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commence the work of constructing their own. Of this work of destruction little will be found in these volumes; we propose to lay stress on what a Philosopher did rather than on what he undid. In the summary will be found a general survey of the main criticisms that have been passed upon the views of the Philosopher who forms the subject of the work, and in the bibliographic appendix the reader will be directed to sources of more detailed criticism than the size and nature of the volumes in the Series would permit. The lives of Philosophers are not, as a rule, eventful, the biographies will consequently be brief. It is hoped that the Series, when complete, will supply a comprehensive History of English Philosophy. It will include an Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, by Professor H. Sidgwick.

OXFORD, Nov., 1880.

ADAM SMITH.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

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

1 Mémoires, i. 244. "Sa Théorie des Sentimens Moraux m'avait donné une grande idée de sa sagacité et de sa profondeur." Yet, according to Grimm, it had no success in Paris. Corresp., iv. 291.

B

The publication of these two books, the only writings published by their author in his lifetime, are strictly speaking the only episodes which form anything like landmarks in Adam Smith's career. The sixty-seven years of his life (1723-90) were in other respects strangely destitute of what are called "events;" and beyond the adventure of his childhood, when he was carried away by gipsies but soon rescued, nothing extraordinary ever occurred to ruffle the even surface of his existence.

If, therefore, the happiness of an individual, like that of a nation, may be taken to vary inversely with the materials afforded by them to the biographer or the historian, Adam Smith may be considered to have attained no mean degree of human felicity. From his ideal of life, political ambition and greatness were altogether excluded; it was his creed that happiness was equal in every lot, and that contentment alone was necessary to ensure it. "What," he asks, "can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?"

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To this simple standard, circumstances assisted him to mould his life. His health, delicate in his early years, became stronger with age; necessity never compelled him to seek a competence in uncongenial pursuits; nor did a tranquil life of learning ever tempt him into paths at variance with the laws. of his moral being or his country. In several passages of his Moral Sentiments, it will appear that he took no pains to conceal his preference for the old Epicurean theory of life, that in ease of body and peace of mind consists happiness, the goal of all desire.

But the charm of such a formula of life is perhaps more obvious than its rendering into an actual state of existence. Ease of body does not always come for the wishing; and peace of mind often lies still further from command. The advan

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