that great continent; and the great rivers of Africa are at too great a distance from one another
to give occasion to any considerable inland navigation. The commerce, besides, which any
nation can carry on by means of a river which does not break itself into any great number of
branches or canals, and which runs into another territory before it reaches the sea, can never
be very considerable, because it is always in the power of the nations who possess that other
territory to obstruct the communication between the upper country and the sea. The navigation
of the Danube is of very little use to the different states of Bavaria, Austria. and Hungary, in
comparison of what it would be, if any of them possessed the whole of its course, till it falls
into the Black sea.




CHAPTER IV.

OF THE ORIGIN AND USE OF MONEY.

When the division of labour has been once thoroughly established, it is but
a very small part of a man's wants which the produce of his own labour can
supply. He supplies the far greater part of them by exchanging that surplus
part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own
consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's labour as he has
occasion for. Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes, in some
measure, a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what is properly a
commercial society.

But when the division of labour first began to take place, this power of
exchanging must frequently have been very much clogged and embarrassed in
its operations. One man, we shall suppose, has more of a certain commodity
than he himself has occasion for, while another has less. The former,