entirely, and to keep a country permanently in a semi-barbarous state. Mr. Macculloch, when not under the influence of his definition, justly observes, that “the great practical problem, involved in that part of the science of political economy which treats of the production of wealth, must resolve itself into a discussion of the means whereby the greatest amount of necessary, useful, and desirable products may be obtained with the least possible quantity of labour.”[32] But among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith there is no room for such saving of labour. The pre-eminent advantages to be derived from capital, machinery, and the division of labour, are here almost entirely lost; and in most instances the saving of labour would defeat the very end in view, namely, the parade of attendance, and the pride of commanding a numerous body of followers. Now, if the employment of the labour required to produce material conveniencies and luxuries necessarily occasions the creation and distribution of capital, and, further, affords room for all the advantages resulting from the saving of labour and the most extended use of machinery; while the employment of the labour, called by Adam Smith unproductive, is necessarily cut off from all these benefits, I would ask whether these two circumstances _alone_ do not form a sufficiently marked line of distinction amply to justify the classification of Adam Smith; and the utility of such a classification, in explaining the _causes_ of the wealth of nations, is most obvious and striking. So difficult is it, consistently, to maintain a definition which contradicts the common usage of language, and the common feelings of mankind, that I have not the least doubt, if Mr. Macculloch himself were to travel through two countries of the kind before described, that is, one flourishing in manufactures and commerce, and the other, though with the same population and food, furnishing little more to the great mass of its people than _panem et Circenses_, he would call the latter poor, and the former comparatively rich. Now, what must have been the cause of this difference? Adam Smith would give a simple, sufficient, and most intelligible reason for it. He would say, that the number and powers of those whom he had called productive labourers, had been much greater in one country than in the other. This seems to be a clear and satisfactory explanation. How Mr. Macculloch could explain the matter according to doctrines which make no difference between the different kinds of labour, I am utterly at a loss to conjecture[33].