ADAM SMITH

V

Lectures on Jurisprudence

THE GLASGOW EDITION OF THE WORKS AND

CORRESPONDENCE OF ADAM SMITH

Commissioned by the Univer, ity of Glasgow to celebrate the bicentenary ofthe Wealth of Nations

I

THE THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTSEdited by D. D. RAPHAEL and A. L. MACFIE

II

AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSESOF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Edited by R. H. CAMPBELLand A. s. SKINNER;textual editor w. B. TODD

III

ESSAYS ON PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECTS(and Miscellaneous Pieces)

Edited by w. P. D. WIGHTMAN

IV

LECTURES ON RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRESEdited by J. c. BRYCE

This volume includes the Considerations concerning theFirst Formation of Languages

V

LECTURES ON JURISPRUDENCEEdited by R. L. ME,X, D. D. RAPHAEL,and v. G. saxm

This volume includes two reports of Smith's course together withthe 'Early Draft' of part of The Wealth of Nations

vI

CORRESPONDENCE OF ADAM SMITHEdited by E. C. MOSSNER and Z. S, ROSS

Assodated volumes:ESSAYS ON ADAM SMITH

Edited by & s. SKINNERand T. WILSON

LIFE OF ADAM SMITHBy I. s. ROSS

The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith andthe associated volumes are published in hardcover by Oxford University

Press. The six titles of the Glasgow Edition, but not the associated volumes,are being published in softcover by Liberty Fund.

ADAM SMITH

Lectures onJurisprudence

EDITED BY

R. L. MEEKD. D. RAPHAEL

ANDP. G. STEIN

Liberty FundIndianapolis

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Library of Co_ Cataloging in Publication Data

Smith, Adam, 1723-1790.Lectures on jurisprudence.

Reprint. Originally published: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.(The Glasgow edition of the works and correspondence

of Adam Smith; 5)Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

1. Jurisprudence. I. Meek, Ronald L.II. Raphael, D. D. (David Daiebes), 1916-

III. Stein, Peter, 1926-IV. Title.

V. Series: Smith, Adam, 1723-1790. Works. 1976; 5.AC7.$59 1976a vol. 5 330.15'3S 81-23689

[K230.$6] [340.11 AACR2ISBN 0-86597-011-4 (pbl)

02 01 00 99 98 P 8 7 6 5 4

This book is printed on paper that is acid-free and meets the requirementsof the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper

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Cover design byJMH Corporation, Indianapolis, Indiana.Printed and bound by Edwards Brothers, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan

Contents

List of Abbreviations viiIntroduction z

Acknor_ledgements 43

LECTURES ON JURISPRUDENCEReport of i762- 3 xReport dated x766 395

APPENDIX

Introduction 56x'Early Draft' of Part of The Wealth of Nations 562First Fragment on the Division of Labour 582Second Fragment on the Division of Labour 585

Indexes 587

Abbreviations

A. WORKS INCLUDED IN THE GLASGOW EDITIONCorr. Con_ED 'EarlyDraft' of Partof The Wea/th of Nations, Regi-

ater House, EdinburghFA, FB Two fragments on the division of labour, Buchan

Papers, Glasgow University LibraryImitative Arts 'Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place

in what are called the Imitative Arts' (in Essays onPhilo_hlcal Subj_u)

LJ(A) Lectures on.Tur/rprudence: Report of x762-3, Glas-gow University Library

LJ(B) Lectures on j_ur/tprudence: Report dated x766, Glas-gow University Library

LRBL I.,_tmreson Rhetoric and Belles LettresStewart Dugald Stewart, 'Account of the Life and Writings

of Adam Smith, LL.D.' (in Essays on PhilosophicalSubjecu )

TMS The Theory of Moral SentimentsWN The Wealth of NationsB. OTHER WORKSA.P.S. The .4ct$ of the Parliaments of Scotland x r 24-I 7o7,

ed. T. Thomson and C. Innes, x2 vol. (x8x4-75)Anderson Notes From John Anderson's Commonplace Book, vol. i,

Andersonian Library, University of StrathclydeC. Code of JustinianC. Th. Code of TheodmimCocceiua ,,,qamuelisL. B. de Cocceh". . . Introductio ad Henrici

L. B. de Coccdi . . . Grotimn illustratmn, carntinem_tationes proendales XII (x748)

D. Digest of JustinianDalrymple Sir John Dalrymple, An Essay tmoard_ a General

History of Feudal Property in Great Britain (x757;4th edn., x759)

Ermine John ErAkine, The Prin_0/es of the Lcuo of Scotland(x754)

Grotius Hugo Grotius, De _YureBelh"ac Pads lilm"tres (x625)Hale_ Sir Matthew Hale, The History of the Pleas of the

Crown, 2 voL (x736)Harris Jmeph Harris, An Essay upon Mon_ and Coim,

Parts I and II (x757-8)Hawkins William Hawkins, A Treatise of the Pleas of the

Crown, 2 vol. (x7x6)Heineccim Johann Gottlieb Heineccim, A_'tatum Romana-

rum_ i//u:tra_Sum S3mtagma (x7x9;6th edn., x74_)

vfii Abbreviations

Hume, Essays David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary,ed. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, 2 vol. 0875 ; newedn., x889)

Hume, History, I and II David Hume, The History of England, from . . ._2ius C__e_,ar to the accession of Henry VII, 2 vol.0762)

History, III and IV David Hume, The History of England under theHouse of Tudor, 2 voL (x759)

Hutcheson,M.P. Francis Hutcheson, A Short Introduction to MoralPhilosophy (x747), being English translation ofPhilosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiarla 0742)

System Francis Huteheson, A System of Moral Plu'losophy,2 vol.0755)

Inst. Institutes of JustinianKames, Essays Henry Home, Lord Karnes, Essays upon several

subjects concerning British Antiquities (x747)Law Tracts Henry Home, Lord Kames, Historical Law- Tracts,

2 vol.0758)Locke, Civil Gov_riiment John Locke, Second Treatise, of Civil Government

069o)M'Douall Andrew M'Douall, Lord Bankton, An Institu_ of

the Laws of Scotland in Civil R/ghts, 3 vol. (z75x-3)Mandeville Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, Part I

(x7x4), Part II (z7z9), ed. F. B. Kaye, 2 vol. (x9z4)Montesquieu C.L. de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, De

l'esprit des lois (x748)Pufendorf Samuel von Pufendorf, De ff_re Naturae etGentium -

libri octo (x67a)Rae John Rae, Lifeof Adam Smith 0895)Scott William Robert Scott, Adam Smith as Student and

Professor 0937)Stair James Dalrymple, Viacount Stair, The Institutions

of the Law of Scotland (i68I)

Introduction

L Adam Smith's Lectures at Glasgoto UniversityA DAM S MI TH was elected to the Chair of Logic at Glasgow University on9 January I75x, and admitted to the office on i6 January. He does notappear to have started lecturing at the University, however, until thebeginning of the next academic session, in October I75I, when he em-barked upon his first--and only--course of lectures to the Logic class.

In the well-known account of Smith's lectures at Glasgow which JohnMiUar supplied to Dugald Stewart, this Logic course of 175x-2 is de-scribed as follows:

In the Professorship of Logic, to which Mr Smith was appointed on his firstintroduction into this University, he soon saw the necessity of departing widelyfrom the plan that had been followed by his predecessors, and of directing theattention of his pupils to studies of a more interesting and useful nature than thelogic and metaphysics of the schools. Accordingly, after exhibiting a generalview of the powers of the mind, and explaining so much of the ancient logic aswas requisite to gratify curiosity with respect to an artificial method of reasoning,which had once occupied the universal attention of the learned, he dedicated allthe rest of his time to the delivery of a system of rhetoric and belies lettres, x

This 'system of rhetoric and belles lettres', we may surmise, was based onthe lectures on this subject which Smith had given at Edinburgh beforecoming to Glasgow, and was probably very similar to the course which hewas later to deliver as a supplement to his Moral Philosophy course, andof which a student's report has come down to us. 2 Concerning the contentof the preliminary part of the Logic course, however--that in which Smithexhibited 'a general view of the powers of the mind' and explained 'so muchof the ancient logic as was requisite'--we know no more than Millar heretells us.

In the 175I-2 session, Smith not only gave this course to his Logic classbut also helped out in the teaching of the Moral Philosophy class. ThomasCraig_e, the then Professor of Moral Philosophy, had fallen ill, mid at aUniversity Meeting held on xx September I75I it was agreed that in hisabsence the teaching of the Moral Philosophy class should be shared outaccording to the following arrangement:

The Professor of Divinity, Mr. Rosse, Mr. Moor having in presence of thex Stewart, I. x6. The original version of Stewart's 'Account of the Life and Writings of

Adam Smith', in which these remarks of Millar's were incorporated, was read by Stewartto the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 2I January and z8 March x793.

See below, pp. 4, 9, Ix, and xS-XT.$mlaa 9 B

/ntroduct_m

meeting,and Mr. Smith by his lettervoluntarilyagreedto give their assistanceinthe teachingboth the publickand privateclassein the following mannerviz: theProfessor undertakes to teach the Theologia Naturalis, and the first book of Mr.Hutchesons Ethic.ks, and Mr. Smith the other two books de JurisprudentiaNaturali et Politicis, and Mr. Resse and Mr. Moor to teach the hour allotted forthe private classe, the meeting unanimouslie agreed to the said proposals...3About the actual content of these lectures of Smith's on 'natural juris-prudence and politics'4 we know nothing, although we do know that accord-ing to the testimony of Smith himself a number of the opinions put forwardin them had already been the subjects of lectures he had read at Edinburghin the previous winter, and that they were to continue to be the 'constantsubjects' of his lectures after x75x-z.s

In November x75x Craigie died, and a few months later Smith wastranslated from his Chair of Logic to the now vacant Chair of MoralPhilosophy. He was elected on zz April x75z, and admitted on z9 April.His first fuU course of lectures to the Moral Philosophy class, therefore,was delivered in the x75z- 3 session. He continued lecturing to the MoralPhilosophy class until he left Glasgow, about the middle of January x764,6to take up the position of tutor to the young Duke of Buccleuch.

J Minutes of University Meeting of xz September x75x (Glasgow University Archives).4 In the letter from Smith mentioned in the extract just quoted (Corr., Letter 9 ad-

dressed to William Cuilen, dated 3 Sept. z750, Smith wrote: '1 shall, with great pleasure,do what I can to relieve him [Profesaor Craigie] of the burden of his class. You mentionnatural jurisprudence and politics as the parts of his lectures which it would be most Fagreeable for me to take upon me to teach. I shall very willingly undertake both.'

s See Stewart, IV.z5. Stewart is referring here to a document drawn up by Smith inx755 which apparently contained 'a pretty long enumeration . . . of certain leading prin-ciples, both political and literary, to which he was anxious to establish his exclusive right;in order to prevent the possibility of some rival claims which he thought he had reason toapprehend'. From this document Stewart quotes (apparently verbatim) the followingstatement by Smith: 'A great part of the opinions enumerated in this paper is treated of atlength in some lectures which I have still by me, and which were written in the hand of aclerk who left my service six years ago. They have all of them been the constant subjectsof my lectures since I fL_t taught Mr Craigie's chum,the first winter I spent in Glasgow,down to this day, without any considerable variation. They had all of them been the sub-jects of lectures which I read at Edinburgh the winter before I left it, and I can adduceinnumerable witnesses, both from that place and from this, who will ascertain them suf-ficiently to be mine.'

e The exact date on which Smith left Glasgow is not known. The fact that he wasprobably going to leave the University was publicly announced for the first t/me at a Deanof Faculty's Meeting on 8 November x763. Two months later, at a Faculty Meeting on 9January x764, Smith stated that 'be was soon to leave this place' and that 'he had retm'nedto the students all the fees he had received this session'. The previous Faculty Meeting(at which Smith had also been present) was held on 4 January x764, so it may reasonablybe assumed that his last lecture to the Moral Philosophy class (at which, according toTytler's account, the fees were returned) was delivered at some time during the periodbetween these two Faculty Meetings. The last meeting at Glasgow University whichSmith attended in his capacity as a member of the teaching staff was a University Meetingon xo January x764, and all the indications are that he left Glasgow within a few days ofthis date. Cf. Rae, x69--7o; Scott, 97; and A. F. Tytler, Memoirs of the Life and Writinssof Lord Kama (and edn., Edinburgh, 1814), i.aTa-3.

Introduct/on 3

In order to obtain an over-all view of the content of Smith's course inMoral Philosophy it is still necessary to go back to the account of it given byJohn Millar:

About a year after his appointment to the Professorship of Logic, Mr Smithwas elected to the chair of Moral Philosophy. His course of lectures on this sub-ject was divided into four parts. The first contained Natural Theology; in whichhe considered the proofs of the being and attributes of God, and those principlesof the human mind upon which religion is founded. The second comprehendedEthics, strictly so called, and consisted chiefly of the doctrines which he after-wards published in his Theory of Moral Sentiments. In the third part, hetreated at more length of that branch of morality which relates to justice, andwhich, being susceptible of precise and accurate rules, is for that reason capableof a full and particular explanation.

Upon this subject he followed the plan that seems to be suggested by Montes-quieu; endeavouring to trace the gradual progress of jurisprudence, both publicand private, from the rudest to the most refined ages, and to point out theeffects of those arts which contribute to subsistence, and to the accumulation ofproperty, in producing correspondent improvements or alterations in law andgovernment. This important branch of his labours he also intended to give to thepublic; but this intention, which is mentioned in the conclusion of The Theory ofMoral Sentiments, he did not live to fulfil.

In the last part of his lectures, he examined those political regulations whichare founded, not upon the principle of justice, but that of expel, and whichare calculated to increase the riches, the power, and the prosperity of a State.Under this view, he considered the political institutions relating to commerce, tofinances, to ecclesiastical and military establishments. What he delivered onthese subjects contained the substance of the work he afterwards publishedunder the title of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth ofNations.7

So far as it goes, this account would seem to be accurate and perceptive,but there is one point of some importance which it does not make clear.What Millar describes in the passage just quoted is the course of lecturesgiven by Smith, in his capacity as Professor of Moral Philosophy, to whatwas called the 'public' class in that subject. But Professors of MoralPhilosophy at Glasgow also normally gave a supplementary course oflectures, on a different subject, to what was called the 'private' class. 8 Thesubjects upon which they lectured in this supplementary course, we aretold,_ were not 'necessarily connected' with those of their 'public' lectures,but were 'yet so much connected with the immediate duty of their pro-fession, as to be very useful to those who attended them'. Hutcheson, for

7 Stewart,I.x8-2o.s Of. Pate,5r ; Dav/d Murray, Memoriesof the Old Collegeof Glasgow(Glasgow, x927),

5z6; and Discourseson Theological_ Literary Subjects,by the late Rev. ArchibaldArthar . . with an Account of someParticulars of his Life and Character,by William Pdchardmn(Glasgow, x8o3), 5x-xS.

t By William R/ehardmn,loc. cir.

4 Introduction

example, had employed these additional hours in 'explaining and illus-trating the works of Arrian, Antoninus, and other Greek philosophers', andReid was later to appropriate them to 'a further illustration of those doe-trines which he afterwards published in his philosophical essays'. AdamSmith employed them in delivering, once again, a course of lectures onRhetoric and Belles Lettres. A student's report of Smith's 'private'Rhetoric course, as it was delivered in the x762-3 session, was discovered inAberdeen in x958 by the late Professor John M. Lothian, _and a newlyedited transcript of this manuscript will be published in volume iv of thepresent edition of Smith's Works and Correspondence.

Turning back now to Millar's account of Smith's 'public' course inMoral Philosophy, we see that this course is described as having beendivided into four parts. About the content of the first of these ('NaturalTheology') we know nothing whatever, and about the second ('Ethics,strictly so called') we know little more than Millar here tells us--viz., thatit consisted chiefly of the doctrines of TMS." About the third and fourthparts, however--at any rate in the form which they assumed in Smith'slectures during his last years at Glasgow_Z--we now know a great dealmore, thanks to the discovery of the two reports of his lectures on Juris-prudence which it is the main purpose of this volume to present.

The term 'Jurisprudence', it should perhaps be explained, was normallyused by Smith in a sense broad enough to encompass not only the thirdpart of the Moral Philosophy course as Millar described it ('that branch ofmorality which relates to justice'), but also the fourth part ('those politicalregulations which are founded, not upon the principle of justice, but that ofexped/ency'). In one of the two reports 'Jurisprudence' is defined as 'thetheory of the rules by which civil governments ought to be directed', _3and in the other as 'the theory of the general principles of law and govern-ment'. _4Now the main objects of every system of law, in Smith's view, arethe maintenance of justice, the provision of police in order to promoteopulence, the raising of revenue, and the establishment of arms for thedefence of the state. These four, then, could be regarded as the mainbranches or divisions of 'Jurisprudence' as so defined; and this is the way

_oSee John M. Lothian (ed.), Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres delivered.., byAdam Smith (x963).

zz What appears to be part of one of Smith's lectures on ethics is reprinted and discussedin Appendix II of the Glasgow edition of TMS. The Introduction, x(a), to that volumeconsiders further evidence about the character of these lectures.

_ Little direct information is available about the form which they assumed duringSmith's first years at Glasgow. A certain amount can be conjectured, however, from theAnderson Notes. For the full text of these notes, and a commentary establishing theirconnection with Smith's lectures, see R. L. Meek, 'New Light on Adam Smith's GlasgowLectures on Jurisprudence' (History of Political Economy, vol. 8, Winter z976).

z3 Below, p. 5.z4 Below, p. 398. Cf. TMS VII.iv.37.

Introduction 5

in which the subject is in fact divided up in both the reports. Clearly thetreatment ofjusth:e in the reports relates to the third part of Smith's MoralPhilosophy course as Millar described it, and the treatment of po//ce,revenue, and arms relates to the fourth and final part of it.

z. The Two Reports of Smith's _,i.tprudence LecturesThe first of the two reports relates to Smith's Jurisprudence lectures in

the I76z- 3 session, and the second, in all probability, to the lectures givenin the x763- 4 session. Hereafter these reports will usually be referred to asLJ(A) and LJ(B) respectively. It will be convenient to begin here with adescription of LJ(B), which was the first of the two reports to be discoveredand which will already be familiar to a large number of readers in theversion published many years ago by Professor Edwin Carman. A re-editedversion of it is published below, under the title 'Report dated x766'.

In x895, Carman's attention was drawn to the existence, in the hands ofan Edinburgh advocate, of a bound manuscript which according to thetitle-page consisted of 'JURIS PRUDENCE or Notes from the Lectureson Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms delivered in the University ofGlasgow by Adam Smith Professor of Moral Philosophy'. In the edition ofthis manuscript which Carman brought out in I896, xshe described its mainphysical characteristics as follows:

[The] manuscript.., forms an octavo book 9 in. high, 7 in. broad and I_ in.thick. It has a substantial calf binding, the sides of which, however, have com-pletely parted company with the back... On the back there is some gilt-cross-hatching and the word JURIS PRUDENCE (thus divided between two lines) ingilt letters on a red label. There are in all 19z leaves. Two of these are fly-leavesof dissimilar paper and have their fellows pasted on the insides of the cover,front and back. The rest all consist of paper of homogeneous character, water-marked 'L.V. Gerrevink.'

The manuscript is written on both sides of the paper in a rectangular spaceformed by four red ink lines previously ruled, which leave a margin of aboutthree-quarters of an inch. Besides the fly-leaves there are three blank leaves at theend and two at the beginning.

There is nothing to show conclusively whether the writing was first executedor_separate sheets subsequently bound up, or in a blank note-book afterwardsrebound, or in the book as it appears at present, xe

This was a careful and accurate description of the document, and notvery much needs to be added to it today. The back of the binding wasrepaired in I897, and the volume was rebound again (and the spine re-lettered) in x969. As a result of these operations the two original end-papers

xs Edwin C.annan(ed.), Lectwte: onyustice, Police, Revenue and Arms, deliveredin theUr,iverdty of Glasgo_ by Adam Sm/th (Oxford,x896).

x6 Ibid., xv-xvi.

6 Introduct/on

and one if not both of the two original fly-leaves have disappeared._ Dis-counting these, there are two blank leaves at the beginning of the volume;then one leaf on the recto of which the title is written; then x79 leaves(with the pages numbered consecutively from I to 358) on which the maintext is written; then one leaf containing no writing (but with the usualmargins ruled); then four leaves, with the pages unnumbered, on which theindex is written (taking up seven of the eight pages); then finally threeblank leaves_making a total of I9 o leaves in all. The new binding is verytight, and full particulars of the format of the volume could not be ob-tained without taking it apart.

Carman had no doubt that this document, as suggested on its title-page,did in fact owe its origin to notes of Adam Smith's lectures on Juris-prudence at Glasgow University. The close correspondence between thetext of the document and Millar's description of the third and fourth partsof Smith's Moral Philosophy course, together with the existence of manyparallel passages in WN,,s put this in Carman's opinion beyond question;and his judgement in this respect has been abundantly confirmed by every-thing that has happened in the field of Smith scholarship since his day--not least by the recent discovery of LJ(A).

The title-page of LJ(B) bears the date 'MDCCLXVI' (whereas AdamSmith left Glasgow in January I764); the handwriting is ornate and ela-borate; there are very few abbreviations; and some of the mistakes that areto be found would seem to have been more probably caused by misreadingthan by mishearing. These considerations led Carman to the conclusion--once again abundantly justified--that the rn_nuscript was a fair copy made(presumably in x766) by a professional copyist, and not the original notestaken at the lectures. _ The only question which worried Carman in thisconnection was whether the copyist had copied directly from the originallecture-notes or from a rewritten version of these notes made later by theoriginal note-taker. The scarcity of abbreviations, the relatively smallnumber of obvious blunders, and the comparatively smooth flow of theEnglish, strongly suggested the latter. Carman was worried, however, bythe facts (a) that the copyist had dearly taken great pains to make his pagescorrespond with the pages from which he was copying (presumably becausethe index already existed), and (b) that the amounts of material containedin a page were very unequal. These two facts taken together suggested to

_ One of the leaves at the beginning of the book looks as if it may have been the originalfly-leaf, but a letter has been mounted on it and it is difficult to be sure about this.

t. Carman, op. cir., xxxv-ixtt Ibid., xvii-xviii. W. R. Scott, in an article printed as Appendix V to the and edn. of

James Bonar's Cagalol_e of the L.ibra_y of Adam Smith (London, I93"), deduced from theremnants of a book-plate which was formerly pasted inside the front cover that the volumeoriginally belonged to Alexander Murray of Murrayfield--for whom, Scott surmised, thecop7 was made.

Introduct/on 7

Cannan that it was at least possible that the copyist had copied directlyfrom the original lecture-notes rather than from a rewritten version ofthem. z In actual fact, however, the degree of inequality in the amount ofmaterial in a page is not quite as great as Cannan suggests, and certainly nogreater than one would reasonably expect to find in a student's rewrittenversion of his lecture-notes.ZX It seems very probable, then, that the copywas in fact made from a rewritten version.

The question of the purpose for which this rewritten version was made,however, is a rather more difficult one. Was it made by the original note-taker for his own use, or was it made (whether by him or by someone else atanother remove) for sale ? In those days, we know, 'manuscript copies of apopular professor's lectures, transcribed from his students' notebooks, wereoften kept for sale in the booksellers' shops. 'zz An interesting comparisonmay be made here between LJ(A)--a rewritten version almost certainlymade by the original note-taker for his own use and not for sale--and LJ(B).LJ(A), although so far as it goes it is much fuller than LJ(B), is very muchless polished, in the sense that it contains many more abbreviations,grammatical and spelling errors, blank spaces, etc. LJ(A), again, faithfullyreproduces many of the summaries of previous lectures which Smithseems normally to have given at the beginning of each new one, and oftennotes the specific date on which the relevant lecture was delivered--featureswhich are completely lacking in LJ(B). Nor is there in LJ(A) anything likethe elaborate (and on the whole accurate) index which appears at the end ofLJ(B). Considerations such as these, although not conclusive, do suggestthe possibility that the rewritten version from which LJ(B) was copied hadbeen prepared for sale, and therefore also the possibility that there weretwo or three steps between the original lecture-notes and the manuscript ofLJ(B) itself. But what really matters, of course, is the reliability of thedocument: does it or does it not give a reasonably accurate report of whatwas actually said in the lectures at which the original notes were taken ?Now that we have another set of notes to compare it with, we can answerthis question with a fairly unqualified al_nnative. LJ(B) is not quite asaccurate and reliable as Cannan believed it to be; but if we make dueallowance for its more summary character it is probably not much inferiorto LJ(A)as a record of what may be assumed actually to have been said inthe lectures, z3

In which session, then, were the lectures delivered from which LJ(B)was ultimately derived ?u Carman, in his perceptive comments on this

ao Carman, op. tit., xvili-xix.2_ It is certainly no greater than that found in LJ(A) and in the report of the Rhetoric

lectures. 22 Rae, 64.a3 The beginning of LJ(B), which repeats almost verbatim some phrases from the end

of TMS, appea_ to be a highly accurate record.We are assuming that these lectures were all of a piece i.e. that the original notes

8 Introduction

question, 2s declined to lay too much weight on the frequent references tothe Seven Years War as 'the late' or 'the last' war, on the perfectly validground that 'it would be natural after the conclusion of peace for thereporter or the transcriber to alter "the war" or "the present war" into "thelate war" '. The reference to the ransom of the crew of the Litchfield, z6however, which took place in April I76o, clearly meant that it was almostcertain that the lectures were not delivered before I761-2. They couldconceivably have been delivered in that session, but Cannan thought it moreprobable that they were delivered 'either in the portion of the academicalsession of I763- 4 which preceded Adam Smith's departure, or in thesession of 1762- 3 ...'

More light can now be thrown on this question as a result of the dis-covery of LJ(A), which relates without any doubt (since many of thelectures are specifically dated) to the I762- 3 session. The crucial pointhere is that in LJ(A) the order of treatment of the main subjects is radicallydifferent from that in LJ(B). 'The civilians', Smith is reported in LJ(B) assaying,Z7begin with considering government and then treat of property and other rights.Others who have written on this subject begin with the latter and then considerfamily and civil government. There are several advantages peculiar to each ofthese methods, tho' that of the civil law seems upon the whole preferable.

In LJ(B), then, Smith adopts the method of 'the civilians', beginning withgovernment and then going on to deal with 'property and other rights'. InLJ(A), by way of contrast, he adopts the method of the 'others who havewritten on this subject', beginning with 'property and other rights' andthen going on to deal with 'family and civil government'. LJ(B), therefore,cannot possibly relate to the same year as LJ(A), whence it follows (giventhe decisive Litchfield reference) that it must relate either to I761-2 or to1763- 4. And it can now fairly readily be shown that it is very unlikely torelate to I76I-2. There is a reference in LJ(B) to Florida being 'put into ourhands';z8 and a comparison of the passage in which this reference occurswith the corresponding passage (a much more extensive one) in LJ(A) 20shows that it must refer to the cession of Florida at the end of the SevenYears War by the Treaty of Paris in February i763. This event, therefore,could not have been remarked upon in the 176I-2 session; and it thusseems almost certain that LJ(B) relates to I763- 4.

Cannan, when speaking of the possibility that LJ(B) might relate toI763-4, seemed to suggest that if this were so the lectures from which thenote. were taken would have had to be delivered in the portion of thatof them wereall takendownin one andthe samesession. We havefoundno evidencewhichsuggests the contrary.

as Op. cir., xix-xx, z6 Below, p. 432. 27Below, p. 4oi.a8 Below, p. 435. _9Below, p. 3a4.

Introduction 9

session which 'preceded Adam Smith's departure' from Glasgow.ao Butthis is surely to take the words 'delivered... by Adam Smith' on the title-page of LJ(B) much too literally. After Smith left Glasgow, his 'usualcourse of lectures' was carried on by one Thomas Young, with whom (atany rate according to Tytler's account) Smith left 'the notes from which hehad been in use to deliver his prelections'.3x Assuming, as would seemprobable, that Young was in fact furnished by Smith with these notes andthat he kept fairly closely to them in his lectures, it would have been per-fectly possible for a student to take down, in the I763- 4 session, a set oflecture-notes from which a document possessing all the characteristics ofLJ(B) could quite plausibly be derived.

We turn now to LJ(A), an edited version of which is published for thefirst time below, under the title 'Report of x76z-3'. 'At various dates in theautumn of x958', wrote the discoverer of the document, the late ProfessorJohn M. Lothian, 'remnants of what had once been the considerablecountry-house library of Whitehaugh were dispersed by auction inAberdeen.' In the eighteenth century Whitehaugh belonged to the Leithand later the Forbes-Leith families. Among a number of Whitehaughbooks and papers purchased by Professor Lothian at various dates at thesesales were two sets of lecture-notes, apparently made by students. One ofthese (hereafter called LRBL) clearly related to Smith's lectures on Rhe-toric and Belles Lettres, as delivered in the x76z- 3 session. The other set,upon closer examination, proved to relate to Smith's lectures on Juris-prudence, as delivered in the same session.3Z

The manuscript of LJ(A) is in six volumes, each measuring approxi-mately xzo x95 mm., bound in a contemporary binding of quarter calfwith marbled paper sides and vellum tips. On the spine of each volume its

3o Above, p. 8. Cf. Scott, 3x9-3x Tytler, op. cit., i.z7z. Not very much is known about Thomas Young. At a Dean of

Faculty's Meeting on z6 June 176z we find his name heading a llst of six students ofDivinity which was to be presented to the Barons of Exchequer with a view to the selectionof one of them 'to study Divinity three years upon King Williams mortification from thexoth October next'. At a University Meeting on 7.4June z763 'a presentation was given inand read from the Barons of Exchequer in favour of Mr. Thomas Young to study Theologythreewears corrunencing at Martinmass last'. The decision to appoint Young to carry onSmith's Moral Philosophy course was taken at the Faculty Meeting on 9 January x764 towhich reference has already been made in note 6 above. According to the minutes, 'theMeeting desired Dr. Smiths advice in the choice of a proper person to teach in his absenceand he recommended Mr. Thomas Young, student of Divinity who was agreed to'. Youngwas a candidate for the Moral Philosophy Chair which Smith vacated, and was supportedby Black and Millar. Black reported to Smith on _3 January z764 that 'T. Young performsadmirably well and is much respected by the students'; and Millar, in similar vein, re-ported to him on z February x764 that Young 'has taught the class hitherto with great anduniversal applause; and by all accounts discovers an ease and fluency in speaking, which,I own, I scarce expected'. See Scott, _56--7; also Corr., Letter 79 from Jceeph Black, dateda3 Jan. x764, and Letter 80 from John MiUar, dated z Feb. x764 . Young did not obtainthe Chair (which was given to Thomas Reid), and nothing is known of his later career.

sa John M. Lothian, op. cit., xi-xii.

zo Introduct/on

number--'Vol, x', 'Vol. 2', etc.--has been inscribed in gilt letters on a redlabel. The make-up of the volumes is as follows:

Volume i: This volume begins with a gathering of 4 sheets (i.e. 8 leaves and x6pages) watermarked 'C. & I. Honig'. The first leaf is pasted to the inside frontcover as an end-paper; the second forms a fly-leaf; both these are blank. Therecto page of the third leaf contains a list of contents of vol. i (only partiallycompleted); the verso page of the third leaf and the remaining five leaves of thegathering are blank. There follow i7o leaves (three of which have been leftblank), watermarked 'L.V. Gerrevink', upon which the notes have been written.The volume finishes with a fly-leaf and an end-paper, both blank.

Volume ii: This volume begins with an end-paper and a fly-leaf, both blank.There follow x8I leaves (one of which has been left blank), watermarked 'L.V.Gerrevink', upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes witha fly-leaf and an end-paper, both blank.

Volume iii: This volume begins with an end-paper and a fly-leaf, both blank.There follow xSo leaves (the last two and one other of which have been leftblank), watermarked 'L.V. Gerrevink', upon which the notes have been written.Then comes a gathering of 8 sheets (i.e. x6 leaves and 3z pages), watermarked'C. & I. Honig', all of which are blank. The volume finishes with a fly-leaf andan end-paper, both blank.

Volume i,J: This volume begins with an end-paper and a fly-leaf, both blank.There follow x79 leaves (none of which have been left blank), watermarked 'L.V.Gerrevink', upon which the notes have been written. The volume finishes witha fly-leaf and an end-paper, both blank_

Volume _: This volume begins with an end-paper and a fly-leaf, both blank.There follow x5x leaves (the last two of which have been left blank), watermarked'L.V. Gerrevink', upon which the notes have been written. The volume finisheswith a fly-leaf and an end-paper, both blank.

Volume _/: This volume begins with an end-paper and a fly-leaf, both blank.There follow x72 leaves (the last of which has been left blank), watermarked'L.V. Gerrevink', upon which the notes have been written. Then comes agathering of 8 sheets(i.e. I6 leaves and 32 pages), watermarked 'C. & I. Honig',all of which are blank. The volume finishes with a fly-leaf and an end-paper, bothblank.

The presence of the blank leaves watermarked 'C. & I. Honig' at thebeginning of vol. i and at the end of vols. iii and vi, we believe, can beaccounted for fairly simply. So far as vol. i is concerned, the reporterwould seem to have instructed the binder to insert a few blank leaves at thebeginning so as to leave space for a list of contents: the list was dulystarted, but left incomplete. So far as vols. iii and vi are concerned, all theindications are that the reporter still had some relevant material to write upwhen he took these volumes to be bound, and therefore instructed thebinder to insert some blank leaves at the end so that he could include thismaterial when the volume came back from binding. Once again, however,

Introduction xz

thereporterapparentlydidnotgetroundtousingtheblankleavesashehadplanned.The formatofthevolumesmakesitclearthatthereporterwrotethe

noteson loosesheetsofpaperfoldedup intogatherings,whichwerelaterbound up intothesixvolumes.Almostallofthesegatherin_--aHexceptfour, in fact---consist of two sheets of paper placed together and foldedonce, making four leaves (i.e. eight pages) per gathering. Each gatheringwas numbered in the top left-hand corner of its first page before beingbound. The writing of the main text almost always appears only on therecto pages of the volume, the verso pages being either left blank or usedfor comments, illustrations, corrections, and various other kinds of supple-mentary material.

The handwriting of the manuscript varies considerably in size, charac-ter, and legibility from one place to another--to such an extent, indeed, asto give the impression, at least at first sight, that several different handshave contributed to its composition. Upon closer investigation, however, itappears more likely that at any rate the great majority of these variationsowe their origin to differences in the pen or ink used, in the speed ofwriting, and in the amount which the reporter tried to get into the page. Itseems probable, in fact, that the whole of the main text on the recto pages ofLJ(A), and all or almost all of the supplementary material on the versopages,3a was written by one and the same hand. This hand seems verysimilar to that in which the main text of LRBL is written ;a4and this fact,particularly when taken together with certain striking similarities in thestructure of the volumes,aS strongly suggests that both LJ(A) and the maintext of LRBL were written by the same person.

The main text of LJ(A) appears to us to have been written serially, soonafter (but not during) the lectures concerned, on the basis of very full notestaken down in class, probably at least partly in shorthand.a6 After having

J3 There are a few corrections and collations on the verso pages of vol. i which maypo_ibly be in a second hand, although this is by no means certain. Such cases are rarelyif ever to be found in the later volumes.

_4 We si_ak here only of the 'main text' of LRBL, rather than of the MS. as a whole,because in this MS. a large number of corrections and collations were in fact made,without any doubt at all, by a second hand.

ss Cf. the description of LJ(A) given above with that of the MS. of LRBL given in theAppendix (by T. I. Rae) to John M. Lothian, op. cit., x95. Another possibly significantsimilari W is that the average number of pages of MS. devoted to a lecture is almost thesame in both cues_roughly x5.5 in LJ(A) and x5.3 in LRBL. The bindings of the twoMSS., it is true, do differ in certain respect*, but even here the differences are not verysignificant, and according to the opinion of the Glasgow University binder both of themcould quite pou_ly have come from the same bindery.

_6 Our suggestion that the original notes were probably taken down at least partly inshorthand is based mainly on the sheer/en_,th of the reports of a large number of thespecifically dated lectures. Take, for e.xample, the reports of the lectures delivered on 5, 6,and 7 April t763 (below, pp. 355--74), which occupy respectively x8, ao, and x6t pagesof the MS. There is little padding in these reports; they contain a great deal of quite

_cz Introduction

been written up in the form of a more or less verbatim report, the noteswere corrected and supplemented in various ways shortly to be described.We do not have the impression, however, that the report was preparedwith a view to sale: it has all the hallmarks of a set of working notes pre-pared, primarily for his own use, by a reasonably intelligent and con-scientious student.

The question of the origin and function of the supplementary materialon the verso pages is not at all an easy one, and there seems to be no singleor simple answer to it. Most, if not all, of these verso notes appear to bewritten in the same hand as the main text; but the appreciable variationsin pen, ink, letter size, etc. often make it difficult to be sure about this(particularly in the first volume of the MS., where the verso notes are verynumerous), and it is at least possible that a few of them may have beenwritten by another hand--that of a fellow student, or a later owner, orperhaps the original owner at alater date. Our over-all impression, however,is that at any rate the great majority of the verso notes were in fact made bythe original owner, and made fairly soon after the text on the recto pageswas written. Some of these notes, we think, may have been explanatoryglosses added from memory, or perhaps as a result of private reading.Others were very probably the result of collation with at least one otherset of notes. And others still, we feel, may possibly have been added as aresult of the reporter's attendance at Smith's daily'examination' session--atwhich, we are told, lecturers had the opportunity of 'explaining more clearlyany part of the lecture which may not have been fully understood', and atwhich Smith apparently delivered many 'incidental and digressive illustra-tions, and even discussions'.37Some of the longer verso notes in LJ(A) havea distinctly digressive quality,3Sand may quite possibly have had this origin.39intricate detail; and there is every reason to think that they are on the whole reliable andaccurate accounts of what Smith actually said. It is difficult to believe that these reportscould have been as full and accurate as this if the original notes had been taken downentirely in longhand.

3TOur authority here is once again William Richardson in his Life of Arthur (op. cir.,5o7-8). The complete statement reads as follows: 'The professors of Ethics, or MoralPhilosophy, in the University of Glasgow, employ two hours every day in instructing theirpupils. In the first of these, they deliver lectures; and devote the second, after a properinterval, to regular and stated examinations. Such examinations are reckoned of greatutility to those who study, as tending to insure their attention, to ascertain their proficiency,and give the teacher an opportunity of explaining more clearly any part of the lecture whichmay not have been fully understood. Those who received instruction from Dr. Smith,will recollect, with much satisfaction, many of those incidental and digressive illustrations,and even discussions, not only in morality, but in criticism, which were delivered by himwith animated and extemporaneous eloquence, as they were suggested in the course ofquestion and answer. They occurred likewise, with much display of learning and lmow-ledge,in his occasionalexplanationsof thosephilosophical worksof Cicero, which arealso a very useful and important subject of examination in the class of Moral philoeophy.'

_e See, for example, the verso notes reproduced on pp. zo-i, I28--9, and x53-4 below.st It would appear, however, from a statement made by Thomas Reid (quoted below,

p. z4), that it would be unusual for a student to attend the Moral Phileaophy lectures, the

Im'rodaction I3

The frequency of the verso notes begins to decfine after the first volume,with a particularly sharp fall occurring about two-thirds of the way throughthe third volume. In the first volume, there are verso notes on 64 leaves (outof _7o); in the second volume, on 44 leaves (out of x8x); in the thirdvolume, on 2o leaves (out of xSo), with only one note in the last 5 leaves;in the fourth, on x4 leaves (out of 179); in the fifth, on 5 leaves (out of x5x);and in the sixth, on 5 leaves (out of I72 ). Hand in hand with this decline inthe frequency of the verso notes goes a decline in their average length: inthe last three volumes the great majority of the notes are very short (therebeing in fact only three which are more than six lines long), and most ofthem appear more likely to be glosses added from memory than anythingelse. There are various possible explanations of these characteristics of theMS., but since no one explanation appears to be more probable than anyother there would seem to be little value in speculating about them.

Only one other point about LJ(A) needs to be made at this juncture.Although the treatment of individual topics is usually much more ex-tensive in LJ(A) than in LJ(B), the actual range of subjects covered is moreextensive in LJ(B) than in LJ(A). Of particular importance here is the factthat whereas LJ(B) continues right through to the end of the course, LJ(A)stops short about two-thirds of the way through the 'police' section ofSmith's lectures. The most likely explanation of this is that LJ(A) originallyincluded a seventh volume which somehow became separated from theothers and has not yet come to light; but there are obviously other possibleexplanations--e.g, that the reporter ceased attending the course at thispoint.

3. Adam Smith's Lecture Timetable in I762-3The fact that a large number of the lectures in LJ(A), and all (or almost

all) of the lectures in LRBL, were specifically dated by the reporter, meansthat it is possible up to a point to reconstruct Smith's lecture timetable forthe x762- 3 session. Where the dates are missing, of course, guesses have tobe made, and the conclusions sometimes become very conjectural. Theexercise seems well worth tarrying out, however: it is of some interest initself, and_it provides us with certain information which will be usefulwhen we turn, in the next section of this Introduction, to the problemsinvolved in the collation of LJ(A) and LJ(B).

In Thomas Reid's Statistical Account of the University of Glasgow,which was apparently drawn up about I794, the following remarks appearunder the heading 'Time of Lecturing, &c.' :The annual session for teaching, in the university, begins, in the ordinaryRhetoric lectures, and the daily examination session in one and the same academic year.But the writer of LJ(A) may of course have coU_ed his notes with those of another studentwho d/d attend the examination session.

x4 Introduction

curricu/um,4on the tenth of October; and ends, in some of the classes, about themiddle of May, and in others continues to the tenth of June...

During this period, the business of the College continues without interruption.4rThe Professors of Humanity, or Latin, and of Greek, lecture and examine theirstudents, receive and correct exercises, three hours every day, and four hours fortwo days every week; the Professors of Logic, Moral Philosophy, and NaturalPhilosophy, two hours every day, and three hours during a part of the session;excepting on Saturdays, when, on account of a general meeting of the publicstudents, there is only one lecture given.42

At any rate in the early z79os , then, it was the normal practice in theteaching of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow for the Professor of that subjectto 'lecture and examine' his students for 'two hours every day, and threehours during a part of the session'.43 The question we must now ask iswhether this was also the normal practice thirty years earlier, during thelast two or three years of Smith's period in Glasgow, and if so how thehours concerned were divided up in his partiollar case.

Curiously enough, it is once again Thomas Reid who provides thecrucial piece of evidence here, in the shape of a letter he wrote to a friend onx4 November z76 4, a month or so after the beginning of the session inwhich he took over the Moral Philosophy Chair from Smith. In this letterhe describes his lecture timetable as follows:

I must launch forth in the morning, so as to be at the College... half an hourafter seven, when I speak for an hour, without interruption, to an audience ofabout a hundred. At eleven I examine for an hour upon my morning prelection;but my audience is little more than a third part of what it was in the morning. Ina week or two, I must, for three days in the week, have a second prelection attwelve, upon a different subject, where my audience will be made up of thcee whohear me in the morning, but do not attend at eleven. My hearers commonlyattend my class two years at least. The first session they attend the morningprelection, and the hour of examination at eleven; the second and subsequentyears they attend the two prelcctions, but not the hour of examination. 44

There is no suggestion in this letter (or, so far as we are aware, anywhereelse) that Reid's accession to the Moral Philosophy Chair was marked by

40Accordingto Reid's account, 'what is called the ctor/csdum,or ordinarycourseofpublic education,comprehendsat presentfive branches---theLatin and Greeklanguages,Logic, Moral Philosophy, and NaturalPhilosophy. These branchesare understood torequirethe studyof fiveseparatesessions.'See The Worksof Thomas Re/d, ed. Sir WiLliamHsm/lton (Edinburgh,x846),73a.

,i In other words there were no terrains1vacations as there are today. There were,however, holidays on a numberof specific days during the session. CL David Murray,MemoriesoftheOldColleseofGlasgow,4_x--a.

42 The Works of ThomasReid, 773-4.4nReid dem:ribesthis as the daily programme'exceptingon Saturdays,when.., there

is only one lectureOven'. Whateverthe situationmay have beenin the x79oe,there is noevidencethat Smith ever lecturedon a Saturdayin x762-3.

.4 The Worksof Thomas Reid, 39-

Introdua,_ _r5any change of practice so far as the lecturing arrangements were concerned;and all the indications are that Smith, at any rate in his last years atGlasgow, had fonowed the same routine: a lecture from 7.3 to 8.3o eachmorning (except Saturday); an 'examination' on this 'morning prelection'from xi a.m. to noon; and in addition, on certain days during a part of thesession, a 'second prelection . . . upon a different subject' from noon toi p.m. Smith's 'morning prelection' at 7.3 was of course his 'public'lecture on Moral Philosophy; the 'examination' at 11 a.m. (at which, as wealready know from Richardson's account/S Smith delivered many 'inci-dental and digressive illustrations') related directly to this 'morning pre-lection'; and his 'second prelection.., upon a different subject' at noonwas his 'private' lecture on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres.

In our attempt to reconstruct Smith's actual lecture timetable in 1762- 3it will be convenient to begin with the Rhetoric course, since its recon-struction involves far fewer difficulties than does that of the Jurisprudencecourse. The first lecture in the Rhetoric notes is headed 'Lecture 2d' anddated Friday, I9 November. From the '2a' in the heading, and from thefact that the argument of this lecture appears to start in midstream, we mayreasonably assume that at some time before 19 November Smith hadalready given a preliminary lecture in the Rhetoric course, which for somereason or other was not reported in this set of notes. Judging from the sub-sequent pattern of lecture-dates, it would seem probable that this pre-liminary lecture was given on Wednesday, 17 November. Starting with thislatter date, then, the timetable of Smith's Rhetoric course in 1762- 3 wouldappear to have been as follows :46

Number of Lecture Date of Lecture[1] [Wednesday, 17 November I762]2 Friday, 19 November 1762

3 Monday, z2 November 17624 Wednesday,24 November I76244_ Friday, 26 November 1762

5 Monday, 29 November 17626 Wednesday, x December 17627 Friday, 3 December 1762

4sAbove,p. xa, note37.asThe 'Numberof Lecture'in the firstcolumnis the ordinalnumberactuallyascribed

to eachlecturebythe reporter,exceptin the caseofthe firstand the lastlecturewherethenumberis conjectural(thisbeingindicatedbyenclosingit in squarebrackets).The 'Dateof Lecture'in the secondcolumnis the date actuallyascribedto each lectureby thereporter,with the datesof the firstand the last lecturebeingenclosedin squarebracketsto indicatetheir conjecturalcharacter.The courseis dividedup on a week-by-weekbasis,witha ruledlinebeinginsertedunderthe last lecturegivenin eachparticularweek.

7The studenthasincorrectlyascribedthe number'4' to twosuccessivelectures.

x6 Introduction

Number of Lecture Date of Lecture8 Monday, 6 December x76248

9 Monday, x3 December z762xo Wednesday, x5 December x762I i Friday, 17 December x762

I2 Monday, 2o December x762x3 Wednesday, 22 December x762x4 Friday, 24 December x762

x5 Monday, 274_December 1762s

I6 Wednesday, 5 January 1763x7 Friday, 7 January x763

x8 Monday, xo January x76319 Wednesday, i2 January 176320 Friday, 14 January x763sx

2x Monday, x7 January i76322 Friday, 2x January x763

23 Monday, 24 January i76324 Wednesday, 26 January i763 s2

25 Monday, 31 January I76326 Friday, 4 February I763

27 Monday, 7 February I763s3

The argument of lecture 9 appears to follow on logically from that of lecture 8. Itwould therefore seem probable that Smith did not lecture on Rhetoric on either theWednesday or the Friday in the week beginning Monday, 6 December.

49 In the MS. '26'---an obvious error.so There is no obvious break in continuity between lecture x5 and lecture i6, which

suggests that Smith did not lecture on Rhetoric during the period between Monday, 27December x76a and Wednesday, 5 January x763. It should be noted, however, that al-though he may not have lectured on Rhetoric during this period, it seems fairly clear fromLJ(A) that he did lecture on Jurisprudence during this period, probably on three occasions.See below, p. I8.

sx From this point onwards, the 'normal' number of lectures given per week in theRhetoric course would seem to have been reduced from three to two, the Wednesdaylecture usually being the one cut out.

s2 In this week, apparently by way of exception, the second Rhetoric lecture was givenon Wednesday rather than on Friday. Apossible reason is that Smith transferred the lecturefrom Friday to Wednesday because the Friday concerned (the last Friday in January) wasa holiday.

sJ The argument of lecture 28 seems to follow on logically from that of lecture 27. Smithlectured on Jurisprudence on Friday, i! February x763, but it seems probable that forsome reason the Rhetoric lecture scheduled for that date was cancelled.

Introduction x7

Number o/Lecture Date o/Lecturez8 Monday, x4 Februaryx76329 Friday, x8 February I763s4

[3o] [Monday, 2x February x763]Smith's Rhetoric course in x762-3, then, started in the third week in

Novembermround about the same time, it would seem, as Reid's course inthe 'different subject' two years laterSS--and probably finished towards theend of February.s6 In so far as a normal pattern is discernible, it wouldseem to be one involving the delivery of three lectures per week up to themiddle of January, and two per week thereafter. This may help to explainthe apparent contradiction between Reid's statement that three lecturesper week were devoted to the 'different subject '57 and Richardson's state-ment that only two were so devoted.sS

Let us turn now to the Jurisprudence course, the timetable for which ismore difficult to reconstruct because the specific lecture-dates noted by thestudent are fewer and farther between, particularly in the first part of thecourse. The difficulties start right at the beginning. The first Jurisprudencelecture is dated Friday, 24 December x762,s9 but no further specificlecture-dates appear until p. 9 of the MS. of the first volume, where anewlecture is dated Thursday, 6 January I763. The problem is to work out(a) how many lectures were given bet_oeen24 December and 6 January;(b) where exactly each of them began and ended; and (c) on which of theavailable lecturing days they were given.

Some assistance can be obtained here from the MS. itself, by trying todetect in it what we may call 'conjectural breaks'--i.e, points at which itseems plausible to assume, from the presence of a conspicuous space, achange of ink or pen, an unusually large number of dashes, a summary ofan earlier argument, or some other indication, that one lecture may haveended and another begun. For example, there would seem to be a 'con-jectural break' of this type round about the middle of p. 9 of the MS.,

s4 The reporter's notes under this date-heading are unusually extensive, and it seemslikely that they in fact summarized the subject-matter of two lectures rather than one. Wemay therefore plausibly conjecture that the last lecture in the Rhetoric course (or, morestrictly speaking, the last lecture in that course which is reported in this set of notes) wasgiven on Monday, zx February x763.

ss In the letter cited on p. x4 above, which is dated x4 November x764, Reid says thatthe course in the 'different subject' is due to commence 'in a week or two'.

s6 We do not know for certain that it finished in February. It is at least possible that itwentonlonger,but that the remaininglectureswerenotreportedin the setofnoteswhichhas come down to us.

sT Above, p. x4.ss William Richardson, op. cit., 5x4.so From October to December Smith will have lectured on Natural Theology and

Ethics. Stewart (III.I) tells us that after the publication of TMS Smith dealt with Ethicsmuch more briefly than before.

z8 Introduction

suggesting that a new lecture began at this point--a lecture delivered, pre-sumably, on Monday, 27 December I762, which was the next availablelecturing day.6

The material in the notes from this first conjectural break to the nextspecific lecture-date (Thursday, 6 January I763, on p. 9 of the MS.)occupies 8x MS. pages. The average length of the notes of later (specifi-cally dated) lectures is roughly x5-I6 MS. pages per lecture. It may thus besurmised that the material on pp. 9-9 of the MS. was derived from a totalof five lectures--a surmise which is supported by the fact that fourplausible conjectural breaks (on pp. 23, 4 , 53, and 68) can be detected inthe MS. between p. 9 and p. 9o. So far as the actual dates of the interven-ing lectures are concerned, we are rather more in the dark. We know thatSmith lectured on Rhetoric on Wednesday, 5 January i763, so we mayperhaps assume that on this date he lectured on Jurisprudence as well. Wealso know that he did not lecture on Rhetoric on Monday, 3 January i763,so we may perhaps assume that on this date he did not lecture on Juris-prudence either, possibly because it was a holiday. We may also assumethat he did not lecture at all on Friday, 31 December x762, which wouldcertainly have been a holiday.6zBut this still leaves us with more availablelecturing days than we have lectures to fit into them, so we must necessarilyfall back up to a point on guesswork.

All these factors being taken into account, the best guesses we canperhaps hazard about the dates of Smith's Jurisprudence lectures fromFriday, z4 December I762 to Thursday, 6 January i763, and about thespecific points in the MS. at which these dates should be inserted, are asfollows :_z

Volume and Page of MS.on whichLecture Begins Date of Lecture

i.x Friday, a4 December x762

[i.9] [Monday, 27 December x762][i.z3] [Tuesday, 28 December x762]0.4 o] [Wednesday,29 December x762]

[i.53] [Tuesday, 4 January x763][i.68] [Wednesday, 5 January x763]i.9o Thursday, 6 January i763

6oSmith lectured on Rhetoric on Monday, z7 December t76a, so we may reasonablyassume that he also lectured on Jurisprudence on that day.

6t Christmas Day and New Year's Day were also holidays, but in t76z-3 they fell onSaturday, when Moral Philosophy lectures were not given anyway.

6_ As before, numbers and dates in square brackets are conjectural; those without squarebrackets are as given by the reporter.

The timetable for the week beginning Monday, 3 January I763 may then be(conjecturally) completed by adding

[i.io4] [Friday, 7 January x763]

We may now proceed on a similar basis (but relegating the 'working' tofootnotes) to reconstruct Smith's lecture timetable for the remainder of theJurisprudence course up to the point where the reporter's notes break off.The result is as follows:

Volume and Page of MS.on which Lecture Begins Date of Lecture

i.II 5 Monday, Io January x763[i.xz9] [Wednesday, xz January x763][i.x43 ] [Thursday, 13 January 1763][i.x46] [Friday, x4 January I763163

ii.x Monday, 17 January x763[ii.I3] [Tuesday, x8 January x763][ii.z6] [Wednesday, 19 January 1763][ii.4x] [Thursday, zo January x763]ii.56 Friday, zx January x763_

[ii.7 x] [Monday, z4 January I763]ii.87 Wednesday, z6 January x7636s

63 The timetable for this week is very conjectural indeed. The only certain date isMonday, io January t763 ; but we do know that Smith lectured on Rhetoric on Wednesday,xz January and Friday, x4 January 1763, and we have therefore assumed that he alsolectured on Jurisprudence on those two days. The main difficulty is that there is not reallyenough material in the MS.--even taking into account the possible implications of themysterious note on p. z45 and the gap of 3 pages in the MS. which follows it--to representthe summaries of a full five days' lecturing. It rather looks as ff either Tuesday's or Thurs-day's lecture was cancelled: we have assumed, at a venture, that it was in fact Tuesday's.P. x46 of the MS. (the point at which we have assumed that the lecture on Friday, x4January z763 began) does seem to mark a real 'break', since at this point Smith embarksupon a summary of 'some of the last leetures'--something which he seems normally tohave done onig at the beginning of a new lecture.

There is a certain element of conjecture in our ascription of the three mid-weekdates to specific points in the MS., but everything fits in and on the whole the ascription

fairly plausible.6s Apart from the certain dates of Wednesday, 26 January I763 and Thursday, 3

February x763, the timetables for this week and the next are very conjectural indeed. Thefirst difficulty is that there are only thirty-one pages of MS. between the beginning of thelecture on Friday, ax January I763 and the beginning of that on Wednesday, z6 Januaryx763--not enough to represent a full three days' lecturing. We have dealt with this byassuming that Smith lectured on Jurisprudence on Monday, 24 January x763 (when weknow that be lectured on Rhetoric), but that for some reason the Jurisprudence lecturescheduled for Tuesday, 25 January x763 was not in fact delivered. The second difficultyis that there are only fifty-seven pages of MS. between the beginning of the lecture onWednesday, 26 January x763 and the beginning of that on Thursday, 3 February I763 -

zo Introduction

Volume and Page of MS.on which Lecture Begins Date of Lecture

[ii.xo5] [Monday, 31 January I763][ii.izi] [Tuesday, x February x763][ii.x3x ] [Wednesday, z February I763]ii.x44 Thursday, 3 February x763

[ii.162] [Friday, 4 February 1763]

iii.x Monday, 7 February x763 e6iii.6 Tuesday, 8 February I763[iii.23] 67 [Wednesday, 9 February x763]iii.48 Thursday, xo February 1763iii.65 Friday, xx February x763

iii.76 Monday, x4 February x763iii.87 Tuesday, x5 February x763iii. I o5 Wednesday, x6 February x76368

[iii. 13I] [Thursday, 17 February I763] _-- [Friday, x8 February x763] J

not nearly enough to represent a full six days' lecturing. There are, it is true, severallongish gaps in this section of the MS. of LJ(A), but a comparison with LJ(B) suggeststhat there was not in fact all that much which the reporter failed to get down. The mostplausible conjectural breaks in these fi/ty-seven pages are on pp. xo5, xzx, and z3I of theMS. If we assume that there were in fact three lectures between Wednesday, z6 Januaryx763 and Thursday, 3 February x763; that one of these was given on Monday, 3x Januaryx763 (when we know that Smith lectured on Rhetoric); and that Friday, 28 January x763was a holiday (as the last Friday in January apparently then was), then the three lecturesmust have been given either on Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday, or on Thursday,Monday, and Wednesday, or on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. In the timetable inthe text we have opted for the third of these alternatives, but we would not claim that it isreally much more plausible than either of the other two.

The small amount of material in the MS. notes relating to this lecture, coupled withthe fact that they appear to end in mid sentence and are followed by a blank page, suggeststhat the student either left the lecture early or for some other reason failed to get notes ofthe rest of it down. A comparison with LJ(B), which at this point contains some passagesof which there is no counterpart in LJ(A), tends to confirm this hypothesis. Cf. below,p. aS, note _o.

67 It is not at all certain that the break in fact came at this point, but all things consideredit seems to be the most likely place.

68 The most likely point of conclusion to the notes of the lecture of Wednesday, x6February 1763, we have assumed, is at the foot of p. x3o of the MS., where several dashesappear. This would make it a very long set of notes for a single lecture, but there is oneother case (Tuesday, z9 March I763) where the report of a dated lecture is of similarlength.

69The report of the lecture which we have dated (conjecturally) Thursday, x7 Februaryx763 is cut off abruptly in mid sentence, at the end of vol. iii of the MS., and the discussionof the acquisition of slaves which is being dealt with is never completed. Nor is there anycounterpart in LJ(A) of the discussion of servants, guardian and ward, and domesticoffences which in LJ(B) follows the treatment of the acquisition of slaves. All the indicationsare that the same order of treatment was in fact followed by Smith in I762-3, but that the

Introduction ex

Volume and Page of MS.on which Lecture Begins Date of Lecture

iv.x Monday, zx February I763iv.x 9 Tuesday, 2z February 1763iv.4x Wednesday, z 3 February 1763iv.6o Thursday, z 4 February 17637

iv.74 Monday, 28 February I763iv.9x Tuesday, x March 1763iv.io 4 Wednesday, 2 March 1763iv.12x Thursday, 3 March 1763iv.i34 Friday, 4 March 1763

iv.i49 Monday, 7 March x763iv.I64 Tuesday, 8 March 1763v.x Wednesday, 9 March I763v.i 5 Thursday, Io March 1763v.31 Friday, Ix March 1763

v.44 Monday, 14 March 1763v.58 Tuesday, x5 March 1763v.7z Wednesday, I6 March I763v.84 [Thursday, 17 March 1763] 7_

v.99 Monday, zx March I763V.lI1 Tuesday, zz March 1763v.Iz 7 Wednesday, z 3 March 1763v.i4o Thursday, z4 March 17637z

student for some reason failed to get, or to write up, any notes of this material. Certainly,at any rate, he took some pains to make room at the end of vol. iii for a substantial quantityof additional notes. The third and fourth leaves of the final gathering in the volume havebeen left blank, and, as already noted above (p. xo), sixteen extra leaves have beeninserted, prol_ably by the binder at the student's request. The final gathering of vol. iiiis numbered xz6, and the first gathering in vol. iv is numbered 129. In the light of all thesecircumstances, it seems reasonable to assume that Smith did in fact lecture on servants,guardian and ward, etc., in _763, and that this lecture was given on Friday, 18 February,when we know that he lectured on Rhetoric. Cf. below, pp. 29-3o, notes 19 and 20.

7" There is no trace of any lecture having been given on Friday, z5 February 1763,which, being the last Friday in February, was in all probability a holiday.

_t In the actual date-heading on p. 84 of the MS., the day of the week appears as 'Friday',and the figure for the day of the month looks like an 'z8' which has been altered to a 'I7'.It appears that the penultimate Friday in March may have been a holiday (see DavidMurray, op. cit., 46z), so we have assumed that the lecture was in fact delivered onThursday, 17 March 1763 .

7z There is no sign of the student's having missed a lecture at this point. Friday'slecture was probably cancelled.

zz Introduction

Volume and Page of MS.on wtdch Lecture Begins Date of Lecture

vi.x Monday, 28 March x763vi.24 Tuesday, 29 March i763vi.5o Wednesday, 3o March I763 _3

vi.63 Tuesday, 5 April x763vi.8x Wednesday, 6 April i763vi.xoI Thursday, 7 April 1763vi.i x7 Friday, 8 April I763

-- [Monday, xI April x76317+vi.i35 Tuesday, x2 April x763vi.t55 Wednesday, t 3 April t763

At the end of vol. vi of the MS., sixteen pages later, the student's reportends, and there is no way of reconstructing Smith's lecture timetable forthe remainder of the Jurisprudence course. It seems reasonable to assume,however, that the pattern which is fairly consistently revealed in the lec-tures up to this point was continued until the course was concluded at ornear the end of the session.

4. TheCoIt ofLy(A)andLy(B)As we have seen,TS LJ(A) owes its origin to Adam Smith's Jurisprudence

course as it was delivered in i76z-3, and LJ(B), in all probability, to thatcourse as it was delivered in i763- 4. The collation of two sets of student'snotes relating to the same course of lectures as it was delivered in twosuccessive sessions would not normally involve any special difficulties. Inthe present case, however, there are certain complications, arising out ofthree features of the documents which we have already noted above.

In the first place, although the difference in the content of the actuallectures (taking them as a whole) may not have been very great as betweenthe two sessions concerned, there was, as we have seen,76 an appreciabledifference in the order in which the main subjects of the lectures were pre-sented. In LJ(A) the order of treatment is property and other rights,domestic law, government, police; whereas in LJ(B) it is government,domestic law, property and other rights, police.

In the second place, there is a difference in the on'_n of the reports._3 There is no trace of any lecture having been given on Thursday, 3t March, Friday, x

April, or Monday, 4 April x763 . Since Easter Day in x763 fell on 3 April, it seems probablethat the Thursday, Friday, and Monday were holidays.

_+ As shown below (p. 3x, note 40, and p. 380, note 53), it seems very likely that quitea large amount of material (relating to a lecture which Smith must have given on this date)was omitted from vol. vi, probably by accident.

7s Above, pp. 7-9. 7e Above, p. 8.

Introduction z3

LJ(A), if our view of it is correct, is a rewritten version of notes of Smith'slectures taken down (probably for the most part in shorthand) by a studentin class, and was intended primarily as a working document for use by thestudent himself. The notes are relatively extensive, and the student hasusually (although not always) taken some care to fill in gaps, correct errors,and add supplementary material. LJ(B), by way of contrast, would seem tobe a fair copy, made by a professional copyist, of a much more summaryreport of Smith's lectures--for the most part owing its origin, one mayperhaps conjecture, to longhand notes taken down in class.77

In the third place, there is a difference in the range of subjects covered inthe reports, which is generally speaking more complete in LJ(B) than inLJ(A). On several occasions the writer of LJ(A), either because he hasmissed a lecture or for some other reason, fails to report Smith's discussionof a particular subject which/s duly reported upon in LJ(B). And, muchmore importantly, LJ(A) as we have seenTSstops short about two-thirds ofthe way through the 'police' section of Smith's lectures, whereas LJ(B)continues right through to the end of the course.

These considerations have largely dictated the particular method ofcollation which we have adopted below. What we have done is to take thesubject-matter of LJ(B) as the starting-point, dividing it up in the firstinstance in accordance with the successive sectional headings supplied byCannan in his edition of LJ(B), and then refining and extending theseheadings in a number of cases where further subdivision makes the task ofcollation easier. The particular pages of the MS. of LJ(B) on which thesetopics are dealt with are noted in the second column; and side by side withthese, in the third column, we have noted the pages of the manuscript ofLJ(A) on which parallel passages dealing with the same topics are to befound. In cases where there seem to us to be significant differences in thetreatment Of a topic as between the two texts, these differences are de-scribed in a note in the 'Notes on the Collation' which appearat the end ofthis section of the Introduction, a reference to the appropriate note beinggiven in the fourth column of the collation itself. In the other cases, wherethere is no qote-reference in the fourth column, it may be assumed that thetwo texts deal with the topic concerned in roughly the same manner--i.e.that even if (as is generally the case) the treatment in LJ(A) is more ex-tensive than it is in LJ(B), both texts broadly speakingmake much the samepoints in much the same order.

On the other hand, the close similarity which is quite often to be observed betweenthe actua/soords used in LJ(B) and in corresponding passages in TMS and WN suggestsa degree of accuracy in the original lecture-notes which might be regarded as inconsistentwith this hypothesis about the origin of LJ(B)--unless, of course, we assume that Smith(or Young) was dictating at the particular points concerned. Another possibility is thatLJ(B) is a copy of a summary (perhaps made for sale) of what was originally a much longerset of notes. "_ Above, p. x3.

z 4 Introduction

TOPICS DISCUSSED Ly(B) L_(A) NOTEINTRODUCTION

I. Of Works on Natural Juris- x- 4 -- (x)prudence

z. Of the Division of the Subject 5-6 i.x- 9 --PART I: OF _USTICE

Introduction 6-z x i.9--25 (2)Divn. I: Of Public .fio'isprudence

x. Of the Original Principles ofGovernment

(a) Utility and Authority x2-x 5 v.xx9--x24& x29-x32

(b) Doctrine of an Original 15_x8 v.ii4_ii 9 (3)Contract & t27-x29

2. Of the Nature of Government andits Progress in the first Ages ofSociety

(a) Forms of Government xS-i 9 iv.x- 3 --(b) Early Progress of Government i9--3o iv.3-55 (4)

3. How Republican Governments 3o-36 iv,55-74 mwere introduced & x09-x xo

4. How Liberty was lost 36-43 iv.74-95 w5- Of Military Monarchy 43-46 iv.95-99

& I04-109 (5)6. How Military Monarchy was 46-49 iv-99-1o4

dissolved & zo9-z x3 (6)7" Of the Allodial Government 49-52 iv.xz3-z248. Of the Feudal System 52-57 iv.i24-i45

& z49--x519. Of the English Parliament 58--59 iv.z45-x48 --

& I51-I57zo. How the Government of England 59-6z iv.z57-z67

became Absolutezz. How Liberty was restored 6z-6 4 iv.z67-z79

& v.x-xz (7)x2. Of the English Courts of Justice 64-75 v.z2-45z3. Of the little Republics in

Europe(a) Origin of these Republics 77-78 v.45-5o --(b) Manner of Voting 78 v.sz-53 --

t4, Of the Rights of Sovereigns 78-86 v.54-86 --z5. Of Citizenship 86-9z v.86-xo2 (8)x6. Of the Rights of Subjects 9z-99 v.zoz-zi4,

zz4-x27,_t_ I3_-I49 (9)

Introduction 25

TOPICS DISCUSSED Ly(B) LJ(A) NO TEDitto. H: Domestic Law

i. Husband and Wife(a) Introduction ioi-Io2 iii.l- 5 --(b) Fidelity and Infidelity xo2-IO 5 -- 0o)(c) Marriage and Divorce IO5-txx iii.6-23 (II)(d) Polygamy xxt-Ix8 iii.23-52 (i2)(e) Property Interests I I8-x2o iii.52-58 03)(f) Prohibited Degrees I2-'123 iii-58-69 04)(g) Illegitimacy i23-i26 iii.69-77

2. Parent and Child 126-13o iii.78-873. Master and Servant

(a) Condition of the Slaves I3o-I33 iii.87-xot 05)(b) Slavery in Different Types of I34-_38 iii.xot-xiI 06)

Society(c) Further Inconveniences of 138-i4o iii.x t I-i x4,

Slavery x26-x 3o,& t34-x4I (t7)

(d) Causes of Abolition of Slavery I40-I42 iii.II4-I26 (18)(e) Acquisition of Slaves I42-145 iii.x41-I47 09)(f) State of Servants i45-146 -- )

4- Guardian and Ward 146-t48 -- ] (20)5" Domestic Offences and their 148Punishments

Divn. Ili: Private Law

x. Occupation x49-I52 i.25-63 (2I)2. Accession I52-I54 i.63-76 (22)3- Prescription i54-155 i.76-9o4. Succession

(a) Legal Succession among the 155-158 i.9o-1o4 (23)Romans

(b) Succession to Movables in 158-i59 i.io4-xl 4 (24)Modern Countries

(c) Succession to Immovables x59-i64 i.I14-x48 (25)(d) Test_nentary Succession 164-i69 i.149-167

& ii.x5. Voluntary Transference I69--I71 ii.x-x 3 (26)6. Of Servitudes x72-173 ii.x3-x 97. Of Pledges and Mortgages x73-174 ii.19-268. Of Exclusive Privileges x74-x75 ii.26--4z (27)9- Of Contract 175-18o ii.4I-84 (28)

xo. Of Quasi-Contract i8o-ISI ii.85-88 (29)xi. Of Delinquency

(a) Foundation of Punishment 181-182 ii.88-94(b) Murder and Homicide x82-189 ii.94-121 (3o)

z6 Introduction

TOPICS DISCUSSED Ly(B) L_A) NO TEI x. Of Delinquency (cont.)

(c) Other Offences against the x89--I92 ii.x2x-x35 (3 I)Person

(d) Injuries to Reputation i92-x94 ii.x35-x44 --(e) Injuries to Estate x94-I99 ii.I44-I6I (32)(f) Expiration of Personal Rights I99-2oo ii.i62-x74(g) General Observations 2oo-2oi ii.i74-xSo

PART II: OF POLICE

Divn. I: Cleanliness and Security 203-205 vi.i- 7

Ditto. 11: Cheapness or Plentyi. Of the Natural Wants of Mankind 205-2o 9 vi.7-i62. That all the Arts are subservient 2O9-2xi vi.i6-2i

to the Natural Wants ofMankind

3. That Opulence arises from the 2xI-2x 3 vi.zt-28 (33)Division of Labour

4- How the Division of Lalmur 223-218 vi.28--43 (34)multiplies the Product

5. What gives Occasion to the 218-222 vi.44-57 (35)Division of Labour

6. That the Division of Labour must 222-223 vi.63-66 (36)be proportioned to the Extentof Commerce

7- What Circumstances regulate thePrice of Commodities

(a) Natural Price of Commodities 223-227 vi.58-6367-69 (37)

(b) Market Price of Commodities 227-220 vi.7o-75(c) Relation between Natural 229-235 vi.75-97 (38)

Price and Market Price8. Of Money as the Measure of

Value and Medium of Exchange(a) Measure of Value 235-237 vi.97-IO 3(b) Medium of Exchange 237-244 vi.I3-I26 (39)

9. That National Opulence does notconsist in Money

(a) Circulation, Banks, and Paper 244-247 vi.x27-I32Money

(b) Further Comments on Banks 248-252 -- (4o)(c) Opulence does not consist in 251-256 vi.x33-x46

Moneyxo. Of Prohibiting the Exportation of 256-:t6o vi.x46--I58 (4 I)Coin

Introduction 27

TOPICS DISCUSSED LJ(B) LJ(A) NOTExI. Of the Balance of Trade 261-266 vi.x58--x68 --x2. Of the Opinion that no Expense at 266-270 vi.i69--x7x (42)

Home can be hurtful

NOTES ON THE COLLATION

(I) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the remarks about works on naturaljurisprudence which are reported on pp. x-4 of LJ(B). One possible explanationof this, of course, is that in x762 Smith did not in fact make any such remarks atthe beginning of his Jurisprudence lectures. Another possible explanation is thathe did do so, but that the student, regarding them merely as a kind of historicalprolegomenon, did not think fit to include them in his report of Smith's lecturesproper. A relevant indication here, perhaps, is that (as we have already seenabove) there appears to be a fairly definite 'conjectural break' half way down p. 9of the MS., which means that the reporter's notes of the lecture concernedoccupy not much more than half the average space occupied by his notes ofsubsequent lectures.

There is another point of interest in this connection. Georg Sacke, in anarticle published in Zeitschrift fiir National_konomie in x939 (Bd. IX, pp. 35I-6), has drawn attention to the fact that the celebrated Russian jurist S. E.Desnitsky, who had been a student at Glasgow University from x76I to x767,gave a lecture at Moscow University on 3 June x768 in which there is a longpassage corresponding almost word for word with Smith's remarks about workson natural jurisprudence as reported on pp. x- 4 of LJ(B). Desnitsky may wellhave been making use either of a set of lecture-notes identical with that fromwhich LJ(B) was copied, or (as appears from his inclusion of some statements,not to be found in LJ(B), about Richard Cumberland, author of a seventeenth-century treatise on natural law) of a very close variant of it.(2) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the last five sentences on p. I i of LJ(B),in which Smith makes the important statement that 'property and civil govern-ment very much depend on one another', and proceeds to consider the two possiblemethods of presenting the subject of Jurisprudence.(3) In LJ(A), these two topics are discussed near the end of the governmentsection, in the context of the problem of the extent of the limits to the power ofthe sovereign. In LJ(B), they are discussed at the beginning of the governmentsection; the order in which they are treated is reversed; and the context in whichthey appear is a much wider one. Another matter which perhaps deserves com-ment is that whereas in LJ(B) there is a fair amount of emphasis on the point that'superior wealth' contributes to 'confer authority', this point is mentioned inLJ(A) only in passing, in a summary of the previous lecture (vol. v, p. i29).(4) Both texts deal with roughly the same points under this heading, but theorder in which they are dealt with is rather different. LJ(A) is generally muchmore extensive in its treatment than LJ(B), and contains many more historicalillustrations of the points made.

e8 Introduction

(5) There is no trace on pp. 95-99 of LJ(A) of the point made on pp. 45-46 ofLJ(B) about the difference between military government in Rome and in Asia.There is, however, an extended discussion of this point at the end of the summaryof the lecture concerned which Smith apparently gave at the beginning of hisnext lecture (see LJ(A), pp. zo7-Io9).(6) The passages on pp. xo9-I 13 of LJ(A) contain certain points of which thereis little or no trace in the corresponding section of LJ(B).(7) The treatment of this topic in LJ(A) is much more extensive than it is inLJ(B). See, for example, the discussion on pp. 167-I 7 of vol. iv of LJ(A) of 'thesituation and circumstances of England', and compare the very brief reference tothis on p. 6z of LJ(B). It is also worth noting, perhaps, that there is no referencein LJ(B) to the dangers to liberty (as distinct from the 'securities'), whereas thedangers are specifically referred to on three occasions in LJ(A). See LJ(A), vol. iv,p. I79, and vol. v, pp. 5 and x2.(8) The two texts make roughly the same points under this head, but they do notalways make them in quite the same order.

(9) In LJ(A), on pp. 114-xz 4 and xz7-I3z, there is a discussion of the doctrine ofan original contract and the principles of utility and authority. As already statedin note (3) above, the corresponding passages in LJ(B) appear at the beginning ofthe government section rather than near the end of it. There is a reference back tothese passages on p. 93 of LJ(B).(io) There is no counterpart in LJ(A) of the passages dealing with fidelity andinfidelity on pp. xo2-Io 5 of LJ(B). The indications (cf. above, p. _o, note 66) arethat the LJ(A) reporter either left the relevant lecture early or for some otherreason failed to get the latter part of it down, so that there is no record in his notesof Smith's discussion of fidelity and infidelity. He would also seem to have missedthe first part of Smith's discussion of the next topic, marriage and divorce,corresponding to pp. Io5-Io6 of LJ(B). A report of a summary by Smith of someof the missing parts (but not of his discussion of fidelity and infidelity) will befound on pp. 6- 7 of vol. iii of LJ(A).(I i) Subject to the qualification in note (io), both texts make roughly the samepoints, but do not always make them in quite the same order. In places, particu-larly round about the middle of the section, it is difficult to keep track of thecorrespondences.

(i2) LJ(A) includes, on pp. 48-52, a report of a summary by Smith of all hisprevious lectures about the different types of marriage. This summary wouldseem to correspond to a passage on pp. 117-I I8 of LJ(B).(I3) Both texts make roughly the same points in roughly the same order, buttowards the end, judging from the gaps in the MS., the LJ(A) reporter had diffi-culty in getting down all the points concerning the differences between the Scotsand the English law. The very short summary in LJ(B) is of little help here.(I4) Both texts make roughly the same points, but they do not always make themin quite the same order. The summing-up on pp. 65-66 of LJ(A) is in effect a

Introduction 2 9

short summary of a/l the preceding lectures on the family. The computationsreported on p. x23 of LJ(B) were apparently not included in the relevant lecturein i762- 3 : see the footnote on p. 64 of LJ(A).(i5) Both texts make roughly the same points in the same order, but there aresome differences. In particular, the Pollio story and the Ovid citations whichappear on pp. 92-93 and Ioo of LJ(A) do not appear in LJ(B) until the followingsection (pp. I35 and x36).(16) Some of the emphases are different as between the two texts. In particular,in LJ(B) the Pollio story (see note (I5) above) is used to illustrate the readiness ofthe monarch to be influenced in the slave's favour rather than (as in LJ(A)) as anillustration of how badly the slaves were treated. See also the penultimatesentence of note (x8) below.(17) There are some quite substantial differences between the two texts here.Both LJ(A) and LJ(B) begin with the same point--that slavery is not only badfor the slave but is also economically disadvantageous. After this, however, thetwo texts begin to diverge. LJ(B) goes on to discuss the case of the colliers andsalters, in order to demonstrate once again that 'slavery is a disadvantage'.LJ(A), by way of contrast, does not bring the colli