Secondly, The advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost in
passing from one sort of work to another, is much greater than we should at
first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass very quickly from
one kind of work to another, that is carried on in a different place, and
with quite different tools. A country weaver, who cultivates a small farm,
must loose a good deal of time in passing from his loom to the field, and
from the field to his loom. When the two trades can be carried on in the same
workhouse, the loss of time is, no doubt, much less. It is, even in this
case, however, very considerable. A man commonly saunters a little in
turning his hand from one sort of employment to another. When he first
begins the new work, he is seldom very keen and hearty; his mind, as they
say, does not go to it, and for some time he rather trifles than applies to
good purpose. The habit of sauntering, and of indolent careless application,
which is naturally, or rather necessarily, acquired by every country workman
who is obliged to change his work and his tools every half hour, and to
apply his hand in twenty different ways almost every day of his life,
renders him almost always slothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous
application, even on the most pressing occasions. Independent, therefore, of
his deficiency in point of dexterity, this cause alone must always reduce
considerably the quantity of work which he is capable of performing.

Thirdly, and lastly, everybody must be sensible how much labour is
facilitated and abridged by the application of proper machinery. It is
unnecessary to give any example. I shall only observe, therefore, that the
invention of all those machines by which labour is to much facilitated and
abridged, seems to have been originally owing to the division of labour. Men
are much more likely to discover easier and readier methods of attaining any
object. when the whole attention of their minds is directed towards that
single object, than when it is dissipated among a great variety of things.