They both, too, were works of man, and required mental and corporeal energy to produce them; but we should not, therefore, say the principles that produced them were precisely similar.
Within a few centuries the national capital of Great Britain has increased tenfold.Could we imagine that we could tell this fact to some one of the men of the olden time, waked from the slumber of the tomb and raised up to us, we may suppose he would ask how it could be; how there could have been produced so mighty a change; or from whence so full a tide of wealth could have flowed in upon us.But were we then to take him abroad and show him the wonders and achievements of art with which the land is overspread;the various processes carried on in our manufactories and workshops; the scientific labors of the agriculturist; the curious mechanism with which the vast bulk of our ships is put together and guided; fire and water transformed into our obedient drudges, excavating harbors and draining mines for us, carrying us over the land with the speed of the wind, bearing us through the ocean against tide and storm; he would no longer wonder whence the wealth was that he saw around, or that the land yielded tenfold what it had done of old, though he might well demand how the power had been acquired that had wrought so great a change.
Were such a thing possible as we are thus imagining we can scarce suppose that any one would be found to reply, the whole process is nothing extraordinary;it is just the same as you must have seen in your own days, when, by continual parsimonious saving, an individual accumulated ten times the capital he once had; he began, perhaps, with one house and died owing ten.Such an assertion would evidently be absurd.
Invention is the only power on earth, that can be said to create.(7)It enters as an essential element into the process of the increase of national wealth, because that process is a creation, not an acquisition.
It does not necessarily enter into the process of the increase of individual wealth, because that may be simply an acquisition, not a creation.The assumption, therefore, that the two processes are perfectly similar is incorrect, and the doctrine which I have designated as that of the identity of the interests of individuals and communities cannot be thus established.
The ends which individuals and nations pursue, are different.The object of the one is to acquire, of the other to create.The means which they employ, are also different; industry and parsimony increase the capitals of individuals; national wealth, understood in its largest and truest sense, as the wealth of all nations cannot be increased, but through the aid also of the inventive faculty.Though each member of a community may be desirous of the good of all, yet in gaining wealth, as he only seeks his own good, and as he may gain it by acquiring a portion of the wealth already in existence, it follows not that he creates wealth.The community adds to its wealth by creating wealth, and if we understand by the legislator the power acting for the community, it seems not absurd or unreasonable that he should direct part of the energies of the community towards the furtherance of this power of invention, this necessary element in the production of the wealth of nations.
In the following cases it would at least seem not improbable, that the power of the legislator so directed, might be beneficial.
I.In promoting the progress of science.
II.In promoting the progress of art.
1.By encouraging the discovery of new arts.
2.By encouraging the discovery of improvements in the arts already practised in the country.
3.By encouraging the discovery of methods of adapting arts, already practised in other countries to the particular circumstances of the territory and community for which he legislates.
In the attainment of all these objects, the aid of the inventive faculty is required.Our judgment of their propriety or impropriety, as far as this is determined by their direct tendency to promote the wealth of the community, would seem to depend on two circumstances.1.On the probability of their success, and of this success enabling the industry of its members to acquire with increased facility some of the necessaries, conveniences, or amusements of life, the capacity for producing which, measures the general revenue and riches.2.On the probability of the future wealth to be derived from this new source, being sufficient to repay the expenditure of present wealth necessary to open it up.
As far as any considerations, which I have as yet presented to the reader, warrant us in forming a conclusion, it certainly does appear not impossible, or unlikely, that there might be instances in which the legislator might, with advantage to the progress of the wealth of the community, direct the energies of some of its members towards discoveries in all these different departments of knowledge and action.
But in doing so, he always acts contrary to this doctrine.It teaches that he ought never to disturb the natural course of events; that is, the course which the efforts of individuals, uninterfered with, by him, would give to these events.His agency so directed, according to this doctrine, must be injurious; because, in every instance, it in part changes the direction, and in part retards the progress of the natural course of events.In every such instance, he directs the industry of some of the members of the society from gaining a revenue by the practice of old arts and so accumulating capital, to the discovery either of materials for new arts, or of means of adapting old ones to new countries.By doing so, he takes from the national revenue, and retards, consequently, the accumulation of the national capital.
This doctrine, as given by Adam Smith, is in general, blended with theoretical principles afterwards to be considered.The following is an abstract of it, in his own words, from different parts of his system, separated from these principles.
