There is a deliberate ambiguity about the title of this chapter. It refers at one and the same time to Smith as a commentator on and as a practitioner of “science.” In the former role, he explicitly addresses issues of method and implicitly reflects a pervasive Enlightenment commitment to the progressive agenda associated with science. In the latter role, his actual investigations, if liberally interpreted, manifest both the method and the agenda.

The analysis that follows is divided into four parts. I examine first the “Enlightenment commitment” - the high value placed on science - and note what can be gleaned of Smith's own exposure to scientific thinking. Next, the focus is on Smith as a commentator, his specific account of science as the discovery of connecting principles. The third and longest part discusses “Smith the scientist” - outlining and illustrating by means of a few case studies his commitment to causal explanation and to what I call “soft determinism.” In the brief final part, the point is made that Smith does not divorce scientific “findings” from moral significance.