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of virtue or the speculative inquiry into the origin of moral principles. In a letter to Hutcheson (17 September 1739), Hume suggests that Hutcheson identified with the former aim where Hume sides with the latter—positions borne out in their published works (compare, e.g., Hutcheson, Short Introduction Preface; and Hume, Enquiry Concerning Understanding 1). Smith’s identification of the question “wherein does virtue consist” as his primary question raises the question of whether he sides with Hutcheson’s rather than Hume’s understanding of the purpose of moral philosophy. Smith treats Hutcheson and Hume below at 7.3.3 as representatives of the sentiment view; the self-love view (Hobbes, et.al.) is treated at 7.3.1 and the reason view (esp. Cudworth) at 7.3.2.

2 To call Pufendorf a “follower” of Hobbes is misleading; more accurate is Smith’s claim at Jurisprudence B 3 that Pufendorf wrote partly to “confute Hobbes”; see also notes below.

3 For Hobbes’s conception of the absence of natural sociability and the instrumental value of civil society, see, e.g., De cive 1.2; in a related vein, see Mandeville, “Search into the Nature of Society,” pp. 344, 346. Other natural law theorists were considerably more optimistic about the possibility of natural sociability coexisting with self-love; see, e.g., Grotius, Rights of War and Peace Preliminary Discourse 6-8; Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations 2.3.14-16, 7.1.2-3; and esp. Hutcheson, System 1.2.11, 3.4 and “Natural Sociability of Mankind.” Pufendorf particularly emphasizes how man’s natural weakness renders him dependent upon the assistance of others and renders ness renders him dependent upon the assistance of others and renders civil society necessary (see, e.g., Duty of Man and Citizen 1.3.3, 2.1.4, 2.1.9-10, 2.5; Law of Nature and Nations 7.1.7).

4 See 4.1 (p. 209).

5 In accord with the first line of the previous paragraph Smith here seems to delineate a second strain, distinct from Hobbes and his followers, of thinkers who account for approbation from self-love. His reference in the middle of the present paragraph to the discussion of beauty as utility in 4 may suggest that among the thinkers who celebrate the advantages of civilized over savage life that he has in mind is Hume (see esp. Treatise 3.2.1-2); see also Kames, Essays on Morality and Religion 1.2.1 and 1.2.8.

6 For the debate on the question of whether self-interest shapes our approbation of the characters of “distant ages,” see, e.g., Hutcheson, Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue 2.1.2-4 and Essay with Illustrations 2. Preface; and Hume, Enquiry Concerning Morals 5.7-15.

7 On the state of nature as a state of war, see De cive 1.12, 5.2; Leviathan 13.8; and responses in Pufendorf, Law of Nature and Nations 2.2.6- 9; Locke, Essay Concerning Civil Government 19; and Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality 1.

8 On the preeminence of self-preservation in our moral psychology, see, e.g., Hobbes, De cive 1.14; Pufendorf, Duty of Man and Citizen 1.3.2. On the necessity of obedience, see, e.g., De cive 5.7, 11, 6.13; Leviathan 17. For Hobbes’s positivist conception that justice is the product of law, see, e.g., De cive 1.10, 15.17 and Leviathan 6.6, 13.12, 15.3; see also Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding 2.28.5, 2.28.10-11; and Hume, Treatise 3.2.8.4.

9 Smith describes Hobbes’s aims similarly at Jurisprudence B 2, which explicitly mentions his argument that the origin of the Civil Wars lay in the conflict of ecclesiastical and civil powers. In both instances Smith likely has in mind the analysis of the dangers posed by “two kingdoms in one and the same nation” and the claim that the “virtue of a subject is comprehended solely in obedience to the laws of the commonwealth” as developed in Part 1 of Hobbes’s Behemoth. On the unification of these two kingdoms, see De cive 18.13; Leviathan 43.22.

10 Cudworth dedicated the first book of his Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality to critique of ancient (esp. Epicurean) and modern (esp. Hobbesian) systems of positivism; see 1.1.3-4. For his critique of the