markitect-main/examples/infospace-with-history/artifacts/sources/book-1-chapter-02.md

id, title, book, chapter, artifact_type

id	title	book	chapter	artifact_type
book-1-chapter-02	OF THE PRINCIPLE WHICH GIVES OCCASION TO THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.	1	2	content

CHAPTER II. OF THE PRINCIPLE WHICH GIVES OCCASION TO THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.

  This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not
  originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that
  general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though
  very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human
  nature, which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to
  truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.

  Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human
  nature, of which no further account can be given, or whether, as seems
  more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason
  and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common
  to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to
  know neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in
  running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in
  some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or endeavours
  to intercept her when his companion turns her towards himself. This,
  however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the accidental
  concurrence of their passions in the same object at that particular time.
  Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for
  another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal, by its gestures and
  natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing
  to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain something either of
  a man, or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion, but to
  gain the favour of those whose service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its
  dam, and a spaniel endeavours, by a thousand attractions, to engage the
  attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him.
  Man sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no
  other means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations,
  endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good
  will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In
  civilized society he stands at all times in need of the co-operation and
  assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient
  to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of
  animals, each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely
  independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of
  no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the
  help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their
  benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest
  their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own
  advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to
  another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I
  want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such
  offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far
  greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not
  from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we
  expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address
  ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk
  to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages. Nobody but a
  beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his
  fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The
  charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund
  of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with
  all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor
  can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of
  his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other
  people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one
  man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes which another bestows
  upon him he exchanges for other clothes which suit him better, or for
  lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food,
  clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion.

  As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase, that we obtain from one
  another the greater part of those mutual good offices which we stand in
  need of, so it is this same trucking disposition which originally gives
  occasion to the division of labour. In a tribe of hunters or shepherds, a
  particular person makes bows and arrows, for example, with more readiness
  and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle or
  for venison, with his companions; and he finds at last that he can, in
  this manner, get more cattle and venison, than if he himself went to the
  field to catch them. From a regard to his own interest, therefore, the
  making of bows and arrows grows to be his chief business, and he becomes a
  sort of armourer. Another excels in making the frames and covers of their
  little huts or moveable houses. He is accustomed to be of use in this way
  to his neighbours, who reward him in the same manner with cattle and with
  venison, till at last he finds it his interest to dedicate himself
  entirely to this employment, and to become a sort of house-carpenter. In
  the same manner a third becomes a smith or a brazier; a fourth, a tanner
  or dresser of hides or skins, the principal part of the clothing of
  savages. And thus the certainty of being able to exchange all 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 may
  have occasion for, encourages every man to apply himself to a particular
  occupation, and to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent or
  genius he may possess for that particular species of business.

  The difference of natural talents in different men, is, in reality, much
  less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to
  distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is
  not upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of the division
  of labour. The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between
  a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not
  so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education. When they came
  in to the world, and for the first six or eight years of their existence,
  they were, perhaps, very much alike, and neither their parents nor
  play-fellows could perceive any remarkable difference. About that age, or
  soon after, they come to be employed in very different occupations. The
  difference of talents comes then to be taken notice of, and widens by
  degrees, till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to
  acknowledge scarce any resemblance. But without the disposition to truck,
  barter, and exchange, every man must have procured to himself every
  necessary and conveniency of life which he wanted. All must have had the
  same duties to perform, and the same work to do, and there could have been
  no such difference of employment as could alone give occasion to any great
  difference of talents.

  As it is this disposition which forms that difference of talents, so
  remarkable among men of different professions, so it is this same
  disposition which renders that difference useful. Many tribes of animals,
  acknowledged to be all of the same species, derive from nature a much more
  remarkable distinction of genius, than what, antecedent to custom and
  education, appears to take place among men. By nature a philosopher is not
  in genius and disposition half so different from a street porter, as a
  mastiff is from a grey-hound, or a grey-hound from a spaniel, or this last
  from a shepherd’s dog. Those different tribes of animals, however, though
  all of the same species are of scarce any use to one another. The strength
  of the mastiff is not in the least supported either by the swiftness of
  the greyhound, or by the sagacity of the spaniel, or by the docility of
  the shepherd’s dog. The effects of those different geniuses and talents,
  for want of the power or disposition to barter and exchange, cannot be
  brought into a common stock, and do not in the least contribute to the
  better accommodation and conveniency of the species. Each animal is still
  obliged to support and defend itself, separately and independently, and
  derives no sort of advantage from that variety of talents with which
  nature has distinguished its fellows. Among men, on the contrary, the most
  dissimilar geniuses are of use to one another; the different produces of
  their respective talents, by the general disposition to truck, barter, and
  exchange, being brought, as it were, into a common stock, where every man
  may purchase whatever part of the produce of other men’s talents he has
  occasion for.