Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo

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

The digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for the great purposes of animal life. Yet we never endeavour to account for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord, and with a view or intention to the pur|poses of circulation or digestion. The wheels of the watch are all admirably ad|justed to the end for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their vari|ous motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they were endow|ed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not do it better. Yet we ne|ver ascribe any such desire or intention to them, but to the watch-maker, and we know that they are put into motion by a spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But tho', in account|ing for the operations of bodies, we never fail to distinguish in this manner the effi|cient from the final cause, in accounting for those of the mind we are very apt to confound these two different things with
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Title
The theory of moral sentiments: By Adam Smith, ...
Author
Smith, Adam, 1723-1790.
Canvas
Page 192
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 12, 2025.
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