Looking now only at the lectures, we find that of the hundred pages into which this first discourse on the _Wealth of Nations_ falls, eighty, or four-fifths, are concerned with “cheapness or plenty,” in other words, with “the most proper way of procuring wealth or abundance.” Cheapness is synonymous with plenty, as dearness is synonymous with dearth. Water is only cheap because it is plentiful, diamonds are costly only because they are scarce. If we wish to find wherein opulence consists, we must first consider what are the natural wants of mankind which are to be supplied; “and if we differ from common opinions, we shall at least give the reasons for our nonconformity.” So he sets about his task with a theory of consumption simple, intelligible, and adequate. Food, clothes, and lodgings are the threefold necessities of animal life. But most animals find these wants sufficiently provided by nature. Man alone has so delicate a constitution that no object is produced to his liking. So he improves his food by cookery, and protects himself by fire, clothes, and huts from the inclemency of the weather. But as man’s physical delicacy requires much more provision than that of any other animal, so does the same, or rather the much greater, delicacy of his mind. Such is the nicety of his taste, that the very colour of an object hurts or pleases. He is tired by uniformity, and loves variety and change. The Indians gladly barter gems for the cheap toys of Europe. Thus besides the threefold necessities of life a multitude of wants and demands spring up to which agriculture, manufactures, arts, commerce, and navigation are subservient; while the establishment of law and government, “the highest effort of human prudence and wisdom,” enables the different arts to flourish in peace and security. Thus Smith arrives at the point from which the _Wealth of Nations_ was to start. In an uncivilised nation, where labour is undivided, the natural wants of mankind are provided for. But as civilisation advances with the division of labour, the provision becomes more liberal, so that “a common day-labourer in Britain has more luxury in his way of living than an Indian sovereign.” The labourer’s comfort, indeed, is nothing to that of the noble. Yet a European prince does not so far exceed a commoner as the latter does the chief of a savage nation. “In a savage nation,” he added, with a prophetic glance at Marx, “every one enjoys the whole fruit of his own labour.” It is therefore the Division of Labour that increases the opulence of a country. This is the kernel of political economy, the inner keep round which this great architect of a new science has built a fortress strong enough to protect society and to preserve the fruit of men’s toil from the well-meaning unwisdom of their governments. Not that Smith was insensible to the hardness of economic laws, to the cruel inequalities of industry:—