Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments opens with a memorable sentence that demonstrates his great debt to Hutcheson: 'How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.' . . . In his own final (published) word on the subject, Smith contended that the idea of benevolence can provide 'no solid happiness' to any humans not convinced that 'all inhabitants of the universe exist 'under the immediate care and protection of that great, benevolent, and all-wise Being, who directs all the movements of nature.' The idea that such a 'divine Being' is constantly maximizing happiness 'is certainly of all the objects of human contemplation by far the most sublime.'" [Toward Democracy, Kindle Location 5807-5830]