Adam Smith was here..

This plaque is on a wall of Greggs the bakers at 220 High Street Kirkcaldy. As it says, it was the site of Adam Smith's house in Kirkcaldy, where he lived with his mother for an important period in his life.

Unfortunately, Adam Smith's legacy is much misunderstood, and in part because of a misinterpretation of his writings.

Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was fourteen and studied moral philosophy under the brilliant teacher Francis Hutcheson. Here, Smith developed his passion for liberty, reason, and free speech. In 1740 Smith was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford.

However, Adam Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, which he found intellectually stifling. In Book V, Chapter II of The Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote: "In the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching."

Smith is also reported to have complained to friends that Oxford officials once discovered him reading a copy of David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, and they subsequently confiscated his book and punished him severely for reading it! Eventually, Smith and Hume were to become close friends and the pre-eminent figures in the Scottish Enlightenment.

In 1759, Smith published his first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. He continued making extensive revisions to the book, up until his death. Although The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, is widely regarded as Smith's most influential work, it is believed that Smith himself considered The Theory of Moral Sentiments to be a superior work.

In the work, Smith critically examines the moral thinking of his time, and suggests that conscience arises from social relationships. His goal in writing the work was to explain the source of mankind's ability to form moral judgements, in spite of man's natural inclinations towards self-interest. Smith proposes a theory of sympathy, in which the act of observing others makes people aware of themselves and the morality of their own behaviour.

Scholars have traditionally perceived a conflict between The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations; the former emphasizes sympathy for others, while the latter focuses on the role of self-interest. In recent years, however, some scholars of Smith's work have argued that no contradiction exists.