They are made, like the parts of an engine, to concur to a
purpose, without any concert of their own: and equally blind with the
trader to any general combination, they unite with him, in furnishing to
the state its resources, its conduct, and its force.
The artifices of the beaver, the ant, and the bee, are ascribed to the
wisdom of nature. Those of polished nations are ascribed to themselves, and
are supposed to indicate a capacity superior to that of rude minds. But the
establishments of men, like those of every animal, are suggested by nature,
and are the result of instinct, directed by the variety of situations in
which mankind are placed. Those establishments arose from successive
improvements that were made, without any sense of their general effect; and
they bring human affairs to a state of complication, which the greatest
reach of capacity with which human nature was ever adorned, could not have
projected; nor even when the whole is carried into execution, can it be
comprehended in its full extent.
Who could anticipate, or even enumerate, the separate occupations and
professions by which the members of any commercial state are distinguished;
the variety of devices which are practised in separate cells, and which the
artist, attentive to his own affair, has invented, to abridge or to
facilitate his separate task? In coming to this mighty end, every
generation, compared to its predecessors, may have appeared to be
ingenious; compared to its followers, may have appeared to be dull: and
human ingenuity, whatever heights it may have gained in a succession of
ages, continues to move with an equal pace, and to creep in making the
last, as well as the first, step of commercial or civil improvement.
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