150 CAPITAL — THE MOTHER OF LABOUR iv 



to me to be open to doubt that the primary act of 

 outward labour in the series which necessarily 

 accomjDany the life of man is dependent upon the 

 pre-existence of a stock of material which is not 

 only of use to him, but which is disposed in such 

 a manner as to be utili sable with facility. And 

 I further imagine that the propriety of the 

 application of the term ' capital ' to this stock of 

 useful substance 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 consumj^tion 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 



