As regards lighting, human labour has certainly less to do when the night is short than when it is long.
I dare not lay it down as an absolute rule, but it appears to me that in proportion as we rise in the scale of wants, the co-operation of Nature is lessened, and leaves us more room for the exercise of our faculties. The painter, the sculptor, and the author even, are forced to avail themselves of materials and instruments which Nature alone [p087] furnishes, but from their own genius is derived all that makes the charm, the merit, the utility, and the value of their works. To learn is a want which the well-directed exercise of our faculties almost alone can satisfy. Yet here Nature assists, by presenting to us in divers degrees objects of observation and comparison. With an equal amount of application, may not botany, geology, or natural history, make everywhere equal progress?
It would be superfluous to cite other examples. We have already shown undeniably that Nature gives us the means of satisfaction, in placing at our disposal things possessed of higher or lower degrees of utility (I use the word in its etymological sense, as indicating the property of serving, of being useful). In many cases, in almost every case, labour must contribute, to a certain extent, in rendering this utility complete; and we can easily comprehend that the part which labour has to perform is greater or less in proportion as Nature had previously advanced the operation in a less or greater degree.
We may then lay down these two formulas:
1. Utility is communicated sometimes by Nature alone, sometimes by Labour alone, but almost always by the co-operation of both.
2. To bring anything to its highest degree of UTILITY, the action of Labour is in an inverse ratio to the action of Nature.
From these two propositions, combined with what I have said of the indefinite expansibility of our wants, I may be permitted to deduce a conclusion, the importance of which will be demonstrated in the sequel. Suppose two men, having no connexion with each other, to be unequally situated in this respect, that Nature had been liberal to the one, and niggardly to the other; the first would evidently obtain a given amount of satisfaction at a less expense of labour. Would it follow that the part of his forces thus left disposable, if I may use the expression, would be abandoned to inaction? and that this man, on account of the liberality of Nature, would be reduced to compulsory idleness? Not at all. It would follow that he could, if he wished it, dispose of these forces to enlarge the circle of his enjoyments; that with an equal amount of labour he could procure two satisfactions in place of one; in a word, that his progress would become more easy.
I may be mistaken, but it appears to me that no science, not even geometry, is founded on truths more unassailable. Were any one to prove to me that all these truths were so many errors, I should not only lose confidence in them, but all faith in evidence itself; for what reasoning could one employ which should better deserve the acquiescence of our judgment than the evidence thus [p088] overturned? The moment an axiom is discovered which shall contradict this other axiom—that a straight line is the shortest road from one point to another—that instant the human mind has no other refuge, if it be a refuge, than absolute scepticism.
I positively feel ashamed thus to insist upon first principles which are so plain as to seem puerile. And yet we must confess that, amid the complications of human transactions, such simple truths have been overlooked; and in order to justify myself for detaining the reader so long upon what the English call truisms, I shall notice here a singular error by which excellent minds have allowed themselves to be misled. Setting aside, neglecting entirely, the co-operation of Nature in relation to the satisfaction of our wants, they have laid down the absolute principle that all wealth comes from labour. On this foundation they have reared the following erroneous syllogism:
“All wealth comes from labour: