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THE NATUKE AND CAUSES OF

those wages being generally restored, together with a profit,in the improved value of the subject upon which his labouris bestowed. But the maintenance of a menial servant neveris restored. A man grows rich by employing a multitude ofmanufacturers: he grows poor, by maintaining a multitudeof menial servants. The labour of the latter, however, hasits value, and deserves its reward as well as that of theformer. But the labour of the manufacturer fixes and re-alises itself in some particular subject or vendible commo-dity, which lasts for some time at least after that labour ispast. It is, as it were, a certain quantity of labour stockedand stored up to be employed, if necessary, upon some otheroccasion. That subject, or what is the same thing, the priceof that subject, can afterward, if necessary, put into motiona quantity of labour equal to that which had originally pro-duced it. The labour of the menial servant, on the contrary,does not fix or realise itself in any particular subject or ven-dible commodity. His services generally perish in the veryinstant of their performance, and seldom leave any trace ofvalue behind them, for which an equal quantity of servicecould afterward be procured.

The labour of some of the most respectable orders in thesociety is, like that of menial servants, unproductive of anyvalue, and does not fix or realise itself in any permanent sub-ject, or vendible commodity, which endures after that labouris past, and for which an equal quantity of labour could after-ward be procured. The sovereign, for example, with all theofficers both of justice and war who serve under him, thewhole army and navy, are unproductive labourers. Theyare the servants of the public, and are maintained by a partof the annual produce of the industry of other people. Theirservice, how honourable, how useful, or how necessarysoever, produces nothing for which an equal quantity of ser-vice can afterward be procured. The protection, security,and defence of the commonwealth, the effect of their labourthis year, will not purchase its protection, security, and de-fence for the year to come. In the same class must be ranked,some both of the gravest and most important, and some ofthe most frivolous professions: churchmen, lawyers, physi-cians, men of letters of all kinds; players, buffoons, musi-cians, opera-singers, opera-dancers, &c. The labour of themeanest of these has a certain value, regulated by the verysame principles which regulate that of every other sort of la-