ecessary to its
destruction.

All the implements necessary to kill the beaver and deer might belong to
one class of men, and the labour employed in their destruction might be
furnished by another class; still, their comparative prices would be in
proportion to the actual labour bestowed, both on the formation of the
capital, and on the destruction of the animals. Under different
circumstances of plenty or scarcity of capital, as compared with labour,
under different circumstances of plenty or scarcity of the food and
necessaries essential to the support of men, those who furnished an
equal value of capital for either one employment or for the other, might
have a half, a fourth, or an eighth of the produce obtained, the
remainder being paid as wages to those who furnished the labour; yet
this division could not affect the relative value of these commodities,
since whether the profits of capital were greater or less, whether they
were 50, 20, or 10 per cent., or whether the wages of labour were high
or low, they would operate equally on both employments.

If we suppose the occupations of the society extended, that some provide
canoes and tackle necessary for fishing, others the seed and rude
machinery first used in agriculture, still the same principle would hold
true, that the exchangeable value of the commodities produced would be
in proportion to the labour bestowed on their production; not on their
immediate production only, but on all those implements or machines
required to give effect to the particular labour to which they were
applied.

If we look to a state of society in which greater improvements have been
made, and in which arts and commerce flourish, we shall still find that
commodities vary in value conformably with this principle: in estimating
the exchangeable value of stockings, for example, we shall find that
their value, comparatively with other things, depends on the total
quantity of labour necessary to manufacture them, and bring them to
market. First, there is the labour necessary to cultivate the land on
which the raw cotton is grown; secondly, the labour of conveying the
cotton to the country where the stockings are to be manufactured, which
includes a portion of the labour bestowed in building the ship in which
it is conveyed, and which is charged in the freight of the goods;
thirdly, the labour of the spinner and weaver; fourthly, a portion of
the labour of the engineer, smith, and carpenter,