98 
On the Source of W ealth. 
[April, 
urged to increasing vigilance and exertion, in order that they may be enabled to 
add sufficiently to their income. Many, on these accounts, must be able to make a 
transfer to the preparers of wrought wares, which bears a small proportion to their 
whole income, who would look with apathy, as being beyond their reach, on 
manufactures which required the payment of a much larger proportion. 
It follows from these considerations, that in proportion as the recompense de- 
manded by manufacturers for their products, falls or rises, so must the demand 
for them be extended or contracted. 
Now if we admit, that the sale of ten articles, each realizing twenty measures of 
corn, brings a less aggregate gain to the seller, than the sale of fifty of the same 
articles, at ten measures each ; we must allow, that the maker of instruments shod 
with metal, with whose case we opened the discussion, in place of enriching him- 
self, by continually raising his price when the demand grew brisk for his wares, 
might ultimately be producing a contrary effect. His true interest is connected, 
not with the height of the recompense obtained on each article sold, but with the 
amount of the gain realized in the aggregate, on all the sales he may be able to 
effect within a certain time. He may prefer, indeed, to get a high price on a few 
articles, provided that high price enables him to subsist in comparative idleness; 
but this conduct could only, for a short time, affect society’; for other labourers, 
seeing his easy circumstances, would speedily flock to the trade, and the supply 
would be brought to market by a new class, in place of a single individual. There 
w ill be no difficulty in finding proper workmen to effect this ; for however rare the 
genius which originates happy inventions, no extraordinary powers are requisite, 
after the process has been once suggested, practically to apply the same invention. 
Although the gains of the manufacturers would be greater, when a sale was 
effected of fifty articles at 10 measures each, than when ten only were sold at 20 
measures each ; yet it does not follow that they will always enrich themselves by 
increasing the supply, and reducing the price demanded for each product. 
It, for instance, they could only find a sale for 60 of their products, when they 
reduced the price of each to 8 measures of corn, direct impoverishment follows; 
in return too, for the greater exertions necessary in making the larger supply, than 
were required in preparing the smaller. 
Between a very scanty supply at high prices, and an excessive supply at very low 
prices, there must, therfore, be some point to which prices must rapidly make an 
approximation ; and that point must have been gained, when prices have settled 
to that which is found to hold, when the manufacturers enjoy the greatest aggre- 
gate of gain; their only motive in bringing any specific quantity to market, no more 
or less, bemg to secure this greatest aggregate of gain. 
If we now suppose the wrought products of the manufacturer to have been 
rought into general use, each particular description of wares, being paid for from the 
net produce beyond their own consumption, remaining in the hands of the agricul- 
tural class; each member of that class will now be found regulating his exertions, 
not by what might suit his own particular consumption, were it entirely composed 
of food, but by what will feed himself, and serve to reimburse such manufacturers 
also, as minister to the higher gratification, now brought within his reach 
The quantity and nature of the products of agriculture, the primary wealth of 
the society, will be presently accommodated, therefore, to the anticipated demand 
ot manufacturers, as inevitably as the produce of manufacturers will be regulated 
by the anticipated demand of agriculturists. When mutual demand and supply 
regulate one another, we may be assured, that there will be a constant approxima- 
tion to such state of things, as leaves the whole society in the best possible ciremn- 
