education, study, or apprenticeship, always
costs a real expense, which is a capital fixed
and realised, as it were, in his person. Those
talents, as they make a part of his fortune, so
do they likewise that of the society to which
he belongs. The improved dexterity of a
workman may be considered in the same light
as a machine or instrument of trade which
facilitates and abridges labour, and which,
though it costs a certain expense, repays that
expense with a profit.
The third and last of the three portions into
which the general stock of the society naturally
divides itself, is the circulating capital,
of which the characteristic is, that it affords
a revenue only by circulating or changing
masters. It is composed likewise of four
parts.
First, of the money, by means of which all
the other three are circulated and distributed
to their proper consumers.
Secondly, of the stock of provisions which
are in the possession of the butcher, the grazier,
the farmer, the corn-merchant, the brewer,
&c. and from the sale of which they expect to
derive a profit.
Thirdly, of the materials, whether altogether
rude, or more or less manufactured, of
clothes, furniture, and building which are not
yet made up into any of those three shapes,
but which remain in the hands of the growers,
the manufacturers, the mercers, and drapers,
the timber-merchants, the carpenters and
joiners, the brick-makers, &c.
Fourthly, and lastly, of the work which is
made up and completed, but which is still in
the hands of the merchant and manufacturer,
and not yet disposed of or distributed to the
proper consumers; such as the finished work
which we frequently find ready made in the
shops of the smith, the cabinet-maker, the
goldsmith, the jeweller, the china-merchant,
&c. The circulating capital consists, in this
manner, of the provisions, materials, and finished
work of all kinds that are in the hands
of their respective dealers, and of the money
that is necessary for circulating and distributing
them to those who are finally to use or to
consume them.
Of these four parts, three—provisions, materials,
and finished work, are either annually
or in a longer or shorter period, regularly
withdrawn from it, and placed either in the
fixed capital, or in the stock reserved for immediate
consumption.
Every fixed capital is both originally derived
from, and requires to be continually supported
by, a circulating capital. All useful
machines and instruments of trade are originally
derived from a circulating capital, which
furnishes the materials of which they are
made, and the maintenance of the workmen
who make them. They require, too, a capital
of the same kind to keep them in constant
repair.
No fixed capital can yield any revenue but
by means of a circulating capital. The most
useful machines and instruments of trade will
produce nothing, without the circulating capital,
which affords the materials they are employed
upon, and the maintenance of the
workmen who employ them. Land, however
improved, will yield no revenue without a circulating
capital, which maintains the labourers
who cultivate and collect its produce.
To maintain and augment the stock which
may be reserved for immediate consumption,
is the sole end and purpose both of the fixed
and circulating capitals. It is this stock which
feeds, clothes, and lodges the people. Their
riches or poverty depend upon the abundant
or sparing supplies which those two capitals
can afford to the stock reserved for immediate
consumption.
So great a part of the circulating capital
being continually withdrawn from it, in order
to be placed in the other two branches of the
general stock of the society, it must in its
turn require continual supplies without which
it would soon cease to exist. These supplies
are principally drawn from three sources; the
produce of land, of mines, and of fisheries.
These afford continual supplies of provisions
and materials, of which part is afterwards
wrought up into finished work and by which
are replaced the provisions, materials, and
finished work, continually withdrawn from
the circulating capital. From mines, too, is
drawn what is necessary for maintaining and
augmenting that part of it which consists in
money. For though, in the ordinary course
of business, this part is not, like the other
three, necessarily withdrawn from it, in order
to be placed in the other two branches of the
stock of the society, it must, however,
like all other things, be wasted and worn out
at last, and sometimes, too, be either lost or
sent abroad, and must, therefore, require continual,
though no doubt much smaller, supplies.
Lands, mines, and fisheries, require all
both a fixed and circulating capital to cultivate
them; and their produce replaces, with a
profit not only those capitals, but all the
others in the society. Thus the farmer annually
replaces to the manufacturer the provisions
which he had consumed, and the materials
which he had wrought up the year before;
and the manufacturer replaces to the
farmer the finished work which he had wasted
and worn out in the same time. This is the
real exchange that is annually made between
those two orders of people, though it seldom
happens that the rude produce of the one, and
the manufactured produce of the other, are
directly bartered for one another; because it
seldom happens that the farmer sells his corn
and his cattle, his flax and his wool, to the
very same person of whom he chuses to purchase
the clothes, furniture, and instruments