happiness of the lower classes of the people. But perhaps Dr Adam
Smith has considered these two inquiries as still more nearly
connected than they really are; at least, he has not stopped to
take notice of those instances where the wealth of a society may
increase (according to his definition of 'wealth') without having
any tendency to increase the comforts of the labouring part of
it. I do not mean to enter into a philosophical discussion of
what constitutes the proper happiness of man, but shall merely
consider two universally acknowledged ingredients, health, and
the command of the necessaries and conveniences of life.

Little or no doubt can exist that the comforts of the
labouring poor depend upon the increase of the funds destined for
the maintenance of labour, and will be very exactly in proportion
to the rapidity of this increase. The demand for labour which
such increase would occasion, by creating a competition in the
market, must necessarily raise the value of labour, and, till the
additional number of hands required were reared, the increased
funds would be distributed to the same number of persons as
before the increase, and therefore every labourer would live
comparatively at his ease. But perhaps Dr Adam Smith errs in
representing every increase of the revenue or stock of a society
as an increase of these funds. Such surplus stock or revenue
will, indeed, always be considered by the individual possessing
it as an additional fund from which he may maintain more labour:
but it will not be a real and effectual fund for the maintenance
of an additional number of labourers, unless the whole, or at
least a great part of this increase of the stock or revenue of
the society, be convertible into a proportional quantity of
provisions; and it will not be so convertible where the increase