ADAM SMITH. 271 



mists in its greatest latitude, (Chap. V., Book II., Vol. II., 

 p. 52, Svo. edition), asserts, that, in agriculture, nature 

 works with man, and that the rent is the wages of her 

 labour; but that, in manufactures, man does everything. 

 But does not nature work with man in manufactures as 

 well as in agriculture ? If she works with him in forming 

 a handful of seed into a sheaf of flax, does she not also work 

 with him in fashioning this useless sheaf into a garment ? 

 Why draw a line between the two effects, when a person 

 can no more clothe himself with an utftorought sheaf of the 

 produce than with an unsown handful of the seed. Why 

 draw a line between the two operations, when the workman 

 can no more change the sheaf into a garment without the 

 aid of those powers which we denominate nature, cohesion, 

 divisibility, heat, and moisture, than the farmer can convert 

 the seed into a sheaf, without the vegetative powers of heat, 

 moisture, and cohesion ? If, instead of flax, we suppose the 

 sheaf to be of barley, the analogy will be still more apparent. 

 The brewer or distiller is certainly a productive labourer ; 

 yet the changes which he effects are as little the direct 

 work of his hands, as the multiplication of the seed in the 

 field. The conversion of that substance into an intoxicating 

 beverage, is the work of nature, as well as its growth in the 

 harvest ; and fermentation is as great a mystery as vege- 

 tation. If the rent of land, again, may be called the wages 

 of nature, in agricultural operations, the net profits of 

 manufacturing stock may be termed her wages in our 

 operations upon raw produce ; meaning, by net profits, that 

 part of the gross profit which remains after paying the 

 labourer who works, and him who superintends ; that is, 

 after deducting wages, and the profit received by a man 

 trading on borrowed capital ; for we must always keep in 

 view a consideration, the omission of which we will venture 

 to assert, has misled almost all political inquirers, that the 

 rent of land is, properly speaking, the net profit of stock 

 advanced by the landlord, and that everything which the 

 farmer receives, over and above the wages of his labour, is 

 the profit of another stock, which may be borrowed as well 

 as the land ; and in this case his whole profit resolves into 

 wages the case of a trader having no capital whatever. 

 In both cases there is a clear gain ; in both it is obtained 



