KNOWLEDGE IS POWER:

A VIEW OF

THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES OF MODERN SOCIETY,

AND THE

RESULTS OF LABOUR, CAPITAL, AND SKILL.

BY CHARLES KNIGHT.

Illustrated with numerous Woodcuts.

"The empire of man over material things has for its only foundation the sciences and the arts."—Bacon.

THE SECOND EDITION.

WITH TWENTY-FOUR ADDITIONAL CUTS OF MANUFACTURING PROCESSES.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1859.

The right of Translation is reserved.

EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION.

"Without attempting to give this volume the formal shape of a treatise on Political Economy, it is the wish of the author to convey the broad parts of that science in a somewhat desultory manner, but one which is not altogether devoid of logical arrangement. He desires especially to be understood by the young; for upon their right appreciation of the principles which govern society will depend much of the security and happiness of our own and the coming time."

LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD-STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.

TO

NEIL ARNOTT, ESQ., M.D.,

WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION OF THE DISINTERESTED SPIRIT IN WHICH HE HAS DEVOTED HIS SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE TO THE PUBLIC GOOD; AND IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS NEVER-FAILING KINDNESS DURING A LONG FRIENDSHIP,

THIS VOLUME

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

CONTENTS.

• IntroductionPage 1
• CHAPTER I.
  

  Feeble resources of civilized man in a desert—Ross Cox, Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron—A Moskito Indian on Juan Fernandez—Conditions necessary for the production of utility6

• CHAPTER II.
  

  Society a system of exchanges—Security of individual property the principle of exchange—Alexander Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe—Imperfect appropriation and unprofitable labour14

• CHAPTER III.
  

  Adventures of John Tanner—Habits of the American Indians—Their sufferings from famine, and from the absence among them of the principle of division of labour—Evils of irregular labour—Respect to property—Their present improved condition—Hudson's Bay Indians23

• CHAPTER IV.
  

  The Prodigal—Advantages of the poorest man in civilized life over the richest savage—Savings-banks, deposits, and interest—Progress of accumulation—Insecurity of capital, its causes and results—Property, its constituents—Accumulation of capital38

• CHAPTER V.
  

  Common interests of Capital and Labour—Labour directed by Accumulation—Capital enhanced by Labour—Balance of rights and duties—Relation of demand and supply—Money exchanges—Intrinsic and representative value of money49

• CHAPTER VI.
  

  Importance of capital to the profitable employment of labour—Contrast between the prodigal and the prudent man: the Dukes of Buckingham and Bridgewater—Making good for trade—Unprofitable consumption—War against capital in the middle ages—Evils of corporate privileges—Condition of the people under Henry VIII.60

• CHAPTER VII.
  

  Rights of labour—Effects of slavery on production—Condition of the Anglo Saxons—Progress of freedom in England—Laws regulating labour—Wages and prices—Poor-law—Law of settlement71

• CHAPTER VIII.
  

  Possessions of the different classes in England—Condition of Colchester in 1301—Tools, stock-in-trade, furniture, &c.—Supply of food—Comparative duration of human life—Want of facilities for commerce—Plenty and civilization not productive of effeminacy—Colchester in the present day82

• CHAPTER IX.
  

  Certainty the stimulus to industry—Effects of insecurity—Instances of unprofitable labour—Former notions of commerce—National and class prejudices, and their remedy96

• CHAPTER X.
  

  Employment of machinery in manufactures and agriculture—Erroneous notions formerly prevalent on this subject—Its advantages to the labourer—Spade-husbandry—The principle of machinery—Machines and tools—Change in the condition of England consequent on the introduction of machinery—Modern New Zealanders and ancient Greeks—Hand-mills and water-mills106

• CHAPTER XI.
  

  Present and former condition of the country—Progress of cultivation—Evil influence of feudalism—State of agriculture in the sixteenth century—Modern improvements—Prices of wheat—Increased breadth of land under cultivation—Average consumption of wheat—Implements of agriculture now in use—Number of agriculturists in Great Britain124

• CHAPTER XII.
  

  Production of a knife—Manufacture of iron—Raising coal—The hot-blast—Iron bridges—Rolling bar-iron—Making steel—Sheffield manufactures—Mining in Great Britain—Numbers engaged in mines and metal manufactures139

• CHAPTER XIII.
  

  Conveyance and extended use of coal—Consumption at various periods—Condition of the roads in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Advantages of good roads—Want of roads in Australia—Turnpike-roads—Canals—Railway of 1680—Railway statistics157

• CHAPTER XIV.
  

  Houses—The Pyramids—Mechanical power—Carpenters' tools—American machinery for building—Bricks—Slate—Household fittings and furniture—Paper-hangings—Carpets—Glass—Pottery—Improvements effected through the reduction or repeal of duties on domestic requirements174

• CHAPTER XV.
  

  Dwellings of the people—Oberlin—The Highlander's candlesticks—Supply of water—London waterworks—Street-lights—Sewers199

• CHAPTER XVI.
  

  Early intercourse with foreign nations—Progress of the cotton manufacture—Hand-spinning—Arkwright—Crompton—Power-loom—Cartwright—Especial benefits of machinery in this manufacture213

• CHAPTER XVII.
  

  The woollen manufacture—Divisions of employment—Early history—Prohibitory laws—The Jacquard loom—Middle-age legislation—Sumptuary laws—The silk manufacture—Ribbon-weaving—The linen manufacture—Cloth-printing—Bleaching233

• CHAPTER XVIII.
  

  Hosiery manufacture—The stocking-frame—The circular hosiery-machine—Hats—Gloves—Boots and shoes—Straw-plat—Artificial flowers—Fans—Lace—Bobbin-net machine—Pins—Needles—Buttons—Toys—Lucifer-matches—Envelopes255

• CHAPTER XIX.
  

  Labour-saving contrivances—The nick in Types—Tags of laces—Casting shot—Candle-dipping—Tiring a wheel—Globe-making—Domestic aids to labour—Aids to mental labour—Effects of severe bodily labour on health and duration of life276

• CHAPTER XX.
  

  Influences of knowledge in the direction of labour and capital—Astronomy: Chronometer—Mariner's compass—Scientific travellers—New materials of manufactures—India-rubber—Gutta-percha—Palm-oil—Geology—Inventions that diminish risk—Science raising up new employments—Electricity—Galvanism—Sun-light—Mental labourers—Enlightened public sentiment295

• CHAPTER XXI.
  

  Invention of printing—Effects of that art—A daily newspaper—Provincial newspapers—News-writing of former periods—Changes in the character of newspapers—Steam conveyance—Electric telegraph—Organization of a London newspaper-office—The printing-machine—The paper-machine—Bookbinding—Paper-duty323

• CHAPTER XXII.
  

  Power of skill—Cheap production—Population and production—Partial and temporary evils—Intelligent labour—Division of labour—General knowledge—'The Lowell Offering'—Union of forces344

• CHAPTER XXIII.
  

  Accumulation—Productive and unproductive consumption—Use of capital—Credit—Securit of property—Production applied to the satisfaction of common wants—Increase of comforts—Relations of capitalist and labourer361

• CHAPTER XXIV.
  

  Natural law of wages—State-laws regulating wages—Enactments regulating consumption—The labour-fund and the want-fund—Ratio of capital to population—State of industry at the end of the seventeenth century—Rise of manufactures—Wages and prices—Turning over capital381

• CHAPTER XXV.
  

  What political economy teaches—Skilled labour and trusted labour—Competition of unskilled labour—Competition of uncapitalled labour—Itinerant traders—The contrast of organized industry—Factory-labour and garret-labour—Communism—Proposals for state organization of labour—Social Publishing Establishment—Practical co-operation398

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

• 1. African Hut12
• 2. Robinson Crusoe (from a design by Stothard)20
• 3. Dying lion25
• 4. Penn's treaty with the Indians33
• 5. Pine-marten37
• 6. Treasure-finding45
• 7. Brindley63
• 8. The hock-cart66
• 9. Adam Smith71
• 10. "Under his own vine"100
• 11. Centre of gravity113
• 12. A tool made a machine115
• 13. Spinning a rope118
• 14. Analysis of a cable119
• 15. Mill at Guy's Cliff122
• 16. Oriental plough126
• 17. Clod-crusher132
• 18. Scarifier133
• 19. Horse-hoe134
• 20. Moveable steam-engine and thrashing-machine135
• 21. Thrashing-machine with horse-power136
• 22. Draining-tile machine137
• 23. The first iron bridge, Colebrook Dale147
• 24. Rolling bar-iron149
• 25. File-cutters152
• 26. Cupids forging arrows (from Albani)156
• 27. Telford162
• 28. Modern Syrian cart165
• 29. Brindley's aqueduct over the Irwell168
• 30. Railway locomotive171
• 31. Reindeer173
• 32. Beaver174
• 33. Pyramid and sphinx176
• 34. Boulton179
• 35. Carpenters and their tools (from an old German woodcut)181
• 36. Egyptian labour in the brick-field183
• 37. Scotch carpet-loom188
• 38. Sheet-glass making192
• 39. Potter's wheel of modern Egypt195
• 40. Moulds for porcelain, and casts196
• 41. Wedgwood197
• 42. Ancient shadoof202
• 43. Conduit in Westcheap206
• 44. Old water-carrier of London208
• 45. Plug in a frost209
• 46. London street-lights, 1760211
• 47. Cotton; showing a pod bursting214
• 48. Distaff216
• 49. A Hindoo woman spinning cotton217
• 50. Sir Richard Arkwright219
• 51. Arkwright's original spinning-machine220
• 52. Samuel Crompton, inventor of the spinning-mule222
• 53. Hindoo weaver at work in a field228
• 54. Dr. Cartwright, inventor of the power-loom229
• 55. Flemish weaver (from a print of 1568)230
• 56. Mechanism of power-loom242
• 57. Jacquard cards243
• 58. Hanks of silk247
• 59. Egyptian winding-reel247
• 60. Silk-winding machine248
• 61. Indigo-harvest In the West Indies252
• 62. Gloves for the great260
• 63. Cobbler's stall, about 1760261
• 64. Men'seg, or Egyptian embroidery frame263
• 65. Bobbin-net meshes264
• 66. Essential parts of the bobbin-net machine265
• 67. Stamping the eye of a needle269
• 68. Stamping, pressing, and punching buttons.—Elliott's factory271
• 69. Envelope-making machine275
• 70. Compositor at work277
• 71. Machine for fixing tags to laces278
• 72. Inclined plane for separating shot279
• 73. Candle-dipping machine281
• 74. Tiring a wheel281
• 75. Harrison298
• 76. Greenwich Observatory299
• 77. Linnæus in his Lapland dress302
• 78. Elæis Guineensis, and Cocoa butyracea, yielding palm-oil306
• 79. Franklin medal310
• 80. Newton313
• 81. Ambrose Paré314
• 82. Sir Walter Scott (from Sir F. Chantrey's bust)319
• 83. Statue of Bacon322
• 84. Old hand-gunner330
• 85. Carrier-pigeon332
• 86. Cowper's printing-machine335
• 87. The 'Times' printing-machine338
• 88. Papyrus343
• 89. Medal to Locke380
• 90. Vision of Henry I381
• 91. Irish mud cabin393
• 92. "Feed the hungry" (from Flaxman)401
• 93. Costermonger407
• 94. "Pots to mend"411
• 95. Statue of Watt424

The Present Edition is Illustrated with Twenty-four additional Cuts, on separate pages, of Manufacturing Processes, &c., which are to be placed as follows:—

• Bursting of Dykes. The forces of Nature overcoming the industry of Man99
• Making ropes by machinery119
• Steam-boiler making145
• Shear and tilt-hammers—Steel Manufacture151
• Ancient lead-mine in Derbyshire154
• Coal-railway157
• Locomotive-engine factory170
• Stone quarry, Portland177
• Timber rafts of the Tyrol178
• Glass-cutting191
• Plate-glass factory192
• The English potter194
• Mill-room of a pottery196
• Cotton mule-spinning222
• Power-looms229
• Jacquard power-looms241
• Interior of Marshall's flax-mill, Leeds250
• Calico-printing by cylinder252
• Bleaching-ground at Glasgow254
• Electro-gilding311
• Pianoforte manufactory320
• Bas-relief on Gutenberg's monument323
• Paper-making by hand341
• Processes of bookbinding342

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

INTRODUCTION.

It has been wisely said by a French writer who has scattered abroad sound and foolish opinions with a pretty equal hand, that "it requires a great deal of philosophy to observe once what is seen every day."[1] To no branch of human knowledge can this remark be more fitly applied than to that which relates to the commonest things of the world,—namely, the Wants of Man and the Means of satisfying them.

Man, it has been maintained, has greater natural wants and fewer natural means than any other animal. That his wants are greater, even in the rudest state of the species, than the wants of any quadruped—to say nothing of animals lower in the scale of being—there can be no doubt. But that his natural means are feebler and fewer we cannot believe; for the exercise of his understanding, in a variety of ways which no brute intelligence can reach, is the greatest of his natural means,—and that power enables him to subdue all things to his use.

It is the almost unlimited extent of the wants of man in the social state, and the consequent multiplicity and complexity of his means—both his wants and means proceeding from the range of his mental faculties—which have rendered it so difficult to observe and explain the laws which govern the production, distribution, and consumption of those articles of utility, essential to the subsistence and comfort of the human race, which we call Wealth. It is not more than a century ago that even those who had "a great deal of philosophy" first began to apply themselves to observe "what is seen every day" exercising, in the course of human industry, the greatest influence on the condition and character of individuals and nations. The properties of light were ascertained by Sir Isaac Newton long before men were agreed upon the circumstances which determined the production of a loaf of bread; and the return of a comet after an interval of seventy-six years was pretty accurately foretold by Dr. Halley, when legislators were in almost complete ignorance of the principle which regularly brought as many cabbages to Covent Garden as there were purchasers to demand them.

Since those days immense efforts have been made to determine the great circumstances of our social condition, which have such unbounded influence on the welfare of mankind. But, unhappily for themselves and for others, many of every nation still remain in comparative darkness, with regard even to the elementary truths which the labours of some of the most acute and benevolent inquirers that the world has produced have succeeded in establishing. Something of this defect may be attributed to the fact that subjects of this nature are considered difficult of comprehension. Even the best educated sometimes shrink from the examination of questions of political economy when presented in their scientific form. Charles Fox said that he could not understand Adam Smith. And yet Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' is essentially an amusing book in many parts. Matters affecting the interests of every human being, and involving a variety of facts having relation to the condition of mankind in every age and country, are not necessarily, as has been supposed, dry and difficult to understand, and consequently only to be approached by systematic students. In this belief it is proposed in this volume to exhibit the natural operation of the principles by which Industry, as well as every other exchangeable property, must be governed. The writer has to apply all the universal laws which regulate the exchanges of mankind to the direction of that exchange which the great bulk of the people are most interested in carrying forward rapidly, certainly, and uninterruptedly—the exchange of Labour for Capital. But he has also to regard those laws with especial reference to that mighty Power which has become so absorbing and controlling in our own day—the Power of Science applied to the Arts, or, in other words, Knowledge. It is not too much to assert that, henceforth, Labour must take its absolute direction from that Power. It is now the great instrument of Capital. In time it will be understood universally to be the best partner of Labour. "Wherever education and an unrestricted press are allowed full scope to exercise their united influence, progress and improvement are the certain results, and among the many benefits which arise from their joint co-operation may be ranked most prominently the value which they teach men to place upon intelligent contrivance; the readiness with which they cause new improvements to be received; and the impulse which they thus unavoidably give to that inventive spirit which is gradually emancipating man from the rude forms of labour, and making what were regarded as the luxuries of one age to be looked upon in the next as the ordinary and necessary conditions of human existence."[2]

The present volume is founded upon two little works which the author wrote more than twenty years ago, and which were widely circulated. One of these books, 'The Results of Machinery,' was published, in connexion with the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, at a period of great national alarm, when a blind rage against a power supposed to interfere with the claims of labour was generally prevalent, and led, in the southern agricultural districts especially, to many acts of daring violence. Happily that spirit is passed away. The spirit of knowledge has arisen; and we are told now, by an unquestionable authority, that labourers themselves begin to regard the tedious work of the flail as too irksome[3]—the same class that in 1830 broke the thrashing machines. In remodelling that portion of the present volume it is unnecessary to deprecate the evils of hostility to machinery; but rather to look forward to its more complete union with skilled labour as the triumph of the productive forces of modern society. In the other little book upon which this volume is founded, 'Capital and Labour,' the general subject of the Production of wealth was popularly treated, and the argument is here carried forward. But in the present work it will be the further endeavour of the writer not to overlook the general relations of Capital and Labour in the Distribution of wealth. As the mistakes about Production have yielded, in a great degree, to improved education, so may those which belong to Distribution also yield to the progress of Knowledge. These are not mistakes which are confined to one class, and that the most numerous. The freedom of Industry has as much claim to be regarded as the security of Capital. We have distinct evidence that in another country these principles are better understood.

"The results which have been obtained in the United States, by the application of machinery wherever it has been practicable to manufactures, are rendered still more remarkable by the fact that combinations to resist its introduction there are unheard of. The workmen hail with satisfaction all mechanical improvements, the importance and value of which, as releasing them from the drudgery of unskilled labour, they are enabled by education to understand and appreciate. With the comparatively superabundant supply of hands in this country, and therefore a proportionate difficulty in obtaining remunerative employment, the working classes have less sympathy with the progress of invention. Their condition is a less favourable one than that of their American brethren for forming a just and unprejudiced estimate of the influence which the introduction of machinery is calculated to exercise on their state and prospects. I cannot resist the conclusion, however, that the different views taken by our operatives and those of the United States upon this subject are determined by other and powerful causes, besides those dependent on the supply of labour in the two countries. The principles which ought to regulate the relations between the employer and the employed seem to be thoroughly understood and appreciated in the United States; and while the law of limited liability affords the most ample facilities for the investment of capital in business, the intelligent and educated artisan is left equally free to earn all that he can, by making the best use of his hands, without let or hindrance by his fellows."[4]

Without attempting to give this volume the formal shape of a treatise on Political Economy, it is the wish of the author to convey the broad parts of his subject in a somewhat desultory manner, but one which is not altogether devoid of logical arrangement. He desires especially to be understood by the young; for upon their right appreciation of the principles which govern society will depend much of the security and happiness of our own and the coming time. The danger of our present period of transition is, that theory should expect too much, and that practice should do too little, in the amelioration of the condition of the people.

A great number of woodcuts have been for the first time introduced into this volume, which illustrate mechanical inventions. But the author begs distinctly to be understood that his object here is not to describe processes. His notices of them, more or less extended, are simply to illustrate the course of his argument; and in that way to make the book more useful, because more attractive, for purposes of education.

CHAPTER I.

Feeble resources of civilized man in a desert—Ross Cox, Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron—A Moskito 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 labour. He must labour to gather the berries from the trees—he must labour to obtain water from the rivulets—he must labour to form a garment of leaves, or of some equally accessible material, to shield his body from the sun—he must labour to render some cave or hollow tree a secure place of shelter from the dews of night. There would be no intermission of the labour necessary to provide a supply of food from hand to mouth, even in the season when wild fruits were abundant. If this labour, in the most favourable season, were interrupted for a single day, or at most for two or three days, by sickness, he would in all probability perish. 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 labour 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 helplessness of this man's condition would principally be the effect of one circumstance;—he would possess no accumulation of former labour by which his present labour might be profitably directed. The power of labour 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 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 labour 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 north-west 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 hips and wild cherries. 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 Labour in the lowest state of its power.

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 supplied 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 Hertfordshire. During the Scotch Rebellion, in 1745, he wandered into Norfolk; and having been apprehended as a suspicious character, was sent to prison. The gaol 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 Labour. Let us take a man in one respect in the same condition that we supposed—left upon a desert land, without any direct social aid; but with some help to his labour by a small Accumulation of former industry. We have instances on record of this next state.

In the year 1681 a Moskito Indian was left by accident on the island of Juan Fernandez, in the Pacific Ocean; the English ship in which he was a sailor having been chased off the coast by some hostile Spanish vessels. Captain Dampier describes this man's condition in the following words:—

"This Indian lived here alone above three years; and although he was several times sought after by the Spaniards, who knew he was left on the island, yet they could never find him. He was in the woods hunting for goats, when Captain Watlin drew off his men, and the ship was under sail before he came back to shore. He had with him his gun, and a knife, with a small horn of powder, and a few shot; which being spent, he contrived a way, by notching his knife, to saw the barrel of his gun into small pieces, wherewith he made harpoons, lances, hooks, and a long knife; heating the pieces first in the fire, which he struck with his gun-flint, and a piece of the barrel of his gun, which he hardened, having learnt to do that among the English. The hot pieces of iron he would hammer out and bend as he pleased with stones, and saw them with his jagged knife, or grind them to an edge by long labour, and harden them to a good temper as there was occasion.[5] With such instruments as he made in that manner, he got such provisions as the island afforded, either goats or fish. He told us that at first he was forced to eat seal, which is very ordinary meat, before he had made hooks; but afterwards he never killed any seals but to make lines, cutting their skins into thongs. He had a little house, or hut, half a mile from the sea, which was lined with goat's skin; his couch, or barbecu of sticks, lying along about two feet distance from the ground, was spread with the same, and was all his bedding. He had no clothes left, having worn out those he brought from Watlin's ship, but only a skin about his waist. He saw our ship the day before we came to an anchor, and did believe we were English; and therefore killed three goats in the morning, before we came to an anchor, and dressed them with cabbage, to treat us when we came ashore."

Here, indeed, is a material alteration in the wealth of a man left on an uninhabited island. He had a regular supply of goats and fish; he had the means of cooking this food; he had a house lined with goats' skins, and bedding of the same; his body was clothed with skins; he had provisions in abundance to offer, properly cooked, when his old companions came to him after three years' absence. What gave him this power to labour profitably?—to maintain existence in tolerable comfort? Simply, the gun, the knife, and the flint, which he accidentally had with him when the ship sailed away. The flint and the bit of steel which he hardened out of the gun-barrel gave him the means of procuring fire; the gun became the material for making harpoons, lances, and hooks, with which he could obtain fish and flesh. Till he had these tools, he was compelled to eat seal's flesh. The instant he possessed the tools, he could make a selection of what was most agreeable to his taste. It is almost impossible to imagine a human being with less accumulation about him. His small stock of powder and shot was soon spent, and he had only an iron gun-barrel and a knife left, with the means of changing the form of the gun-barrel by fire. Yet this single accumulation enabled him to direct his labour, as all labour is directed even in its highest employment, to the change of form and change of place of the natural supplies by which he was surrounded. He created nothing; he only gave his natural supplies a value by his labour. Until he laboured, the things about him had no value, as far as he was concerned; when he did obtain them by labour, they instantly acquired a value. He brought the wild goat from the mountain to his hut in the valley—he changed its place; he converted its flesh into cooked food, and its skin into a lining for his bed—he changed its form. Change of form and change of place are the beginning and end of all human labour; and the Moskito Indian only employed the same principle for the supply of his wants which directs the labour of all the producers of civilized life into the channels of manufactures or commerce.

But the Moskito Indian, far removed as his situation was above the condition of the man without any accumulation of former labour—that is, of the man without any capital about him—was only in the second stage in which the power of labour can be exercised, and in which it is comparatively still weak and powerless. He laboured—he laboured with accumulation—but he laboured without that other power which gives the last and highest direction to profitable labour.

Let us state all the conditions necessary for the production of Utility, or of what is essential to the support, comfort, and pleasure of human life:—

1. That there shall be Labour.

The man thrown upon a desert island without accumulation,—the half-idiot boy who wandered into the German forests at so early an age that he forgot all the usages of mankind,—were each compelled to labour, and to labour unceasingly, to maintain existence. Even with an unbounded command of the spontaneous productions of nature, this condition is absolute. It applies to the inferior animals as well as to man. The bee wanders from flower to flower, but it is to labour for the honey. The sloth hangs upon the branches of a tree, but he labours till he has devoured all the leaves, and then climbs another tree. The condition of the support of animation is labour; and if the labour of all animals were miraculously suspended for a season, very short as compared with the duration of individual life, the reign of animated nature upon this globe would be at an end.