Adam Smith

Adam Smith was born on June 5, 1723, in the “lang toun” of Kirkcaldy. It was one of the “mony royal boroughs yoked on end to end like ropes of ingans, with their hie-streets and...

By his Edinburgh lectures Smith had proved that he could be at once learned and popular, and the fact that he was probably the only Scottish savant who had thoroughly acquired t...

The age into which Adam Smith was born was an age of religious doubt and philosophic curiosity. During his lifetime the governing classes in England, undisturbed by enthusiasms,...

In 1759, the seventh year of his professorship, Smith completed the first of his two capital achievements. His scholiasts are still curiously hazy about its early editions, part...

The finding of Adam Smith’s lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms, 133 years at least after their last delivery and 105 years after the author had had his own folio not...

Mr. Rae’s diligent researches have disposed of the idea that Smith was one of those profound philosophers who are helpless in the practical affairs of life. It appears from the...

“Everything I see appears the throwing broadcast of the seed of a revolution,” wrote Voltaire to Chauvelin, a few weeks after Smith landed in France. While the poor grew poorer,...

Adam Smith, as we have seen, had begun to write his immortal book at Toulouse in the summer of 1764 “in order to pass away the time.” But even after his return to London, in Nov...

In February 1776 Hume wrote to Smith: “By all accounts your book has been printed long ago, yet it has never been so much as advertised. What is the reason? If you wait till the...

system is entirely new. The system of the _économistes_ is described in that chapter as one which, with all its imperfections, was perhaps the nearest approximation to the truth...

One of the least edifying features of modern controversy, and particularly of political and economic controversy, is the habit of appealing to precedents and authorities which,...

After seeing the _Wealth of Nations_ through the press, Smith lingered a few weeks in London. He was anxious to persuade Hume to come up and consult the London physicians, but H...

letter upon _Projects_, which was addressed to him, and printed at the end of the first edition of the _Defence of Usury_, declared to a gentleman, the common friend of the two...