"Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages." [In] The Philological Miscellany; consisting of Select Essays from the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres at Paris, and other foreign Academies. Translated into English. With Original Pieces by the most Eminent Writers of our own Country. Vol. I.

SMITH, Adam.

Published by [London:] Printed for the Editor; and sold by T. Beckett and P. A. Dehondt, 1761

About this Item

Rare first edition of The Philological Miscellany - all published - containing the first appearance in print of Adam Smith's essay "Considerations concerning the First Formation of Languages, and the Different Genius of Original and Compounded Languages" (pp. 440-79), drawn from his university lectures on rhetoric. More than a linguistic curiosity, the "Considerations" forms a crucial element of Smith's intellectual system. It advances a naturalistic account of language as an historical and social development shaped by imagination, abstraction, and communicative need - an argument that underpins his theory of rhetoric and, more fundamentally, the sympathetic exchange at the heart of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. By explaining how complex grammar and shared meaning could arise without design, Smith answered Rousseau's scepticism about naturalistic accounts of language and completed his broader critique of sociability. Dugald Stewart judged the essay a work of "great ingenuity" on which Smith "set a high value", while later editors have seen its importance less in the literal truth of its conjectures than in exemplifying a distinctly modern mode of philosophical and historical inquiry. Smith himself ensured its preservation by reprinting it in the third edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and in all subsequent lifetime editions. The Philological Miscellany was probably edited by William Rose of Kew - schoolmaster, literary adviser to Millar, and editor of several contemporary miscellanies. Smith's correspondence with Strahan in December 1760 refers to papers promised to Rose, almost certainly including the present essay, confirming the circumstances of its first publication in this short-lived review. Not listed in Tribe or Vanderblue; ESTC and WorldCat together locate 14 copies, to which we can add one in a private American library. See Ross, Life of Adam Smith, 2010, pp. 187 8 and Phillipson, Adam Smith, An Enlightened Life, 2010, p. 165f. Octavo (200 x 125 mm). Page 348 misnumbered 648. Contemporary sprinkled calf, rebacked with the original spine laid down, 5 raised bands, compartments ruled and decorated in gilt, red morocco label, red sprinkled edges. Engraved armorial bookplate of Edward Blackett, Bart., MP for Northumberland 1768-74. First few leaves with repaired wormtrack, ink spot to one opening, two leaves with marginal chip, one with a frayed and soiled lower margin, another with the upper margin renewed; a few light spots, generally a clean copy in an attractive contemporary binding.

Seller Inventory # 163168

Bibliographic Details

• Title: "Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages." [In] The Philological Miscellany; consisting of Select Essays from the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres at Paris, and other foreign Academies. Translated into English. With Original Pieces by the most Eminent Writers of our own Country. Vol. I.
• Publisher: [London:] Printed for the Editor; and sold by T. Beckett and P. A. Dehondt, 1761
• Edition: 1st Edition