[659] Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. pp. 172–174.
[660] ‘Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity of a man. The fair sex, who have commonly much more tenderness than ours, have seldom so much generosity.’ Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 19. Sufficient facts have not yet been collected to enable us to test the truth of this remark, and the loose experience of individual observers is worth very little on so wide a subject. Still, I venture to doubt the truth of Adam Smith's distinction. I suspect that women are, on the whole, more generous than men, as well as more tender. But to establish a proposition of this sort, would require the most extensive research, made by a careful and analytic mind; and, at present, there is not even any tolerably good work on the mental characteristics which distinguish the sexes, and there never will be one until physiology is united with biography.
[661] Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp. 115–122.
[662] ‘Sympathy, therefore, does not arise so much from the view of the passion, as from that of the situation which excites it.’ Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 6.
[663] ‘What is called affection, is, in reality, nothing but habitual sympathy.’ Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 63. ‘In some tragedies and romances, we meet with many beautiful and interesting scenes, founded upon what is called the force of blood, or upon the wonderful affection which near relations are supposed to conceive for one another, even before they know that they have any such connection. This force of blood, however, I am afraid, exists nowhere but in tragedies and romances.’ p. 66.
[664] ‘Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish principle.’ Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. p. 206. In vol. i. p. 9, he complains of ‘those who are fond of deducing all our sentiments from certain refinements of self-love.’
[665] This is noticed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose sketch of Adam Smith is hasty, and somewhat superficial, but who, nevertheless, truly observes, that Smith ‘has exposed himself to objections founded on experience, to which it is impossible to attempt any answer.’ Mackintosh's Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, pp. 239, 240. See also a letter from Hume to Adam Smith, in Burton's Life and Correspondence of Hume, vol. ii. p. 60.
[666] ‘Mr. Smith's political lectures, comprehending the fundamental principles of his “Inquiry,” were delivered at Glasgow as early as the year 1752 or 1753.’ Dugald Stewart's Life of Adam Smith, p. lxxviii., prefixed to Smith's Posthumous Essays, London, 4to, 1795.
[667] History of Civilization, vol. i. p. 214.
[668] ‘Perhaps the only book which produced an immediate, general, and irrevocable change in some of the most important parts of the legislation of all civilized states.’ Mackintosh's Ethical Philosophy, p. 232. But this is too strongly expressed, as the economical history of France and Germany decisively proves.