124 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



that labour and capital are necessarily antagonistic ; 

 that all capital is produced by labour and therefore, 

 by natural right, is the property of the labourer ; that 

 the possessor of capital is a robber who preys on the 

 workman and appropriates to himself that which he 

 has had no share in producing. 



On the contrary, capital and labour are necessarily, 

 close allies ; capital is never a product of human 

 labour alone ; it exists apart from human labour ; it 

 is the necessary antecedent of labour ; and it furnishes 

 the materials on which labour is employed. The 

 only indispensable form of capital — vital capital — 

 cannot be produced by human labour. All that man 

 can do is to favour its formation by the real producers. 

 There is no intrinsic relation between the amount of 

 labour bestowed on an article and its value in ex- 

 change. The claim of labour to the total result of 

 operations which are rendered possible only by capital 

 is simply an a priori iniquity. 



CCLXIX 



The vast and varied procession of events, which we 

 call Nature, affords a sublime spectacle and an inex- 

 haustible wealth of attractive problems to the 

 speculative observer. If we confine our attention 

 to that aspect which engages the attention of 

 the intellect, nature appears a beautiful and 

 harmonious whole, the incarnation of a faultless 

 logical process, from certain premisses in the past 

 to an inevitable conclusion in the future. But if it be 

 regarded from a less elevated, though more human, 

 point of view ; if our moral sympathies are allowed 

 to influence our judgment, and we permit ourselves 

 to criticize our great mother as we criticize one 



