ABSTRACT
The Theory of Moral Sentiments might have been expected that the reasonings of lawyers should have led them to aim at establishing a system of what might properly be called natural jurisprudence, or a theory of the general principles which ought to run through and be the foundation of the laws of all nations. The nations which overran the Western Empire were represented by Adam Smith as having been at exactly the state of development which had been attained by the early inhabitants of Greece. The economic analysis which Smith provided in the lectures is concerned with a system which features the activities of agriculture, manufacture, and commerce where these activities are characterised by a division of labour with the patterns of exchange facilitated by the use of money. The association of Montesquieu with economic forces and with the dynamic processes of change through time may be somewhat overdrawn as John Millar suggested, very much a feature of Smiths thought.
