An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

15

Adam Smith

fore, that the invention of all those machines by which labour is

so much facilitated and abridged, seems to have been originally

owing to the division of labour. Men are much more likely to

discover easier and readier methods of attaining any object, when

the whole attention of their minds is directed towards that single

object, than when it is dissipated among a great variety of things.

But, in consequence of the division of labour, the whole of every

man’s attention comes naturally to be directed towards some one

very simple object. It is naturally to be expected, therefore, that

some one or other of those who are employed in each particular

branch of labour should soon find out easier and readier methods

of performing their own particular work, whenever the nature of

it admits of such improvement. A great part of the machines made

use of in those manufactures in which labour is most subdivided,

were originally the invention of common workmen, who, being

each of them employed in some very simple operation, naturally

turned their thoughts towards finding out easier and readier meth-

ods of performing it. Whoever has been much accustomed to visit

such manufactures, must frequently have been shewn very pretty

machines, which were the inventions of such workmen, in order

to facilitate and quicken their own particular part of the work. In

the first fire engines {this was the current designation for steam

engines}, a boy was constantly employed to open and shut alter-

nately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder,

according as the piston either ascended or descended. One of those

boys, who loved to play with his companions, observed that, by

tying a string from the handle of the valve which opened this com-

munication to another part of the machine, the valve would open

and shut without his assistance, and leave him at liberty to divert

himself with his play-fellows. One of the greatest improvements

that has been made upon this machine, since it was first invented,

was in this manner the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his

own labour.

All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means

been the inventions of those who had occasion to use the ma-

chines. Many improvements have been made by the ingenuity of

the makers of the machines, when to make them became the busi-

ness of a peculiar trade; and some by that of those who are called

philosophers, or men of speculation, whose trade it is not to do

any thing, but to observe every thing, and who, upon that ac-

count, are often capable of combining together the powers of the

most distant and dissimilar objects in the progress of society, phi-

losophy or speculation becomes, like every other employment,

the principal or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of

citizens. Like every other employment, too, it is subdivided into a

great number of different branches, each of which affords occupa-

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16

The Wealth of Nations

tion to a peculiar tribe or class of philosophers; and this subdivision

of employment in philosophy, as well as in every other business,

improve dexterity, and saves time. Each individual becomes more

expert in his own peculiar branch, more work is done upon the

whole, and the quantity of science is considerably increased by it.

It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the differ-

ent arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occa-

sions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which

extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman

has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he

himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly

in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of

his own goods for a great quantity or, what comes to the same

thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them

abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommo-

date him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general

plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of the society.

Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or

daylabourer in a civilized and thriving country, and you will per-

ceive that the number of people, of whose industry a part, though

but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accom-

modation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example,

which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may ap-

pear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of

workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber

or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller,

the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in

order to complete even this homely production. How many mer-

chants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in trans-

porting the materials from some of those workmen to others who

often live in a very distant part of the country? How much com-

merce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sail-

ors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order

to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer,

which often come from the remotest corners of the world? What a

variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of

the meanest of those workmen! To say nothing of such compli-

cated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or

even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of

labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the

shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the

builder of the furnace for smelting the ore the feller of the timber,

the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-

house, the brickmaker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend

the furnace, the millwright, the forger, the smith, must all of them

join their different arts in order to produce them. Were we to

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