An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations | Page 9

very distant part of
the country ? How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders,
sailors, sail-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 remotest corners of
the world ? What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the
meanest of those workmen ! To say nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of
the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what

a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with
which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the
ore the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the
smelting-house, the brickmaker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the
millwright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to
produce them. Were we to examine, in the same 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
compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes
use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him, perhaps, by
a long sea 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 serves 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 requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention,
without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very
comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen employed in
producing those different conveniencies ; if we examine, I say, all these things, and
consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible
that, without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person
in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely
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 simple and easy ; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that
the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an
industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many
an African king, the absolute masters of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked
savages.


CHAPTER II
.
OF THE PRINCIPLE WHICH GIVES OCCASION TO THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.
This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the
effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which
it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a
certain propensity in human nature, which has in view no such extensive utility ; the
propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.
Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature, of which no
further account can be given, or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary
consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to
inquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem
to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in running down
the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each

turns her towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept her when his companion
turns her towards himself. This, however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the
accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at that particular time.
Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with
another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal, by its gestures and natural cries signify to
another, this is mine, that yours ; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal wants
to obtain something either of a man, or of another animal, it has no other means