1830.] 
On Value. 
271 
culiar characters of the different objects with which he is surrounded, he may 
perceive properties existing in these, wherewith the smaller evils which are now 
uppermost in his apprehension may be averted; this, therefore, and the manipula- 
tion necessary for fitting natural products for his particular purposes, form his 
occupation, while the principle of reproduction and increase in food silently per- 
forms its peculiar and important office. 
But man’s numbers, by an immutable law, are destined to increase to the utmost, 
while the means are procurable of obtaining nourishment. The agriculturalists 
who have located themselves on, and reclaimed the soil, will, therefore, shortly 
find numbers ready to offer their utmost exertions to prepare the products of 
mere manipulation, if they will but give the food in exchange, which it is in their 
power, by devoting themselves exclusively and unremittingly to agriculture, 
readily to obtain. That product, therefore, in secondary wealth, the preparation of 
which occupies the entire time of these poor manufacturers, and for which the 
agriculturalists willingly give food sufficient for their subsistence, being convert- 
ible at will into that primary wealth, for the possession of which, the needy must 
ever be ready to offer tlieir utmost exertions, will necessarily come to stand in 
the same general esteem as the primary wealth itself, which it is the means of 
procuring. Its real value will, therefore, be equal to that of the food which can be 
obtained for it, in the estimation of all the indigent; and this class, from the 
influence of the law of population, must, in all ordinary cases, be the vast major- 
ity of the society. 
But under the supposition that agricultural production had got so greatly the 
start of the agricultural population, as to leave it at the option of these to labour 
or not in obtaining the fullest results of reproduction, which the extent of soil 
in tillage might be made to yield, it may be thought that the value of the primary 
description of wealth will then suffer deterioration. But it must be remembered, 
that if we even suppose the original agriculturists to have been brought suddenly 
into these happy circumstances, it by no means follows that they will take any 
interest in prosecuting production to such an extent, as considerably to lower the 
value of food. On the contrary, after a manufacturing class has been established, 
if the agriculturists find they can obtain all the wrought produce they require, and 
all the food they require besides, for a less exhibition of exqrtion than tlieir 
utmost ; in place of spending tlieir spare time in any description of production 
whatever, they will occupy it in the pursuit of amusements ; and if the further 
pressing of the population overtake this disposition to leave the soil untasked to 
its utmost ability, those of the rising generation, who cannot live by manufac- 
tures, will readily offer to take upon themselves the labour of fully working the 
soil, on any terms which the original agriculturists may he willing to accept ; and 
hence a landed gentry is created, interested, not in the greatest possible extent 
of actual reproduction and increase, but in such disposition being made of the 
soil, as suits most readily their peculiar wishes and fancies. If over-production 
of food should now cause a glut, and disable, therefore, the tenants from making 
good their rents, the landlords will inevitably take measures for preventing its 
frequent recurrence ; and thus, whatever the progress of cultivation, and the 
arts of agriculture, rendering it possible, for the time, to raise more than will 
support the number of manufacturei-s, in feeding whom the agriculturalists find 
an interest ; the proprietory right to the soil, and the private views of the 
parties concerned in cultivation, will, even under these extraordinary cii'cum- 
stances, of food outstripping the progress of population, tend effectually to 
prevent a permanent reduction of the value of this primary description of wealth. 
But we are not, from the experience of the world at large, justified in contem- 
plating the frequent recux'rence of such rapid progress in agriculture as the above : 
except in the case of new, fertile, and unbroken countries, falling into the hands 
of a people peculiarly well versed in the arts of agricultui-e, it cannot possibly 
occur. These events must ever be looked on as exceptions to the ordinary course 
of production, which this century, and the next, may have to witness ; but of 
which, succeeding generations will know nothing, beyond the mere report. Popu- 
lation must, in all ordinary circumstances, be keeping equal pace with production ; 
and therefoi*e, the full value of food must continually be maintained. 
The value then, from what has been written, would appeal*, in primary wealth, 
to be original and independent ; while the value attaching to the secondary des- 
criptions of wealth, is, like the wealth itself, secondary and contingent. The 
value attaching to the products of manipulation is secondary ; because it is merely 
on account of the manufacturers, finding the prosecution of their business to be 
