In the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres too the heart of Smith’s subject matter is in fact human psychology and the development, from that, of a key social institution – communication. For example, Smith advises, if you have a sympathetic audience, give them your whole message, then explain it bit by bit. If you face a hostile audience, do not assault them with your controversial conclusions all at once, but lead up to them in stages.
In the lectures – which exist only in the form of student notes – and in his essay Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages, Smith seeks to understand language by investigating how it emerged. Since there are no written records, Smith’s history is necessarily conjectural; and his examples are limited to a few ancient and modern European languages. But his explanation is evolutionary: language grows, he believes, as human society develops, and is a tool of that development.
-Adam Smith - A Primer, p.91
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