APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 121 



by the child's growth, but also the energy required 

 to put all these materials together, and to carry them 

 to their proper places. Thus, throughout the years 

 of infancy, and so long thereafter as the youth or 

 man is not thrown upon his own resources, he lives 

 by consuming the vital capital provided by others. 



Let us now suppose the child come to man's estate 

 in the condition of a wandering savage, dependent 

 for his food upon what he can pick up or catch, after 

 the fashion of the Australian aborigines. It is plain 

 that the place of mother, as the supplier of vital 

 capital, is now taken by the fruits, seeds, and roots 



of plants and by various kinds of animals 



The savage, like the child, borrows the capital he 

 needs, and, at any rate, intentionally, does nothing 

 towards repayment ; it would plainly be an improper 

 use of the word "produce" to say that his labour 

 in hunting for the roots, or the fruits, or the eggs, 

 or the grubs and snakes, which he finds and eats, 

 "produces" or contributes to "produce" them. 

 The same thing is true of more advanced tribes, 

 who are still merely hunters, such as the Esquimaux. 

 They may expend more labour and skill ; but it is 

 spent in destruction. 



When we find set forth as an "absolute" truth 

 the statement that the essential factors in economic 

 production are land, capital and labour when this 

 is offered as an axiom whence all sorts of other 

 important truths may be deduced it is needful 

 to remember that the assertion is true only with 



