[669] ‘Parsimony, and not industry, is the immediate cause of the increase of capital. Industry, indeed, provides the subject which parsimony accumulates; but whatever industry might acquire, if parsimony did not save and store up, the capital would never be the greater.’ … ‘But the principle which prompts to save, is the desire of bettering our condition; a desire which, though generally calm and dispassionate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the grave.’ Smith's Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. iii. pp. 138, 140, edit. Edinb. 1839.
[670] ‘The uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition, the principle from which public and national, as well as private, opulence is originally derived, is frequently powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things towards improvement, in spite both of the extravagance of government and of the greatest errors of administration. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it frequently restores health and vigour to the constitution, in spite not only of the disease, but of the absurd prescriptions of the doctor.’ Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. iii. p. 141. ‘The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance, not only capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmounting a hundred impertinent obstructions with which the folly of human laws too often encumbers its operations.’ Book iv. chap. v. p. 221.
[671] See an admirable passage, p. 156, too long to quote, beginning, ‘If human institutions had never thwarted those natural inclinations,’ &c.
[672] ‘That insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.’ Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. ii. p. 190.
[673] ‘That security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man, that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish, notwithstanding these and twenty other absurd regulations of commerce.’ Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. v. p. 221.
[674] ‘In all countries where there is a tolerable security, every man of common understanding will endeavour to employ whatever stock he can command, in procuring either present enjoyment or future profit.’ Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. i. p. 115.
[675] ‘The consideration of his own private profit is the sole motive which determines the owner of any capital to employ it either in agriculture, in manufactures, or in some particular branch of the wholesale or retail trade.’ Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. v. p. 154.
[676] ‘By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.’ Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. ii. p. 184.
[677] In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 21, he says that mankind are ‘naturally sympathetic.’
[678] ‘Nay, it is chiefly for this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty.’ Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 66. ‘To become the natural object of the joyous congratulations and sympathetic attentions of mankind, is, in this manner, the circumstance which gives to prosperity all its dazzling splendour.’ p. 78.