An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations | Page 4

worse supplied with all the necessaries and conveniencies for which it has occasion.
But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different circumstances: first,
by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which its labour is generally applied; and,
secondly, by the proportion between the number of those who are employed in useful
labour, and that of those who are not so employed. Whatever be the soil, climate, or
extent of territory of any particular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual
supply must, in that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances.
The abundance or scantiness of this supply, too, seems to depend more upon the former
of those two circumstances than upon the latter. Among the savage nations of hunters and
fishers, every individual who is able to work is more or less employed in useful labour,
and endeavours to provide, as well as he can, the necessaries and conveniencies of life,

for himself, and such of his family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or too
infirm, to go a-hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so miserably poor, that,
from mere want, they are frequently reduced, or at least think themselves reduced, to the
necessity sometimes of directly destroying, and sometimes of abandoning their infants,
their old people, and those afflicted with lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to
be devoured by wild beasts. Among civilized and thriving nations, on the. contrary,
though a great number of people do not labour at all, many of whom consume the
produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times, more labour than the greater part of
those who work ; yet the produce of the whole labour of the society is so great, that all
are often abundantly supplied ; and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if
he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and
conveniencies of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.
The causes of this improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the order
according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the different ranks and
conditions of men in the society, make the subject of the first book of this Inquiry.
Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which labour is
applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must depend,
during the continuance of that state, upon the proportion between the number of those
who are annually employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed.
The number of useful and productive labourers, it will hereafter appear, is everywhere in
proportion to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting them to work, and
to the particular way in which it is so employed. The second book, therefore, treats of the
nature of capital stock, of the manner in which it is gradually accumulated, and of the
different quantities of labour which it puts into motion, according to the different ways in
which it is employed.
Nations tolerably well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment, in the application of
labour, have followed very different plans in the general conduct or direction of it; and
those plans have not all been equally favourable to the greatness of its produce. The
policy of some nations has given extraordinary encouragement to the industry of the
country ; that of others to the industry of towns. Scarce any nation has dealt equally and
impartially with every sort of industry. Since the down-fall of the Roman empire, the
policy of Europe has been more favourable to arts, manufactures, and commerce, the
industry of towns, than to agriculture, the Industry of the country. The circumstances
which seem to have introduced and established this policy are explained in the third
book.
Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the private interests and
prejudices of particular orders of men, without any regard to, or foresight of, their
consequences upon the general welfare of the society; yet they have given occasion to
very different theories of political economy; of which some magnify the importance of
that industry which is carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the
country. Those theories have had a considerable influence, not only upon the opinions of
men of learning, but upon the public conduct of princes and sovereign states. I have
endeavoured, in the fourth book, to explain as fully and distinctly as I can those different
theories, and the principal effects which they have produced in different ages and nations.
To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the people, or what has
been the nature