324

THE NATURE AND CAUSES OE

uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every manto better bis condition, tlie principle from which public andnational, as well as private opulence is originally derived,is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural pro-gress of things towards improvement, in spite both of theextravagance of government, and of the greatest errors ofadministration. Like the unknown principle of animal life,it frequently restores health and vigour to the constitution,in spite not only of the disease, but of the absurd prescrip-tions of the doctor.

The annual produce of the land and labour of any nationcan be increased in its value by no other means, but by in-creasing either the number of its productive labourers, or theproductive powers of those labourers who had before beenemployed. The number of its productive labourers, it isevident, can never be much increased, but in consequence ofan increase of capital, or of the funds destined for maintain-ing them. The productive powers of the same number oflabourers cannot be increased, but in consequence either ofsome addition and improvement to those machines and in-struments which facilitate and abridge labour; or of a moreproper division and distribution of employment. In eithercase an additional capital is 'almost always required. It isby means of an additional capital only, that the undertakerof any work can either provide his workmen with better ma-chinery, or make a more proper distribution of employmentamong them. When the work to be done consists of a num-ber of parts, to keep every man constantly employed in oneway, requires a much greater capital than where every manis occasionally employed in every different part of the work.When we compare, therefore, the state of a nation at two dif-ferent periods, and find, that the annual produce of its landand labour is evidently greater at the latter than at the former,that its lands are better cultivated, its manufactures morenumerous and more flourishing, and its trade more exten-sive, we may be assured that its capital must have increasedduring the interval between those two periods, and that moremust have been added to it by the good conduct of some,than had been taken from it either by the private misconductof others, or by the public extravagance of government. Butwe shall find this to have been the case of almost all na-tions, in all tolerably quiet and peaceable times, even of thosewho have not enjoyed the most prudent and parsimonious