The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith [266]
4 In Jurisprudence A 4.5 Smith invokes Charlevoix and Lafitau as the best authorities on native North Americans. Their accounts are the principal sources for his comments here as well; “Spartan discipline” is a particularly prominent theme in particular in Lafitau’s work; see, e.g., the comparison of the North Americans to the ancient Spartans at 1.6 (vol. 1, pp. 599-602). For commentary, see Maureen Harkin in ELH 72 (2005).
5 Lafitau discusses the deference of young men to their parents and the indifference of young men to their brides at Manners of the American Savages 1.6 (vol. 1, pp. 561-564), and discusses the separation of newlyweds and compares it to ancient Spartan practice at p. 576.
6 Smith here draws on Charlevoix, History of New France with Historical Journal (Paris, 1744), Letter 14 (vol. 5, pp. 319ff.), Letter 16 (vol. 5, pp. 358-65), Letter 21 (vol. 6, pp. 8-10), and Letter 27 (vol. 6, p. 122ff.); and Lafitau, Manners of the American Savages 2.3. (vol. 2, pp. 275-281, 284-285).
7 From Dubos, Critical Reflections 1.42 (“Of our manner of reciting tragedy and comedy”).
8 Cicero in his Brutus profiles the oratory of each of the figures here named, and occasionally signals the advent of the new eloquence (see, e.g., Brutus 82).
9 From Charlevoix, History of New France with Historical Journal, Letter 23 (vol. 6, p. 38).
10 See, e.g., Lafitau, Manners of the American Savages, 1.6 (vol. 1, pp. 592-593); Lafitau himself cites Plutarch on Lycurgus.
11 See Aristotle, Politics 7.16, 1335b20-21; Plato, Republic 5, 460c- 461c.
PART VI, SECTION I
1 The whole of Part 6 was an addition to the sixth edition of 1790. In a letter to his publishers, Smith called it a “practical system of morality.” It also contains his most complete answer to the first of the two questions posed in the introduction to Part 7 below, “wherein does virtue consist?” Smith’s approach here is to answer this question in a manner akin to Aristotle and Cicero and much admired by Smith (see 7.4).
2 See 1.3.1 (p. 133).
3 Eighteenth-century histories of philosophy tended to classify ancient philosophers as Stoic, Epicurean, Academic (Platonic), or Peripatetic (Aristotelian).
4 Machiavelli was at Borgia’s court as a Florentinian ambassador at the time (January 1503) of the events here described; he alludes to them in Prince 7 and describes them more fully in his “Description of the Method Used by Duke Valentino in Killing Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, and Others.”
PART VI, SECTION II
1 This and the following two chapters describe three successive and ever-widening spheres of connections with others, a movement closely related to the classical conception of oikeiosis as described by Cicero among others (e.g., De finibus 3.62-64 and De officiis 1.50-57); for helpful commentary, see the books and articles by Brown, Vivenza, Montes, and Forman-Barzilai.
2 See 3.3 above.
3 Smith’s argument for domestic education over boarding schools parallels Locke’s argument in Some Thoughts Concerning Education 69-70. Smith’s related critique of the Grand Tour at Wealth of Nations 5.1.f similarly parallels Locke’s arguments here and in Education 212-213.
4 See, e.g., Aulus Gellius 13.3; Burke also discussed the Roman ties of necessitudo in his Thoughts on the Present Discontents (1770).
5 Among the classic distinctions between friendships of utility and friendships of virtue that Smith is likely to have in mind here are Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 8.3-4; and Cicero, De amicitia 5-6 and De officiis 1.55-56.
6 See also Smith’s critique of casuistry in 7.4 below.
7 Smith refers to Voltaire, L’Orphelin de la Chine.
8 See Plutarch, Lives, “Marcus Cato” 27; Appian, Punic Wars 69.
9 The transcendence of national prejudice and the appreciation of the mutual