once formed part of the stock, or capital, of a powder-maker: and it is not only certain natural bodies which are collected and stored in the gunpowder, but the labour bestowed on the operations mentioned may be figuratively said to be incorporated in it.
In principle, the work-stuff stored in the muscles of the new-born child is comparable to that stored in the gun-barrel. The infant is launched into altogether new surroundings; and these operate through the mechanism of the nervous machinery, with the result that the potential energy of some of the work-stuff in the muscles which bring about inspiration is suddenly converted into actual energy; and this, operating through the mechanism of the respiratory apparatus, gives rise to an act of inspiration. As the bullet is propelled by the "going off" of the powder, as it might be said that the ribs are raised and the midriff depressed by the "going off" of certain portions of muscular work-stuff. This work-stuff is part of a stock or capital of that commodity stored up in the child's organism before birth, at the expense of the mother; and the mother has made good her expenditure by drawing upon the capital of food-stuffs which furnished her daily maintenance.
Under these circumstances, it does not appear to me to be open to doubt that the primary act of outward labour in the series which necessarily accompany
the life of man is dependent upon the pre-existence of a stock of material which is not only of use to him, but which is disposed in such a manner as to be utilisable with facility. And I further imagine that the propriety of the application of the term 'capital' to this stock of useful substance cannot be justly called in question; inasmuch as it is easy to prove that the essential constituents of the work-stuff accumulated in the child's muscles have merely been transferred from the store of food-stuffs, which everybody admits to be capital, by means of the maternal organism to that of the child, in which they are again deposited to await use. Every subsequent act of labour, in like manner, involves an equivalent consumption of the child's store of work-stuff—its vital capital; and one of the main objects of the process of breathing is to get rid of some of the effects of that consumption. It follows, then, that, even if no other than the respiratory work were going on in the organism, the capital of work-stuff, which the child brought with it into the world, must sooner or later be used up, and the movements of breathing must come to an end; just as the see-saw of the piston of a steam-engine stops when the coal in the fireplace has burnt away.
Milk, however, is a stock of materials which essentially consists of savings from the food-stuffs supplied to the mother. And these savings are
in such a physical and chemical condition that the organism of the child can easily convert them into work-stuff. That is to say, by borrowing directly from the vital capital of the mother, indirectly from the store in the natural bodies accessible to her, it can make good the loss of its own. The operation of borrowing, however, involves further work; that is, the labour of sucking, which is a mechanical operation of much the same nature as breathing. The child thus pays for the capital it borrows in labour; but as the value in work-stuff of the milk obtained is very far greater than the value of that labour, estimated by the consumption of work-stuff it involves, the operation yields a large profit to the infant. The overplus of food-stuff suffices to increase the child's capital of work-stuff; and to supply not only the materials for the enlargement of the "buildings and machinery" which is expressed by the child's growth, but also the energy required to put all these materials together, and to carry them to their proper places. Thus, throughout the years of infancy, and so long thereafter as the youth or man is not thrown upon his own resources, he lives by consuming the vital capital provided by others. To use a terminology which is more common than appropriate, whatever work he performs (and he does a good deal, if only in mere locomotion) is unproductive.
Let us now suppose the child come to man's estate in the condition of a wandering savage, dependent for his food upon what he can pick up or catch, after the fashion of the Australian aborigines. It is plain that the place of mother, as the supplier of vital capital, is now taken by the fruits, seeds, and roots of plants and by various kinds of animals. It is they alone which contain stocks of those substances which can be converted within the man's organism into work-stuff; and of the other matters, except air and water, required to supply the constant consumption of his capital and to keep his organic machinery going. In no way does the savage contribute to the production of these substances. Whatever labour he bestows upon such vegetable and animal bodies, on the contrary, is devoted to their destruction; and it is a mere matter of accident whether a little labour yields him a great deal—as in the case, for example, of a stranded whale; or whether much labour yields next to nothing—as in times of long-continued drought. The savage, like the child, borrows the capital he needs, and, at any rate, intentionally, does nothing towards repayment; it would plainly be an improper use of the word "produce" to say that his labour in hunting for the roots, or the fruits, or the eggs, or the grubs and snakes, which he finds and eats, "produces" or contributes to "produce" them. The same thing is true of more advanced tribes, who