ADAM SMITH. 267 



realized itself in a stock, though that stock were destined to 

 perish the next instant. If a player or musician, instead 

 of charming our ears, were to produce something which, 

 when applied to our senses, would give us pleasure for a 

 single moment of time, then* labour would be called produc- 

 tive, although the produce were to perish in the very act of 

 employment. Wherein, then, lies the difference ? Merely 

 in this that we must consume the one produce at a cer- 

 tain time and place, and may use the other in a latitude 

 somewhat, though but little, more extensive. This differ- 

 ence, however, disappears altogether, when we reflect that 

 the labour would still be reckoned productive which should 

 give us a tangible equivalent, though it could not be car- 

 ried from the spot of its production, and could last only a 

 second in our hands upon that spot. The musician, in 

 reality, affects our senses by modulating the air ; i. e., he 

 works upon the air, and renders a certain portion of it worth 

 more than it was before he manufactured it. He com- 

 municates this value to it only for a moment, and in one 

 place ; there and then we are obliged to consume it. A 

 glassblower, again, prepares some metal for our amusement 

 or instruction, and blows it up to a great volume. He has 

 now fixed his labour to a tangible commodity. He then ex- 

 changes it, or gives it to us, that we may immediately use 

 it ; i. e., blow it until it flies to shivers. He has fixed his 

 labour, however, we say, in a vendible commodity. But we 

 may desire his farther assistance we may require him to 

 use it for our benefit ; and, without any pause in his pro- 

 cess of blowing, he bursts it. This case approaches as nearly 

 as possible to that of the musician ; yet Dr. Smith main- 

 tains that the latter is a different kind of labour from the 

 former. Nay, according to him, the labour of the glass- 

 blower is productive, if he spoils the process, and defeats 

 the end of the experiment, by pausing, and giving into un- 

 skilful hands the bubble before it bursts. But if he per- 

 forms the whole of that instructive operation, by contem- 

 plating which Sir Isaac Newton was taught the nature of 

 colour, his labour must be denominated unproductive ! 



But it is not fair to deny that the class called unproduc- 

 tive fixes its labour in some existing commodity. First, 

 we may observe that no labour, not even that of the far- 



