al for procuring them all the employment
which the country can afford. The great success of quacks in
England has been altogether owing to the real quackery of
the regular physicians. Our regular physicians in Scotland
have little quackery, and no quack accordingly has ever made
his fortune among us.

After all, this trade in degrees I acknowledge to be a most
disgraceful trade to those who exercise it; and I am
extremely sorry that it should be exercised by such
respectable bodies as any of our Scotch universities. But as
it serves as a corrective of what would otherwise soon grow
up to be an intolerable nuisance, the exclusive and
corporation spirit of all thriving professions and of all
great universities, I deny that it is hurtful to the public.

What the physicians of Edinburgh at present feel as a
hardship is perhaps the real cause of their acknowledged
superiority over the greater part of other physicians. The
Royal College of Physicians there, you say, are obliged by
their charter to grant a license without examination to all
the graduates of Scotch universities. You are all obliged, I
suppose, in consequence of this, to consult sometimes with
very unworthy brethren. You are all made to feel that you
must rest no part of your dignity upon your degree, a
distinction which you share with the men in the world
perhaps whom you despise the most, but that you must found
the whole of it upon your merit. Not being able to derive
much consequence from the character of Doctor, you are
obliged perhaps to attend more to your character as men, as
gentlemen, and as men of letters. The unworthiness of some
of your brethren may perhaps in this manner be in part the
cause of the very eminent and superior worth of many of the
rest. The very abuse which you complain of may in this
manner perhaps be the real source of your present
excellence. You are at present well, wonderfully well, and
when you are so, be assured there is always some danger in
attempting to be better.

Adieu, my dear Doctor; after having delayed to write to you
I am afraid I shall _get my lug_ (ear) _in my lufe_ (hand),
as we say, for what I have written. But I ever am, most
affectionately yours,

ADAM SMITH.

LONDON, _20th September 1774_.[240]

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