168 CAPITAL THE MOTHER OF LABOUR iv 



the carpenter was occupied in making it. If, at 

 the end of each day, the carpenter chose to say to 

 himself " I have ' virtually ' created, by my day's 

 labour, a fifteenth of what I shall get for the chest 

 of drawers therefore my wages are the produce of 

 my day's labour " there is no great harm in such 

 metaphorical speech, so long as the poor man does 

 not delude himself into the supposition that it 

 represents the exact truth. " Virtually " is apt to 

 cover more intellectual sins than " charity " does 

 moral delicts. After what has been said, it surely 

 must be plain enough that each day's work has 

 involved the consumption of the carpenter's vital 

 capital, and the fashioning of his timber, at the 

 expense of more or less consumption of those 

 forms of capital. Whether the a + b to be ex 

 changed for the chest has been advanced as a loan, 

 or is paid daily or weekly as wages, or, at some 

 later time, as the price of a finished commodity 

 the essential element of the transaction, and the 

 only essential element, is, that it must, at least, 

 effect the replacement of the vital capital con 

 sumed. Neither boards nor chest of drawers are 

 eatable; and, so far from the carpenter having 

 produced the essential part of his wages by each 

 day's labour, he has merely wasted that labour, 

 unless somebody who happens to want a chest of 

 drawers offers to exchange vital capital, or some 

 thing that can procure it, equivalent to the 



