prior probability

My previous posts assembled, surveyed, and subjected to lawyerly scrutiny the three different versions of “The Adam Smith-David Hume Incident at Oxford” that appear in the historical record — the 1797 version of this storied anecdote attributed to Sir John Leslie (see here), the 1853 version authored by John Ramsay McCulloch (here), and the 1855 version reported by Dr John Strang (here).

Here, I will add a short postscript to my researches: is there any reference to the Smith-Hume incident in the records of Oxford University itself? Considering that all three versions of this anecdote agree that the young Adam Smith was “severely reprimanded” and that his copy of Hume’s works were confiscated, there should be some mention of this affair in the records of Balliol College, where this incident supposedly occurred. By way of example, see the meticulous set of itemized entries in the “Bursars’ Computi” or financial accounts of Balliol College for the 1734-35 academic year, which are reproduced in Beachcroft 1982, Table 2 (see Note 1 below the fold) and which span nine pages.

To this end, I read two book-length and well-researched histories of this storied institution: one by an emeritus fellow of Balliol College (Jones 1988); the other by an editor of the Dictionary of National Biography (Davis 1899), the precursor of today’s Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. (See also note 1 below the fold.) Although both of these tomes refer to Adam Smith and to his time at Balliol College (see, e.g., Davis 1963 [1899], pp. 154-155; Jones 1988, pp. 164, 261), but the Smith-Hume incident is mentioned in passing in one of these books (Davis 1963 [1899], p. 155) and is not mentioned at all in the other (Jones 1988).

In summary, the one Oxford Univeristy historian to mention the anecdote is Henry William Carless Davis, who asserts that the young Adam Smith “was one of the unpopular Snell Exhibitioners [at Balliol College], and never appears to have mingled much in undergraduate society.” (See Davis 1963 [1899], p. 154.) In addition to being an unpopular introvert who kept to himself (if Davis is to be believed), the future economist also “had the misfortune to be caught in the act” of reading one of the works of David Hume. In Davis’s words:

“And Smith, moreover, had the misfortune to be caught in the act of reading Hume’s Treatise; the fact, we may be sure, did not increase the goodwill of his tutor.”

Davis 1963 [1899], p. 155

Alas, where have we seen such an uncorroborated statement before? Like Sir John Leslie’s 1797 version of the anecdote, John Ramsay McCulloch’s 1853 version, and Dr John Strang’s 1855 version, no evidence or other source is offered in support of this hearsay statement in Professor Davis’s 1899 history of Balliol College. In fact, to this day we still don’t know the identity of Smith’s tutor during his Oxford years, let alone the identities of the actual superiors who supposedly confiscated Hume’s works from Smith’s dorm room and reprimanded him for reading those works.

In closing, I will bring this series of blog posts to an end by posing a new set of questions for future research. Specifically, how common was it for chaplains, tutors, or college masters to search the rooms of their students at Oxford during the mid-17th century, and what formal or informal procedures were in place at that time whenever forbidden books or other contraband materials were found within the walls of the university? I shall consider this new set of questions in a future blog post.

Alternative Title: The Anecdote (Part 3 of 3)

Nineteenth century Scottish author, historian, and statistician John Strang surveys the founding and subsequent history of two of Glasgow’s most illustrious private societies in chapter 1 of his most important work Glasgow and It Clubs, which is available here and the cover of the 3rd edition of which is pictured below. One is the legendary Literary Society, which met on Friday evenings at the University of Glasgow when classes were in session; the other is the storied Anderston Club, which met on Saturday afternoons in the friendly confines of John Sharpe’s tavern on the north bank of the River Clyde.

As it happens, Adam Smith was a member of both clubs, and by all accounts he attended their meetings on a regular basis during the 1750s and early 1760s, when he was the Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University. For his part, Dr Strang drops this bombshell about the Anderston Club toward the end of the chapter:

“And then, to crown all, the author of the “Wealth of Nations” might be there heard telling, as he was often wont, of his experiences at Oxford, where he was deterred from adopting the clerical profession, in consequence of the unceremonious manner in which he was treated by the superiors of Baliol [sic], when they discovered him studying one of the early lucubrations of Hume.”

Strang 1855, pp. 27-28

Is this testimony the proverbial “smoking gun” that both Ross (1995) and Rae (1895) believe it to be? No, it is not. For the three reasons I provide below, Strang’s version of “The Anecdote” is built on a shaky foundation, the equivalent of evidentiary quicksand.

For starters, Strang’s purported smoking gun story was published over 100 years after the fact! Strang was not even alive during Adam Smith’s lifetime — he was born in 1795; five years after economist-philosopher’s death — so he himself has no personal knowledge of The Anecdote. Secondly, what is the actual source of Strang’s hearsay testimony? Alas, Strang fails to produce a single witness, someone with first-hand knowledge of this story. Not only does Strang fail to identify even one actual witness; he also fails to cite any secondary sources in support of his story, a glaring omission in what is an otherwise well-researched book.

But most importantly, why is there no contemporaneous corroboration of Strang’s story? Assume Strang’s story is true. If so — if it was really Adam Smith himself who used to tell this fable during his Glasgow professor years — then why does no other first-hand account or even second-hand report of The Anecdote appear anywhere in the historical record until 1797, more than 50 years after this storied incident was supposed to have actually occurred? As we Bayesians like to say, “the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.” Strang’s story, like Sir John Leslie’s and John Ramsay McCulloch’s, falls apart like a house of cards as soon as it is subjected to closer scrutiny.

Alternative Title: The Anecdote (Part 2 of 3)

According to one of Adam Smith’s biographers (John Rae 1895, p. 24): “A story has come down … to the effect that [the young Adam Smith] was one day detected [by his superiors at Balliol College, Oxford] reading Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature … and was punished by a severe reprimand and the confiscation of the evil book.” Is this story true, though?

My previous post (see here) traced the origins of this oft-repeated Smithian anecdote to three historical sources: an anonymous essay published in the January 1797 issue of The Monthly Review; an 1853 biography of Smith by Scottish economist John Ramsay McCulloch (1789–1864), and an 1855 history of “Glasgow and Its Clubs” by Scottish author John Strang (1795–1863). In addition, I also concluded that these various versions of “The Anecdote” are based on pure hearsay and should therefore be discounted as uncorroborated and far-fetched fabrications, but one reputable Adam Smith scholar (Ian Simpson Ross 2010, p. 71) claims that we can believe the 1797 version of this story because it was published in a reputable journal (The Monthly Review) by a reputable source with direct knowledge of The Anecdote (the mathematician John Leslie, who is pictured below)!

In the words of Ian Simpson Ross (2010, p. 71): “We can believe this story, since it is included in a review of EPS [i.e. Adam Smith’s posthumous Essays on Philosophical Subjects] in the Monthly Review, 1797 (Mizuta, 2000: v.2) [i.e. Volume 2 of Hiroshi Mizuta’s six-volume collection of reviews of Adam Smith’s works, published by Routledge in 2000], written by the mathematician and natural philosopher, John Leslie (identified in Nangle, 1955).” Note: The reference to “Nangle, 1955” is to the master index of Monthly Review contributors and articles compiled by Benjamin Christie Nangle and published by the Clarendon Press in 1955. Simpson Ross (2010, p. 71) further claims a direct connection between John Leslie and Adam Smith: “Smith had befriended Leslie in 1787-8 (Morrell, ODNB, 2004) [i.e. Jack Morrell’s entry for “Leslie, Sir John” in the 2004 edition of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography], and employed him to teach his heir, David Douglas (Corr. No. 275) [i.e. Letter #275 in The Correspondence of Adam Smith].”

The mathematician John Leslie is indeed identified as the author of The Anecdote in Nangle’s 1955 index (see Nangle 1955, p. 204), and furthermore, Leslie did know Adam Smith personally for many years. We know about this direct connection between the political economist (Smith) and the mathematician (Leslie) because Smith himself once wrote a letter of introduction on behalf of John Leslie in 1787, and in this letter Smith acknowledges that Leslie “has been known to me for several years past” and that “more than two years ago” (i.e. 1784 or 1785) Leslie had been a tutor to Smith’s “nearest relation” (namely, to Smith’s nephew and heir David Douglas). (See The Correspondence of Adam Smith, Letter #275, which is addressed to Sir Joseph Banks in Edinburgh and is dated 18 December 1787. Smith further adds that Leslie the tutor “acquitted himself most perfectly both to my satisfaction and to the young Gentleman.” Ibid.)

It is therefore possible that Adam Smith recounted The Anecdote to John Leslie sometime in the 1780s, but if so, then why does John Leslie’s version of The Anecdote (assuming that Leslie is, in fact, its author) begin with the words “We have heard …” Why not identify Smith himself as the source? Also, even if these conjectures were true — i.e. that Smith told The Anecdote to Leslie in the 1780s and that Leslie then included it in his review of Smith’s posthumous essays — why did Smith wait over 40 years to tell his story, and why did Smith tell it to Leslie of all people? Did Smith share The Anecdote with anyone else, and did he do so earlier than the 1780s? I shall address these questions and wrap up this series in my next post.

Alternative Title: The Anecdote (Part 1 of 3)

Although I have surveyed Adam Smith’s “Oxford years” in three separate posts this month (see post #1 here, #2 here, and #3 here), I have left out what is perhaps the most intriguing anecdote involving Adam Smith at Oxford, an incident that allegedly occurred in his private quarters when he was a Snell scholar at Balliol College. (Shout out to Peter Clark bringing this incident to my attention.) According to lore, someone at Oxford — it’s unclear who: either one or more of the fellows or chaplains at Balliol or perhaps even the master of the college — “severely reprimanded” the young Adam Smith for daring to read David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, and they confiscated Smith’s copy of Hume’s works to boot!

But did this alleged affair really happen? Although this formative incident of Smith’s youth is recounted in just about every sketch of the political economist’s life and work (one notable exception, however, being Dugald Stewart’s biography of Adam Smith), I did some further digging and discovered that there are at least two — and possibly as many as three — different versions of The Anecdote! (Note: I shall hereafter refer to the various reports of this alleged incident as “The Anecdote“.) The earliest version was published in 1797 — more than 50 years after Smith had left Oxford — and is cited by Ian Simpson Ross (see Ross 2010, p. 71), Nicholas Phillipson (see Phillipson 2010, p. 65 & p. 292 n.28), and Dennis Rasmussen (2017, pp. 39-40 & p. 266 n.19), while another version was published another 50 years later in the 1850s and is also cited by Ian Simpson Ross (see Ross 2007, p. 347 & p. 347 n.4) as well as by John Rae (see Rae 1895, p. 24). The third version was not published until 1855 (see Strang 1855, pp. 27-28) and is cited by both Ross (1995) and Rae (1895).

Although all these various versions of The Anecdote are similar, there are two subtle but salient differences. In one version of this story Smith is caught red-handed by his “superiors” in the actual act of reading Hume’s work; in the other version, by contrast, a copy of one of Hume’s works is found lying around somewhere in Smith’s rooms by a group of “reverend inquisitors”. Here, for example, is Story #1 of The Anecdote — the less dramatic version of events — which first appeared in press on page 60 of Volume 22 of the January 1797 issue of The Monthly Review (see screenshots below):

“We have heard that the heads of the college thought proper to visit his chamber, and finding Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature, then recently published, the reverend inquisitors seized that heretical book, and severely reprimanded the young philosopher.”

Next, here is Story #2, which first appeared on pages 445-446 of the first edition (1853) of Treatises and Essays on Subjects connected with Economic Policy with Biographical Sketches of Quesnay, Adam Smith & Ricardo by John Ramsay McCulloch (born 1789, died 1864) and also on pages 511-512 of the “enlarged and improved” second edition of this work:

“Something had occurred, while Smith was at Oxford, to excite the suspicions of his superiors with respect to the nature of his private pursuits; and the heads of his college, having entered his apartment without his being aware, unluckily found him engaged reading Hume’s “Treatise of Human Nature.” The objectionable work was, of course, seized; the young philosopher being at the same time severely reprimanded.”

At the end of the last sentence of Story #2, the author also drops a footnote to explain why this report is most likely true, even though The Anecdote does not appear in any edition of Dugald Stewart’s widely-read biography of Adam Smith and even though Stewart knew Smith personally: “Mr Stewart has not mentioned this circumstance, but it rests on the best authority.” (As an aside, both the 1853 and 1859 editions of McCulloch’s book were published in Edinburgh by Adam and Charles Black, and The Anecdote appears the same word-for-word in both editions.)

I will return to Story #3 later. In the meantime, it suffices to say that all three versions of The Anecdote are based on pure hearsay. Story #1 begins with the words, “We have heard …” The anonymous author of the story, however, does not bother to tell us from whom he has heard this story, so we have no way of judging the credibility of his source. Worse yet, the credibility of Story #2 is ever more dubious: it is told in the passive voice, and we are simply informed in a footnote that this second story is true “on the best authority” yet that authority or source is never specified. Furthermore, there is no reference to this incident in Smith’s surviving correspondence, and neither version of The Anecdote was published during Smith’s lifetime. In fact, the first version of The Anecdote was not published until half a century after this alleged affair was supposed to have occurred!

Nevertheless, most of Smith’s biographers — some of the most eminent and learned scholars in the world — continue to believe in the veracity of this incredible tale for at least two reasons. One is that the anonymous author of the 1797 version of The Anecdote was later revealed to be John Leslie, who did know Adam Smith personally. The other reason is a supposed “smoking gun” piece of evidence — Story #3! — in the form of an 1855 book by Dr John Strang titled Glasgow and Its Clubs. According to Strang’s story, it was none other than Adam Smith himself who used to tell The Anecdote among the company of friends at the private clubs of Glasgow, presumably during his professor years at the University of Glasgow (1751 to 1763)! I shall address the first of these points (the Leslie connection) in my next post in this series.

That is the volume number of the new issue of The Adam Smith Review, which is now available (see here). I was invited to contribute a book review to this volume — “Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life” by Ryan Patrick Hanley. Via SSRN, here is an ungated version of my review of Hanley’s book, along with my review of “Law and the Invisible Hand: A Theory of Adam Smith’s Jurisprudence” by my colleague and friend Robin Paul Malloy: “Do Grasshoppers Dream of Impartial Spectators?“

I love this 2010 remix by Plan B featuring Tony Dize, Zion, and Lennox!

As of this writing, the U.S. Congress and many State legislatures are currently debating whether to ban the popular social media app TikTok–not just from government-issued devices, but outright! But did you know that access to TikTok is already being blocked at such major research universities like the University of Texas (since January of this year; see here) and at all the public universities in the “Free State” of Florida, including my home institution the University of Central Florida. (The Florida Board of Governors, which is responsible for the management of the public universities in the state, enacted Emergency Regulation 3.0075 on data security at the end of March, and now all persons are prohibited from using public university Wi-Fi networks in Florida to access TikTok; see, for example, this report in The Gainesville Sun.) Although I can appreciate the data privacy and national security hysteria that is ostensibly motivating these drastic anti-TikTok actions, to my classical liberal mind these draconian measures not only constitute an unlawful abridgement of speech rights; they smack of pure sinophobia and moral panic.

Note: this post is part 2 of my series: “Why did Adam Smith ditch Oxford in 1746?“

My previous post (here) identified three classmates of Adam Smith who were elected Snell scholars, along with Smith himself, during the future economist’s first three years at the University of Glasgow (1737 to 1740). One was Stewart Douglas, who was awarded a Snell Exhibition in the fall of 1738 and later became a distinguished officer in the British Army. Another Glasgow classmate was Andrew Wood, who was also elected a Snell scholar on the same day as Douglas: 25 October 1738. (Although Stewart Douglas does not appear to have set foot in Oxford, Andrew Wood used up the full 11-year term of his Snell Exhibition, and after he completed his Oxford studies, Wood took Holy Orders in the Church of England and was later appointed Chaplain to the King in 1760.) The third Glasgow classmate was Charles Suttie, who won his Snell scholarship on the same day as Adam Smith: 4 March 1740. Although we do not know what became of Suttie, we do know that he vacated his Snell Exhibition after just five years—a full year before Smith vacated his!

Today, I will identify several other Snell scholars who Smith may have met and befriended during his seven years at Oxford (July 1740 to August 1746). One was James Stuart Menteath (c1718–1802). Menteath was awarded his Snell Exhibition on 25 November 1735 and matriculated at Balliol College on 9 April 1736. (See Addison 1901, pp. 41-42.) As a result, Smith and Menteath did not attend the University of Glasgow at the same time. (Menteath left Glasgow in 1736, while Smith began his studies there in 1737.) Nevertheless, Menteath and Smith were both at Oxford at the same time for at least two years (1740 to 1742), maybe more, because university records indicate that Menteath obtained his B.A. degree from Oxford in 1739 and his M.A. in 1742, and furthermore, Menteath did not vacate his Snell Exhibition until 1747 (a year after Smith had vacated his in 1746). Like Andrew Wood (see above), Menteath not only used up the full 11 years of his Snell award; he also took Holy Orders in the Church of England. (Ibid.)

Another Scottish classmate of Smith’s at Oxford was Thomas Craufurd (c1722–1795?), who was awarded a Snell Exhibition on 17 October 1740. (See Addison 1901, p. 44.) Craufurd matriculated at Balliol College on 4 November 1740, less than four months after Adam Smith had arrived there on 7 July 1740, and Craufurd remained at Oxford for at least the four next years, since university records indicate that he obtained his B.A. degree in 1744. (Ibid.) Although we do not know what become of Craufurd for certain, he may have been a merchant in Glasgow. (Ibid.) If so, it is possible that Smith and Craufurd may have known each other when Smith was a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow (1751 to 1763).

Another cohort of Snell scholars who the young Adam Smith may have known or befriended during his Oxford years was John Smith (c1721–1797?) (no relation to Adam) and John Stirling (c1726–1744?), the youngest of the Snell students. Both John Smith and John Stirling were awarded their Snell Exhibitions on 19 April 1743. (See Addison 1901, p. 45.) John Smith matriculated at Balliol College on 7 July 1744 (exactly four years to the day that Adam Smith matriculated there), and he later went on to become the Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford from 1766 until his death in early 1797. (See ibid., citing The Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk, 1722-1805, p. 198, which is available here.) For his part, John Stirling matriculated at Balliol College on 14 October 1743. (See Addison 1901, p. 45.) Stirling’s tenure at Oxford, however, was fleeting, for university records indicate that he “[d]ied previous to 11th January, 1744.” (Ibid.) How did Stirling’s untimely demise affect the young Adam Smith? Did it cause him, for example, to question his faith?

The last of Smith’s fellow Scottish students that Smith may have met at Oxford was John Douglas (1721–1807). According to university records, John Douglas matriculated at Oxford’s Saint Mary Hall on 1 March 1737 and then transferred to Balliol College a year later when he was awarded a Warner Exhibition. (See Addison 1901, p. 46.) University records also indicate that John Douglas obtained his B.A. in 1740 and his M.A. in 1743 from Oxford and that he returned to Balliol College after being awarded a Snell Exhibition in the fall of 1745. (Ibid.) After completing his studies at Oxford, John Douglas took Holy Orders in the Church of England and later became the Bishop of Salisbury. (The good bishop is pictured below.)

To sum up, of these seven Scottish Snell scholars (eight, if we include Stewart Douglas, who was awarded a Snell Exhibition but did not attend Oxford), only three became clergymen: John Douglas, James Stuart Menteath, and Andrew Wood. Of the rest, one is lost to history (Charles Suttie), another died at Oxford (John Stirling), a third became a military officer (Stewart Douglas), a fourth became a professor of geometry (John Smith), and a fifth may have become a merchant in Glasgow (Thomas Craufurd). In other words, Adam Smith was not the only Snell scholar to renounce his religious vocation.

Of all the Adam Smith enigmas or unsolved mysteries that I identified in a previous post (see here), perhaps the most significant and underexplored one is Smith’s fateful decision to renounce his religious vocation and leave Oxford at the age of 23 (sometime in the summer of 1746) without a degree. At the time, the young Adam Smith was attending Balliol College on a Snell Exhibition he had won in 1740, and as a Snell student, he was entitled to 11 years of funding to pursue his undergraduate and graduate studies at Oxford. So, what happened? Why did Adam Smith “ditch” Oxford, so to speak? And did this decision, perhaps the most momentous inflection point in the Scottish scholar’s life, have anything to do with his views on religion?

By way of background, the Snell Exhibition was a special scholarship established in the 17th century that to this day is awarded to a small number of students from Scotland attending the University of Glasgow. (For a detailed history of the Snell Foundation and the Snell Exhibition award, see W. Innes Addison, The Snell Exhibitions: from the University of Glasgow to Balliol College, Oxford, published in 1901.) Among other things, Snell students were awarded an annual stipend and entitled to study at Balliol College for up to 11 years, but in the 17th and 18th centuries one of the conditions of this award was that one had to join the clergy upon completing one’s studies at Oxford. For his part, Adam Smith was elected a Snell exhibitioner on 4 March 1740 and then matriculated at Balliol College on 7 July 1740. The young Smith remained at Oxford for the next seven years of his life–specifically, until 15 August 1746, according to university records. (See Addison 1901, p. 43.)

As it happens, during this span of time (i.e. the seven years from July 1740 to August 1746 that Smith studied at Oxford) no less than seven or eight other students from Scotland — and perhaps as many as nine or ten — had been awarded Snell Exhibitions and had then obtained their degrees at Balliol College, and furthermore, many of Smith’s contemporary Snell classmates would eventually become clergymen upon completing their Snell exhibitions. In addition, all of these Snell students had attended the University of Glasgow, so the young Adam Smith may have personally known some of them from his early student days at Glasgow, where Smith studied from 1737 to 1740.

Specifically, during Smith’s three academic years at Glasgow (1737/38, 1738/39, and 1739/40) two cohorts of Glasgow students were awarded Snell Exhibitions: a future Lieutenant-General, Stewart Douglas (b?–1795), and a future royal chaplain, Andrew Wood (c1715–1772), both of whom were elected Snell exhibitioners on 25 October 1738, as well as the future moral philosopher and political economist Adam Smith (1723–1790) and one Charles Suttie (c1723–d?) (about whom little is known), who were elected on 4 March 1740. (See Addison 1901, pp. 42-44.) Of these four Glasgow classmates and Snell awardees, however, only three went on to study at Oxford: Smith, Suttie, and Wood. The fourth Snell awardee, Stewart Douglas, never matriculated at Balliol College. (See ibid., at p. 42: “There is no trace of [Stewart Douglas] having ever been at Balliol College ….”)

Although we do not know how close Adam Smith was to either Wood or Suttie (the other two Snell students who studied at Oxford along with Smith in the 1740s), we do know that Andrew Wood had matriculated at Balliol College on 5 December 1738, obtained his B.A. in 1742 and M.A. in 1745, and then vacated his Snell Exhibition in 1749, upon the expiration of his 11-year award. (See Addison 1901, p. 42.) In addition, we know that Wood took Holy Orders in the Church of England after completing his studies and that he was later appointed Chaplain to the King in 1760. (Ibid.). What about Charles Suttie? All we know about Suttie is that he had matriculated at Balliol College on 14 July 1740–just one week after Smith had matriculated there–and more intriguing yet, we also know that Suttie had vacated his Snell Exhibition in 1745–just one year before Smith decided to vacate his! (See Addison 1901, p. 44.) Did Smith decide to follow Suttie’s lead, or was the timing of their departures from Oxford just a coincidence? Alas, we do not know why Suttie vacated his Snell Exhibition or what became of him after 1745. (Ibid.)

In addition to Andrew Wood and Charles Suttie, as many as seven or eight other Scottish students from the University of Glasgow may have also been enrolled at Balliol College during Adam Smith’s tenure there. Do the identity and biographical details of these other Snell students shed any light on Adam Smith’s time at Oxford? Stay tuned; I will further explore this possibility in my next post on Tuesday, April 18.