Life of Adam Smith

A free download from http://www.dertz.in


Life of Adam Smith

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Adam Smith, by John Rae
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Life of Adam Smith
Author: John Rae
Release Date: December 2, 2005 [EBook #17196]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF
ADAM SMITH ***

Produced by Robert Connal, Richard J. Shiffer and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was
produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque
nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr)

Life of Adam Smith

By
JOHN RAE

London
MACMILLAN & CO.
AND NEW YORK
1895

PREFACE
The fullest account we possess of the life of Adam Smith is still the
memoir which Dugald Stewart read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh
on two evenings of the winter of 1793, and which he subsequently
published as a separate work, with many additional illustrative notes, in
1810. Later biographers have made few, if any, fresh contributions to
the subject. But in the century that has elapsed since Stewart wrote,
many particulars about Smith and a number of his letters have
incidentally and by very scattered channels found their way into print.
It will be allowed to be generally desirable, in view of the continued if
not even increasing importance of Smith, to obtain as complete a view
of his career and work as it is still in our power to recover; and it
appeared not unlikely that some useful contribution to this end might
result if all those particulars and letters to which I have alluded were
collected together, and if they were supplemented by such unpublished
letters and information as it still remained possible to procure. In this
last part of my task I have been greatly assisted by the Senatus of the
University of Glasgow, who have most kindly supplied me with an
extract of every passage in the College records bearing on Smith; by
the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, who have granted me
every facility for using the Hume Correspondence, which is in their
custody; and by the Senatus of the University of Edinburgh for a

similar courtesy with regard to the Carlyle Correspondence and the
David Laing MSS. in their library. I am also deeply indebted, for the
use of unpublished letters or for the supply of special information, to
the Duke of Buccleuch, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Professor R.O.
Cunningham of Queen's College, Belfast, Mr. Alfred Morrison of
Fonthill, Mr. F. Barker of Brook Green, and Mr. W. Skinner, W.S., late
Town Clerk of Edinburgh.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS AT KIRKCALDY
Birth and parentage, 1. Adam Smith senior, 1; his death and funeral, 3.
Smith's mother, 4. Burgh School of Kirkcaldy, 5. Schoolmaster's drama,
6. School-fellows, 6. Industries of Kirkcaldy, 7.
CHAPTER II
STUDENT AT GLASGOW COLLEGE
Professors and state of learning there, 9. Smith's taste for mathematics,
10. Professor R. Simson, 10. Hutcheson, 11; his influence over Smith,
13; his economic teaching, 14. Smith's early connection with Hume, 15.
Snell exhibitioner, 16. College friends, 17.
CHAPTER III
AT OXFORD
Scotch and English agriculture, 18. Expenses at Oxford, 19. Did Smith
graduate? 20. State of learning, 20; Smith's censure of, 20. His
gratitude to Oxford, 22. Life in Balliol College, 22. Smith's devotion to
classics and belles-lettres, 23. Confiscation of his copy of Hume's
Treatise, 24. Ill-health, 25. Snell exhibitioners ill-treated and

discontented at Balliol, 26. Desire transference to other college, 27.
Smith's college friends, or his want of them, 28. Return to Scotland, 28.
CHAPTER IV
LECTURER AT EDINBURGH
Lord Kames, 31. Smith's class on English literature, 32. Blair's alleged
obligations to Smith's lectures, 33. Smith's views as a critic, 34. His
addiction to poetry, 35. His economic lectures, 36. James Oswald, M.P.,
37. Oswald's economic correspondence with Hume, 37. Hamilton of
Bangour's poems edited by Smith, 38. Dedication to second edition, 40.
CHAPTER V
PROFESSOR AT GLASGOW
Admission to Logic chair, 42. Letter to Cullen about undertaking Moral
Philosophy class, 44. Letter to Cullen on Hume's candidature for Logic
chair and other business, 45. Burke's alleged candidature, 46. Hume's
defeat, 47. Moral Philosophy class income, 48. Work, 50. Professor
John Millar, 53. His account of Smith's lectures, 54; of his qualities as
lecturer, 56. Smith's students, 57. H. Erskine, Boswell, T. Fitzmaurice,
Tronchin, 58, 59. Smith's religious views suspected, 60. His influence
in Glasgow, 60. Conversion of merchants to free trade, 61. Manifesto
of doctrines in 1755, 61. Its