r to remain unmodified in the new edition of the _Theory_ which
appeared in 1781, but eventually at any rate he came to think that he
had done the author of the _Maximes_ an injustice by associating him
in the same condemnation with Mandeville, and when Dugald Stewart
visited Paris in 1789 he was commissioned by Smith to express to the
Duc de la Rochefoucauld his sincere regret for having done so, and to
inform him that the error would be repaired in the forthcoming edition
of the work, which was at that time in preparation.[296] This was
done. In that final edition the allusion to Rochefoucauld was entirely
suppressed, and the censure confined to Mandeville alone.

While Smith's French friends were remonstrating with him about an
incidental allusion in the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, his old
friend, Lord Kames--still at eighty-three as keen for metaphysical
controversy as he had been with Bishop Butler sixty years before--was
preparing an elaborate attack upon the theory of the book itself,
which he proposed to incorporate in a new edition of his own
_Principles of Morality and Religion_. Before publishing this
examination of the theory, however, he sent the manuscript to Smith
for perusal, and received the following reply:--

_16th November 1778._

MY DEAR LORD--I am much obliged to you for the kind
communication of the objections you propose to make in yr.
new edition to my system. Nothing can be more perfectly
friendly and polite than the terms in which you express
yourself with regard to me, and I should be extremely
peevish and ill-tempered if I could make the slightest
opposition to their publication. I am no doubt extremely
sorry to find myself of a different opinion both from so
able a judge of the subject and from so old and good a
friend; but differences of this kind are inevitable, and
besides, _Partium contentionibus respublica crescit_. I
should have been waiting on your Lordship before this time,
but the remains of a cold have for these four or five days
past made it inconvenient for me to go out in the evening.
Remember me to Mrs. Drummond,[297] and believe me to be, my
dear Lord, your most obliged and most humble servant,

ADAM SMITH.

Smith had most probably discussed the merits of Lord Kames's
objections with his lordship already, so that he saw no occasion to
reply to them in his letter. What Kames prin