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MONEY-EXCHANGE.

effort that is, industry-to natural resources and objects. constituting capital. Hence capital and industry are all that is necessary for the creation of wealth.

We have already defined wealth as consisting of those articles of utility which are essential to the subsistence and comfort of the human race. Money is especially the representative of wealth, since by the aid of money all articles capable of being transferred and exchanged from one to another may be most readily procured. "Translated into its equivalent, money means food and clothing, and a salubrious dwelling. It means instructive books and rational recreation. It means freedom from anxiety and leisure and capability for personal improvement and enjoyment. It means the education of one's children and the power of doing good to others." Money, however, in itself, is not wealth; but only so far as it is a medium for facilitating exchanges. When it ceases to effect this object, money becomes valueless.

The industry of no one man, however, is capable of directly satisfying all his wants and desires. Experience teaches us that by confining our labor to the production of one object, and afterward exchanging the result of such labor for the equivalent value of other employments, we can not only produce more, but more readily and effectually satisfy our desires, than if we endeavored by a varied em ployment to produce directly every thing necessary for our comfort or happiness. Hence the necessity of a system of exchanges. Experience also teaches men, even in the rudest forms of society, that the productive effects of labor are greatly augmented by a union of separate forces and a classification of employments. Thus ten men will construct a hut more perfectly and more economically in one day, than one man can possibly effect the same object in ten days. The beneficial results of combined effort and skill are espe

DIVISION OF LABOR-GENERAL SUMMARY.

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cially seen where the process admits of division, and each laborer performs that part for which his knowledge and skill renders him best adapted. Hence the necessity of classification and division of labor.

Furthermore, as justice requires that the gain of all industrial effort should be distributed to each participant in proportion to his ability to labor effectually, we have another important element of political economy, namely, that of distribution. The consideration of the consumption of value, as connected with subsistence and production, furnishes an additional topic in the discussion of the principles involved in the economy of labor.

From what has been stated, therefore, it appears that man, in order to exist must produce, and that all production is the offspring of labor and capital. That labor and capital may be most advantageously employed, there must be knowledge, and a classification and division of labor. That productive labor may most readily and equitably satisfy the wants and desires of man, there must be exchanges, and a distribution of values. Upon the existence of these principles, and a proper administration of the laws which govern them, the prosperity and security of every society depends. That community only can attain the highest prosperity, in which industry is free, capital secure, division and classification of labor intelligent, exchange untrammeled, and distribution of wealth equitable.

The maxim of the Preacher-"The profit of the earth is for all"-contains the essence of all political economy.

It is proposed in the succeeding chapters to explain somewhat in detail, and illustrate by familiar examples, the relation which the several principles we have touched upon sustain to each other, and to man, both in his individual and social capacities.

CHAPTER II.

FEEBLE RESOURCES OF CIVILIZED MAN IN A DESERT.-ROSS COX, PETER THE WILD BOY, AND THE SAVAGE OF AVEYRON.-A MOSQUITO INDIAN ON JUAN FERNANDEZ. CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR THE PRODUCTION OF UTILITY.

LET us suppose a man brought up in civilized life cast upon a desert land-without food, without clothes, without fire, without tools. We see the human being in the very lowest state of helplessness. Most of the knowledge he had acquired would be worse than useless; for it would not be applicable in any way to his new position. Let the land upon which he is thrown produce spontaneous fruits—let it be free from ferocious animals-let the climate be most genial-still the man would be exceedingly powerless and wretched. The first condition of his lot, to enable him to maintain existence at all, would be that he should labor. He must labor to gather the berries from the trees-he must labor to obtain water from the rivulets-he must labor to form a garment of leaves, or of some equally accessible material, to shield his body from the sun-he must labor to render some cave or hollow tree a secure place of shelter from the dews of night. There would be no intermission of the labor necessary to provide a supply of food from hand to mouth, even in the season when wild fruits were abundant. If this labor, in the most favorable season, were interrupted for a single day, or at most for two or three days, by sickness, he would in all probability perish.

CIVILIZED MAN IN A DESERT-ROSS COX.

27 But, when the autumn was past, and the wild fruits were gone, he must prolong existence as some savage tribes are reported to do-by raw fish and undressed roots. The labor of procuring these would be infinitely greater than that of climbing trees for fruit. To catch fish without nets, and scratch up roots with naked hands, is indeed painful toil. The hopelessness of this man's condition would principally be the effect of one circumstance; he would possess no accumulation of former labor by which his present labor might be profitably directed. The power of labor would in his case be in its least productive state. He would partly justify the assertion that man has the feeblest natural means of any animal; because he would be utterly unpossessed of those means by which the reason of man has accumulated around every individual in the social state.

We asked the reader to suppose a civilized man in the very lowest state in which the power of labor may be exercised, because there is no record of any civilized man being for any length of time in such a state.

Ross Cox, a Hudson's Bay trader, whose adventures were given to the world some twenty years ago, was in this state for a fortnight; and his sufferings may furnish some idea of the greater miseries of a continuance in such a powerless condition. Having fallen asleep in the woods of the northwest of America, which he had been traversing with a large party, he missed the traces of his companions. The weather being very hot, he had left nearly all his clothes with his horse when he rambled from his friends. He had nothing to defend himself against the wolves and serpents, but a stick; he had nothing of which to make his bed but long grass and rushes; he had nothing to eat but roots and wild fruits. The man would doubtless have perished, unless he had met with some Indians, who knew better how to avail themselves of the spontaneous productions around them.

But this is not an instance of the continuance of labor in

The few individuals, also, who have been found exposed in forests, such as Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron-who were discovered, the one about a century ago, in Germany, the other about forty years since, in France differed from the civilized man cast naked upon a desert shore in this particular-their wants were of the lowest nature. They were not raised above the desires of the most brutish animals. They applied those desires after the fashion of brutes. Peter was enticed from the woods by the sight of two apples, which the man who found him displayed. He did not like bread, but he eagerly peeled green sticks, and chewed the rind. He had, doubtless, subsisted in this way in the woods. He would not, at first, wear shoes, and delighted to throw the hat which was given him into the river. He was brought to England, and lived many years with a farmer in the country. During the Scotch Rebellion, in 1745, he wandered into an adjacent district; and having been apprehended as a suspicious character, was sent to prison. The jail was on fire; and Peter was found in a corner, enjoying the warmth of the flames without any fear. The Savage of Aveyron, in the same manner, had the lowest desires and the feeblest powers. He could use his hands, for instance, for no other purpose than to seize upon an object; and his sense of touch was so defective that he could not distinguish a raised surface, such as a carving, from a painting. This circumstance of the low physical and intellectual powers of these unfortunate persons prevents us exhibiting them as examples of the state which we asked the reader to suppose.

Let us advance another step in our view of the power of labor. Let us take a man in one respect in the same condition that we supposed-left upon a desert land, without any