156 CAPITAL— THE MOTHER OF LABOUR. iv 



it cannot be too strongly impressed upon the mind 

 that sunshine, air, water, the best soil that is to 

 be found on the surface of the earth, might co- 

 exist; yet without plants, there is no known 

 agency competent to generate the so-called '^ pro- 

 tein compounds," by which alone animal life can 

 be permanently supported. And not only are 

 plants thus essential; but in respect of particular 

 kinds of animals, they must be plants of a par- 

 ticular nature. If there were no terrestrial green 

 plants but, say, cypresses and mosses, pastoral and 

 agricultural life would be alike impossible; in- 

 deed, it is difficult to imagine the possibility of 

 the existence of any large animal, as the labour 

 required to get at a sufficiency of the store of food- 

 stuffs, contained in such plants as these, could 

 hardly extract from them an equivalent for the 

 waste involved in that expenditure of work. 



We are compact of dust and air; from that we 

 set out, and to that complexion must we come at 

 last. The plant either directly, or by some ani- 

 mal intermediary, lends us the capital which en- 

 ables us to carry on the business of life, as we flit 

 through the upper world, from the one term of 

 our Journey to the other. Popularly, no doubt, it 

 is permissible to speak of the soil as a " producer," 

 just as we may talk of the daily movement of the 

 sun. But, as I have elsewhere remarked, propo- 

 sitions which are to bear any deductive strain 

 that may be put upon them must run the risk of 



