The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith [271]
60 Pope, Essay on Man 1.90.
61 Plutarch notes the utility of the wise man’s stretching of his finger in his essay “Of Common Conceptions, Against the Stoics” 22; he also uses the example of finger-stretching to criticize Chrysippus in “Contradictions of the Stoics” 26; see also Cicero, De finibus 3.57.
62 The metaphor is frequently employed; see Cicero, De finibus 3.48, 4.64; cf. Diogenes Laertius 7.120, 7.127; Plutarch, “Of Common Conceptions, Against the Stoics” 10.
63 Smith’s critical judgment is anticipated in Plutarch and Cicero and especially Diogenes Laertius 7.187-89.
64 Smith refers to Cicero’s De officiis. Brutus is reported by Seneca (Epistles 95) to have written a lost work on propriety (peri kathekontos ), but Smith may also have in mind the reference by Cicero (De finibus 1.8) to Brutus’s now-lost work on virtue (De virtute). For Smith’s own embrace of the distinction here drawn between “perfect virtue” and mere “proprieties” see 1.1.5 (p. 30).
65 Smith’s account might be compared to Diogenes’ account of the Stoic conception of the ends of life, which emphasizes the insufficiencies of both the life devoted strictly to contemplation and the life devoted strictly to practical activity, preferring instead a life that makes room for both contemplation and action in accord with our rational nature (7.130). See also Cicero’s critique of Stoicism for focusing on the mind and ignoring the goods of the body pursued prudentially (De finibus 4.35-42). See also 6.2.3 (p. 276) and accompanying notes.
66 On the Stoic doctrine of apatheia, or freedom from passion, see, e.g., Cicero, De finibus 3.35; Diogenes Laertius 7.117.
67 See Clarke, Discourse Concerning Natural Religion Proposition 1; Wollaston, Religion of Nature Delineated 1.4, 4.7; and Shaftesbury, Inquiry Concerning Virtue 2.2.1 (under the marginal heading “Balance of the Affections”). Smith’s précis here may be shaped by the more extensive précis of the same thinkers given by Hutcheson (see Essay with Illustrations 2.2-3, 5); Kames (Essays on Morality and Religion 1.2.9, which treated only Clarke and Wollaston in the editions prior to the first edition of TMS, adding Hutcheson, Hume, Rousseau and Smith himself in the third edition of 1779); and Hume (Treatise 3.1.1.4).
68 The allegation that Epicurus borrowed his metaphysics from Democritus and his ethics from Aristippus is reported in Diogenes Laertius 10.4; see also Cicero, De finibus 1.17, 1.23, 1.26.
69 None of Epicurus’s works have survived aside from the three letters and the collection of maxims published by Diogenes; hence Smith’s reliance again on Diogenes’ and Cicero’s accounts. For a glimpse into how Epicurus was regarded in the Scottish Enlightenment, see, e.g., the speech that Hume contrives for “Epicurus” in Enquiry Concerning Understanding 11.9-23; and his essay “The Epicurean.”
70 On pleasure as the ultimate good and the occasional necessity of abstaining from present pleasures and withstanding present pains for greater future pleasures, see, e.g. Cicero, De finibus 1.23, 1.29, 1.32-33; Diogenes Laertius 10.34, 10.128-129.
71 Diogenes Laertius 10.124-125, 10.139.
72 On tranquility as absence of pain and the proper end of life, see Cicero, De finibus 1.37-41; Diogenes Laertius 10.128, 10.131. Epicurus in a related vein argues that natural philosophy is chiefly valuable for its alleviation of anxiety (Cicero, De finibus 1.63; Diogenes Laertius 10.79-85, 10.142); compare to Smith’s account of the motives for scientific inquiry in Astronomy.
73 On the instrumentality of virtue, see Cicero, De finibus 2.73; Diogenes Laertius 10.150-151. On the instrumentality of the individual cardinal virtues, see Cicero, De finibus 1.48-53; Diogenes 10.144.
74 See Diogenes Laertius 10.132.
75 See, e.g., Cicero, De finibus 2.80; Diogenes Laertius 10.9-10.
76 In accusing Epicurus of accounting only for external goods and being indifferent to moral worth, Smith anticipates his critique of Mandeville (see