120 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



stance cannot be justly called in question ; inasmuch 

 as it is easy to prove that the essential constituents 

 of the work-stuff accumulated in the child's 

 muscles have merely been transferred from the store 

 of food-stuffs, which everybody admits to be capital, 

 by means of the maternal organism to that of the 

 child, in which they are again deposited to await 

 use. Every subsequent act of labour, in like manner, 

 involves an equivalent consumption of the child's 

 store of work-stuff its vital capital ; and one of the 

 main objects of the process of breathing is to get rid 

 of some of the effects of that consumption. It follows, 

 then, that, even if no other than the respiratory 

 work were going on in the organism, the capital of 

 work-stuff, which the child brought with it into the 

 world, must sooner or later be used up, and the 

 movements of breathing must come to an end ; 

 just as the see-saw of the piston of a steam-engine 

 stops when the coal in the fireplace has burnt away. 

 Milk, however, is a stock of materials which 

 essentially consists of savings from the food-stuffs 

 supplied to the mother. And these savings are in 

 such a physical and chemical condition that the 

 organism of the child can easily convert them into 

 work-stuff. That is to say, by borrowing directly 

 from the vital capital of the mother, indirectly from 

 the store in the natural bodies accessible to her, it 

 can make good the loss of its own. The operation 

 of borrowing, however, involves further work ; 

 that is, the labour of sucking, which is a mechanical 

 operation of much the same nature as breathing. 

 The child thus pays for the capital it borrows in 

 labour ; but as the value in work-stuff of the milk 

 obtained is very far greater than the value of that 

 labour, estimated by the consumption of work-stuff 

 it involves, the operation yields a large profit to the 

 infant. The overplus of food-stuff suffices to 

 increase the child's capital of work-stuff; and to 

 supply not only the materials for the enlargement of 

 the "buildings and machinery" which is expressed 



