Adam Smith quote about people from The Wealth of Nations - Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition; and where all the superior ranks of people were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be much exposed to it.
pick facebookpinterest picture source

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition; and where all the superior ranks of people were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be much exposed to it.
 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776). copy citation

edit
Author Adam Smith
Source The Wealth of Nations
Topic people superstition science
Date 1776
Language English
Reference An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm

Context

“If the state imposed upon this order of men the necessity of learning, it would have no occasion to give itself any trouble about providing them with proper teachers. They would soon find better teachers for themselves, than any whom the state could provide for them. Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition; and where all the superior ranks of people were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be much exposed to it.
The second of those remedies is the frequency and gaiety of public diversions. The state, by encouraging, that is, by giving entire liberty to all those who, from their own interest, would attempt, without scandal or indecency, to amuse and divert the people by painting, poetry, music, dancing; by all sorts of dramatic representations and exhibitions; would easily dissipate, in the greater part of them, that melancholy and gloomy humour which is almost always the nurse of popular superstition and enthusiasm.” source

Meaning and analysis

write a note
report