206 ADAM SMITH. 



the manufacturer who fashions raw materials into useful com- 

 modities increases their value, the Economists indeed admit; 

 but they deny that any further addition is thus made to the 

 value of the materials than the value of the workman's main- 

 tenance while employed in the manufacture. 



It seems obvious, at first sight, to remark, that, according 

 to their own principles, these theorists have committed one 

 error. They have ranged all labour, except that of the hus- 

 bandman, in the same class; while they have virtually ac- 

 knowledged that as great a difference subsists between the 

 two members of that division, as between either of them and 

 the other division. For surely, the merchant, who adds, 

 according to them, no value to any material, is as much to be 

 distinguished from the manufacturer who does add the value 



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of his maintenance to the raw produce, as the manufacturer 

 is to be distinguished from the husbandman, whose labour 



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returns a net profit over and above the price of his mainte- 

 nance. This criticism is almost decisive, in a discussion 

 which, it must be admitted on all hands, resolves into a 

 question of classification. But the error of the Economists 

 is still more fundamental. 



There is no essential difference between the powers of 

 man over matter, in agriculture, and in other employments. 

 It is a vulgar error, to suppose that, in the operations of 

 husbandry, any portion is added to the stock of matter for- 

 merly in existence. The farmer works up the raw material, 

 i. e., the manure, soil and seed, into grain, by means of heat, 

 moisture, and the vegetative powers of nature, in whatever 

 these may consist. The manufacturer works up his raw 

 material by means of certain other powers of nature. Dr. 

 Smith, however, who states the doctrine of the Economists 

 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 every thing. But, does not nature 

 work with man, in manufacture 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 



