedro Pimenta but not social, phenomenon. For Smith, the division of labour possesses in its technical or mechanical dimension a systematic virtue, insofar as it actuates, altering the very features of political or social organization. In order to understand this difference in relation to the Encyclopédie, we must bear in mind that labour is, for Smith, the productive principle of the commercial system, whereas the Encyclopédie prefers to assign that role to land.18 Arguably, this doctrinal difference derives from a methodological affinity, for it is by applying the very idea of system as a machine, that increases effects by means of a decreased application of force, that Smith arrives at the idea of the division of labour as a model for the whole of society. The similarities herein pointed out would be tentative, were it not for the fact that Smith himself elsewhere offers, in his Essay on the first formation of languages (1762), an account of languages as machines that emerge and evolve in the same manner as manufacture, when it goes from individual métiers to the division of labour. Language becomes more simple in its rudiments and principles, just in proportion as it grows more complex in its composition, and the same thing has happened in it, which commonly happens with regard to mechanical engines. All machines are generally, when first invented, extremely complex in their principles, and there is often a particular principle of motion for every particular movement which it is intended they should perform. Succeeding improvers observe, that one principle may be so applied as to produce several of those movements; and thus the machine becomes gradually more and more simple, and produces its effects with fewer wheels and fewer principles of motion. In language, in the same manner, every case of every noun, and every tense of every verb, was originally expressed by a particular distinct word, which served for this purpose and for no other. But succeeding observation discovered, that one set of words was capable of supplying the place of all that infinite number, and that four or five prepositions, and half a dozen auxiliary verbs, were capable of answering the end of all the declensions, and of all the conjugations in the ancient languages. (Languages 41; Smith 1985) As it should now be clear, languages are systems very much like philosophical dictionaries, sock-​looms or modern manufactures. Rather like these, it organizes experience and renders it regular and foreseeable. There is a relevant aspect, however, that only now comes to the fore in this whole discussion. For languages (or at least, for Smith, the Greek and the Latin languages) have the advantage over other kinds of systems, of showing, in the very manner of their operation, the elementary parts of the analysis of sensation through signs.That kind of analysis, favoured by the encyclopédistes, proceeds to rearrange a number of phenomena given in experience and highlight the necessary connection between them. The result of this procedure is to present a kind of

Machine and system  359 history –​conjectural history –​in which events succeed one another not in the order they actually occurred, but rather in that which they should have occurred, were human experience organized according to a teleological principle. That Smith was a master of this kind of analysis is clear not only from his history of languages from which we have just quoted, but also in book 3 of the Wealth of Nations. Its title, ‘Of the different progress of opulence in different nations’, might at first seem quite ordinary. But when we turn to ­chapter 1, ‘Of the natural progress of opulence’, we learn that ‘this order has been in many respects inverted’, and that: Though this natural order of things must have taken place in some degree in every such society, it has, in all the modern states of Europe, been, in many respects, entirely inverted. The foreign commerce of some of their cities has introduced all their finer manufactures, or such as were fit for distant sale; and manufactures and foreign commerce together, have given birth to the principal improvements of agriculture. The manners and customs which the nature of their original government introduced, and which remained after that government was greatly altered, necessarily forced them into this unnatural and retrograde order. (WN, III.i.9; Smith 1976b) A case, then, of what grammarians of the enlightenment called inversion,19 but also, and more importantly, a straight application of a principle outlined by Diderot in the article on ‘Art’ already quoted. In the passage that interests us, Diderot devises a ‘project for a general treatise of mechanical arts’ that would deal with the history of such arts –​whose origins, as he observes, are frequently more obscure than those of the liberal arts. In order to compensate for that lack of knowledge, the philosopher is free to make ‘suppositions’ extracted from experiments concerning that art with which he is dealing. Then he adds: By this procedure the progress of an art would be presented in a clearer and more instructive manner than by its true history, if that were known. The difficulties that had to be overcome to improve the art would occur in an entirely natural order, the synthetic explanation of its successive steps would render it comprehensible even for very average minds, and this would divert artists onto the path leading to perfection. (Diderot and d’Alembert, 1965, pp. 4–5) Diderot shows that it is necessary to reverse the actual, empirical order of succession, so that it makes sense. The philosopher is thus able to apprehend it, and to show in a clear manner the logical connections that bind its parts with one another. Conjectural history, then, is a powerful conceptual device that gives sense to phenomena that would otherwise remain beyond the realm of human comprehension and intervention.

360  Pedro Pimenta To this, Smith adds a nice touch of his own. Given that the machine that is the object of The Wealth of Nations –​commercial society –​is the result of multiple, varied historical processes, it is necessary not only to explain it as such, but also to point out the changes that produced it in the first place. That is why, when it comes to the conjectural history of commercial society, Smith takes language as the model for thinking about machines. For societies, as well as languages, have for Smith their very own morphology; and I think it would be proper to say that commercial society offers Smith the idea of the best possible society within the frame of human nature, in the same manner that Greek and Latin offer the idea of the best possible language within the frame of human imagination.20 In that sense, the Wealth of Nations is a kind of (very ingenious) grammar for the science of political economy. It seems fair to say that the science contained in the book operates as a kind of machine that offers a systematic overview of modern European states. A system based on a set of multiple, complicated passions, whose interactions, governed by a human tendency to make systems, result in the division of labour, which, in turn, acts as a systematic device that gives modern society its distinctive features. In view of this, it would certainly be far-​fetched to say that Smith himself was a kind of encyclopédiste. At the same time, it seems undeniable that he profits from Diderot and d’Alembert in ways that make clear the extent of his erudition as a writer, but also and more importantly, his sophistication as a philosopher. For, if the division of labour, as defined and analysed in Smith’s pages, is the main feature of commercial society, it is because it is a system that offers a ‘new kind of analysis’ comparable to the philosophical decomposition of ideas and their arrangement in new ways favoured by the encyclopédistes and their ink21 –​which is another way of saying that political economy, in its inception as a science, is a branch of philosophical analysis. Or, in the words of an already quoted scholar, we could say that for Smith ‘philosophy is the activity that generates the explanatory foundations of systems of thought’.22

Notes 1 This paper is the result of two research grants I received from the research agency for the state of São Paulo (Fapesp), the first for Edinburgh University from November to December 2017, by invitation from the late Nicholas Phillipson, and the second for Paris 1-​Sorbonne from November 2019 to February 2020. A first version was presented in Dr. Carl Knight’s political philosophy seminar at the University of Glasgow in November 2017, when it profited from critical remarks by Christopher Berry, Carl Knight himself, and Craig Smith. A second version was presented at PHARE, Université Paris 1 Pantheon-​Sorbonne, when it received comments from Laurie Breban Jean Delemotte, Daniel Diatkine, and Laurent Jaffro. Finally, I am also indebted to Alexandre Amaral Rodrigues and Mauricio Coutinho (Unicamp), who read the paper in its final stages and much to my relief would seem to have given it their approval.

Machine and system  361 2 See Meek (1977). 3 Meek (1977: 177). 4 For a general view on the matter, see Kafker and Loveland (2013). 5 It was pointed out to me after this article had been written that the matter of Smith’s debts to the Encyclopédie had been previously discussed by Hanley (2017). It is important to note that in addition to the references here proposed and to those which shall be discussed hereafter, he also mentions the articles “Eclectisme” by Diderot (V, 270–​293, 1755) as having an impact on the TMS and, also important for Smith in the TMS, ‘Économie ou Oeconomie’, by Rousseau (V, 337–​349; printed separately in the same year as Discours sur l’économie politique). See Hanley (2017: 222–​227). 6 See Schlisser (2017: 6–​7). 7 See Deleule (1997: 30–​32). 8 All translations from the ‘Encyclopédie’ are my own. 9 See Diderot and d’Alembert,‘Encyclopédie’,V: 636-​; and also Auroux 1979. 10 See also, more recently, Planck (1992) and Berry (2013: chap. 2). 11 That Smith sometimes calls ‘instinct’; see, for example, EPS External Senses 50: 151; Smith 1982. 12 See more recently Diatkine (2019: chap 6). 13 For a thorough examination of this point, see Mankin (2008). 14 See Delon (2017). 15 See Leca-​Tsiomis (1999). 16 See Martine (2006: 194–​196). 17 See, for instance, the anonymous article ‘Manufacture de Laine’, Diderot and d’Alembert 1765, IX, 184b: ‘The manufacture of wool, however superfluous it might be to mankind in a state of nature, is most important to mankind living in a polity –​policé’. 18 See especially Quesnay, ‘Fermiers’, VI: 528-​ 40, ‘Grains’, VII: 812-​ 31; but also Diderot, ‘Agriculture’, I: 183-​90, and Anonymous, ‘Manufacture réunie, dispersée’, X: 58–​60. 19 See Ricken (1994: chap. 4). 20 For Smith as the pioneer of morphological analysis, see Land (1974: chap. 3). 21 See Séris (1994: 53). 22 Schlisser (2017: 5).

References D’Alembert, J. L. (1995) Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopaedia of Diderot, trans. R. N. Schwab, W. E. Rex, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Auroux, S. (1979) La sémiotique des encyclopédistes, Paris: Payot. Berry, C. J. (2013) The Idea of Commercial Society in the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Biziou, M. (2003) Adam Smith et l’origine du libéralisme, Paris: PUF. Deleule, D. (1997) ‘Adam Smith et la difficulté surmontée’, in Smith, A. (ed.), Essais esthétiques, Paris:Vrin. Delon, M. (2017) ‘Métiers à tisser entre métaphore et modèle, de Diderot à Freud’, in Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie (52). Diatkine, D. (2019) Adam Smith. La découverte du capitalisme et de ses limites, Paris: Seuil.

362  Pedro Pimenta Diderot, D. and d’Alembert (1965) ‘Art’, in The Encyclopedia: Selections: Diderot, d’Alembert and a Society of Men of Letters, trans. N. S. Hoyt, T. Cassirer, Indianapolis: Bobbs-​Merrill. Diderot, D. and d’Alembert (eds.) (1751–​1765) Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des offices, 17 vols, Paris. http://​enc​cre.acade​mie-​scien​ces.fr/​encyc​ lope​die/​ Hanley, R. P. (2017) ‘Adam Smith and the Encyclopédie’, in: Adam Smith Review 9: 218–​236. Kafker, F. A. and Loveland, J. (Oct. 2013) ‘L’admiration d’Adam Smith pour l’Encyclopédie’, in Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 48: 191–​202. Land, S. K. (1974) From Signs to Propositions. The Concept of Form in Eighteenth-​Century Semantic Theory, London: Longman. Leca-​Tsiomis, M. (1999) Écrire l’Encyclopédie. Diderot: de l’usage des dictionnaires à la grammaire philosophique, Oxford:Voltaire Foundation. Mankin, R. (2008) ‘Pins and needles: Adam Smith and the sources of the Encyclopédie’, Adam Smith Review 4: 181–​205. Martine, J.-​ L. (Oct. 2006) ‘L’ordre encyclopédique à l’épreuve des machines’, in Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie 40–​41: 193–​207. Meek, R. L. (1977) “The rise and fall of the concept of the economic machine”, in Smith, Marx and After. Ten Essays in the Development of Economic Thought, London: Chapman and Hall. Plank, C. (1992) ‘Adam Smith: Grammatical economist’, in Adam Smith Reviewed, Jones & Skinner (eds.), Edinburgh: University Press. Ricken, U. (1994) Linguistics, Anthropology and Philosophy in the French Enlightenment, London/​New York: Routledge. Schlisser, E. (2017) Adam Smith. Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Séris, J.-​P. (1994) Qu’est-​ce que la division du travail?, Paris:Vrin. Skinner, A. (1996) A System of Social Science, 2nd edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press. —​—​—​(1976a) The Theory of Moral Sentiments, (eds.) D.D. Raphael and A.L Macfie, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Glasgow Edition. Reprinted, Liberty Press (1984). —​—​—​ (1976b) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, (eds.) R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Glasgow Edition. Reprinted, Liberty Press (1981). —​—​—​ (1980) Essays on Philosophical Subjects, (ed.) W.P.D. Wightman and J.C. Bryce, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reprinted, Liberty Press (1982). —​—​—​ (1983) Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-​Lettres, (ed.) J.C. Bryce, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Glasgow Edition. Reprinted, Liberty Press (1985). —​—​—​ (1987) Correspondence of Adam Smith, (eds.) E.C. Mossner and I.S. Ross, 2nd edn., Oxford: Oxford University Press; Glasgow Edition.

Book Reviews

 hristopher J. Berry, Adam Smith. C A Very Short Introduction Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 128 ISBN: paperback 978-​0-​19-​878445-​6 Reviewed by Anna Markwart1

Christopher J. Berry’s book is a smart introduction that provides a framework of Smith’s theories and contributions, and proposes a broad look at Smith’s philosophy. The author does not limit himself to presenting Smith’s two best-​ known books: The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, but he aims to introduce the reader to all of Smith’s works starting with Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages up to the Lectures on Jurisprudence. After having read the book it would be hard not to agree with Berry that Smith is best known as an economist but that is to short-​change him. Something important is missed if the rest of his work is not taken on board. Not only does this neglect the range of this thinking it also obscures its interwoven character. (15) The author starts by evoking a couple of over-​simplifications and stereotypes of Adam Smith, noticing that not many people actually read Smith’s writings despite having a positive or negative opinion on his works and legacy. Chapter 1 focuses on presenting a short biography of Smith and an overview of Scotland in the age of Enlightenment. Berry’s witty language guides us through the most important events of eighteenth-​century Scottish history, reminding us of such important curiosities as the fact that the easiest way to get from Kirkcaldy to Edinburgh was actually by boat. Smith is presented as a part of the Enlightenment family who was inevitably a ‘product’ of his times. In ­chapter 2 Berry focuses on Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages and History of Astronomy. The author underlines the sociability of humans who need to communicate and places the forms of social interaction at the heart of Smith’s essays. He also notes the link between John Locke’s philosophy and Smith’s arguments. Berry notices that though the Considerations are far from being an important contribution, they are a voice in the eighteenth century discussion on the history of linguistics, yet, what is more important, DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-24

366  Anna Markwart they are a part of the conjectural history Smith leaves us with –​just as the Wealth of Nations leaves us with other conjectural histories such as his reconstruction of the history of money. Since Berry keeps reminding the reader of the similarities between Smith’s ideas presented in different works, it would have been great to point out how Considerations were connected to the Theory of Moral Sentiments to which they were added, especially as there is a parallel to be found between learning a language and learning moral sentiments (Swearingen 2013: 167). When discussing Smith’s theory presented in the History of Astronomy, apart from explaining the philosopher’s ideas, Berry shows the reader interesting links with the Wealth of Nations. Reminding us that people do not limit themselves to satisfying immediate needs is an important point that runs through the whole text. Subsequently, Berry, when describing Smith’s views on style and aesthetics, focuses even more on the coherence of the philosopher’s works, especially when explaining the topic of rhetoric. The very interesting chapter devoted to Smith’s minor essays might leave the reader looking for more –​it would be beneficial if the essays were analysed even more extensively (especially the Imitative Arts and the subject of instrumental music), as readers are frequently less familiar with them. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on Smith’s moral theory. It seemed an impossible task to present it in such a short form. Obviously Berry does not mention all the substantial questions and does not go into details of various interpretations of Smith’s ethics. Nonetheless, it is admirable how smoothly he manages to create such a short but thorough overview and guide the reader through the most important notions. Berry begins with an outline of the tradition in which Smith’s moral theory is rooted, one which regards moral knowledge as based on experience and where feelings serve as motives for actions. In ­chapter 3 we find a short overview of this tradition: starting from Thomas Hobbes and Bernard Mandeville, through Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury and Francis Hutcheson (and his theory of moral sense as well as the search for a natural foundation for good and evil), to David Hume (and his views on sympathy). Such an introduction helps us to see how complex and widely discussed the question of morality and the sentiments was in Smith’s time and how extensive a debate he had mastered. This is especially useful for readers who would not be familiar with Smith’s philosophical context. Moreover, the author briefly sketches those philosophers’ theories while discussing the details of Smith’s views, signalling where Smith was inspired by a particular thinker and where he made alterations to the tradition. In the two chapters devoted to Smith’s moral theory, the reader can become accustomed with the most important notions presented in the Theory of Moral Sentiments: sympathy, sociality, self-​ interest, the impartial spectator, custom, virtue and the invisible hand. Berry stresses that in Smith’s theory ‘To live in society is to take part in a network of communication’ (35) and ‘Morality is inseparable from sociality’ (36). This focus on human sociability, fully coherent

Adam Smith. A Very Short Introduction  367 with numerous interpretations of Smith’s philosophy, resonates through the whole book (e.g. Berry 1997; Campbell 2012; Otteson 2002, and many others). While it is understandable that Berry needs to limit himself in discussing such an area as Smith’s moral philosophy, especially in a very short introduction, the parts devoted to the impartial spectator, self-​interest and the invisible hand once again leave the reader desiring a little more discussion. These subjects are not only complex (e.g. Berry’s claim that ‘As an “inhabitant of the breast’ the impartial spectator is explicitly identified by Smith with the principle of conscience’ (40) would benefit from a broader justification), but also the literature on the subject is very extensive. A short summary of the most important debates would have been interesting and would shed the light on some questions. In ­chapters 5 and 6 the author presents Smith’s theory of the market and the key issues of the Wealth of Nations: stages of a society, division of labour, questions of price and value, profits and rents, the critique of Physiocrats and Mercantilists, as well as the issues of free trade and duties of the government. Berry once again considers Smith’s philosophy as a coherent whole, and he notices that ‘The Wealth of Nations tells the full story of this positive transformation –​the move from miserable poverty to universal opulence –​but the distributive aspect of these improvements is raised in the Moral Sentiments’ (p.53). He shows that economic activities do not appear in a vacuum and require a certain social and legal environment. While explaining the main points of Smith’s political economy, Berry shows why understanding Wealth of Nations is in fact more difficult than it would seem. He points out that not only does the book contain numerous digressions that interrupt the process of thought, but also it is deeply rooted in Smith’s moral and social philosophy and the philosophical tradition of his times. Berry regards Smith’s work as going far beyond being one of the foundation books for economics and sees it as a work on political philosophy. He tries to explain in a simple language the best-​known aspects of Smith’s views; however, he does it mostly without going into detailed interpretative discussions. Such an approach has both advantages and drawbacks. On the one hand, it allows the reader who is just becoming accustomed to Smith’s philosophy to grasp an understanding of such an extensive work, yet, on the other hand it can be unsatisfactory for a more advanced reader. In order to facilitate the provided explanations, Berry provides the reader with very graphic examples that serve as a great aid for the understanding of Smith’s economic theory. The last chapter is devoted to an overview of Smith’s legacy. Berry observes that ‘If Adam Smith is known at all, it is very likely in the context of the “free-​market economics” of Thatcherism and Reaganomics. For some, this is a commendation; for others, guilt by association’ (100) and that ‘Smith’s work is invoked more than it is read’ (100). As the author of the Wealth of Nations is regarded mostly as the founding father of liberal economy, the picture of Smith’s legacy varies from mentioning the thought of Friedrich August von Hayek and Alfred Marshall, up to listing some of the translations of Smith’s work –​including the ones to Japanese and Chinese. In the context of the

368  Anna Markwart supposed bias of popular knowledge on Smith’s heritage, it is significant that greater attention wasn’t devoted to other thinkers influenced by his thought –​ e.g. Karl Marx –​providing the reader with a more complex picture of how important the legacy of the Wealth of Nations is. Notably, Berry does not limit himself to focusing on economy. He points out a couple of other, very important, aspects of Smith’s heritage: liberalism, moral philosophy and views on equality. In his reading of Smith it is crucial that people are born equal and it is during the course of their lives that some stratification and differences appear –​people are equal under the law, deserve equal respect and equal liberty. Berry once again underlines the coherence of Smith’s thought and the benefits of reading the Wealth of Nations together with the Theory of Moral Sentiments and other philosopher’s works. He describes the roots of the so-​called Adam Smith Problem and informs the readers that it has been discredited, without going into (in case of this book) unnecessary details of the rich discussion on the Problem. When writing a book an author needs to be aware of who the target reader is. One of the strengths of Berry’s Adam Smith. A Very Short Introduction is that it aims to adjust the amount of information provided, language, style and references to reader’s needs. Unlike many companions familiar to the readers of this journal, including The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith co-​edited by Berry, in this book the author is not aiming to discuss interpretations and provide an extensive discussion on numerous areas of Smith’s philosophy. A scholar who has read Smith’s works and is familiar with the literature of the subject is definitely not going to find Christopher Berry’s book neither novel nor a groundbreaking voice in the debate. At the same time such a reader would appreciate the style in which Berry presents his arguments and provides information. However, a Smith scholar who is interested in only one area of Smith’s theory (e.g. economy) might find the book useful. Adam Smith. A Very Short Introduction is visibly addressed to people who have heard of Smith and wish to take a broader look at the philosopher’s theory or who would like to get a grasp on all the areas of Smith’s philosophical interests without needing to go through academic works, textbooks and published scholars’ papers on the subjects that they are not specifically working on. Should the book aim to be a more extensive and detailed analysis of Adam Smith’s philosophy, one would expect a more analytical approach and a critical discussion of the literature of the subject. However, since the title states that it is A Very Short Introduction, such expectations would be too much and it can be stated that Christopher Berry’s work in fact does even more than it promises. The book provides the readers with a smoothly written introductory text that includes more than basic knowledge and shows us the mastery of both Berry –​ the author –​and Adam Smith –​the subject. It is small in size, yet the information provided is more than sufficient for someone who is just starting his ‘adventure’ with Adam Smith’s philosophy. It contains both curiosities and substantial information.The book is written in a very elegant language at the same time guiding the reader smoothly through the Author’s chain of argumentation.

Adam Smith. A Very Short Introduction  369 The only question remains whether Adam Smith. A Very Short Introduction will encourage its readers to reach for more detailed writings on Smith’s philosophy –​although the author does what he can to encourage this with a well-​ organized bibliography that not only contains references, but also suggests which books are valuable for further reading on given areas of Smith’s work.

Note 1 The research was financed from the assets awarded by the National Science Centre, Poland, for the post-​doctoral internship upon the decision no. 2016/​20/​S/​HS1/​ 00071.

Bibliography Berry Christopher J., Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1997. Berry Christopher J., Paganelli Maria P., and Smith, Craig (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013. Campbell Tom D., Adam Smith’s Science of Morals, Routledge, New York, 2012. Otteson James R., Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002. Swearingen C.J., Adam Smith on Language and Rhetoric: The Ethics of Style, Character and Propriety’ [in:] C.J. Berry, M.P. Paganelli, C. Smith (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013.

 yan Patrick Hanley, Our Great R Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019, pp. viii, 156 ISBN: 978-​0-​691-​17944-​5 Reviewed by F. E. Guerra-​Pujol I shall begin my review of Ryan Patrick Hanley’s new work on Adam Smith by saying a few words about its style. Instead of bequeathing us a dense or dry scholarly tome, Hanley’s chapters are short and crisp; his citations are kept to a minimum. But why should readers of the Adam Smith Review read a Hanley’s guide on ‘living a better life’? For starters, this little book begins with a barrage of perennial questions: 1 2 3 4

What does it mean to live a better life? What makes one path better than another? What standard should we use to judge what choices we make? And where should we turn for guidance on all this?

Hanley’s contribution in this tome is to bring Adam Smith back to life, so to speak, to show Smith’s relevance to our times. Among other things, Hanley identifies three major themes in Smith’s moral philosophy, themes that are especially relevant to our world today: Smith’s notion of sympathy, his impartial spectator, and his ideal model of ‘the wise and virtuous man’. Hanley provides valuable insights about each one of these big Smithian moral themes, beginning with the concept of sympathy or ‘fellow feeling’ (18), the cornerstone of Smith’s moral philosophy. As readers of the Adam Smith Review will know, the very first line in Smith’s first book, his great treatise on The Theory of Moral Sentiments, contains the following powerful observation (quoted on p. 15 of Hanley): ‘How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him …’. For Smith, then, humans are not just purely selfish actors or egoistic utility maximizers in the parlance of modern economics. On the contrary, we not only care about the welfare of others; the happiness of others is ‘necessary’ or DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-25

Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life  371 essential to our well-​being. Furthermore, as perceptive as this observation is –​ especially coming from Adam Smith, the father of the dismal science –​Smith the moral philosopher makes an even more insightful observation about the reciprocal nature of sympathy (quoted on p. 23 of Hanley): ‘Of such mighty importance does it appear to be, in the imaginations of men, to stand in that situation which sets them most in the view of general sympathy and attention’. In other words, Hanley emphasizes the dual or reciprocal nature of Smith’s theory of sympathy. Simply put, sympathy is not just something we are naturally inclined or willing to give to others; sympathy is also something we want to receive from others, or in the words of Hanley (24): ‘… not only are we naturally disposed to sympathize with others, we also naturally desire that others sympathize with us’. In fact, according to Smith (as quoted by Hanley), this is why we spend so much time trying to better our condition –​in order ‘to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation …’ (28). This key Smithian insight about the reciprocal nature of sympathy is important for three reasons. First and foremost, this insight goes a long way toward solving the so-​called Das Adam Smith Problem, toward reconciling Smith the economist and Smith the moral philosopher. Simply put, we don’t sympathize with others out of pure altruism but rather out of our own self-​ interest. Secondly, this Smithian insight about the reciprocal nature of sympathy helps explain and unravel many of the riddles, quirks, and mysteries of human behavior. Why, for example, do young people spend so much time on social media, Hanley asks? Because they crave the attention of their peers. In short, Smith’s insight paints a more accurate and nuanced portrait of human psychology and motives than the low-​ g rade, utility-​ maximization picture painted by mainstream economists. Or as Hanley himself puts it … we have, by nature, two parts to us that on their face pull in different directions. One leads us to care about ourselves and our own happiness, while the other leads us to care about others and their happiness. (17) Lastly, perhaps the most important aspect of Smith’s theory of sympathy is that it is these mutual or reciprocal exchanges of sympathy –​not God or the Good –​that function as the true foundation of morality. As a result, sympathy plays a crucial role not just from an individual perspective –​for our individual well-​being and sense of worth –​but also from a social or community perspective –​for the well-​being of society as a whole.Why? Because it is the reciprocal nature of sympathy that allows us to transcend our selfish tendencies and potentially bridge our many divisions and break out of our current cycles of tribalism. Alas, I say ‘potentially’ because Smith’s beautiful theory of reciprocal sympathy, as original and sophisticated as it is, poses a new problem: what I shall call Das Adam Smith Problem 2.0. If these reciprocal exchanges are so essential to our well-​being from both an individual and community or social perspective, then

372  F. E. Guerra-Pujol why do we see so much division and tribalism in our contemporary world? My own view is that there is an optimal level of tribalism and that our current levels of disunity are probably over-​hyped. Although the sympathy of others is necessary to our happiness (to paraphrase Smith), and although we also want to receive the sympathy, attention, and esteem of others, Hanley points out two further problems with Smith’s theory of mutual sympathy in practice. One problem is that we are often selective and superficial in choosing the objects of our sympathy. As Hanley puts it, channelling his inner Adam Smith, ‘the wealthy are often worshipped, and the poor willfully overlooked’ (30). Aside from this bias issue, the other problem is that our single-​minded pursuit of sympathy, attention, and esteem can itself get out of hand. We might spend way too much time and effort in trying to seek the attention of others, or we might end up painting a false picture of ourselves –​as anyone who has spent time on social media can attest to. To sum up, the pursuit of attention, combined with a bias toward the wealthy, might thus lead to ‘mindless striving’ (41) and even to ‘mental mutilation’ (39). So, what is to be done? Here is where Smith’s ingenious distinction between praise and praiseworthiness –​a key distinction highlighted by Hanley –​comes to the rescue, and here is also where Smith’s analysis of morality moves from the descriptive to the normative –​from Hume’s ‘is’ to ‘ought’. According to Smith, it’s not enough to obtain the praise and esteem of others; we must also be deserving of this praise. But this fundamental Smithian praise/​praiseworthiness distinction poses a new problem for us: how do we know when are truly deserving of praise? Here is where the perspective of Smith’s imaginary spectator comes into play. At a minimum, the impartial spectator helps us keep things in perspective, telling us –​contra Mr Rogers –​that we are not all that special, that ‘we are just one of the multitude’ (83). Additionally, he (or she?) will act as an impartial judge and juror, reviewing our actions and our motives and determining whether we are truly deserving of the praise of others. In sum, this inner voice or imaginary actor is crucial to living a better life, Hanley explains, because it invites us to take into account the perspective of others and to put our self-​interest and self-​love into perspective. At the same time, Smith’s imaginary spectator produces many more questions than it answers (Klein 2016), deeper questions that Hanley must simply brush aside given the brevity of his book. In the interest of space and time, I will raise just one such doubt here, a purely logistical or practical query based on my field of expertise, the law. Is the impartial spectator more like a trial judge or an appellate judge? If it’s true, for example, that the average person makes up to 2,000 decisions every hour (Krockow 2018), which of these myriad decisions are subject to review by one’s impartial spectator, i.e. actually go up ‘on appeal’, so to speak. Also, if Smith’s imaginary spectator operates like an appellate judge, what criteria does this judge use in deciding which of our decisions will be reviewed on appeal, and what standard or review does this judge use –​de novo review, a clear error rule, or an abuse of discretion standard?

Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life  373 For his part, Hanley concludes his book with Smith’s ‘wise and virtuous man’ (see especially pp. 105–​129). Alas, this Smithian ideal begs the question: What actions are wise and virtuous? Hanley responds to this key question by bringing Plato’s famous allegory of the cave into the picture. A group of prisoners, deep inside a dark cave, are in chains, forced to gaze at a wall in front of them. In the original version of the allegory, shadows are projected on the wall (by whom, though?) from objects passing in front of a fire behind them. The prisoners, unable to see the objects casting the shadows, mistake the shadows for the objects themselves. Suppose that one of the prisoners is freed from his chains, leaves the cave and sees the natural light outside. What should the freed prisoner do next, Hanley asks (110)? Return to the dark cave or bask in the light outside? Hanley claims that Smith’s archetype would return to the cave to help the prisoners trapped inside: ‘Bettering the conditions of others – striving at all times “to promote their further advancement” –​is however the project of a wise and virtuous person’s life’ (112). In other words, Hanley’s portrait of Smith’s wise and virtuous man transforms him into an officious intermeddler.1 No! The classical liberal in me strongly rejects Hanley’s interpretation of Smith’s ideal man. It is one thing to strive to become wise and virtuous for your own sake, or to set a good example for one’s children, or to lead one’s men into battle, but I strongly disagree with Hanley’s portrait of the wise and virtuous man as an officious intermeddler, as someone who wants to improve the condition of others. Ironically, Hanley himself has forgotten the actual ending of Plato’s allegory: the freed prisoner does return to help his fellow prisoners, but he becomes blind upon re-​entering the cave, and worse yet, the remaining prisoners infer from his blindness that the journey out of the cave is too dangerous to undertake themselves. Plato concludes that the prisoners do not want to be dragged out of the cave. Also, for what it is worth, Adam Smith himself was only able to identify but one flesh-​and-​blood person ‘as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will admit’ (125). (I will not give away the identity of this remarkable human being. Read Hanley’s beautiful book to find out for yourself.) More importantly, Hanley sidesteps a further complication with Smith’s theory of virtue: What happens when the Stoic values of the wise and virtuous man –​magnanimity, self-​ command, charity and Christian love –​collide or come into conflict? By way of example, how would Smith’s wise and virtuous man respond to the trolley problem? To sum up, although I agree in principle with Smith (and Hanley) that we should aspire to become wise and virtuous, in reality this ideal is an impossible one to achieve; nor does it give us a license to interfere with or try to better the lives of others. In closing, Hanley’s section on ‘Texts and Further Readings’ (pp. 141–​148) is worth mentioning, for it contains a scholarly treasure trove of erudite gems. Hanley has done his readers a great service by organizing his carefully curated yet comprehensive bibliography of Adam Smith’s ideas by theme or subject

374  F. E. Guerra-Pujol area, citing the two or three most relevant papers or books about each theme and area. By way of example, Hanley’s thematic bibliography contains entries for such recondite topics as Smith’s concern for the poor, his commitment to moral pluralism and his intellectual debts to Socrates and Plato, among many other entries.

Note 1 Legally speaking, an officious intermeddler is someone who, without any contractual or legal duty to do so, steps in to assist or confer a benefit on another. Courts have generally concluded that intermeddlers are not entitled to compensation for their voluntary intermeddling, a legal doctrine that goes back to the Roman law maxim culpa est immiscere se rei ad se non pertinenti (‘it is a fault for anyone to meddle in a matter not pertaining to him’). For a review of the case law, see Dawson (1974).

Bibliography Dawson, John P. (1974) ‘The Self-​ Serving Intermeddler’. Harvard Law Review, 87(7): 1409–​1458. Klein, Daniel B. (2016) ‘My Understanding of Smith’s Impartial Spectator:A Symposium Prologue’, Econ Journal Watch, 13(2): 229–​231. Krockow, Eva M. (2018) ‘How Many Decisions Do We Make Each Day?’ Psychology Today. Online. Available at: https://perma.cc/942R-5GCH (accessed 8 March 2021).

Ozler, Şule and Gabrinetti Paul, A., Psychoanalytic Studies of the Work of Adam Smith:Towards a Theory of Moral Development and Social Relations London, Routledge, 2017, pp. 224 ISBN: 9780367141011 Reviewed by Riccardo Bonfiglioli

Psychoanalytic Studies of the Work of Adam Smith: Towards a Theory of Moral Development and Social Relations was published by Routledge in October 2017. The volume builds on earlier papers by Şule Ozler and Paul Gabrinetti1 and represents the first structured attempt to read Smithian moral thought from an articulated psychoanalytic perspective. The book is relatively short and divided into twelve sections during which the two authors intend to highlight the main features of the Smithian psychology as basis of the moral dimension of the development of the human being in society. It is not a descriptive book or a historical reconstruction of Smith’s thought, but rather an interpretative contribution: the aim of the authors is to detect strengths and limitations of the Smithian psychological concepts in order to suggest an expansion of his general understanding from a psychoanalytic point of view.The interpretative effort lies in trying to highlight the intentions behind Smith’s theory while developing its latent psychological implications. To do this the two scholars methodologically use a reading key related to the hermeneutic tradition. In particular, they focus on The Theory of Moral Sentiments, with a single chapter dedicated to the Wealth of Nations and just some references to the Lectures on Jurisprudence. After a general introduction, which concludes with a short reconstruction of the life of Adam Smith, the book begins with a chapter entitled An intersubjective interpretation of sympathy. In this chapter, the authors use certain psychoanalytic categories to understand the sympathetic interaction between the spectator (the viewer) and the agent (the person observed) in Smith. After a brief description of sympathy and of literature on intersubjectivity, they describe the process of the internalization of the real spectator by the human being in the form of an imaginary impartial spectator. In this context, imagination is what allows the spectator to put himself in the agent’s shoes and vice versa. Sympathy is described by the authors as a correspondence of feelings between the two subjects, depending on the effort of the spectator and the DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-26

376  Riccardo Bonfiglioli agent to accord their mutual emotional expression to an average degree of intensity. In this regard, the authors speak of intersubjectivity, a psychoanalytic term indicating a dimension of mutual influence and recognition: Ozler and Gabrinetti define Smithian sympathy in terms of intersubjectivity and describe it as a pioneering concept of empathy in a psychoanalytic sense. The third chapter is entitled Sympathy, empathy and empirical evidence from developmental psychology. In this section, the authors describe the cognitive and affective dimension of sympathy by associating it with empathy. Empathy is defined as that natural disposition to imagine being in the situation of the other and to experience the psychological state of the other.The concept of empathy is also analysed in relation to Freud who was a reader of Smith’s work according to the authors. Empathy is related to some socially positive behaviours: (1) the ability to interpret the cognitive states of others; (2) the emotional ability to experience the affective experience of others; and (3) the ability to behave in a way relieving the pain of others. The fourth chapter is entitled The impartial spectator, conscience and morality. Here the scholars focus on the Smithian moral system, particularly on the relationship between the virtue of self-​command and the original passions of the human nature, which they call instincts. They describe how the impartial spectator evaluates the conduct and the emotional expression of the agent through the formulation of moral judgements. The conscience is defined as the internalization of the moral dimension and as the result of the continuous interactions between the spectator and the agent: the agent judges himself as a result of a split between a judging spectator and a self who is the object of the judgement. Specifically, self-​command is what allows the agent to bring himself into accord with the impartiality of the imaginary spectator.Therefore, morality is based on the human ability to control some passions, such as fear or anger. At the same time, according to the authors, instincts play a positive role by providing the energy necessary to the dynamic process of formation of the moral dimension. The fifth chapter is entitled The role of the Deity in Smith’s moral system. The authors underline that morality is an extension of the plan of the deity. In particular, the impartial spectator would be the moral regent of the Deity in the human being and the sympathetic process would be the means by which the Deity transmits her project. The sixth chapter is entitled Known world: an analysis of defences in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments. The object of this section is the defensive psychological system that allowed the transition from an instinctual stage to a conscious and moral one. The primary defensive structure allows morality in terms of rationalization, moralization and intellectualization of the instincts. These defensive structures make possible the structure of the known world, a term by which the authors indicate a world in which consensual rules are followed by all people, forming a stable system. In the seventh chapter, entitled Defenses and morality: Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud and contemporary psychoanalysis, the scholars show the connection between the Smithian impartial spectator and the Freudian super-​ ego, discussing differences and similarities between the two authors. In particular, they discuss

Psychoanalytic Studies of the Work of Adam Smith  377 how defence mechanisms are described as fundamental to the internalization of a moral structure by the human being. The eighth chapter, An evolutionary psychological and adaptive defences view of relations between markets and morality, examines the reciprocal effects between market and morality. The authors look deeper into the intersubjective nature of the relationship between market and morality by emphasizing the role of adaptive defences as means of adopting morality by human beings –​in particular, how delaying a gratification leads to greater results in terms of future growth. According to Ozler and Gabrinetti, an increase in moral terms leads to an increase in economic terms within the market. The ninth chapter, On dependency, focuses on Smith, his work and his life, in reference to the tension between addiction and independence in the Smithian texts. According to the authors, Smith’s solution to one’s dependence on others, which they claim is reflected in aspects of Smith’s own life, consists in the formulation of an impersonal interdependency in the economic field. The tenth chapter is On friendship and the authors identify two ways of understanding friendship in Smith. On the one hand, friendship has a utility in gaining sympathy. On the other hand, friendship and love motivate people by making society happy. For the authors, the first kind of friendship prevails. Assuming that in Smith the interactions between individuals can be considered impersonal interdependencies, according to the two scholars, the context of the commercial society leads to cold relationships. In the eleventh chapter, A Jungian interpretation of the place of women in Smith’s works, the authors analyse the themes of instinct, woman and self-​command in Smith from a Jungian perspective. According to them, Smith’s position towards women is sometimes ambivalent, sometimes denigrating. The authors attribute to Smith the idea that women are especially characterized by an instinctual nature, while men are characterized mainly by self-​command. Women are distinguished by their humanity, deriving from their instinct, men for their generosity, deriving from the development of their self-​command. The authors argue that Smith considers man to be generous and virtuous thanks to his self-​ command. Moral life is built on the control of that instinct. After considering Hume and Rousseau’s thinking about the role of women, the authors identify Smith’s ambivalence about the role of women as a reflection of the culture of his time at an unconscious level.Then, on the basis of a Jungian perspective, the two scholars argue that instincts and self-​command characterize both genders (male and female). According to this perspective, both men and women would be able to develop self-​command. The authors conclude by emphasizing the primacy of self-​command over instincts, pointing out again that instincts play a central role in the formation of self-​command. In the last chapter, they present the conclusion of their work by briefly reproposing the general outline of their argument. In summary, the three main contributions of this volume are the following: (1) from a developmental psychology perspective, the idea that sympathy/​empathy is the basis of the creation of morality and the possibility of sharing different

378  Riccardo Bonfiglioli meanings. Morality is based on a social context, the satisfaction of human needs and desires is the result of intersubjective interactions; (2) an inquiry into the interaction between market and morals and how each individual influences the other person. This survey is conducted through a lens of evolutionary psychology and linked to the concept of adaptive defences; (3) the difference between men and women in relation to the role of instincts and self-​command. In conclusion, Ozler and Gabrinetti identify Smith as a turning point in the history of thought regarding the transition between philosophical theory and psychological application. According to the authors, many of Smith’s concepts would have anticipated approaches that psychoanalysis would then use: the Smithian idea of instinct, self-​command, sympathy/​empathy or impartial spectator/​super-​ego. The volume has the advantage of placing the question of human nature in Smith at the centre of the Smithian literature in a systematic way and from an original point of view. In this sense the book is suggestive of a number of new, potentially important, lines of inquiry in Smith studies that develop its inquiry into the relationship between human nature and the self: the question of the place of children in Smith’s thinking; the difference between control of the emotion and control of the expression of the emotion; the nature of the immediacy of sense and feeling in Smith’s thought; the historical role of a family in shaping the natural desire to gain a merited approbation by the others; and the question of an unconscious dimension of immediacy in Smith. All of these are raised in the book and represent topics that need to be studied. The book is a new approach to Smithian literature that will feed into some contemporary problems: for example, Smith and the role of the brain from a neuroscientific point of view or Smith and the dependence on new technology such as social networks.

Note 1 Before this work, the authors published two papers in the Psychoanalytic Review entitled ‘Defenses and morality: Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud, and contemporary psychoanalysis or Adam Smith and dependency’ (2014); in the Adam Smith Review:‘A known world: An analysis of defences in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments’ (2013). In 2018 they also published another paper in the Adam Smith Review: Pain and Pleasure as Human Motivations, and Morality in Smith and Freud’s Works’. The volume goes far beyond the hints in Raphael (2007) and Lecaldano (1995) on the relationship between the impartial spectator and the Freudian super-​ego.

Bibliography Lecaldano E., Introduction in Smith A., La Teoria dei Sentimenti Morali, Milano: Bur, 1995. Raphael, D. D., The impartial spectator. Adam’s Smith Moral Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Tatsuya Sakamoto, David Hume and Adam Smith: A Japanese Perspective Tokyo: Edition Synapse and New York: Routledge, 2020, pp. 144. ISBN: 978-​4-​86166-​221-​8 (Edition Synapse); ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​68302-​3 (Routledge). Reviewed by Maria Pia Paganelli

Tatsuya Sakamoto’s David Hume and Adam Smith: A Japanese Perspective is a beautiful book. It is physically beautiful. Most importantly, its scholarship is beautiful. The volume is a collection of ten essays published over the course of a few decades, some originally in English, some newly translated into English from Japanese. It delivers what it promises in its title: a much welcomed Japanese perspective on David Hume and Adam Smith. In a sense, great scholarship is great scholarship, regardless of its origin. And in this sense, this book is simply a book of great scholarship. In another sense, though, this book captures the spirit of Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835–​1901), the founder of Keio University, where Sakamoto studied and worked before his current position at Waseda University. Fukuzawa was one of the first serious readers of Adam Smith in Japan. In my view, this sentence, cited by Sakamoto, summarizes both of their outlooks: [T]‌he world is large and human associations multifarious. Our lives should be different from that of a few crucian carp passing their days in the bottom of a well … We should associate with people of all sort of interests. (210) It is this desire to make new friends, to explore new horizons, to dialogue about new interests that allows Sakamoto to read Hume and Smith in their own contexts as well as in ours. Sakamoto, with this background, avoids falling into the neoclassical fallacy of reading Hume as a proto-​monetarist or a proto-​ money neutrality promoter, and of reading Smith as a promoter of an unbridled self-​interest and laissez-​faire. Hume is seen instead as concerned about the indissoluble link between knowledge, industry, and humanity, about the customs and manners of people, DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-27

380  Maria Pia Paganelli and about the role of the emerging middle class. With this focus, the paradoxes of modern western monetary interpretations of Hume do not even emerge. Similarly, Smith is seen as the author of two well-​connected books. The Problem that westerners imposed on Smith does not emerge. Smith is the champion of competition, a term without a proper translation into Japanese until Fukuzawa coined a new word for it. The new word was ‘race-​fight’ to indicate the process of bidding down prices and betterment of quality that the presence of multiple merchants in the same market generates. The new word was not welcomed by the top of the political administration, but it was widely accepted by regular people. It may be, or may be not, just a nice coincidence that even the focus on Smith is on his thought about the common people, of the middling ranks of people, as the primary source of reforms, as opposed to the elites or the bottom of society represented by the working poor. Sakamoto’s delicate hand also leads us to understand how it is still possible to offer a rigorous contextualization of a text of the past and at the same time keep it alive for our times. Sympathy can be translated with different terms in Japanese: one leaning more toward an emotional pity, the other leaning more toward a more detached agreement. During the transition from the Shogunate period into modern Japan, the commercial spirit had an uphill struggle against the traditional anti-​commercial attitudes. Then, sympathy as agreement dominated. Now that the commercial spirit may lead into greed, sympathy as pity is making its way back, as if to bring balance to opposing forces. This is a book that all non-​Japanese scholars should read to learn the importance of a different perspective (and great scholarship). This is a book that all Japanese scholars should also read to be inspired to translate their work and make it available to non-​Japanese readers. Indeed, following Sakamoto, we all should stop passing our days at the bottom of a well.

Schliesser, Eric, Adam Smith Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2017, pp. xxiii, 407 ISBN: 978-​0-​19-​069012-​0 Reviewed by Craig Smith

In the last 20 years, Adam Smith studies has been fortunate to see the publication of a number of important monographs that have helped improve our understanding of different aspects of Smith’s thought. In Eric Schliesser’s Adam Smith Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker we have a new and important addition to that body of scholarship.The book is the culmination of Schliesser’s 20 odd-​year engagement with Adam Smith, and his contribution to a variety of debates in the scholarship has honed his reading of Smith. In addition to marshalling a large body of research on Smith, the book also includes a metanarrative on how the author’s thinking about Smith has developed along with the occasional acknowledgment of a changed mind that is testament to Schliesser’s enthusiastic engagement with his interlocutors down the years. When a big book on Smith is published, and this is a big book ranging across almost the whole gamut of Smith’s interests, one question that arises for the reader is ‘what is the dominant interpretation of Smith that it gives us?’ It is to that question that I’ll direct this brief review. Put another way, I’ll ask: ‘who is Schliesser’s Smith?’ In one sense that is an easy question to answer because the subtitle of the book sets out Schliesser’s stall. His Smith is a careful and systematic philosopher, a man interested in science and in creating connected systems of explanation, but also a man who saw that science must have a public purpose. Schliesser’s Smith is writing for a public. He is the opposite of an ivory tower philosopher operating on a level of abstraction detached from the real world. For Schliesser Smith is best understood as an actor on a public stage. A man who takes complex ideas and renders them accessible to an educated public without sacrificing the intellectual integrity of the explanatory systems he develops. We can begin to understand the interpretative power of Schliesser’s reading if we unpack his central ideas of system and public. Schliesser is well known for his work on Smith and science and Smith’s relationship with Newton and Hume. This background is central in outlining how Smith’s understanding of system exists on a grand scale, but is at the same time DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-28

382  Craig Smith flexible and evidence driven. This means that Smith’s system is not based on a single principle, but rather links together a series of explanatory principles.This approach allows us to see how Smith applies the same basic approach across his career, how his attempts to understand the world in a systematic fashion are governed by the need to account for the evidence and present it to his audience in a seamless and gap-​free fashion. As Schliesser notes, he does this not by forcing the world to fit his explanatory principle, but by connecting together a series of explanatory principles which, taken together, build a system of explanation of the world as it is. Perhaps the most innovative and challenging claim of this part of the book is the idea that Smith is not an empiricist (19), or at least he is not in one the doctrinaire sense in which it is used in epistemology. Schliesser’s case is based on a close reading of the External Senses which reveals deviations from an empiricist epistemology that imply that Smith relied on at least some innate ideas. Schliesser’s novel parsing of Smith’s account of the passions is a much needed addition to The Theory of Moral Sentiment (TMS) scholarship. But here too he returns to the idea that Smith is less of the empiricist than he has been painted. Smith is not a moral empiricist (ch. 3) because his account of the passions appears to identify a set of innate ‘proto-​passions’ that underlie the acquired social passions. It seems right to say that for Smith the proto-​passions as Schliesser describes them are an empirical fact, and one that may be problematic for an empiricist/​associationist moral epistemology. But Smith says little about the elements of the passions that Schliesser identifies and that makes it difficult to see whether they are indeed as definitively innate as suggested here. To convince that these inchoate and hard-​to-​place feelings which seem difficult to connect and describe in the light of the moral and intellectual sentiments exist is one thing. To claim that they are innate, or suggest that Smith had some substantive notion of epistemic ‘content’ in mind when he sketched them or that he was approaching a form Reidian principles of mind is another thing. It is something that builds a grand claim on the modestly slim foundations of the Essay on the External Senses. It may be possible that the proto-​passions of TMS are simply part of the mental furniture that we have yet to place. If the mind is a system of classification, perhaps they are a dusty corner of it, a set of feelings acquired so early and bubbling away in the background for so long as they develop that they are hard to pin down, an old file yet to be assigned a place in the filing system rather than a challenge to the interpretation of Smith as an empiricist. Even if the ‘proto-​passions’ do count against Smith as a moral empiricist, in Schliesser’s reading he remains a methodological empiricist, one who observes the proto-​passions and has to fit them into his explanatory system and here Schliesser is on much stronger ground as he reads TMS and Wealth of Nations (WN) through the lens of Smith the systematic philosopher offering a series of observations on how insightful Smith was as a moral theorist. Applied to social issues this leads to a Smithian analysis that focuses on ‘environmental rationality’ (68) and which allows Smith to make claims about

Adam Smith Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker  383 why we should prefer one type of society to another. Crucially, for Schliesser, Smith places this analysis within a historical context. The idea that ‘the historical baseline of one’s time has normative significance’ (160) is perhaps the most convincing statement of Smith’s bridging of historical explanation and theory and normative judgment yet made. Moreover, this passage also explains the intimate connection between the two sides of Schliesser’s Smith, for it is this that accounts for Schliesser’s reading of Smith as a public intellectual and policy adviser. Schliesser’s Smith is writing for a public, but he is also writing with a reform agenda driven by his moral judgments. The Wealth of Nations is a book with a purpose and the systematic argument is directed at a set of contemporary issues. Smith’s aim was to provide a connected body of argument that would not only persuade the thinking public, but which would also make it very difficult to sustain mercantile arguments in public debate. We all know that Smith rejected the idea that his system could become a utopia of free trade because it would be unable to overcome the interests of those who benefitted from the mercantile system, but what he could do with his book was make it intellectually unsustainable to try to defend the mercantile system as the national interest. A good example of this is Schliesser’s discussion of the invisible hand (ch. 10). This is interpreted as a social outcome that arises from unintended consequences, but crucially one that, through systematic inquiry, might be identified and thus anticipated by a social scientist. Schliesser separates this sort of explanation from the longer term processes of historical change that Smith also discusses.While there is nothing particularly new in distinguishing between long-​term unknowable processes of social evolution and shorter-​term unintended consequence generated social patterns that can in principle be identified, what Schliesser adds is the idea that it is precisely this latter task that forms the basis of many of Smith’s public facing observations. Schliesser’s Smith is someone who has looked at the evidence concerning the society around him, developed a systematic and principle-​based explanation of how the main features of that society operate (often through unintended consequences), and taking historical reality as a baseline, advances policy advice designed to improve the lives of all of the public. The focus on ‘Smith’s moral egalitarianism and universalism’ (175) is combined with a recognition that his study of society saw the limits of egalitarianism in practice. Smith did not favor one rank in society, he sought to advance the interests of them all, but this does not mean that he thought that rank was unnecessary –​the reverse is true –​we need it for social stability. This raises an interesting question for Schliesser’s Smith: who are the public to whom Smith addressed himself? In some places we hear that it is citizens. As Schliesser notes in his discussion of TMS, in principle Smith thought that we might all become discerning judges of behavior, but few of us fully embrace the impartial spectators and become truly virtuous (117–​118). So if not the truly virtuous, then who were Smith’s public? If political philosophy is understood as the activity of a citizen by Smith (160), who were ‘citizens’ in eighteenth

384  Craig Smith century Europe or Britain, or even more narrowly Scotland? Was Smith aiming his work at the politically active, or at the small educated public, or the wider literate public? Who did he seek to persuade, the people above, or in the middle, or the public at large? Early on in the book Schliesser suggests that for Smith a good political leader ‘requires a unified and broad intellectual perspective to provide a normative and coherent ideal that orders and provides stability to political decision-​ making’ (10). Perhaps then, that is the desired audience. By persuading the public Smith created the conditions in which political leadership could be exercised. Schliesser’s Smith might be understood as providing a guide for just such a leader: a very modern mirror for modern princes living in a slowly democratizing society.

Jacob Sider Jost, Interest and Connection in the Eighteenth Century: Hervey, Johnson, Smith, Equiano Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2020, pp. 194 ISBN: 9780813945040 Reviewed by Karen Valihora Contemporary scholars of the eighteenth century tend to read the period through the lens of commerce, and as one of distance, virtualization, abstraction, and anonymity. This is when the secure order of a feudal village, the fierce loyalties that bound the Scottish clans, and entire chains of reciprocal obligations ordered by rank, gave way to the imagined community of the republic of letters, created in newspapers and pamphlets, and by novel readers and writers. The simple freedom to buy and sell in the marketplace becomes transformative, introducing, for men and women, rich and poor alike, a sense of both material and imaginative possibility never experienced before. Jacob Sider Jost’s study of interest and connection, however, situates us anew within the world of interest exerted as influence and patronage. Chapters on John, Lord Hervey, Samuel Johnson, Adam Smith, and Olaudah Equiano explore the extent to which all were at home in milieux that were the opposite of anonymous or commercial. The courtly and parliamentary and university and patronage settings Sider Jost explores were where ties of kinship, obligation, and the simple sustained propinquity of a small élite meant that everyone knew everyone else. Drawing from a rich range of scholarly and archival sources, this study attends to biography, memoir, unsigned writings, and private letters alongside the major works of its writers to situate its reader within an older, inescapable sense of interest felt as attachment, and necessity. To ‘cultivate an interest’ is to cultivate a dependency in someone, the way an electioneer might give an interest-​free ‘loan’ in exchange for a vote. Interest is also influence; to ‘have an interest’ with someone means you can shape their decisions. This tangible sense of connection between people situated within tightly bound networks of reciprocal obligations, structured by traditional social and political relationships, is an effect of the bonds of power and advantage on one side and the sheer usefulness of one’s retainers on the other. Sider Jost opens in the midst of the Hanoverian ascendancy with the life-​ writing of Lord Hervey, ‘an aristocrat, a courtier to George II and a favorite of DOI: 10.4324/9781003359395-29

386  Karen Valihora Queen Caroline, an MP and government minister, a pamphlet polemicist on behalf of Robert Walpole…a gifted writer of coterie verse [and] secret memoirist’. Hervey was a brilliant politician because he so adeptly managed the network of interests that defined Hanoverian politics—​‘structures of influence and control that linked landowners, party leaders, members of Parliament, government officials, and voters in chains of patronage’ (16). The story of Hervey’s secret Memoirs of the Reign of King George II is the story of the impossibility of secrecy, never mind freedom, in the linked worlds of the parliament and the court. Hervey’s private letters often only detail how much he could not risk putting in them. Letters, placed in the wrong hands, could be used for multifarious purposes—​and they offered, likewise, little stages for impersonation and manipulation. On one occasion Hervey writes a letter in the voice of his mistress, Anne Vane, who was also mistress to the Prince of Wales. She had visited him in his lodgings to ask him to intervene on her behalf with the Prince. ‘Vane wants to take the letter away, but Hervey is too cautious to let the original in his handwriting leave the house, where she accordingly transcribes it’ (26). In 1735, preparations for the Prince’s marriage to Augusta brought his other relationships to courtly notice. Frederick ordered Vane to depart the country at once, but to leave her little son behind. The ‘pathetic and eloquent’ letter Hervey sent in response was a secret triumph: it at once infuriated his rival, Frederick, who knew Vane had not written it, and, by making Vane’s situation known at court, won her the right to stay in England, her existing pension hers for life.Yet very successes, the interests, powers, and advantages Hervey assiduously cultivated at court, precluded altogether his own private life. His letters seek a life, and a love, out of the reach of the circuit of interest at the same time as their very secrecy—​they are often written in cypher, or buried, never to see the light of day—​prove such a separation of spheres impossible. Sider Jost reads the unpublished manuscript of the Memoirs as a repository, dedicated to the future, for Hervey’s buried, hidden, and largely imaginary private self, a figure that could fully emerge only after his death. In turn, Sider Jost finds in Adam Smith’s attention to historical shifts the emergence of the kind of private life Hervey could only dream of. Smith’s work charts ‘the decline of feudal relationships of patronage and dependence and the rise of a commercial society organized by the self-​interested logic of the market’ (70). An observation from the Lectures on Jurisprudence suggests the magnitude of the changes afoot: ‘a tradesman to retain your custom may perhaps vote for you in an election, but you need not expect that he will attend you to battle’ (LJ 227; 94). And yet, Smith’s work also reveals history has a tendency to repeat. If Sider Jost finds in the court and parliamentary politics detailed by Hervey a force as strong as the old feudal loyalties—​Hervey, for one, would rather have died than leave the court—​across Adam Smith’s works there is the same oscillation between old and new historical stages, which seem to exist simultaneously. The tangibility, the felt presence, of interest as mutual, as the hinge of reciprocal connection, signifying at once advantage and attachment, while it might recede in favour of the virtual exchanges commerce and literary culture

Interest and Connection in the Eighteenth Century  387 come to figure, never disappears. That fact contributes to the delightful sense of revelation this study offers its reader. If Smith bases his economics, at least on the surface, in the pursuit of self-​interest, for example, that interest needs to be understood in terms of the history of interest explored here—​as our desire to persuade others, to earn their approval, to bring them to our point of view and to our cause. The Scottish Enlightenment’s ‘stadial’ or ‘conjectural’ history moves from primitive hunting and gathering through the pastoral, or herding, stage, to feudal strongholds and agriculture. Despite his understanding of the import of the commercial moment, Smith never loses sight of the older set of interests that tied feudal lords to their retainers, and which continued to define relationships of patronage and dependency within court and parliament as within every country village.Two models of interest animate Smith’s thought: those of a feudal politics of dependence, evident in his descriptions of his society’s fascination with rank, nobility, and external trappings, and the mobile, portable, abstract, and imaginary interests enabled by commerce and imperial trade. Mutual and reciprocal interests are at the heart of the dynamics of spectatorship and sympathy in the Theory of Moral Sentiments: careful attention to these illuminates the degree to which the movement towards impartiality in this text challenges the pull of reciprocal obligation. Smith’s stress on disinterest, for example, on distanced reflection, and on impartial judgment, can be understood as part of this general movement away from the structure of reciprocal obligation to the freedom of thinking, and acting, for oneself. At its heart, the TMS is concerned with a freedom, linked not to praise, or flattery – our need for these motivates dependence – but of ‘praiseworthiness:’ merit, and integrity. The figure at the centre of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, ‘the man of abilities,’ Smith also called ‘a private man’ (TMS I.iii.2.5, 55). Sider Jost calls special attention to Dugald Stewart’s notations of the acts of secret charity Smith practised all his working life. Charity was of course a constant of the period, and Smith would have understood it as both a civic duty and an important form of patronage. Acts of secret patronage, however, take a traditional form of benevolence beyond the structure of reciprocal obligation. This is interesting—​particularly in the way it recalls Hervey’s secret memoir, which stood in for the private or separate life he was unable to pursue. In dispensing with patronage as it was traditionally understood, in terms of the relationship of benefactor and dependent, in favour of anonymous gifts, Smith dispensed with cultivating interests in and from others, and instead invented anonymity –​ and with it, in contradistinction to the limits of Hervey’s world, the possibility of rising above partiality, the push and pull of influence, dependency, and faction. Likewise, Smith’s invention of the impartial spectator reveals an ability to imagine himself beyond and to act outside of the social and professional life in which he was so intricately embedded. By giving money in secret, Smith refused, in other words, to cultivate any interest in others. Such an insight leads to another: throughout the TMS, occasions that might in an earlier, more interdependent world, invite, indeed, not offer any other possibility than, interest

388  Karen Valihora and partiality, are transformed, again and again, into opportunities for impartial judgement. Smith’s impartial spectator refuses to be swayed or cultivated; he responds with sympathy and concern only to those who merit approbation. Impartiality offers a kind of anonymity, a judging as everybody, which refracts once again Hervey’s acts of secret authorship. In tracking these small, hidden movements, Sider Jost’s new book pulls into view a secret history of the eighteenth century, as revelatory as it is readable.

Bibliography Smith, Adam (1976) [1759] The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Edited by D. D. Raphael & A. L. Macfie, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, Adam (1980) Lectures on Jurisprudence. Edited by R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael & P. G. Stein, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Notes for contributors

Submissions to The Adam Smith Review are invited from any theoretical, disciplinary or interdisciplinary approach (max. 10,000 words, in English). Contributors are asked to make their arguments accessible to a wide multidisciplinary readership without sacrificing high standards of argument and scholarship. Please include an abstract not exceeding 100 words. Please send all submissions, suggestions, and offers to edit symposia to the Editor, Fonna Forman, Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California, USA; adamsmithreview@ ucsd.edu. Email submissions are welcomed. Alternatively, please send three hard copies in double-​spaced type. Please prepare your manuscript for anonymous refereeing and provide a separate title page with your name. Interdisciplinary submissions will be sent to referees with different disciplinary expertise. Submitted articles will be double-​ blind refereed and commissioned articles will be single-​ blind refereed. All contributions must be in English; it is the author’s responsibility to ensure the quality of the English text. Where quotations in languages other than English are required, authors are asked to provide a translation into English. Final versions of accepted papers will need to conform to the ASR Guidelines for Authors (Harvard Reference System), but submitted papers are accepted in any format. Submission to The Adam Smith Review will be taken to imply that the work is original and unpublished, and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. By submitting a manuscript, authors agree that the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article have been given to the Publishers, including reprints, photographic reproductions, microfilm, or any other reproductions of a similar nature, and translations.

Book Reviews Books relating to Adam Smith or of more general relevance for Adam Smith scholarship will be reviewed in The Adam Smith Review. It is editorial policy to invite authors to respond to reviews of their work. Offers to review works published in languages other than English are welcomed. Please send books

390  Notes for contributors for review to the Book Review Editor: Craig Smith, Department of Moral Philosophy, School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies, University of St Andrews, Edgecliffe, The Scores, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, KY16 9AR; cs210@st-​andrews.ac.uk. The website of the Adam Smith Review is www.adam​smit​hrev​iew.org/​