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The idle everywhere consume a great part of it; and, according to

the different proportions in which it is annually divided between

those two different orders of people, its ordinary or average

value must either annually increase or diminish, or continue the

same from one year to another.

CHAPTER VII. OF THE NATURAL AND MARKET PRICE OF COMMODITIES.

There is in every society or neighbourhood an ordinary or average

rate, both of wages and profit, in every different employment of

labour and stock. This rate is naturally regulated, as I shall

shew hereafter, partly by the general circumstances of the

society, their riches or poverty, their advancing, stationary, or

declining condition, and partly by the particular nature of each

employment.