HIST363: Global Perspectives on Industrialization

Smith was the son of the controller of the customs at Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he was baptized at Kirkcaldy on June 5, 1723, his father having died some six months previously. Around the age of 4, he was kidnapped by a band of Roma people, but he was quickly rescued by his uncle and returned to his mother.

At the age of about fifteen, Smith enrolled at the University of Glasgow, studying under Francis Hutcheson, another leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1740, Smith entered Balliol College, Oxford, but he left the university in 1746, having abandoned any interest in becoming a clergyman and generally disappointed with the quality of his Oxford education. In 1748, Smith began delivering public lectures in Edinburgh under the patronage of Lord Kames. Some of these dealt with rhetoric and belles-lettres, but later he took up the subject of "the progress of opulence," and it was then, in his middle or late 20s, that he first expounded the economic philosophy of "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty" which he was later to proclaim to the world in his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Around 1750 he met David Hume, who became one of the closest of his many friends.

In 1751, Smith was appointed professor of logic at the University of Glasgow, transferring in 1752 to the chair of moral philosophy. His lectures covered the fields of ethics, rhetoric, jurisprudence, and political economy. In 1759, he published his The Theory of Moral Sentiments, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures. This work, which established Smith's reputation in his day, was concerned with how human moral behavior depends on sympathy. Smith's unique contribution to moral philosophy was his assertion that there existed within each individual what he referred to as an "impartial spectator" or a "man within the breast," and that learning to listen and respond to this guidance would lead to appropriate moral behavior.

Following completion of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, which was well received in Britain and on the European continent, Smith also lectured on jurisprudence and on economics. At the end of 1763, Smith obtained a lucrative post as tutor to the young Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch, and his younger brother Hew Campbell Scott. Smith resigned his professorship at Glasgow but not without returning the portion of the lecturer fees that he felt that he had not earned. From 1764-1766 he traveled, mostly in France, where he came to know such intellectual leaders as Voltaire, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, Helvétius, and Francois Quesnay, the head of the Physiocratic school whose economic writings he greatly respected. Smith experienced tragedy when Hew Campbell Scott was murdered in Paris. Smith returned to Britain with Henry.

Smith then returned home to Kirkcaldy where he devoted much of the next ten years of his life to his magnum opus, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which appeared in 1776. It was very well-received and popular, and Smith became famous. In 1778, he was appointed to a comfortable post as commissioner of customs in Scotland and went to live with his mother in Edinburgh. He died there on July 17, 1790, after a painful illness. He had apparently devoted a considerable part of his income to numerous secret acts of charity.