the infidel and the professor t h e I n f I d e l a n d t h e P r o f e s s o r d a v i d h u m e, a d a m s m i t h, a n d t h e f r i e n d s h i p t h at s h a p e d m o d e r n t h o u g h t d e n n i s c. r a s m u s s e n princeton university press princeton oxford & Copyright © 2017 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu Jacket art: (Left) David Hume, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, (right) Adam Smith, The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection; The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Frontispiece: statues of Hume and Smith. Original photo taken by staff. Scottish National Portrait Gallery All Rights Reserved ISBN 978- 0- 691- 17701- 4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936619 British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Adobe Caslon and The Fell Types The Fell Types are digitally reproduced by Igino Marini. www.iginomarini.com Printed on acid- free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Upon the whole, I have always considered him, both in his lifetime and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man, as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit. — Adam Smith on David Hume* Without doubt you have read what is called the Life of David Hume, written by himself, with the letter from Dr. Adam Smith subjoined to it. Is not this an age of daring effrontery? My friend Mr. [John] Anderson . . . paid me a visit lately; and after we had talked with indignation and contempt of the poisonous productions with which this age is infested, he said there was now an excellent opportunity for Dr. Johnson to step forth. I agreed with him that you might knock Hume’s and Smith’s heads together, and make vain and ostentatious infidelity exceedingly ridiculous. Would it not be worth your while to crush such noxious weeds in the moral garden? — James Boswell to Samuel Johnson** * Adam Smith, Letter from Adam Smith, LL.D. to William Strahan, Esq., in David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Lib- erty Fund, [1777] 1987), xlix. ** James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (London: William Pickering, [1791] 1826), 104–5. contents Illustrations ix Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction Dearest Friends 1 Chapter 1 The Cheerful Skeptic (1711– 1749) 18 Chapter 2 Encountering Hume (1723– 1749) 36 Chapter 3 A Budding Friendship (1750– 1754) 50 Chapter 4 The Historian and the Kirk (1754– 1759) 71 Chapter 5 Theorizing the Moral Sentiments (1759) 86 Chapter 6 Fêted in France (1759– 1766) 113 Chapter 7 Quarrel with a Wild Philosopher (1766– 1767) 133 Chapter 8 Mortally Sick at Sea (1767– 1775) 146 Chapter 9 Inquiring into the Wealth of Nations (1776) 160 Chapter 10 Dialoguing about Natural Religion (1776) 186 vii contents Chapter 11 A Philosopher’s Death (1776) 199 Chapter 12 Ten Times More Abuse (1776– 1777) 215 Epilogue Smith’s Final Years in Edinburgh (1777– 1790) 229 Appendix Hume’s My Own Life and Smith’s Letter from Adam Smith, LL.D. to William Strahan, Esq. 239 Notes on Works Cited 253 Notes 257 Index 309 viii illustrations 2.1 Portrait of Hume by Allan Ramsay (1754) 47 2.2 Portrait medallion of Smith by James Tassie 48 3.1 Painting of Libberton’s Wynd, Edinburgh, by George Cattermole 56 3.2 Painting of the College Garden, Glasgow, by Robert Paul 57 5.1 Hume’s congratulatory letter to Smith on �e �eory of Moral Sentiments 105 6.1 Painting of Hume by Louis Carrogis Carmontelle 122 7.1 Portrait of Hume by Allan Ramsay (1766) 135 7.2 Portrait of Jean- Jacques Rousseau by Allan Ramsay 136 9.1 Etching of Smith by John Kay 184 11.1 Smith’s letter to Alexander Wedderburn on Hume’s failing health and good spirits 211 12.1 Hume’s tomb, designed by Robert Adam 216 13.1 Smith’s grave, designed by Robert Adam 237 ix