258 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

rally in proportion to the extent of liis stock, or to tlie num-ber of people whom it can employ. The quantity of industry,therefore, not only increases in every country, with the in-crease of the stock which employs it, but, in consequence ofthat increase, the same quantity of industry produces a muchgreater quantity of work.

Such are in general the effects of the increase of stockupon industry and its productive powers.

In the following book I have endeavoured to explain thenature of stock, the effects of its accumulation into capitalsof different kinds, and the effects of the different employ-ments of those capitals. This book is divided into five ychapters. In the first chapter, I have endeavoured to shewwhat are the different parts or branches into which the stockeither of an individual, or of a great society, naturally dividesitself. In the second, I have endeavoured to explain thenature and operation of money considered as a particularbranch of the general stock of the society. The stock whichis accumulated into a capital, may either be employed bythe person to whom it belongs, or it may be lent to someother person. In the third and fourth chapters, I have en-deavoured to examine the manner in which it operates inboth these situations. The fifth and last chapter treats ofthe different effects which the different employments of capi-tal immediately produce upon the quantity both of nationalindustry, and of the annual produce of land and labour.

CIIAP. I.

Of the Division of Stock.

When the stock which a man possesses is no more thansufficient to maintain him for a few days or a few weeks, heseldom thinks of deriving any revenue from it. He con-sumes it as sparingly as he can, and endeavours by his labourto acquire something which may supply its place before itbe consumed altogether. His revenue is, in this case, de-rived from his labour only. This is the state of the greaterpart of the labouring poor in all countries.

But when he possesses stock sufficient to maintain him formonths or years, he naturally endeavours to derive a revenuefrom the greater part of it; reserving only so much for hisimmediate consumption as may maintain him till this revenuebegins to come in. His whole stock, therefore, is distill-