46 Wisconsm Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



everything wliicli contributes to man's necessities, comfort or 

 enjoyment. " All tilings are full of labor." In each we find 

 a natural gift from God, with an added gift from man's labor. 

 So long as there is found a desire of man ungratified, or an 

 object of nature unappropriated or unexhausted of its capacity 

 to gratify desire, there will be place for human labor to be ap- 

 plied to natural objects for the increase of wealth. 



We advance a step and come upon another obvious fact. It 

 is that in civilized society, all the processes of industry require 

 some accuTmilaiion of the products of former labor to begin with. 

 The blacksmith cannot begin his work without iron to work 

 upon, and a forge and its fuel and hammer and anvil to work 

 with. And, moreover, if he is to spend the day in his shop, 

 the food which supports him must be provided beforehand. 

 In other words, he must have materials, tools and sustenance. 

 But these all come as the results of previous labor, his own or 

 another's. So it is in every branch of civilized industry. To 

 this necessary accumulation of the products of former labor 

 the name capital is given. This is the radical idea of capital. 



Now putting these two facts together, we have the universal 

 fundamental principle that the union of these two elements, lahor 

 and capital, is essential to the production and to the very existence 

 of icealth. Hence comes the obvious inference that the true 

 relation of capital and labor is that of partners — coadjutors for 

 a common end — sharers in a joint result. Each is indispensa- 

 ble to the other. Abstractly considered, they meet on an 

 equality. Antagonism between them is ruinous to the inter- 

 ests of both. This view of the subject is fundamental to all 

 sound political economy. It is so plain as to seem a truism 

 which hardly needs a formal statement. Sound philosophy 

 and common sense both sustain this view. Yet in practice it 

 is very generally ignored, and in the sharp discussions of our 

 times it seems almost lost sight of on both sides. Amid the 

 din of the workshop and above the din of wordy contention 

 this simple truth needs to be continually affirmed, elucidated 



