like horses or oxen; and what value they confer is from their employment as so much capital. This distinction is not unimportant, because we shall see that capital is controlled by other laws than those which govern labor.

Under a free-labor system, as will be shown, there are two proprietors of value, the laborer and the capitalist. Under a slave-labor system, only the latter has any share in the product.

CHAPTER VI.

DEFINITION OF CAPITAL.

LABOR enters into production, or the creation of values, in

two ways:

First, As the labor of the present.
Second, As the labor of the past.

We call the first "labor" simply; the second, " capital," which is accumulated labor. In their nature, these are identical. They have assumed different forms, have acquired independent rights, and each obeys certain laws peculiar to itself. These two forms of labor may be, and often are, owned by different persons. One man has present labor at his command. This must be his own. Another has accumulated labor. This may be his own, or that of others, of which he has come into possession.

In practice, the two forms of labor must come together and help each other, if they would effect the barest subsistence of mankind. Even the naked savage goes hungry till he gets his bow and his fishing-hook by the labor of his hands. As society goes forward to plenty, comfort, luxury, civilization, the union and mutuality of the two become. more intimate and vital. By such a connection alone is wealth produced.

The growth of capital, and the steps by which it comes to its proper position in the creation of values, may be best shown by a familiar illustration. An able-bodied workman presents himself to you, having the full disposal of his own powers, fully representing the labor of the present, and that only. We will, however, compromise so far with his necessities as to allow him to be clothed; though each article he wears has come from the labor of the past, and, in this supposition, is capital. He has no tools; and, if you have no work that can be done without tools, you must deny him employment. His chances, then, of labor, are hardly as one to a hundred without tools. In the other ninety-nine, he starves for want of capital. But, by chance, you find work requiring no help from accumulated labor. You set him to clearing a field by throwing the stones into heaps. He has secured subsistence for the day without capital. It was uncertain whether he would obtain it. It is certain the employment cannot last long, since need of such assistance closes, perhaps, with the first evening; and you send him away helpless in the midst of civilization. His livelihood. to-morrow is still more precarious. But no: he carries away his earnings for the day. He chooses to lay them out in an axe, rather than on any object of comfort or pleasure. He has practised a self-denial. He appears the next morning with his axe. He has enlarged the sphere of his activity, perhaps, fifty-fold. He has now fifty chances of employment. He has secured work for fifty days. Before the close of this period, he can, by thrift, provide for his immediate bodily wants; pay for his clothes, for which we gave him credit more in charity than logic; and become the possessor of a pick and shovel, scythe and rake. He is now a full farm-laborer, able to do any part of the strictly neces sary work of agriculture with such tools as he has, and may rightfully expect employment every day of the year. So it is, in the grand field of the world's industry, that capitalthe accumulation of labor-helps the labor of the present,

not only to its immediate sustenance, but to permanent occupation, to increase, and to the highest economic civilization.

CHAPTER VII.

RELATION OF CAPITAL AND LABOR.

BUT this union creates the competing interests of labor and capital, since they are generally found in different hands. An interest is, in scientific meaning, a share. Each has now only a share. Before, each had the whole of its own product, but a most melancholy whole. They are competitors; for those shares are not determined absolutely in the nature of the union to which they have consented. It is by the earnestness and persistency of competition alone that either can secure its remuneration, or maintain its existence.

But they are not antagonists. All their effort, even in the severest assertion of their individual claims, goes to the increase of the common property, and the advancement of their mutual service. Antagonism tends to destroy. Its purpose is, so far as it proceeds, to remove one or the other of the parties. The competition of labor and capital never ceases; but it respects the bond of union in which only each has its own full development.

Here we see the folly of the supposed antagonism. They are partners, and should divide the results of industry in good faith and good feeling. False philosophy, or unprincipled politics, may alienate their interests, and set them at discord. Capitalists may encroach on labor. Laborers may, in their madness, destroy capital. Such is the work of ignorance and evil passions. It is the surpassing folly of the members that combined to cut off supplies from the stomach.

However far such a strife may be carried, it must result in mutual injuries; and health can only be restored by ob

taining the recognition of the full rights and obligations of each. The condition of well-being is peace. A false philosophy has set the world at war for ages, proclaiming that what one nation may gain another must lose. Such a philosophy has had its trial, extending over centuries of waste and terror; and is now, fortunately, dishonored through the whole civilized world.

Akin to it is the belief that hatred and retaliation are the normal relations of capital and labor, and that mutual distrust and hurtfulness are inevitable in all the developments of industry. Such a belief blasphemes against the harmonies of Providence, is sightless before the glorious order of man and nature. It was the popular faith in such a principle of hurt, not help, between the two great divisions of industrial power, that effected the Revolution in France. The cruel, shallow selfishness of capital has robbed labor by means of law. Labor, impoverished, ignorant, degraded, has often turned upon its tyrant, and laid in a common waste church and state, letters and wealth.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GENERAL DIVISIONS OF THE SCIENCE.

1st, It being admitted that man has wants which he can satisfy from the world around him, and which he desires to satisfy as fully and easily as possible, we are first led to inquire in what manner this can be done most effectively,— how the forces at his command may be most advantageously employed; in other words, what are the laws which govern the PRODUCTION OF WEALTH.

2d, Since men have different capacities and tastes,since they are placed in a variety of circumstances as to soil, climate, and civilization, their products will be vari

ous; and yet, since all men desire nearly the same objects, an interchange of their respective commodities will become a necessity. Hence arises that department of industry called EXCHANGE, the laws of which it is the province of political economy to investigate.

3d, Almost all objects which men desire are produced by the joint efforts of several individuals. One contributes strength; another, skill; another, capital: yet the product must be distributed among them all, and in just proportions. As this division, it is quite clear, should not be left to the caprice of individuals, but be determined by natural laws, it becomes one of the departments of inquiry upon which the political economist must enter. It is here his duty to ascertain what those laws are, and under what circumstances and conditions they will effect an equitable DISTRIBUTION of the WEALTH which has been produced.

4th, As all commodities created by human exertion are designed for use, and as such use implies consumption more or less rapid, and as upon this depends the power and disposition for reproduction, the question of CONSUMPTION has a scientific place among the objects of our inquiry, and will be found to possess a practical importance second only to that of production.

These are the four great questions which suggest the general divisions of our subject; viz., production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of wealth.

Exchange might not improperly be regarded as belonging to the first general division, since it contributes largely in the actual production of wealth: yet, as it also greatly facilitates and increases consumption, and has influence throughout the whole domain of human industry, it seems desirable to regard it as a separate department; and it has often been treated as such by writers on the general subject.