IOI 
1831 .] On the Source of Wealth . 
thus increases the wealth of the society, we must grant, that without the previous 
or cotemporaneous exhibition of the reproductive energy, there could be no perio- 
dical income on which to superadd that wealth which springs from the simple mo- 
dification effected by the manufacturer. 
In the foregoing, I trust the dependence of manufactured wealth, and the perio- 
dical income of the classes preparing it, upon the principle of periodical reproduc- 
tion and increase, has been made sufficiently apparent ; and that the utter impos- 
sibility is distinctly made out, of these persons being enabled, by any conceivable 
exertion of mere unaided labour, (as the only active principle of production,) to ob- 
tain either the wealth which forms their income, to make any periodical gain what- 
ever, or to increase their wealth at will, whenever they may be inclined to work. 
I trust this also has been made sufficiently evident, that the ordinary market price 
of wrought wares is that by which the producers, as a class, are most enriched, 
and not that by which they are most straitened in their circumstances ; as Adam 
Smith has been understood to say in such passages as the following, the natural 
price, or the price of free competition,” “ is the lowest which can be taken ; it is 
the lowest which the sellers can commonly afford to take, and at the same time con- 
tinue their business.” Wealth of Nations , Book 1. Chap. 7. 
3. Of Capital and Profits. 
When we consider how intensely man is interested in effecting certain modifi- 
cations of the soil and of its produce, and that he is naked and unarmed by nature, 
we at one perceive motive sufficient for his endeavours at making such combina- 
tions and arrangements of natural products, as shall increase his power, in the 
arduous struggle against those obstacles to enrichment, by which it is his fate to 
be opposed. 
By studying the laws of nature ; by making himself conversant with the 
distinctive properties of bodies, (for no two bodies in nature are alike in these ;) 
and by so combining these bodies, that they shall act, one upon another, in the 
manner he anticipates, man eventually arms himself with such mighty power, as 
virtually to bring the elements under his controul. Now these effects can only be 
brought about by the possessors of accumulations of food, wherewith to support 
labourers while employed ; and such employment of food forms the investment 
of capital in production. 
But from the aid which man receives in production, by thus appropriating , 
accumulations of capital, we must again remark, that nought, independently, 
results in the shape of reproduction and increase j that no renewal, or increase, 
takes place of products each after the kind destroyed ; that a mere modification 
is effected, accompanied by a corresponding destruction ; and that the qualities 
of each product acted upon, are changed, of necessity, by the operation to which 
they have been subjected. 
In the earliest stages even of advancement, man, intuitively, I may say, makes 
use of capital to aid his labour. The savage is rarely found without his spear, 
or his canoe : nay it is one of the distinctive characteristics of wealth, as peculi- 
arly proceeding from the influence of rational beings, to be the joint result of the 
reproductive power, of labour, and of capital : for the employment of capital 
must be consequent on a mental operation, a calculation of contingent, and 
somewhat distant results, by which man is determined in making a present sacri- 
fice, to secure a future and a greater good. I have, indeed, heretofore been dis- 
cussing wealth, as resulting from the living principle, and labour ; but I did so to 
keep the subject clear at the outset ; and because it is not till alter capital has 
