Monday, January 16, 2006

Who Wrote It

Who do you think wrote the following, and when?
"He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses on them: but that in the great chessboard of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it."
It sounds like the "he" referred to here is a typical member of the legislature, whether Congress or a state legislature, today.

Who wrote this and when? Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759.

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