IV CAPITAL-THE MOTHER OF LABOUR. 171 



when brick clay forms a superficial stratum, it ap- 

 pears to me that these things are supplied to, nay 

 almost thrust upon, man without his labour. Ac- 

 cording to the definition, therefore, they are not 

 " wealth." According to the enumeration, how- 

 ever, they are " wealth ": a tolerably fair specimen 

 of a contradiction in terms. Or does " Progress 

 and Poverty " really suggest that a coal seam 

 which crops out at the surface is not wealth; but 

 that if somebody breaks off a piece and carries it 

 away, the bestowal of this amount of labour upon 

 that particular lump makes it wealth; while the 

 rest remains " not wealth "? The notion that the 

 value of a thing bears any necessary relation to 

 the amount of labour (average or otherwise) be- 

 stowed upon it, is a fallacy which needs no further 

 refutation than it has already received. The aver- 

 age amount of labour bestowed upon warming- 

 pans confers no value upon them in the eyes of a 

 Gold-Coast negro; nor would an Esquimaux give 

 a sHce of blubber for the most elaborate of ice- 

 machines. 



So much for the doctrine of " Progress and 

 Poverty " touching the nature of wealth. Let us 

 now consider its teachings respecting capital as 

 wealth or a part of wealth. Adam Smith's defi- 

 nition " that part of a man's stock which he ex- 

 pects to yield him a revenue is called his capi- 

 tal " is quoted with approval (p. 32); elsewhere 

 capital is said to be that part of wealth " which 



