The Theory of Moral Sentiments (69 page)

Grotius, Hugo
(1583-1645), Dutch theorist of natural jurisprudence; his
De Jure Belli ac Pacis
(
Of the Rights of War and Peace
, 1625) was a preeminent and influential text of Protestant natural law, much admired by Smith, and he also wrote a number of influential theological texts in defense of revealed religion, including
Of the Truth of the Christian Religion
(1627).

Gustavus Adolphus
(1594-1632), king of Sweden; a highly successful military commander during the Thirty Years’ War, he pioneered several innovations in military techniques.

Hercules
, Greek hero famed for the Twelve Labors that displayed his immense physical strength, and the subject of tragedies by Euripides and Sophocles.

Hippolytus
, Greek tragic figure and subject of several tragedies ancient and modern that recount his refusal of his stepmother Phaedra’s illicit love and the death he suffered following the intervention of Neptune, to whom his enraged father Theseus had appealed.

Hobbes, Thomas
(1588-1679), English philosopher whose vast interests and influence on scientific and political thinking were communicated in a translation of Thucydides (1629), treatises on human nature and political philosophy (
De cive
, pub. 1642;
Leviathan
, pub. 1651) and an account of the English civil war (
Behemoth
, pub. 1679); the Scottish Enlightenment tended to regard him as an exponent of metaphysical materialism and ethical egoism.

Homer
(ca. 8th c. BC), Greek epic poet who wrote the
Iliad
, which tells the story of the siege of Troy, and the
Odyssey
, which recounts the trials of Odysseus on his voyage home to Ithaca from the Trojan War.

Horace
(65-8 BC), Roman poet and satirist, famed for his lyric
Odes
, which were particularly beloved in early modern England.

Hume, David
(1711-1776), Scottish philosopher renowned for works of immediate and lasting impact across a range of fields, including metaphysics and epistemology (
A Treatise of Human Nature
, 1739-1740;
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
, 1748), ethics (
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
, 1751), aesthetics, belles lettres and political economy (
Essays
, 1753), history (
History of England
, 1754-1762), and natural theology (
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
, pub. 1779); whether Smith shared his skepticism is a matter of considerable debate, yet the two were lasting friends with Smith eulogizing Hume in a notorious public letter published upon his death.

Hutcheson, Francis
(1694-1746), Irish-born philosopher and Presbyterian clergyman and principal figure of the early Scottish Enlightenment, he was the author of several influential texts, including
An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue
(1725),
An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections. With Illustrations on the Moral Sense
(1728),
Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria
(trans. as
Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy
, 1747), and
A System of Moral Philosophy
(pub. 1755); as professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, he was both Smith’s teacher as well as his predecessor, and Smith was greatly influenced by his efforts to reconcile classical conceptions of virtue with Christian ethical conceptions.

Iago
: See Othello.

James I
(1566-1625), king of Scotland (as James VI) from 1567, and king of England and Ireland (as James I) from 1603 to his death; succeeded by his son, Charles I.

James II
(1633-1701), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1685 to 1689; the younger surviving son of Charles I, he ascended to the throne on the death of his brother Charles II with his reign ending when William of Orange compelled his abdication.

Joanna of Castile
(Joanna the Mad; 1479-1555), queen of Castile; daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, mother of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and sister of Catherine of Aragon, she is remembered principally as the dependent wife of Philip who slipped into insanity upon his death.

Jocasta
: see Oedipus.

Kames, Henry Home, Lord
(1696-1782), Scottish man of letters and civic administrator; his works covered a remarkably wide span, including influential contributions on ethics and natural theology (
Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion
, 1751); criticism (
Elements of Criticism
, 1762); legal history (
Historical Law-Tracts
, 1758), anthropology, and conjectural history (
Sketches of the History of Man
, 1774); and education (
Loose Hints Upon Education
, 1781); Kames was also the sponsor of Smith’s lectures on rhetoric delivered in Edinburgh in 1749.

King of Epirus
: See Pyrrhus.

King of Macedon
: See Perseus.

Lactantius
(ca. AD 240-320), religious apologist; known as the “Christian Cicero,” his major work,
Divine Institutions
, sought to explain and defend Christianity before a Roman audience.

Lafitau, Joseph-François
(1681-1746), French Jesuit missionary to Canada, where his skills at naturalism led him to the discovery of North American ginseng (fueling a European craze for the root previously available only from China); his careful and detailed observations of the Iroquois,
Manners of the American Savages, Compared to the Manners of the Earliest Times
(1724), proved to be an influential account of the native North Americans and an important early instance of comparative anthropology.

La Fontaine, Jean de
(1621-1695), French author and moralist, noted for his
Fables
(1668, with successive volumes in 1678 and 1694), which received wide audiences in England in part thanks to Mandeville’s translations; he took the side of the ancients in the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns.

La Motte, Antoine Houdar de
(1672-1731), French poet, dramatist, and critic; author of a series of
Odes
and
Fables
on moral themes, and in the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns a partisan of the latter.

La Placette, Jean
(1639-1718), French theologian; he fled for Copenhagen on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and there authored several works developing a moderated Calvinist conception of self-love, including treatises on pride (1692), on conscience (1695), and a collection of moral essays (1697).

La Rochefoucauld, François, Duc de
(1613-1680), French moralist and author of
Maxims
(1665), an influential collection of aphorisms chiefly intended to demonstrate the primacy of self-love in human psychology and action, earning their author a reputation as a champion of ethical egoism.

Lauzun, Antonin-Nompar de Caumont, Duc de
(1633-1723), French courtier, military officer, and diplomat under Louis XIV. He was imprisoned three times, twice for short stays in the Bastille, and once for ten years in the fortress at Pignerol.

“Leliuses”
(Gaius Laelius the Elder; ca. 235-160 BC), Roman military commander and statesman; and Gaius Laelius the Younger (ca. 190- 129 BC), renowned for his oratory (celebrated by Cicero in his
Brutus
), and his friendship of virtue with Scipio Aemilianus (memorialized by Cicero in his
De amicitia
).

Locke, John
(1632-1704), English philosopher with chief contributions in epistemology (
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
, 1690), political theory (
Two Treatises
and
Letter Concerning Toleration
, pub. 1689), education (
Some Thoughts Concerning Education
, 1693), and apologetics (
The Reasonableness of Christianity
, 1695); he was also physician and secretary to the first earl of Shaftesbury and tutor to the third earl.

Louis XIII
(1601-1643), king of France and father of his successor, Louis XIV; his reign witnessed the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War.

Louis XIV
(1638-1715), king of France from 1661 to his death; his reign witnessed the centralization of power in the court, the advancement of French interests abroad through a succession of gifted military commanders and diplomats, and a remarkable flourishing of French arts and letters.

Lucian
(2nd c. AD), Greek satirist greatly admired by Smith, who identifies him with Epicureanism and the Cyrenaics; a prolific writer, his
Dialogues of the Dead
and
Dialogues of the Gods
were especially popular in the eighteenth century.

Lucullus
(Lucius Licinius Lucullus; ca. 118-57 BC), Roman statesman and commander; he invaded Armenia and battled Tigranes II and Mithradates VI, but was removed from command and replaced by Pompey in 66, who went on to victory and further great success in the eastern provinces.

Lysander
(5th c. BC), Spartan commander who compelled Athens to surrender in 404, ending the Peloponnesian War.

Machiavelli, Niccolò
(1469-1527), Florentinian philosopher and political administrator, known chiefly for his
History of Florence
, his
Discourses on Livy
, and his manual
The Prince
.

Malebranche, Nicolas
(1638-1715), French philosopher and priest; his major work of epistemology,
The Search After Truth
(1674-1675), was an influential engagement with Cartesian conceptions of mind and matter from an Augustinian perspective.

Mandeville, Bernard
(1670-1733), Dutch physician and essayist who emigrated to London and became notorious for his
Fable of the Bees
(1714); the subtitle of the
Fable
(
Private Vices, Publick Benefits
) has often been taken to represent the whole of his thought, leading proponents to herald him as a precursor of laissez-faire and unintended order theories and detractors to regard him as an advocate of libertinism and nihilism under the guise of moral rigorism.

Marcellus
(Marcus Claudius Marcellus; 1st c. BC), Roman consul who sided with Pompey and the
optimates
against Caesar and the
populares
; after Pharsalus he went into voluntary exile but was officially pardoned by Caesar in 46 BC.

Marcus Antoninus
(Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; AD 121-180), Roman emperor from 161 until his death, and author of the
Meditations
, one of the foremost works of later Stoic moral philosophy.

Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de
(1688-1763), French playwright and novelist and one of the principal representatives of sentimentalism in eighteenth-century literature; he also edited a French version of
Spectator
(1722) that took Addison’s for its model.

Marlborough, John Churchill, first Duke of
(1650-1722), British commander in chief of the forces allied against the French in the War of the Spanish Succession, winning particularly brilliant victories at Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706) and Oudenarde (1708).

Massillon, Jean-Baptiste
(1663-1742), Bishop of Clermont-Ferrand and popular preacher admired by both Voltaire and Louis XIV (for whom he also delivered a funeral oration); his sermons tend to focus on questions of moral psychology rather than points of orthodoxy.

Milton, John
(1608-1674), English poet and political writer whose political writings include several antimonarchical treatises defending republican freedoms; chief among his poetic works is
Paradise Lost
(1667).

More, Henry
(1614-1687), English philosopher and one of the principal Cambridge Platonists who sought to counter Hobbesian and Spinozistic materialism; his theological and ethical works include his
Antidote Against Atheism
(1653) and
Enchiridion Ethicum
(
Account of Virtue
, 1667).

More, Sir Thomas
(1478-1535), Lord Chancellor of England and author of influential theological and political writings, including
Utopia
(1516), a classic study in the political philosophy of the best regime; he was executed for high treason as a result of his opposition to Henry VIII’s assumption of supreme ecclesiastical authority.

Nero
(Nero Claudius Caesar; AD 37-68), Roman emperor from AD 54 until his death, renowned for his moral corruption and viciousness.

Newton, Sir Isaac
(1642-1727), English mathematician and natural philosopher whose chief renown rests on his contributions to scientific method and to the study of gravitation and of light, as set forth in such works as his
Principia Mathematica
(1687) and his
Optics
(1704).

Oedipus
, ancient king of Thebes whose tragic murder of his father and unwitting incest with his mother, Jocasta, was recounted in Sophocles’
Oedipus the King
, Euripides’
Phoenician Women
, and Seneca’s
Oedipus
.