1. Corr, letter 31, 12 April 1759.
2. Corr, letter 82, 5 July 1764, Toulouse.
3. EPS, p.254.
4. For accounts of the movement, see Henry Higgs, The Physiocrats (1897); C. Gide and C. Rist, A History of Economic Doctrines (1948); Terence Hutchison, Before Adam Smith (1988); and especially R. L. Meek, The Economics of Physiocracy (1962).
5. H. Mizuta, Catalogue of the Library of Adam Smith (1967).
6. Corr, letter 97, 15 October 1766.
7. Stewart, III.12.
8. Corr, letter 248, 1 November 1785.
9. Abbé Morellet, Mémoires (1823), i.,p.244.
10. J. A. Schumpeter, Economic Doctrine and Method (1954), p.43. See Chapter
2, ‘The Discovery of the Circular Flow of Economic Life’.
11. J. A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (1954), pp.241–3.
12. Meek (1962), p.18.
13. Meek (1962), p.108.
14. Meek (1962), p.374.
15. Meek (1962), p.70.
16. Meek (1962), p.19.
17. Meek (1962), pp.109–14.
18. Meek (1962), pp.231–62.
19. WN, IV.ix.29; p.260.
20. See R. L. Meek, Turgot on Progress, Sociology and Economics (1973).
21. Smith possessed a run of the Éphémérides du Citoyen, which included the first two-thirds of the Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Riches. I have used as my source R. L. Meek, Turgot on Progress, Sociology and Economics (1973).
22. Meek (1973), p.122.
23. Meek (1973), p.147.
24. Meek (1973), p.123.
25. Meek (1973), p.127.
26. Meek (1973), p.128.
27. Meek (1973), p.127.
28. Meek (1973), p.122.
29. Meek (1973), p.153.
30. Meek (1973), p.153.
31. Meek (1973), p.155.
32. Meek (1973), pp.156–7.
33. Meek (1973), p.138.
34. See Peter Groenewegen, ‘Turgot and Adam Smith’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy (1969). Also the same author’s ‘The French Connection: Some Studies of French Influences on British Economics in the Eighteenth Century’, Working Papers in Economics, University of Sydney, 202 (1994).
35. Turgot’s para LXXXIII.
36. Meek (1973), p.170; see Turgot’s paras LXXI, LXXIV.
37. Meek (1973), p.172.
38. Meek (1973), p.172.
39. W. Walker Stephens, Life and Writings of Turgot (1895), p.233.
40. Henry Higgs, Cantillon’s Essai (1931), p.385.
41. W. Walker Stephens, Life and Writings of Turgot (1895), p.62.
42. Meek (1973), p.312.
43. WN, IV.ix.6; p.249.
44. WN, IV.ix.6; p.249.
45. WN, IV.ix.5; p.249.
46. WN, IV.ix.7; p.250.
47. WN, IV.ix.10; p.251.
48. WN, IV.ix.10; p.251.
49. Edwin Cannan, ed., Adam Smith’s Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms (1896), p.xxiv.
50. WN, I.vi.
51. R. L. Meek, Economics and Ideology and Other Essays, (1967), pp.31–2.
52. Edwin Cannan, ed., Adam Smith’s Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms (1896), p xxxi.
53. WN, II.ii.
54. Edwin Cannan, ed., Adam Smith’s Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms (1896), p xxix.
55. J.A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (1954), p.232.
56. M. Palyi, ‘The Introduction of Adam Smith on the Continent’, in Adam Smith, 1776–1926 (1928). See also J. H. Hollander, ‘The Dawn of a Science: The Founder of a School’, in the same volume.
57. Murray Rothbard, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith (1995), p.403.
58. Donald Winch, ‘Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in the Early History of Economic Thought’, in Manuela Albertone and Alberto Masoero, eds, Political Economy and National Realities (1994), p 102.
59. Quoted ibid, p.103.
60. Quoted ibid, p.95.
61. Edwin Cannan, ed., Adam Smith’s Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms (1896), p xxiii.
62. WN, IV.ix.38; p.264.
63. ‘Astronomy’, Section IV, paragraph 19.
64. Meek (1962), p.370.
65. Mercantilism and the East India Trade (1926), p.3.
66. Eli Hecksher, Mercantilism (1955), Vol. 1, p.28.
67. The Politics of Mercantilism (1942), p.35.
68. On the History of Economic Thought: British and American Economic Essays (1993), p.46.
69. Eli Hecksher, Mercantilism (1955), Vol. 2, p.274.
70. WN, IV.ix.3; p.248.
71. D. C. Coleman, ed., Revisions in Mercantilism (1969), p.15.
72. Corr, letter 208, October 1780.
73. WN, IV.i.10; p.10.
74. WN, IV.iii.c.9; p.72.
75. WN, IV.i.17; p.14.
76. WN, IV.ii.c.2; p.67.
77. WN, IV.vi.13; p.128.
78. WN, IV.iii.a.4; p.52
79. WN, IV.iii.c.13; p.75.
80. Lectures, p. 269.
81. A. W. Coats On the History of Economic Thought (1993), p.140.
82. WN, IV.i.35; p.27.
83. WN, IV.i.45; p.28.
84. WN, IV.ii.3; p.30.
85. WN, IV.v.a.24ff; p.94.
86. WN, IV.vii.c.89; p.214.
87. Lectures, pp. 233–4.
88. WN, II.v.
89. WN, III.i.
90. Thomas Pownall, A Letter from Governor Pownall to Adam Smith, being an Examination of Several Points of Doctrine, laid down in his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), in Corr, Appendix A, p.354.
91. Corr, letter 149, February 1776.
92. WN, IV.vii.c.81; p.210.
93. WN, IV.ii.c.30; p.41.
94. WN, IV.vii.b.40; p.162.
95. WN, IV.viii.15; p.231.
96. WN, IV.ii.30; p.41.
97. WN, I.ix.11; p.195.
98. WN, I.viii.23; vol.i.p.173.
99. WN, IV.vii.b.39; p.162.
100. WN, IV.vii.c.51; p.192.
101. WN, IV.vii.b.44; p.164.
102. WN, I.vii.23; vol.1.p.173.
103. WN, IV.i.31; p.23.
104. WN, IV.vii.c.64; p.198.
105. WN, IV.vii.b.44; p.163.
106. WN, IV.vii.c.47; p.190.
107. WN, IV.vii.c.55; p.193.
108. WN, IV.vii.c.22; p.179.
109. WN, IV.vii.c.43; p.187.
110. WN, IV.vii.c.85; p.212.
111. WN, V.iii.92; p.550.
112. WN, V.iii.88; p.547.
113. WN, V.iii.68; p.536.
114. WN, IV.vii.c.77; p.208.
115. WN, IV.vii.c.79; p.209.
116. Corr, Appendix B, p.382. The ‘Memorandum’ is dated 1778 and was written in the aftermath of the Battle of Saratoga. It was first published in 1932 by G. H. Guttridge. Smith offered the following points:
(a) The preferred solution was an incorporating union; a choice which he rejected as no longer viable.
(b) Military victory was to be discounted as unlikely, and
(c) even if possible was unlikely to be workable in an administrative sense.
(d) Voluntary withdrawal from the conflict was the most rational option, but was unlikely for reasons which have affected other belligerents in the same situation, before and since: ‘Tho this termination of the war might be really advantageous, it would not, in the eyes of Europe, appear honourable to Great Britain; and when her empire was so much curtailed, her power and dignity would be supposed to be proportionably diminished. What is of still greater importance, it could scarce fail to discredit the government in the eyes of our own people, whowould probably impute to maladministration what might, perhaps, be no more than the unavoidable effect of the natural and necessary course of things.’ (Corr, p.383).
117. WN, IV.viii.15; p.232.
118. ‘Resolve No. 4’ of the ‘Suffolk Resolves’ is representative:
We cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British Parliament as are bona fide, restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantage of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members, excluding every idea of taxation internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects without their consent. (Quoted in Stevens, ‘Adam Smith and the Colonial Disturbances’, in A. S. Skinner and T. Wilson (eds), Essays on Adam Smith (1975), p.213.
119. WN, IV.ix.51; p.274.
120. WN, I.x.c.12; Vol. 1, p.225.
121. WN, IV.v.b.1; pp.102–23.
122. WN, IV.v.b.7; p.106. E. P. Thompson has pointed out that the Digression acquired ‘oracular authority’, claiming that few chapters can have had a more ‘palpable influence’, Customs in Common (1991), pp.276, 279. As Thompson has argued, ‘death and famine are always in the short run, but not the long. And Adam Smith has only long-run remedies’ (p.278; cf. p.283).
123. WN, II.ii.94; Vol. 1, p.424.
124. WN, II.ii.94; Vol. 1, p.424.
125. WN, II.iv.15; Vol. 1, p.457.
126. See Jeremy Bentham’s Defence of Usury, reprinted in Corr as Appendix C. Dugald Stewart remarked that ‘It is a remarkable circumstance, that Mr Smith should, in this solitary instance, have adopted, on such slight grounds, a conclusion so strikingly contrasted with the spirit of his general discussions, and so manifestly at variance with the fundamental principles which, on other occasions, he has so boldly followed out, through their practical applications’ (Stewart, IV.28, note J).
127. WN, V.i.c.1; p.310.
128. See also WN, Book III and A. S. Skinner, A System of Social Science: Papers Relating to Adam Smith (Oxford, 1996).
129. WN, V.i.a.9, 10; p.283.
130. WN, V.i.a.14; p.285.
131. WN, V.i.a.41; p.295.
132. WN, V.i.i.1; p.405.
133. WN, V.i.b.25; p.310.
134. WN, V.i.b.20, 21; p.307.
135. WN, V.i.i.2; p.405.
136. WN, V.i.d.4.; p.312.
137. WN, V.i.d.6; p.312.
138. This aspect of Smith’s work has been emphasized by Nathan Rosenberg in ‘Some Institutional Aspects of The Wealth of Nations’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 18 (1960), reprinted in J. C. Wood, Adam Smith: Critical Assessment (1984).
139. WN, V.i.f.4; p.348.
140. WN, V.i.d.9; p.314.
141. WN, I.i.11; Vol. 1, p.117.
142. WN, V.i.f.50; p.368.
143. R. Heilbroner, ‘The Paradox of Progress: Decline and Decay in The Wealth of Nations’, in A. S. Skinner and T. Wilson (eds.), Essays on Adam Smith (1975).
144. WN, I.i.8; Vol. 1, p.114.
145. WN, V.i.f.60; p.374.
146. WN, V.i.f.50; p.368.
147. See Section 1 of the Introduction to the Penguin edition of WN, Vol. 1.
148. WN, V.i.g.12; p.383.
149. WN, V.i.g.15; p.384.
150. WN, V.i.f.60; p.374.
151. WN, V.i.f.54; p.372.
152. WN, V.i.f.57; p.372.
153. WN, V.i.f.53; p.371.
154. Lectures, pp. 329–30.
155. WN, V.i.g.14; p.384.
156. WN, V.i.f.23; p.356.
157. WN, II.i.17; Vol. 1, p.377.
158. WN, V.i.f.61; p.375.
159. WN, V.i.i.5; p.406.
160. WN, V.i.f.55; p.371
161. WN, V.i.f.6; p.349.
162. See especially Smith’s letter to William Cullen, dated 20 September 1774 (Corr, letter 143). Cullen had written to Smith seeking his opinion on proposals from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The petition suggested that doctors should be graduates, that they should have attended university for at least two years and that they should present themselves for examination. Smith rejected the proposals from the Royal College. As he wrote to Cullen: ‘There never was, and I will venture to say there never will be, a University from which a degree could give any tolerable security, that the person upon whom it had been conferred, was fit to practise physic’ (Corr, p 176).
But the most telling argument was based on the advantage of competition: You propose, I observe, that no person should be admitted to examination for his degree unless he brought a certificate of his having studied at least two years in some University. Would not such a regulation be oppressive upon all private teachers, such as the Hunters, Hewson, Fordyce, etc? The scholars of such teachers surely merit whatever honour or advantage a degree can confer, much more than the greater part of those who havespent many years in some Universities, where the different branches of medical knowledge are either not taught at all, or are taught so superficially that they had as well not be taught at all. When a man has learnt his lesson very well, it surely can be of little importance where or from whom he has learnt it.
163. WN, V.i.g.39; p.400.
164. WN, V.i.f.8; p.350.
165. WN, V.i.f.13; p.351.
166. WN, V.i.f.9; p.351.
167. Lionel Robbins, The Theory of Economic Policy in English Classical Political Economy (1953), p.12.
168. Jacob Viner, ‘Adam Smith and Laissez-Faire’, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 35 (1928); J. C. Wood, Adam Smith: Critical Assessment (1984), Vol. I, p.64. See the introduction to Vol. 1, Section 2.
169. WN, IV.vii.b.51; p.166. The most complete analysis of Smith’s position in this respect is provided by Donald Winch, Adam Smith’s Politics: An Essay in Historiographic Revision (1978).
170. WN, IV.v.b.53; p.123. The best known statement occurs in TMS, VI.ii.2.6: Where the statesman
cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force… He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and he will remedy as well as he can, the inconveniences which may flow from the want of those regulations which the people are averse to submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will endeavour to establish the best that the people can bear.
171. The ‘Memorandum’ is reprinted in Corr, Appendix B.
172. Cf WN, IV.vii.c.69; p.201.
173. WN, VI.vii.c.75; p.206.
174. WN, IV.ii.43; p.48.
175. WN, I.xi.10; Vol. 1, p.359.
176. WN, IV.ii.43; p.48.
177. WN, IV.ix.28; p.260.