Dugald Stewart
Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith LL.D.
1793
from the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
read by Mr Stewart, January 21, and March 18, 1793.
printed in the Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, vol. 10, pp. 198.
Section I.
From Mr. Smith's Birth till the Publication of the Theory of
Moral Sentiments
Adam Smith, author of the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes
of the Wealth of Nations, was the son of Adam Smith, comptroller
of the customs at Kirkaldy,(1*) and of Margaret Douglas, daughter
of Mr Douglas of Strathenry. He was the only child of the
marriage, and was born at Kirkaldy on the 5th of June 1723, a few
months after the death of his father.
His constitution during infancy was infirm and sickly, and
required all the tender solicitude of his surviving parent. She
was blamed for treating him with an unlimited indulgence; but it
produced no unfavourable effects on his temper or his
dispositions: -- and he enjoyed the rare satisfaction of being
able to repay here affection, by every attention that filial
gratitude could dictate, during the long period of sixty years.
An accident which happened to him when he was about three
years old, is of too interesting a nature to be omitted in the
account of so valuable a life. He had been carried by his mother
to Strathenry, on a visit to his uncle Mr Douglas, and was one
day amusing himself alone at the door of the house, when he was
stolen by a party of that set of vagrants who are known in
Scotland by the name of tinkers. Luckily he was soon missed by
his uncle, who, hearing that some vagrants had passed, pursued
them, with what assistance he could find, till he overtook them
in Leslie wood; and was the happy instrument of preserving to the
world a genius, which was destined, not only to extend the
boundaries of science, but to enlighten and reform the commercial
policy of Europe.
The school of Kirkaldy, where Mr Smith received the first
rudiments of his education, was then taught by Mr David Miller, a
teacher, in his day, of considerable reputation, and whose name
deserves to be recorded, on account of the eminent men whom that
very obscure seminary produced while under his direction. Of this
number were Mr Oswald of Dunikeir;(2*) his brother, Dr John
Oswald, afterwards Bishop of Raphoe; and our late excellent
colleague, the Reverend Dr John Drysdale: all of them nearly
contemporary with Mr Smith, and united with him through life by
the closest ties of friendship. One of his school-fellows is
still alive;(3*) and to his kindness I am principally indebted
for the scanty materials which form the first part of this
narrative.
Among these companions of his earliest years, Mr Smith soon
attracted notice, by his passion for books, and by the
extraordinary powers of his memory. The weakness of his bodily
constitution prevented him from partaking in their more active
amusements; but he was much beloved by them on account of his
temper, which, though warm, was to an uncommon degree friendly
and generous. Even then he was remarkable for those habits which
remained with him through life, of speaking to himself when
alone, and of absence in company.
From the grammar-school of Kirkaldy, he was sent, in 1737, to
the university of Glasgow, where he remained till 1740, when he
went to Baliol college, Oxford, as an exhibitioner(4*) on Snell's
foundation.
Dr Maclaine of the Hague, who was a fellow-student of Mr
Smith's at Glasgow, told me some years ago, that his favourite
pursuits while at that university were mathematics and natural
philosophy; and I remember to have heard my father remind him of
a geometrical problem of considerable difficulty, about which he
was occupied at the time when their acquaintance commenced, and
which had been proposed to him as an exercise by the celebrated
Dr Simpson.
These, however, were certainly not the sciences in which he
was formed to excel; nor did they long divert him from pursuits
more congenial to his mind. What Lord Bacon says of Plato may be
justly applied to him: 'Illum, licet ad rempublicam non
accessisset, tamen naturâ et inclinatione omnino ad res civiles
propensum, vires eo praecipue intendisse; neque de Philosophia
Naturali admodum sollicitum esse; nisi quatenus ad Philosophi
nomen et celebritatem tuendam, et ad majestatem quandam moralibus
et civilibus doctrinis addendam et aspergendam sufficeret.'(5*)
The study of human nature in all its branches, more particularly
of the political history of mankind, opened a boundless field to
his curiosity and ambition; and while it afforded scope to all
the various powers of his versatile and comprehensive genius,
gratified his ruling passion, of contributing to the happiness
and the improvement of society. To this study, diversified at his
leisure hours by the less severe occupations of polite
literature, he seems to have devoted himself almost entirely from
the time of his removal to Oxford; but he still retained, and
retained even in advanced years, a recollection of his early
acquisitions, which not only added to the splendour of his
conversation, but enabled him to exemplify some of his favourite
theories concerning the natural progress of the mind in the
investigation of truth, by the history of those sciences in which
the connection and succession of discoveries may be traced with
the greatest advantage. If I am not mistaken too, the influence
of his early taste for the Greek geometry may be remarked in the
elementary clearness and fulness, bordering sometimes upon
prolixity, with which he frequently states his political
reasonings. -- The lectures of the profound and eloquent Dr
Hutcheson, which he had attended previous to his departure from
Glasgow, and of which he always spoke in terms of the warmest
admiration, had, it may be reasonably presumed, a considerable
effect in directing his talents to their proper objects.(6*)
I have not been able to collect any information with respect
to that part of his youth which was spent in England. I have
heard him say, that he employed himself frequently in the
practice of translation, (particularly from the French), with a
view to the improvement of his own style: and he used often to
express a favourable opinion of the utility of such exercises, to
all who cultivate the art of composition. It is much to be
regretted, that none of his juvenile attempts in this way have
been preserved; as the few specimens which his writings contain
of his skill as a translator, are sufficient to shew the eminence
he had attained in a walk of literature, which, in our country,
has been so little frequented by men of genius.
It was probably also at this period of his life, that he
cultivated with the greatest care the study of languages. The
knowledge he possessed of these, both ancient and modern, was
uncommonly extensive and accurate; and, in him, was subservient,
not to a vain parade of tasteless erudition, but to a familiar
acquaintance with every thing that could illustrate the
institutions, the manners, and the ideas of different ages and
nations. How intimately he had once been conversant with the more
ornamental branches of learning; in particular, with the works of
the Roman, Greek, French, and Italian Poets, appeared
sufficiently from the hold which they kept of his memory, after
all the different occupations and inquiries in which his maturer
faculties had been employed.(7*) In the English language, the
variety of poetical passages which he was not only accustomed to
refer to occasionally, but which he was able to repeat with
correctness, appeared surprising even to those, whose attention
had never been directed to more important acquisitions.
After a residence at Oxford of seven years, he returned to
Kirkaldy, and lived two years with his mother; engaged in study,
but without any fixed plan for his future life. He had been
originally destined for the Church of England, and with that view
had been sent to Oxford; but not finding the ecclesiastical
profession suitable to his taste, he chose to consult, in this
instance, his own inclination, in preference to the wishes of his
friends; and abandoning at once all the schemes which their
prudence had formed for him, he resolved to return to his own
country, and to limit his ambition to the uncertain prospect of
obtaining, in time, some one of those moderate preferments, to
which literary attainments lead in Scotland.
In the year 1748, he fixed his residence at Edinburgh, and
during that and the following years, read lectures on rhetoric
and belles lettres, under the patronage of Lord Kames. About this
time, too, he contracted a very intimate friendship, which
continued without interruption till his death, with Mr Alexander
Wedderburn, now Lord Loughborough, and with Mr William Johnstone,
now Mr Pulteney.
At what particular period his acquaintance with Mr David ...
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