Thus, in agriculture, the action of the sun and of the rain, the moisture of the earth, and the gases diffused in the atmosphere, are undoubtedly agents which co-operate with human labour in the production of vegetable substances.
Manufacturing industry owes analogous services to the chemical qualities of certain substances, to water-power, to the elasticity of steam, to gravitation, to electricity.
Commerce has turned to the profit of man the vigour and instincts of certain races of animals, the force of the winds which fill the sails of his ships, the laws of magnetism, which, acting on the compass, direct the course of these ships through the pathless ocean.
There are two verities which are beyond all dispute. The [p106] first is, that the more man avails himself of the forces of nature, the better he is provided with everything he requires.
It is sufficiently evident that, with equal exertion, we obtain more corn from a rich loamy soil than from sterile rocks or arid sands.
The second is, that natural agents are unequally diffused over the various countries of the world.
Who would venture to maintain that all soils are equally well fitted for all kinds of culture, or all countries for the same description of manufactures?
Now, if it be true on the one hand that natural forces are unequally diffused in the different countries of the world, and on the other that men are richer in proportion as they avail themselves of them, it follows that the faculty of Exchange immeasurably augments the useful co-operation of these forces.
And here we recur once more to gratuitous and onerous utility, the former being substituted for the latter by virtue of Exchange. Is it not very clear, that if men were deprived of the power of Exchange, and were obliged to produce ice under the equator, and sugar at the poles, they must spend much pains in doing what heat and cold do gratuitously, and that for them an immense proportion of the Forces of nature would remain inoperative? Thanks to Exchange, these forces are rendered useful to us wherever we encounter them. Corn land is sown with wheat—in wine-growing countries the land is planted with vines—there are fishermen on the coasts, and wood-cutters among the mountains. In one place a wheel which does the work of ten men is set in motion by water—in another, by wind. Nature becomes a slave, whom we have neither to feed, nor to clothe, nor to pay—who costs nothing either to our purse or our conscience.[26] The same amount of human efforts, that is to say, the same services, the same value, realizes a constantly increasing amount of utility. For each given result a certain portion only of human exertion is absorbed; the remainder, by means of the intervention of natural Forces, is rendered disposable, and it sets to work to overcome new obstacles, to minister to new desires, to realize new utilities.
The effects of Exchange upon our intellectual Faculties are so great, that we can scarcely even imagine their extent.