wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the fcribbler, the fpinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dreffer, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production*.-How many merchants and carriers, befides, must have been employed in tranfporting the materials from fome of those workmen to others, who often live in a very diftant part of the country! how much commerce and navigation in particular; how many fship-builders, failors, fail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remoteft corners of the world! What a variety of labour too is neceffary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen! To fay nothing of fuch complicated machines as the ship of the failor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us confider only what a variety of labour is requifite in order to form that very simple machine, the fhears with which the Shepherd

* In civilized fociety man stands at all times in need of the co-operation and affiftance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce fufficient to gain the friendship of a few perfons. In almost every other race of animals, each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural ftate has occafion for the affiftance of no other living creature. But man has almoft conftant occafion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can intereft their felf-love in his favour, and fhew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them.-Vide the Set. on the Principle of Trade.

clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for fmelting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made ufe of in the fmelting-houfe, the brickmaker, the brick-layer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the mill-wright, the forger, the fmith, muft all of them join their different arts in order to produce them.-Were we to examine, in the fame manner, all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen fhirt which he wears next his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compofe it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes ufe of for that purpofe, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him perhaps by a long fea and a long land carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he ferves up and divides his victuals, the different hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and art requifite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world could fcarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different

workmen

workmen employed in producing those different conveniencies; if we examine, I fay, all these things, and confider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we fhall be fenfible that without the affistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest perfon in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falfely imagine, the easy and fimple manner in which he is commonly accommodated.— Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely fimple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always fo much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the abfolute mafter of the lives and liberties of ten thoufand naked favages *.

*ADAM SMITH.

VOL. II.

U

SECT.

SECT. IX.

ON THE INTRODUCTION OF MONEY.

WHEN the divifion of labour has been once thoroughly established, it is but a very small part of a man's wants which the produce of his own labour can supply.-He fupplics the far greater part of them by exchanging that furplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own confumption, for fuch parts of the produce of other men's labour as he has occasion for. -Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in fome measure a merchant, and the fociety itself grows to be what is properly a commercial fociety.

But when the divifion of labour first began to take place, this power of exchanging must frequently have been very much clogged and embarraffed in its operations.-One man, we shall fuppofe, has more of a certain commodity than he himself has occafion for, while another has lefs.-The former confequently would be

glad

glad to difpofe of, and the latter to purchase, a part of this fuperfluity. But if this latter fhould chance to have nothing that the former ftands in need of, no exchange can be made between them.-The butcher has more meat in his shop than he himself can confume, and the brewer and the baker would each of them be willing to purchase a part of it.—But they have nothing to offer in exchange, except the different productions of their respective trades, and the butcher is already provided with all the bread and beer which he has immediate occafion for.-No exchange can, in this cafe, be made between them.-He cannot be their merchant, nor they his customers; and they are all of them thus mutually less serviceable to one another.-In order to remove the inconveniency of fuch fituations, every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the divifion of labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs in fuch a manner, as to have at all times by him, befides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of fome one commodity or other, fuch as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their industry.

Many different commodities, it is probable, were fuc