The Theory of Moral Sentiments (75 page)

9
The transcendence of national prejudice and the appreciation of the mutual benefits of free trade is a key component of Smith’s argument against mercantilism in
Wealth of Nations
4.

10
See Cardinal de Retz,
Mémoires
(p. 372 in the modern Pléiade edition).

11
See Plato,
Crito
51b-c, as cited by Cicero in
Epistulae ad Familiares
1.9.18; see also Cicero,
De officiis
1.85.

12
See Plutarch,
Lives
, “Solon” 15; Montesquieu,
Spirit of the Laws
19.21; Rousseau,
Letter to d’Alembert
.

13
For the context of Smith’s discussion of universal benevolence, see, e.g., Hutcheson,
Essay with Illustrations
1.2.2; Kames,
Essays on Morality and Religion
1.2.

14
The
Meditations
were particularly admired by Smith’s teacher Hutcheson, who had them translated and published in Glasgow.

15
The accusation is reported in the
Scriptores Historiae Augustae
(“Life of Avidius Cassius” 14.5). Smith’s caveat that the accusation has been brought “perhaps unjustly” is crucial; the
Meditations
consistently emphasize the superiority of activity to passivity and our obligations to mutual benevolence (see esp. 5.1, 9.16, 9.42, 11.21). In general, Smith’s critique of Stoicism seems to follow Cicero’s critique; see, e.g.,
De finibus
4.68 and
De officiis
1.19.

PART VI, SECTION III

1
Among such “ancient moralists,” see, e.g., Plato, who distinguishes the control of anger from the control of pleasure (e.g.,
Republic
4, 429a-432a), and Aristotle, who in treating the virtues of the irrational parts of the soul treats courage and temperance separately (
Nicomachean Ethics
3.6-11; 1115a5-1119a21); see also Smith’s accounts at 7.2 below.

2
On the nobility and dazzling splendor of Socrates’ death, see, e.g., Xenophon,
Memorabilia
4.8. Among commentators in “succeeding ages,” see, e.g., Helvétius’s identification of Socrates’ magnanimity with “love of glory” (
De l’esprit
3.16).

3
Smith refers to Birch,
The heads of illustrious persons of Great Britain
(1743). Birch’s book contains entries for More, Raleigh, and Russell, all executed for treason or conspiracy. Birch’s first edition has an entry for Sidney Godolphin and his later second volume includes one for Sir Philip Sidney, but not one for Algernon Sidney, presumably meant here.

4
Buccaneer: “a cant word for the privateers, or pirates of America” (Johnson).

5
Smith examines and compares Demosthenes’ and Cicero’s speeches at length in
Rhetoric
25-26.

6
See, e.g., the concluding assessment of Catherine’s character in Davila,
History of the Civil Wars in France
9; Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion
4.127-28; and Locke, “Memoirs relating to the life of Anthony, first Earl of Shaftesbury.” All three of Smith’s examples concern studies of principal figures in civil wars written by direct dependents.

7
See Cicero,
De officiis
1.108-113. Contra Smith, these are less praises than reports; when Cicero speaks in his own name about these figures, his judgments are more critical (see 3.49, 3.73-75, 3.97- 99).

8
The story here recounted received wide distribution in the eighteenth century through its inclusion in Abbé Raynal’s
Anecdotes litteraires
(1750). But Smith likely knew it from the first volume of the 1729 edition of Despréaux’s collected works, which he owned as part of his library. There it is to be found in a footnote glossing Satire II, “To Molière,” lines 93-94 (which might be translated: “And always unhappy with what he had done, / He pleased the whole world, all except for one”).

9
Alexander’s belief in his divine lineage and his desire for divine recognition are prominent themes in the classic historical accounts; his attempt to secure his mother’s apotheosis is mentioned only in Quintus Curtius Rufus 9.6.26 and 10.5.30.

10
On Socrates’
daimon
, see, e.g., Plato,
Apology
31c-d;
Phaedrus
242c; and Xenophon,
Memorabilia
1.1.4; on the oracle’s pronouncement and Socrates’ response, see
Apology
21a-23b.

11
See Suetonius 1.78.

12
With Cicero, Cato the Younger was a leading member of the
optimates
, who opposed the often unprincipled and demagogic
populares
with whom both Catiline and Caesar were aligned; Smith describes both parties in his rhetoric lectures (
Rhetoric
2.155-161).

13
Parmenides’ dates make it unlikely that he could have met Plato. A similar story is told in Cicero,
Brutus
191, substituting Antimachus for Parmenides.

14
The original source for the first quote is Plutarch; for the second, Athenaeus. But both stories also appear in eighteenth-century sources on which Smith may have drawn; e.g., Thomas Leland,
The History of the Life and Reign of Philip King of Macedon
(London, 1758), vol. 2, p. 47. The story of Parmenio’s execution is told in Quintus Curtius Rufus 7.2.11-33 (which also includes the account of Alexander’s reliance on him); and Plutarch,
Lives
, “Alexander” 49.

15
See Clarendon,
History of the Rebellion in England
(1720 -21), vol. 1, p. 55.

16
levee: “the concourse of those who crowd round a man of power in a morning” (Johnson).

17
See Aristotle,
Nicomachean Ethics
4.3; 1124b6-9 and 1125a12-16.

18
Shakespeare,
Hamlet
, Act 1, Scene 5 (1. 76-79).

19
Smith again likely has Locke in mind, who likewise identifies as “the great secret of education” the utilization of the love of esteem to assist in the cultivation of virtue; see
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
, sec. 56-58, as well as Rousseau’s discussion of “
le grand secret de l’education
” in
Emile
4.

PART VII, SECTION I

1
On these conceptions of virtue, see 7.2.1-3 (p. 318).

2
Smith treats these conceptions of moral judgment in 7.3.1-3 (p. 318).

PART VII, SECTION II

1
Part 6, “Of the Character of Virtue,” presumably provides Smith’s own position on the question addressed in this paragraph.

2
Smith restricts his study of Plato’s conception of virtue to
Republic
. For the analogy between the parts of the city and the parts of the soul, see esp.
Republic
368c-369b, 434d-436b.

3
On reason as the governing principle of the city, see
Republic
428a- 429a; as governing principle of the individual, see
Republic
442c.

4
On the objects and ends of the first class (spirit, or
thymos
) see, e.g.,
Republic
548c-550b; on those of the second (appetite, or
epithymia
) see, e.g.,
Republic
558c-561d; on the relationship between these, see
Republic
439d-440e. On the Scholastic distinction between the “irascible” and the “concupiscible,” see, e.g., Aquinas,
Summa Theologiae
, First Part of the Second Part, Question 23.

5
See, e.g.,
Republic
442c, 579b-582e, which treat the cardinal virtue of wisdom (
sophia
), rather than prudence properly speaking (
phronesis
).

6
See, e.g.,
Republic
429a-430a, 442c, which treat the cardinal virtue of courage (
andreia
) rather than magnanimity properly speaking (
megalopsychia
), a term that does not seem to have been much used by Plato. Here and in his discussion of prudence Smith imports terms more associated with Aristotle. On the anger we feel toward ourselves upon succumbing to pleasure, see, e.g.,
Republic
439e.

7
See, e.g.,
Republic
430e-432b, which calls attention to the harmony afforded by the cardinal virtue of moderation (
sophrosyne
).

8
See, e.g.,
Republic
432b-434d, 442d-443e, which treat the virtue of justice (
dikaiosyne
). The view that Plato’s conception of justice replicates Pythagorean views on justice as a form of harmony or proportion has been argued from Smith’s day to our own; see, e.g., the history of ancient philosophy prefaced to the third volume of Monboddo’s
Ancient Metaphysics
(London and Edinburgh, 1784), xxxii-xxxiii.

9
See 2.2.1 (p. 95).

10
For Grotius’s distinction, see
Rights of War and Peace
1.1.8. The distinction between Grotius and Aristotle is elaborated in a manner that anticipates Smith’s note in Pufendorf,
Law of Nature and Nations
1.7.9-12.

11
See esp.
Republic
444d-e.

12
Smith’s précis of Aristotle’s definition of virtue emphasizes Aristotle’s account of habituation (see
Nicomachean Ethics
2.1-5, 1103a14-1106a13) and of the mean (see
Nicomachean Ethics
2.6, 1106a14-1107a27), and perhaps underemphasizes the place of choice and deliberation.

13
On courage (
andreia
) as a mean, see
Nicomachean Ethics
3.7 (1115b6-1116a15); on magnanimity (
megalopsychia
) as a mean, see
Nicomachean Ethics
4.3 (1125a17-33). Smith’s account of the “frugality” as the virtue pertaining to pursuit of objects of self-interest seems a combination of Aristotle’s accounts of temperance (
sophrosyne
), the virtue concerning the pursuit of bodily pleasure (see
Nicomachean Ethics
3.11, 1118b8-1119a20), and generosity (
eleutheria
), the virtue concerning proper use of wealth (see
Nicomachean Ethics
4.2, 1120b28-1121a10).

14
See, e.g.,
Nicomachean Ethics
1.7, 1097b34-1098a20.

15
Smith here cites the
Magna Moralia
, whose attribution to Aristotle is now largely thought spurious.
Magna Moralia
1.1, 1182a15-23 argues that Socrates overlooked the place of the irrational; 1183b9-18 argues more explicitly that the Socratic science of virtue overlooks activity. See also Aristotle’s response to Socrates in
Nicomachean Ethics
7.2, 1145b22-1146a8, as well as Smith’s own insistence in 2.3 that “Man was made for action.”

16
None of Zeno’s writings have survived; Smith accordingly relies on the accounts of Zeno given in Cicero,
De finibus
3 and Diogenes Laertius 7.

17
See, e.g., Cicero,
De finibus
3.16, 3.59; Diogenes Laertius 7.85.

18
Cicero and Diogenes present Zeno and the Stoics as distinguishing the absolute good of moral worth—
to kalon
in Greek or
honestum
in Latin—from the lower class of objects (including health, wealth, and reputation) whose possession is preferable and whose opposites (including sickness, poverty, and ignominy) are undesirable, but which appear insignificant or indifferent when compared to virtue. See, e.g., Cicero,
De finibus
3.10-11, 3.20 -21, 3.43-46, 3.48-51, 3.56; and Diogenes Laertius 7.102, 7.106, 7.108.

19
For the Stoic understanding of propriety in choosing and rejecting and its relationship to living according to nature, see, e.g., Cicero, and its relationship to living according to nature, see, e.g., Cicero,
De finibus
2.34, 3.20, 3.26, 3.31, 4.15; Diogenes Laertius 7.87. The idea of “living according to nature” is esp. prominent in Mar-The idea of “living according to nature” is esp. prominent in Marcus Aurelius (e.g.,
Meditations
1.17, 3.12, 5.3-4, 7.55-59, 10.15; see also Epictetus,
Discourses
1.26.1-2) and central to the Scottish Enlightenment; see, e.g., Hutcheson,
Essay with Illustrations
1.6.7; Kames,
Essays on Morality and Religion
1.2.1.

20
The relationship of the doctrines of the Stoics to those of the Peripatetics is a principal concern of Cicero; see, e.g.,
De finibus
3.41.

21
On the “primary objects” recommended by nature, see Smith’s note at 7.2.2 (p. 346) and the accompanying editor’s note.

22
For the Stoic conception of providence and its direction of the universe, see, e.g., Epictetus,
Discourses
1.6, 1.14, 1.16; Marcus Aurelius,
Meditations
2.3, 6.36-39, 7.9.

23
See Epictetus,
Discourses
2.5.24-26.

24
This and the three following paragraphs are a heavily revised version of Smith’s treatment of Stoicism in Part 1 in editions prior to the sixth edition of 1790.