- Title Pages
- Illustration
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Plates
- References and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Kirkcaldy
- 2 Boyhood
- 3 Glasgow
- 4 The Never to Be Forgotten Hutcheson
- 5 Oxford
- 6 A Respectable Auditory
- 7 Lectures on the History of Philosophy and Law
- 8 Called to Glasgow University
- 9 Teacher
- 10 Publishing Scholar and Administrator
- 11 The Making of The Theory of Moral Sentiments
- 12 Criticism of The Theory of Moral Sentiments
- 13 Travelling Tutor
- 14 Inquirer into the Wealth of Nations
- 15 The American Crisis and The Wealth of Nations
- 16 Euge! Belle! Dear Mr Smith
- 17 Dialogue With a Dying Man
- 18 Settlement in Edinburgh
- 19 Economic Theorist as Commissioner of Customs
- 20 Literary Pursuits
- 21 Times of Hardship and Distress
- 22 Legacy for Legislators
- 23 The Precariousness of This Life
- 24 The Great Change
- Bibliography
- Index
Boyhood
Boyhood
- Chapter:
- (p.17) 2 Boyhood
- Source:
- The Life of Adam Smith
- Author(s):
Ian Simpson Ross
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
The emotional strength of his mother, Margaret Douglas, and close kinship bonds, to some degree, compensated Adam Smith for the loss of his father. In addition, he was well prepared at the Kirkcaldy burgh school for his student years, and found his vocation as a moral philosopher, in an era marked by a strong drive for advance in agriculture and other economic sectors.
Most important of all, his Presbyterian inheritance, together with training in the Latin and Greek classics, instilled in him the values of self‐command of a Stoic cast, frugality, diligence in his calling, and strict justice towards others tempered with benevolence, which characterized his actions and his teaching. At the same time, he seemed to have developed an independence of mind, which led him to rebel against the strict controls of Calvinism meant to check human depravity, and to set store by human goodness, and the will to enjoy natural liberty.
Keywords: agriculture, Calvinism, mother, self‐command, Stoic
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- Title Pages
- Illustration
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- List of Plates
- References and Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Kirkcaldy
- 2 Boyhood
- 3 Glasgow
- 4 The Never to Be Forgotten Hutcheson
- 5 Oxford
- 6 A Respectable Auditory
- 7 Lectures on the History of Philosophy and Law
- 8 Called to Glasgow University
- 9 Teacher
- 10 Publishing Scholar and Administrator
- 11 The Making of The Theory of Moral Sentiments
- 12 Criticism of The Theory of Moral Sentiments
- 13 Travelling Tutor
- 14 Inquirer into the Wealth of Nations
- 15 The American Crisis and The Wealth of Nations
- 16 Euge! Belle! Dear Mr Smith
- 17 Dialogue With a Dying Man
- 18 Settlement in Edinburgh
- 19 Economic Theorist as Commissioner of Customs
- 20 Literary Pursuits
- 21 Times of Hardship and Distress
- 22 Legacy for Legislators
- 23 The Precariousness of This Life
- 24 The Great Change
- Bibliography
- Index
