IV CAPITAL— THE MOTHER OF LABOUR. I53 



are still merely hunters, such as the Esquimaux. 

 They may expend more labour and skill; but it is 

 spent in destruction. 



When we pass from these to men who lead a 

 purely pastoral life, like the South American 

 Gauchos, or some Asiatic nomads, there is an im- 

 portant change. Let us suppose the owner of a 

 flock of sheep to live on the milk, cheese, and 

 flesh which they yield. It is obvious that the 

 flock stands to him in the economic relation of 

 the mother to the child, inasmuch as it suppKes 

 him with food-stuffs competent to make good the 

 daily and hourly losses of his capital of work- 

 stuff. If we imagine our sheep owner to have 

 access to extensive pastures and to be troubled 

 neither by predacious animals nor by rival shep- 

 herds, the performance of his pastoral functions 

 will hardly involve the expenditure of any more 

 labour than is needful to provide him with the 

 exercise required to maintain health. And this 

 is true, even if we take into account the trouble 

 originally devoted to the domestication of the 

 sheep. It surely would be a most singular pre- 

 tension for the shepherd to talk of the flock as 

 the " produce " of his labour in any but a very 

 limited sense. In truth, his labour would have 

 been a mere accessory of production of very little 

 consequence. Under the circumstances supposed, 

 a ram and some ewes, left to themselves for a few 

 years, would probably generate as large a flock; 



