Adam Smith and the development hypothesis

This article approaches the work of Adam Smith through embryology. It is argued that Smith's source of inspiration in thinking about organization was the epigenetic theory of development, according to which temporal transformations are explained as a move from inarticulate homogeneity to articulated heterogeneity. After detecting the sources on which Smith could have relied, the theory is found to be present in his account of the history of language and the division of labour and led him to the conclusion that the hypothesis of God is dispensable and that human beings need to take charge, imaginatively, of their own history.