<i>ADAM SMITH E LA MERAVIGLIA DELLA SCOPERTA</i>

Abstract

This essay starts from the analysis of a youthful work by Adam Smith, The Principles which lead and direct philosophical Inquiries; illustrated by the History of Astronomy (1795), recently returned to the center of interest of the studios of the Scottish scholar of Kirkcaldy, for the attention placed by the author not so much on the reconstruction of astronomical systems from antiquity to Newton, as for the role attributed to the feeling of wonder in accelerating the development of science and human progress.