Metaphysique de l’Ame: ou Theorie des Sentimens Moraux, Traduit de l’Anglais De M. Adam Smith, Professeur de Philosophie Morale, dans l’Universite de Glasgow. [Theory of Moral Sentiments].

SMITH, Adam.

Item Number: 130640

Paris: Chez Briasson, 1764.

First edition in French of Adam Smith’s first book, the first appearance in text of Smith in the French language. Octavo, 2 volumes, bound in full contemporary calf with gilt titles and tooling to the spine, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges red. In very good condition. Rare. A nice example of this landmark work.

Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, his first book, is "one of the truly outstanding books in the intellectual history of the world" (Amartya Sen). First published in 1759, it laid the foundation for Wealth of Nations and proposed the theory repeated in the later work: that self-seeking men are often "led by an invisible hand… without knowing it, without intending it, to advance the interest of the society." "The fruit of his Glasgow years… Moral Sentiments would be enough to assure the author a respected place among Scottish moral philosophers, and Smith himself ranked it above the Wealth of Nations… Its central idea is the concept, closely related to conscience, of the impartial spectator who helps man to distinguish right from wrong. For the same purpose, Immanuel Kant invented the categorical imperative and Sigmund Freud the superego" (Niehans, 62). Basing moral sentiment on "the power one man has of putting himself in the place of another," in contrast to Hume's idea of self-interest, "Smith was henceforth recognized as one of the first authors of the day" (DNB). With Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations Smith created "not merely a treatise on moral philosophy and a treatise on economics, but a complete moral and political philosophy, in which the two elements of history and theory were to be closely conjoined" (Palgrave III:412-13).