[329] Works, p. 234.
[330] Bentham's Works, x. 498.
[331] Works, p. 250 (ch. xxxii.).
[332] Stewart's Works, x. 34.
[333] See Bagehot's remarks upon J. S. Mill's version of this doctrine in Economic Studies: chapter on 'Cost of Production.'
[334] Another illustration of the need of such considerations is given, as has been pointed out, in Adam Smith's famous chapter upon the variation in the rate of wages. He assumes that the highest wages will be paid for the least agreeable employments, whereas, in fact, the least agreeable are generally the worst paid. His doctrine, that is, is only true upon a tacit assumption as to the character and position of the labourer, which must be revised before the rule can be applied.
[335] J. S. Mill, too, in his Political Economy makes the foundation of private property 'the right of producers to what they themselves have produced.' (Bk. ii. ch. ii. § 1.)
[336] Mr. Edwin Cannan, in Production and Distribution (1894), p. 383.
[337] A definition, says Burke in his essay on the 'Sublime and Beautiful' (introduction) 'seems rather to follow than to precede our inquiry, of which it ought to be considered as the result.'
[338] Works, p. 34 (chap. ii.). Rent is there defined as the sum paid for the original and indestructible powers of the soil.