Pagina 226 di 2651

The greater their number, the more they naturally divide

themselves into different classes and subdivisions of

employments. More heads are occupied in inventing the most proper

machinery for executing the work of each, and it is, therefore,

more likely to be invented. There are many commodities,

therefore, which, in consequence of these improvements, come to

be produced by so much less labour than before, that the increase

of its price is more than compensated by the diminution of its

quantity.

CHAPTER IX. OF THE PROFITS OF STOCK.

The rise and fall in the profits of stock depend upon the same

causes with the rise and fall in the wages of labour, the

increasing or declining state of the wealth of the society; but

those causes affect the one and the other very differently.