Lectures on Jurisprudence

Lectures on Jurisprudence, also called Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms (1763) is a collection of Adam Smith's lectures, comprising notes taken from his early lectures. It contains the formative ideas behind The Wealth of Nations.^[1][2]

Published as part of the 1976 Glasgow Edition of the works and correspondence of Adam Smith. It consists of two sets of lecture notes that were apparently taken from Smith's lectures of the 1760s, along with an 'Early Draft' of The Wealth of Nations. The same material had also appeared as An Early Draft of Part of The Wealth of Nations and as Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms.

Smith’s Lectures on Jurisprudence, originally delivered at the University of Glasgow in 1762–1763, present his ‘theory of the rules by which civil government ought to be directed.’ The chief purpose of government, according to Smith, is to preserve justice; and ‘the object of justice is security from injury.’^[3] The state must protect the individual’s right to his person, property, reputation, and social relations. Smith elsewhere specifically defines the term jurisprudence as "the theory of general principles of law and government". It is also defined as the general guidelines about the essence of a nation's laws.^[4] In the lectures, Smith contends that every system of law aims for, and thus jurisprudence can be divided into, "the maintenance of justice, the provision of police in order to promote opulence, the raising of revenue, and the establishment of arms for the defence of the state".^[5]

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• Division I. Of Public Jurisprudence
• Division II. Domestic Law
• Division III. Private Law

The pros and cons of money, prices, and financial exchanges fall under this section of the Lectures "since the regulation of prices and the creation of money by the state both came under the head of police."^[6]

• Division I. Cleanliness and Security
• Division II. Cheapness or Plenty^[7]

According to William Caldwell, the lectures accomplish three goals: they detail Smith's philosophy and beliefs about economics, they explain his motivation to write about the historical origins of political societies, and they show the influence of mercantilism and Francis Hutcheson on Smith's thoughts on the political economy.^[6] In an article for Political Science Quarterly, Wilhelm Hasbach [de] opines that Smith believed that the political economy is the foundation for morality, law, government, wealth, revenue, and arms, a position that originated from the idea of natural law.^[4] He also notes that Smith's relationship with the physiocrats is important in the Lectures and that some critics state that Smith produced the same concepts as the physiocrats on economics.^[4] Hasbach also states that Smith expands on physiocratic ideas by advocating a freedom of industry. Smith expects that industry - and also commerce - be laisser-faire and relevant to all aspects of political economics.^[4] Another scholar, C. F. Bastable, notes that Smith recognizes the need for industry for the production of wealth. Industry creates capital which is much needed in an economically viable society.^[8]

Hasbach has also written that the Lectures offer a perspective of Smith's view on property that differs from that of John Locke. Smith believes that property does not lie within the individual but rather that it ought to be shared within society. "The individual and his labor are in no respect the ultimate source of the right of property in land: the origin of this right is in society."^[4] Also, according to Hasbach, Smith rejects a state of nature and the doctrine on an original contract, two ideas supported by Locke.^[4]

• Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms on OLL
• Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms on archive.org