__________________________________________________________________ Sarah Skwire Invisible Shakespeare : Shakespeare in Adam Smith Readers of Adam Smith ’ s Theory of Moral Sentiments ( TMS ) are barely four paragraphs into the work before Smith moves from describing the ways in which observing the sufferings and joys of our fellow humans affect us to discussing how interacting with literature replicates these same effects : Our joy for the deliverance of those heroes of tragedy or romance who interest us , is as sincere as our grief for their distress , and our fellow-feeling with their misery is not more real than that with their happiness . We enter into their gratitude towards those faithful friends who did not desert them in their difficulties ; and we heartily go along with their resentment against those perfidious traitors who injured , abandoned , or deceived them . 1 We see Smith turn to literature as an analogue for lived experience throughout TMS . A little later , when he reminds readers that we seem to have a built-in 1 Adam Smith , The Theory of Moral Sentiments ( Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith , vol . 1 ), ed . D . D . Raphael and A . L . Macfie ( Indianapolis : Liberty Fund , 1982 ), p . 10 . Publicado originalmente en Laissez-Faire , No . 38-39 ( Marzo-Sept 2013 ): 17-24 . measuring stick for injustice , Smith turns to literature as an example : “ The villain , in a tragedy or romance , is as much the object of our indignation , as the hero is that of our sympathy and affection . We detest Iago as much as we esteem Othello ; and delight as much in the punishment of the one , as we are grieved at the distress of the other .” 2 And when he explains the way we realize our general rules about human behavior , he points out that it is partially as a result of our responses “ when we read in history or romance .” 3 Charles Griswold ’ s Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment points to the strong appeal that literature had for Smith as a way to speak about important contemporary moral concerns : “ Not only plays , novels , and poems but tragedies , in particular , intrigue Smith . Together they completely overwhelm his relatively rare references to properly philosophical texts . … The notion that we are to understand literature and drama as sources for moral theory and moral education is clearly and strikingly evident in The Wealth of Nations as well .” 4 This attraction towards 2 Ibid ., p . 34 . 3 Ibid ., p . 160 . 4 Charles L . Griswold , Adam Smith and the Laissez-Faire , No . 60 ( Octubre 2033 ): 41-48

__________________________________________________________________ the literary as source material for moral arguments is easily seen simply by leafing through the footnotes to any of Smith ’ s works . His references to literature are myriad and most have been welldocumented . In Economic Sentiments Emma Rothschild outlines the most famous of the references when she examines the connection between Smith ’ s idea of the “ invisible hand ” and the workings of the same idea in Macbeth . She writes : The earlier intellectual history of invisible hands turns out to be generally grim . The most famous invisible hand in Anglo-Scottish literature is that of Macbeth ’ s providence . “ And with thy bloody and invisible hand ,” Macbeth apostrophizes the night in Act III , immediately before the banquet and Banquo ’ s murder ; he asks the darkness to cover up the crimes he is about to commit : Come , seeling night , Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day , And with thy bloody and invisible hand Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond Which keeps me pale . 5 In addition to explicit quotations from literature — like this use of the invisible hand — Smith ’ s writing , steeped in poetry , novels , and drama as it is , often draws from the storehouse of his memory to allude to or quote from literature . For example , in his discussion of pride , Smith notes that : The proud man is commonly too well contented with himself to think that his character requires any amendment . The man who feels himself all-perfect , naturally enough despises all further improvement . His self-sufficiency and absurd conceit of his own superiority , commonly attend him from his youth to his most advanced age ; and he dies , as Hamlet says , with all his sins upon his head , unanointed , unanealed . 6 The quotation from Hamlet is apt and interesting , but equally compelling is the observation , in the footnotes to the Glasgow edition , that “ Smith is misquoting from memory . It is the Ghost , not Hamlet , who speaks thus of his own death : Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin , Unhousell ’ d , disappointed , unaneled ; No reckoning made , but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head : ( Hamlet , i . v . 76 – 9 .)” 7 “ Unanointed ” is an ideal example of the kind of “ memory skip ” that happens when someone who knows another writer ’ s works well quotes from memory . The word makes sense in context and is a portmanteau of Shakespeare ’ s actual words —“ unhousell ’ d ” and “ disappointed .” Smith misquotes similarly in his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belle Lettres ( though it is worth remembering that these are student ’ s notes on Smith ’ s lectures and the errors may not be his ). He refers at one point to “ the slings and arrows of adverse Fortune ,” 8 and later to 6 Smith , The Theory of Moral Sentiments , pp . 258-59 . Virtues of Enlightenment ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 1999 ), p . 59 . 5 Emma Rothschild , Economic Sentiments : Adam Smith , Condorcet , and the Enlightenment ( Cambridge , MA : Harvard University 7 Ibid . ( note ). 8 Adam Smith , Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres ( Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith , vol . 4 ), ed . J . C . Bryce ( Indianapolis : Liberty Fund , Press , 2001 ), pp . 118-19 . 1985 ), p . 28 . __________________________________________________________________ 42

__________________________________________________________________ Shakespeare ’ s comment that we need to “ bravely arm ourselves and stem a sea of troubles .” 9 Both of these errors are precisely the kind of memory skip every lecturer has made , particularly when lecturing about material with which we are so familiar that , as Smith ’ s student notes of Lecture XXI , “ this Lecture was delivered intirely without Book .” 10 This particular kind of mistake suggests that Smith had a particular kind of relationship with Shakespeare ’ s work , and with the works of other literary figures he frequently references . He knows these works the way that many economists know Hayek or Mises . They are a part of his mental furniture . This means that for students of literature who turn their attention to Smith , there is a sense of delight — but no surprise — to find Shakespeare infusing Smith ’ s text not only in direct references and passing quotation from memory , but also in a series of buried , perhaps half-conscious or unconscious , references that ( to amuse myself ) I am calling “ Invisible Shakespeare .” hound , or a greyhound from a spaniel , or this last from a shepherd ’ s dog . Those different tribes of animals , however , though all of the same species , are of scarce any use to one another . The strength of the mastiff is not , in the least , supported either by the swiftness of the greyhound , or by the sagacity of the spaniel , or by the docility of the shepherd ’ s dog . The effects of those different geniuses and talents , for want of the power or disposition to barter and exchange , cannot be brought into a common stock , and do not in the least contribute to the better accommodations and conveniency of the species . Each animal is still obliged to support and defend itself , separately and independently , and derives no sort of advantage from that variety of talents with which nature has distinguished its fellows . Among men , on the contrary , the most dissimilar geniuses are of use to one another ; the different produces of their respective talents , by the general disposition to truck , barter , and exchange , being brought , as it were , into a common stock , where every man may purchase whatever part of the produce of other men ’ s talents he has occasion for . 11 Very early in Adam Smith ’ s Wealth of Nations the reader encounters one such reference , previously unnoted in Smith scholarship , during Smith ’ s meditations on human nature as demonstrated in comparison with the nature of dogs . The section is a justly famous one . It is elegant in both its content and its diction as well as in its explication of the social advantages and “ conveniency ” that arise from the human ability to “ truck , barter , and exchange ”: By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter , as a mastiff is from a grey- 9 Ibid ., pp . 30-31 ( italics added ). This passage has been analyzed often . What has gone unnoticed , however , is that Smith ’ s passage alludes to an equally well-known passage from Shakespeare ’ s Macbeth . ( The play may have been brought to Smith ’ s mind by his use of the word “ porter ” early on in the passage , reminding him of Macbeth ’ s famous Act II “ porter scene .”) Suborning Banquo ’ s murder in Act III , Macbeth discusses human nature with the murderers for hire in almost precisely the same terms that Smith uses in the above passage : 11 Adam Smith , An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations ( Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith , vol . 1 ), ed . R . H . Campbell , A . S . Skinner and W . B . Todd ( Indian- 10Ibid ., p . 117 . apolis : Liberty Fund , 1981 ), p . 30 . __________________________________________________________________ 43

__________________________________________________________________ First Murderer : We are men , my Liege . Macbeth : Ay , in the catalogue ye go for men ; As hounds and greyhounds , mongrels , spaniels , curs , Shoughs , water-rugs , and demiwolves are clept All by the name of dogs : the valu ’ d file Distinguishes the swift , the slow , the subtle , The housekeeper , the hunter , every one According to the gift which bounteous Nature Hath in him clos ’ d ; whereby he does receive Particular addition , from the bill That writes them all alike : and so of men . ( Macbeth , 3 . 1 . 90-100 ) The similarity of wording , of subject matter , even of the dog breeds mentioned make it clear that as Smith wrote his passage on dogs and human nature , Shakespeare ’ s lines were in his mind . Thus , it was a great pleasure to find another apparent reference to Macbeth in TMS . In his section on “ The Effects of Prosperity and Adversity upon the Judgment of Mankind with regard to the Propriety of Action ” Smith gives an extended account of the dangerous risks associated with desiring too rapid and easy a rise to a position of wealth and esteem : To attain to this envied situation , the candidates for fortune too frequently abandon the paths of virtue ; for unhappily , the road which leads to the one , and that which leads to the other , lie sometimes in very opposite directions . But the ambitious man flatters himself that , in the splendid situation to which he advances , he will have so many means of commanding the respect and admiration of mankind , and will be enabled to act with such superior propriety and grace , that the lustre of his future conduct will entirely cover , or efface , the foulness of the steps by which he arrived at that elevation . In many governments the candidates for the highest stations are above the law ; and , if they can attain the object of their ambition , they have no fear of being called to account for the means by which they acquired it . They often endeavour , therefore , not only by fraud and falsehood , the ordinary and vulgar arts of intrigue and cabal ; but sometimes by the perpetration of the most enormous crimes , by murder and assassination , by rebellion and civil war , to supplant and destroy those who oppose or stand in the way of their greatness . They more frequently miscarry than succeed ; and commonly gain nothing but the disgraceful punishment which is due to their crimes . But , though they should be so lucky as to attain that wished-for greatness , they are always most miserably disappointed in the happiness which they expect to enjoy in it . It is not ease or pleasure , but always honour , of one kind or another , though frequently an honour very ill understood , that the ambitious man really pursues . But the honour of his exalted station appears , both in his own eyes and in those of other people , polluted and defiled by the baseness of the means through which he rose to it . Though by the profusion of every liberal expence ; though by excessive indulgence in every profligate pleasure , the wretched , but usual , resource of ruined characters ; though by the hurry of public business , or by the prouder and more dazzling tumult of war , he may endeavour to efface , both from his own memory and from that of other people , the remembrance of what he has done ; that remembrance never fails to pursue him . He invokes in vain the dark and dismal powers of forgetfulness and oblivion . He remembers himself what he has done , and that remembrance tells him that other people must likewise remember it . Amidst all the gaudy pomp of the most __________________________________________________________________ 44