"Justice, the last and greatest of the four cardinal virtues, took place, according to this system, when each of those three faculties of the mind, confined itself to it's proper office, without attempting to encroach upon that of any other; when reason directed and passion obeyed, and when each passion performed its proper duty, and exerted itself towards its proper object easily and without reluctance, and with that degree of force and energy, which was suitable to the value of what it pursued."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)


Place of Publication
London and Edinburgh
Publisher
Printed for A. Millar, A. Kincaid, and J. Bell
Date
1759
Metaphor
"Justice, the last and greatest of the four cardinal virtues, took place, according to this system, when each of those three faculties of the mind, confined itself to it's proper office, without attempting to encroach upon that of any other; when reason directed and passion obeyed, and when each passion performed its proper duty, and exerted itself towards its proper object easily and without reluctance, and with that degree of force and energy, which was suitable to the value of what it pursued."
Metaphor in Context
Justice, the last and greatest of the four cardinal virtues, took place, according to this system, when each of those three faculties of the mind, confined itself to it's proper office, without attempting to encroach upon that of any other; when reason directed and passion obeyed, and when each passion performed its proper duty, and exerted itself towards its proper object easily and without reluctance, and with that degree of force and energy, which was suitable to the value of what it pursued. In this consisted that compleat virtue, that perfect propriety of conduct, which Plato, after some of the antient Pythagoreans, denominated Justice.
(p. 422)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
10 entries in the ESTC (1759, 1761, 1764, 1767, 1774, 1777, 1781, 1790, 1792, 1793, 1797). A revised title with a complicated textual history.

See The Theory of Moral Sentiments: By Adam Smith (London: Printed for A. Millar; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh, 1759). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO-TCP>

Reading Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1984).
Date of Entry
06/19/2014

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.