304 
[Oct. 
Of the Evolution of Rent, tfc. 
of society increases, and, with it, the knowledge of productive arts; the progres- 
sively increasing numbers will be enabled, not only to work, with a power equal to 
their greater numbers, but with an efficiency, through the more effectual aid 
obtained from capital, which sets free an income continually increasing in a greater 
proportion than the numbers increase, who are actually employed in the produc- 
tion of food. The revenue of the society will then, as we have seen, be c m e 
under two heads : it will be known as the wages of labour, and the profits o tie 
stock of capital employed. e .. . 
But during the time that these increases of income, and erolvcments of distinct 
profits, have been taking place ; another separation of particular income from ge- 
neral revenue may also have been on foot, under particular circumstances of 
proprietorship in the soil, and if the custom had come to prevail, amongst mlm- 
duals, of keeping considerable tracts in their possession. 
We have seen, that each successive improvement, in the mode of applying 
capital to cultivation, raised profits from that rate to which they, of necessity, have 
a tendency to sink, to some higher point ; whence it was the decided interest of t e 
productive, and indeed of all classes, that they should experience such reduction 
as is brought about by the more extended employment of capital. To those how- 
ever who, besides being the possessors of capital, are proprietors of certain portions 
of the soil, provided they appropriate the same extent of surface as before, to their 
own exclusive use, the power has been secured of continuing to realize the same 
constant rate of profits, from the employment of the same amount of capital : 
such amount of capital, I mean, as had been actually sunk in cultivation at the time 
when the rate of profits had experienced increase. We have seen that cultivation 
could only be extended, as population increased, and offered an effectual demand 
for increased quantities of food ; — that it could never be the interest of the culti 
vator to bring so much food to market as served only to sink its price, while the 
demand experienced no increase, calculated to counteract, on the aggregate of sales, 
the loss incident on each particular sale ; in short, that the introduction of improve 
ments in agriculture does not lower the price of food ; because such an event 
would impoverish cultivators. If then, after the introduction of an improve 
process, the rate of agricultural profits be raised, as we have supposed in a previous 
section, it is evident, that if the capitalist, there adverted to, were proprietor of the 
soil, he might always realize, on a capital of 114 measures, a gross return of 2*0 
measures ; ora rate of profit of about 88 per cent. ; and this is an advantage enjove 
by him, not because he is capitalist only, but because he is a proprietor of the 
soil also. 
Now if, at this time, the average rate of profits, obtained in other branches of 
business than agriculture, was somewhere about 25 per cent, and if there was 
difficulty experienced in obtaining productive employment for all the capital that 
might be accumulating, it is not improbable that mere capitalists would willingly 
offer to advance their accumulations, to be allowed to cultivate this tract ; con- 
senting to pay to the land-owner, the difference between the 25 and 88 per cent, 
realized; and in this event, provided it were sufficient in amount for his support, 
the landlord would enjoy the difference at his ease, under the denomination of the 
rent of his land. 
But it is also probable, that as population increased, and offered an effectual 
demand for more food, it might be to the advantage of the capitalist to sink a greater 
capital than 114 measures in actual production: his object will now be, first to 
realize a gross produce equal to the payment of his labour and seed, or 111 mea 
sures ; and secondly, to realize sufficient for the payment of his rent, or 78 measures; 
