One of the most remarkable things about Smith's 1756 review of Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin of Inequality is how assuredly it identifies Rousseau's conception of human nature with Bernard Mandeville’s. When read in combination with Smith's attack on Mandeville in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the review also identifies the causes of Rousseau's appeal with the causes of Mandeville’s. In the review, Smith comments that Rousseau's Discourse ‘consists almost entirely of rhetoric and description’, rather than honest argument (Letter: 251). Similarly, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith claims that a major reason why Mandeville's ‘erroneous … notions’ have an ‘air of truth and probability’ and thus are ‘very apt to impose upon the unskilful’ is that they are ‘described and exaggerated by … lively and humorous, though coarse and rustic eloquence’ (TMS VII.ii.4.6: 308).

Another remarkable thing about Smith's review is that it contains almost no philosophical content. While the treatment of Mandeville in The Theory of Moral Sentiments actually argues against his view, the review's discussion of Rousseau says almost nothing about where he goes wrong. Perhaps a reason for this is that Smith's engagement with Rousseau's ideas was far too extensive and complex to fit into the space of a review; several scholars have recently argued that the place to look in Smith's writing for his philosophically critical thoughts on Rousseau is everywhere, as he is a principal target of Smith's general defence of commercial society (see, e.g. Rasmussen 2008; Hanley 2009: esp. 15–52; Griswold 2010). But even if Smith's thinking about Rousseau reached too far and ran too deep to be distilled into a few measly pages, it remains rather odd that the review makes almost no substantial philosophical points. And since the review contains one of only two explicit references to Rousseau in works that Smith published in his lifetime, this is unfortunate for those who believe that Smith saw Rousseau as one of his main interlocutors.