Introduction

It should be clear from Essay 1 that with the obvious exception of Smith’s noneconomic example, the invisible hand of Jupiter, Adam Smith does not indicate what he believes to be the “economic” invisible hand of the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations. It is notable, however, that in both economic uses he chose to say, in the first, that the rich “are led by an invisible hand,” and in the second, that the individual intending “only his own gain … is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand” (Smith 1976a: IV.i.10, 184; Smith 1976b: IV.ii.9.456). In a note at this point in the earlier work, the editors, Raphael and Macfie, note that “In both places Smith says that the end unintentionally promoted is the interest of society, but there is a difference: the TMS passage refers to the distribution of means to happiness, the WN passage to maximization” (Smith 1976a: IV.i.10.184n7).

Smith wrote “led” and not “as if led.” He also wrote “an invisible hand” in both places. He may or may not have had one invisible hand in mind. I have shown that in his explanation of the etiology of the division of labor, Smith uses several causal factors (Samuels 2004: chapter 1). He may have been sloppy or forgetful but each tends to be presented in a manner that accords with the immediate argument of his essay on The History of Astronomy, that when a person is unable to establish the true explanation of something, then he or she is willing to accept whatever belief will “soothe the imagination,” or set minds at rest. It is this linguistic strategy that Smith’s writings emphasize by illustration.