13 - The Legacy of Adam Smith

Summary

David Hume, writing on his deathbed in 1776, congratulated Smith on the appearance of his long-awaited Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: he predicted that it would take time for the work to make an impression, was confident that its “depth and solidity and acuteness” would ensure that “it must at last take the public attention” (Corr., 186). Recent studies of the slow and uneven reception given to Wealth of Nations during the first decades after its appearance have proved Hume correct. What Hume could not have known is for just how long the work would retain a hold on public attention and how potently diverse Smith's influence would become. In 1759, reporting to Smith on the London reception of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Hume had taken the opposite tack; he had teasingly suggested that the signs of immediate popularity were cause for concern about the work's claims on philosophical posterity (Corr., 35). Here, too, Hume proved correct for reasons he could not have predicted. For whereas Wealth of Nations marks the beginning, or revitalisation, of a science of considerable significance to the conduct of public life, the apparent conformity of The Theory of Moral Sentiments with some conventional expectations of what a moral philosophy should be, has, we will argue, set limits on how that work has been perceived.