REVISION OF THE "THEORY"
A revision of the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_ was a task Smith had
long had in contemplation. The book had been thirty years before the
world and had passed through five editions, but it had never undergone
any revision or alteration whatever. This was the task of the last
year of the author's life. He made considerable changes, especially by
way of addition, and though he wrote the additions, as Stewart informs
us, while he was suffering under severe illness, he has never written
anything better in point of literary style. Before the new edition
appeared there was a preliminary difference between author and
publisher regarding the propriety of issuing the additions as the
additions to the _Wealth of Nations_ had been issued, in a separate
form, for the use of those who already possessed copies of the
previous editions of the book. Cadell favoured that course,
notwithstanding that it would obviously interfere with the sale of the
new book, because he was unwilling to incur the charge of being
illiberal in his dealings with the public. But Smith refused to assent
to it, for reasons quite apart from the sale, but connected, whatever
they were, with "the nature of the work." He communicated his decision
through Dugald Stewart, who was in London in May 1789 on his way to
Paris, and Stewart reports the result of his interview with Cadell in
the following letter, bearing the post stamp of 6th May 1789:--
DEAR SIR--I was so extremely hurried during the very short
stay I made in London that I had not a moment's time to
write you till now. The day after my arrival I called on
Cadell, and luckily found Strachan (_sic_) with him. They
both assured me in the most positive terms that they had
published no Edition of the _Theory_ since the _Fifth_,
which was printed in 1781, and that if a _6th_ has been
mentioned in any of the newspapers, it must have been owing
to a typographical mistake. For your farther satisfaction
Cadell stated the fact in his own handwriting on a little
bit of paper which I send you enclosed.
I mentioned also to Cadell the resolution you had formed not
to allow the Additions to the _Theory_ to be printed
separately, which he said embarrassed him much, as he had
already in similar circumstances more than once incurred the
charge of illiberality with the public. On my telling him,
however, that you had made up your mind on the subject, and
that it was perfectly unnecessary to write to you, as the
nature of the work made it impossible for you to comply with
his proposal, he requested of me to submit to your
consideration whether it might not (be) proper for you to
mention this circumstance, for his justification, in an
advertisement prefixed to the Book. This was all, I think,
that passed in the course of our conversation. I write this
from Dover, which I am just leaving with a fair wind, so
that I hope to be in Paris on Thursday. It will give me
great-pleasure to receive your commands, if I can be of any
use to you in executing any of your commissions.--I ever am,
dear sir, your much obliged and most obedient servant,
DUGALD STEWART.[359]
In the preface to the 1790 edition the author refers to the promise he
had made in that of 1759 of treating in a future work of the general
principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions
they had undergone in the different ages and periods of society, not
only in what concerns justice, but in what concerns policy, revenue,
and arms, and whatever else is the object of law; and he says that in
the _Wealth of Nations_ he had executed this promise so far as policy,
revenue, and arms were concerned, but that the remaining part of the
task, the theory of jurisprudence, he had been prevented from
executing by the same occupations which had till then prevented him
from revising the _Theory_. He adds: "Though my very advanced age
leaves me, I acknowledge, very little expectation of ever being able
to execute this great work to my own satisfaction, yet, as I have not
altogether abandoned the design, and as I wish still to continue under
the obligation of doing what I can, I have allowed the paragraph to
remain as it was published more than thirty years ago, when I
entertained no doubt of being able to execute everything which it
announced."
The most important of the new contributions to this last edition of
the _Theory_ is the chapter "on the corruption of our moral
sentiments, which is occasioned by our disposition to admire the rich
and the great, and to despise or neglect persons of poor and mean
condition." In spite of his alleged republicanism he was still a sort
of believer in the principle of birth. It was not, in his view, a
rational principle, but it was a natural and beneficial delusion. In
the light of reason the vulgar esteem for rank and fortune above
wisdom and virtue was utterly indefensible, but it had a certain
advantage as a practical aid to good government. The maintenance of
social order required the establishment of popular deference to some
species of superiority, and the superiorities of birth and fortune
were at least plain and palpable to the mob of mankind who have to be
governed, whereas the superiorities of wisdom and virtue were often
invisible and uncertain, even to the discerning. But however useful
this admiration for the wrong things might be for the establishment of
settled authority, he held it to be "at the same time the great and
most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments."[360]
But the additions attracted little notice compared with the
deletions--the deletion of the allusion to Rochefoucauld associating
that writer in the same condemnation with Mandeville, and the deletion
of the passage in which the revealed doctrine of the atonement was
stated to coincide with the repentant sinner's natural feeling of the
necessity of some other intercession and sacrifice than his own. The
omission of the reference to Rochefoucauld has been blamed as a
concession to feelings of private friendship in the teeth of the
claims of truth; but Stewart, who knew the whole circumstances, says
that Smith came to believe that truth as well as friendship required
the emendation, and there is certainly difference enough between
Rochefoucauld and Mandeville to support such a view.
The suppression of the passage about the atonement escaped notice for
twenty years, till a notable divine, Archbishop Magee, in entire
ignorance of the suppression, quoted the passage from one of the
earlier editions as a strong testimony to the reasonableness of the
Scriptural doctrine of the atonement from a man whose intellectual
capacity and independence were above all dispute. "Such," he says,
"are the reflections of a man whose powers of thinking and reasoning
will surely not be pronounced inferior to those of any, even of the
most distinguished champions of the Unitarian school, and whose
theological opinions cannot be charged with any supposed taint from
professional habits or interests. A layman (and he too a familiar
friend of David Hume), whose life was employed in scientific,
political, and philosophical researches, has given to the world those
sentiments as the natural suggestions of reason. Yet these are the
sentiments which are the scoff of sciolists and witlings."[361]
The sciolists and witlings were not slow in returning the scoff, and
pointing out that while Smith was, no doubt, as an intellectual
authority all that the Archbishop claimed for him, his authority
really ran against the Archbishop's view and not in favour of it,
inasmuch as he had withdrawn the passage relied on from the last
edition of his work. Dr. Magee instantly changed his tune, and without
thinking whether he had any ground for the statement, attributed the
omission to the unhappy influence over Smith's mind of the aggressive
infidelity of Hume. "It adds one proof more," says his Grace, who,
having failed to make Smith an evidence for Christianity, will now
have him turned into a warning against unbelief,--"it adds one proof
more to the many that already existed of the danger, even to the most
enlightened, from a familiar contact with infidelity." His intercourse
with Hume was at its closest when he first published the passage in
1759, whereas Hume was fourteen years in his grave when the passage
was omitted; besides there is probably as much left in the context
which Hume would object to as is deleted, and in any case, there is no
reason to believe that Smith's opinion about the atonement was anywise
different in 1790 from what it was in 1759, or for doubting his own
explanation of the omission, which he is said to have given to certain
Edinburgh friends, that he thought the passage unnecessary and
misplaced.[362] As if taking an odd revenge for its suppression, the
original manuscript of this particular passage seems to have
reappeared from between the leaves of a volume of Aristotle in the
year 1831, when all the rest of the MS. of the book and of Smith's
other works had long gone to destruction.[363] It may be added, as so
much attention has been paid to Smith's religious opinions, that he
gives a fresh expression to his belief in a future state and an
all-seeing Judge in one of the new passages he wrote for this same
edition of his _Theory_. It is in connection with his remarks on the
Calas case. He says that to persons in the circumstances of Calas,
condemned to an unjust death, "Religion can alone afford them every
effectual comfort. She also can tell them that it is of little
importance what men may think of their conduct while the all-seeing
Judge of the world approves of it. She alone can present to them a
view of another world,--a world of more candour, humanity, and justice
than the present, where their innocence is in due time to be declared
and their virtue to be finally rewarded, and the same great principle
which can alone strike terror into triumphant vice affords the only
effectual consolation of disgraced and insulted innocence."[364]
Whatever may have been his attitude towards historical Christianity,
these words, written on the eve of his own death, show that he died as
he lived, in the full faith of those doctrines of natural religion
which he had publicly taught.
FOOTNOTES:
[359] Original in possession of Professor Cunningham, Belfast.
[360] _Theory_, ed. 1790, i. 146.
[361] Magee's _Works_, p. 138.
[362] Sinclair's _Life of Sir John Sinclair_, i. 40.
[363] Add. MSS., 32, 574.
[364] _Theory_, ed. 1790, i. 303, 304.