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But the number of workmen in every branch of business generally

increases with the division of labour in that branch; or rather

it is the increase of their number which enables them to class

and subdivide themselves in this manner.

As the accumulation of stock is previously necessary for carrying

on this great improvement in the productive powers of labour, so

that accumulation naturally leads to this improvement. The person

who employs his stock in maintaining labour, necessarily wishes

to employ it in such a manner as to produce as great a quantity

of work as possible. He endeavours, therefore, both to make among

his workmen the most proper distribution of employment, and to

furnish them with the best machines which he can either invent or

afford to purchase. His abilities, in both these respects, are

generally in proportion to the extent of his stock, or to the

number of people whom it can employ. The quantity of industry,

therefore, not only increases in every country with the increase

of the stock which employs it, but, in consequence of that

increase, the same quantity of industry produces a much greater

quantity of work.