198 
Of the Influence of Capital 
[July, 
knowledge of productive arts defined ; the improvement in productive arts which 
we contemplated, must virtually have removed the barriers by which they were 
opposed ; and must have permitted a second progression of enrichment, and of 
population. 
If the difficulty of obtaining food sufficient for an increasing population, be the 
cause of the progress of that population being repressed ; the direct labour, requisite 
to obtaining an increased quantity of food, must, in ordinary circumstances in a 
well peopled country, be nearly so great, as to exceed the power of those to bestow, 
who wish to obtain it by their own labour, unaided by capital ; a quantity of food, 
equal to a man’s consumption, must, therefore, be equal, in the estimation of labour- 
ers, to what equal labour would produce in any other business ; and if agricultural 
capitalists can command the produce of so much labour for every such measureof 
corn as suffices for man’s support, it is self-evident that they can feel little interest in 
sinking capital, and superintending its outlay in producing more food than the 
quantity already obtained, merely that they may give more of their food for an 
equal quantity of wrought produce ; while the former quantity must, in the estima- 
tion of the manufacturing class, have been an equivalent for their wares; nor will 
they find it more to their interest to sink an additional capital, for the mere support 
of a greater number of agricultural labourers than are essential to insuring them 
the command they seek of manufactured goods, and of providing for the wants of 
their own increasing numbers. In the interval, then, between the commencement 
of a new career of enrichment, and the subsequent approximation to the limits, 
which the nature and extent of the country, and the state of productive arts, 
prescribe, although the difficulty of obtaining more food, with the aid of capital, be 
not so great as to exceed the strength of those willing to labour in its production, yet 
this cannot render food more cheap, or of more easy acquisition than before, to the 
meie labourer; because the capital necessary for aiding in this purpose, cannot 
be obtained by the needy who desire so to employ it, unless the capitalist be 
enriched at the same time ; and the labour required to raise food without the aid of 
capital is, as it was before, so great, as to serve as a check to the increase of 
such a population, as have only their labour to offer. The price of food, then, 
must be nearly permanent ; and the quantity, necessary for a man’s support, 
must always command, in the market, whatever products his labour would 
produce elsewhere, during the time the food yields him support. 
But although there cannot be a fall of price in food of any consequence, there 
will probably, with the progress of agricultural science, be some slight reduction ; 
agricultural capitalists will be necessarily more willing to part with food, when its 
quantity is more readily than before, susceptible of increase; the manufacturing 
population will feel the beneficial influence of this disposition, and will conse- 
quently increase in numbers, and enlarge also the number and nature of their pro- 
ducts more rapidly, than the mere increase of population and demand would lead 
us to expect; and this reacting on those with whom it rests to increase cultivation, 
and who are only otherwise interested in extending cultivation, to provide for 
their own increasing number, the progress of agriculture will also proceed in a 
ratio accelerated on these accounts ; agriculture and manufacturers, acting, alter- 
nately, as cause and effect, one upon the other; till again the greatest extension of 
cultivation has been effected, which is compatible with the greatest enrichment and 
increase of the class of agricultural, and with them, of manufacturing capitalists. 
It may be objected to the theory of profits which I would establish, that men 
cannot know, exactly, when profits have sunk to that rate, beyond which their 
further fall brings impoverishment to individuals, and consequent reduction 
