The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith [264]
22 Smith elaborates on his theory of “the laws of nations” at greater length at Jurisprudence B 339-358. For the context of his critical discussion here of the relationship between ordinary morality and the laws of war as represented by the “laws of nations,” see esp. Pufendorf, Duty of Man and Citizen 2.16 (and the several citations to Grotius there); Hutcheson, Short Introduction 3.9 and System 3.10; and Hume, Treatise 3.2.11.
23 See also Smith’s discussions of corruption in 1.3.3, and his discussions of faction in Wealth of Nations, esp. 5.1.f-g.
24 See Seneca, De providentia 6.6.
PART III, CHAPTER IV
1 See Malebranche, Search After Truth 5.11; Smith also cites the passage in Astronomy 3.1.
2 See also 7.3.3 (p. 378).
PART III, CHAPTER V
1 vicegerent: “a lieutenant; one who is entrusted with the power of the superiour” (Johnson); see also 3.2 (p. 136).
2 See also Hume’s account of the sensible knave in Enquiry Concerning Morals 9.22-23.
3 Smith here translates a passage from Massillon’s sermon for the first Sunday of Lent in his popular collection of Lenten sermons. Its topic is the truth of a future state, which would naturally have been of interest to Smith given his own emphasis in the ways in which belief in the afterlife promotes happiness and justice.
PART III, CHAPTER VI
1 Matthew 22:36-40; Mark 12:30-31; Galatians 5:14. Smith’s insistence on the centrality of love to Christian ethics, coupled with his critique of an ethics limited to divine command further develops his conception of the “natural principles of religion” introduced in 3.5 (p. 186).
2 Smith returns to the distinction between critics and grammarians at 7.4 (p. 386).
3 Smith here contributes to the distinction between “false religion” and “true religion” fundamental to the Scottish Enlightenment; see Shaftesbury, Inquiry Concerning Virtue 2.2.1; Hutcheson, Short Introduction 1.2.7; Hume, “Of Superstition and Enthusiasm.”
4 Voltaire’s play of 1742 (full title Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet), chronicles the tyrannical methods of its title character to gratify his passion for Palmira, including manipulating Palmira’s pious lover, Seid, into murdering Mahomet’s political rival, Zopir, (also the father of Palmira and Seid, unbeknownst to all but Mahomet). The “instructive spectacle” celebrated by Smith comes in Act 4, Scene 3.
5 The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (August 1572) is thought to have begun when Catherine de Medici approved the assassination of several leading Huguenots; the spreading violence ultimately claimed the lives of several thousand Protestants in Paris and beyond.
PART IV, CHAPTER I
1 Among eighteenth-century British writers who speak of utility as a source of beauty, see, e.g., Berkeley, Alciphron 3.8-9; Hume, Treatise 2.1.8.2 and 3.3.1.8; and (after 1759) Kames, Elements of Criticism 1.3. For important countering views, see Hutcheson, Enquiry into Beauty and Virtue 1.1.15; and Burke, Philosophical Enquiry 3.6. For helpful context, see Paul Guyer in Eighteenth Century Studies 35 (2002).
2 Smith is thinking of Hume; for the arguments summarized here, see Treatise 2.2.5.14-20, 3.3.5.5 and Enquiry Concerning Morals 5.19-20, 6.33n. For helpful commentary on Smith’s critique of Hume, see Marie Martin in Hume Studies 16 (1990), and Schliesser and Pack in Journal of the History of Philosophy 44 (2006).
3 bauble: “a gew-gaw; a trifling piece of finery” (Johnson).
4 Compare to Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, penultimate paragraph of Part 2, and Smith’s translation of this passage in his Letter to the Edinburgh Review (in Essays on Philosophical Subjects, p. 253); for commentary, see Force.
5 operose: “laborious; full of trouble and tediousness” (Johnson).
6 Here and below Smith responds to Rousseau; see esp.