5. Adam Smith speaks of the importance of a division of employments as leading to the invention of machinery, but passes over its utility in using machinery effec tually, when invented. Every part of a large machine requires workmen whose sole business it is to work in unison with its peculiar movement. So distinct are these various processes—so diverse their character—that in all large manufactures there is an extensive vocabulary of names by which operatives working in the very same factory are distinguished.• With out such a subdivision of peculiar em ployments the most ingenious machinery would be useless : and thus while ma chinery multiplies distinct operations of labour, they are, in their turn, essential to its efficacy.
• 6. Adam Smith assigns the origin of a division of employments to the " trucking disposition" of mankind—to their " pro pensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another" (book i. ch. ii.). This love of barter, however, is only a secondary cause : men have no natural taste for it ; but use it as a means of ob taining the various objects which they desire. If they could obtain them with out the trouble of barter, they would un questionably not follow barter as an amusement, any more than they would work if they could get what they wanted without labour. So far, then, from the trucking disposition of men being the cause of a division of employments, it would appear that a division of employ ments is rather the proximate cause of commerce. For if all men worked in the same manner and produced the same things, there would be nothing to ex change : but as soon as men learn to devote themselves to the production of one com modity, the whole of which they cannot consume, they must exchange the produce of their labour with others, who have been producing objects which they desire to possess. This is an intelligible origin of barter and commerce—consistent with the natural propensities of mankind, and not requiring for its support the strained hypothesis that men have an innate dispo sition to truck. But a division of employ ments, like barter, is itself but a second ary cause ; and both alike must ultimately be referred to the one original cause of all forms of industry—the desire of mankind to possess various enjoyments which are only to be gained by labour.
This would appear to be the natural course of social progress. First, a man
applies himself to a particular business be cause he has facilities for following it. One man lives by the sea and is a fisher man : another lives near the forest and hunts game. Each could obtain more of this particular food than he requires for his own use, and may desire some little variety. ender these circumstances it is very natural that they should effect exchanges with each other—not for the mere love of barter—but for the love of food. But such an exchange could not be made between two men who both lived by fishing—nor between two others who both lived by hunting : for under such circum stances neither party would have anything to offer but that of which the other already had enough. It is perfectly true that without barter no extensive division of employments can exist : but it is clear that barter is the immediate effect rather than the cause of such division. Of the influence of commerce upon the division of employments we shall have to speak presently ; but, in this place, it is suffici ent to show that the production of differ ent commodities beyond the immediate wants of those who produce them enables men to barter, by giving them something to offer in exchange : and, that after wards, the advantages derived from bar ter are an encouragement to further pro duction of the same kind.
When this state of things has been once established, men avail themselves of all the natural advantages of their several positions, and apply themselves to the production of those commodities for which they have peculiar facilities. In one country minerals can be drawn from the bowels of the earth in unlimited abun dance: in another the fruits of the earth teem upon its surface—fostered by a genial climate and a fertile soil. The inhabitants of these countries naturally seek to develop the resources of the earth which are within their reach. They labour effectively and produce abundance of their particular commodi ties, which they give in exchange for other things which they cannot produce themselves, but which they desire to enjoy. And thus a division of employments. by the aid of an extended commerce, distri butes over the whole world, the advan tages of soil, climate, situation, and mine ral productions, obtained by the experi ence and skill of men who have adapted their talents to the circumstances of each country.