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of the fimpleft operations. The fame perfon CHA P. 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 bufinefs to perform them, is usually much greater. The rapidity with which fome of the operations of those manufactures are performed, exceeds what the human hand could, by those who had never feen 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 firft 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 fmall farm, muft lofe 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 workhouse, 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 say, does not go to it, and for fome time he rather trifles than applies to good

purpose.

BOOK purpose. The habit of fauntering and of indolent

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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 ways almost every day of his life; renders him almost always flothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application even on the most preffing occafions. Independent, therefore, of his deficiency in point of dexterity, this caufe alone muft always reduce confiderably the quantity of work which he is capable of performing.

Thirdly, and lastly, every body must be fenfible how much labour is facilitated and abridged by the application of proper machinery. It is unneceffary to give any example. I shall only obferve, therefore, that the invention of all those machines by which labour is so much facilitated and abridged, feems to have been originally owing to the division of labour. Men are much more likely to discover eafier and readier methods of attaining any object, when the whole attention of their minds is directed towards that fingle object, than when it is diffipated among a great variety of things. But in confequence of the divifion of labour, the whole of every man's attention comes naturally to be directed towards fome one very fimple object. It is naturally to be expected, therefore, that fome one or other of those who are employed in each particular branch of labour fhould foon find out easier and readier methods of performing their own particu

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lar work, wherever the nature of it admits of fuch CHA P. improvement. A great part of the machines made use of in those manufactures in which labour is most fubdivided, were originally the inventions of common workmen, who being each of them employed in fome very fimple operation, naturally turned their thoughts towards finding out easier and readier methods of performing it. Whoever has been much accustomed to vifit fuch manufactures, muft frequently have been fhewn very pretty machines, which were the inventions of fuch workmen, in order to facilitate and quicken their own particular part of the work. In the first fire-engines, a boy was constantly employed to open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder, according as the piston either afcended or defcended. One of those boys, who loved to play with his companions, observed that, by tying a ftring from the handle of the valve which opened this communication to another part of the machine, the valve would open and shut without his affiftance, and leave him at liberty to divert himself with his play-fellows. One of the greatest improvements that has been made upon this machine, fince it was first invented, was in this manner the discovery of a boy who wanted to fave his own labour.

All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the inventions of those who had occafion to use the machines. Many improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the machines, when

to

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BOOK to make them became the bufinefs of a peculiar trade; and fome by that of those who are called philofophers or men of fpeculation, whofe trade it is not to do any thing, but to obferve every thing; and who, upon that account, are often capable of combining together the powers of the most diftant and diffimilar objects. In the progrefs of fociety, philofophy or fpeculation becomes, like every other employment, the principal or fole trade and occupation of a particular clafs of citizens. Like every other employment too, it is fubdivided into a great number of different branches, each of which affords occupation to a peculiar tribe or clafs of philofophers; and this fubdivifion of employment in philofophy, as well as in every other business, improves dexterity, and faves time. Each individual becomes more expert in his own peculiar branch, more work is done upon the whole, and the quantity of fcience is confiderably increased by it.

It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in confequence of the divifion of labour, which occafions, in a well-governed fociety, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occafion for; and every other workman being exactly in the fame fituation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the fame thing, for the price of a great quan

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tity of theirs. He fupplies them abundantly C HA P. with what they have occafion for, and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occafion for, and a general plenty diffufes itself through all the different ranks of the fociety.

Obferve the accommodation of the moft common artificer or day-labourer in a civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of people of whofe industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The fhepherd, the forter of the wool, the woolcomber or carder, the dyer, the fcribbler, the fpinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dreffer, with many others, muft all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, befides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from fome of thofe workmen to others who often live in a very diftant part of the country! how much commerce and navigation in particular, how many fhip-builders, failors, failmakers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made ufe 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 meaneft of those workmen! To fay nothing of fuch complicated

VOL. II.

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machines

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