£04 Remarks o/i an Essaij on Cominerce, 



if each had undertaken to procure them separately for him- 

 self. Their being, however, enabled to do this, did not so 

 much arise from natural as artificial causes ; for though, 

 piost assuredly, there are particular pa//5 of. a nation, which 

 may exclusively produce articles necessary to the whole, yet 

 this is no argument in support of Mr. Graham's statement, 

 which implies that nations tht-mselves are as much depend- 

 ent upon each other, as -the several parts of which ihey are 

 each of them composed. But, even here, it must be ad- 

 mitted, that such articles are more adapted to the use of the 

 inhabitants of the parts where tliey are produced, than to 

 that of those who live in difterent ones of the same natiia j 

 the decfree of utility lessening as the local distancts increase. 

 In addition to what has been said before, that the Creator 

 has distinguished the different nations of the earth by dissi- 

 milarity of language, habits, and dispositions, he has, to 

 make this distinction more evident and striking, separated 

 them by less equivocal divisions : by rocks, water, long 

 chains of mountains, and other boundaries or marks; so 

 that, the difficulty of defining the limits of a nation cannot 

 be ur-'^ed in opposition to the distinction which is made be- 

 tween that commerce which is carried on by the several parts 

 of it, among themselves, and that which is carried on be- 

 tween it and other nations. But, leaving the, generally 

 speaking, unimportant consideration of the difference be- 

 tween what each part of a nation is jiaturally capable of 

 producinsx, — it will be found that the difference between 

 what each part of it acually does produce, arises always, and 

 almost totally, from that superiority of skill and judgement 

 which is the inevitable consequence of the attention of their 

 several inhabitants being respectively devoted to a few pur- 

 suits : physical exertion, aided by the human intellect, if 

 confined to any particular branch of agriculture, art, or ma- 

 nufacture, cannot fail to arrive at a degree of perfection far 

 beyond what it would othcrwiac h^^^'e attained, had it been 

 distracted by an application to all, or any considerable 

 number of them. On this account, apiece of ground be- 

 longing to an individual, although capable of producing 

 every thing necessary for his use, was appropriated solely to 



the 



