📔 The Wealth of Nations

In every age and country of the world men must have attended to the characters, designs, and actions of one another, and many reputable rules and maxims for the conduct of human life, must have been laid down and approved of by common consent.

It is the ambiguity of language only which can make this proposition appear either doubtful or paradoxical. When properly explained and understood, it is almost self-evident.

Whoever has been much accustomed to visit such manufactures, must frequently have been shown very pretty machines, which were the inventions of common workmen in order to facilitate and quicken their own particular part of the work.

In foundling hospitals, and among the children brought up by parish charities the mortality is still greater than among those of the common people.