V.

SEC T. fat for his picture; but the medallion of Taffie conveys an exact idea of his profile, and of the general expreffion of his countenance.

His valuable library, together with the rest of his property, was bequeathed to his coufin Mr. David Douglas, Advocate. In the education of this young gentleman, he had employed much of his leifure; and it was only two years before his death (at a time when he could ill fpare the pleasure of his fociety), that he had fent him to ftudy law at Glafgow, under the care of Mr. Millar ;-the strongest proof he could give of his difinterested zeal for the improvement of his friend, as well as of the esteem in which he held the abilities of that eminent Profeffor.

The executors of his will were Dr. Black and Dr. Hutton; with whom he had long lived in habits of the moft intimate and cordial friendship; and who, to the many other testimonies which they had given him of their affection, added the mournful office of witneffing his last moments.

NOTES

TO THE

LIFE OF ADAM SMITH, LL.D.

OF

NOTE (A), p. 405.

this number were Mr. Ofwald of Dunikeir," NOTES. &c.]-The late James Ofwald, Efq.- for many years one of the most active, able, and publicfpirited of our Scotifh reprefentatives in Parliament. He was more particularly distinguished by his knowledge in matters of finance, and by his attention to whatever concerned the commercial or the agricultural interests of the country. From the manner in which he is mentioned in a paper of Mr. Smith's which I have perused, he appears to have combined, with that detailed information which he is well known to have poffeffed as a statesman and man of business, a taste for the more general and philofophical difcuffions of political economy. He lived in habits of great inti

macy with Lord Kames and Mr. Hume; and was one of Mr. Smith's earliest and most confidential friends,

NOTE (B), p. 408.

"The lectures of the profound and eloquent Dr. « Hutchefon," &c.] Those who have derived their

knowledge

[NOTES. knowledge of Dr. Hutcheson folely from his publications, may, perhaps, be inclined to dispute the propriety of the epithet eloquent, when applied to any of his compofitions; more particularly, when applied to the Syftem of Moral Philofophy, which was published after his death, as the substance of his lectures in the University of Glafgow. His talents, however, as a public fpeaker, must have been of a far higher order than what he has displayed as a writer; all his pupils whom I have happened to meet with (fome of them, certainly, very competent judges) having agreed exactly with each other in their accounts of the extraordinary impreffion which they made on the minds of his hearers. I have mentioned, in the text, Mr. Smith as one of his warmest admirers; and to his name I fhall take this opportunity of adding thofe of the late Earl of Selkirk; the late Lord President Miller; and the late Dr. Archibald Maclaine, the very learned and judicious tranflator of Mofheim's Ecclefiaftical History. My father, too, who had attended Dr. Hutchefon's lectures for feveral years, never fpoke of them without much fenfibility. On this occafion we can only fay, as Quinctilian has done of the eloquence of Hortenfius; " Apparet placuiffe aliquid eo dicente, "quod legentes non invenimus."

Dr. Hutchefon's Inquiry into our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue; his Difcourfe on the Paffions; and his Illuftrations of the Moral Senfe, are much more ftrongly marked with the characteristical features of his genius, than his posthumous work. His great and deferved fame, however, in this country, refts now chiefly on the traditionary hiftory of his academical lectures, which appear to have contributed very powerfully to diffuse, in Scotland, that taste for analytical difcuffion, and that fpirit of liberal inquiry, to which

the

the world is indebted for fome of the most valuable NOTES. productions of the eighteenth century.

NOTE (C), p. 444..

According to the learned English translator of " Arif"totle's Ethics and Politics," the general idea which runs through Mr. Smith's Theory, was obviously borrowed from the following paffage of Polybius: "From the union of the two fexes, to which all are "naturally inclined, children are born. When any of "these, therefore, being arrived at perfect age, instead "of yielding fuitable returns of gratitude and affiftance "to those by whom they have been bred, on the con"trary, attempt to injure them by words or actions, "it is manifeft that those who behold the wrong, after "having also seen the sufferings and the anxious cares "that were sustained by the parents in the nourish"ment and education of their children, must be "greatly offended and displeased at fuch proceeding. "For man, who among all the various kinds of ani"mals is alone endowed with the faculty of reason, "cannot, like the reft, pass over fuch actions: but will "make reflection on what he fees; and comparing "likewife the future with the prefent, will not fail to "express his indignation at this injurious treatment ; "to which, as he foresees, he may also, at some time, "be expofed. Thus again, when any one who has "been fuccoured by another in the time of danger, "instead of fhewing the like kindness to this bene❝ factor, endeavours at any time to destroy or hurt "him; it is certain, that all men must be shocked by "such ingratitude, through sympathy with the refent"ment of their neighbour; and from an apprehenfion "alfo, that the cafe may be their own. And from

" hence

NOTES." hence arifes, in the mind of every man, a certain "notion of the nature and force of duty, in which con"fifts both the beginning and the end of juftice. In "like manner, the man, who, in defence of others, is "feen to throw himself the foremost into every danger, " and even to sustain the fury of the fierceft animals, "never fails to obtain the loudest acclamations of "applause and veneration from all the multitude; "while he who fhews a different conduct is pursued " with cenfure and reproach. And thus it is, that the "people begin to difcern the nature of things honour"able and base, and in what confifts the difference "between them; and to perceive that the former, on "accouut of the advantage that attends them, are fit "to be admired and imitated, and the latter to be "detefted and avoided."

"The doctrine" (fays Dr. Gillies)" contained in "this paffage is expanded by Dr. Smith into a theory "of moral fentiments. But he departs from his "author, in placing the perception of right and wrong, ❝ in sentiment or feeling, ultimately and fimply."Polybius, on the contrary, maintains with Aristotle, "that these notions arife from reafon, or intellect, "operating on affection or appetite; or, in other words, "that the moral faculty is a compound, and may be "refolved into two fimpler principles of the mind.”(Gillies's Aristotle, Vol. I. pp. 302, 303, 2d. Edit.)

The only expreffion I object to in the two preceding fentences, is the phrase, his author, which has the the appearance of infinuating a charge of plagiarism against Mr. Smith; a charge which, I am confident, he did not deferve; and to which the above extract does not, in my opinion, afford any plaufible colour. It exhibits, indeed, an instance of a curious coincidence between two philofophers in their views of the fame fubject; and as fuch, I have no doubt that

Mr.