It seems he did. In Descent of Man, chapter 4, he wrote: "Adam Smith formerly argued, as has Mr. Bain recently, that the basis of sympathy lies in our strong retentiveness of former states of pain or pleasure." There's a footnote (#21) that says, in part: "See the first and striking chapter in Adam Smith's 'Theory of Moral Sentiments.' "
Source: here. (Search on "Adam Smith" to find it.)
I neglected to ping you to 555.
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2004/10/smith_and_darwi.html
Ive always liked Stephen Jay Goulds revision of Malthuss role in affecting Darwins thought. Consider these passages from one of Goulds finest essays, Darwins Middle Road, appearing in Goulds 1980 collection, The Pandas Thumb.
Gould cites an article from a 1977 issue of The Journal of the History of Biology in which the author, Silvan Schweber, researched in detail Darwins reading just after the great naturalist returned from the Galapagos Islands on the Beagle. Heres what Darwin read that Schweber found to be most influential on Darwins thought:
- Auguste Comtes Cours de Philosophie Positive
- various works of the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet
- Dugald Stewarts On the Life and Writing of Adam SmithAbout the first, Gould says that Darwin was particularly struck by Comtes insistence that a proper theory be predictive and at least potentially quantitative.
About the second, Gould reports that Darwin got a much better statement of Malthuss theory of population and food-supply growth.
About Stewarts intellectual biography of Adam Smith, Gould has this to say: [Darwin] imbibed the basic belief of the Scottish economists that theories of overall social structure must begin by analyzing the unconstrained actions of individuals.
Gould goes on:
The theory of natural selection is a creative transfer to biology of Adam Smiths basic argument for a rational economy: the balance and order of nature does not arise from a higher, external (divine) control, or from the existence of laws operating directly upon the whole, but from struggle among individuals for their own benefits.The more you learn about the Scottish Enlightenment in general, and about Adam Smith in particular, the more struck you are by the out-and-out genius and vision of those great Scots.