The Theory of Moral Sentiments (78 page)

18
For Hutcheson’s conception of the moral sense as harmonious with the analogy of nature, see
System
1.4.4; for an overview of the various senses, see
Essay with Illustrations
1.1.

19
Smith’s reference is to
Essay with Illustrations
2.1, under the marginal heading “Objections from our judging even of our Affections and Senses themselves.”

20
Johnson’s definitions reiterate the wide scope emphasized by Smith; thus approbation is “the liking of any thing,” and conscience, “the knowledge or faculty by which we judge of the goodness or wickedness of ourselves.”

21
For Smith’s account of Hume, see 4.1-2 above; on sympathy in this context, see
Treatise
3.3.1-2; and Kames,
Essays on Morality and Religion
1.1.

PART VII, SECTION IV

1
For their catalogues of the ethical virtues, see Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics
3.6-5.11; Cicero,
De officiis
1.18-151.

2
Casuistry is a form of moral reasoning that seeks to articulate comprehensive standards of judgment universally applicable to all discrete cases; see also Smith’s critique at
Wealth of Nations
5.1.f.

3
highwayman: “a robber that plunders on the public roads” (Johnson).

4
See note below.

5
On the debate over the promise owed to the highwayman, see esp. Pufendorf,
Law of Nature and Nations
3.6.10-13, which cites in support of its position Cicero,
De officiis
3.107-109 (itself part of the discussion of Regulus, cited above); and Hutcheson,
Short Introduction
2.9.8-9.

6
Among the “eminent modern casuists” that Smith likely has in mind are two cited by Pufendorf: Grotius,
Rights of War and Peace
2.11.7; and Hobbes,
De cive
2.16 and
Leviathan
14.19-20. Smith’s footnote suggests he may also have in mind Augustine,
Letters
125; and La Placette,
Traité de la conscience
(trans. 1705 as
The Christian Casuist: Or, a Treatise on Conscience
), 1.18.

7
punctilio: “a small nicety of behaviour; a nice point of exactness” (Johnson).

8
parole: “word given as an assurance” (Johnson).

9
rencounter: “loose or casual engagement” or “sudden combat without premeditation” (Johnson).

10
This and the following four paragraphs were additions to the sixth edition of 1790.

11
The first five sentences of this paragraph and the whole of the next three paragraphs were additions to the sixth edition of 1790.

12
piacular: “such as requires expiation” or “criminal; atrociously bad” (Johnson).

13
Smith’s division of moral philosophy into ethics and natural jurisprudence does important work in his system though was itself common; see, e.g., Hutcheson,
Short Introduction
Preface.

14
Cicero’s inquiry of the relationship of the right to the expedient concludes with his pronouncements on a series of practical examples; see, e.g.,
De officiis
3.89-116, which also encompasses the discussion of promise-keeping referenced by Smith above.

15
Cicero describes justice in terms of obligation and benefit in
De of ficiis
1.20-41 and 3.40-49; Aristotle describes justice as a mean in
Nicomachean Ethics
5.

16
Smith further develops this distinction in
Jurisprudence
A 1.1-4 and 6.1-2 and B 5 and 203.

17
Smith has in mind
Rights of War and Peace
,
whose point of departure is the insufficiency of the attempts of Aristotle to define justice in terms of a mean; see his Preliminary Discourse 43-45
.

CONSIDERATIONS

1
The
Considerations
was first published in 1761 in
The Philological Miscellany
, a London periodical. Smith subsequently instructed his publisher to append it to
TMS
. Its first appearance in
TMS
came in the third edition of 1767, and it was included in all following editions of
TMS
published in Smith’s lifetime, including the sixth edition of 1790, whose version is reprinted here. Despite Smith’s solicitude for the piece, it has rarely been reprinted in modern editions of
TMS
, and has only recently begun to garner the scholarly attention it deserves; helpful treatments include Christopher Berry in
Journal of the History of Ideas
35 (1974); James Otteson in
Smith’s Marketplace of Life
, ch. 7; and Marcelo Dascal in
Cambridge Companion to Smith
, ch. 3.

2
Smith’s essay is an intervention in an eighteenth-century debate over the origin of languages; central participants included Condillac (
Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge
, 1746); Rousseau (
Discourse on Inequality
, 1755; and
Essay on the Origin of Languages
, published posthumously); and Monboddo (
Of the Origin and Progress of Languages
, 1773). Smith’s own treatment focuses as much on the progress and development of language and its relationship to the progress of the mind as on language’s origin, as has been noted (see esp. Dascal’s comparison of Smith to Condillac in the
Cambridge Companion
, pp. 84-85). Smith’s treatment here is also in keeping with his focus elsewhere on the stages and conditions of social development (see e.g.
Jurisprudence
A 1.27-35 and 5.2 above).

3
Smith’s reference is presumably to vol. 1 of the two-volume 1760 “Amsterdam” edition of Rousseau’s works; pp. 376-77 thus refer to what is in modern editions paragraph 29-30 of Part 1 of the
Discourse on Inequality
. Throughout the
Considerations
Smith engages several of the claims Rousseau sets forth in
Discourse on Inequality
1.25-32 and notes 13-14, and particularly Rousseau’s claims regarding “abstraction” and “metaphysics.”

4
In a contemporary letter (to George Baird, 7 February 1763), Smith volunteered that he was indebted to two works for his principal “instruction” in and “entertainment” on grammatical topics: Abbé Girard,
The True Principles of the French Language
(1747), and the grammatical articles of the
Encyclopédie
(of which vols. 1-7 had appeared between 1751 and 1757; the remaining vols. 8-17 were not published until 1765). Each work’s prominently advertised aspirations to provide “systematic” treatments of its topics (see esp. Girard’s “Preface”) would likely have appealed to Smith, and their treatments of several topics, including the parts of speech, are likely to have been in his mind during the composition of this opening section of the
Considerations
. The tree example is likely drawn from Rousseau,
Discourse on Inequality
1.30.

5
The elaboration of the specific qualities perceived by each of the senses is a key theme of Smith’s essay on the “External Senses”; see e.g. 13-17.

6
Smith’s discussion here of the derivation of general rules from generalized actual practices recalls his parallel discussion in
TMS
7.3.2 above. It also parallels several treatments in
Wealth of Nations
, as has been noted; see esp. Otteson’s discussion of “the invisible hand of rule formation” in
Smith’s Marketplace of Life
, ch. 7.

7
Smith’s reference is to a sixteenth-century work on Latin by Francisco Sanchez (“Sanctius”). More crucially, compare Smith’s discussions above of how we “split and divide almost every event into a great number of metaphysical parts” and how we “divide words into their elements” to his famous discussions of the division of labor in
Wealth of Nations
1.1

8
Smith’s discussion of the progress of language in terms of simplicity and complexity parallels certain of his other treatments of the evolution and improvement of intellectual systems; see esp.
Astronomy
4.

9
Key discussions of Smith’s views on the simplification and perfection of machines include the conclusion of 4.1 above,
Wealth of Nations
1.1.8-9 and
Jurisprudence
A 6.40-43.

10
Smith here quotes Milton’s translation of Horace’s ode “To Pyrrha” (1.5), 1. 9-12.

11
Smith’s decision to conclude his study of the progress of languages with a defense of the superiority of ancient to modern languages may be attributable in part to his engagement with Rousseau (see 4 and notes above) and his engagement with the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns (see 3.2 and notes above).

Index

Addison, Joseph

afterlife

Ajax

Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’

Alexander the Great

ambition

amiability

anger: and amiable virtues; and self-command; and sympathy; and temperance; and unsocial passions; variations of

animals

Anne, of England

Antigonus

Antoninus (Marcus Antoninus)

Apollonius of Tyre

approbation: and authority of conscience; and beneficence; and bodily pain; and consequences of actions; and duty; and Epicureanism; and modern philosophical systems; and the nature of virtue; and praiseworthiness; and propriety; and punishment; and reason; and self-love; and sentiments; and social status; sources of; and sympathy; and utility; vs. self-love

Aristides

Aristippus

Aristomenes

Aristotle: and character analysis; and character of virtue; and Epicureanism; and magnanimity; and Platonic system of virtue; and prudence; and rules of justice; and rules of morality; and social customs; and temperance; and vanity

arrogance

Arundel, Thomas Howard, Earl of

Attila

Augustine, Saint

Augustus Caesar

Avaux, Claude de Mesmes, Comte d’

Avidius Cassius

Barbeyrac, Jean

beauty

beneficence: and concern for others; and friendships; and justice; and rules of morality; and self-command; and social order; and social structure

benevolence: and character of virtue, for others; and friendships; and human nature; and public spirit; and Stoicism; and systems of moral sentiments

Birch, Thomas

Biron, Charles de Gontaut, duc de

Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas

Borgia, Cesare

Bristol, George Digby, second Earl of

Brutus (1) (Lucius Junius Brutus)

Brutus (2) (Marcus Junius Brutus)

Buccaneers

Buffier, Claude

Caesar (Gaius Julius Caesar)

Calas, Jean

Callisthenes

Camillus

capital punishment

cardinal virtues

casuistry

Catherine de Medici

Catiline

Cato the Elder

Cato the Younger

Charles I

Charles II

Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de

Christianity: and benevolence; and compassion; and duty; and the Eclectics; and ethics; and rules of morality

Chrysippus

Cicero: and character analysis; death; and Epicureanism; and honor; and imperfect virtues; and interdependence; and moral worth; and the
optimates
; and praiseworthiness; and propriety; and public spirit; and rules of justice; and rules of morality; and self-command; and social customs

Clarendon, Edward Hyde, first Earl of

Clarke, Samuel

Claudius

Cleanthes

Cleomenes III

compassion: and bodily passions; and Christianity; described; and individual character; limits of; and rules of morality; and self-command; and social custom; and social passions; and social status; and sympathy

Cowley, Abraham

Crassus (1) (Marcus Licinius Crassus)

Crassus (2) (Lucius Licinius Crassus)

Cudworth, Ralph

Davila, Arrigo Caterino

Decalogue (Ten Commandments)

Demosthenes

Descartes, René

Diderot, Denis

Diogenes Laertius

distributive justice

divine law

Domitian

dryads

Dryden, John

Dubos, Jean-Baptiste, Abbé

duty

Eclectics

Edward III

English language

Enlightenment

envy

Epaphroditus

Epictetus

Epicurus/Epicureanism

Eugene, Prince of Savoy

Eumenes

Euripides

evil

executions

faction

fashion

fear

Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier, Sieur de

fortune.
See also
misfortune: and gratitude and resentment; and individual character; and intent of action; and irregularity of sentiments; and merit; and social custom; and Stoicism

Frederick II

Frederick Wilhelm I

friendship

Gaius Laelius the Elder

Gaius Laelius the Younger

Genghis Khan

God: and benevolence; and duty; and irregularity of sentiments; and justice; and laws of the Deity; and rules of morality

Godolphin, Sidney Godolphin, first Earl of

Gracchus, Gaius Sempronius

Gracchus, Tiberius Sempronius