BrewerDP. Pdf

 

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agenda. It will, however, be appropriate to discuss what evidence was available to Smith to 

confirm or falsify the theory, and to discuss the way he dealt with the available evidence.  

The four stages in the Wealth of Nations and the  Lectures on Jurisprudence 

There is a clear, if implicit, reference to the four stages theory as early as the fourth paragraph 

of  the  Wealth of Nations in Smith’s famous contrast between living standards in ‘savage 

nations of hunters and fishers’ and ‘civilised and thriving nations’ (WN Intro.4),  that is, 

between the first and last of the four stages. That reference is typical of many others in the 

Wealth of Nations in that the stages theory is clearly there in the background, but is not 

spelled out in its  own right. There is one substantial section of the book in which all four 

stages are  named,  explicitly defined, and contrasted with each other (WN V.1.a and b), but 

even there the stages are  simply compared in a static fashion  with no explicit claim that one 

follows on from another, apart from a description of each stage as more ‘advanced’ than its 

predecessor.  

The main source for  Smith’s use of  the four stages theory, however,  is  the  Lectures on 

Jurisprudence, consisting of  two sets of student notes on  his  lectures, relating to different 

years.  There are clearly difficulties in relying on the  notes  since  we do not know how 

complete or accurate the y are. The material  was presented  in a different order in the two 

years, and one set of notes is longer, and therefore presumably fuller, than the other. There is, 

however,  reassuringly close  agreement between the two note-takers  in terms of substantive 

content, suggesting that the notes give a good impression of  the content of Smith’s lectures. 

The  fact that these are lectures, and lectures on jurisprudence,  is a more substantial problem. 

They are not a finished and considered work prepared for publication, and they are not a 

work of history, still less a complete history of the world. Where there are gaps in coverage 

or argument, it may simply be that Smith omitted things that were not directly relevant to the 

course, or not suitable for that particular audience, or because of lack of time. The lectures, 

however, together  with the  rather scattered  material from the  Wealth of Nations, are  what 

there is to go on.

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Smith’s  terminology  and definitions  can be confusing. In the first stage, Smith’s ‘age of 

hunters’, subsistence depended on the ‘wild fruits and wild animals which the country 

afforded’ (LJ(A) i.27). People in this stage would now be called hunter-gatherers. The second 

stage, the ‘age of shepherds’ or of ‘pasturage’ (LJ(B) 149), is characterised by the herding of 

animals, but not the tilling of the soil.  The animals  herded by ‘shepherds’  need not be sheep. 

What is critical  in Smith’s account  is that the domestication of animals came before the 

domestication of plant s, to make a distinct stage in development. ‘We find accordingly that in 

almost all countries the age of shepherds preceded that of agriculture’ (LJ(A) i.29). This 

                                                 

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 There is nothing directly relevant to the four stages theory in the Theory of Moral Sentiments. 

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stage, Smith thought,  was typically nomadic – when the pasture in one area was exhausted, 

shepherd and flock moved on. In Smith’s story the ‘age of agriculture’ or the ‘age of farming’ 

(LJ(B) 149) added (arable) farming (tillage, the cultivation of the soil), though the keeping of 

animals and the eating of meat certainly continued.  Agriculture in this sense  required 

investment in clearing and cultivating the land, and  allowed food  supply  and  population to 

increase.  I shall use the word ‘agriculture’,  as Smith did, to mean settled agriculture with a 

large arable component, and ‘pasturage’ to mean animal husbandry without tillage. 

The commercial stage is different in that it is not defined by the main source of food. 

Commerce (trade) plays some role in all stages of society, while the commercial stage, as 

Smith defined it, is a development of the agricultural stage.  A  simple agricultural system 

might have ‘little foreign commerce’ and only ‘coarse’ manufactures produced in the 

household (WN V.i.a.6). A division of labour and corresponding pattern of trade develops bit 

by bit (LJ(A) i.31), with no clear dividing line at which society becomes ‘commercial’.  

Conjectural history 

In his biographical account of Smith’s life, his friend Dugald Stewart  described Smith’s 

method as ‘conjectural history’, initiating a debate about the methodological basis of Smith’s 

history which has continued ever since. Discussing Smith’s Dissertation on the Origins of 

Language and, more generally, his view of history, Stewart noted the lack of direct historical 

evidence about (at least) the early stages of development from ‘rude tribes’ to contemporary 

society, and remarked that: 

In this want of direct evidence, we are under a necessity of supplying the place of fact by 

conjecture; and when we are unable to ascertain how men have actually conducted 

themselves upon particular occasions, of considering in what manner they are likely to 

have proceeded, from the principles of their nature, and the circumstances of their external 

situation. 

…

  To this species of philosophical investigation, which has no appropriated 

name in our language, I shall take the liberty of giving the title of  Theoretical or 

Conjectural History. (Stewart 1980 293) 

This  points to an  important question: how much of Smith’s account of history is based on 

evidence and how much is ‘conjecture’, invented to fill the gaps? Meek (1976 231) read 

Stewart’s comments as ancestral to a line of criticism that accuses Smith of neglecting 

historical facts in favour of theory. Thus, Coleman has remarked that ‘historical evidence was 

of secondary importance in [Smith’s]  grand design of a comprehensive system’  (1980 775), 

and Wightman (1975 54) accepted a role for gap-filling in the absence of direct evidence, but 

complained that Smith left the reader in doubt where fact ended and fiction began. Stewart 

himself did not intend any such criticism – he saw conjecture as a means of filling the gaps, 

and suggested that otherwise disconnected pieces of evidenc e might act as a check on the 

story (1980 293). Indeed, one could reasonably argue that historical evidence never tells the 

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