of the classical "pantomime" dances. Adam Smith shows, by "philosophic art," that dancing (of the descriptive kind) is capable of affecting us much more than statuary or painting, and that like epic poetry it can represent all the events of a long story. In another paper he made a comparison of English and Italian metres to the admiration of Dr. Johnson, who said he could have hugged him for his preference of rhyme to blank verse. There is an essay on the formation of languages and a history of astronomy. His appreciation of Newton's great discovery shows that it was not for want of mathematics that he did not set much store by political arithmetic.

The influence of Newton is shown by the analogies adopted to illustrate two of the fundamental principles of the Wealth of Nations. First, the theory of natural and market values: "The natural price, therefore, is as it were the central price to which the [market] prices of all commodities are continually gravitating. But whatever may be the obstacles which hinder them from settling in this centre of repose and continuance, they are constantly tending towards it."1

..

Secondly, the theory that "naturally every individual endeavours to employ his capital as near home as he can "—a principle that is constantly appealed to -is expressed in similar terms: "Home is in this manner the centre, if I may say so, round which the capitals of the inhabitants of every country are continually circulating and towards which they are Book 1. chap. ii.

tending, though by particular causes they may sometimes be driven off and repelled from it toward more distant employments."1

2

The catalogue of Adam Smith's library illustrates the variety of his tastes and learning. He was widely read in history, law, geography, and books of travel. He knew all the best men of his time-Pitt, Burke, Hume, Reynolds, for example, in England; and in France, Turgot, Voltaire, Quesnay, Rousseau, and the philosophers who were sowing the seeds of the revolution in France.

For the greater part of his life Adam Smith lived in touch with the great world and the real world, and not in a world of abstractions, though for the final composition of the Wealth of Nations he retired to the quiet of his native town, Kirkcaldy, for a period of seven years (1767-1773).

§ 2. "The Theory of Moral Sentiments."

The Adam Smith of popular tradition is supposed to be the apostle of selfishness-the creator and glorifier of the "economic man."

The real Adam Smith, about twenty years before the publication of the Wealth of Nations, made a world-wide reputation by his Essay on the Theory of Moral Sentiments. The basis of the whole theory is not selfishness but sympathy; the practical test of right conduct is the judgment of the impartial

1 Book IV. chap. ii.

2 Edited by Dr. Bonar, 1894.

3 The writer is the fortunate possessor of Adam Smith's presentation copy of the Wealth of Nations to Sir Joshua Reynolds.