vii treatise is, perhaps, made to assume a more exclusively theoretic character than the perusal of the original might lead some to attach to it. Those who wish to study contemporary conditions as they appeared to Adam Smith, or to form a complete estimate of his intellectual interests, must have recourse to the original. But the present selection omits, it is believed, nothing that enters into the real structure of Adam Smith's argument; it may serve to show that the historical and descriptive passages were, after all, only illustrations, and quite subsidiary; and it may bring out more clearly the relation of his work to that of subsequent English economists. The text here given is that of the first edition. The few passages omitted in the third edition, that of 1784, are placed within round brackets; those there added, within square brackets. OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR, AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE, PAGE 16 20 . CHAPTER 5 II. Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labour Market 24 V. Of the real and nominal Price of Commodities, or of their Price in Labour and their Price in Money 30 VI. Of the component Parts of the Price of Commodities 42 VII. Of the natural and market Price of Commodities 53 VIII. Of the Wages of Labour 66 IX. Of the Profits of Stock. 86 X. Of Wages and Profit in the different Employments of Labour and of Stock. 99 PART I. Inequalities arising from the Nature of the Employments themselves Europe 128 Part I. Of the Produce of Land which always affords Rent 131 1 The original table of contents is prefixed to indicate the relation of the selected chapters and passages to the whole treatise. Chapters entirely unrepresented here are bracketed. IIO |