# Essential Words in—and Not in—Adam Smith’s Essential Works **URL:** **By** Caleb Petitt, Daniel B. Klein **Published:** November 5, 2022 --- Caleb Petitt and Daniel Klein explain why Adam Smith chose to use certain words frequently in _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_ but rarely in _The Wealth of Nations_. The word _sympathy_ (and its cognates) appears 290 times in Adam Smith’s _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_ (_TMS_). In a letter to Smith (28 July 1759), David Hume said that the agreeableness of sympathy is “the Hinge” of Smith’s entire moral theory. Yet in Smith’s subsequent and much longer work, _The Wealth of Nations_ (_WN_), the number of times that ‘sympathy’ appears is zero. Consider that: 290 in TMS, 0 in WN. It is impossible not to see that as a conscious, deliberate choice by the author. And it raises the question: Is Smith’s moral hinge absent from WN? Consider the word _sentiment_ (and its cognates). There are 333 appearances in _TMS_. Yet that word appears only twice in _WN_. Likewise, ‘spectator,’ abundant in _TMS_, occurs only twice in _WN_. Chart showing usage of certain terms in Smith’s works *Table 1: Number of occurrences of terms, in _TMS_ and in _WN_ Methods: Read the endnote.1* There is a very clear shift in the language used by Smith in his two great works. Table 1 lists words that are characteristic of _TMS_. Those words speak of the individual’s sentimental endeavor to make sense of her social world and her place in it. They speak of her path upward in wisdom and virtue. In _TMS_, the human being is viewed with inner intricacy. There is an intimacy. That inner intricacy is quite absent in _WN_. When one passes from reading _TMS_ to reading _WN_, one notices a striking shift away from the warm sense of human relations, aspirations, and the inner call to virtue, to a cooler, more distant treatment of social processes and social mechanisms. That the words listed in Table 1 are so little used in _WN_—2.6 times the length of _TMS_—is truly striking. The shift is well-known to Smith scholars, and it speaks to the relationship between _TMS_ and _WN_. The consensus of Smith scholarship today, with which we concur, is that there is just one Adam Smith, even if the two works differ in feeling and perspective. Indeed, a dialectical mixing of perspectives happens within a famous passage of _TMS_, the parable of the poor man’s son, where a “splenetic” perspective is followed by a perspective of “better health and better humour” (_TMS_ 183.9). There’s nothing inconsistent about an author developing differing feelings or perspectives. Perhaps the shift is best understood as involving, first, a change in topics, that is, a change in the issues and affairs treated. With that change comes a second, a change in perspective, that is, a change in how one regards human conduct—a change in the lens used in contemplating social affairs. Finally, those two changes seem to be joined with a deliberate stylistic decision to sustain the shift quite systematically. In _TMS_, Smith develops moral theory in a way that keeps the agreeableness of sympathy the central hinge. In _WN_, Smith develops political economy: he takes the purposes of any given individual at a distance and goes from there. The implicit lessons are that beyond the intimacy of relational knowledge, we cannot much know the deeper springs of the individual’s purposes. Political economy—“the science of a statesman or legislator” (_WN_, 428.1)—cannot hope much to instruct or engineer the deeper springs of those purposes. Compared to voluntary corrective measures and social feedback offered by friends, family, colleagues, and customers, the manipulations of public policy are blunt, like taking a hammer to the intricate workings inside a watch. And, the manipulations of public policy are, as Smith continually reminds us in _WN_, highly subject to greed, folly, and superstition. The only word in Table 1 used more often in _WN_ than in _TMS_ is _charity_. But _WN_ is much longer than _TMS_. To adjust for length, we multiply the term frequencies for _TMS_ by 2.6, as WN is 950 pages in the modern Glasgow edition (OUP/Liberty Fund), and _TMS_ is 366 pages (we include the Language essay as part of _TMS_), and 950/366 is approximately 2.6. The rightmost column in Table 2 shows the ratio, adjusted for length. Chart showing ratio of certain terms in TMS and WN *Table 2: Ratio adjusting for book length* Difference between _TMS_ and _WN_ in word usage is also seen in _TMS_’s heavy use of musical and synchrony metaphors such as _harmony_, _pitch_, _concord_, _discord_, and _keep time with_, yet slight in _WN_. Klein and Clark (2011) provide a count of such terms that dovetails with the tables above. ## Smith’s Unified Discourse Man’s ability to sympathize with others is constrained by knowledge. The more that someone knows about another’s situation the more completely she can enter into the other’s sentiments. People desire sympathy, but for people to be able to enter into a person’s sentiments, that person must lower “his passion to that pitch…which the spectators are capable of going along with” (_TMS_ 22.7). Further, people adjust the pitch of their passions based on how close they are to the spectator. It is harder for strangers to sympathize with one another than for close friends to sympathize with one another. As Smith says, “We expect still less sympathy from an assembly of strangers, and we assume, therefore, still more tranquility before them, and always endeavour to bring down our passion to that pitch, which the particular company we are in may be expected to go along with” (_TMS_ 23.9). The account of sympathy that Smith gives in _TMS_ should prepare the reader to expect works like _WN_ to take people’s purposes as we seem to find them, and as they themselves frankly present them in transactions. We do not appeal to benevolence to get our dinner from the butcher, baker, or brewer. However, we can expect a ride to the airport from a friend or family member by appealing to their benevolence. The difference in how appeals are made is not the result of a schizophrenic understanding of human nature, but rather knowledge that different sentiments prevail depending on the nature of a given relationship. J.R. Clark and Dwight Lee (2017) discuss what they call the amiable morality of _TMS_ as opposed to the mundane morality of _WN_. Smith saw _WN_ as an extension of _TMS_. In the final paragraph of _TMS_, Smith announces that he “shall in another discourse endeavour to give an account of the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions of society, not only in that which concerns justice, but in what concerns police, revenue, and arms, and whatever else is the object of law” (_TMS_ 342.37). In the 1790 preface to _TMS_, Smith confirms that he thought of WN as completing his promise to give an account for what concerns policy, revenue, and arms. The connection between _TMS_ and _WN_ can be understood in terms of Smith’s four sources of moral approval. When we consider the action by some fellow, call him Jim, we consider four sorts of viewpoints. The first three are more micro in nature: (1) sympathy/antipathy with Jim’s motives and intentions, (2) gratitude/resentment with those whom Jim acts upon, and (3) the alignment of Jim’s conduct with established rules and expectations for interaction between Jim and such others. But the final source throws things wide open, to macro ramifications: (4) The “taste for beauty and order which is excited by inanimate as well as animated objects” (_TMS_ 327.16). The taste for beauty and order excited by objects is a large part of what Smith is trying to develop in the readers of _WN_. _WN_ continues to instruct us in virtue. The chief action that Smith is trying to improve is the readers’ estimation of ideas and judgments in economics and political economy. Those objects of estimation are social processes involving many people about whom we know very little. But the program remains one of virtue—a program in estimating objects properly. > The taste for beauty and order excited by objects is a large part of what Smith is trying to develop in the readers of _WN_. In the opening passages of _WN_, Smith appeals to the taste for beauty and order in the division of labor in the pin factory. Smith then extends the appreciation to activities “from the remotest corners of the world!” (_WN_ 23.11) that make the woolen coat. Our appreciation of that immense concatenation lacks the visible scene of a factory floor. People participating in the immensity can be thought of communicating and cooperating with one another only metaphorically. Each person’s inner moral springs are unknown to us analysts and almost all of those who take part in the immense concatenation. The full title of _TMS_ presents the book as focused on the principles by which men judge their neighbors and themselves: “_The Theory of Moral Sentiments, or An Essay towards an Analysis of the Principles by which Men naturally judge concerning the Conduct and Character, first of their Neighbours, and afterwards of themselves_.” There is more about politics than that full title suggests, and some of it may be between the lines. But for the most part the reader of _TMS_ is left to wonder how citizens should judge the rules laid down by rulers. In _WN_ Smith treats the principles by which men can judge the character and conduct of governors. ## _WN_’s Rare ‘Spectators’ and ‘Sentiments’ Smith uses ‘spectator’ only twice in _WN_: in the second paragraph of the first chapter, and in the third-to-last paragraph of the entire book. The ‘spectator’ bookending of _WN_ is plainly deliberate. The first ‘spectator’ is in the pin factory: “those employed in every different branch of the work can often be collected into the same workhouse, and under the view of the spectator” (_WN_ 15.2). The second comes while Smith addresses how people get caught up in faction. Those of distant provinces are less likely to get caught up in the factional ambitions that run rampant within the heart of the empire. The distances “makes them enter less into the views of any of the contending parties, and renders them more indifferent and impartial spectators of the conduct of all” (_WN_ 945.90). As for _WN_’s two uses of ‘sentiment,’ one returns to the scene of division of labor on the factory floor. Smith portrays the moral effects of narrow specialization. He describes the man who is employed in a simple, monotonous task as becoming not only dull and ignorant, but incapable of “conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment” (_WN_ 782.50). Smith does not present his readers with a one-sided view of the effects of industrial life, but instead provides a balanced presentation, and uses the term _sentiment_ to draw attention to the various moral effects of market activity. WN’s other use of ‘sentiment’ comes in Smith’s analysis of teachers who earn a significant part of their salaries through fees from their students. Some teachers, he says, are concerned for their reputation, which depends on “the affection, gratitude, and favorable report of those who have attended his instructions; and these favourable sentiments he is likely to gain in no way so well as by deserving them” (_WN_ 760.6). Here Smith highlights how market activity can move people toward virtue. > The language shift is all part of a larger, coherent, unified attempt to improve people’s judgments. The dramatic difference in the language used by Smith in his two books does not reflect a change in Smith over time. The last great achievement of Smith’s life was revising and expanding _TMS_, enhancing its inner richness. The additions in 1790 included “Of Universal Benevolence,” in which Smith squares duty to universal benevolence with attention to life’s focal matters, as effectiveness in acting beneficially to the whole depends on knowledge, and your focal matters are part of the whole (Matson provides more on Smith, universal benevolence, and focalism in Chapter 4). The language shift is all part of a larger, coherent, unified attempt to improve people’s judgments. Smith does not treat the intricacies of the souls of the actors in _WN_. _WN_ treats social forces in a de-personalized language. It uses generalizations such as labour, price, rent, speculation, capital, and profit. It speaks of markets in land, wool, corn, and pots and pans. So, don’t leave _TMS_ behind when reading _WN_. Intricate souls the actors in _WN_ surely are. What, after all, is the inner substance of the wealth of nations? In _WN_, Smith describes the true meaning of the wealth of nations: > \[I\]f the quantity of victuals were to increase, the number of pots and pans would readily increase along with it… \[T\]he quantity of plate is regulated by the number and wealth of those private families who chuse to indulge themselves in that sort of magnificence: increase the number and wealth of such families, and a part of this increased wealth will most probably be employed in purchasing, wherever it is to be found, an additional quantity of plate: that to attempt to increase the wealth of any country, either by introducing or by detaining in it an unnecessary quantity of gold and silver, is as absurd as it would be to attempt to increase the good cheer of private families, by obliging them to keep an unnecessary number of kitchen utensils. (439-40.19) 1\. HTML copies of _WN_ and _TMS_ on the Liberty Fund website were searched for the word counts. Search results for _TMS_ include results from the Essay on Languages. The Root Searched column shows the text searched for. Searching for the roots helped capture different variations of a word in a single search, such as sympathy and sympathize from “sympath”. The _TMS_ and _WN_ column exclude any results from the editor’s introduction or the editor’s footnotes. ‘Virtually’ was excluded from search results coming from “virtu,” and ‘jurisprudence’ was removed from “pruden”. An Excel file of the data is available upon request. ## Endnotes Clark, J. R., and Dwight R. Lee. 2017. Econ 101 Morality: The Amiable, the Mundane, and the Market. _Econ Journal Watch_ 14(1): 61-76. Klein, Daniel B., and Michael J. Clark. (2011). The Music of Social Intercourse: Synchrony in Adam Smith. _The Independent Review_ 15(3), 413–420. Smith, Adam. 1982 \[1776\]. _An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_, eds. R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner. 2 vols. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Smith, Adam. 1982 \[1759\]. _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_, eds. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.