170 CAPITAL THE MOTHER OF LABOUR iv 



Poverty," is that illustrated in the foregoing pages ; 

 the truth of which, I conceive, must be plain to 

 any one who has apprehended the very simple 

 arguments by which I have endeavoured to 

 demonstrate it. One conclusion or the other 

 must be hopelessly wrong ; and, even at the cost of 

 going once more over some of the ground traversed 

 in this essay and that on " Natural and Political 

 Bights," 1 1 propose to show that the error lies with 

 " Progress and Poverty " ; in which work, so far as 

 political science is concerned, the poverty is, to 

 my eye, much more apparent than the progress. 



To begin at the beginning. The author pro 

 pounds a definition of wealth : " Nothing which 

 nature supplies to man without his labour is 

 wealth " (p. 28). Wealth consists of " natural sub 

 stances or products which have been adapted by 

 human labour to human use or gratification, their 

 value depending upon the amount of labour which, 

 upon the average, would be required to produce 

 things of like kind" (p. 27). The following 

 examples of wealth are given : 



Buildings, cattle, tools, machinery, agricultural and mineral 

 products, manufactured goods, ships, waggons, furniture, and 

 the like (p. 27). 



I take it that native metals, coal and brick 



clay, are " mineral products " ; and I quite believe 



that they are properly termed "wealth." But 



when a seam of coal crops out at the surface, and 



1 Collected Essays, vol. i. pp. 359-382. 



