The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith (best novels to read for beginners txt) 📖

The fact that division of labour allows different workers to be put exclusively to the kind of work for which they are best fitted by qualities not acquired by education and practice, such as age, sex, size and strength, is in part ignored and in part denied below, here and here. The disadvantage of division of labour or specialisation is dealt with below, here through here here. ↩

This paragraph was probably taken bodily from the MS. of the author’s lectures. It appears to be founded on Locke, Civil Government, § 43; Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, pt. i, Remark P, 2nd ed., 1723, p. 182, and perhaps Harris, Essay Upon Money and Coins, pt. i, § 12. See Lectures, pp. 161⁠–⁠162 and notes. ↩

I.e., it is not the effect of any conscious regulation by the state or society, like the “law of Sesostris,” that every man should follow the employment of his father, referred to in the corresponding passage in Lectures, p. 168. The denial that it is the effect of individual wisdom recognising the advantage of exercising special natural talents comes lower down, p. 17. ↩

It is by no means clear what object there could be in exchanging one bone for another. ↩

Misprinted “intirely” in Eds. 1⁠–⁠5. “Entirely” occurs a little lower down in all Eds. ↩

The paragraph is repeated from Lectures, p. 169. It is founded on Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, pt. ii (1729), dial. vi, pp. 421, 422. ↩

Lectures, pp. 169⁠–⁠170. ↩

This is apparently directed against Harris, Money and Coins, pt. i, § 11, and is in accordance with the view of Hume, who asks readers to “consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, ere cultivated by education.” —⁠“Of the Original Contract,” in Essays, Moral and Political, 1748, p. 291 ↩

“Perhaps” is omitted in Eds. 2 and 3, and restored in the errata to ed. 4. ↩

Lectures, pp. 170⁠–⁠171. ↩

The superiority of carriage by sea is here considerably less than in Lectures, p. 172, but is still probably exaggerated. W. Playfair, ed. of Wealth of Nations, 1805, vol. i, p. 29, says a wagon of the kind described could carry eight tons, but, of course, some allowance must be made for thirty years of road improvement. ↩

Ed. 1 reads “which is at present carried on.” ↩

W. Playfair, ed. of Wealth of Nations, 1805, p. 30, says that equalising the out and home voyages goods were carried from London to Calcutta by sea at the same price (12s. per cwt.) as from London to Leeds by land. ↩

Ed. 1 reads “was.” ↩

Ed. 1 reads “carry on together a very considerable commerce.” ↩

This shows a curious belief in the wave-producing capacity of the tides. ↩

It is only in recent times that this word has become applicable especially to artificial channels; see Murray, Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. ↩

Ed. 1 reads “break themselves into many canals.” ↩

The real difficulty is that the mouths of the rivers are in the Arctic Sea, so that they are separated. One of the objects of the Siberian railway is to connect them. ↩

Ed. 1 reads “any one” here. ↩

The passage corresponding to this chapter is comprised in one paragraph in Lectures, p. 172. ↩

The paragraph has a close resemblance to Harris, Money and Coins, pt. i, §§ 19, 20. ↩

Iliad, vi, 236: quoted with the same object in Pliny, Historia Naturalis, lib. xxxiii, cap. i.; Pufendorf, De Jure Naturæ et Gentium, lib. v, cap. v, § 1; Martin-Leake, Historical Account of English Money, 2nd ed., 1745, p. 4 and elsewhere. ↩

Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xxii, chap i, note. ↩

W. Douglass, A Summary Historical and Political of the First Planting, Progressive Improvements and Present State of the British Settlements in North America, 1760, vol. ii, p. 364. Certain law officers’ fees in Washington were still computed in tobacco in 1888. —⁠J. J. Labor, Cyclopædia of Political Science, 1888, s.v. Money, p. 879 ↩

Playfair, ed. of Wealth of Nations, 1805, vol. i, p. 36, says the explanation of this is that factors furnish the nailers with materials, and during the time they are working give them a credit for bread, cheese and chandlery goods, which they pay for in nails when the iron is worked up. The fact that nails are metal is forgotten at the beginning of the next paragraph in the text above. ↩

For earlier theories as to these reasons see Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis, lib. ii, cap. xii, § 17; Pufendorf, De Jure Naturæ et Gentium, lib. v, cap. i, § 13; Locke, Some Considerations, 2nd ed., 1696, p. 31; Law, Money and Trade, 1705, ch. i.; Hutcheson, System of Moral Philosophy, 1755, vol. ii, pp. 55, 56; Montesquieu, Esprit des lois, liv. xxii, ch. ii.; Cantillon, Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, 1755, pp. 153, 355⁠–⁠357; Harris,