# Difference of Talents

## Definition

The observable variation in skills, aptitudes, and abilities among individuals
in different occupations. Smith makes the striking argument that this
difference is largely the effect rather than the cause of the division of
labour: people are born with roughly equal abilities, and it is their
different occupations, shaped by habit, custom, and education, that create
the apparent differences. He contrasts humans with dogs, where natural breed
differences are far greater but cannot be made useful because animals lack
the capacity for exchange.

## Source Chapter

Book I, Chapter 2: "Of the Principle which gives Occasion to the Division
of Labour"

## Context

This argument occupies the final portion of the chapter. Smith uses it to
reinforce his claim that exchange, not innate difference, is the driver of
specialisation. The philosopher and the street porter were "very much alike"
until different employments shaped them differently.

## Economic Domain

General Theory

## Smith's Original Wording

"The difference of natural talents in different men, is, in reality, much
less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to
distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not
upon many occasions so much the cause, as the effect of the division of
labour."
