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

to perform the most necessary offices (e.g., to nurse the infant child of a widower), is not “maintaining” a family. ↩

Above, p. 1, the wealth of a nation was treated as synonymous with its annual produce, and there has been hitherto no suggestion that its stock must be considered. ↩

Apparently this is a slip for “occasions high wages.” At any rate the next sentences require this assertion and not that actually made. ↩

The method of calculating wealth by the amount of annual produce per head adopted above, in the Introduction and Plan of the Work, is departed from here and below, here, and frequently in later passages, in favour of the calculation by amount of capital wealth. ↩

This was written in 1773, before the commencement of the late disturbances. —⁠Smith

Ed. 1 does not contain this note; Eds. 2 and 3 read “present disturbances.” —⁠Cannan ↩

Petty, Political Arithmetic, 1699, p. 18, made the period for England 360 years. Gregory King, quoted by Davenant, Works, ed. Whitworth, 1771, vol. ii, p. 176, makes it 435 years in the past and probably 600 in the future. In 1703 the population of Virginia was 60,000, in 1755 it was 300,000, and in 1765 it was 500,000, “by which they appear to have doubled their numbers every twenty years as nigh as may be.” —⁠The Present State of Great Britain and North America with Regard to Agriculture, Population, Trade and Manufactures, 1767, p. 22, note. “The original number of persons who in 1643 had settled in New England was 21,200. Ever since, it is reckoned that more have left them than have gone to them. In the year 1760 they were increased to half a million. They have therefore all along doubled their own number in twenty-five years.” —⁠Richard Price, Observations on Reversionary Payments, etc., 1771, pp. 204, 205. The statement as to America is repeated below, here. ↩

Here we have a third method of calculating the riches or wealth of a country, namely by the amount of produce per acre. For other references to this “wealth” of China see the index, s.v. China. ↩

The date of his arrival was 1275. ↩

“Les artisans courent les villes du matin au soir pour chercher pratique,” Quesnay, Éphémérides du citoyen, Mars, 1767; in Œuvres, ed. Oncken, 1888, p. 581. ↩

“Cependant quelque sobre et quelque industrieux que soit le peuple de la Chine, le grand nombre de ses habitants y cause beaucoup de misère. On en voit de si pauvres, que ne pouvant fournir à leurs enfants les aliments nécessaires, ils les exposent dans les rues, surtout lorsque les mères tombent malades, ou qu’elles manquent de lait pour les nourrir. Ces petits innocents sont condamnés en quelque manière à la mort presque au même instant qu’ils ont commencé de vivre: cela frappe dans les grandes villes, comme Peking, Canton; car dans les autres villes à peine s’en aperçoit-on.

“C’est ce qui a porté les missionnaires à entretenir dans ces endroits très peuplés, un nombre de catéchistes, qui en partagent entre eux tous les quartiers, et les parcourent tous les matins, pour procurer la grâce du baptême à une multitude d’enfants moribonds.

“Dans la même vue on a quelquefois gagné des sages-femmes infidèles afin qu’elles permissent à des filles chrétiennes de les suivre dans les différentes maisons où elles sont appelées: car il arrive quelquefois que les Chinois se trouvant hors d’état de nourrir une nombreuse famille, engagent ces sages-femmes à étouffer dans un bassin plein d’eau les petites filles aussitôt qu’elles sont nées; ces chrétiennes ont soin de les baptiser, et par ce moyen ces tristes victimes de l’indigence de leurs parents trouvent la vie éternelle dans ces mêmes eaux, qui leur ravissent une vie courte et périssable.”

—⁠Du Halde, Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l’empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, 1735, tom. ii, pp. 73, 74.

The statement in the text above that drowning babies is a special business is possibly founded on a mistranslation of “sages-femmes.” ↩

Below, here. ↩

The difference between England and Scotland in this respect is attributed to the English law of settlement below, here. ↩

The inferiority of oatmeal is again insisted on below, here. ↩

Authorities are quoted below, here. ↩

Hume, History, ed. of 1773, vol. vi, p. 178, quoting Rymer’s Foedera, tom. xvi, p. 717. This was for service in Germany. ↩

Sir Matthew Hale. ↩

See his scheme for the maintenance of the Poor, in Burn’s History of the Poor-laws. —⁠Smith

This note appears first in ed. 2. Hale’s Discourse Touching Provision for the Poor was printed in 1683. It contains no internal evidence of the careful inquiry attributed to it above. —⁠Cannan ↩

Davenant, Essay Upon the Probable Methods of Making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade, 1699, pp. 15, 16; in Works, ed. Whitworth, vol. ii, p. 175. ↩

Scheme D in Davenant, Balance of Trade, in Works Scheme B, vol. ii, p. 184. See this note. ↩

Berkeley, Querist, 5th ed., 1752, qu. 2, asks “whether a people can be called poor where the common sort are well fed, clothed and lodged.” Hume, “On Commerce,” says: “The greatness of a state and the happiness of its subjects, however independent they may be supposed in some respects, are commonly allowed to be inseparable with regard to commerce.” —⁠Political Discourses, 1752, p. 4 ↩

Cantillon,