Cakruthers. — On Mill's Fourth FimdainentaJ Theorem respectiwj Capital. 25 



Health, strength, educatiou, mechanical skill, and all other useful 

 personal gifts and acquirements are wealth, and every free man is a caxn- 

 talist to the extent of owning his own personal powers of body and mind. 

 The health, strength, skill and intelligence of a slave are, however, as far as 

 they are transferable, part of his master's capital. 



The sun's warmth and light, air, rain, laud, and all other useful natural 

 agents are wealth. Where they cannot be appropriated by any individual, 

 the ownership is common to all, and all are capitalists ; where they have 

 been appropriated, as in the case of land, the owner becomes the sole 

 capitalist as regards them. 



The wealth of the world consists of natural agents which we receive 

 unconditionally ; of our personal mental and bodily acquirements ; and of 

 wealth which has been produced by the labour of man to eke out the supply 

 that nature has unconditionally given, and which is not sufficient for our 

 subsistence. This last we may call " commodities." 



The stock of commodities ui the world is perpetually being consumed 

 and replaced by others produced by the unceasing labour of man. It is 

 like the sea, from which the sun is perpetually taking away, but to which 

 all that is taken away is returned by the rivers after it has passed over 

 and fertilised the land. But for this circle of evaporation and rainfall, 

 the earth would be a sterile waste ; but for the circle of consumption 

 and production, man would be reduced to a state no better than that of 

 the brutes. 



Our stock of commodities would not keep us alive more than two or 

 three years at the furthest, and if labour ceased, that short time would see 

 the almost total extinction of civilised man. " The accumulated wealth of 

 centuries" is a thing of imagination. All the commodities in the world, 

 which were not produced by the present generation, would not, even if 

 converted by miracle into bread, at then- exchange value as compared with 

 that of bread, give us a single good meal. Accumulated capital there may 

 be ; that is, some families may increase, in every generation, then* owner- 

 ship of the wealth produced by others, but this can only be done to a small 

 extent ; the capital of all the banks in England represents but a very 

 small part of the wealth which the labour of Englishmen produces every 

 year. 



It is not important to any individual in what form his capital may be. 

 He may hold cash, or land, or he may have a stock of commodities in his 

 store which would be of no use to himself, if he could not exchange them ; 

 but, by the help of trade, his capital will give him whatever form of 

 exchangeable wealth he may wish. Practically, he is not the owner of any 

 particular commodity but of a share, proportioned to his capital, of all the 

 commodities of the world. c 



