on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen diftinct operations, which, in fome manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the fame man will fometimes perform two or three of them.-I have feen a fmall manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where fome of them confequently performed two or three diftinct operations.-But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the neceffary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day.―There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling fize.-Thofe ten perfons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day.-Each perfon, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thoufand pins, might be confidered as making four thoufand eight hundred pins in a day.—But if they had all wrought feparately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar bufinefs, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, IN CONSEQUENCE of a proper divifion and combination of their different operations. In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the divifion of labour are fimilar to what they are in this very trifling one; though in many of them the labour can neither be fo much fubdivided, nor reduced to fo great a fimplicity of operation.-The divifion of labour, however, fo far as it can be introduced, occafions in every art a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour. The feparation of different trades and employments from one another, seems to have taken place in confequence of this advantage.-This feparation too is generally carried furtheft in thofe countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry and improvement; what is the work of one man in a rude state of society being generally that of several in an improved one.—In every improved fociety the farmer is generally nothing but a farmer, the manufacturer nothing but a manufacturer. -The labour too which is neceffary to produce any one complete manufacture, is almost always divided among a great number of hands.-How many different trades are employed in each branch of the linen and woollen manufactures, 7 manufactures, from the growers of the flax and the wool to the bleachers and fmoothers of the linen, or to the dyers and dreffers of the cloth! The great increase in the quantity of work which, IN CONSEQUENCE of the divifion of labour, the fame number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances. 1. To the increase of dexterity in every particular workman. 2. To the faving of the time which is commonly loft in paffing from one fpecies of work to another. And 3. To the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many. FIRST, the improvement of the dexterity of the workman neceffarily increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the divifion of labour, by reducing every man's bufinefs to fome one fimple operation, and by making this operation the fole employment of his life, neceffarily increases very much the dexterity of the workman. A common fmith, who, though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been used to make nails, if upon fome particular occafion he is obliged to attempt it, will scarce, I am affured, be able to make above two very bad or three hundred nails in a day, and those too ones. A fmith who has been accustomed to make nails, but whofe fole or principal bufinefs has not been that of a nailer, can feldom with his utmost diligence make more than eight hundred or a thousand nails in a day. I have feen feveral boys under twenty years of age whe had never exercifed any other trade but that of making nails, and who, when they exerted themselves, could make each of them upwards of two thousand three hundred nails in a day. The making of a nail, however, is by no means one of the fimpleft operations.-The fame person blows the bellows, ftirs or mends the fire as there is occafion, heats the iron, and forges every part of the nail: in forging the head too he is obliged to change his tools.-The different operations into which the making of a pin, or of a metal button, is fubdivided, are all of them much more fimple, and the dexterity of the perfon, of whofe life it has been the fole business to perform them, is ufually much greater.-The rapidity with which fome of the operations of thofe manufactures are performed, ex ceed ceeds what the human hand could, by thofe who had never seen them, be fuppofed capable of acquiring. SECONDLY, the advantage which is gained by faving the time commonly loft in paffing from one fort of work to another, is much greater than we should at first view be apt to imagine it.-It is impoffible to pafs very quickly from one kind of work to another, that is carried on in a different place, and with quite different tools.-A country weaver, who cultivates a small farm, must lose a good deal of time in paffing from his loom to the field, and from the field to his loom.-When the two trades can be carried on in the fame workhoufe, the lofs of time is, no doubt, much lefs.-It is even in this cafe, however, very confiderable.-A man commonly faunters a little in turning his hand from one fort of employment to another. When he first begins the new work he is feldom very keen and hearty; his mind, as they fay, does not go to it, and for fome time he rather trifles than applies to good purpose. -The habit of fauntering, and of indolent careless application, which is naturally, or rather neceffarily, acquired by every country workman who is obliged to change his work and his tools every half hour, and to apply his hand in twenty different VOL. II. |