things over which man has dominion. By a combination of those component parts of wealth-by the operation of talents on property, and by a combination of the component parts of property-by the operation of living powers upon inert matter, man is enabled to increafe the whole of his poffeffions, and to augment the fum of his enjoyments. In by far the greatest number of inftances, fome exertion of labour is neceffary to profit by his poffeffions; but this is not univerfally the cafe, unless we go fo far as to term that exertion labour, which confifts in the very act of enjoyment, or of ufe; for it would fcarcely be correct, to confider the eating of wild fruits on the tree as the labour paid for the acquifition of them; it is rather the enjoyment of them-and has nothing in it analogous to the previous exertion required to procure fimilar fruits by culture, and which must be followed by the fame exertion in using them.

The foregoing obfervations will enable us, with fufficient accuracy, to appreciate the merit of Lord Lauderdale's theory respecting the use of capital-the part of his writings which, at first fight, appears moft impofing. The capital accumulated in every community, our author maintains, is ufeful to the members of that community, and profitable to its owners, only in one or both of the two following ways-either by fupplanting a portion of labour otherwife neceffary, or by performing fomething which no human labour could effect. In order to demonftrate this propofition, we are carried through the five different modes of employing capital-in machinery, which evidently abridges the quantity, and extends the powers of labour-in the home trade and manufactures, which fave confumers the labour of purchasing at the place of production, and of commiffioning each article that they may wish to have made-in the foreign trade, which create a faving of the fame defcription-in agriculture, which has the fame effect as machinery, and which, from our author's own fhowing, ought to have been ranged under the first head-and, laftly, in circulation, which obviously has the fame effects with commerce, and fhould have been ranked under the second head, as being only one branch of trade.

We have here ftated what appears to be the correct meaning of the author; for he ufes a language on this part of his fubject, which would lead us to infer, that there is a difference between capital and the objects in which it is faid to be vested or employed. It is obvious, that nothing more is meant by capital employed in machinery, than that capital confifts in the machinery and in the other property given in exchange for it; and fo of the other cafes. The benefits, then, attributed to the ufe of capital, confift merely in the advantages derived from the fociety

having accumulated a certain portion of stock of various kinds. Lord Lauderdale, conftantly mixing the idea of exchange in all his pofitions, fpeaks of capital as if it confifted in the price paid for all the objects which he enumerates.

Now, it appears to us, that if the fecond use of capital stated by our author (viz. the enabling man to perform what his labour could not accomplish) means, its power of supplying all those wants which labour without property could never fatisfy, the propofition, that capital either fupplants labour, or fupplies what labour cannot give, is exactly an identical propofition. For, furely, it did not require an elaborate discourse on the nature of value and the ufe of capital,' to convince us, that the use of a knife is to fave the waste of our teeth and nails; and that if we had no food, the labour of our teeth and nails, affifted by a knife, would never have prevented us from ftarving. What more do we learn from this theory, than that the poffeffion of matter faves man trouble, and supplies wants which no pains of his could, without the aid of matter, have gratified?

But the part of Lord Lauderdale's propofition which appears most ingenious and original, is his explanation of the manner in which the accumulation of ftock is beneficial, by abridging the labour of the community. Yet even in this fpeculation we are convinced there is no folidity. That the ftock vested in machinery, or, in other words, machinery itself, is useful by abridging labour, we cannot conceive to be a propofition either difputable or novel. Our author, indeed, fays that Dr Smith did not perceive the ufe of machinery in fupplanting labour;' and he accufes that celebrated writer of a ftrange confufion of ideas," for afcribing to machinery the quality of increafing the productive powers of labour; as if (fays Lord Lauderdale) we fhould term the effect of a fhort road, that of increafing the velocity of the walker (p. 185). But is not all this a difpute about words? For what does it fignify whether we fay that a cotton mill faves the labour of ninety-nine workmen in a hundred, or that it renders the labour of the hundredth workman as productive as the labour of the whole hundred formerly was? Is it not quite accurate to fay, that a contrivance which gives one man the power of a hundred, increafes a hundred fold the power of his labour? Until a machine can be invented by which work can be done without any human affiftance, the form of expreffion adopted by Dr Smith will remain the more correct of the two. Befides, according to Lord Lauderdale's own theory, machines are used for purpofes which no labour could accomplish. If a coining machine performs a tafk to which all the exertions of human VOL. IV. No. 8.

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proving his condition, without the affiftance of thofe material inftruments which conftitute machinery. The idea of defining man a tool-making animal, is at ieaft as old as the earlier days of Dr Franklin. And that the perfection of tools is entirely owing to the manufacture of fuch implements becoming the peculiar care of a clafs different from that which ufes them, and to the till greater refinement of confining different fubordinate claffes to the manufacture of the various parts of each tool, is a truth, of which no man ever fhowed himfelf ignorant or careless, except the author of the work now before us.

It deferves farther to be confidered, that the utmost perfection of the tool-making art, the contrivance of new combinations of tools whereby the power of labour is augmented, can only be afcribed to that uttermoft refinement in the divifion of labour, which forms a peculiar class of such men as Smeaton, and Bolton, and Watt, and Arkwright. The ufe and invention of machinery prefent, in fact, the most remarkable examples of the advantages derived from a divifion of labour. To contraft the benefits received from this divifion with thofe produced by the ufe of machinery, is as abfurd as to compare the effects of two circumftances intimately and neceffarily connected; the one, in fact, the immediate refult of the other, and both infeparably joined together in all their operations. It is like quibbling and difputing whether fire or gunpowder produce the greatest augmentation in the aggregate of killed and wounded.

But the most remarkable branch of Lord Lauderdale's fpeculations on the increafe of wealth, is that in which he denies the poffibility of augmenting national opulence by any other than the means of its production. He modifies this pofition, however, in a very material degree, when he comes to his demonstration. At first, we are led to fuppofe that he means roundly to deny the reality of the difference which accumulation makes upon the fum-total of wealth; and indeed all his general affertions, efpecially his invectives against those who prefer the conduct of the thrifty to that of the prodigal, warrant the idea of accumulation being, in our author's opinion, injurious to fociety. Afterwards, however, when he comes to argue the matter more methodically, we find that his reafons apply merely to the excess of accumulation; and the only inference to which they lead is, that capital may be heaped up, by parfimony, fo as to exceed the amount which can be profitably employed. This he proves by a variety of illuftrations, in our opinion quite fuperfluous. He quotes, for example, the common faying of farmers, as much has been done for that field as poffible;' (p. 223.) He shows, at great

length,

length, that the production of any valuable commodity fuits itfelf to the effectual demand for it; and accufes Dr Smith of 'unaccountable inconfiftency' (p. 221.) for admitting this pofition, and at the fame time defending the plan of accumulation. But, what is rather more than fuperfluous in our author, and what favours ftrongly of this very inconfiftency in one who denies the general benefits of accumulation, he accufes Mr Hume of inattention to the powers of human invention in contriving means of fupplanting labour, because that excellent writer states a part of the argument againft unlimited accumulation, viz. the neceffary checks which wealth provides to its farther increafe, (p. 298.) It is abundantly clear, that the very power here brought up in answer to Mr Hume, is one of the reafons for believing in the effects of accumulated wealth. It is becaufe new capital, i. e. ftock not confumed but faved, gives employment to new men, and fuftenance to increafed numbers of inhabitants, and because it exercises the inventive powers of its poffeffors, that its accumulation may fairly be faid to have no defineable bounds. That all expenditure is to be condemned as ruinous beyond what is abfolutely neceffary for fuftaining life, is a doctrine never maintained by any reafoner worth refuting; it is a doctrine uniformly difcountenanced by the tenor of the preceding pages. Neither did any one ever think that capital could in no fituation be heaped up to excefs; on the contrary, the hiftory of feveral countries has diftinctly proved the poflibility of fuch an event.

If the ftate is thoroughly peopled and cultivated; if its extent is fo fmall, as to leave no room for great agricultural or manufacturing improvements; if its foreign commerce has attained the greatest height which the parfimony of its inhabitants enabies it to attain by a diminution of profits; if nothing but the acquifition of new territories, a recourfe to the colonial fyftem, or an emigration of its capital and people, can fave the wealth of the country from being at a ftand; any further accumulation of flock by parfimony must then be unneceflary, as no new channels of employment can be opened. Holland has long nearly reached this point; and England feems tending towards it, if the does not, as will be the neceflary effect of her farther progrefs in accumulation of capital, attend more to her domeftic agriculture, and the improvement of her noble colonies.

If, then, by accumulation, our author means only too great accumulation of stock, (that is, a greater aggregation of capital by parfimony, than can be employed), we have only to deny the novelty or importance, not certainly to difpute the truth of his doctrine. But we muit add, that the fame doctrine must be extended to all accumulation of capital whatever; for, whether the stock of a community is made greater by a retrenchment of expenditure,

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hands are incompetent; and if an improved farm, denominated by our author and Dr Smith a machine, raises not only more grain than the ground naturally produces, but raifes grain which, without this invention, could not be produced in the fmalleft quantity, furely it is maft accurate to defcribe the ufe of fuch machinery, by faying that it increases the productive powers of labour; and aftrange confufion of ideas' might have been more happily exemplified by referring to the work before us, than to the Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations.

But the remaining part of Lord Lauderdale's theory-his affertion, that the capital employed in commerce fupplents a labour otherwife unavoidable, appears to have proceeded from an over. fight of a different nature, and to have been indebted for all its novelty to a mistake of the remote for the proximate caufe.-The accumulation of capital is neceflary to that divifion of labour by which its productive powers are increased, and its total amount diminished. In the progrefs of fociety, thefe circumstances neceffarily take place in this order and connexion: A certain quantity of flock must be accumulated, in order that different tasks may be performed by different claffes of perfons; and this fubdivifion of employments, not only faves labour in the workmen, by rendering each artift more expert, but faves labour in the confumer, by making one exertion ferve the purposes of many perfons. All Lord Lauderdale's explanation of the manner in which mercantile and manufacturing capital fupplants the labour of the purchafer, refolves itself into this doctrine of the divifion of employments. The accumulation of flock enables one clafs of men to work in any line cheaper for the rest of the community, than if each clafs worked in every line for itself. The immediate faving of labour is here occafioned by its fubdivifion. It is a confequence of the fame accumulation of stock, that one clafs of men collects the articles neceffary for the others all at once, and thus faves each the neceflity of collecting for itfelf, which would be a repetition of the fame toil for every tranfaction. This faving, too, is occafioned by the division of labour; and all writers have agreed in giving the fame account, of the connexion between the divifion of labour and the accumulation of ftock. Lord Lauderdale's difcovery confifts in dropping the intermediate link of the chain, and afcribing the effect directly to what the fchoolmen used to call the caufa caufa; -it is exactly as if a philofopher were to affert, that it was the heat of fummer which fattened our fheep and cattle, while the vulgar continued to afcribe this effect to the abundance of the herbage which that heat might have co-operated to produce.

IV. We now come to the laft division, under which it was propofed