to their own interest. We address ourselves,
not to their humanity, but to their self-love,
and never talk to them of our own necessities,
but of their advantages. Nobody
but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon
the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even
a beggar does not depend upon it entirely.
The charity of well-disposed people, indeed,
supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence.
But though this principle ultimately
provides him with all the necessaries of
life which he has occasion for, it neither does
nor can provide him with them as he has occasion
for them. The greater part of his occasional
wants are supplied in the same manner
as those of other people, by treaty, by barter,
and by purchase. With the money which
one man gives him he purchases food. The
old clothes which another bestows upon him
he exchanges for other clothes which suit him
better, or for lodging, or for food, or for
money, with which he can buy either food,
clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion.
As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase,
that we obtain from one another the
greater part of those mutual good offices which
we stand in need of, so it is this same trucking
disposition which originally gives occasion to
the division of labour. In a tribe of hunters
or shepherds, a particular person makes bows
and arrows, for example, with more readiness
and dexterity than any other. He frequently
exchanges them for cattle or for venison, with
his companions; and he finds at last that he
can, in this manner, get more cattle and venison,
than if he himself went to the field to
catch them. From a regard to his own interest,
therefore, the making of bows and
arrows grows to be his chief business, and he
becomes a sort of armourer. Another excels
in making the frames and covers of their little
huts or moveable houses. He is accustomed
to be of use in this way to his neighbours,
who reward him in the same manner with
cattle and with venison, till at last he finds it
his interest to dedicate himself entirely to this
employment, and to become a sort of house-carpenter.
In the same manner a third becomes
a smith or a brazier; a fourth, a tanner
or dresser of hides or skins, the principal
part of the clothing of savages. And thus
the certainty of being able to exchange all
that surplus part of the produce of his own labour,
which is over and above his own consumption,
for such parts of the produce of
other men's labour as he may have occasion
for, encourages every man to apply himself to
a particular occupation, and to cultivate and
bring to perfection whatever talent of genius
he may possess for that particular species of
business.
The difference of natural talents in different
men, is, in reality, much less than we are
aware of; and the very different genius which
appears to distinguish men of different professions,
when grown up to maturity, is not
upon many occasions so much the cause, as
the effect of the division of labour. The
difference between the most dissimilar characters,
between a philosopher and a common
street porter, for example, seems to arise not
so much from nature, as from habit, custom,
and education. When they came into the
world, and for the first six or eight years of
their existence, they were, perhaps, very much
alike, and neither their parents nor playfellows
could perceive any remarkable difference.
About that age, or soon after, they come to
be employed in very different occupations.
The difference of talents comes then to be
taken notice of, and widens by degrees, till at
last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to
acknowledge scarce any resemblance. But
without the disposition to truck, barter, and
exchange, every man must have procured to
himself every necessary and conveniency of
life which he wanted. All must have had
the same duties to perform, and the same
work to do, and there could have been no
such difference of employment as could alone
give occasion to any great difference of talents.
As it is this disposition which forms that
difference of talents, so remarkable among
men of different professions, so it is this same
disposition which renders that difference useful.
Many tribes of animals, acknowledged
to be all of the same species, derive from nature
a much more remarkable distinction of
genius, than what, antecedent to custom and
education, appears to take place among men.
By nature a philosopher is not in genius and
disposition half so different from a street porter,
as a mastiff is from a grey-hound, or a
grey-hound from a spaniel, or this last from a
shepherd's dog. Those different tribes of animals,
however, though all of the same species,
are of scarce any use to one another. The
strength of the mastiff is not in the least supported
either by the swiftness of the grey-hound,
or by the sagacity of the spaniel, or by
the docility of the shepherd's dog. The effects
of those different geniuses and talents, for
want of the power or disposition to barter and
exchange, cannot be brought into a common
stock, and do not in the least contribute to the
better accommodation and conveniency of the
species. Each animal is still obliged to support
and defend itself, separately and independently,
and derives no sort of advantage
from that variety of talents with which nature
has distinguished its fellows. Among men,
on the contrary, the most dissimilar geniuses
are of use to one another; the different produces
of their respective talents, by the general
disposition to truck, barter, and exchange,
being brought, as it were, into a common
stock, where every man may purchase whatever
part of the produce of other men's talents
he has occasion for.