the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter. Among the savage
nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is able to work is more
or less employed in useful labour, and endeavours to provide, as well as he
can, the necessaries and conveniencies of life, for himself, and such of his
family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or too infirm, to go
a-hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so miserably poor, that,
from mere want, they are frequently reduced, or at least think themselves
reduced, to the necessity sometimes of directly destroying, and sometimes of
abandoning their infants, their old people, and those afflicted with
lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts.
Among civilized and thriving nations, on the. contrary, though a great
number of people do not labour at all, many of whom consume the produce of
ten times, frequently of a hundred times, more labour than the greater part
of those who work ; yet the produce of the whole labour of the society is so
great, that all are often abundantly supplied ; and a workman, even of the
lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a
greater share of the necessaries and conveniencies of life than it is
possible for any savage to acquire.

The causes of this improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the
order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the
different ranks and conditions of men in the society, make the subject of
the first book of this Inquiry.

Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with
which labour is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its
annual supply must depend, during the continuance of that state, upon the
proportion between the number of those who are annually employed in useful
labour, and that of those who are not so employed. The number of useful and
productive labourers, it will hereafter appear, is everywhere in proportion