Introduction (Book I) - Page 2

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
to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting them to work,
and to the particular way in which it is so employed. The second book,
therefore, treats of the nature of capital stock, of the manner in which it
is gradually accumulated, and of the different quantities of labour which it
puts into motion, according to the different ways in which it is employed.

Nations tolerably well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment, in the
application of labour, have followed very different plans in the general
conduct or direction of it; and those plans have not all been equally
favourable to the greatness of its produce. The policy of some nations has
given extraordinary encouragement to the industry of the country ; that of
others to the industry of towns. Scarce any nation has dealt equally and
impartially with every sort of industry. Since the down-fall of the Roman
empire, the policy of Europe has been more favourable to arts, manufactures,
and commerce, the industry of towns, than to agriculture, the Industry of
the country. The circumstances which seem to have introduced and
established this policy are explained in the third book.

Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the private
interests and prejudices of particular orders of men, without any regard to,
or foresight of, their consequences upon the general welfare of the society;
yet they have given occasion to very different theories of political
economy; of which some magnify the importance of that industry which is
carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the country.
Those theories have had a considerable influence, not only upon the opinions
of men of learning, but upon the public conduct of princes and sovereign
states. I have endeavoured, in the fourth book, to explain as fully and
distinctly as I can those different theories, and the principal effects
which they have produced in different ages and nations.

To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the
people, or what has been the nature of those funds, which, in different ages
and nations, have supplied their annual consumption, is the object of these
four first books. The fifth