ADAM SMITH. 207 



two effects, when a person can no more clothe himself with 

 an unwrought 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 mois- 

 ture, than the farmer can convert the seed into a sheaf with- 

 out 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 multi- 

 plication 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 vegetation. 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 every 

 thing 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 in the same way; in both distributed 

 among the same classes. 



Let us, however, take an example or two, for the pur- 

 pose of comparing more closely the productive with the 

 unproductive kinds of labour. The person who makes a 

 plough is, according to the Economists, an unproductive 

 labourer, but he who drives it is a productive labourer. In 



