Before possessing any medium of exchange, before dis covering the precious metals which render it so easy to us, our Solitary would ere long learn to distinguish the different kinds of labour in their relation to wealth. Labour producing no enjoyment is useless ; labour, whose fruits are naturally incapable of being stored up for future consumption, is unproductive ; whilst the only productive kinds of labour—the only kinds producing wealth—are such as leave behind them, in the estimation even of our Solitary, a pledge equal in value to the trouble they have cost. Thus the man, misled by analogy, may have ima gined that he could multiply his olive-trees by planting the olives; he may not have known but that the stones would germinate as in other such vegetables ; till, after preparing the ground by a complete and fatiguing tillage, experience would teach him that his toil had been useless, for no olive-tree was produced by it. Ott the other hand, be may have secured his dwelling from wolves and bears ; and the labour would be useful but unproductive ; for its fruits cannot accumulate. If previously accustomed to civilized life, he may have passed many hours in playing on a flute, saved, we shall suppose, at his shipwreck ; the labour would still be useful, and probably regarded as his own pleasure ; belt would be as unproductive, and for a like reason, as before. He may have bestowed on the care of his person and health much time, very usefully employ ed ; this will also be quite unproductive of wealth. The Solitary will clearly perceive what difference there is be tween productive labour and the labour of hours in which he amasses nothing for the future; and, without excluding himself from such occupations, he will call them a loss of time.
Whatever holds of the isolated man, with regard to creating and preserving wealth, is true also of society,— when labour. shared among numerous individuals, is recom pensed by wages, while its fruits are distributed by ex change. For the society, as well as for the Solitary, there may be a useless as well as an unproductive kind of labour; though both of them he paid, they still preserve their distinct character, since the first corresponds not. to the desires or wants of the labourer's employer, and the second admits no accumulation of its fruits. The wage paid to the workmen in either case must not mislead us; it puts the payer of it in the workman's place. The part which we formerly supposed to be performed by a single indivi dual, is now shared among two or more persons ; but the result is not altered in the least. The day-labourer who plants olives performs a task which is useless to his cm ploycr, though, if he receives his hire, it may be advanta geous to himself. The man who defends his master or society against bears or hostile enterprises ; who takes charge of the health or the persons of others; who pro vides the enjoyment of music, or dramatic exhibition, or dancing, performs, just like the Solitary, a work which is useful because it is agreeable, which is lucrative to him because he receives a hire for his labour, whilst he aban dons the enjoyment of it to his employers ; but which is unproductive notwithstanding, because it cannot be the object of saving and accumulation. lie who paid the
wage, no longer has either the wage itself in his possession, or the thing for which he gave it.
Thus labour and economy—the true sources of wealth —exist for the Solitary as well as for the social man, and produce the sante kind of advantage to both. The forma tion of society, however, and with it the introduction of commerce and exchange, were necessary both to augment the productive power of labour, by dividing it, and to afford a inure precise aim to economy, by multiplying the enjoy. ments which wealth procures. Thus men, combined in society, produced more than if each had laboured sepa rately ; and they preserve better what they have produced, because they feel the value of it better.
Exchange first arose from superabundance: " Give me that article, which is of no service to you, and would be useful to me," said one of the contracting parties, " and I will give you this in return, which is of no service to me, and would be useful to you." Present utility was not, however, the sole measure of things exchanged. Each estimated for himself the selling price, or the trouble and time bestowed in the production of his own commodity, and compared it with the buying price, or the trouble and time necessary for procuring the required commodity by his own efforts; and no exchange could take place till the two contracting parties, on calculating the matter, had each discovered that it was better thus to procure the commodity wanted than to make it for himsell. This ac cidental advantage soon pointed out to both a constant source of advantage in trading, whenever the one offered an article which he excelled in making, for an article which the other excelled in making ; for each excelled in what he made often, each was unsktlful and slow at what he made but seldom. Now, the more exclusively they devoted them selves to one kind of work, the more dexterity (lid they acquire in it, the mote effectually did they succeed in rendering it easy and expeditious. This observation pro duced the division of trades; the husbandman quickly per ceived, that he could not make as many agricultural tools by himself, in a month, as the blacksmith would make for him in a clay.
The same principle which at first separated the trades of the husbandman, shepherd, sroith, and weaver, con tinued to separate those trades into an indefinite of departments. Each felt that, by simplifying the opera tion committed to him, he would perform it in a manner still more speedy and perfect. The weaver• renounced the business of spinning and dyeing; the spinning of hemp, cotton, wool, and silk, became each a eparate employ ment; weavers were still farther subdivided, according to the fabric and the destination of their stuffs; and at every subdivision, each workman, directing his attention to a single object, experienced an increase in his productive powers. In the interior of each manufactory, this division was again repeated, and still with the sante success. Twenty workmen all laboured at the same thing, but each made it undergo a different operation ; and the twenty workmen found that they had accomplished twenty times as much work as when each had laboured separately.