observed in the Philosophy of the Human Mind, "is of the most dangerous tendency, recommending in strong and unqualified terms an unmixed despotism, and reprobating all constitutional checks on the sovereign authority. Many English writers, indeed, with an almost incredible ignorance of the works which they have presumed to censure, have spoken of them, as if they encouraged political principles of a very different complexion; but the truth is, that the disciples of Quesnai (without a single exception) carried their zeal for the power of the monarch, and what they called the Unity of Legislation, to so extravagant a length, as to treat with contempt those mixed establishments which allow any share whatever of legislative influence to the representatives of the people. On the one hand, the evidence of this system appeared to its partisans so complete and irresistible, that they flattered themselves monarchs would soon see, with an intuitive conviction, the identity of their own interests with those of the nations they are called to govern; and, on the other hand, they contended that it is only under the strong and steady government of a race of hereditary princes, undistracted by the prejudices and local interests which warp the deliberations of popular assemblies, that a gradual and systematical approach can be made to the perfection of law and policy. The very first of Quesnai's maxims states as a fundamental principle, that the sovereign authority, unrestrained by any constitutional checks or balances, should be lodged in the hands of a single person; and the same doctrine is maintained zealously by all his followers-by none of them more explicitly than by Mercier de la Rivière, whose treatise on The Natural and Essential Order of Political Societies, might have been expected to attract some notice in this country, from the praise which Mr. Smith has bestowed on the perspicuity of his style, and the distinctness of his arrangement."*

* [Above, Works, Vol. II. pp. 240, 241.]

[SECT. I.-ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH RENDER LABOUR MORE EFFECTIVE.]

I proceed now to illustrate the general principles on which the effective powers of labour depend; or, in other words, to illustrate the circumstances which tend to economize the exertions of human power in accomplishing the purposes to which it is directed. The speculation, certainly, is one of the most curious which the mechanism of a commercial society presents to a philosopher; and it leads to many consequences of a very general and important application. From the observations already made, it appears that man is forced, in every situation in which he is to be found, by the necessities of his nature, to employ some degree of art in order to obtain the means of subsistence and safety. It appears farther, that it is to these necessities he is indebted for the development and improvement of those faculties by which he is distinguished from the brutes; and that, excepting in a few districts, where the preservation of his animal existence occupies his whole attention, and leaves him no leisure for the arts of accommodation, his intellectual attainments are, in general, proportioned to the number of his wants, and to the difficulties with which he has to struggle. As Rousseau observes:-" Chez toutes les nations du monde, les progrès de l'esprit se sont précisément proportionnés aux besoins que les peuples avaient reçus de la nature, ou auxquels les circonstances les avaient assujettis, et par conséquent aux passions qui les portaient à pourvoir à ces besoins. Je montrerais en Egypte les arts naissants et s'étendants avec les débordemens du Nil; je suivrais leurs progrès chez les Grecs, où l'on les vit germer, croître, et s'élever jusqu'aux cieux parmi les sables et les rochers de l'Attique, sans pouvoir prendre racine sur les bords fertiles de l'Eurotas."*

As soon as the situation of an individual is rendered easy

[Origine de l'Inégalité parmi les Hommes, Partie I.-But the " gaudent sudoribus artes" had been long

proverbial; it may be traced higher than Hesiod, and far lower than Baptista Mantuanus.]

and comfortable, with respect to the necessities of life, he begins to feel wants of which he was not conscious before, and his imagination creates new objects of pursuit to fill up his intervals of leisure. It seems to be the intention of Providence, that as soon as one class of our wants is supplied, another, whether real or imaginary, makes its appearance; and it is this, that as no limit can be stated to our desires, so there seems to be no limit to the improvement of the arts and the progress of refinement.

In the rudest state of society, in which all the members of a tribe are occupied in procuring subsistence, each individual will appropriate to himself the various objects of pursuit by his own personal exertions. He will form his own habitation, secure his prey by his own strength or agility, and be the artificer of those instruments which are employed in the simple arts which minister to his safety or accommodation; and thus his occupations, however limited in number, will be at least as various as the arts which he exercises; and the opportunities of intellectual improvement, however scanty, will be nearly the same to all the members of the community.

[SUBSECT. I.-On the Division of Labour.]

As society advances, the different tastes and propensities of individuals will give rise to a variety in their pursuits, and in their habits and attainments. In such circumstances, a very small degree of experience or reflection will satisfy them, that it would be for the advantage of all if each should confine himself to his own favourite occupation, cultivating to the utmost of his ability those mechanical habits which are connected with its exercise, and exchanging the surplus produce of his industry for what he may want of the commodities produced by the labour of his neighbours. Thus trades and separate professions will arise, which, in consequence of the operation of the same causes, will continually multiply and be divided and subdivided as society advances in wealth and refinement. The observation, that " A Jack of all trades is master of none," is one

of those maxims of common sense which the slightest survey of human life forces on the most careless observer.*

It is on this separation of trades and professions, and on this division and subdivision of labour, that the progress of the arts, according to Mr. Smith, in a great measure, depends; the effective powers of labour being, in general, proportioned to the degree in which these are divided and distributed. The same idea had, before Mr. Smith's time, been adopted by various modern writers; particularly by Mr. Harris in his Dialogue concerning Happiness, 1741 ; and by Dr. Ferguson in his Essay on Civil Society.§ The fact, too, has been very strongly stated by different writers of a much more early date; particularly by Sir William Petty and Dr. Mandeville; nor did it escape the notice of the ancients, as appears among various other documents, from a very curious passage in the Cyropædia of Xenophon, in which he compares the distribution of employments in Cyrus's kitchen to the division of trades in a populous city. This passage states the doctrine so circumstantially, and with a simplicity of detail so characteristical of this inimitable writer, that I shall make no apology for quoting the passage at length :

"For as other arts are wrought up in great cities to a greater degree of perfection, in the same manner are the meats that come from the king dressed in greater perfection. For in little cities the same people make both the frame of a couch, a door, a plough, and a table; and frequently the same person is a builder too, and very well satisfied he is, if he meet with customers enough to maintain him. It is impossible, therefore, for a man that makes a great many different things, to do

* [“ Propre à tout, propre à rien.” Indeed, all languages have a corresponding proverb. In Latin:-" Cuncta nihilque sumus,"-" Nusquam est, qui ubique est,”—“ In omnibus aliquid, in toto nihil," &c. In the Margites, a kind of Dunciad, attributed to Homer, it is said of the hero in a line preserved in the Second Alcibiades, one of the spurious dialogues of Plato,

Πόλλ' ἐπίστατο ἔργα, κακῶς δ' ἠπίστατο

πάντα.

And to this line, certainly, Mr. Stewart here makes reference.]

+[Wealth of Nations, Book I. chap. i.; Vol. I. p. 9, tenth edition.] [Part I. sect. xii.]

? [Part IV. sect. i.]

them all well. But in great cities, because there are multitudes that want every particular thing, one art alone is sufficient for the maintenance of every one; and frequently not an entire one neither, but one man makes shoes for men, another for women. Sometimes it happens, that one gets a maintenance by sewing shoes together, another by cutting them out; one by cutting out cloths only, and another without doing any of these things is maintained by fitting together the pieces so cut out. He, therefore, that deals in a business that lies within a little compass, must of necessity do it the best. The case is the same with respect to the business of a table, for he that has the same man to cover and adorn the frame of a couch, to set out the table, to knead the dough, to dress the several different meats, must necessarily, in my opinion, fare in each particular as it happens. But where it is business enough for one man to boil meat, for another to roast it; for one to boil fish, and for another to broil it; where it is business enough for one man to make bread, and that not of every sort neither, but that its enough for him to furnish one sort good, each man, in my opinion, must of necessity work up the things that are thus made to a very great perfection."*

From this passage of Xenophon it is evident, that the effects of the division of labour, in contributing to the improvement of the arts, furnished a subject of speculation in ancient as well as in modern times. It is very observable, however, in the foregoing quotation, that what Xenophon lays the chief stress. on, is the effect of this division in improving the quality of the articles produced, whereas the circumstance which has chiefly attracted the attention of Mr. Smith and other modern writers, is its astonishing effect in increasing their quantity. In proof of this, Mr. Smith has entered into some very interesting details with regard to the trade of the pin-makers.†

The effect of the division of labour in increasing its effective powers, is chiefly owing, according to Mr. Smith, to the three following circumstances:

* [In the original, Lib. VIII. cap. ii. 2 4.-The translation is by the Honourable Maurice Ashley.] + [See supra, p. 256, seq.]