Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow and a friend of Hume who wrote two books, each the founding text of a discipline. The Theory of Moral Sentiments explains morality through sympathy and an impartial spectator within; The Wealth of Nations of 1776 explains how self-interest, the division of labour and free exchange produce the wealth of a people, and how governments hinder it. The invisible hand appears once in each. He spent his last years as a customs commissioner in Edinburgh, and asked that his unfinished manuscripts be burned.