lectual faculties; and, on the other, how great are the wealth and strength of others, whose lands appear to be deficient in almost all the qualities required for the production of either wealth or strength. Few countries offer to their inhabitants a poorer soil for cultivation than is found in our Eastern States — and they have little coal, while altogether deficient as regards most of the metallic products of the earth; and yet New England occupies a high position among the communities of the world, because among her people the habit of association is found existing to an extraordinary extent-with corresponding activity of their faculties. Turning our eyes to Brazil, we find a picture directly the reverse-nature there furnishing a soil rich for all the purposes of cultivation, and abounding in the most valuable minerals and metals—all of which remain almost altogether useless, for want of that activity of mind which results necessarily from the association of man with his fellow-men.

The capacity for obtaining command over the various powers of nature, is a force existing in man-latent, while he is compelled to live and work alone, but more and more stimulated into activity as he is more and more enabled to work in combination with his fellow-men.

The capability of being useful to man exists, as has already been said, in all matter; but, in order that it may have utility, man must have the power required for overcoming the resisting force of nature and that he cannot have in a state of isolation. Place him in the midst of a large community where employment is infinitely diversified, and his faculties become developed. With individuality comes the power of association, always accompanied with that rapid motion of the intellect whence results power over nature; and every step in that direction is but the preparation for a new and greater one. A century since, he was surrounded everywhere by electricity, capable of being rendered useful to him; but he was totally deficient in the knowledge required for compelling it to do his work. Franklin made one step in identifying lightning with what had before been known as electricity; and since then, Arago, Ampère, Biot, Henry, Morse, and many others, have been engaged in the effort to obtain the knowledge of its qualities required for controlling its movements and utilizing its powers. That having been acquired, instead of

looking upon the aurora, and upon the lightning, as mere objects of stupid wonder, we now regard them but as the manifestation of the existence of a great force that can be made to carry our messages, plate our knives and forks, and propel our ships.

The utility of things is the measure of man's power over nature and this grows with the power of combination among men. Their value, on the other hand, is the measure of nature's power over man—and this declines with the growth of the power of combination. The two thus move in opposite directions, and are always found existing in the inverse ratio of each other.

The waste of food resulting from the various processes to which corn is subjected, with a view to improvement in the appearance of the bread made from it, is estimated at one-fourth of the whole quantity and this, upon the twenty millions of quarters required for Great Britain, is equal to five millions. Were all this economized, the utility of corn would be greatly increased but the corresponding increase in the facility with which food could be obtained, would be attended with large decline of value; and so is it, as we see, with all other commodities and things. As improved steam-engines enable us to obtain constantly increasing power from the same quantity of coal, the utility of coal increases—but its value declines, because of the increased facility of obtaining iron for the construction of new engines, by help of which to obtain more coal. As the old road becomes more useful from its more constant use by a growing population, its value declines; and this it does, because of the growing facility of obtaining new and better roads. The man who has to descend a hill to the distant spring pays largely in labor for a supply of water for his family; but when he has sunk a well, he obtains a supply quadrupled in quantity in return to a twentieth part of the muscular effort. The utility having increased, the exchangeable value has greatly diminished. Next, he places a pump in the well, and here we find a similar effect produced. Again, with the growth of population and wealth, we find him associating with his neighbors to give utility to great rivers, by directing them through streets and houses; and now he is supplied so cheaply that the smallest coin in circulation pays for more than his predecessors could obtain at the cost of a whole day's laboras a consequence of which his family consumes more in a day than

had before, of necessity, sufficed for a month; and has its benefits almost free of charge.

With every increase in the facility of obtaining food from the earth, by reason of passing from the poorer to the better soils, man obtains a constantly increasing power to utilize still richer ones and the more rapid that increase, the more rapid is the decline in the value of the soils first cultivated. Such, too, is the case with the precious metals, whose value declines as their utility increases. The vast mass of gold and silver hoarded in France is useless to the community; and to the fact that it is hoarded is due the high value in which the precious metals are there held. Were it all set free, money would become more abundant, and interest would tend to fall, while labor would rise. Looking around, we see everywhere, that it is in the countries in which those metals render the smallest service to man, that they are the most valued

and that, here, their value in labor and land declines as we pass towards that community in which they render the largest service New England; and especially in the manufacturing States of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Such being the case, we can readily see why it is that they tend everywhere from those countries in which interest is high, and to those in which it is low. In the latter, their labor value is steadily diminishing; and this diminution is necessarily accompanied by a constant increase of ability to apply them to the various purposes for which they are fitted; sometimes to gilding books—and at others converting them into knives, forks, spoons, or otherwise changing their forms, so as to fit them for serving the purposes, or gratifying the tastes, of their owners. It is where, and when, interest tends downward, that their use for all such purposes most rapidly extendsthus proving that, with increased utility, value diminishes; and where, and when, interest tends upward, that their use most rapidly declines furnishing further proof that utility and value are always in the inverse ratio of each other.

The utility of matter increases with the growth of the power of association and combination among men; and every step in that direction is accompanied by a decline in the value of commodities required for their use, and an increase in the facility with which wealth may be accumulated.

CHAPTER VII.

OF WEALTH.

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§ 1. ROBINSON CRUSOE had made a bow, and had thus acquired wealth. In what, however, did that wealth consist? In the possession of the instrument? Assuredly not; but in the power that gave him over the natural properties of the wood and the cord - enabling him to substitute the elasticity of the one, and the tenacity of the other, for the muscular contraction by help of which, alone, he had thus far been enabled to obtain supplies of food. Having made a canoe, he found his wealth increased, because by help of his new machine he could command the services of water—and, as nature always works gratuitously, all the addition he was now enabled to make to his supplies, was obtained wholly free of cost. Having erected a pole in his canoe, and placed upon it a skin by way of sail, he was enabled to command the services of the wind, and thus still further to increase his power to move from place to place; and so did his wealth steadily increase.

Let us suppose, however, that instead of having been led by observation of the properties of wood to make a bow, he had found one, and had been so deficient in knowledge as to be unable to use it; would his wealth in this case have been increased? Certainly not. The bow would have been as useless as the trees with which the land was covered. Or, suppose he had found a canoe, and had been as ignorant of the properties of water, or of wood, as we may well suppose to have been the case with the wild men of Germany and of India; would he not have remained as poor as he before had been? That such would have been the case, cannot be doubted. If so, then wealth cannot consist in the mere possession of an instrument, unconnected with the knowledge how to use it. Were a thousand bows given to a man who had been blind from birth, he would be no richer than before

and were we to transfer to the savages of the Rocky Mountains, all property in the mills and furnaces of the Union, they would find therein no addition to their wealth for their liability to perish of hunger, or of cold, would remain unchanged; although they had thus become the owners of machinery capable of producing all the implements required for enabling them to obtain food and clothing in abundance, were they but possessed of knowledge Books and newspapers would not be wealth to the man who could not read, but food would be and he might gladly give a whole library for as much grain as would support him for a single year.

For thousands of years, the people of England were in possession of almost boundless supplies of that fuel, a bushel of which is capable of raising one hundred thousand pounds a foot in a minute, and thus doing as much work as could be done by hundreds of men; and yet that fuel was not wealth, because of the want of knowledge how to utilize its powers. The force was there, latent; but it was not until the days of Watt, that man was enabled to compel it to labor in his service. So it has been with the anthracite coal-mines of Pennsylvania. That fuel was purer and better than any other—and capable, therefore, of doing a greater amount of work; but, for that reason, it required a higher degree of knowledge for the development of its latent powers. The greater the power to be useful the greater the amount of utility latent in a commodity, or thing - the greater is always the amount of resistance to be overcome, in subjecting it to the control of man. That once done, the power thus acquired, centres in THE MAN, whose value steadily rises, as the utility of the raw material by which he is surrounded, becomes more and more developed.

The first poor cultivator commences, as we have seen, his operations on the hill-side. Below him are lands that have, for ages, received the washings of those above, as well as the leaves of trees, and the fallen trees themselves, all of which have, from time immemorial, decayed and become incorporated with the earth thus forming soils fitted to yield the largest returns to labor; yet for that reason are they inaccessible. Their character exhibits itself in the large trees with which they are covered, and in their capacity for retaining the water required for aiding the process.