only completed but sold his web. This accumulation must evidently be previous to his applying himself for so long a time to a peculiar business." *

As the accumulation of capital must have preceded the division of labour, so its subsequent division can only be extended as capital is more and more accumulated. Accumulation and division act and react on each other.) The quantity of raw materials which the same number of people can work up increases in a great proportion, as labour comes to be more and more subdivided; and acccording as the operations of each workman are reduced to a greater degree of identity and simplicity, he has, as already explained, a greater chance of discovering machines and processes for facilitating and abridging his labour. The quantity of industry, therefore, not only increases in every country with the increase of the stock or capital which sets it in motion; but, in consequence of this increase, the division of labour becomes extended, new and more powerful implements and machines are invented, and the same quantity of labour is thus made to produce an infinitely greater quantity of commodities.

Besides enabling labour to be divided, capital contributes to facilitate labour, and produce wealth in the three following ways:

First. It enables us to execute work that could not be executed, or to produce commodities that could not be produced without it.

Second. It saves labour in the production of almost every species of commodities.

Third. It enables us to execute work better, as well as more expeditiously.

With regard to the first of these modes in which we are benefited by the employment of capital, or to the circumstance of its enabling us to produce commodities that could not be produced without it, it is plain, as already observed, that the production of all such commodities as require a considerable period for their completion, could not be attempted unless a stock of circulating capital, or of food and clothes sufficient for the maintenance of the labourer while employed on them, was previously provided. But the employment of fixed is frequently as necessary to the production of commodities as the employment of circulating capital. It would, for example, be quite impossible to produce a pair of stockings without the aid of wires; and, although the ground might be cultivated without the aid of a plough, it could not be cultivated without the aid of a spade or a hoe. If we run over the vast catalogue of the various arts practised in a highly polished and civilized country, it will be found that there are very few that can be carried on by the mere employment of the fingers, or rude tools with which man is furnished by nature. It is almost always necessary to provide ourselves with the results of previous industry, and to strengthen our feeble hands by arming them, if we may so speak, "with the force of all the elements.” In the second place, the employment of capital

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not only enables us to produce many species of commodities that never could have been produced without its co-operation, but it also enables us to save labour in the production of many others, and, by lowering their price, brings them within the reach of a far greater number of consumers. We have been so long accustomed to make use of the productive services of the most powerful machines, that it requires a considerable effort of abstraction to render ourselves fully aware of the advantages we derive from them. But if we compare the state of the arts practised alike by civilized man and the savage, we cannot fail to be convinced that it is to the employment of fixed capital that we owe a very large proportion of our superior comforts and enjoyments. Consider the advantages which man has derived from the employment of the lower animals, which, in an economical point of view, are to be regarded only as machines! Consider the advantages that have been derived from the formation of roads, bridges, harbours, and canals-the effect they have had in facilitating the conveyance of commodities, and consequently in distributing them most advantageously, and in reducing their price to the consumer! Consider the advantages that have been derived from the construction of ships, and the im provement of navigation !But it is in vain to attempt even to glance at the numberless benefits which the employment of fixed capital has conferred on society, by cheapening and multiplying necessaries, conveniencies, and luxuries. It is by its

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means that our fields are cultivated, our houses constructed, our clothes manufactured, our ships built, and the treasures of knowledge and of art transported from one hemisphere to another! If we consult the history of the human race-if we trace their slow and gradual advancement from barbarism to refinement, we shall be convinced that their progress from their lowest and most abject, to their highest and most polished state, has been always accompanied, and chiefly promoted, by the accumulation of fresh capital, and the invention and improvement of tools and engines.

The third advantage derived from the employ ment of capital consists in the circumstance of its enabling us to execute work better, as well as more expeditiously, than it could be done without it. Cotton, for example, might be spun by the hand; but the admirable machinery invented by Hargreaves, Arkwright, and others, besides enabling us to spin an hundred or a thousand times as great a quantity of yarn as could be spun by means of a common spindle, has also improved its quality, and given it a degree of fineness, and of evenness, or equality, in its parts, which was never previously attained. It would require a painter months, or it might be years, to paint with a brush the cottons, or printed cloths used in the hanging of a single room; and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the best artist to give the same perfect identity to his figures that is given to them by the admirable machinery now in use for that pur ose.

Not to men

tion the other and more important advantages of which the invention of moveable types and printing has been productive, it is certain that the most perfect manuscript-one on which years of patient and irksome labour have been expended—is unable, in point of delicacy and correctness, to match a well printed work, executed in the hundredth part of the time, and at a hundredth part of the expence required to copy the manuscript. The great foreign demand for English manufactured goods results no less from the superiority of their manufacture, than from their greater cheapness; and for both these advantages we are principally indebted to the excellence of our machinery.

There are other considerations which equally illustrate the extreme importance of the accumulation and employment of capital. The produce of the labour of a nation cannot be increased otherwise than by an increase in the number of its labourers, or in their productive powers. But without an increase of capital it is in most cases impossible to employ another workman with advantage. If the food and clothes destined for the support of the labourers, and the tools and machines with which they are to operate, be all required for the maintenance and efficient employment of those already in existence, there can be no additional demand for others. In such circumstances, the rate of wages cannot rise; and if the number of inhabitants are increased, they must be worse provided for. Neither is it at all probable that the productive powers of the labourer should be augmented,