Daily Inspiration Quote by Adam Smith

Smith’s line lands like a cold compress on an overheated forehead: the Enlightenment’s faith in method as a cure for the feverish politics of impulse. Calling science an “antidote” is a loaded medical metaphor. It frames “enthusiasm” not as healthy passion but as intoxication, the kind that spreads socially and overrides judgment. In 18th-century Britain, “enthusiasm” often meant religious zeal and ecstatic certainty - a force associated with sects, mobs, and the volatile energies that elites feared could tip into violence or financial mania. Pairing it with “superstition” tightens the net: one is emotional excess, the other inherited error, but both thrive on the same ingredient, credulity.

The subtext is quietly disciplinary. Smith isn’t simply praising laboratories; he’s elevating a style of thinking that cools the blood, demands evidence, and resists charismatic certainty. For an economist watching speculative bubbles and moral panics, “science” becomes a civic technology: a way to keep public life from being governed by visions, omens, and the self-justifying thrill of belief.

It also flatters the rising authority of the educated public sphere. Science is cast as “great” not because it provides perfect answers, but because it produces a kind of humility - provisional claims, repeatable tests, arguments you can lose. Smith is signaling that modern society needs safeguards against ideas that feel true. The real target isn’t religion alone; it’s any conviction that refuses cross-examination.