SMITH, ADAM (1723-90). An eminent politi cal economist. He is regarded as the founder of political economy as a separate branch of human knowledge. He was born at. Kirkcaldy, in Fife shire, Scotland. He studied at the University of Glasgow and won there an exhibition on the Such foundation, which took him to Balliol College, Oxford. where he remained seven years, after which he retired for a time to his old home at Kirkcaldy. In 1748 he was in Edin burgh, where, at the suggestion of Lord Karnes, he delivered a course of lectures upon rhetoric and belles-lettres. These seem to have given him a reputation as a scholar and to have introduced him to a circle of learned and accomplished men, of whom the most famous was David Hume. The friendship thus begun was an important one for Smith, who remained on terms of friendly inti macy with Hume during his life. In 1751 Smith was appointed professor of logic at the Univer sity of Glasgow, and a year afterwards was trans ferred to the chair of moral philosophy.
In 1759 be published his first work, The The m.y of Moral Sentiments, which still holds an honorable place in the history of ethics. In 1763 he became tutor to the young Duke of Buccieneh and accompanied the latter upon his travels in France. He spent a year or more in Paris. and became acquainted with the more important men of letters of France. lie was particularly at tracted by the group who termed themselves Economistes and who are better known as Physio crats. Quesnay, the leader of the school, and
several of his more noted followers, were in the circle of Smith's acquaintance. Through them he became thoroughly familiar with the theories of the Physiocrats. which exercised a great in fluence upon him. In 1766 he returned to Kirk ealdy. Ile was now engaged in the preparation of his great work, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. which first appeared in 1776. The work made a great im pression. Five editions were printed during the life-time of the author, and before the close of the century it had been translated into the prin cipal European languages. (For its place in economic thought, see POLITICAL ECONOMY.) In 1778 Smith was appointed a Commissioner of Customs for Scotland. and he took up his official residence in Edinburgh. In 1787 be was elected Lord Recto• of the University of Glasgow. He died in Edinburgh, July 17, 1790.
Consult "Sketch of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith." in Treatises and Es says on Money 'Edinburgh, 1859). A scholarly and exhaustive biography, The Life of Adam Smith (London. 1895). was published by .John Rae. See also Haldane. Life of Smith (London, 1887) Pria, Economic Science and Practice (London, 1896).