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BOOK I.
Of the Causes of Improvement in the productive Powers of Labour, and of the Order according to which its Pro|duce is naturally distributed among the different Ranks of the People.
CHAP. I. Of the Division of Labour.
THE greatest improvements in the productive powers of La|bour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judg|ment with which it is any where directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.
THE effects of the division of labour, in the general business of society, will be more easily understood, by considering in what manner it operates in some particular manufactures. It is com|monly supposed to be carried furthest in some very trifling ones; not perhaps that it really is carried further in them than in others of more importance: but in those trifling manufactures which are destined to supply the small wants of but a small number of people, the whole number of workmen must necessarily be small; and those employed in every different branch of the work can often be collected into the same workhouse, and placed at once under the view of the spec|tator. In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to supply the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch of the work employs so great a number of