Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo

The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...

In the same manner, if you would implant public virtue in the breast of him, who seems heedless of the interest of his coun|try, it will often be to no purpose to tell him, what superior advantages the subjects of a well-governed state enjoy; that they are bet|ter lodged, that they are better cloathed, that they are better fed. These conside|rations will commonly make no great impres|sion. You will be more likely to persuade, if you describe the great system of public po|lice which procures these advantages, if you explain the connections and dependencies of its several parts, their mutual subordination to one another, and their general subservi|ency to the happiness of the society; if you show how this system might be introduced into his own country, what it is that hinders it from taking place there at present, how those obstructions might be removed, and all the several wheels of the machine of govern|ment be made to move with more harmony and smoothness, without grating upon one another, or mutually retarding one another's motions. It is scarce possible that a man should listen to a discourse of this kind, and not feel himself animated to some degree of public spirit. He will, at least for the mo|ment, feel some desire to remove those ob|structions,
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Title
The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...
Author
Smith, Adam, 1723-1790.
Canvas
Page 354
Publication
London :: printed for A. Millar; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh,
1759.

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"The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ..." In the digital collection Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/k111361.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 22, 2025.
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