The Bactra Review Authority,
Liberty and Automatic Machinery in Early Modern Europe
Thus Adam Smith, for instance, in the Wealth of Nations:
A better movement of a watch, that about the middle of the
last century could have been bought for twenty pounds, may now perhaps be had
for twenty shillings. [Bk. I, Ch. XI, ``Effects of the Progress of Improvement
upon the real Price of Manufactures'' = p. 243 of the Modern Library
edition]
I believe Mayr quotes this observation as well, but if so I cannot now
find the passage.