ADAM SMITH. 211 



productive in the strict sense of the word, and tend to aug- 

 ment the mass of human riches, meaning, by riches, all those 

 things which are necessary, or convenient, or delightful to 

 man. The progress of society has been attended with a com- 

 plete separation of employments originally united. At first, 

 every man provided for his necessities as well as his pleasures, 

 and for all his wants as well as all his enjoyments. By de- 

 grees, a division of those cares was introduced ; the subsis- 

 tence of the community became the province of one class, 

 its comforts of another, and its gratifications of a third. The 

 different operations subservient to the attainment of each of 

 these objects, were then intrusted to different hands ; and the 

 universal establishment of barter connected the whole of the 

 divisions and subdivisions together ; enabled one man to 

 manufacture for all, without danger of starving by not plough- 

 ing or hunting ; and another to plough or hunt for all, without 

 the risk of wanting tools and clothes by not manufacturing. 

 It has thus become as impossible to say exactly who feeds, 

 clothes, and entertains the community, as it would be impos- 

 sible to say which of the many workmen employed in the 

 manufacture of a pin is the actual pin-maker, or which of the 

 farm-servants produces the crop. All the branches of useful 

 industry work together to the common end, as all the parts 

 of each branch co-operate to its particular object. If you 

 say that the farmer feeds the community, and produces all the 

 raw materials which the other classes work upon ; we answer, 

 that unless those other classes worked upon the raw materials, 

 and supplied the farmer's necessities, he would be forced to 

 allot part of his labour to this employment, while he forced 

 others to assist in raising the rude produce. In such a com- 

 plicated system, it is clear that all labour has the same effect, 

 and equally increases the whole mass of wealth. Nor can 

 any attempt be more vain than theirs who would define the 

 particular parts of the machine that produce the motion, 

 which is necessarily the result of the whole powers combined, 

 and depends on each one of the mutually connected members. 

 Yet so wedded have those theorists been to the notion, that 

 certain necessary kinds of employment are absolutely unpro- 

 ductive, that a writer of no less name than Dr. Smith has 



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