BOOK II. The quantity of money, on the contrary, muft in every country naturally increase as the value of the annual produce increafes. The value of the confumable goods annually circulated within the fociety being greater, will require a greater quantity of money to circulate them. A part of the increafed produce, therefore, will naturally be employed in purchafing, wherever it is to be had, the additional quantity of gold and filver neceflary for circulating the reft. The increafe of thofe metals will in this cafe be the effect, not the caufe, of the public profperity. Gold and filver are purchafed every where in the fame The food, clothing, and lodging, the revenue and maintenance of all thofe whofe labour or flock is employed in bringing them from the mine to the market, is the price paid for them in Peru as well as in England. The country which has this price to pay, will never be long without the quantity of those metals which it has occafion for; and no country will ever long retain a quantity which it has no occafion for. manner. Whatever, therefore, we may imagine the real wealth and revenue of a country to confist in, whether in the value of the annual produce of its land and labour, as plain reafon feems to dictate; or in the quantity of the precious metals which circulate within, it, as vulgar prejudices fuppofe; in either view of the matter, every prodigal appears to be a public enemy, and every frugal man a public benefactor. III. The effects of mifconduct are often the fame CHA P. as thofe of prodigality. Every injudicious and unfuccefsful project in agriculture, mines, fisheries, trade, or manufactures, tends in the fame manner to diminish the funds deftined for the maintenance of productive labour. In every fuch project, though the capital is confumed by productive hands only, yet, as by the injudicious manner in which they are employed, they do not reproduce the full value of their confumption, there must always be fome diminution in what would otherwife have been the productive funds of the fociety. It can feldom happen, indeed, that the circumftances of a great nation can be much affected either by the prodigality or mifconduct of individuals; the profufion or imprudence of fome, being always more than compenfated by the frugality and good conduct of others. With regard to profufion, the principle which prompts to expence, is the paflion for prefent enjoyment; which, though fometimes violent and very difficult to be reftrained, is in general only momentary and occafional. But the principle which prompts to fave, is the defire of bettering our condition, a defire which, though generally calm and difpaffionate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the grave. In the whole interval which feparates those two moments, there is fcarce perhaps a fingle inftance in which any man is fo fectly and completely fatisfied with his fituation, as to be without any wifh of alteration or improvement C 2 per II. BOOK provement of any kind. An augmentation of fortune is the means by which the greater part of men propofe and wish to better their condition. It is the means the most vulgar and the moft obvious; and the most likely way of augmenting their fortune, is to fave and accumulate fome part of what they acquire, either regularly and annually, or upon fome extraordinary occafions. Though the principle of expence, therefore, prevails in almost all men upon fome occafions, and in fome men upon almost all occafions, yet in the greater part of men, taking the whole course of their life at an average, the principle of frugality feems not only to predominate; but to predominate very greatly. With regard to mifconduct, the number of prudent and fuccessful undertakings is everywhere much greater than that of injudicious and unfuccefsful ones. After all our complaints of the frequency of bankruptcies, the unhappy men who fall into this misfortune make but a very small part of the whole number engaged in trade, and all other forts of bufinefs; not much more perhaps than one in a thousand. Bankruptcy is perhaps the greatest and most humiliating calamity which can befal an innocent man. The greater part of men, therefore, are fufficiently careful to avoid it. Some, indeed, do not avoid it; as fome do not avoid the gallows. Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they fometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct. The whole, or almost the whole, public revenue, is in most countries countries employed in maintaining unproductive CHAP. hands. Such are the people who compofe a nu- III. merous and fplendid court, a great ecclefiaftical establishment, great fleets and armies, who in time of peace produce nothing, and in time of war acquire nothing which can compenfate the expence of maintaining them, even while the war lafts. Such people, as they themselves produce nothing, are all maintained by the produce of other men's labour. When multiplied, there. fore, to an unneceffary number, they may in a particular year confume fo great a fhare of this produce, as not to leave a fufficiency for maintaining the productive labourers, who fhould reproduce it next year. The next year's produce, therefore, will be lefs than that of the foregoing, and if the fame diforder fhould continue, that of the third year will be ftill lefs than that of the fecond. Thofe unproductive hands, who should be maintained by a part only of the spare revenue of the people, may confume fo great a share of their whole revenue, and thereby oblige fo great a number to encroach upon their capitals, upon the funds deftined for the maintenance of productive labour, that all the frugality and good conduct of individuals may not be able to compenfate the wafte and degradation of produce occafioned by this violent and forced encroachment. This frugality and good conduct, however, is upon moft occafions, it appears from experience, fufficient to compenfate, not only the private prodigality and mifconduct of indivi c 3. duals, BOOK duals, but the public extravagance of governII. ment. The uniform, conftant, and uninter rupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progrefs of things toward improvement, in fpite both of the extravagance of government, and of the greateft errors of admi. nistration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it frequently reftores health and vigour to the conftitution, in fpite, not only of the difeafe, but of the abfurd prescriptions of the doctor. The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increafing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of thofe labourers who had before been employed. The number of its productive labourers, it is evident, can never be much increased, but in confequence of an increase of capital, or of the funds destined for maintaining them. The productive powers of the fame number of labourers cannot be increafed, but in confequence either of fome addition and improvement to thofe machines and inftruments which facilitate and abridge labour; or of a more proper divifion and diftribution of employment. In either cafe an additional capital is almost always required. It is by means of an additional capital only, that the undertaker of any work can either provide his workmen with better machinery, or make |