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lar work, wherever the nature of it admits of fuch CHA P. improvement. A great part of the machines made ufe of in thofe manufactures in which labour is moft 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 eafier and readier methods of performing it. Whoever has been much accustomed to vifit fuch manufactures, must frequently have been shewn 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 firft fire-engines, a boy was conftantly employed to open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder, according as the pifton either afcended or defcended. One of those boys, who loved to play with his companions, obferved 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 affistance, 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 thofe 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, whose 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 distant 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 loweft 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

I.

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

Obferve the accommodation of the most coma mon 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 produc tion. How many merchants and carriers, besides, muft 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 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 thofe workTo fay nothing of fuch complicated machines

men!

VOL. II.

C

1.

BOOK machines as the fhip 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 fimple machine, the fhears with which the fhepherd 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 smelting-house, the brick-maker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the mill-wright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to pro. duce them. Were we to examine, in the fame manner, all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt 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 utenfils 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 dif ferent hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glafs 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 thefe northern parts of the world could fcarce have afforded a very

comfort

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comfortable habitation, together with the tools CHA P. of all the different workmen employed in producing thofe different conveniences; if we examine, I fay, all these things, and confider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that without the afliftance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meaneft person in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falfely imagine, the easy and simple 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 eafy; 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 thousand naked favages.

CHAP. II.

Of the Principle which gives occafion to the Divifion of Labour.

THIS

II.

HIS divifion of labour, from which fo CHAP. many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wifdom, which forefees and intends that general opulence to

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which