§ 4 

Thus the wealth of a Nation consists in the multitude of products or, rather, in their value; but the multitude of products depends on two chief causes, namely, the number of workmen and their diligence. Nature will produce both, when she is left untrammelled. 

Would the Great Master, who adorns the valley with flowers and covers the cliff itself with grass and mosses, exhibit such a great mistake in man, his masterpiece, that man should not be able to enrich the globe with as many inhabitants as it can support? That would be a mean thought even in a Pagan, but blasphemy in a Christian, when reading the Almighty's precept: "Be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth." 

It was punishment for fallen man to support himself in the sweat of his brow; but this punishment was such that Nature itself measured it out, when man was forced to work because of his wants, when he had nothing but his own hands to rely on for his needs; and toil was made lighter by the desire for his own benefit, when he saw that he could thereby get what he needed. 

If either is lacking, the fault should be sought in the laws of the Nation, hardly, however, in any want of laws, but in the impediments that are put in the way of Nature. 

If by them citizens are rendered incapable of supporting themselves and their children, they must either die together with their offspring or forsake their native land. The more expedients are afforded by laws for some people to live by the toil of others, while others are prevented from supporting themselves by work, the more is diligence checked, and the Nation cannot but resemble the mould in which it is cast.