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 ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OP 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 ' BY 
 
 JOHN EUSKIN. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 JOHN WILEY & SON, 
 
 15 ASTOR PLACE. 
 
 1875. 
 

 
rc3 1H3 L, 
 
 3^0 
 
 “friend, I DO THEE NO WRONG. DID’ST NOT THOU AGREE WITH ME FOR 
 PENNY? TAKE THAT THINE IS, AND GO THY WAY. I WILL GIVE UNTO 
 IIS LAST EVEN AS UNTO THEE.” 
 
 “if ye THINK GOOD, GIVE MB' MY PRICE; AND IP NOT, FORBEAR. SO 
 THEY WEIGHED FOR MY PRICE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER.” 
 
 V 
 
‘j?r 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The four following essays were published eighteen months 
 ago in the Cornliill Magazine^ and were reprobated in a vio- 
 lent manner, as far as I could hear, by most of the readers 
 they met with. 
 
 . Kot a whit the less, I believe them to be the best, that is 
 to say, the truest, rightest-worded, and most serviceable 
 things I have ever written ; and the last of them, having 
 had especial pains spent' on it, is probably the best I shall 
 ever write. 
 
 “ This,” the reader may reply, “ it might be, yet not 
 therefore well written.” Which, in no mock humility, 
 admitting, I yet rest satisfied with the work, though with 
 nothing else that I have done ; and purposing shortly to 
 follow out the subjects opened in these papers, as I may 
 find leisure, I wish the introductory statements to be with- 
 in the reach of any one who may care to refer to them. 
 So I republish the essays as they appeared. One word 
 only is changed, correcting the estimate of a weight ; and 
 no word is added. 
 
 Although, however, I find nothing to modify in these 
 
Viii PREFACE. 
 
 papers, it is matter of regret to me that the most startling 
 of all the statements in them, — that respecting the necessity 
 of the organization of labour, with fixed wages, — should 
 have found its way into the first essay ; it being quite one 
 of the least important, though by no means , the least cer- 
 tain, of the positions to be defended. The real gist of these 
 papers, their central meaning and aim, is to give, as I 
 believe' for the first time in plain English, — it has often 
 been incidentally given in good Grreek by Plato and Xeno- 
 phon, and good Latin by Cicero and Horace, — a logical 
 definition of wealth: such definition being absolutely 
 needed for a basis of economical science. The most reput- 
 ed essay on that subject which has appeared in modern 
 times, after opening with the statement that “ writers on 
 political economy profess to teach, or to investigate,* the 
 nature of wealth,” thus follows up the declaration of its 
 thesis — “ Every one has a notion, sufficiently correct for 
 common purposes, of what is meant by wealth.” . . . “ It 
 is no part of the design of this treatise to aim at metaphy- 
 sical nicety of definition.f ” 
 
 Metaphysical nicety, we assuredly do not need ; but 
 physical nicety, and logical accuracy, with respect to a phy- 
 sical subject, we as assuredly do. 
 
 * Which? for where investigation 'is necessary, teaching is impos- 
 sible. 
 
 t Principles of Political Economy. By J. S. Mill. Prehminary 
 remarks, p. 2. 
 
TREFACE. 
 
 ix 
 
 Suppose the subject of inquiry, instead of being House 
 law {Ollconomia\ had been Star-law {Astronomia)^ and that, 
 ignoring distinction between stars fixed and wandering, as 
 here between wealth radiant and wealth reflective, the 
 writer had begun thus: “Everyone has a notion, suffi- 
 ciently correct for common purposes, of what is meant by 
 stars. Metaphysical nicety in the definition of a star is not 
 the object of this treatise — the essay so opened might 
 yet have been far more true in its final statements, and a 
 thousand-fold more serviceable to the navigator, than any 
 treatise on wealth, which founds its conclusions on the 
 popular conception of wealth, can ever become to the 
 economist. 
 
 It was, therefore, the first object of these following 
 papers to give an accurate and stable definition of wealth. 
 Their second object was to show that the acquisition of 
 wealth was finally possible only under certain moral con- 
 ditions of society, of which quite the first was a belief in 
 the existence and even, for practical purposes, in the attain- 
 ability of honesty. 
 
 Without venturing to pronounce — since on such a matter 
 human, judgment is by no means conclusive — what is, or 
 is not, the noblest of God’s works, we may yet adroit so 
 much of Pope’s assertion as that an honest man is among 
 His best works presently visible, and, as things stand, a 
 somewhat rare one ; but not an incredible or miraculous 
 
 1 * 
 
X 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 work ; still less an abnormal one. Honesty is not a dis- 
 turbing force, wbich deranges the orbits of economy ; but 
 a consistent and commanding force, by obedience to wbich 
 — and by no other obedience — ^those orbits can continue 
 clear of chaos. 
 
 It is true, I have sometimes heard Pope condemned for 
 the lowness, instead of the height, of his standard : — “ Hon- 
 esty is indeed a respectable virtue ; but how much higher 
 may men attain ! Shall nothing more be asked of us than 
 that we be honest ? ” 
 
 For the present, good friends, nothing. It seems that in 
 our aspirations to be more than that, we have to some 
 extent lost sight of the propriety of being so much as that. 
 What else we may have lost faith in, there shall be here no 
 question ; but assuredly we have lost faith in common hon- 
 esty, and in the working power of it. And this faith, with 
 the facts on which it may rest, it is quite our first business 
 to recover and keep : not only believing, but even by 
 experience assuring ourselves, that there are yet in the 
 world men who can be restrained from fraud otherwise 
 than by the fear of losing employment nay, that it is even 
 accurately in proportion to the number of such men in any 
 State, that the said State does or can prolong its existence. 
 
 * “ The effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is 
 not that of his corporation, but of his customers. It is the fear of 
 losing their employment which restrains his frauds, and corrects his 
 negligence.” {Wealth of Nations^ Book I. chap. 10.) 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XI 
 
 To these two points, then, the following essays are main- 
 ly directed. The subject of the organization of labour is 
 only casually touched upon ; because, if we once can get a 
 sufficient quantity of honesty in our captains, the organiza- 
 tion of labour is easy, and will develop itself without quar- 
 rel or difficulty; but if we cannot get honesty in our 
 captains, the organization of labour is for evermore impos- 
 sible. 
 
 The several conditions of its possibility I purpose to 
 examine at length in the sequel. Yet, lest the reader 
 should be alarmed by the hints thrown out during the fol- 
 lowing investigation of first principles, as if they were lead- 
 ing him into unexpectedly dangerous ground, I will, for 
 his better assurance, state at once the worst of the political 
 creed at which I wish him to arrive. 
 
 1. First, — that there should be training schools for youth 
 — established, at Government cost,* and under Government 
 discipline, over the whole country ; that every child born 
 in the country should, at the parent’s wish, be permitted 
 (and, in certain cases, be under penalty required) to pass 
 
 * It will probably be inquired by near-sighted persons, out of what 
 funds such schools could be supported. The expedient modes of direct 
 provision for them I will examine hereaf er; indirectly, they would be 
 far more than self-supporting. The economy in crime alone, (quite 
 one of the most costly articles of luxury in the modern European mar- 
 ket,) which such schools would induce, would suffice to support them 
 ten times over. Their economy of labour would be pure gain, and 
 that too large to be presently calculable. 
 
XU 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 through theru ; and that, in these schools, the child should 
 (with other minor pieces of knowledge hereafter to be con- 
 sidered) imperatively be taught, with the best skill of teach- 
 ing that the country could produce, the following three 
 things : — 
 
 (a) the laws of health, and the exercises enjoined by 
 them ; 
 
 {b) habits of gentleness and justice ; and 
 
 (c) the calling by which he is to live. 
 
 2. Secondly, — that, in connection with these training 
 schools, there should be established, also entirely under 
 Government regulation, manufactories and workshops, for 
 the production and sale of every necessary of life, and for 
 the exercise of every useful art. And that, interfering no 
 whit with private enterprise, nor setting any restraints or 
 tax on private trade, but leaving both to do their best, and 
 beat the Government if they could, — there should, at these 
 Government manufactories and shops, be authoritatively 
 good and exemplary work done, and pure and true sub- 
 stance sold; so that a man could be sure, if he chose to 
 pay the Government price, that he got for his money bread 
 that was bread, ale that was ale, and work that was 
 work. 
 
 3. Thirdly, — that any man, or woman, or boy, or girl, 
 out of employment, should be at once received at the near- 
 est Government school, and set to such work as it appeared, 
 on trial, they were fit for, at a fixed rate of wages deter- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xiii 
 
 niinable every year: — that, being found incapable of work 
 through ignorance, they should be taught, or being found 
 incapable of work through sickness, should be tended ; but 
 that being found objecting to work, they should be set, 
 under compulsion of the strictest nature, to the more pain- 
 ful and degrading forms of necessary toil, especially to that 
 in mines and other places of danger (such danger being, 
 however, diminished to the utmost by careful regulation 
 and discipline) and the due wages of such work be retain- 
 ed — cost of compulsion first abstracted — to be at the work- 
 man’s command, so soon as he has come to sounder mind 
 respecting the laws of employment. 
 
 4. Lastly, — that for the old and destitute, comfort and 
 home should be provided; which provision, when misfor- 
 tune had been by the working of such a system sifted from 
 guilt, would be honourable instead of disgraceful to the 
 receiver. For (I repeat this passage out of my Political 
 Economy of Art^ to which the reader is referred for farther 
 detail “a labourer serves his country with his spade, just 
 as a man in the middle ranks of life serves it with sword, 
 ]Den, or lancet. If the service be less, and, therefore, the 
 wages during health less, then the reward when health is 
 broken may be less, but not less honourable; and it ought 
 to be quite as natural and straightforward a matter for a 
 labourer to take his pension from his parish, because he 
 has deserved well of his^ parish, as for a man in higher rank 
 
 * Addenda, p. 102. 
 
XIV 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 to take his pension from his country, because he has 
 deserved well of his country.” 
 
 To which statement, I will only add, for conclusion, 
 respecting the discipline and pay of life and death, that, for 
 both high and low, Livy’s last words touching Valerius 
 Publicola, de publico est elatus^'^ ought not to be a dis- 
 honourable close of epitaph. 
 
 These things, then, I believe, and am about, as I find 
 power, to explain and illustrate in their various bearings ; 
 following out also what belongs to them of collateral inqui- 
 ry. Here I state them only in brief, to prevent the reader 
 casting about in alarm for my ultimate meaning; yet 
 requesting him, for the present, to remember, that in a sci- 
 ence dealing with so subtle elements as those of human 
 nature, it is only possible to answer for the final truth of 
 principles, not for the direct success of plans : and that in 
 the best of these last, what can be immediately accomplish- 
 ed is always questionable, and what can be finally accom- 
 plished, inconceivable. 
 
 * “ P. Yalerius, omnium consensu princeps belli pacisque artibus, 
 anno post moritur; gloria ingenti, copiis familiaribus adeo exiguis, ut 
 funeri sumtus deesset: de publico est elatus. Luxere matronse ut 
 Brutum.” — Lib. IE. c. xvi. 
 
 Denmarh Hill, Kith May, 1862. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 ESSAY page 
 
 I. — The Roots of Honour . . • . . . .17 
 
 II. — The Veins of Wealth 43 
 
 63 
 
 III. — Qui JUDICATIS TeRRAM 
 
 IV. — Ad Valorem . 
 
 90 
 
UNTO THIS LAST” 
 
 U 
 
 ESSAY I. 
 
 THE ROOTS OF HONOUR, 
 
 Among the delusions which at different periods have pos- 
 sessed themselves of the minds of large masses of the human 
 race, perhaps the most curious — certainly the least creditable 
 —-is the modern soi-disant science of political economy, 
 based on the idea that an advantageous code of social action 
 may be determined irrespectively of the influence of social 
 affection. 
 
 Of course, as in the instances of alchemy, astrology, witch- 
 craft, and other such populai' creeds, political economy has a 
 plausible idea at the root of it. “ The social affections,” says 
 the economist, “ are accidental and disturbing elements in 
 human nature; but avarice and the desire of progress are 
 constant elements. Let us eliminate the inconstants, and, 
 considering the human being merely as a covetous machine, 
 examine by what laws of labour, purchase, and sale, the 
 greatest accumulative result in wealth is attainable. Those 
 
18 
 
 THE ROOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 laws once determined, it will be for each individual after- 
 wards to introduce as much of the disturbing affectionate 
 element as he chooses, and to determine for himself the 
 result on the new conditions supposed.” 
 
 This would be a perfectly logical and successful method 
 of analysis, if the accidentals afterwards to be introduced 
 were of the same nature as the powers first examined. 
 Supposing a body in motion to be influenced by constant 
 and inconstant forces, it is usually the simplest way of 
 examining its course to trace it first under the persistent 
 conditions, and afterwards introduce the causes of variation. 
 But the disturbing elements in the social problem are not 
 of the same nature as the constant ones; they alter the 
 essence of the creature under examination the moment 
 they are added; they operate, not mathematically, but 
 chemically, introducing conditions which render all our 
 previous knowledge unavailable. We made learned experi- 
 ments upon pure nitrogen, and have convinced ourselves 
 that it is a very manageable gas: but behold! the thing 
 which we have practically to deal with is its chloride ; and 
 this, the moment we touch it on our established principles, 
 sends us and our apparatus through the ceiling. 
 
 Observe, I neither impugn nor doubt the conclusions of 
 the science, if its terms are accepted. I am simply unin- 
 terested in them, as I should be in those of a science of 
 
THE BOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 19 
 
 gymnastics which assumed that men had no skeletons. It 
 might be shown, on that^ supposition, that it would be 
 advantageous to roll the students up into pellets, flatten 
 them into cakes, or stretch them into cables; and that 
 when these results were effected, the re insertion of the 
 skeleton would be attended with various inconveniences to 
 their constitution. The reasoning might be admirable, the 
 conclusions true, and the science deficient only in applica- 
 bility. Modern political economy stands on a precisely 
 similar basis. Assuming, not that the human being has 
 no skeleton, but that it is all skeleton, it founds an ossi- 
 fiant theory of progress on this negation of a soul ; and 
 having shown the utmost that may be made of bones, and 
 constructed a number of interesting geometrical figures 
 with death’s-heads and humeri, successfully proves the 
 inconvenience of the reappearance of a soul among these 
 corpuscular structures. I do not deny the truth of this 
 theory: I simply deny its applicability to the present phase 
 of the world. 
 
 This inapplicability has been curiously manifested during 
 the embarrassment caused by the late strikes of our work- 
 men. Here occurs one of the simplest cases, in a per- 
 tinent and positive form, of the first vital problem -which 
 p>olitical economy has to deal with (the relation between 
 employer and employed) ; and at a severe crisis, when 
 
20 
 
 THE BOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 lives in multitudes, and wealth m masses, are at stake, the 
 political economists are helpless-^-practically mute ; no demon- 
 strable solution of the difficulty can be given by them, 
 such as may convince or calm the opposing parties. Obsti- 
 nately the masters take one view of the matter ; obstinately 
 the oj)eratives another; and no political science can set 
 them at one. 
 
 It would be strange if it could, it being not by “science” 
 of any kind that men were ever intended to be set at one. 
 Disputant after disputant vainly strives to show that the 
 interests of the masters are, or are not, antagonistic to those 
 of the men : none of the pleaders ever seeming to remember 
 that it does not absolutely or always follow that the persons 
 must be antagonistic because their interests are. If there 
 is only a crust of bread in the house, and mother and chil- 
 dren are starving, their interests are not the same. K the 
 mother eats it, the children want it; if the children eat it, 
 the mother must go hungry to her work. Yet it does not 
 necessarily follow that there will be “ antagonism ” between 
 them, that they will fight for the crust, and that the mother, 
 being strongest, will get it, and eat it. Neither, in any other 
 case, whatever the relations of the persons may be, can it 
 be assumed for certain that, because their interests are 
 diverse, they must necessarily regard each other with hos- 
 tility, and use violence or cunning to obtain the advantage. 
 
THE ROOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 21 
 
 Even if tins were so, and it were as just as it is convei ient 
 to consider men as actuated by no other moral influences 
 than those which afiect rats or swine, the logical conditions 
 of the question are still indeterminable. It can never be 
 shown generally either that the interests of master and la- 
 bourer are alike, or that they are Opposed ; for, according to 
 circumstances, they may be either. It is, indeed, always the 
 interest of both that the work should be rightly done, and 
 a just price obtained for it; but, in the division of ]3rofits, 
 the gain of the one may or may not be the loss of the otlier. 
 It is not the master’s interest to pay wages so low as to leave 
 the men sickly and depressed, nor the workman’s interest 
 to be paid high wages if the smallness of the master’s profit 
 hinders him from enlarging,his business, or conducting it in 
 a safe and liberal way. A stoker ought not to desire high 
 pay if the company is too poor to keep the engine-wheels in 
 repair. 
 
 And the varieties of circumstances which influence these 
 reciprocal interests are so endless, that all endeavour to 
 deduce rules of action from balance of expediency is in vain. 
 And it is meant to be in vain. For no human actions ever 
 were intended by the Maker of men to be guided by balances 
 of expediency, but by balances of justice. He has therefore 
 rendered all endeavours to determine expediency futile for 
 evermore. No man ever knew, or can know, what will be 
 
22 
 
 THE EOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 the ultimate result to himself, or to others, of any given lino 
 of conduct. But every man may know, and most of us do 
 know, what is a just and unjust act. And all of us may know 
 also, that the consequences of justice will he ultimately th 
 best possible, both to others and ourselves, though we can 
 neither say what is best, nor how it is likely to come to pass. 
 
 I have said balances of justice, meaning, in the term jus- 
 tice, to include affection, — such affection as one man owes 
 to another. All right relations between master and opera- 
 tive, and all their best interests, ultimately depend on these. 
 
 We shall find the best and simplest illustration of the 
 relations of master and operative in the position of domestic 
 servants. 
 
 We will suppose that the master of a household desire? 
 only to get as much work out of his servants as he can, at 
 the rate of wages he gives. He never allows them to be 
 idle ; feeds them as poorly and lodges them as ill as they 
 will endure, and in all things pushes his requirements to the 
 exact point beyond which he cannot go without Ibrcing the 
 servant to leave him. In doing this, there is no violation on 
 his part of what is commonly called “justice.” He agrees 
 with the domestic for his whole time and service, and takes 
 them ; the limits of hardshipan treatment being fixed by the 
 practice of other masters in his neighbourhood ; that is to 
 say, by the current rate of wages for domestic labour. If the 
 
THE ROOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 23 
 
 servant can get a bett»T place, he is free to take one, and 
 the master can only tell what is the real market value of his 
 labour, by requiring as much as he will give. 
 
 This is the politico-economical view of the case, according 
 to the doctors of that science ; who assert that by this proce- 
 dure the greatest average of work will be obtained from the 
 servant, and therefore, the greatest benefit to the commu- 
 nity, and through the community, by reversion, to the servant 
 himself. 
 
 That, however, is not so. It would be so if the servant 
 were an engine of which the motive power was steam, mag- 
 netism, gravitation, or any other agent of calculable force. 
 But he being, on the contrary, an engine whose motive 
 power is a Soul, the force of this very peculiar agent, as an 
 unknown quantity, enters into all the political economist’s 
 equations, without his knowledge, and falsifies every one of 
 their results. The largest quantity of work will not be done 
 by this curious engine for pay, or under pressure, or by help 
 of any kind of fuel which may be applied by the chaldron. 
 It will be done only when the motive force, that is to say, 
 the will or spirit of the creature, is brought to its greatest 
 strength by its own proper fuel ; namely, by the aflfcctions. 
 
 It may indeed happen, and does happen often, that if the 
 master is a man of sense and energy, a large quantity of 
 material work may be done under mechanical pressure, 
 
24 
 
 THE BOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 enforced by strong will and guided by wise method; also 
 it may happen, and does happen often, that if the master is ' 
 indolent and weak (however good-natured), a very small 
 quantity of work, and that bad, may be produced by the 
 servant’s undirected strength, and contemptuous gratitude. 
 But the universal law of the matter is that, assuming any 
 given quantity of energy and sense in master and servant, 
 the greatest material result obtainable by them will be, not 
 through antagonism to each other, but through affection for 
 each other ; and that if the master, instead of endeavouring 
 to get as much work as possible from the servant, seeks 
 rather to render his appointed and necessary work beneficial 
 to him, and to forward his interests in all just and wholesome 
 ways, the real amount of work ultimately done, or of g>)od 
 rendered, by the person so cared for, will indeed be the 
 greatest possible. 
 
 Observe, I say, “ of good rendered,” for a servant’s work 
 is not necessarily or always the best thing he can give his 
 master. But good of all kinds, whether in material service, 
 in protective watchfulness of his master’s interest and credit, ^ 
 or in joyful readiness to seize unexpected and irregular occa 
 sions of help. 
 
 I^or is this one whit less generally true because indulgence 
 will be frequently^bused, and kindness met with ingratitude. 
 For the servant who, gently treated, is ungrateful, treated 
 
THE ROOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 25 
 
 ungently, will be revengeful ; and the man who is dishonest 
 to a liberal master will be injurious to an unjust one. 
 
 In any case, and with any person, this unselfish treatment 
 will ]3i*oduce the most effective return. Observe, I am hei e 
 considering the affections whollv n -motive • • not at 
 
 all as things in themselves desirable or noble, or in any other 
 way abstractedly good. I look at them simply as an anoma- 
 lous force, rendering every one of the ordinary jiolitical eco- 
 nomist’s calculations nugatory ; while, even if he desired to 
 introduce this new element into his estimates, he has no 
 power of dealing with it ; for the affections only become a 
 true motive power when they ignore every other motive and 
 condition of political economy. Treat the servant kindly, 
 with the idea of turning his gratitude to account, and you 
 will get, as you deserve, no gratitude, nor any value for your 
 kindness ; but treat him kindly without any economical pur- 
 pose, and all economical purposes will be answered ; in this, 
 as in all other matters, whosoever will save his life shall lose 
 it, and whoso loses it shall find it.* 
 
 * The difference between the two modes of treatment, and between their 
 effective material results, may be seen very accurately by a comparison of 
 the relations of Esther and Charlie in Bleak House, with those of iilisa 
 Brass and the Marchioness in Master Humphrey's Clock. 
 
 The essential value and truth of Dickens’s witings have been unwisely 
 
 lost sight of by many thoughtful persons, merely because he presents .hia 
 2 
 
26 
 
 THE ROOTS OF HONOUR* 
 
 The next clearest and simplest example of relation between 
 master and operative is that which exists between the com- 
 mander of a regiment and his men. 
 
 Supposing the officer only desires to apply the rules of dis- 
 cipline SO as, with least trouble to himself, to make the regi- 
 ment most effective, he will not be able, by any rules, or 
 administration of rules, on this selfish principle, to develop 
 
 truth with some colour of caricature. Unwisely, because Dickens’s carica- 
 ture, though often gross, is never mistaken. Allowing for his manner of 
 telling them, the things he teUs us are always true. I wish that he could 
 think it right to limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for 
 public amusement ; and when he takes up a subject of high national import- 
 ance, such as that which he handled in Hard Times, that he would use 
 "everer and more accurate analysis. The usefulness of that work (to -my 
 mind, in several respects, the greatest he has written) is with many persons 
 seriously diminished because Mr. Bounderby is a dramatic monster, instead 
 of a characteristic example of a worldly master ; and Stephen Blackpool a 
 dramatic perfection, instead of a characteristic example of an honest work- 
 man. But let us not lose the use of Dickens’s wit and insight, because he 
 chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire. He is entirely right in his main 
 drift and purpose in every book he has written ; and all of them, but espe- 
 cially Hard Times, should be studied with close and earnest care by persons 
 interested in social questions. They will find much that is partial, and, be- 
 cause partial, apparently unjust ; but if they examine all the evidence on the 
 other side, which Dickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after aU their 
 trouble, tliat his view was the finally right one, grossly and sharply told. 
 
THE KOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 27 
 
 the full strength of his subordinates. If a man of sense and 
 firmness, he may, as in the former instance, produce a better 
 result than would be obtained by the irregular kindness of a 
 weak oflScer ; but let the sense and firmness be the same in 
 both cases, and assuredly the officer who has the most direct 
 personal relations with his men, the most care for their 
 interests, and the most value for their lives, will develop 
 their effective strength, through their affection for his own 
 j^erson, and trust in his character, to a degree wholly unat- 
 tainable by other means. The law applies still more strin- 
 gently as the numbers concerned are larger; a charge may 
 often be successful, though the men dislike their officers ; a 
 battle has rarely been won, unless they loved their general. 
 
 Passing from these simple examples to the more complicated 
 relations existing between a manufacturer and his workmen, 
 we are met first by certain curious difficulties, resulting, 
 apparently, from a harder and colder state of moral elements. 
 It is easy to imagine an enthusiastic affection existing among 
 soldiers for the colonel. !N’ot so easy to imagine an enthusiastic 
 affection among cotton-spinners for the proprietor of the mill. 
 A body of men associated for purposes of robbery (as a High- 
 land clan in ancient times) shall be animated by perfect affec- 
 tion, and every member of it be ready to lay down his life for 
 the life of his chief. But a band of men associated for purposes 
 of legal production and accumulation is usually animated, it 
 
28 
 
 THE ROOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 appears, by no such emotions, and none of them are in any- 
 wise willing to give his life for the life of his chief, hfot only 
 are we met by this apparent anomaly, in moral matters, but 
 by others connected with it, in administration of system. For 
 a servant or a soldier is engaged at a definite rate of wages, 
 for a definite period ; but a workman at a rate of wages vari- 
 able according to the demand for labour, and with the risk 
 of being at any time thrown out of his situation by chances 
 of trade. N^ow, as, under these contingencies, no action of 
 the affections can take place, but only an explosive action of 
 ^?^5aflfections, two points offer themselves for consideration in 
 the matter. 
 
 The first — How far the rate of wages may be so regu- 
 lated as not to vary with the demand for labour. 
 
 The second — How far it is possible that bodies of work- 
 men may be engaged and maintained at such fixed rate 
 of wages (whatever the state of trade may be), without 
 enlarging or diminishing their number, so as to give them 
 permanent interest in the establishment with which they 
 are connected, like that of the domestic servants in an old 
 family, or an esprit de corps^ like that of the soldiers in a 
 crack regiment. 
 
 The first question is, I say, how far it may be possible 
 to fix the rate of wages ’'’"^snectively of the demand for 
 labour. 
 
THE EOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 29 
 
 Perhaps one of the most curious facts in the History of 
 human error is the denial by the common political econo- 
 mist of the possibility of thus regulating wages; while for 
 all the important, and much of the unimportant, labour on 
 the earth, wages are already so regulated. 
 
 We do not sell our prime-ministership by Dutch auction ; 
 nor, on the decease of a bishop, whatever may be the 
 general advantages of simony, do we (yet) offer his diocese 
 to the clergyman who will take the episcopacy at the low- 
 est contract. We (with exquisite sagacity of political eco- 
 nomy !) do indeed sell commissions, but not openly, general- 
 ships: sick, we do not inquire for a physician who takes 
 less than a guinea; litigious, we never think of reducing 
 six-and-eightpence to fom-and-sixpence ; caught in a shower, 
 we do not canvass the cabmen, to find one who values his 
 driving at less than sixpence a mile. 
 
 It is true that in all these cases there is, and in every 
 conceivable case there must be, ultimate reference to the 
 presumed difficulty of the work, or number of candidates 
 for the office. If it were thought that the labour necessary 
 to make a good physician would be gone through by a 
 sufficient number of students with the prospect of only half- 
 guinea fees, public consent would soon withdraw the unne- 
 cessary half-guinea. In this ultimate sense, the price of 
 labour is indeed always regulated by the demand for it; 
 
30 
 
 THE ROOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 but SO far as the practical and immediate administration 
 of the matter is regarded, the best labour always has been, 
 and is, as all labour ought to be, paid by an invariable 
 standard. 
 
 “ What !” the reader, perhaps, answers amazedly : “ pay 
 good and bad workmen alike ?” 
 
 Certainly. The difference between one prelate’s sermons 
 and his successor’s, — or between one physician’s opinion 
 and another’s — is far greater, as respects the qualities of 
 mind involved, and far more important in result to you 
 personally, than the difference between good and bad lay- 
 ing of bricks (though that is greater than most people 
 suppose). Yet you pay with equal fee, contentedly, the good 
 and bad workmen upon your soul, and the good and bad 
 workmen upon your body; much more may you pay, con- 
 tentedly, with equal fees, the good and bad workmen upon 
 your house. 
 
 “ ISTay, but I choose my physician and (?) my clergy- 
 man, thus indicating my sense of the quality of their work.” 
 By all means, also, choose your bricklayer; that is the 
 proper reward of the good workman, to be “chosen.” 
 The natural and right system respecting all labour is, tliat 
 it should be paid at a fixed rate, but the good workman 
 employed, and the bad workman unemployed. The false, 
 unnatural, and destructive system is when the bad work- 
 
THE HOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 31 
 
 man is allowod to offer his work at half-price, and either 
 take the place of the good, or force him by his competition 
 to work for an inadequate sum. 
 
 This equality of wages, then, being the first object towards 
 which we have to discover the directest available road ; the 
 second is, as above stated, that of maintaining constant 
 numbers of wor’’’'-’V'v in emnlovment, whatever may be the 
 accidental demand for the article they produce. 
 
 I believe the sudden and extensive inequalities of demand 
 which necessarily arise in the mercantile operations of an 
 active nation, constitute the only essential difficulty which 
 has to be overcome in a just organization of labour. The 
 subject opens into too many branches to admit of being 
 investigated in a paper of this kind ; but the following gene- 
 ral facts bearing on it may be noted. 
 
 The wages which enable any workman to live are neces- 
 sarily higher, if his work is liable to intermission, than if it 
 is assured and continuous ; and however severe the struggle 
 for work may become, the general law will always hold, tliat 
 men must get more daily pay if, on the average, they can 
 only calculate on work three days a week, than they would 
 require if they were sure of work six days a week. Sup- 
 posing that a man cannot live on less than a shilling a day, 
 his seven shillings he must get, either for three days’ violent 
 work, or six days’ deliberate work. The tendency of all 
 
32 
 
 THE ROOTS OF HOI^'OUR. 
 
 modern mercantile operations is to throw both wages and 
 trade into the form of a lottery, and to make the workman’s 
 pay depend on intermittent exertion, and the principal’s pro- 
 fit on dexterously used chance. 
 
 In what partial degree, I repeat^ this may be necessary, 
 in consequence of the activities of modern trade, I do not 
 here investigate ; contenting myself with the fact, that in 
 its fatallest aspects it is assuredly unnecessary, and results 
 merely from love of gambling on the part of the masters, 
 and from ignorance and sensuality in the men. The masters 
 cannot bear to let any opportunity of gain escape them, and 
 frantically rush at every gap and breach in the walls of 
 Fortune, raging to be rich, and affronting, with impatient 
 covetousness, every risk of ruin ; while the men prefer three 
 days of violent labour, and three days of drunkenness, to six 
 days of moderate work and wise rest. There is no way in 
 which a principal, who really desires to help his workmen, 
 may do it more effectually than by checking these disorderly 
 habits both in himself and them ; keeping his own business 
 operations on a scale which will enable him to pursue them 
 securely, not yielding to temptations of precarious gain ; and, 
 at the same time, leading his workmen into regular habit 
 of labour and life, either by inducing them rather to take 
 low wages in the form of a fixed salary, than high wages, 
 subject to the chance of their being thrown out of work; or, 
 
THE BOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 33 
 
 if this be impossible, by discouraging the system of violent 
 exertion for nominally high day wages, and leading the men 
 to take lower pay for more regular labour. 
 
 In effecting any radical changes of this kind, doubtless 
 there would be great inconvenience and loss incurred by all 
 the originators of movement. That which can be done with 
 perfect convenience and without loss, is not always the 
 thing that most needs to be done, or which we are most 
 imperatively required to do. 
 
 I have already alluded to the difference hitherto existing 
 between regiments of men associated for purposes of vio- 
 lence, and for purposes of manufacture; in that the former 
 appear capable of self-sacrifice — the latter, not ; which singu- 
 lar fact is the real reason of the general lowness of estimate 
 in which the profession of commerce is held, as compared 
 with that of arms. Philosophically, it does not, at first sight, 
 appear reasonable (many writers have endeavoured to prove 
 it unreasonable) that a peaceable and rational person, whose 
 trade is buying and selling, should be held in less honour 
 than an unpeaceable and often irrational person, whose trade 
 is slaying. ISTevertheless, the consent of mankind has always, 
 in spite of the philosophers, given precedence to the soldier. 
 
 And this is right. 
 
 For the soldier’s trade, verily and essentially, is not slay- 
 ing, but being slain. This, without well knowing its owe 
 2 * 
 
84 
 
 THE ROOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 meaning, the world honours it for. A bravo’s trade is slay* 
 ing; but the world has never respected bravos more than 
 merchants : the reason it honours the soldier is, because he 
 holds his life at the service of the State. Reckless he may be 
 — fond of pleasure or of adventure — all kinds of bye-motives 
 and mean ^impulses may have determined the choice of his 
 profession, and may affect (to all appearance exclusively) his 
 daily conduct in it ; but our estimate of him is based on this 
 ultimate fact — of which we are well assured — that, put him 
 in a fortress breach, with all the pleasures of the world 
 behind him, and only death and his duty in front of him, he 
 will keep his face to the front; and he knows that this choice 
 may be put to him at any moment, and has beforehand taken 
 his part — virtually takes such part continually — does, in 
 reality, die daily. 
 
 Rot less is the respect we pay to the lawyer and physician, 
 founded ultimately on their self-sacrifice. Whatever the learn- 
 ing or acuteness of a great lawyer, our chief respect for him 
 depends on our belief that, set in a judge’s seat, he will strive 
 to judge justly, come of it what may. Could we suppose that 
 he would take bribes, and use his acuteness and l(‘gal know- 
 ledge to give plausibility to iniquitous decisions, no degree 
 of intellect would win for him our respect. Rothing will win 
 it, short of our tacit conviction, that in all imj^ortant acts of 
 his life justice is first with him; his own interest, second. 
 
THE ROOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 35 
 
 In the case of a physician, the ground of the honour we 
 render him is clearer still. Whatever his science, we should 
 shrink from him in horror if we found him regard his patients 
 merely as subjects to experiment upon; much more, if we 
 found that, receiving bribes from persons interested in their 
 deaths, he was using his best skill to give poison in* the mask 
 of medicine. 
 
 Finally, the principle holds with utmost clearness as it 
 respects clergymen. N^o goodness of disposition will excuse 
 want of science in a physician or of shrewdness in an advo- 
 cate ; but a clergyman, even though his power of intellect be 
 small, is respected on the presumed ground of his unselfish- 
 ness and serviceableness. 
 
 'Now there can be no question but that the tact, foresight, 
 decision, and other mental powers, required for the success- 
 ful management of a large mercantile concern, if not such as 
 could be compared with those of a great lawyer, general, or 
 divine, would at least match the general conditions of mind 
 required in the subordinate officers of a ship, or of a regiment, 
 or in the curate of a country parish. If, therefore, all the 
 efficient members of the so-called liberal professions are still, 
 somehow, in public estimate of honour, preferred before the 
 head of a commei'cial firm, the reason must lie deeper than in 
 the measurement of their several powers of mind. 
 
 And the essential reason for such preference will be found 
 
36 
 
 THE HOOTS OE HONOUR. 
 
 to lie in the fact that the merchant is presumed to act always 
 selfishly. His work may be very necessary to the commu- 
 nity ; but the motive of it is understood to be wholly per- 
 sonal. The merchant’s first object in all his dealings must be 
 (the public believe) to get as much for himself, and leave as 
 little to his neighbour (or customer) as possible. Enforcing 
 this upon him, by political statute, as the necessary principle 
 of his action ; recommending it to him on all occasions, and 
 themselves reciprocally adopting it; proclaiming vociferously, 
 for law of the universe, that a buyer’s function is to cheapen, 
 and a seller’s to cheat, — the public, nevertheless, involuntarily 
 condemn the man of commerce for his compliance with their 
 own statement, and stamp him for ever as belonging to an 
 inferior grade of human iDersonality. 
 
 This they will find, eventually, they must give up doing. 
 They must not cease to condemn selfishness ; but they will 
 have to discover a kind of commerce which is not exclusively 
 selfish. Or, rather, they will have to discover that there 
 never was, or can be, any other kind of commerce ; that this 
 which they have called commerce was not commerce at all, 
 but cozening ; and that a true merchant dififers as much from 
 a merchant according to laws of modern political economy, 
 as the hero of the Excursion from iVutolycus. They will 
 find that commerce is an occupation which gentlemen will 
 every day see more need to engage in, ratlier than in the 
 
THE EOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 37 
 
 businesses of talking to men, or slaying them; that, in tiue 
 commerce, as in true preaching, or true fighting, it is neces- 
 sary to admit the idea of occasional voluntary loss ; — that 
 sixpences have to be lost, as well as lives, under a sense of 
 duty; that the market may have its martyrdoms as well as 
 the pulpit ; and trade its heroisms, as well as war. 
 
 May have — in the final issue, must have — and only has not 
 had yet, because men of heroic temper have always been mis- 
 guided in their youth into other fields, not recognizing what 
 is in our days, perhaps, the most important of all fields ; so 
 that, while many a zealous j^erson loses his life in trying to 
 teach the form of a gospel, very few will lose a hundred 
 pounds in showing the practice of one. 
 
 The fact is, that people never have had clearly explained 
 to them the true functions of a merchant with respect to 
 other people. I should like the reader to be very clear about 
 this. 
 
 Five great intellectual professions, relating to daily neces- 
 sities of life, have hitherto existed — three exist necessarily, 
 in every civilized nation : 
 
 The Soldier’s profession is to defend it. 
 
 The Pastor’s, to teach it. 
 
 The Physician’s, to keep it in health. 
 
 The Lawyer’s, to enforce justice in it. 
 
 The Merchant’s, to provide for it. 
 
38 
 
 THE HOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 And the duty of all these men is, on due occasion, to die 
 for it. 
 
 “ On due occasion,” namely : — 
 
 The Soldier, rather than leave his post in battle. 
 
 The Physician, rather than leave his post in plague. 
 
 The Pastor, rather than teach Falsehood. 
 
 The Lawyer, rather than countenance Injustice. 
 
 The Merchant — "What is his “ due occasion ” of death ? 
 
 It is the main question for the merchant, as for all of us. 
 For, truly, the man who does not know when to die, does not 
 know how to live. 
 
 Observe, the merchant’s function (or manufacturer’s, for in 
 the broad sense in which it is here used the word must be 
 understood to include both) is to jrrovide for the nation. It 
 is no more his function to get profit for himself out of that 
 provision than it is a clergyman’s function to get his sti- 
 pend. The stipend is a due and necessary adjunct, but not 
 the object, of his life, if he be a true clergyman, any more 
 than his fee (or honorarium) is the object of life to a true 
 physician. ISTeither is his fee the object of life to a true mer- 
 chant. All three, if true men, have a work to be done 
 irrespective of fee — to be done even at any cost, or for quite 
 the contrary of fee ; the pastor’s function being to teach, the 
 physician’s to heal, and the merchant’s, as I have said, to 
 provide. That is to say, he has to understand to their very 
 
THE HOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 39 
 
 root the qualities of the thing he deals in, and the means of 
 obtaining or producing it; and he has to apply all his saga- 
 city and energy to the producing or obtaining it in perfect 
 state, and distributing it at the cheapest possible price where 
 it is most needed. 
 
 * And because the production or obtaining of any commo- 
 dity involves necessarily the agency of many lives and hands, 
 the merchant becomes in the course of his business the mas- 
 ter and governor of large masses of men in a more direct, 
 though less confessed way, than a military officer or pastor 
 so that on him falls, in great part, the responsibility for th^ 
 kind of life they lead : and it becomes his duty, not only to 
 be always considering how to produce what he sells in the 
 purest and cheapest forms, but how to make the various 
 employments involved in the production, or transference of 
 it, most beneficial to the men employed. 
 
 And as into these two functions, requiring for their right 
 exercise the highest intelligence, as well as patience, kind- 
 ness, and tact, the merchant is bound to put all his energy, so 
 for their just discharge he is bound, as soldier or physician is 
 bound, to give up, if need be, his life, in such way as may be 
 demanded of him. Two main points he has in bis providing 
 function to maintain : first, his engagements (faithfulness to 
 engagements being the real root of all j)ossibilities in com- 
 merce) ; and, secondly, the perfectness and purity of the 
 
40 
 
 THE ROOTS OF HO?«'OUR. 
 
 thing provided ; so that, rather than fail in any engagement, 
 or consent to any deterioration, adulteration, or unjust and 
 exorbitant price of that which he provides, he is bound to 
 meet fearlessly any form of distress, poverty, or labour, which 
 may, through maintenance of these points, come upon him. 
 
 Again : in his office as governor of the men employed by 
 him, the merchant or manufacturer is invested with a dis- 
 tinctly paternnl authority and responsibility. In most cases, 
 a youth entering a commercial establishment is withdrawn 
 altogether from home influence; his master must become 
 his father, else he has, for practical and constant help, no 
 father at hand : in all cases the master’s authority, together 
 with the general tone and atmosphere of his business, and 
 the character of the men with whom the youth is compelled 
 in the course of it to associate, have more immediate and 
 pressing weight than the home influence, and will usually 
 neutralize it either for good or evil ; so that the only means 
 which the master has of doing justice to the men employed 
 by him is to ask himself sternly whether he is dealing with 
 such subordinate as he would with his own son, if com- 
 pelled by circumstances to take such a position. 
 
 Supposing the captain of a frigate saw it right, or were 
 by any chance obliged, to place his own son in the position of 
 a common sailor; as he would then treat his son, he is 
 bound always to treat every one of the men under him. 
 
THE EOOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 41 
 
 So, also, supposing the master of a manufactory saw it 
 right, or were by any chance obliged, to place his own son 
 in the position of an ordinary workman ; as he would then 
 treat his son, he is bound always to treat every one of his 
 men. This is the only effective, true, or practical Rule 
 which can be given on this jDoint of political economy. 
 
 And as the captain of a ship is bound to be the last 
 man to leave his ship in case of wreck, and to share his 
 last crust with the sailors in case of famine, so the manu- 
 facturer, in any commercial crisis or distress, is bound to 
 take the suffering of it with his men, and even to take 
 more of it for himself than he allows his men to feel ; as 
 a , father would in a famine, shipwreck, or battle, sacrifice 
 himself for his son. 
 
 All which sounds very strange ; the only real strangeness- 
 in the matter being, nevertheless, that it should so sound. 
 For all this is true, and that not partially nor theoretically, 
 out everlastingly and practically: all other doctrine than 
 this respecting matters political being filse in premises, 
 absurd in deduction, and impossible in practice, consistently 
 with any progressive state of national life; all the life 
 which we now possess as a nation showing itself in the 
 resolute denial and scorn, by a few strong minds and faith- 
 ful hearts, of the economic principles taught to our mul- 
 titudes, which principles, so far as accepted, lead straight 
 
42 
 
 THE ROOTS OF HONOUR. 
 
 to national destruction. Respecting the modes and forms 
 of destruction to which they lead, and, on the other hand, 
 respecting the farther practical working of true polity, I 
 hope to reason further in a following paper. 
 
ESSAY II. 
 
 THE VEIN’S OF WEALTH 
 
 The answer whicli would be made by any ordinary jDolitical 
 economist to tbe statements contained in the preceding 
 paper, is in few words as follows : — 
 
 “It is indeed true that certain advantages of a general 
 nature may be obtained by tbe development of social affec- 
 tions. But political economists never professed, nor profess, 
 to take advantages of a general nature into consideration. 
 Our science is simply the science of getting rich. So far 
 from being a fallacious or visionary one, it is found by 
 experience to be practically effective. Persons who follow 
 its precepts do actually become rich, and persons who dis- 
 obey them become poor. Every capitalist of Europe has 
 acquired his fortune by following the known laws of our sci- 
 ence, and increases his capital daily by an adherence to them. 
 It is vain to bring forw^ard tricks of logic, against the force 
 of accomplished facts. Every man of business knows by 
 experience how money is made, and how it is lost.” 
 
 Pardon me. Men of business do indeed know how they 
 themselves made their money, or how, on occasion, they lost 
 
44 
 
 THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 it. Playing a long-practised game, they are familiar with 
 the chances of its cards, and can rightly explain their losses 
 and gains. But they neither know who keeps the hank of 
 the gamhling-house, nor what other games may he played 
 witli the same cards, nor what other losses and gains, far 
 away among the dark streets, are essentially, though invi- 
 sibly, dependent on theirs in the lighted rooms. They have 
 learned a few, and only a few, of the laws of mercantile 
 economy ; hut not one of those of political economy. 
 
 Primarily, which is very notable and curious, I observe 
 that men of business rarely know the meaning of the word 
 “ rich.” At least if they know, they do not in their reason- 
 ings allow for the fact, that it is a relative word, implying 
 its opposite “poor” as positively as the word “north” 
 implies its opposite “ south.” Men nearly always speak and 
 write as if riches were absolute, and it were possible, by 
 following certain scientific precepts, for everybody to be rich. 
 Whereas riches are a power like that of electricity, acting 
 only through inequalities or negations of itself. The force of 
 the guinea you have in your pocket depends wholly on the 
 default of a guinea in your neighbour’s pocket. If he did 
 not want it, it would be of no use to you; the degree of 
 power it possesses depends accurately upon the need or 
 desire he has for it, — and the art of making yourself rich, 
 in the ordinary mercantile economist’s sense, is therefore 
 
THE VEII^S OF WEALTH. 
 
 45 
 
 equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neiglibour 
 j)oor. 
 
 I would not contend in this matter (and rarely in any mat- 
 ter), for the acceptance of terms. But I wish the reader 
 clearly and deeply to understand the difference between the 
 two economies, to which the terms “Political” and “Mer- 
 cantile ” might not unadvisably be attached. 
 
 Political economy (the economy of a State, or of citizens) 
 consists simply in the production, preservation, and distribu- 
 tion, at fittest time and place, of useful or pleasurable things. 
 The farmer who cuts his hay at the right time ; the ship- 
 wright who drives his bolts well home in sound wood ; the 
 builder who lays good bricks in well-tempered mortar ; the 
 housewife who takes care of- her furniture in the parlour, and 
 guards against all waste in her kitchen ; and the singer who 
 rightly disciplines, and never overstrains her voice : are all 
 political economists in the true and final sense ; adding con- 
 tinually to the riches and well-being of the nation to which 
 they belong. 
 
 But mercan tile economy, the economy of “ merces ” or of 
 “pay,” signifies the accumulation, in the hands of individuals, 
 of legal or moral claim upon, or power over, the labour of 
 others ; every such claim implying precisely as much poverty 
 or 4cbt on one side, as it implies riches or right on the other. 
 
 It does not, therefore, necessarily involve an addition to 
 
46 
 
 THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 the actual property, or well-being, of the State in which it 
 exists. But since this commercial wealth, or power over 
 labour, is nearly always convertible at once into real pro- 
 perty, while real property is not always convertible at once 
 into power over labour, the idea of riches among active men 
 in civilized nations, generally refers to commercial wealth; 
 and in estimating their possessions, they rather calculate the 
 value of their horses and fields by the number of guineas 
 they could get for them, than the value of their guineas by 
 the number of horses and fields they could buy with them. 
 
 There is, however, another reason for this habit of mind ; 
 namely, that an accumulation of real property is of little 
 use to its owner, unless, together with it, he has commercial 
 power over labour. Thus, suppose any person to be put in 
 possession of a large estate of fruitful landj with rich beds 
 of gold in its gravel, countless herds of cattle in its pastures ; 
 houses, and gardens, and storehouses full of useful stores; 
 but suppose, after all, that he could get no servants? In 
 order that he may be able to have servants, some one in 
 his neighbourhood must be poor, and in want of his gold — or 
 his corn. Assume that no one is in want of either, and that 
 no servants are to be had. He must, therefore, bake his own 
 bread, make his own clothes, plough his own ground, and 
 shepherd his own flocks. His gold will be as useful to him 
 as any other yellow pebbles on his estate. His stores must 
 
THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 4Y 
 
 rot, for he cannot consume them. He can eat no more than 
 another man could eat, and wear no more than another man 
 could wear. He must lead a life of severe and common 
 labour to procure even ordinary comforts ; he will be ulti- 
 mately unable to keep either houses in repair, or fields in 
 cultivation ; and forced to content himself with a poor man’s 
 portion of cottage and garden, in the midst of a desert of 
 waste land, trampled by wild cattle, and encumbered by ruins 
 of palaces, which he will hardly mock at himself by calling 
 “ his own.” 
 
 The most covetous of mankind would, with small exulta- 
 tion, I presume, accept riches of this kind on these terms. 
 Yfhat is really desired, under the name of riches, is, essen- 
 tially, power over men ; in its simplest sense, the power 
 of obtaining for our own advantage the labour of servant, 
 tradesman, and artist ; in wider sense, authority of directing 
 large masses of the nation to various ends (good, trivial, or 
 hurtful, according to the mind of the rich person). And this 
 power of wealth of course is greater or less in direct proper 
 tion to the poverty of the men over whom it is exercised, 
 and in inverse proportion to the number of persons who are 
 as rich as ourselves, and who are ready to give the same 
 price for an article of which the supply is limited. If the 
 musician is poor, he will sing for small pay, as long as there 
 is only one person who can pay him; but if there be two 
 
48 
 
 THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 or three, he will sing for the one who offers him most. And 
 thus the power of the riches of the patron (always imperfect 
 and doubtful, as we shall see presently, even when most 
 authoritative) depends first on the poverty of the artist, and 
 then on the limitation of the number of equally wealthy 
 persons, who also want seats at the concert. So that, as 
 above stated, the art of becoming “rich,” in the common 
 sense, is not absolutely nor finally the art of accumulating 
 much money for ourselves, but also of contriving that our 
 neighbours shall have less. In accurate terms, it is “the 
 art of establishing the maximum inequality in our own 
 favour.” 
 
 Now the establishment of such inequality cannot be shown 
 in the abstract to be either advantageous or disadvantageous 
 to the body of the nation. The rash and absurd assumption 
 that such inequalities are necessarily advantageous, lies at the 
 root of most of the popular fallacies on the subject of political 
 economy. For the eternal and inevitable law in this matter is, 
 that the beneficialness of the inequality depends, first, on the 
 methods by which it was accomplished, and, secondly, on the 
 purposes to which it is applied. Inequalities of wealth, unjustly 
 established, have assuredly injured the nation in which they 
 exist during their establishment; and, unjustly directed, injure 
 it yet more during their existence. But inequalities of wealth 
 justly established, benefit the nation in the course of their 
 
THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 49 
 
 cstablishmont ; arid nobly used, aid it yet more l)y their 
 existence. That is to say, among every active and well- 
 governed people, the various strength of individuals, tested 
 by full exertion and specially applied to various need, issues 
 in unequal, but harmonious results, receiving reward or 
 authority according to its class and service j"** while in the 
 
 * I liave been naturally asked several times, with respect to the sentence 
 in the first of these papers, “the bad workmen unemployed,” “But what 
 are you to do with your bad unemployed workmen?” Well, it seems to mo 
 the question might have occurred to you before. Your housemaid’s place 
 is vacant — you give twenty pounds a year — two girls come for it, one neatly 
 dressed, the other dirtily ; one with good recommendations, the other with 
 none. You do not, under these circumstances, usually ask the dirty one 
 if she win come for fifteen pounds, *or twelve ; and, on her consenting, take 
 her instead of the weU-recommended one. Stih less do you try to beat 
 both down by making them bid against each other, tiU you can hire both, 
 one at twelve pounds a year, and the other at eight. You simply take the 
 one fittest for the place, and send away the other, not perhaps concerning 
 yourself quite as much as you should with the question which you now 
 impatiently put to me, “ What is to become of her ?” For all that I advise 
 you to do, is to deal with workmen as with servants ; and verily the ques- 
 tion is of weight : “ Your bad workman, idler, and rogue — what are you 
 to do with him ?” 
 
 We will consider of this presently: remember that the administration of a 
 complete system of national commerce and industry cannot be explained in 
 
 full detail within the space of twelve pages. Meantime, consider whether, 
 
 3 
 
50 
 
 THE VEIN'S OP WEALTH. 
 
 inactive or ill-governed nation, the gradations of decay and 
 the victories of treason work out also their own rugged sys- 
 tem of subjection and success; and substitute, for the melo- 
 dious inequalities of concurrent power, the iniquitous domi- 
 nances and depressions of guilt and misfortune. 
 
 Thus the circulation of wealth in a nation resembles that 
 of the blood in the natural body. There is one quickness of 
 the current which comes of cheerful emotion or wholesome 
 exercise; and another which comes of shame or of fever. 
 There is a flush of the body which is full of warmth and life ; 
 and another which will pass into putrefaction. 
 
 The analogy will hold, down even to minute particulars. 
 For as diseased local determination of the blood involves 
 depression of the general health of the system, all morbid 
 local action of riches will be found ultimately to involve a 
 weakening of the resources of the body politic. 
 
 there heing confessedly some difficulty in dealing with rogues and idlers, it 
 may not bo advisable to produce as few of them as possible. If you 
 examine into the history of rogues, you will find they are as truly manufac- 
 tured articles as anything else, and it is just because our present system 
 of pohtical economy gives so large a stimulus to that manufacture that you 
 may know it to be a false one. We had better seek for a system which 
 will develop honest men, than for one which will deal cunningly with vaga- 
 bonds. Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed 
 in our prisons. 
 
THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 51 
 
 The mode in which this is produced may he at once under- 
 stood by examining one or two instances of the development 
 of wealth in the simplest possible circumstances. 
 
 Suppose two sailors cast away on an uninhabited coast, 
 and obliged to maintain themselves there by their own labour 
 for a series of years. 
 
 If they both kept their health, and worked steadily, and 
 in amity with each other, they might build themselves a con- 
 venient house, and in time come to possess a certain quantity 
 of cultivated land, together with various stores laid up for 
 future use. All these things would be real riches or pro- 
 perty ; and supposing the men both to have worked equally 
 hard, they would each have right to equal share or use of it. 
 Their political economy would consist merely in careful pre- 
 servation and just division of these possessions. Perhaps, 
 however, after some time one or other might be dissatisfied 
 with the results of their common farming ; and they might 
 in consequence agree to divide the land they had brought 
 under the spade into equal shares, so that each might thence- 
 forward work in his own field and live by it. Suppose that 
 after this arrangement had been made, one of them were to 
 fall ill, and be unable to work on his land at a critical time- 
 say of sowing or harvest. 
 
 He would naturally ask the other to sow or reap for him. 
 
 Then his companion might say, with perfect justice, “1 
 
52 
 
 THE VEINS OP WEALTH, 
 
 will do this additioual work for you ; but if I do it, you must 
 promise to do as much for me at another time. I will count 
 how many hours I spend on your ground, and you shall give 
 me a written promise to work for the same number of hours 
 on mine, whenever I need your help, and you are able to 
 give it.” 
 
 Suppose the disabled man’s sickness to continue, and that 
 under various circumstances, for several years, requiring the 
 help of the other, he on each occasion gave a written pledge 
 to work, as soon as he was able, at his companion’s orders, 
 for the same number of hours which the other had given up 
 to him. What will the positions of the two men be when 
 the invalid is able to resume work ? 
 
 Considered as a “ Polls,” or state, they will be poorer than 
 they would have been otherwise : poorer by the withdrawal 
 of what the sick man’s labour would have produced in the 
 interval. His friend may perhaps have toiled with an energy 
 quickened by the enlarged need, but in the end his own land 
 and property must have suffered by the withdrawal of so 
 much of his time and thought from them ; and the united 
 property of the tvro men will be certainly less than it would 
 have been if both had remained in health and activity. 
 
 But the relations in which they stand to each other are 
 also widely altered. The sick man lias not only pledged his 
 labour for some years, but will probably have exhausted his 
 
THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 63 
 
 own share of the accumulated stores, and will be in conse- 
 quence for some time dependent on the other for food, which 
 he can only “ pay ” or reward him for by yet more deeply 
 pledging his own labour. 
 
 Supposing the written promises to be held entirely valid 
 (among civilized nations their validity is secured by legal 
 measures'*'), the person who had hitherto worked for both 
 miglit now, if he chose, rest altogether, and pass his time in 
 idleness, not only forcing his companion to redeem all the 
 engagements he had already entered into, but exacting from 
 him pledges for further labour, to an arbitrary amount, for 
 what food he had to advance to him. 
 
 There might not, from first to last, be the least illegality 
 
 * The disputes which exist respecting the .real nature of money arise 
 more from the disputants examining its functions on different sides, than 
 from anj real dissent in their opinions. All money, properly so called, is 
 an acknowledgment of debt ; but as such, it may either be considered to 
 represent the labour and property of the creditor, or the idleness and 
 penury of the debtor. The intricacy of the question has been much 
 increased by the (hitherto necessary) use of marketable commodities, such 
 as gold, silver, salt, shells, Ac., to give intrinsic value or security to cur- 
 rency; but the final and best definition of money is that it is a docu- 
 mentary promise ratified and guaranteed by the nation to give or find a 
 certain quantity of labour on demand. A man’s labour for a day is a better 
 standard of value than a measure of any produce, because no produce ever 
 maintains a consistent rate of productibility. 
 
54 
 
 THE VEINS OP WEALTH. 
 
 (in the ordinary sense of the word) in the arrangement ; 
 but if a stranger arrived on the coast at this advanced 
 epoch of their political economy, he would find one man 
 commercially Rich ; the other commercially Poor. He 
 would see, perhaps with no small surprise, one passing his 
 days in idleness ; the other labouring for both, and living 
 sparely, in the hope of recovering his independence, at 
 some distant period. 
 
 This is, of course, an example of one only out of many 
 ways in which inequality of possession may be established 
 between different persons, giving rise to the mercantile forms 
 of Riches and Poverty. In the instance before us, one of 
 the men might from the first have deliberately chosen to 
 be idle, and to put his life in pawn for present ease ; or he 
 might have mismanaged his land, and been compelled to 
 have recourse to his neighbour for food and help, pledging 
 his future labour for it. But what I want the reader to 
 note especially is the fact, common to a large number of 
 typical cases of this kind, that the establishment of the 
 mercantile wealth which consists in a claim upon labour, 
 signifies a political diminution of the real wealth which 
 consists in substantial possessions. 
 
 Take another example, more consistent with the ordinary 
 course of affairs of trade. Suppose that three men, instead 
 of two, formed the little isolated republic, and found them- 
 
THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 55 
 
 selves obliged to separate in order to farm different pieces 
 of land at some distance from each other along the coast ; 
 each estate furnishing a distinct kind of produce, and each 
 more or less in need of the material raised on the other. 
 Suppose that the third man, in order to save the time of 
 all three, undertakes simply to superintend the transference 
 of commodities from one farm to the other ; on condition 
 of receiving some sufficiently remunerative share of every 
 parcel of goods conveyed, or of some other parcel received 
 in exchange for it. 
 
 If this carrier or messenger always brings to each estate, 
 from the other, what is chiefly wanted, at the right time, 
 the operations of the two farmers will go on prosperously, 
 and the largest possible result in produce, or wealth, will 
 be attained by the little community. But suppose no inter- 
 course between the land owners is possible, except through 
 the travelling agent ; and that, after a time, this agent, 
 watching the course of each man’s agriculture, keeps back 
 the articles with which he has been entrusted until there 
 comes a period of extreme necessity for them, on one side 
 or other, and then exacts in exchange for them all that 
 the distressed farmer can spare of other kinds of produce ; 
 it is easy to see that by ingeniously watching his oppor- 
 tunities, he might possess himself regularly of the greater 
 part of the superfluous produce of the two estates, and at 
 
56 
 
 AD VALOEEM. 
 
 last, ia some year of severest trial or scarcity, purchase 
 Loth for himself, and maintain the former proprietors thence* 
 forward as his labourers or his servants. 
 
 This would be a case of commercial wealth acquired on 
 the exactest principles of modern political economy. But 
 more distinctly even than in the former instance, it is mani- 
 fest in this that the wealth of the State, or of the three 
 men considered as a society, is collectively less than it 
 would have been had the merchant been content with juster 
 profit. The operations of the two agriculturists have been 
 cramped to the utmost; and the continual limitations of 
 the supply of things they wanted at critical times, together 
 with the failure of courage consequent on the prolongation 
 of a struggle for mere existence, without any sense of per- 
 manent gain, must have seriously diminished the efiective 
 i*esults of their labour ; and the stores finally accumulated 
 in the merchant’s hands will not in anywise be of equivalent 
 value to those which, had his dealings been honest, would 
 have filled at once the granaries of the farmers and his own. 
 
 The whole question, therefore, respecting not only the 
 advantage, but even the quantity, of national wealth, resolves 
 itself finally into one of abstract justice. It is impossible to 
 conclude, of any given mass of acquired wealth, merely by 
 the fact of its existence, whether it signifies good or evil 
 to the nation in the midst of which it exists. Its real value 
 
THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 57 
 
 depends on the moral sign attached to it, just as sternly as 
 that of a mathematical quantity depends on the algebraical 
 sign attached to it. Any given accumulation of commercial 
 wealth may be indicative, on the one hand, of faithful 
 industries, progressive energies, and productive ingenuities; 
 or, on the other, it may be indicative of mortal luxury, 
 merciless tyranny, ruinous chicane. Some treasures are 
 heavy with human tears, as an ill-stored harvest with 
 untimely rain ; and some gold is brighter in sunshine than 
 it is in substance. 
 
 And these are not, observe, merely moral or pathetic attri- 
 butes of riches, which the seeker of riches may, if he chooses, 
 desnise ; they are literally and sternly, mnterial attributes of 
 riches, depreciating or exalting, incalculably, the monetary 
 signitication of the sum in question. One mass of money is 
 the outcome of action which has created, — another, of action 
 which has annihilated, — ten times as much in the gathering 
 of it ; such and such strong hands have been paralyzed, as if 
 they had been numbed by nightshade : so many strong men’s 
 courage broken, so many productive operations hindered; this 
 nd the other false direction given to labour, and lying image 
 of prosperity set up, on Dura plains dug into seven-tinies- 
 heated furnaces. That which seems to be wealth may in 
 verity be only tne gilded index of far-reaching ruin ; a 
 
 wrecker’s handful of coin gleaned from the beach to which he 
 3 * 
 
58 
 
 THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 has beguiled an argosy; a camp-follower’s bundle of rags 
 unwrapped from the breasts of goodly soldiers dead; the 
 purchase-pieces of potter’s fields, wherein shall be buried 
 together the citizen and the stranger. 
 
 And therefore, the idea that directions can be grven for the 
 gaining of wealth, irrespectively of the consideration of its 
 moral sources, or that any general and technical law of pur- 
 chase and gain can be set down for national practice, is perhaps 
 the most insolently futile of all that ever beguiled men through 
 their vices. So far as I know, there is not in history record 
 of anything so disgraceful to the human intellect as the 
 modern idea that the commercial text, “ Buy in the cheapest 
 market and sell in the dearest,” represents, or under any cir- 
 cumstances could represent, an available principle of national 
 economy. Buy in the cheapest market? — yes; but what 
 made your market cheap ? Charcoal may be cheap among 
 your roof timbers after a fire, and bricks may be cheap in 
 your streets after an earthquake ; but fire and earthquake may 
 not therefore be national benefits. Sell in the dearest ? — yes, 
 truly ; but what made your market dear ? You sold your 
 bread well to-day ; was it to a dying man who gave his last 
 coin for it, and will never need bread more, or to a rich man 
 who to-morrow will buy your farm over your head; or to a 
 soldier on his way to pillage the bank in which you have put 
 your fortune ? 
 
THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 59 
 
 None of these things you can know. One thing only you 
 can know, namely, whether this dealing of yours is a just and 
 faithful one, which is all you need concern yourself about 
 respecting it ; sure thus to have done your own part in bring- 
 ing about ultimately in the world a state of things which will 
 not issue in pillage or in death. And thus every question 
 concerning these things merges itself ultimately in the great 
 question of justice, which, the ground being thus far cleared 
 for it, I will enter upon in the next paper, leaving only, in 
 this, three final points for the reader’s consideration. 
 
 It has been shown that the chief value and virtue of money 
 consists in its having power over human beings ; that, with- 
 out this power, large material possessions are useless, and to 
 any person possessing such power, comparatively unnecessary. 
 But power over human beings is attainable by other means 
 than by money. As I said a few pages back, the money 
 power is always imperfect and doubtful ; there are many 
 things which cannot be retained by it. Many joys may be 
 given to men which cannot be bought for gold, and many 
 fidelities found in them which cannot be rewarded with it. 
 
 Trite enough, — the reader thinks. Yes: but it is not so 
 trite, — I wish it were, — that in this moral power, quite in- 
 scrutable and immeasurable though it be, there is a monetary 
 value just as real as that represented by more ponderous 
 currencies. A man’s hand may be full of invisible gold, and 
 
60 
 
 THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 the wave of it, or the grasp, shall do more than another’s 
 with a shower of bullion. This invisible gold, also, does not 
 necessarily diminish in spending. Political economists will 
 do well some day to take heed of it, though they cannot take 
 measure. 
 
 But farther. Since the essence of wealth consists in its 
 authority over men, if the apparent or nominal wealth fail in 
 this power, it fails in essence ; in fact, ceases to be wealth at 
 all. It does not appear lately in England, that our authority 
 over men is absolute. The servants show some disposition 
 to rush riotously upstairs, under an impression that their 
 wages are not regularly paid. We should augur ill of any 
 gentleman’s property to whom this happened every other 
 day in his drawing-room. 
 
 So also, the power of our wealth seems limited as respects 
 the comfort of the servants, no less than their quietude. The 
 persons in the kitchen appear to be ill-dressed, squalid, half- 
 starved. One cannot help imagining that the riches of tlie 
 establishment must be of a very theoretical and documentary 
 character. 
 
 Finally. Since the essence of wealth consists in power over 
 men, will it not follow that the nobler and the more in num- 
 ber the persons are over whom it has power, the greater the 
 wealth ? Perhaps it may even appear after some consider- 
 ation, that the persons themselves are the wealth — that these 
 
THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 G1 
 
 pieces of gold with which we are in the habit of guiding 
 them, are, in fact, nothing more than a kind of Byzaiit ne 
 liarness or trappings, very glittering and beautiful in barbaric 
 sight, -wherewith we bridle the creatures ; but that if these 
 same living creatures could be guided without the fretting 
 and jingling of the Byzants in their mouths and ears, they 
 might themselves be more valuable than their bridles. In 
 fact, it may be discovered that the true veins of wealth fi’-e 
 pTij”>V- — and not in Rock, b^’^ — perhaps even that 
 
 me linal outcome and consuimiuition of all wealth is in the 
 producing as many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and 
 happy-liearted human creatures. Our modern wealth, I 
 think, lias rather a tendency the other way ; — most political 
 economists appearing to consider multitudes of human crea- 
 tures not conducive to wealth, or at best conducive to it only 
 by remaining in a dim-eyed and narrow-chested state of 
 being. 
 
 Xevertheless, it is open, I repeat, to serious question, 
 which I leave to the reader’s pondering, whether, among 
 national manufactures, that of Souls of a good quality may 
 not at last turn out a quite leadingly lucrative one ? iiay, 
 in some far-away and yet undrearnt-of hour, I can even 
 imagine that England may cast all thoughts of possessive 
 wealth back to the barbaric nations among whom they first 
 arose; and that, while the sands of the Indus and adamant 
 
62 
 
 THE VEINS OF WEALTH. 
 
 of Golconda may yet stiffen the housings of the charger, 
 and flash from the turban of the slave, she, as a Christian 
 mother, may at last attain to the virtues and the treasures 
 of a Heathen one, and be able to lead forth her Sons, 
 saying,— 
 
 “ These are my Jewels.” 
 
ESSAY III. 
 
 QUI JUDICATIS TERR AM. 
 
 Some centuries before the Christian era, a Jew merchant 
 largely engaged in business on the Gold Coast, and report- 
 ed to have made one of the largest fortunes of his time 
 (held also in repute for much practical sagacity), left among 
 his ledgers some general maxims concerning wealth, which 
 liave been preserved, strangely enough, even to our own 
 days. They were held 'in considerable respect by the most 
 active traders of the middle ages, especially by the Vene- 
 tians, who even went so fiir in their admiration as to place 
 a statue of the old Jew on the angle of one of their prin- 
 cipal public buildings. Of late years these writings have 
 fallen into disrepute, being opposed in every particular to 
 the spirit of modern commerce. Nevertheless I shall repro- 
 duce a passage or two from them here, partly because they 
 may interest the reader by their novelty; and chiefly 
 because they will show him that it is possible for a very 
 practical and acquisitive tradesman to hold, through a not 
 unsuccessful career, that principle of distinction between 
 well -gotten and ill-gotten wealth, which, partially insisted 
 
64 
 
 QUI JUDICATIS TEKRAM. 
 
 on in my last paper, it must be our work morq completely 
 to examine in this. 
 
 He says, for instance, in one place: “The getting of 
 treasure by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro 
 of them that seek death adding in another, with the 
 same meaning (he has a curious way of doubling his say- 
 ings) : “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing; but justice 
 delivers from death.” Both these passages are notable for 
 their asseriion of death as the only real issue and sum of 
 attainment by any unjust scheme of wealth. If we read, 
 instead of “lying tongue,” “lying label, title, pretence, or 
 advertisement,” we shall more clearly perceive the bearing 
 of the words on modern business. The seeking of death 
 is a grand expression of the true course of men’s toil in 
 s"uch business. We usually speak as if death pursued us, 
 and we fled from him ; but that is only so in rare instan- 
 ces. Ordinarily, he masks himself— makes himself beautiful 
 — all-glorious ; not like the King’s daughter, all-glorious 
 within, but outwardly : his clothing of wrought gold. We 
 pursue him frantically all our days, he flying or hiding 
 from us. Our crowning success at three-score and ten is 
 utterly and perfectly to seize, and hold him in his eternal 
 integrity — robes, ashes, and sting. 
 
 Again : the merchant says, “ He that oppresseth the poor 
 to increase his riches, shall surely come to want.” And 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. 
 
 05 
 
 again, more strongly : “ Rob not the poor because be is 
 poor; neither oppress the afflicted in the place of business. 
 For God shall spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.” 
 
 This “ robbing tlie poor because he is poor,” is especially 
 the mercantile form of theft, consisting in taking advantaga 
 of a mail’s necessities in order to obtain his labour or pro- 
 perty at a reduced price. The ordinary highwayman’s oppo- 
 site form of robbery — of the rich, because he is rich — does 
 not appear to occur so often to the old merchant’s mind ; 
 probably because, being less profitable and more dangerous 
 than the robbery of the poor, it is rax’ely practised by persons 
 of discretion. 
 
 But the two most remarkable passages in their deep gene- 
 ral signiGcance are the following : — 
 
 “The rich and the poor have met. God is their maker.” 
 
 “ Tile rich and the poor have met. God is their light.” 
 They “have met:” more literally, have stood in each 
 other’s way {obviaverunt). That is to say, as long as the 
 world lasts, the action and counteraction of wealth and 
 poverty, the meeting, face to face, of rich and poor, is just as 
 appointed and necessary a law of that world as the flow of 
 stream to sea, or the interchange of power among the elec 
 trie clouds ; — “ God is their maker.” But, also, this actioTi 
 may be either gentle and just, or convulsive and destructive : 
 it may be by rage of devouring flood, or by lapse of service- 
 
66 
 
 QXJI JUDICATIS TERR AM. 
 
 able wave ; — in blackness of thunderstroke, or continual force 
 of vital fire, soft, and shapeable into love-syllables from 
 far away. And which of these it sh:ill be depends on botJi 
 rich and poor knowing that God is their light ; that in the 
 mystery of human life, there is no other light than this by 
 which they can see each other’s faces, and live; — light, which 
 is called in another of the books among which the merchant’s 
 maxims have been preserved, the “ sun of justice,”* of which 
 it is promised that it shall rise at last with “ healing ” (health- 
 giving or helping, making whole or setting at one) in its 
 wings. For truly this healing is only possible by means of 
 justice ; no love, no faith, no hope will do it ; men will be 
 
 * More accurately, Sun of Justness; but, instead of tlie barsb word 
 “ Justness,” the old English “ Righteousness” being commonly employed, 
 has, by getting confused with “ godliness,” or attracting about it various 
 vague and broken meanings, prevented most persons from receiving the 
 force of the passages in which it occurs. The word “ righteousness ” pro- 
 perly refers to the justice of rule, or right, as distinguished from “ equity,” 
 which refers to the justice of balance. More broadly. Righteousness is 
 King’s justice ; and Equity, Judge’s justice ; the King guiding or ruling aU, 
 the Judge dividing or discerning between opposites (therefore, the double 
 question, “ Man, who made me a ruler — Jt/caar>)r — or a divider — ^epicriis-— 
 over you ?”) Thus, with respect to the Justice of Choice (selection, the 
 feebler and passive justice), we have from lego, — lex, legal, loi, and loyal ; 
 and with respect to the Justice of Rule (direction, the stronger and active 
 justice), we have from rego, — ^rcx, regal, roi, and royal. 
 
QTJI JUDICATIS TfiRRAM. 
 
 6 "< 
 
 unwisely fond — vainly faithful, unless primarily they are just; 
 and the mistake of the best men through generation after 
 generation, has been that great one of thinking to help the 
 poor by almsgiving, and by preaching of patience or of hope, 
 and by every other means, emollient or consolatory, except 
 the one thing which God orders for them, justice. But this 
 justice, with its accompanying holiness or helpfulness, being 
 even by the best men denied in its trial time, is by the mass 
 of men hated wherever it appears : so that, when the choice 
 was one day fairly put to them, they denied the Helpful One 
 and the Just;^ and desired a murderer, sedition-raiser, and 
 robber, to be granted to them ; — the murderer instead of the 
 Lord of Life, the sedition-raiser instead of the Prince of 
 Peace, and the robber instead of the Just Judge of all the 
 world. 
 
 I have just spoken of the flowing of streams to the sea as 
 a partial image of the action of wealth. In one respect it is 
 not a partial, but a perfect image. The popular economist 
 thinks himself wise in having discovered that wealth, or the 
 forms of property in general, must go where they are 
 required ; that where demand is, supply must follow. He 
 farther declares that this course of demand and supply cannot 
 be forbidden by human laws. Precisely in the same sense, 
 
 * In auotlier place written with the same meaning, “ Just, and having 
 
 salvation.’ 
 
68 
 
 QUI JUDICATIS TEBEAM. 
 
 and with the same certainty, the waters of the world go 
 'where they are required. Where the land falls, the water 
 flows. The course neither of clouds nor rivers can be forbid- 
 den by human will. But the disposition and administration 
 of them can be altered by human forethought. Whether the 
 stream shall be a curse or a blessing, depends upon man’s 
 labour, and administrating intelligence. For centuries after 
 centuries, great districts of the world, rich in soil, and 
 favoured in climate, have lain desert under the rage of their 
 own rivers ; nor only desert, but plague-struck. The stream 
 which, rightly directed, would have flowed in soft irrigation 
 from field to field — would have purified the air, given food to 
 man and beast, and carried their burdens for them on its 
 bosom — now overwhelms the plain, and poisons the wind; 
 its breath pestilence, and its work famine. In like mannei 
 this wealth “ goes where it is required.” 'No human laws can 
 withstand its flow. They can only guide it : but this, the 
 leading trench and limiting mound can do so thoroughly, 
 that it shall become water of life — the riches of tlie hand 
 of wisdom ; * or, on the contrary, by leaving it to its own 
 lawless flow, they may make it, wdiat it has been too often, the 
 last and deadliest of national plagues : water of Marah — the 
 water which feeds the roots of all evil. 
 
 The necessity of these laws of distribution or restraint 
 
 * “ Length of days in her right hand ; in her left, riches and honour.” 
 
QUl JUDICATIS TERKAM. 
 
 69 
 
 is curiously overlooked in the ordinary political econo- 
 mist’s definition of his own “ science.” He calls it, shortly, 
 the “ science of getting rich.” But there are many sciences, 
 as well as many arts, of getting rich. Poisoning people of 
 large estates, was one employed largely in the middle ages ; 
 adulteration of food of people of small estates, is one 
 employed largely now. The ancient and honourable High- 
 land method of blackmail; the more modern and less honour- 
 able system of obtaining goods on credit, and the other 
 variously improved methods of appropriation — which, in 
 major and minor scales of industry, down to the most 
 artistic pocket-picking, we owe to recent genius, — all come 
 under the general head of sciences, or arts, of getting rich. 
 
 So that it is clear the popular economist, in calling his 
 science the science excellence of getting rich, must attach 
 some peculiar ideas of limitation to its character. I hope I 
 do not misrepresent him, by assuming that he means his 
 science to be the science of “ getting rich by legal or just 
 means.” In this definition, is the word “just,” or “legal,” 
 finally to stand? For it is possible among certain nations, or 
 under certain rulers, or by help of certain advocates, that 
 proceedings may be legal which are by no means just. If, 
 therefore, we leave at last only the word “just” in that place 
 of our definition, the insertion of this solitary and small word 
 will make a notable difference in the grammar of our science. 
 
70 
 
 QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. 
 
 For then it will follow that, in order to grow rich scientifically, 
 we must grow rich justly ; and, therefore, know what is just ; 
 so that our economy will no longer depend merely on 
 prudence, but on jurisprudence — and that of divine, not 
 human law. Which prudence is indeed of no mean order, 
 holding itself, as it were, high in the air of heaven, and 
 gazing for ever on the light of the sun of justice ; hence the 
 souls which have excelled in it are represented by Dante as 
 stars forming in heaven for ever the figure of the eye of an 
 eagle : they having been in life the discerners of light from 
 darkness; or to the whole human race, as the light of the 
 body, which is the eye; while those souls which form the 
 wings of the bird (giving power and dominion to justice, 
 “ healing in its wings ”) trace also in light the inscription in 
 heaven : “ diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram.” “ Ye 
 who judge the earth, give” (not, observe, merely love, but) 
 “ diligent love to justice the love which seeks diligently, 
 that is to say, choosingly, and by preference to all things else. 
 Which judging or doing judgment in the earth is, according 
 to their capacity and position, required not of judges only, 
 nor of rulers only, but of all men a truth sorrowfully lost 
 
 * I hear that several of our lawyers have been greatly amused by the’ 
 statement in the first of these papers that a lawyer’s function was to do 
 justice. I do not intend it for a jest ; nevertheless it will be seen that in 
 the above passage neither the determination nor doing of justice are contem- 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. 
 
 sight of even by tliose who are ready enough to apply to 
 tlieinselves passages in which Christian men are spoken of as 
 called to be “ saints ” (i.e. to helpful or healing functions) ; 
 and “chosen to be kings” (i.e. to knowing or directing 
 functions) ; the true meaning of these titles having been long 
 lost through the pretences of unhelpful and unable persons 
 to saintly and kingly character; also through the once 
 popular idea that both the sanctity and royalty are to consist 
 in Avearing long robes and high crowns, instead of in mercy 
 and judgment ; whereas all true sanctity is saving power, as 
 all true royalty is ruling power; and injustice is part and 
 parcel of the denial of such power, which “ makes men as 
 the creeping things, as the fishes of the sea, that have no 
 ruler over them.” * 
 
 Absolute justice is indeed no more attainable than absolute 
 truth ; but the righteous man is distinguished from the 
 unrighteous by his desire and hope of justice, as the true 
 
 plated as functions wholly peculiar to the lawyer. Possibly, the more our 
 standing armies, whether of soldiers, pastors, or legislators (the generic term 
 “pastor ” including all teachers, and the generic term “lawyer” including 
 makers as well as interpreters of law), can be superseded by the force of 
 national heroism, wisdom, and honesty, the better it may be for the nation. 
 
 * It being the privilege of the fishes, as it is of rats and wolves, to hve 
 by the laws of demand and supply ; but the distinction of humanity, to live 
 by those of right. 
 
72 
 
 QUI JUDICATIS TERKAM. 
 
 man from the false by liis desire and hope of truth. And 
 though absolute justice, be unuttainable, as much justice as 
 we need for all practical use is attainable by all those who 
 make it their aim. 
 
 We have to examine, then, in the subject before us, what 
 are the laws of justice respecting payment of labour — ^no 
 small part, these, of the foundations of all jurisprudence. 
 
 I reduced, in my last paper, the idea of money payment to 
 its simplest or radical terms. In those terms its nature, and 
 the conditions of justice respecting it, can be best ascertained. 
 
 Money payment, as there stated, consists radically in a 
 promise to some person working for us, that for the time 
 and labour he spends in our service to-day we will give or 
 procure equivalent time and labour in his service at any 
 future time when he may demand it.* 
 
 * It might appear at first that the market price of labour expressed such 
 an exchange: but this is a fallacy, for the market price is the momentary 
 price of the kind of labour required, but the just price is its equivalent 
 of the productive labour of mankind. This difference will be analyzed in 
 its place. It must be noted also that I speak here only of the exchange- 
 able value of labour, not of that of commodities. The exchangeable value 
 of a commodity is that of the labour required to produce it, multiplied 
 into the force of the demand for it. If the value of the labour = a; and 
 the force of the demand = y, the exchangeable value of the commodity 
 is X y, in which if either x = 0, or y =■ 0, xy = 0 
 
QUI JUDIOATIS TEREAM. 
 
 13 
 
 If we promise to give him less labour than he has given 
 us, we under-pay him. If we promise to give him more 
 labour than he has given us, we over-pay him. In practice, 
 according to the laws of demand and supply, when two 
 men are ready to do the work, and only one man wants 
 to have it done, the two men underbid each other for it ; 
 and the one who gets it to do, is under-paid. But when 
 two men want the work done, and there is only one man 
 ready to do it, the t^vo men who want it done over-bid 
 each other, and the workman is ovei-paid. 
 
 I will examine these two points of injustice in succession ; 
 but first I wish the reader to clearly understand the central 
 principle, lying between the two, of right or just payment. 
 
 When we ask a service of any man, he may either 
 give it us freely, or demand payment for it. Respecting 
 free gift of service, there is no question at present, that 
 being a matter of affection — not of traffic. But if he demand 
 payment for it, and we wish to treat him with absolute 
 equity, it is evident that this equity can only consist in 
 giving time for time, strength for strength, and skill for 
 skill. If a man works an hour for us, and we only j)romise 
 to work half-an-hour for him in return, we obtain an unjust 
 advantage. If, on the contrary, we promise to work an 
 hour and a half for him in return, he has an unjust advan- 
 tage. The justice consists in absolute exchange ; or, if 
 4 
 
74 
 
 Q¥I JUDICATIS TEREAM. 
 
 there be any respect to the stations of the parties, it will 
 not be in favour of the employer: there is certainly no 
 equitable reason in a man’s being poor, that if he give mo 
 a pomid of bread to-day, I should return him less than a 
 pound of bread to-morrow; or any equitable reason in a 
 man’s being uneducated, that if he uses a certain quantity 
 of. skill and knowledge in my service, I should use a less 
 quantity of skill and knowledge in his. Perhaps, ultimately, 
 it may appear desirable, or, to say the least, gracious, that 
 I should give in return somewhat more than I received. 
 But at present, we are concerned on the law of justice only, 
 which is that of perfect and accurate exchange ; — one cir- 
 cumstance only interfering with the simplicity of this radical 
 idea of just payment — that inasmuch as labour (rightly 
 directed) is fruitful just as seed is, the fruit (or “ interest,” 
 as it is called) of the labour first given, or “ advanced,” 
 ought to be taken into account, and balanced by an addi- 
 tional quantity of labour in the subsequent repayment. 
 Supposing the repayment to take place at the end of a year, 
 or of any other given time, this calculation could be 
 approximately made; but as money (that is to say, cash) 
 payment involves no reference to time (it being optional 
 with the person paid to spend what he receives at once or 
 after any number of years), we can only assume, generally, 
 that some slight advantage must in equity be allowed to 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TERKAM. 
 
 75 
 
 the person who advances the labour, so that the typical 
 form of bargain will be : If you give me an hour to-day, 
 I will give you an hour and five minutes on demands If 
 you give me a pound of bread to-day, I will give you 
 seventeen ounces on demand, and so on. All that it is neces- 
 sary for the reader to note is, that the amount returned is 
 at least in equity not to be less than the amount given. 
 
 The abstract idea, then, of just or due wages, as respects 
 the labourer, is that they will consist in a sum of money 
 which will at any time procure for him at least as much labour 
 as he has given, rather more than less. And this equity or 
 justice of payment is, observe, wholly independent of any 
 reference to the number of men who are willing to do the 
 work. I want a horseshoe.for my horse. Twenty smiths, or 
 twenty thousand smiths, may be ready to forge it ; their 
 number does not in one atom’s weight affect the question of 
 the equitable payment of the one who does forge it. It costs 
 him a quarter of an hour of his life, and so much skill and 
 strength of arm to make that horseshoe for me. Then at 
 some future time I am bound in equity to give a quarter of 
 an hour, and some minutes more, of my life (or of some other 
 person’s at my disposal), and also as much strength of arm 
 and skill, and a little more, in making or doing what the 
 smith may have need of. 
 
 Such being the abstract theory of just remunerative pay- 
 
^6 
 
 QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. 
 
 ment, its application is practically modified by the fact that 
 the order for labour, given in payment, is general, while 
 labour received is special. The current coin or document 
 is practically an order on the nation for so much work*6f 
 any kind; and this universal applicability to immediate 
 need renders it so much more valuable than special labour 
 can be, that an order for a less quantity of this general toil will 
 always be accepted as a just equivalent for a greater quantity 
 of special toil. Any given craftsman will always be willing to 
 give an hour of his own work in order to receive command 
 over half-an-hour, or even much less, of national work. This 
 source of uncertainty, together with the difficulty of deter- 
 mining the monetary value of skill,* renders the ascertainment 
 
 Under tlie term “skill” I mean to include the united force of experi- 
 ence, intellect, and passion in their operation on manual labour ; and under 
 the term “passion,” to include the entire range and agency of the moral 
 feelings ; from the simple patience and gentleness of mind which wQl give 
 continuity and fineness to the touch, or enable one person to work without 
 fatigue, and with good effect, twice as long as another, up to the qualities 
 of character which render science possible — (the retardation of science by 
 envy is one of the most tremendous losses in the economy of the present 
 century) — and to the incommunicable emotion and imagination which are 
 the first and mightiest sources of all value in art. 
 
 It is highly singular that political economists should not yet have 
 perceived, if not the moral, at least the passionate element, to be an inextri- 
 cable quantity in every calculation. I cannot conceive, for instance, how it 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. 
 
 11 
 
 (even approximate) of the proper wages of any given labour 
 in terms of a currency, matter of considerable complexity. 
 But they do not affect the principle of exchange. The worth 
 of<.the work may not be easily known ; but it has a worth, 
 just as fixed and real as the specific gravity of a substance, 
 though such specific gravity may not be easily ascertainable 
 
 was possible that Mr. Mill should have followed the true clue so far as to 
 write, — “ No limit can be set to the importance — even in a purely productive 
 and material point of view — of mere thought,” without seeing that it was 
 logically necessary to add also, “ and of mere feeling.” And this the more, 
 because in his first definition of labour he includes in the idea of it “all 
 feelings of a disagreeable kind connected with the employment of one’s 
 thoughts in a particular occupation.” True; but why not also, “feelings 
 of an agTeeable kind ?” It can hardly be supposed that the feehngs which 
 retard labour are more essentially a part of the labour than those which 
 accelerate it. The first are paid for as pain, the second as power. The 
 workman is merely indemnified for the first ; but the second both produce 
 a part of the exchangeable value of the work, and materially increase its 
 actual quantity. 
 
 “Fritz is with us. He is worth fifty thousand men.” Truly, a large 
 addition to the material force ; — consisting, however, be it observed, not 
 more in operations carried on in Fritz’s head, than in operations carried on 
 in his armies’ heart. “No limit can be set to the importance of mere 
 thought.” Perhaps not! Nay, suppose some day it should turn out that 
 “ mere” thought was in itself a recommendable object of production, and 
 that all Material production was only a step towards this more precious 
 Immaterial one ? 
 
78 
 
 QUI JUDICATIS TEKRAM. 
 
 when the substance is united with many others. Kor is there 
 any difficulty or cha.n.ee in determining it as in determining 
 the ordinary maxima and minima of vulgar political economy. 
 There are few bargains in which the buyer can ascertain with 
 anything like precision that the seller would have taken no 
 less or the seller acquire moi’e than a comfortable faith that 
 the purchaser would have given no more. This impossibility 
 of precise knowledge prevents neither from striving to attain 
 the desired point of greatest vexation and injury to the 
 other, nor from accepting it for a scientific principle that he is 
 to buy for the least and sell for the most possible, though what 
 the real least or most may be he cannot tell. In like manner, 
 a just person lays it down for a scientific principle that he is 
 to pay a just price, and, without being able precisely to 
 ascertain the limits of such a price, will nevertheless strive to 
 attain the closest possible approximation to them, A practi- 
 cally serviceable approve! mation he emi obtain. It is easier to 
 determine scientifically what a man ought to have for his 
 work, than what his necessities will compel him to take for it. 
 His necessities can only be ascertained by empirical, but his 
 due by analytical investigation. In the one case, you try your 
 answer to the sum like a puzzled schoolboy — till you find 
 one that fits ; in the other, you bring out your result within 
 certain limits, by process of calculation. 
 
 Supposing, then, the just wages of any quantity of given 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. 
 
 79 
 
 labour to have been ascertained, let us examine the first 
 results of just and unjust payment, when in favour of the 
 purchaser or employer ; i. e. when two men are ready to 
 do the work, and only one wants to have it done. 
 
 The unjust purchaser forces the two to bid against each 
 other till he has reduced their demand to its lowest terms. 
 Let us assume that the lowest bidder offers to do the work 
 at half its just price. 
 
 The purchaser employs him, and does not employ the 
 other. The first or apparent result is, therefore, that one 
 of the two men is left out of employ, or to starvation, just 
 as definitely as by the just procedure of giving fair price 
 to the best workman. The various writers who endeavoured 
 to invalidate the positions of my first paper never saw this, 
 and assumed that the unjust hirer employed both. He employs 
 both no more than the just hirer. The only difference (in 
 the outset) is that the just man pays sufficiently, the unjust 
 man insufficiently, for the labour of the single person employed. 
 
 I say, “in the outset;” for this first or apparent differ- 
 ence is not the actual difference. By the unjust procedure, 
 half the proper price of the work is left in the hands of 
 the employer. This enables him to hire another man at 
 the same unjust rate, on some other kind of work; and 
 the final result is that he has two men working for him at 
 half price, and two are out of employ. 
 
80 
 
 QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. 
 
 By the just procedure, the whole J>rice of the first piece 
 of work goes into the hands of the man who does it. Xo 
 surplus being left in the employer’s hands, he cannot liii-e 
 another man for another piece of labour. But by precisely 
 so much as his power is diminished, the hired workman’s 
 power is increased ; that is to say, by the additional half 
 of the price he has received ; which additional half he has 
 the power of using to employ another man in his service. 
 I will suppose, for the moment, the least favourable, though 
 quite probable, case — that, though justly treated himself, 
 he yet will act unjustly to his subordinate; and hire at 
 halfprice, if he can. The final result will then be, that one 
 man works for the employer, at just price; one for the 
 workman, at half-price ; and two, as in the first case, are 
 still out of employ. These two, as I said before, are out 
 of employ in both cases. The difference between the just 
 and unjust procedure does not lie in the number of men 
 hired, but in the price paid to them, and the persons by 
 whom it is paid. The essential difference, that which I 
 want the reader to see clearly, is, that in the unjust case, 
 two men work for one, the first hirer. In the just case, 
 one man works for the first hirer, one for the person hired, 
 and so on, down or up through the various grades of ser- 
 vice ; the influence being carried forward by justice, and 
 arrested by injustice. The universal and constant action of 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TERR AM. 
 
 81 
 
 justice in this matter is therefore to diminish the power 
 of wealth, in the hands of one individual, over masses of 
 men, and to distribute it through a chain of men. The 
 actual power exerted by the wealth is the same in both 
 cases ; but by injustice it is put all in one man’s hands, so 
 that he directs at once and witli equal force the labour of 
 a circle of men about him ; by the just procedure, he is 
 permitted to touch the nearest only, through whom, with 
 diminished force, modified by new minds, the energy of 
 the. wealth passes on to others, and so till it exhausts 
 itself. 
 
 The immediate operation of justice in this respect is there- 
 fore to diminish the power of wealth, first in acquisition 
 of luxury, and, secondly, in exercise of moral influence. 
 The employer cannot concentrate so multitudinous labour 
 on his own interests, nor can he subdue so multitudinous 
 mind to his own will. But the secondary operation of 
 justice is not less important. The insufficient payment of 
 the group of men working for one, places each under a 
 maximum of difficulty in rising above his position. The 
 tendency of the system is to check advancement. But the 
 sufficient or just payment, distributed through a descending 
 series of offices or grades of labour,* gives each subordinated 
 
 * I am sorry to lose time by answering, however curtly, the equivo* 
 
 cations of the writers who sought to obscure the instances given of 
 4 * 
 
82 
 
 QFI JUDICATIS TEEEAM. 
 
 person fair and sufficient means of rising in the social scale^ 
 if he chooses to use them ; and thus not only diminishes 
 the immediate power of wealth, but removes the worst 
 disabilities of poverty. 
 
 It is on this vital problem that the entire destiny of the 
 labourer is ultimately dependent. Many minor interests 
 
 regulated labour in the first of these papers, by confusing kinds, ranks, 
 and quantities of labour with its qualities. I never said that a colonel 
 should have the same pay as a private, nor a bishop the same pay as a 
 curate. Neither did I say that more work ought to be paid as less 
 work (so that the curate of a parish of two thousand souls should have 
 no more than the curate of a parish of five hundred). But I said that, 
 so far as you employ it at all, bad work should be paid no less than 
 good work; as a bad clergyman yet takes his tithes, a bad physician 
 takes his fee, and a bad lawyer his costs. And this, as will be farther 
 shown in the conclusion, I said, and say, partly because the best work 
 never was nor ever will be, done for money at all; but chiefly because, 
 the moment people know they have to pay the bad and good alike, 
 they wUl try to discern the one from the other, and not use the bad. 
 A sagacious writer in the Scotsman asks me if I should like any common 
 scribbler to be paid by Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. as their good 
 authors are. I should, if they employed him — ^but would seriously recom- 
 mend them, for the scribbler’s sake, as well as their own, not to employ 
 him. The quantity of its money which the country at present invests in 
 scribbling is not, in the outcome of it, economically spent ; and even the 
 highly ingenious person to whom this question occurred, might perhaps 
 have been more beneficially employed than in printing it. 
 
QUI JTDICATIS TBREAM. 
 
 83 
 
 may sometimes appear to interfere with it, but all branch 
 from it. For instance, considerable agitation is often caused 
 in the minds of the lower classes when they discover the 
 share which they nominally, and, to all appearance, actually, 
 pay out of their wages in taxation (I believe thirty-five or 
 forty per cent.). This sounds very grievous ; but in reality 
 the labourer does not pay it, but his emjDloyer. If the 
 workman had not to pay it, his wages would be less by 
 just that sum: competition would still reduce them to the 
 lowest rate at which life was possible. Similarly the lower 
 orders agitated for the repeal of the corn laws,^ thinking 
 
 * I have to acknowledge an interesting communication on the subject 
 of free trade from Paisley (for a short letter from “A Well-wisher” at 
 
 , my thanks are yet more due); But the Scottish writer will, I fear, 
 
 be disagreeably surprised to hear, that I am, and always have been, an 
 utterly fearless and unscrupulous free-trader. Seven years ago, speaking 
 of the various signs of infancy in the European mind (Stones of Venice, 
 vol. iii. p. 168), I wrote : “ The first principles of commerce were acknow- 
 ledged by the English parliament only a few months ago, and in its free- 
 trade measures, and are stiU so httle understood by the million, that no 
 nation dares to dbolisk its custom-homes.'^ 
 
 It will be observed that I do not admit even the idea of reciprocity. 
 Let other nations, if they like, keep their ports shut; every wise nation 
 will throw its own open. It is not the opening them, but a sudden, 
 inconsiderate, and blunderingly experimental manner of opening them, 
 which does the harm. If you have been protecting a manufacture for 
 
84 
 
 QUI JUDICATIS TERRAM. 
 
 they would be better off if bread were cheaper ; never 
 perceiving that as soon as bread was permanently cheaper, 
 wages would permanently fall in precisely that proportion. 
 The corn laws were rightly repealed ; not, however, because 
 they directly oppressed the poor, but because they indirectly 
 oppressed them in causing a large quantity of their labour 
 to be consumed unproductively. So also unnecessary tax- 
 
 long series of years, you must not take protection off in a moment, so 
 as to throw every one of its operatives at once out of employ, any more 
 than you must take all its wrappings off a feeble child at once in cold 
 weather, though the cumber of them may have been radically injuring 
 its health. Little by little, you must restore it to freedom and to air. 
 
 Most people’s minds are in curious confusion on the subject of free 
 trade, because they suppose it to imply enlarged competition. On the 
 contrary, free trade puts an end to all competition. “ Protection ” (among 
 various other mischievous functions) endeavours to enable one country to 
 compete with another in the production of an article at a disadvantage* 
 When trade is entirely free, no country can be competed with in the 
 articles for the production of which it is naturally calculated; nor can it 
 compete with any other in the production of articles for which it is not 
 naturally calculated. Tuscany, for instance, cannot compete with England 
 in steel, nor England with Tuscany in oil. They must exchange their 
 steel and oil. Which exchange should be as frank and free as honesty 
 and the sea-winds can make it. Competitien, indeed, arises at first, and 
 sharply, in order to prove which is strongest in any given manufacture 
 possible to both; this point once ascertained, competition is at an end. 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TERR AM. 
 
 85 
 
 fition oppresses them, through destruction of capital, but 
 the destiny of the poor depends primarily always on this 
 one question of duencss of wages. Their distress (irrespec- 
 tively of that caused by sloth, minor error, or crime) arises 
 on the grand scale from the two reacting forces of com- 
 petition and oppression. There is not yet, nor will yet for 
 ages be, any real over-population in the world ; but a local 
 over-population, or, more accurately, a degree of population 
 locally unmanageable under existing circumstances for want 
 of forethought and sufficient machinery, necessarily shows 
 itself by pressure of competition; and the taking advantage 
 of this competition by the purchaser to obtain their labour 
 unjustly cheap, consummates at once their suffering and his 
 own ; for in this (as I believe in every other kind of slavery) 
 the oppressor suffers at last more than the oppressed, and 
 those magnificent lines of Pope, even in all their force, 
 fall short of the truth — 
 
 “ Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf, 
 
 Each does but hate his neighbour as himself; 
 
 Damned to the mines, an equal fate betides 
 The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides.” 
 
 The collateral and reversionary operations of justice in this 
 matter I shall examine hereafter (it being needful first to define 
 the nature of value) ; proceeding then to consider within 
 what practical terms a juster system may be established ; and 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TEKRAM. 
 
 ultimately the vexed question of the destinies of the unem- 
 ployed workmen.* liest, however, the reader should be 
 alarmed at some of the issues to which our investigations 
 seem to be tending, as if in their bearing against the power of 
 
 * I should he glad if the reader would first clear the ground for himself 
 so far as to determine whether the difficulty lies in getting the work or 
 getting the pay for it. Does he consider occupation itself to be an 
 expensive luxury, difficult of attainment, of which too little is to be found 
 in the world? or is it rather that, while in the enjoyment even of the most 
 athletic delight, men must nevertheless be maintained, and this mainte- 
 nance is not always forthcoming? We must be clear on this head before 
 going farther, as most people are loosely in the habit of talking of the diffi- 
 culty of “finding employment.” Is it employment that we want to find, or 
 support during employment ? Is it idleness we wish to put an end to, or 
 hunger? We have to take up both questions in succession, only not both 
 at the same time. No doubt that work is a luxury, and a very great one. 
 It is, indeed, at once a luxury and a necessity ; no man can retain either 
 health of mind or body without it. So profoundly do I feel this, that, as 
 will be seen in the sequel, one of the principal objects I would recommend 
 to benevolent and practical persons, is to induce rich people to seek for a 
 larger quantity of this luxury than they at present possess. Nevertheless, 
 it appears by experience that even this healthiest of pleasures may be 
 indulged in to excess, and that human beings are just as liable to surfeit 
 of labour as to surfeit of meat ; so that, as on the one hand, it may be 
 charitable to provide, for some people, lighter dinner, and more work, — for 
 others it may be equally expedient to provide lighter work, and more 
 diimer. 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TEREAM. 
 
 87 
 
 wealth they had something in common with those of social- 
 ism, I wish him to know, in accurate terms, one or two of 
 the main points which I have in view. 
 
 Whether socialism has made more progress among the 
 army and navy (where payment is made on my principles), or 
 among the manufacturing operatives (who are paid on my 
 opponents’ principles), I leave it to those opponents to ascer- 
 tain and declare. Whatever their conclusion may be, I think 
 it necessary to answer for myself only this : that if there be 
 any one point insisted on throughout my works more fre- 
 quently than another, that one point is the impossibility of 
 Equality. My continual aim has been to show the eternal 
 superiority of some men to others, sometimes even of one 
 man to all others ; and to show also the advisability of 
 appointing such persons or person to guide, to lead, or on 
 occasion even to compel and subdue, their inferiors, according 
 to their own better knowledge and wiser will. My principles 
 of Political Economy were all involved in a single phrase 
 spoken three years ago at Manchester: “Soldiers of the 
 Ploughshare as well as soldiers of the Sword:” and they 
 were all summed in a single sentence in the last volume of 
 Modern Painters — “ Government and co-operation are in all 
 things the Laws of Life ; Anarchy and competition the Laws 
 of Death.” 
 
 And with respect to the mode in which these general prim 
 
88 
 
 Qtn JITDICATIS TEEKAM. 
 
 ciples affect the secure possession of property, so far am I 
 from invalidating such security, that the whole gist of these 
 papers will be found ultimately to aim at an extension in its 
 
 m- 
 
 range; and whereas it has long been known and declared 
 that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I 
 wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no 
 right to the property of the poor. 
 
 But that the working of the system which I have under- 
 taken to develop would in many ways shorten the apparent 
 and direct, though not the unseen and collateral, power, both 
 of wealth, as the Lady of Pleasure, and of capital as the Lord 
 of Toil, I do not deny : on the contrary, I affirm it in all joy- 
 fulness ; knowing that the attraction of riches is already too 
 strong, as their authority . is already too weighty, for the 
 reason of mankind. I said in my last paper that nothing in 
 history had ever been so disgraceful to human intellect as the 
 acceptance among us of the common doctrines of political 
 - economy as a science. I have many grounds for saying this, 
 / but one of the chief may be given in few words. I know no 
 previous instance in history of a nation’s establishing a system- 
 atic disobedience to the first j^rinciples of its professed reli- 
 gion. The writings which we (verbally) esteem as divine, 
 not only denounce the love of moneyas the source of all evil, 
 and as an idolatry abhorred of the Deity, but declare mammon 
 seiwice to be the accurate and irreconcileable opposite of 
 
QUI JUDICATIS TERRA M. 
 
 89 
 
 God’s service : and, whenever they speak of riches absolute, 
 and poverty absolute, declare woe to the rich, and blessing to 
 the poor. Whereupon we forthwith investigate a science of 
 becoming rich, as the shortest road to national prosperity. 
 
 “ Tai Cristian dannera I’Etiope, 
 
 Quando si partirauno i due coUegi, 
 
 L'uno in eterno ricco, e l’altro inopb.” 
 
ESSAY IV. 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 In the last paper we saw that just payment of labour 
 consisted in a sum of money which would approximately 
 obtain equivalent labour at a future time : we have now 
 to examine the means of obtaining such equivalence. 
 Which question involves the definition of Value, Wealth, 
 Price, and Produce. 
 
 None of these terms are yet defined so as to be understood 
 by the public. But the last. Produce, which one might have 
 thought the clearest of all, is, in use, the most ambiguous; 
 and the examination of the kind of ambiguity attendant 
 on its present employment will best open the way to our 
 work. 
 
 In his chapter on Capital,* Mr. J. S. Mill instances, as 
 a capitalist, a hardware manufacturer, who, having intended 
 to spend a certain portion of the proceeds of his business 
 in buying plate and jewels, changes his mind, and “pays it as 
 
 * Book L chap. iv. s. L To save space, my future references to Mr. Mill’s 
 work will be by numerals only, as in this instance, I. iv. L Ed. in 2 vols. 
 8vo. Parker, 1848. 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 91 
 
 wages to additional workpeople.” The effect is stated by- 
 Mr. Mill to be, that “ more food is appropriated to the con- 
 sumption of productive labourers.” 
 
 Now, I do not ask, though, had I written this paragraph, 
 it would surely have been asked of me. What is to become 
 of the silversmiths ? If they are truly unproductive persons, 
 we will acquiesce in their extinction. And though in another 
 part of the same passage, the hardware merchant is supposed 
 also to dispense with a number of servants, whose “ food is 
 thus set free for productive purposes,” I do not inquire what 
 will be the effect, painful or otherwise, upon the servants, 
 of this emancipation of their food. But I very seriously 
 inquire why ironware is produce, and silverware is not? 
 That the merchant consumes the one, and sells the other, 
 certainly does not constitute the difference, unless it can be 
 shown (whicli, indeed, I perceive it to be becoming daily 
 more and more the aim of tradesmen to show) that commo- 
 dities are made to be sold, and not to be consumed. The 
 merchant is an agent of conveyance to the consumer in one 
 case, and is himself the consumer in the other:* but the 
 
 * If Mr. Mill had wished to show the difference in result between 
 consumption and sale, he should have represented the hardware merchant 
 as consuming his own goods instead of selling them ; similarly, the silver 
 merchant as consuming his own goods instead of selling thein. Had he 
 done this, he woul(l have made his position clearer, though less tenable ; 
 
92 
 
 AD VALOEEM. 
 
 labourers are in either case equally productive, since they 
 have produced goods to the same value, if the hardware and 
 the plate are both goods. 
 
 And what distinction separates them ? It is indeed possible 
 that in the “comparative estimate of the moralist,” with 
 •which Mr. Mill says political economy has nothing to do (III. 
 i. 2) a steel fork might appear a more substantial production 
 than a silver one : we may grant also that knives, no less 
 than forks, are good produce; and scythes and ploughshares 
 serviceable articles. But, how of bayonets ? Supposing the 
 hardware merchant to effect large sales of these^ by help 
 of the “setting free” of the food of his servants and his 
 silversmith,— is he still employing productive labourers, or, in 
 Mr. Mill’s words, labourers who increase “ the stock of per- 
 manent means of enjoyment” (I. iii. 4). Or if, instead of 
 bayonets, he supply bombs, will not' the absolute and final 
 “ enjoyment” of even these energetically productive articles 
 (each of which costs ten pounds*) be dependent on a proper 
 and perhaps this -was the position he really intended to take, tacitly 
 involving his theory, else'where stated, and shown in the sequel of this 
 paper to he false, that demand for commodities is not demand for labour. 
 But by the most diligent scrutiny of the paragraph new under examination, 
 I cannot determine "whether it is a fallacy pure and simple, or the half of one 
 fallacy supported by the whole of a greater one ; so that I treat it here on 
 the kinder assumption that it is one fallacy only. 
 
 ♦ I take Mr. Helps’ estimate in his essay on "War. * 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 93 
 
 choice of time and place for their enfantement ^ choice, that 
 is to say, depending on those philosophical considerations 
 with which political economy has nothing to do ? * 
 
 I should have regretted the need of pointing out inconsis- 
 tency in any portion of Mr. Mill’s work, had not the value of 
 his work proceeded from its inconsistencies. He deserves 
 honour among economists by inadvertently disclaiming the 
 principles which he states, and tacitly introducing the moral 
 considerations wdth which he declares his science has^ no 
 connection. Many of his chapters are, therefore, true and 
 valuable ; and the only conclusions of his which I have to 
 dispute are those which follow from his premises. 
 
 Thus, the idea which lies at the root of the passage we have 
 just been examining, namely, that labour applied to produce 
 luxuries will not support so many persons as labour applied 
 to produce useful articles, is entirely true ; but the instance 
 given fails — and in four directions of failure at once — because 
 Mr. Mill has not defined the real meaning of usefulness. 
 
 * Also when the wrought silver vases of Spain were dashed to 
 fragments by our custom-house officers, because bullion might be imported 
 free of duty, hut not brains, was the axe that broke them productive ? — 
 the artist who wrought them unproductive ? Or again. If the woodman’s 
 axe is productive, is the executioner’s ? as also, if the hemp of a cable be 
 productive, does not the productiveness of hemp in a halter depend on its 
 moral more than on its material application ? 
 
m 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 The definition which he has given — “capacity to satisfy a 
 desire, or serve a purpose” (III. i. 2) — applies equally to 
 the iron and silver ; while the true definition— which he has 
 not given, but which nevertheless underlies the false verbal 
 definition in his mind, and comes out once or twice by 
 accident (as in the words “ any support to life or strength” 
 in I. i. 5)^ — applies to some, articles of iron, but not to others, 
 and to some articles of silver, but not to others. Iv applies to 
 ploughs, but not to bayonets ; and to forks, but nc^<^ to filigree.* 
 
 The eliciting of the true definition will gW^ as the reply 
 to our first question, “ What is value ? ” re^pecting which, 
 however, we must first hear the popular statements. 
 
 “The word ‘value,’ when used without adjunct, always 
 means, in political economy, value in exchange ” (Mill, III. 
 i. 3). So that, if two ships cannot exchange their rudderSj 
 their rudders are, in politico-economic language, of no value 
 to either. 
 
 But “ the subject of political economy is wealth.” — (Pre- 
 liminary remarks, page 1.) 
 
 And wealth “consists of all useful and agreeable objects 
 which possess exchangeable value.”— -(Preliminary remarks, 
 page 10.) 
 
 It appears, then, according to Mr. Mill, that usefulness 
 
 * Filigree : that is to say, generally, ornament dependent on complexity, 
 
 not on art. 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 95 
 
 and agreeableness underlie the exchange value, and must 
 be ascertained to exist in the thing, before we can esteem 
 it an object of wealth. 
 
 lN"ow, the economical usefulness of a thing depends not 
 merely on its own nature, but on the number of people 
 who can and will use it. A horse is useless, and therefore 
 imsaleable, if no one can ride, — a sword if no one can 
 strike, and meat, if no one can eat. Thus every material 
 utility depends on its relative human capacity. 
 
 Similarly : The agreeableness of a thing depends not 
 merely on its own likeableness, but on the number of people 
 who can be got to like it. The relative agreeableness, and 
 therefore saleableness, of “a pot of the smallest ale,” and 
 of “ Adonis painted by a running brook,” depends virtually 
 on the opinion of Demos, in the shape of Christopher Sly. 
 That is to say, the agreeableness of a thing depends on its 
 relative human disposition.* Therefore, political economy, 
 
 * These statements sound crude in their brevity; but will be found 
 of the utmost importance when they are developed. Thus, in the above 
 instance, economists have never perceived that disposition to buy is a 
 wholly moral element in demand: that is to say, when you give a man 
 half-a-crown, it depends on his disposition whether he is rich or poor 
 with it — ^whether he will buy disease, ruin, and hatred, or buy health, 
 advancement, and domestic love. And thus the agreeableness or exchange 
 value of every offered commodity depends on production, not merely of 
 the commodity, but of buyers of it ; therefore on the education of buyers 
 
96 
 
 AD VALOEEM. 
 
 being a science of wealth, must be a science respecting 
 human capacities and dispositions. But moral considera- 
 tions have nothing to do with political economy (III. i. 2). 
 ^"herefore, moral considerations have nothing to do with 
 human capacities and dispositions. 
 
 I do not wholly like the look of this conclusion from Mr. 
 Mill’s statements : — ^let us try Mr. Ricardo’s. 
 
 “ IJtility is not the measure of exchangeable value, though 
 it is absolutely essential to it.” — (Chap. I. sect. i. ) Essen- 
 tial in what degree, Mr. Ricardo? There may be greater 
 and less degrees of utility. Meat, for instance, may be so 
 good as to be fit for any one to eat, or so bad as to be 
 fit for no one to eat. What is the exact degree of good- 
 ness which is “essential” to its exchangeable value, but 
 not “ the measure ” of it ? How good must the meat be, 
 in order to possess any exchangeable value ; and how bad 
 must it be — (I wish this were a settled question in London 
 marketuj — in order to possess none? 
 
 and on all the moral elements by which their disposition to buy this, or 
 that, is formed. I will illustrate and expand into final consequences 
 every one of these definitions in its place: at present they can only be 
 given with extremest brevity; for in order to put the subject at once in 
 a connected form before the reader, I have thrown into one, the open- 
 ing definitions of four chapters; namely, of that on Yalue (“Ad Valorem”) , 
 on Price ( “Thirty Pieces”); on Production (“Demeter”); and on Economy 
 (“The Law of the House”). 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 91 
 
 There appears to be some hitch, I think, in the working 
 even of Mr. Ricardo’s principles ; but let him take his own 
 example. “ Suppose that in the early stages of society the 
 bows and arrows of the hunter were of equal value with 
 the implements of the fisherman. Under such circumstances 
 the value of the deer, the produce of the hunter’s day’s 
 labour, would be exactly'''’ (italics mine) “equal to the value 
 of the fish, the product of the fisherman’s day’s labour. 
 The comparative value of the fish and game would be 
 entirely regulated by the quantity of labour realized in each.” 
 (Ricardo, chap. iii. On Yalue.) 
 
 Indeed! Therefore, if the fisherman catches one sprat, 
 and the huntsman one deer, one sprat will be equal in 
 value to one deer; but if the fisherman catches no sprat, 
 and the huntsman two deer, no sprat will be equal in value 
 to two deer ? 
 
 Nay ; but — Mr. Ricardo’s supporters may say — he means, 
 on an average ; — if the average product of a day’s work of 
 fisher and hunter be one fish and one deer, the one fish 
 will always be equal in value to the one deer. 
 
 Might I inquire the species of fish. Whale ? or white- 
 bait ? ^ 
 
 * Perhaps it may be said, in farther support of Mr. Ricardo, that he, 
 meant, “when the utility is constant or given, the price varies as the 
 
 quantity of labour.” If he meant this, he should have said it; but, had 
 5 
 
98 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 It would be waste of time to pursue these fallacies far- 
 ther ; we will seek for a true definition. 
 
 Much store has been set for centuries upon the use of 
 
 he meant it, he could have hardly missed the necessary result, that 
 utility would be one measure of price (which he expressly denies it to 
 bo); and that, to prove saleableness, he had to prove a given quantity 
 of utility, as well as a given quantity of labour ; to “wit, in his own 
 instance, that the deer and fish would each feed the same number of 
 men, for the same number of days, with equal pleasure to their palates. 
 The fact is, he did not know what he meant himself. The general idea 
 which he had derived from commercial experience, without bei^ able 
 to analyse it, was, that when the demand is constant, the price varies 
 as the quantity of labour required for production ; or, — ^using the formula 
 I gave in last paper — ^when y is constant, x y varies as x. But demand 
 never is, nor can be, ultimately constant, if x varies distinctly; for, as 
 price rises, consumers fall away; and as soon as there is a monopoly 
 (and aU scarcity is a form of monopoly; so that every commodity is 
 affected occasionally by some colour of monopoly), y becomes the most 
 influential condition of the price. Thus the price of a painting depends 
 less on its merits than on the interest taken in it by the public; the 
 price of singing less on the labour of the singer than the number of 
 persons who desire to hear him; and the price of gold less on the 
 scarcity which affects it in common with cerium or iridium, than on the 
 suu-light colour and unalterable purity by which it attracts the admi- 
 ration and answers the trusts of mankind. 
 
 It must be kept in mind, however, that I use the word “ demand ” in 
 a somewhat different sense from economists usually. . They mean by it 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 99 
 
 our English classical education. It were to be wished that 
 our well-educated merchants recalled to mind always this 
 much of their Latin schooling, — that the nominative of 
 valorem (a word already sufficiently familiar to them) is 
 valor ; a word which, therefore, ought to be familiar to 
 them. Yalor^ from valere^ to be well, or strong (uyjaivw) ; 
 — strong, in life (if a man), or valiant ; strong, for life (if 
 a thing), or valuable. To be ^‘valuable,” therefore, is to 
 “ avail towards life.” A truly valuable or availing thing is 
 that which leads to life with its whole strength. In pro 
 portion as it does not lead to life, or as its strength is 
 broken, it is less valuable ; in proportion as it leads away 
 from life, it is unvaluable or malignant. 
 
 The value of a thing, ther-efore, is independent of opinion, 
 and of quantity. Think what you will of it, gain how 
 
 “the quantity of a thing sold.” I mean by it “the force of the buyer’s 
 capable intention to buy.” In good English, a person’s “demand” sig' 
 nifies, not what he gets, but what he asks for. 
 
 Economists also do not notice that objects are not valued by absolute 
 bulk or weight, but by such bulk and weight as is necessary to bring 
 them into use. They say, for instance, that water bears no price in the 
 market. It is true that a cupful does not, but a lake does; just as a 
 handful of dust does not, but an acre does. And were it possible to 
 make even the possession of the cupful or handful permanent, (i e. 
 to find a place for them, ) the earth and sea would be bought up by 
 handfuls and cupfuls. 
 
100 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 mucli you may of it, the value of the thing itself is neither 
 greater nor less. For ever it avails, or avails not; no esti- 
 mate can raise, no disdain depress, the power which it holds 
 from the Maker of things and of men. 
 
 The real science of political economy, which has yet to be 
 distinguished from the bastard science, as medicine from 
 witchcraft, and astronomy from astrology, is that which 
 teaches nations to desire and labour for the things that lead to 
 life ; and which teaches them to scorn and destroy the things 
 that lead to destruction. And if, in a state of infancy, they 
 suppose indifferent things, such as excrescences of shell-fish, 
 and pieces of blue and red stone, to be valuable, and spend 
 large measure of the labour which ought to be employed for 
 the extension and ennobling of life, in diving or digging for 
 them, and cutting them into various shapes,— or if, in the same 
 state of infancy, they imagine precious and beneficent things, 
 such as air, light, and cleanliness," to be valueless, — or if, 
 finally, they imagine the conditions of their own existence, by 
 which alone they can truly possess or use anything, such, for 
 instance, as peace, trust, and love, to be prudently exchange- 
 able, when the market offers, for gold, iron, or excrescences of 
 shells — ^the great and only science of Political Economy teaches 
 them, in all these cases, what is vanity, and what substance ; 
 and how the service of Death, the Lord of Waste, and of eter- 
 nal emptiness, differs from the service of Wisdom, the Lady of 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 101 
 
 Saving, and of eternal fulness ; she who has said, “ I will cause 
 those that love me to inherit Substance ; and I will Fill 
 their treasures.” 
 
 The “ Lady of Saving,” in a profounder sense than that 
 of the savings’ bank, though that is a good one : Madonna 
 della Salute, — Lady of Health — which, though commonly 
 spoken of as if separate from wealth, is indeed a part of 
 wealth. This word, wealth,” it will be remembered, is the 
 next we have to define. 
 
 “ To be wealthy,” says Mr. Mill, is “ to have a large stock 
 of useful articles.” 
 
 I accept this definition. Only let us perfectly understand 
 it. My opponents often lament my not giving them enough 
 logic : I fear I must at present use a little more than they will 
 like; but this business of Political Economy is no light one, 
 and we must allow no loose terms in it. 
 
 We have, therefore, to ascertain in the above definition, first, 
 what is the meaning of “having,” or the nature of Possession. 
 Then what is the meaning of “ useful,” or the nature of Utility. 
 
 And first of possession. At the crossing of the transepts 
 of Milan Cathedral has lain, for three hundred years, the 
 embalmed body of St. Carlo Borromeo. It holds a golden 
 crosier, and has a cross of emeralds on its breast. Admitting 
 the crosier and emeralds to be useful articles, is the body to be 
 considered as “ having” them ? Do they, in the politico* 
 
102 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 economical sense of property, belong to it ? If not, and if ^\'0 
 may, therefore, conclude generally that a dead body cannot 
 possess property, what degree and period of animation in the 
 body will render possession possible ? 
 
 As thus : lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the 
 passengers fastened a belt about him with two hundred 
 pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at 
 the bottom. Now, as he was sinking — had he the gold ? or 
 had the gold him ?* 
 
 And if, instead of sinking him in the sea by its weight, the 
 gold had struck him on the forehead, and thereby caused 
 incurable disease — suppose palsy or insanity, — would the 
 gold in that case have been more a “ possession” than in the 
 first? Without pressing the inquiry up through instances of 
 gradual increasing vital power over the gold (which I will, 
 however, give, if they are asked for), I presume the reader 
 will see that possession, or “ having,” is not an absolute, but 
 a gradated, power ; and consists not only in the quantity or 
 nature of the thing possessed, but also (and in a greater de- 
 gree) in its suitableness to the person possessing it, alnd in his 
 vital power to use it. 
 
 And our definition of Wealth, expanded, becomes: “The 
 possession of useful articles, which we can useP This is a 
 very serious change. For wealth, instead of depending 
 * Compare George Herbert, The Church Porc\ Stanza 28. 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 103 
 
 merely on a “ have,” is thus seen to depend on a “ can.” 
 Gladiator’s death, on a “ habet ; ” but soldier’s victory, and 
 state’s salvation, on a “ quo pluriraum posset.” (Liv. VII. 
 6.) And what we reasoned of only as accumulation of 
 material, is seen to demand also accumulation of capacity. 
 
 So much for our verb. Next for our adjective. What 
 is the meaning' of “ useful ?” 
 
 The inquiry is closely connected with the last. For 
 what is capable of use in the hands of some persons, is 
 capable, in the hands of others, of the opposite of use, 
 called commonly, ‘*from-use or ab use.” And it depends 
 on the person, much more than on the article, w^hether its 
 usefulness or ab-usefulness will be the quality developed in 
 it. Thus, wine, which the Greeks, in their Bacchus, made, 
 rightly, the type of all passion, and which, when used, 
 t‘cheereth god and man” (that is to say, strengthens both 
 the divine life, or reasoning power, and the earthly, or 
 carnal power, of man) ; yet, when abused, becomes “ Dio- 
 nusos,” hurtful especially to the divine part of man, or 
 reason. And again, the body itself, being equally liable to 
 use and to abuse, and, when rightly disciplined, serviceable 
 to the State, both for war and labour ; — but when not dis- 
 ciplined, or abused, valueless to the State, and capable 
 only of continuing the private or single existence of the 
 individual (and that but feebly) — the Greeks called such 
 
104 
 
 AD valorem:. 
 
 a body an “idiotic” or “private” body, from their 
 word signifying a person employed in no way directly ’ 
 useful to the State; whence, finally, our “idiot,” mean-j 
 ing a person entirely occupied with his own concerns. 
 
 Hence, it follows, that if a thing is to be useful, it 
 must be not only of an availing nature, but in availing 
 hands. Or, in accurate terms, usefulness is value in the 
 hands of the valiant; so that this science of wealth being, 
 as we have just seen, when regarded as the science -of 
 Accumulation, accurnulative of capacity as well as of mate- 
 rial, — when regarded as the Science of Distribution, is 
 distribution not absolute, but discriminate ; not of every 
 thing to every man, but of the right thing to the right 
 man. A difficult science, dependent on more than arithmetic. 
 
 Wealth, therefore, is “the POSSESSioif of the valuable 
 BY THE VALIANT ; ” and in considering it as a power exist- 
 ing in a nation, the two elements, the value of the thing, 
 and the valour of its possessor, must be estimated together. 
 Whence it appears that many of the persons commonly con- 
 sidered wealthy, are in reality no more wealthy than the 
 locks of their own strong boxes are ; they being inherently 
 and eternally incapable of wealth ; and operating for the 
 nation, in an economical point of view, either as pools of 
 dead water, and eddies in a stream (which, so long as the 
 stream flows, are useless, or serve only to drown people, 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 105 
 
 but may become of importance in a state of stagnation, 
 should the stream dry) ; or else, as dams in a river, of 
 which the ultimate service depends not on the dam, but 
 the miller; or else, as mere accidental stays and impedi* 
 ments, acting, not as wealth, but (for we ought to have a 
 correspondent term) as “illth,” causing various devastation 
 and trouble around them in all directions; or lastly, act 
 not at all, but are merely animated conditions of delay, (no 
 use being possible of anything they have until they are 
 dead,) in which last condition they are nevertheless often 
 useful as delays, and “ impedimenta,” if a nation is apt to 
 move too fast. 
 
 This being so, the difficulty of the true science of Political 
 Economy lies not merely in. the need of developing manly 
 character to deal with material value, but in the fact, that 
 while the manly character and material value only form wealth 
 by their conjunction, they have nevertheless a mutually 
 destructive operation on each other. For the manly character 
 is apt to ignore, or even cast away, the material value: 
 — whence that of Pope : — 
 
 “ Sure, of qualities demanding praise 
 
 More go to ruin fortunes, than to raise,” 
 
 And on the other hand, the material value is apt to undermine 
 
 the manly character ; so that it must be our work, in the issue, 
 5 * 
 
106 
 
 AD VALOEEM. 
 
 to examine what evidence there is of the effect of wealth on 
 the minds of its possessors ; also, what kind of person it is 
 who usually sets himself to obtain wealth, and succeeds in 
 doing so ; and whether the world owes more gratitude to 
 rich or to poor men, either for their moral influence upon 
 it, or for chief goods, discoveries, and practical advance- 
 ments. I may, however, anticipate future conclusion so far 
 as to state that in a community regulated only by laws of 
 demand and supply, and protected from open violence, 
 the persons who become rich are, generally speaking, indus- 
 trious, resolute, proud, covetous, prompt, methodical, sensible, 
 unimaginative, insensitive, and ignorant. The persons who 
 remain poor are the entirely foolish, the entirely wise,* the 
 idle, the reckless, the humble, the thoughtful, the dull, the 
 imaginative, the sensitive, the well-informed, the improvident, 
 the irregularly and impulsively wicked, the clumsy knave, the 
 open thief, and the entirely merciful, just, and godly person. 
 
 Thus far then of wealth. Next, we have to ascertain the 
 nature of Peice ; that is to say, of exchange value, and its 
 expression by currencies. 
 
 Note first, of exchange, there can be no profit in it. It is 
 only in labour there can be profit — that is to say a “making 
 
 * “ 6 ZeOj 6fino\3 nivETaiy — Arist. Plut. 582. It would but weaken the 
 grand words to lean on the preceding ones: — “ort too IIXoo-oo naip£x<it 
 
 (isXriovaSf aj'Jpaj, koI Tt\v yv^piiv, Kai Ttjv ihsav,*^ 
 
AD VALOEEM. 
 
 107 
 
 in advance,” or “making in favour of” (from proficio). In 
 exchange, there is only advantage, i.e. a bringing of vantage 
 or power to the exchanging persons. Thus, one man, by 
 sowing and reaping, turns one measure of corn into two 
 measures. That is Profit. Another by digging and forging, 
 turns one spade into two spades. That is Profit. But the 
 man who has two measures of com wants sometimes to dig ; 
 and the man who has two spades wants sometimes to eat : — 
 They exchange the gained grain for the gained tool ; and 
 both are the better for the exchange ; but though there is 
 much advantage in the transaction, there is no profit. 
 Nothing is constructed or produced. Only that which had 
 been before constructed is given to the person by whom it 
 can be used. If labour is necessary to efiect the exchange, 
 that labour is in reality involved in the production, and, like 
 all other labour, bears profit. Whatever number of men are 
 concerned in the manufacture, or in the conveyance, have 
 share in the profit ; but neither the manufacture nor the con- 
 veyance are the exchange, and in the exchange itself there is 
 no profit. 
 
 There may, however, be acquisition, which is a very differ- 
 ent thing. If, in the exchange, one man is able to give what 
 cost him little labour for what has cost the other much, he 
 “ acquires” a certain quantity of the produce of the other’s 
 labour. And precisely what he acquires, the other loses. In 
 
108 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 mercantile language, the person who thus acquires is coW 
 monly said to have “ made a profit and I believe that 
 many of our merchants are seriously under the impression 
 that it is possible for everybody, somehow, to make a profit 
 in thiii^ manner. Whereas, by the unfortunate constitution 
 of the world we live in, the laws both of matter and motion 
 have quite rigorously forbidden universal acquisition of this 
 kind. Profit, or material gain, is attainable only by construc- 
 tion or by discovery ; not by exchange. Whenever material 
 gain follows exchange, for every plus there is- a precisely 
 equal minus. 
 
 Unhappily for the progress of the science of Political 
 Economy, the plus quantities, or, — if I may be allowed to 
 coin an awkward plural — the pluses, make a very positive 
 and venerable appearance in the world, so that every one is 
 eager to learn the science which produces results so magnifi- 
 cent ; whereas the minuses have, on the other hand, a 
 tendency to retire into back streets, and other places of shade, 
 — or even to get themselves wholly and finally put out of 
 sight in graves: which renders the algebra of this science 
 peculiar, and difficultly legible : a large number of its negative 
 signs being written by the account-keeper in a kind of red 
 ink, which starvation thins, and makes strangely pale, or even 
 «piite invisible ink, for the present. 
 
 The Science of Exchange, or, as I hear it has been proposed 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 109 
 
 to call it, of “ Catallactics, ” considered as one of gain, is, 
 therefore, simply nugatory ; but considered as one of acqui- 
 sition, it is a very curious science, differing in its data and 
 basis from every other science known. Thus:— If I can ex- 
 change a needle with a savage for a diamond, my power of 
 doing so depends either on the savage’s ignorance of social 
 arrangements in Europe, or on his want of power to take 
 advantage of them, by selling the diamond to any one else for 
 more needles. If, farther, I make the bargain as completely 
 advantageous to myself as possible, by giving to the savage 
 a needle with no eye in it (reaching, thus, a sufficiently satis- 
 factory type of the perfect operation of catallactic science), 
 the advantage to me in the entire transaction depends wholly 
 upon the ignorance, powerlessness, or heedlessness of the 
 l}ersori dealt with. Do away with these, and catallactic 
 advantage becomes impossible. So far, therefore, as the 
 science of exchange relates to the advantage of one of 
 the exchanging persons only, it is founded on the igno- 
 rance or incapacity of the opposite person. Where these 
 vanish, it also vanishes. It is therefore a science founded 
 on nescience, and an art founded on artlessness. But all 
 other sciences and arts, except this, have for their object 
 the doing away with their opposite nescience and artlessness. 
 This science, alone of sciences, must, by all available 
 means, promulgate and prolong its opposite nescience ; 
 
110 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 Otherwise the science itself is impossible. It is, therefore, 
 peculiarly and alone, the science of darkness ; probably 
 a bastard science^not by any means a divina scientia^ but 
 one begotten of another father, that father who, advising 
 his children to turn stones into bread, is himself employed 
 in turning bread into stones, and who, if you ask a fish 
 of him (fish not being producible on his estate), can but 
 give you a serpent. 
 
 The general law, then, respecting just or economical 
 exchange, is simply this : — There must be advantage on 
 both sides (or if only advantage on one, at least no disad- 
 vantage on the other) to the persons exchanging; and just 
 payment for his time, intelligence, and labour, to any inter- 
 mediate person effecting the transaction (commonly called 
 a merchant): and whatever advantage there is on either 
 side, and whatever pay is given to the intermediate person, 
 should be thoroughly known to all concerned. AU attempt 
 at concealment implies some practice of the opposite, or 
 uudivine science, founded on nescience. Whence another 
 saying of the Jew merchant’s — “ As a nail between the 
 stone joints, so doth sin stick fast between buying and 
 selling.” Which peculiar riveting of stone and timber, in 
 men’s dealings with each other, is again set forth in the 
 house which was to be destroyed — timber and stones together 
 — when Zechariah’s roll (more probably “curved sword”) 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 Ill 
 
 flew over it : “ the curse that goeth forth over all the earth 
 upon every one that stealeth and holdeth himself guiltless,” 
 instantly followed by the vision of the Great Measure ; — the 
 measure “ of the inj ustice of them in all the earth” (oLvrri ^ 
 dSixlot auTwv Iv Tfi with the weight of lead for its lid, 
 and the woman, the spirit of wickedness, within it; — that 
 is to say. Wickedness hidden by Dulness, and formalized, 
 outwardly, into ponderously established cruelty. “It shall 
 be set upon its own base in the land of Babel.” * 
 
 I have hitherto carefully restricted myself, in speaking 
 of exchange, to the use of the term “ advantage ; ” but that 
 term includes two ideas ; the advantage, namely, of getting 
 what we 7ieecl, and that of getting what we wish for. 
 Three-fourths of the demands existing in the world are 
 romantic ; founded on visions, idealisms, hopes, and afiec- 
 tions; and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, 
 regulation of the imagination and the ^heart. Hence, the 
 rig] it discussion of the nature of price is a very high 
 metaphysical and physical problem; sometimes to be solved 
 only in a passionate manner, as by David in his counting 
 the price of the water of the well by the gate of Bethlehem ; 
 but its first conditions are the following : — The pric^e of 
 anything is the quantity of labour given by the person 
 desiring it, in order to obtain possession of it. This price 
 * Zeclu V . 11. See note on the passage, at page 120. 
 
112 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 depends on four variable quantities. A. The quantity of 
 wish the purchaser has for the thing; opposed to a, the 
 quantity of wish the seller has to keep it. -5. The quan- 
 tity of labour the purchaser can afford, to obtain the thing ; 
 opposed to /3, the quantity of labour the seller can afford, 
 to keep it. These quantities are operative only in excess ; 
 
 e. the quantity of wish (A) means the quantity of wish 
 for this thing, above wish for other things; and the quan- 
 tity of woi’k (i?) means the quantity which can be spared 
 to get this thing from the quantity needed to get other 
 things. 
 
 Phenomena of price, therefore, are intensely complex, 
 curious, and interesting — too complex, however, to be 
 examined yet ; every one of them, when traced far enough, 
 showing itself at last as a part of the bargain of the Poor 
 of the Flock (or “flock of slaughter”), “If ye think good 
 give 4 ie my price, ^nd if not, forbear” — Zech. xi. 12; but 
 as the price of everything is to be calculated finally 
 in labour, it is necessary to define the nature of that stand- 
 ard. 
 
 Labour is the contest of the life of man with an opposite ; 
 — the term “ life ” including his intellect, soul, and physical 
 power, contending with question, difficulty, trial, or material 
 force. 
 
 Labour is of a higher or lower order, as it includes 
 
AD VALOEEM. 
 
 113 
 
 more or fewer of the elements of life : and labour of good 
 quality, in any kind, includes always as much intellect and 
 feeling as will fully and harmoniously regulate the physical 
 force. 
 
 In speaking of the value and price of labour, it is neces- 
 sary always to understand labour of a given rank and 
 quality, as we should speak of gold or silver of a given 
 standard. Bad (that is, heartless, inexperienced, or sense- 
 less) labour cannot be valued ; it is like gold of uncertain 
 alloy, or flawed iron.* 
 
 The quality and kind of labour being given, its value, 
 like that of all other valuable things, is invariable. But the 
 quantity of it which must be given for other things is 
 variable ; and in estimating this variation, the price of other 
 
 * Labour which is entirely good of its kind, that is to say, effective, 
 or efficient, the Greeks called “weighable,” or a^tos, translated usually 
 “worthy,” and because thus substantial and true, they called its price 
 T(/<P, the “honourable estimate” of it (honorarium): this word being 
 founded on their conception of true labour as a divine thing, to be hon- 
 oured with the kind of honour given to the gods; whereas the price of 
 false labour, or of that which led away from life, was to be, not honour, 
 but vengeance; for which they reserved another word, attributing the 
 exaction of such price to a peculiar goddess, called Tisiphone, the “ requit- 
 er (or quittance-taker) of death ; ” a person versed in the highest 
 branches of arithmetic, and punctual in her habits ; with whom accounts 
 current have been opened also in modem days. 
 
lU 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 things must always be counted by the quantity of labour ; 
 not the price of labour by the quantity of other things. 
 
 Thus, if we want to plant an apple sapling in rocky 
 ground, it may take two hours’ work; in soft ground, per- 
 haps only half an hour. Grant the soil equally good for 
 the tree in each case. Tlien the value of the sapling plant- 
 ed by two hours’ work is nowise greater than that of the 
 sapling planted in half an hour. One will bear no more 
 fruit than the other. Also, one half-hour of work is as 
 valuable as another half-hour; nevertheless the one sapling 
 has cost four such pieces of work, the other only one. 
 Now the proper statement of this fact is, not that the 
 labour on the hard ground is cheaper than on the soft; 
 but that the tree is dearer. The exchange value may, or 
 may not, afterwards depend on this fact. If other people 
 have plenty of soft ground to plant in, they will take no 
 cognizance of our two hours’ labour, in the price they will 
 offer for the plant on the rock. And if, through want of 
 sufficient botanical science, we have planted an upas-tree 
 instead of an apple, the exchange-value will be a negative 
 quantity ; still less proportionate to the labour expended. 
 
 What is commonly called cheapness of labour, signifies, 
 therefore, in reality, that many obstacles have to be over- 
 come by it ; so that much labour is required to produce a 
 small result. But this should never be spoken of as cheap 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 115 
 
 ness of labour, but as dearness of the object wrought for. 
 It would be just as rational to say that walking was 
 cheap, because we liad ten miles to walk home to our din- 
 ner, as that labour was cheap, because we had to work 
 ten hours to earn it. 
 
 The last word which we have to define is “ Pro- 
 duction.” 
 
 I have hitherto spoken of all labour as profitable ; 
 because it is impossible to consider under one head the 
 quality or value of labour, and its aim. But labour of the 
 best quality may be various in aim. It may be either con- 
 structive (‘‘gathering,” from con and struo), as agriculture ; 
 nugatory, as jewel-cutting ; or destructive (“scattering,” 
 from de and struo), as war. It is not, however, always 
 easy to prove labour, apparently nugatory, to be actually 
 so ; * generally, the formula holds good : “ he that gather- 
 
 * The most accurately nugatory labour is, perhaps, that of which not 
 enough, is given to answer a purpose effectually, and which, therefore, 
 has all to be done over again. Also, labour which fails of effect through 
 non-co-operation. The cure of a little village near Bellinzona, to whom I 
 had expressed wonder that the peasants allowed the Ticino to flood their 
 fields, told me that they would not join to build an effectual embank- 
 ment high up' the valley, because everybody said “that would help his 
 neighbours as much as himself.” So every proprietor built a bit of low 
 embankment about his own field; and the Ticino, as soon as it had a 
 mind, swept away and swallowed all up together. 
 
116 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 eth not, scatteretli ; ” tlius, the jeweller’s art is probably 
 very harmful in its ministering to a clumsy and inelegant 
 pride. So that, finally, I believe nearly all labour may be 
 shortly divided into positive and negative labour: positive, 
 that which produces life ; negative, that which produces 
 death ; the most directly negative labour being murder, and 
 the most directly jDositive, the bearing and rearing of chil- 
 dren ; so that in the precise degree which murder is hateful, 
 on the negative side of idleness, in that exact degree child- 
 rearing is admirable, on the positive side of idleness. For 
 which reason, and because of the honour that there is in 
 l earing ^ children, while the wife is said to be as the vine 
 (for cheering), the children are as the olive-branch, for 
 praise ; nor for praise only, but for peace (because large 
 families can only be reared in times of peace) : though 
 since, in their spreading and voyaging in various directions, 
 they distribute strength, they are, to the home strength, 
 
 * Observe, I say, “rearing,” not “begetting.” The praise is in the 
 seventh season, not in anopriTos, nor in ^vraXtn, but in oTrcopa. It is strange 
 that men always praise enthusiastically any person who, by a momentary 
 exertion, saves a life ; but praise very hesitatingly a person who, by exer- 
 tion and self-denial prolonged through years,, creates one. We give the 
 crown “ob civem servatum; ” — why not “ob civem natum? ” Born, I 
 mean, to the fuU, in soul as well as body. England has oak enough, I 
 think, for both chaplets. 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 117 
 
 as arrows in the hand of a giant — striking here and there, 
 far away. 
 
 Labour being thus various in its result, the prosperity 
 of any nation is in exact proportion to the quantity of 
 labour which it spends in obtaining and employing means 
 of life. Observe, — I say, obtaining and employing; that 
 is to say, not merely wisely producing, but wisely dis- 
 tributing and consuming. Economists usually speak as if 
 there were no good in consumption absolute.* So far from 
 this being so, consumption absolute is the end, crown, and 
 jDerfection of production ; and wise consumption is a far more 
 difficult art than wise production. Twenty people can gain 
 money for one who can use it ; and the vital question, for 
 individual and for nation, -is, never “how much do they 
 make ?” but “ to what purpose do they spend 
 
 The reader may, perhaps, have been surprised at the slight 
 reference I have hitherto made “ to capital,” and its func- 
 tions. It is here the place to define them. 
 
 Capital signifies “head, or source, or root material” — 
 it is material by which some derivative or secondary 
 good, is produced. It is only capital proper (caput vivum, 
 not caput mortuum) when it is thus producing something 
 
 * "When Mr. Mill speaks of productive consumption, he only means 
 consumption which results in increase of capital, or material wealth. See 
 I. iii. 4, and I. iii. 5. 
 
118 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 different from itself. It is a root, whicli does not enter 
 into vital function till it produces something else than a 
 root; namely, fruit. That fruit will in time again produce 
 roots; and so all living capital issues in reproduction of 
 capital ; but capital which produces nothing but capital 
 is only root producing root ; bulb issuing in bulb, never 
 in tulip ; seed issuing in seed, never in bread. The Political 
 Economy of Europe has hitherto devoted itself wholly to 
 the multiplication, or (less even) the aggregation, of bulbs. 
 It never saw nor conceived such a thing as a tulip, i^ayj 
 boiled bulbs they might have been— glass bulbs — Prince 
 Rupert’s drops, consummated in powder (well, if it werei 
 glass-powder and not gunpowder), for any end or meaning 
 the economists had in defining the laws of aggregation. We 
 will try and get a clearer notion of them. 
 
 The best and simplest general type of capital is a well-made 
 ploughshare. N"ow, if that ploughshare did nothing but 
 beget other ploughshares, in a polypous manner,— however 
 the great cluster of polypous plough might glitter in the 
 sun, it would have lost its function of capital. It becomes 
 true capital only by. another kind of splendour, — when it is 
 seen “ splendescere sulco,” to grow bright in the furrow ; 
 rather with diminution of its . substance, than addition, by 
 the noble friction. And the true home question, to every 
 capitalist and to every nation, is not, “ how many ploughs 
 
AD VALOKEM. 
 
 119 
 
 have you ?” — but, “ where are your furrows ?” not — “ how 
 quickly will this capital reproduce itself ?” — but, “ what will it 
 do during reproduction ?” What substance will it furnish, 
 good for life ? what work construct, protective of life ? if none, 
 its own reproduction is useless — if worse than none, — (for capi- 
 tal may destroy life as well as support it), its own reproduc- 
 tion is worse than useless ; it is merely an advance from 
 Tisiphone, on mortgage — not a profit by any means. 
 
 Not a profit, as the ancients truly saw, and showed in the 
 type of Ixion; for capital iS" the head, or fountain head, 
 of wealth — the “ well-head ” of wealth, as the clouds are 
 the well-heads of rain : but when clouds are without water, 
 and only beget clouds, they issue in wrath at last, instead 
 of rain, and in lightning instead of harvest; whence Ixion 
 is said first to have invited his guests to a banquet, and 
 then made them fall into a pit filled with fire ; which is 
 the type of the temptation of riches issuing in imprisoned 
 torment. — ^torment in a pit, (as also Demas’ silver mine,) 
 after which, to show the rage of riches passing from lust 
 of pleasure to lust of power, yet power not truly understood, 
 Ixion is said to have desired Juno, and instead, embracing a 
 cloud (or phantasm), to have begotten the Centaurs ; tlie 
 power of mere wealth being, in itself, as the embrace of 
 a shadow, — comfortless, (so also Ephraim feedeth on wind 
 and followeth after the east wind ; or “that which is not”— 
 
120 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 Prov. xxiii. 5 ; and again Dante’s Geiyon, the typo of 
 avaricious fraud, as he flies, gathers the air up with retractile 
 claws, — “ I’aer a se raccolse,”*^) but in its offspring, a mingling 
 of the brutal with the human nature: human in sagacity — 
 using both intellect and arrow ; but brutal in its body and 
 hoof, for consuming and trampling down. For which sin 
 Ixion is at last bound upon a wheel — fiery and toothed, and 
 rolling perpetually in the air ; — the type of human labour 
 when selfish and fruitless (kept far into the middle ages in 
 their wheel of fortune) ; the wheel which has in it no breath 
 or spirit, but is whirled by chance only ; whereas of all true 
 work the Ezekiel vision is true, that the spirit of the living 
 
 * So also in the vision of the women bearing the ephah, before 
 quoted, “the wind was in their wings,” not wings “of a stork,” as 
 in our version; but of a kite, in the Vulgate, or perhaps more 
 
 accurately still in the Septuagint, “ hoopoe,” a bird connected typically with 
 the power of riches by many traditions, of which that of its petition for a 
 crest of gold is perhaps the most interesting. The “ Birds” of Aristophanes, 
 in which its part is principal, are full of them ; note especially the “ fortifi- 
 cation of the air with baked bricks, hke Babylon,” 1. 550; and, again, 
 compare the Plutus of Dante, who (to show the influence of riches in 
 destroying the reason) is the only one of the powers of the Inferno who 
 cannot speak intelligibly ; and also the cowardliest; he is not merely 
 quelled or restrained, but literally “collapses” at a word; the sudden and 
 helpless operation of mercantile panic being all told in the brief metaphor, 
 “ as tlie sails, swollen with the wind, fall, when the mast breaks.'' 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 121 
 
 creature is in the wheels, and where the angels go, the wheels 
 go by them ; but move no otherwise. 
 
 This being the real nature of capital, it follows that there 
 are two kinds of true production, always going on in an active 
 State ; one of seed, and one of food or production for the 
 Ground, and for the Mouth ; both of which are by covetous 
 persons thought to be production only for the granary ; 
 whereas the function of the granary is but intermediate and 
 conservative, fulfilled in distribution ; else it ends in nothing 
 but mildew, and nourishment of rats and worms. And 
 since production for the Ground is only useful with future hope 
 of harvest, all essential production is for the Mouth ; and is 
 finally measured by the mouth ; hence, as I said above, 
 consumption is the crown of production ; and the wealth of 
 a nation is only to be estimated by what it consumes. 
 
 The want of any clear sight of this fact is the capital 
 error, issuing in rich interest and revenue of error, among 
 the political economists. Their minds are continually set on 
 money-gain, not on mouth gain ; and they fall into every sort 
 of net and snare, dazzled by the coin-glitter as birds by the 
 fowler’s glass ; or rather (for there is not much else like birds 
 in them) they are like children trying to jump on the 
 neads of their own shadows ; the money-gain being only the 
 shadow of the true gain, which is humanity. 
 
 The final object of political economy, therefore, is to get 
 6 
 
122 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 good method of consumption, and great quantity ol consump- 
 tion : in other words, to use everything, and to use it nobly ; 
 whether it be substance, service, or service perfecting 
 substance. The most curious error in Mr. Mill’s entire work 
 (provided for him originally by Ricardo), is his endeavour 
 to distinguish between direct and indirect service, and 
 consequent assertion that a demand for commodities is not 
 demand for labour (I. v. 9, et seq.) He distinguishes be- 
 tween labourers employed to lay out pleasure grounds, and 
 to manufacture velvet ; declaring that it makes material dif- 
 ference to the labouring classes in which of these two ways a 
 capitalist spends his money; because the employment of the 
 gardeners is a demand for labour, but the purchase of velvet 
 is not.* Error colossal as well as strange. It will, indeed, 
 
 * The value of raw material, which has, indeed, to he deducted from the 
 price of the labour, is not contemplated in the passages referred to, Mr. Mill 
 having fallen into the mistake solely by pursuing the collateral results of 
 the payment of wages to middlemen. He says — “ The consumer does not, 
 with his own funds, pay the weaver for his day’s work.” Pardon me ; the 
 consumer of the velvet pays the weaver with his own funds as much as he 
 pays the gardener. He pays, probably, an intermediate ship-owner, velvet 
 merchant, and shopman; pays carriage money, shop rent, damage money, 
 time money, and care money ; all these are above and beside the velvet 
 price (just as the wages of a head gardener would be above the grass 
 price) ; but the velvet is as much produced by the consumer’s capital, 
 though he does not pay for it tiU six months after production, as the grass 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 12.3 
 
 ma?ie a difference to the labourer whether he bid him swing his 
 scythe in the spring winds, or drive the loom in pestilential 
 air ; but, so far as his pocket is concerned, it makes to him 
 absolutely no difference whether we order him to make 
 green velvet, with seed and a scythe, or red velvet, with silk 
 and scissors. Neither does it anywise concern him whether, 
 when the velvet is made, we consume it by walking on it, or 
 wearing it, so long as our consumption of it is wholly selfish. 
 But if our consumption is to be in anywise unselfish, not only 
 our mode of consuming the articles we require interests him, 
 but also the hind of article we require with a view to 
 consumption. As thus (returning for a moment to Mr. Mill’s 
 great hardware theory*) : it matters, so far as the labourer’s 
 immediate profit is concerned, not an iron filing whether I 
 employ him in growing a peach, or forging a bombshell ; but 
 my probable mode of consumption of those articles matters 
 seriously. Admit that it is to be in both cases “ unselfish,” 
 
 is produced by his capital, though he does not pay the man who mowed 
 and rolled it on Monday, till Saturday afternoon. I do not know if Mr. 
 Mill’s conclusion, — “ the capital cannot be dispensed with, the purchasers 
 can” (p. 98), has yet been reduced to practice in the City on any large 
 scale. 
 
 * Which, observe, is the precise opposite of the one under examination. 
 The hardware theory required us to discharge our gardeners and. engage 
 manufacturers; the velvet theory requires us to discharge our manufac 
 turers and engage gardeners. 
 
124 
 
 AT> VALOREM. 
 
 and tlie difference, to Mm, is final, whether when Ms child Is 
 ill, I walk it into Ms cottage and give it the peach, or drop 
 the shell down his chimney, and blow his roof off. 
 
 The worst of it, for the peasant, is, that the capitalist’s 
 consumption of the peach is apt to he selfish, and of the 
 shell, distributive ; * but, in all cases, this is the broad and 
 general fact, that on due catallactic commercial principles, 
 
 * It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that 
 it is entirely capitalists’ wealth which supports unjust wars. Just wars 
 do not need so much money to support them ; for most of the men who 
 wage such, wage them gratis; hut for an unjust war, men’s bodies and 
 souls have both to be bought ; and the best tools of war for them besides ; 
 which makes such war costly to the maximum; not to speak of the 
 cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between nations which have not 
 grace nor honesty enough in all their multitudes to buy an hour’s peace 
 of mind with : as, at present, France and England, purchasing of each 
 other ten millions sterling worth of consternation annually, (a remarkably 
 light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves, — sown, reaped, and grana- 
 ried by the “science” of the modern pohtical economist, teaching covet- 
 ousness instead of truth.) And all unjust war being supportable, if not 
 by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitahsts, these loans are 
 repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who appear to have no will 
 in the matter, the capitahsts’ will being the primary root of the war; 
 but its real root is the covetousness of the whole nation, rendering i^ 
 incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about, therefore, in 
 due time, his own separate loss and punishment to each person. 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 125 
 
 iomebodifs roof must go off in fulfilment of tlie bomb’s 
 destiny. You may grow for your neighbour, at your liking, 
 grapes or grapeshot ; he will also, catallactically, gro\\ 
 grapes or grapeshot for you, and you will each reap what 
 you have sown. 
 
 It is, therefore, the maimer and issue of consumption 
 which are the real tests of production. Production does 
 not consist in things laboriously made, but in things service- 
 ably consumable ; and the question for the nation is not 
 how much labour it employs, but how much life it pro- 
 duces. For as consumption is the end and aim of produc- 
 tion, so life is the end and aim of consumption. 
 
 I left this question to the reader’s thought two months 
 ago, choosing rather that he should work it out for him- 
 self than have it sharply stated to him. But now, the 
 ground being sufficiently broken (and the details into wliich 
 the several questions, here opened, must lead us, being too 
 complex for discussion in the pages of a periodical, so that 
 I must pursue them elsewhere), I desii-e, in closing the 
 series of introductory papers, to leave this one great fact 
 clearly stated. There is no Wealth but Life. Life, 
 including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. 
 That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest 
 number of noble and happy human beings; that man is 
 richest who, leaving perfected the functions of his own life 
 
126 
 
 AD VALOEEM. 
 
 to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both 
 personal, and by means of his jDOSsessions, over the lives of 
 others. 
 
 A strange political economy; the only one, nevertheless, 
 that ever was or can be : all political economy founded on 
 self-interest'^ being but the fulfilment of that which once 
 brought schism into the Policy of angels, and ruin into the 
 Economy of Heaven. 
 
 “ The greatest number of human beings noble and 
 happy.” But is the nobleness consistent with the number? 
 Yes, not only consistent with it, but essential to it. The 
 maximum of life can only be reached by the maximum of 
 virtue. In this respect the law of human population differs 
 wholly from that of animal life. The multiplication of 
 animals is checked only by want of food, and by the hos- 
 tility of races ; the population of the gnat is restrained by 
 the hunger of the swallow, and that of the swallow by the 
 scarcity of gnats. Man, considered as an animal, is indeed 
 limited by the same laws; hunger, or plague, or war, are 
 the necessary and only restraints upon his increase, — effect- 
 ual restraints hitherto, — his j^rincipal study having been how 
 most swiftly to destroy himself, or ravage his dwelling- 
 places, and his highest skill directed to give range to the 
 
 * “In all reasoning about prices, the proviso must be understood, 
 * supposing aU parties to take care of their own interest.’ ” — si^Iill, III. i. 5. 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 127 
 
 famine, seed to the plague, and sway to the sword. But, 
 considered as other than an animal, his increase is not 
 limited by these laws. It is limited only by the limits of 
 his courage and his love. Both of these their bounds ; 
 and ought to have : his race has its bounds also ; but these 
 have not yet been reached, nor will be reached for 
 ages. 
 
 In all the ranges of human thought I know none so 
 melancholy as the Sj^eculations of political economists on the 
 l)opulation question. It is proposed to better the condition 
 of the labourer by giving him higher wages. ay,” says 
 the economist, “ if you raise his wages, he will either peo- 
 ple down to the same point of misery at which you found 
 him, or drink your wages away.” He will. I know it. 
 Who gave him this will? Suppose it were your own son 
 of whom you spoke, declaring to me that you dared not 
 take him into your firm, nor even give him his just labour 
 er’s wages, because if you did, he would die of drunkenness, 
 and leave half a score of children to the parish. “ Who 
 g.'n e your son these dispositions ? ” — I should inquire. Has 
 he them by inheiitance or by education ? By one or other 
 they must come ; and as in him, so also in the poor. 
 Either these poor are of a race essentially different from 
 ours, and unredeemable (which, however often implied, I 
 have heard none yet openly say), or else by such care as 
 
J28 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 we have ourselves received, we may make them continent 
 and sober as ourselves — Avise and dispassionate as we are« 
 — models arduous of imitation. “But,” it is answered, 
 “ they cannot receive education,” Why not ? That is pre- 
 cisely the point at issue. Charitable persons suppose the 
 Avorst fault of the rich is to refuse the people meat ; and 
 the people cry for their meat, kept back by fraud, to the 
 Lord of Multitudes.^ Alas ! it is not meat of Avhich the 
 refusal is crudest, or to which the claim is validest. The 
 
 * James V. 4. Observe, in these statements I am not taking up, nor 
 countenancing one Avhit, the common socialist idea of division of property; 
 division of property is its destruction; and with it the destruction of all 
 hope, all industry, and all justice : it' is simply chaos — a chaos towards 
 which the believers in modern political economy are fast tending, and 
 from which I am striving to save them. The rich man does not keep 
 back meat from the poor by retaining his riches; but by basely using 
 them. Riches are a form of strength ; and a strong man does not injure 
 others by keeping his strength, but by using it injuriously. The socialist, 
 seeing a strong man oppress a weak one, cries out — “Break the strong 
 man’s arms ; ” but I say, “ Teach him to use them to better purpose.” 
 The fortitude and intelligence which acquire riches are intended, by the 
 Giver of both, not to scatter, nor to give away, but to employ those 
 riches in the service of mankind; in other words, in the redemption of 
 the erring and aid of the weak — that is to say, there is first to be the 
 work to gain money ; then the Sabbath of use for it — the Sabbath, whose 
 law is, not to lose life, but to save. It is continually the fault or the 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 129 
 
 life is more than the meat. Tlie rich not only refuse fooci 
 to the poor; they refuse wisdom; they refuse virtue; they 
 refuse salvation. Ye sheep without shepherd, it is not the 
 ])asture that has been shut from you, but the presence. 
 Meat! perhaps your right to that may be pleadable; but 
 other rights have to be pleaded first. Claim your crumbs 
 from the table, if you will ; but claim them as children, 
 not as dogs; claim your right to be fed, but claim more 
 loudly your right to be holy, perfect, and pure. 
 
 Strange words to be used of working people : “ What ! 
 
 holy; without any long robes nor anointing oils; these 
 rough-jacketed, rough-worded persons; set to nameless and 
 dishonoured service? Perfect! — these, with dim eyes and 
 cramped limbs, and slowly wakening minds ? Pure — these, 
 with sensual desire and grovelling thought ; foul of body, 
 and coarse of soul?” It may be so; nevertheless, such as 
 they are, they are the holiest, perfectest, purest persons 
 folly of the poor that they are poor, as it is usually a child’s fault if it 
 falls into a pond, and a cripple’s weakness that slips at a crossing; 
 nevertheless, most passers-by would pull the child out, or help up the 
 cripple. Put it at the worst, that all the poor of the world are but 
 disobedient children, or careless cripples, and that all rich people are 
 wise and strong, and you will see at once that neither is the socialist 
 right in desiring to make everybody poor, powerless, and foohsh as he 
 is himself, nor the rich man right in leaving the children in the 
 mire. 
 
 6 * 
 
130 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 the earth can at present show. They may be what yoa 
 liave said ; but if so, they yet are holier than we, who 
 liave left them thus. 
 
 But what can be done for them ? Who can clothe — 
 who teach — who restrain their multitudes ? What end can 
 there be for them at last, but to consume one another ? 
 
 I hope for another end, though not, indeed, from any 
 of the three remedies for over-population commonly suggested 
 by economists. 
 
 These three are, in brief — Colonization ; Bringing in of 
 waste lands ; or Discouragement of Mamage. 
 
 The first and second of these expedients merely evade or 
 delay the question. It will, indeed, be long before the 
 world has been all colonized, and its deserts all brought 
 under cultivation. But the radical question is not how 
 much habitable land is in the world, but how many human 
 beings onglit to be maintained on a given space of habitable 
 land. 
 
 Observe, I say, ought to be, not how many can be. 
 Bicardo, with his usual inaccuracy, defines what he calls 
 the “ natural rate of wages ” as “ that which will maintain 
 the labourer.” Maintain him! yes; but how ? — ^the question 
 was instantly thus asked of me by a working girl, to whom 
 I read the passage. I will amplify her question for her. 
 “ Maintain him, how ? ” As first, to what length of life ? 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 131 
 
 Out of a given number of fed persons bow many arc to be 
 old — bow many young ; tliat is to say, will you arrange 
 tbeir mriintenance so as to kill them early — say at tbirly 
 or tbirty-fye on the average, including deaths of weakl) 
 or ill-fed children ? — or so as to enable them to live out a 
 natural life? You' will feed a greater number, in the first 
 case,^'’ by rapidity of succession ; probably a happier num- 
 ber in the second: which does Mr. Ricardo mean to be 
 their natural state, and to which state belongs the natural 
 rate of wages ? 
 
 Again : A piece of land which will only suj)port ten 
 
 idle, ignorant, and improvident persons, will sup|3ort thirty 
 or forty intelligent and industrious ones. Which of these 
 is their natural state, and- to which of them belongs the 
 natural rate of wages ? 
 
 Again : If a piece of land support forty persons in indus- 
 trious ignorance ; and if, tired of this ignorance, they set 
 apart ten of their number to study the properties of cones, 
 and the sizes of stars ; the labour of these ten, being with- 
 di-awn from the ground, must either tend to the increase 
 of food in some transitional manner, or the persons set 
 apart for siderial and conic purposes must starve, or some 
 one else starve instead of them. What is, therefore, the 
 
 * The quantity of life is the same in. both cases ; but it is differentlj 
 
 allotted. 
 
132 
 
 AD VALOREIM. 
 
 rate natural of wages of the scientiiic persons, and how 
 does this rate relate to, or measure, their reverted or 
 trnnsitional productiveness ? 
 
 Again : If the ground maintains, at first, forty labourers 
 in a peaceable and pious state of mind, but they become in 
 a few years so quarrelsome and impious that they have to 
 set apart five, to meditate upon and settle their disputes ; — ■ 
 ten, armed to the teeth with costly instruments, to enforce 
 the decisions; and five to remind everybody in an eloquent 
 manner of the existence of a God ; — what will be the result 
 upon the general power of production, and what is the 
 “natural rate of wages” of the meditative, muscular, and 
 oracular labourers ? 
 
 Leaving these questions to be discussed, or waived, at 
 their pleasure, by Mi’. Ricardo’s followers, I proceed to state 
 the main facts bearing on that probable future of the labour- 
 ing classes which has been partially glanced at by Mr, Mill. 
 That chapter and the preceding one differ from the common 
 writing of political economists in admitting some value in 
 the aspect of nature, and expressing regret at the proba- 
 bility of the destruction of natural scenery. But we may 
 spare our anxieties on this head. Men can neither drink 
 steam, nor eat stone. The maximum of population on a 
 given space of land implies also the relative maximum of 
 edible vegetable, whether for men or cattle ; it implies a 
 
AU VALOllEM. 
 
 133 
 
 maximmn of pure air ; and of pure water. Therefore : a 
 maximum of wood, to transmute tlie air, and of sloping 
 ground, protected by herbage from the extreme heat of the 
 sun, to feed the streams. All England may, if it so cliooses, 
 become one manufacturing town ; and Englishmen, sacri- 
 ficing themselves to the good of general humanity, may live 
 diminished lives in the midst of noise, of darkness, and of 
 deadly exhalation. But the world cannot become a factory, 
 nor a mine. No amount of ingenuity will ever make iron 
 digestible by the million, nor substitute hydrogen for wine. 
 Neither the avarice nor the rage of men will ever feed them, 
 and however the apple of Sodom and the grape of Gomorrah 
 may spread their table fi^r a time with dainties of ashes, and 
 nectar of asps, — so long as men live by bread, the far away 
 valleys must laugh as they are covered vrith the gold of God, 
 and the shouts of His happy multitudes ring l ound the wine- 
 ])ress and the well. 
 
 Nor need our more sentimental economists fear the too 
 wide spread of the formalities of a mechanical agriculture. 
 The presence of a wise population implies the search for 
 felicity as well as for food ; nor can any population reach its 
 maximum but through that wisdom which “rejoices” in the 
 habitable parts of the earth. The desert has its appointed 
 place and work; the eternal engine, whose beam is the earth’s 
 axle, whose beat is its year, and whose breath is its ocean, 
 
134 
 
 AD VALOEEM. 
 
 will still divide imperiously to their desert kingdoms, bound 
 with unfurrowable rock, and swept by unarrested sand, their 
 powers of frost and fire : but the zones and lands between, 
 habitable, will be loveliest in habitation. The desire of the 
 heart is also the light of the eyes. I^^o scene is continually 
 and untiringly loved, but one rich by joyful human labour; 
 smooth in field, fair in garden ; full in orchard ; trim, sweet, 
 and frequent in homestead ; ringing with voices of vivid 
 existence. No air is sweet that is silent; it is only sweet 
 when full of low currents of under sound — triplets of birds, 
 and murmur and chirp of insects, and deep-toned words of 
 men, and wayward trebles of childhood. As the art of life 
 is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely things are 
 also necessary : — the wild flower by the wayside, as well 
 as the tended corn ; and the wild birds and creatures of the 
 forest, as well as the tended cattle; because man doth not 
 live by bread only, but also by the desert manna; by every 
 ■wondrous word and unknowable work of God. Happy, in 
 that he knew them not, nor did his fathers know ; and that 
 round about him reaches yet into the infinite, the amazement 
 of his existence. 
 
 Note, finally, that all effectual advancement towards this 
 true felicity of the human race must be by individual, not 
 public effort. Certain general measures may aid, certain 
 revised laws guide, such advancement; but the measure and 
 
AD YALOKEM. 
 
 135 
 
 law which have first to be determined are those of each 
 man’s home. We continually hear it recommended by saga- 
 clous people to complaining neighbours (usually less well 
 placed in the world than themselves), that they should “re 
 main content in the station in Avhich Providence has placed 
 them.” There are- perhaps some circumstances of life in 
 which Providence has no intention that people should be 
 content. ISTevertheless, the maxim is on the whole a good 
 one ; but it is peculiarly for home use. That your neighbour 
 should, or should not, remain content with his position, is 
 not your business ; but it is very much your business to 
 remain content with your own. What is chiefly needed in 
 England at the present day is to show the quantity of plea- 
 sure that may be obtained by a consistent, well-administered 
 competence, modest, confessed, and laborious. We need 
 examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether 
 they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they 
 will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek — not greater 
 wealth, but simjfler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper 
 felicity ; making the fii-st of possessions, self-possession ; and 
 honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits 
 of peace. 
 
 Of which lowly peace it is written that “justice and peace 
 have kissed each other;” and that the fruit of justice is 
 “sown in peace of them that make peace;” not “peace 
 
136 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 makers” in the common understanding — reconcilers of quar* 
 rels; (tLoiigh that function also follows on the greater one;) 
 but peace-Creators ; Givers of Calm. Which you cannot give, 
 unless you first gain ; nor is this gain one which will follow 
 assuredly on any course of business, commonly so called. 
 Xo form of gain is less probable, business being (as is shown 
 in the language of all nations — vrwXsfv from <rrsXu, from 
 
 ‘jtspxu, venire, vendre, and venal, from venio, &c.) essentially 
 restless — and pi-obably contentious; — having a raven-like 
 mind to the motion to and fro, as to the carrion food; 
 whereas the olive-feeding and bearing birds look for rest for 
 their feet : thus it is said of Wisdom thal she “ hath builded 
 her house, and hewn out her seven pillars ;” and even when, 
 though apt to wait long at the doorposts, she has to leave 
 her house and go abroad, her paths are peace also. 
 
 For us, at all events, her work must begin at the entry 
 of the doors: all true economy is “Law of the house.” 
 Strive to make that law strict, simple, generous: waste 
 nothing, and grudge nothing. Care in nowise to make 
 more of money, but care to make much of it ; remembering 
 always the great, palpable, inevitable fact — the rule and 
 root of all economy — that what one person has, another 
 cannot have; and that every atom of substance, of what- 
 ever kind, used or consumed, is so much human life spent ; 
 which, if it issue in the saving present life, or gaining 
 
AD VALOREM. 
 
 137 
 
 more, is well spent, but if not, is either so much life pre- 
 vented, or so much slain. In all buying, consider, first, 
 what condition of existence you cause in the producers 
 of what you buy 5 secondly, whether the sum you have 
 ,)aid is just to the producer, and in due proportion, 
 lodged in his hands thirdly, to how much clear use, 
 fur food, knowledge, or joy, this that you have bought 
 can be put ; and fourthly, to whom and in what way 
 it can be most speedily and serviceably distributed : in 
 all dealings whatsoever insisting on entire openness and 
 stern fulfilment ; and in all doings, on perfection and 
 loveliness of accomplishment; especially on fineness and 
 purity of all marketable commodity: watching at the 
 same time for all ways of gaining, or teaching, powers 
 of simple pleasure ; and of showing “ 6Vov sv ysy’ 
 
 nvsioip ” — the sum of enjoyment depending not on the quan- 
 tity of things tasted, but on the vivacity and patience of 
 taste. 
 
 * The proper offices of middle-men, namely, overseers (or authoritative 
 workmen), conveyancers (merchants, sailors, retail dealers, &c.), and order- 
 takers (persons employed to receive directions from the consumer), must, 
 of course, be examined before I can enter farther into the question of 
 just payment of the first producer. But I have not spoken of them in 
 these introductory papers, because the evils attendant on the abuse of 
 such intermediate functions result not from any alleged principle of mod 
 ern pohtical economy, but from private carelessness or iniquity. 
 
138 
 
 AD VALOREM. 
 
 And if, on due and honest thought over these things, 
 it seems that the kind of existence to which men are 
 now summoned by every plea of pity and claim of righi, 
 may, for some time at least, not be a luxurious one ; 
 — consider whether, even supposing it guiltless, luxury 
 would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at 
 our sides the suffering which accompanies it in the world. 
 Luxury is indeed possible in the future — innocent and 
 exquisite; luxury for all, and by the help of all: but 
 luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant ; 
 the cruelest man living could not sit at his feast, unless 
 he sat blindfold. Raise the veil boldly; face the light; 
 and if, as yet, the light of the eye can only be through 
 tears, and the light of the body through sackcloth, go 
 thou forth weeping, bearing precious seeci, until the time 
 come, and the kingdom, when Christ’s gift of bread and 
 bequest of peace shall be Unto this last as unto thee; 
 and when, for earth’s severed multitudes of the wicked 
 and the weary, there shall be holier reconciliation than 
 that of the narroAV home, and calm economy, where the 
 Wicked cease — not from trouble, but from troubling— 
 and the Weary are at rest. 
 
 THE EXD 
 
/ 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 SIX ESSAYS 
 
 ON THE ELEMENTS OF 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN RUSKIN, 
 
 HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRISTCHURCH, OXFORD. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN WILEY & SON, 
 
 15 ASTOR PLACE. 
 
 1872. 
 
Poole & Maclauchlan, Printers, 
 
 205-213 East Twelfth Street. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface v 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. Definitions 1 
 
 II. Store-Keeping 21 
 
 [II, Coin-Keeping 57 
 
 tv. Commerce 83 
 
 V. Government ' 98 
 
 VI. Mastership 131 
 
 Appendices 157 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following pages contain, I believe, the first accu- 
 rate analysis of the laws of Political Economy which has 
 been published in England. Many treatises, within their 
 scope, correct, have aj)peared in contradiction of the views 
 popularly received ; but no exhaustive examination of the 
 subject was possible to any person unacquainted with the 
 value of the products of the highest industries, commonly 
 called the “ Fine Arts ; ” and no one acquainted with the 
 nature of those industries has, so far as I know, attempted, 
 or even approached, the task. 
 
 So that, to the date (1863) when these Essays were pub- 
 lished, not only the chief conditions of the production of 
 wealth had remained unstated, but the nature of wealth 
 itself had never been defined. “ Every one has a notion, 
 sufficiently correct for common purposes, of what is meant 
 by wealth,” wrote Mr. Mill, in the outset of his treatise ; 
 and contentedly proceeded, as if a chemist should proceed 
 to investigate the laws of chemistry without endeavouring 
 
vi. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 
 •<5 
 
 I 
 
 ■«> 
 
 to ascertain the nature of fii*e or water, because every one 
 had a notion of them, ‘‘ sufficiently correct for common 
 purposes.” 
 
 But even that apparently indisputable statement was 
 untrue. There is not one person in ten thousand who has 
 a notion sufficiently correct, even for the commonest pur- 
 poses, of “ what is meant ” by wealth ; still less of what 
 wealth everlastingly is, whether we mean it or not ; which 
 it is the business of every student of economy to ascertain. 
 AYe, indeed, know (either by experience or in imagination) 
 what it is to be able to provide om-selves with luxurious 
 food, and handsome clothes ; and if Mr. Mill had thought 
 that wealth consisted only in these, or in the means of 
 obtaining these, it would have been easy for him to have 
 so defined it with perfect scientific accuracy. But he 
 knew better : he knew that some kinds of wealth consisted 
 in the possession, or power of obtaining, other things than 
 tliese ; but, having, in the studies of his life, no clue to the 
 principles of essential value, he was compelled to take 
 public opinion as the ground of his science ; and the pub- 
 lic, of course, willingly accepted the notion of a science 
 founded on their opinions. 
 
 I had, on the contrary, a singular advantage, not only 
 in the greater extent of the field of investigation opened 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 vii 
 
 to me by my daily pursuits, but in the severity of some 
 lessons I accidentally received in the course of them. 
 
 When, in the winter of 1851, I was collecting ma- 
 terials for my work on Venetian architecture, three 
 of the pictures of Tintoret on the roof of the School 
 of St. Roch were hanging down in ragged fragments, 
 mixed with lath and plaster, round the apertures 
 made by the fall of three Austrian heavy shot. The 
 city of Venice was not, it appeared, rich enough to 
 repair the damage that winter ; and buckets were set 
 on the floor of the upper room of the school to catch 
 the rain, which not only fell directly through the 
 shot holes, but found its way, owing to the generally 
 pervious state of the roof, through many of the can 
 vasses of Tintoret’s in other parts of the ceiling. 
 
 It was a lesson to me, as I have just said, no less 
 direct than severe ; for I knew already at that time 
 (though I have not ventured to assert, until recently at 
 Oxford,) that the pictures of Tintoret in Venice were 
 accurately th^most precious articles of wealth in Europe,, 
 b^^ t he be st existing productions of human industry. . 
 Xow at the time that three of them were thus fluttering 
 in moist rags from the roof they had adorned, the shops 
 of the Rue Eivoli at Paris were, in obedience to a 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 viii 
 
 steadily-increasing public Demand, beginning to show 
 a steadily-increasing Supply of elaborately-finished and 
 (coloured lithographs, representing the modern dances of 
 delight, among which the cancan has since taken a dis- 
 tinguished place. 
 
 The labour employed on the stone of one of these 
 lithographs is very much more than Tintoret was in 
 the habit of giving to a picture of average size. Con- 
 sidering labour as the origin of value, therefore, the 
 stone so highly wrought would be of greater value than 
 the picture ; and since also it is capable of producing a 
 large number of immediately saleable or exchangeable 
 impressions, for which the “ demand ” is constant, the 
 city of Paris naturally supposed itself, and on all hitherto 
 believed or stated principles of political economy, was,- 
 infinitely richer in the possession of a large number of 
 these lithographic stones, (not to speak of countless oil 
 pictures and marble carvings of similar character), than 
 Yenice in the possession of- those rags of mildewed 
 canvas, fiaunting in the south wind- and its salt rain. 
 And, accordingly, Paris provided (without thought of the 
 expense) lofty arcades of shops, and rich recesses of 
 innumerable private apartments, for the protection of 
 these better treasures of hers from the weather. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IX 
 
 Yet, all the while, Paris was not the richer for these 
 possessions. Intrinsically, the delightful lithographs 
 were not wealth, but polar contraries of wealth. She 
 was,~by the exact quantity of labour she had given to 
 produce these, sunk below, instead of above, absolute 
 Poverty. They not only were false Piches — they were 
 true Deht^ which had to be paid at last — and the present 
 aspect of the Pue Pivoli shows in what manner. 
 
 And the faded stains of the Venetian ceiling, all the- 
 while, were absolute and inestimable wealth. Useless 
 to their possessors as forgotten treasure in a buried city, 
 they had in them, nevertheless, the intrinsic and eternal 
 nature of wealth; and Venice, still possessing the ruins 
 of them, was a rich city ; only, the V enetians had not a 
 notion sufficiently correct even for the very common 
 purpose of inducing them to put slates on a roof, of w'hat 
 was “ meant by wealth.” 
 
 The vulgar economist would reply that his science 
 had nothing to do with the qualities of pictures, but 
 with their ex change- value only; and that his business 
 w^as, exclusively, to consider whether the remains of 
 Tintoret were worth as many ten-and-sixpences as the 
 impressions which might be taken from the lithographic 
 stones. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 But he would not venture, without reserve, to make 
 such an answer, if the example be taken in horses, 
 instead of pictures. The most dull economist would 
 perceive, and admit, that a gentleman who had a line 
 stud of horses was absolutely richer than one who had 
 only ill-bred and broken-winded ones. He would in- 
 stinctively feel, though his pseudo-science had never 
 taught him, that the price paid for the anima ls, in eith er 
 case, did not alter the fact of their worthj that the good 
 horse, though it might have been bought by chance for a 
 few guineas, was not therefore less valuable, nor the owner 
 of the galled jade any the richer, because he had given a 
 hundred for it. 
 
 So that the economist, in saying that his science takes 
 no account of the qualities of pictures, merely signifies 
 that he cannot conceive of any quality of essential 
 badness or goodness existing in pictures ; and that he is 
 incapable of investigating the laws of wealth in such 
 articles. Which is the fact. But, being incapable of 
 defining intrinsic value in pictures, it follows that he 
 must be equally helpless to define the nature of intrinsic 
 value in painted glass, or in painted pottery, or in pat- 
 terned stuffs, or in any other national produce requiring 
 true human ingenuity. l^ay, though capable of con- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XI 
 
 ceiviiig the idea of intrinsic value with respect to beasts 
 of burden, no economist has endeavoured to state the 
 general principles of National Economy, even with regard 
 to the horse or the ass. And, in line, the modern jpolitical 
 economisU hare heen^ without exception^ incapable of ap- 
 prehending the nature of intrinsic value at all. 
 
 And the first specialty of the following treatise consists 
 in its giving at the outset, and maintaining as the founda- 
 tion of all subsequent reasoning, a definition of Intrinsic 
 Value, and Intrinsic Contrary-of -Value ; the negative 
 power having been left by former writers entirely out of 
 account, and the positive power left entirely undefined. 
 
 But, secondly : the modern economist, ignoring intrinsic 
 value, and accepting the popular estimate of things as the 
 only ground of his science, has imagined himself to have 
 asceHained the constant laws regulating the relation of 
 this popular demand to its supply; or, at least, to have 
 proved that demand and supply were connected by 
 heavenly balance, over which human foresight had no 
 power. I chanced, by singular coincidence, lately to see 
 this theory of the law of demand and supply brought to as 
 sharp practical issue in another great siege, as I had seen 
 the theories of intrinsic value brought, in the siege of 
 V enice. 
 
XU 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I liad the honour of being on the committee under the 
 presidentship of the Lord Major of London, for the vic- 
 tualling of Paris after her surrender. It became, at one 
 period of our sittings, a question of vital importance at 
 what moment tlie law of demand and supply would come 
 into operation, and what the operation of it would exactly 
 be : the demand, on this occasion, being very urgent 
 indeed ; that of several millions of people within a few 
 horn’s of utter starvation, for any kind of food whatsoever. 
 I^evertheless, it was admitted, in the course of debate, to be 
 probable that the divine principle of demand and supply 
 might find itself at the eleven:th hour, and some minutes 
 over, in want of carts and horses ; and we ventured so far 
 to interfere with the divine principle as to provide carts 
 and horses, with haste which proved, happily, in time for 
 the need ; but not a moment in advance of it. It was 
 farther recognized by the committee that the divine prin- 
 ciple of demand and supply would commence its operations 
 by charging the poor of Paris twelve-pence for a penny’s 
 worth of whatever they wanted ; and would end its opera- 
 tions by offering them twelve-pence worth for a penny, of 
 whatever they didn’t want. Whereupon it was concluded 
 by the committee that the tiny knot, on this special occa- 
 sion, was scarcely dignus vindice,'^ by the divine princi- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 xm 
 
 pie of demand and supply : and that we would venture, 
 for once, in a profane manner, to provide for the poor of 
 Paris what they wanted, when they wanted it. Which, to 
 the value of the sums entrusted to us, it will be remem- 
 bered we succeeded in doing. 
 
 But the fact is that the so-called “ law,” which was felt 
 to be false in this case of extreme exigence, is alike false 
 in cases of less exigence. It is false always, and every- 
 where. ^lay, to such an extent is its existence imagi- 
 nary, that the vulgar economists are not even agreed 
 in their account of it; for some of them mean by it, 
 only that prices are regulated by the relation between 
 demand and supply, which is partly true ; and others 
 mean that the relation itself is one with the process of 
 which it is unwise to interfere ; a statement which is 
 not only, as in the above instance, untrue ; but accurately 
 the reverse of the truth: for all wise economy, political 
 or domestic, consists in the resolved maintenance of a 
 given relation between supply and demand, other than 
 the instinctive, or (directly) natural, one. 
 
 Similarly, vulgar political economy asserts for a “ law ” 
 that wages are determined by competition. 
 
 Now I pay my servants exactly what wages I think 
 necessary to make them comfortable. The sum is not 
 
XIV 
 
 PKEFACE. 
 
 determined at all by competition ; but sometimes by my 
 notions of their comfort and deserving, and sometimes 
 by theirs. If I were to become penniless to-morrow, 
 several of them would certainly still serve me for noth- 
 
 ing. 
 
 In both the real and supposed cases the so-called “law” 
 of vulgar political economy is absolutely set at defian’ce. 
 But I cannot set the law of gravitation at defiance, nor 
 determine that in my house I will not allow ice to melt, 
 when the temperature is above thirty-two degrees. A 
 true law outside of my house, will remain a true one 
 inside of it. It_is.,not, therefore, a law of Nature that 
 wages are determined by competition. Still less is it a 
 law of State, or we should not now be disputing about 
 it publicly, to the loss of many millions of pounds to the 
 country. The fact which vulgar economists have been 
 weak enough to imagine a law, is only that, for the last 
 twenty years a number of very senseless persons have 
 attempted to determine wages in that manner ; and have, 
 in a measure, succeeded in occasionally doing so. 
 
 Both in definition of the elements of wealth, and in 
 statement of the laws which govern its distribution, mod- 
 ern political economy has been thus absolutely incom- 
 petent, or absolutely false. And the following treatise 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XV 
 
 is not, as it has been asserted with dull pertinacity, an 
 endeavour to put sentiment in the place of science ; but , 
 it contains the exposure of what insolently pretended to ‘ 
 be a science ; and the definition, hitherto unassailed — and 
 I do not fear to assert, unassailable — of the material 
 elements with which political economy has to deal, and 
 the moral principles in which it consists ; being not itself 
 a science, but “a, system, of conduct founded on the 
 sciences, a^Jmpossible, except under certain conditions 
 of moral culture.” Which is only to say, that industry, 
 frugality, and discretion, the three foundations of econ- 
 omy, are moral qualities, and cannot be attained without 
 moral discipline : a fiat truism, the reader may think, 
 thus stated, yet a truism which is denied both vocifer- 
 ously, and in all endeavour, by the entire populace of 
 Europe ; who are at present hopeful of obtaining wealth 
 by tricks of trade, without industry ; who, possessing 
 wealth, have lost in the use of it even the conception, — 
 how much more the habit ? — of frugality ; and who, in the 
 jihoice of the elements of wealth, cannot so much as lose 
 — since they have never hitherto at any time possessed, — 
 the faculty of discretion. 
 
 [N’ow if the teachers of the pseudo-science of economy 
 had ventured to state distinctly even the poor conclusions 
 
XVI 
 
 PKEFACE. 
 
 they had reached on the subjects respecting which it is 
 most dangerous for a populace to be indiscreet, they 
 would have ’ soon found, by the use made of them, which 
 were true, and which false. 
 
 But on main and vital questions, no political economist 
 has hitherto ventured to state one guiding principle. I 
 will instance three subjects of universal importance. Na- 
 tional Dress. National Bent. National Debt. 
 
 Now if we are to look in any quarter for a systematic 
 and exhaustive statement of the principles of a given 
 science, it must certainly be from its Professor at 
 Cambridge. 
 
 Take the last edition of Professor Fawcett’s Manual of 
 Political Economy^ and forming, first clearly in youi 
 mind these three following questions, see if you <?an find 
 an answer to them. 
 
 I. Does expenditure of capital on the production of 
 luxurious dress and furniture tend to make a nation rich 
 or poor ? 
 
 II. Does the payment, by the nation, of a tax on its 
 land, or on the produce of it, to a certain number of pri- 
 vate persons, to be expended by them as they please, tend 
 to make the nation rich or poor ? 
 
 III. Does the payment, by the nation, for an indefinite 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 KVll 
 
 period, of interest on money borrowed from private per- 
 sons, tend to make the nation rich or poor ? 
 
 These three questions are, all of them, perfectly simple, 
 and primarily vital. Determine these, and yon have at! 
 once a basis for national conduct in all important particu-l 
 lars. Leave them undetermined, and there is no limit to 
 the distress which may be brought upon the people by the 
 cunning of its knaves, and the folly of its multitudes. 
 
 I will take the three in their order. 
 
 I. Dress. The general impression on the public mind 
 at this day is, that the luxury of the rich in dress and' 
 furniture is a benefit to the poor. Probably not even the 
 blindest of our political economists would venture to- 
 assert this in so many words* But where do they assert 
 the contrary ? During the entire period of the reign of 
 *the late Emperor it was assumed in France, as the first 
 principle of fiscal government, that a large portion of the 
 funds received as rent from the provincial labourer should 
 l)e expended in the manufacture of ladies’ dresses in 
 Paris. Where is the political economist in France, or 
 England, who ventured to assert the conclusious of his 
 science as adverse to this system ? As early as the year 
 1857 I had done my best to show the nature of the error^ 
 
and to give warning of its danger;* but not one of the 
 men who had the foolish ears of the people intent on their 
 words, dared to follow me in speaking what would have 
 been an offence to the powers of trade ; and the powers of 
 trade in Paris had their full way for fourteen years more, 
 — with this result, to-day, — as told us in precise and curt 
 terms by the Minister of Public Instruction, — f 
 
 “We have replaced glory by gold, work by speculation, faith and 
 honour by scepticism. To absolve or glorify immorality ; to make 
 much of loose women; to gratify our eyes with luxury, our ears woth 
 the tales of orgies ; to aid in the manoeuvres of public robbers, or to 
 applaud them ; to laugh at morality, and only believe in success ; to 
 love nothing but pleasure, adore nothing but force ; to replace work 
 with a fecundity of fancies; to speak without thinking; to prefer 
 noise to glory ; to erect sneering into a system, and lying into an in- 
 stitution — is this the spectacle that we have seen ? — is this the society 
 that we have been ? ” 
 
 Of course, other causes, besides the desire of luxury in 
 furniture and dress, have been at w’ork to produce such 
 consequences; but the most active ca use of all jus been 
 the passion for these ; passion unrebuked by the clergy, 
 and, for the most part, provoked by economists, as advan- 
 tageous to commerce; nor need we think that such results 
 have been arrived at in France only; we are ourselves fol- 
 
 * Political Economy of Art. (Smith and Elder, 1857, pp. 65-76.) 
 
 f See report of speech of M. Jules Simon, in Pall Mall Gazette of 
 October 27, 1871. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XIX 
 
 lowing rapidly on the same road. France, in her old wars 
 with us, never was so fatally our enemy as she has been in 
 the fellowship of fashion, and the freedom of trade : nor, 
 to my mind, is any fact recorded of Ass}n*ian or Koman 
 luxury more ominous, or ghastly, than one which came to 
 my knowledge a few weeks ago, in England ; a respect- 
 able and well-to-do father and mother, in a quiet north 
 country town, being turned into the streets in their old 
 age, at the suit of their only daughter’s milliner. 
 
 II. Rent. The following account of the real nature of 
 rent is given, quite accurately, by Professor Fawcett, at 
 page 112 of the last edition of his Political Economy : — 
 
 “ Every country has probably been subjugated, and grants of van- 
 quished territory were the ordinary rewards which the conquering 
 chief bestovN^ed upon his more distinguished followers. Lands ob- 
 tained by force had to be defended by force ; and before law had 
 asserted her supremacy, and property was made secure, no baron was 
 able to retain his possessions, unless those who lived on his estates 
 were prepared to defend them, . . . * As property became secure, 
 
 and landlords felt that the power of the State would protect them in 
 all the rights of property, every vestige of these feudal tenures was 
 abolished, and the relation between landlord and tenant has thus be- 
 come purely commercial. A landlord offers his land to any one who 
 is willing to take it ; he is anxious to receive the highest rent he can ’ 
 obtain. What are the principles which regulate the rent which may 
 thus be paid ? ” 
 
 * The omitted sentences merely amplify the statement ; they in no 
 wise modify it. 
 
XX 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 These principles the Professor goes on contentedly to 
 investigate, never appearing to contemplate for an instant 
 the possibility of the first principle in the whole business 
 — the maintenance, by force, of the possession of land ob- 
 tained by force, being ever called in question by any 
 human mind. It is, nevertheless, the nearest task of our 
 day to discover how far original theft may be justly en- 
 countered by reactionary theft, or whether reactionary 
 theft be indeed theft at all ; and farther, what, excluding 
 either original or corrective theft, are the just conditions 
 of the possession of land. 
 
 III. Debt. Long since, wLen, a mere boy, I used to sit 
 silently listening to the conversation of the London mer- 
 chants who, all of them good and sound men. of business, 
 were wont occasionally to meet round my fathers dining- 
 table ; nothing used to surprise me more than the convic- 
 tion openly expressed by some of the soundest and most 
 cautious of them, that “if there were no l^ational debt 
 they would not know what to do with their money, or 
 where to place it safely.” At the 399th page of his Man- 
 ual, you will find Professor Fawcett giving exactly the 
 same statement. 
 
 “ In our own country, this certainty against risk of loss is provided 
 by the public funds ; 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XXI 
 
 Riid again, as on the question of rent, the Professor pro- 
 ceeds, without appearing for an instant to be troubled by 
 any misgiving that there may be an essential difference 
 between tlie effects on national prosperity of a Govern- 
 ment paying interest on money which it spent in fire- 
 works fifty years ago, and of a Government paying inter- 
 est on money to be employed to-day on productive 
 labour. 
 
 That difference, which the reader will find stated and 
 examined at length, in §§ 127-129 of this volume, it is 
 the business of economists, before approaching any other 
 question relating to government, fully to explain. And 
 the paragraphs to which I refer, contain, I believe, the 
 only definite statement of it hitherto made. 
 
 The practical result of the absence of any such state- 
 ment is, that capitalists, when they do not know what to 
 do with their money, persuade the peasants, in various 
 countries, that the said peasants want guns to shoot each 
 other with. The peasants accordingly borrow guns, out 
 of the manufacture of which the capitalists get a per- 
 centage, and men of science much amusement and credit. 
 Then the peasants shoot a certain number of each other, 
 until they get tired ; and burn each other’s homes down 
 in various places. Then they put the guns back into 
 
XXll 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 towers, arsenals, &c., in ornamental patterns ; (and the 
 victorious party put also some ragged flags in churches). 
 And then the capitalists tax both, annually, ever after- 
 wards, to pay interest on the loan of the guns and 
 gunpowder. And that is what capitalists call “ knowing 
 w'hat to do with their money and what commercial men 
 in general call “ practical ” as opposed to “ sentimental ” 
 Political Economy. 
 
 Eleven years ago, in the summer of 1860, perceiving 
 then fully, (as Carlyle had done long before), what 
 distress was about to come on the said populace of Europe 
 through these errors of their teachers, I began to do the 
 ' best I might, to combat them, in the series of papers for 
 the Cornhill Magazine^ since published under the title of 
 \ JJnt o The editor of the Magazine was my 
 
 friend, and ventured the insertion of the three first 
 essays; but the outcry against them became then too 
 strong for any editor to endure, and he wrote to me, with 
 great discomfort to himself, and many apologies to me, 
 that the Magazine must only admit one Economical Essay 
 more. 
 
 I made, with his permission, the last one longer than 
 the rest, and gave it blunt conclusion as well as I could — • 
 and so the book now" stands; but, as I had taken not a 
 
PREFACE. Xxiii 
 
 little pains with the Essays, and knew that they contained 
 better work than most of my former writings, and more 
 important truths than all of them put together, this 
 violent reprobation of them by the Cornhill public set me 
 still more gravely thinking ; and, after turning the matter 
 hither and thither in my mind for two years more, I 
 resolved to make it the central work of my life to write 
 an exliaustive treatise on Political Economy. It would 
 not have been begun, at that time, however, had not the 
 editor of Fraser’s Magazine written to me, saying that he 
 believed there was something in my theories, and would 
 risk the admission of what I chose to write on this danger- 
 ous subject; whereupon, cautiously, and at intervals, 
 during the winter of 1862-63, I sent him, and he ventured 
 to print, the preface of the intended work, divided into 
 four chapters. Then, though the Editor had not wholly 
 lost courage, the Publisher indignantly interfered ; and 
 the readers of Fraser^ as those of the Cornhill^ were pro- 
 tected, for that time, from farther disturbance on my part. 
 Subsequently, loss of health, family distress, and various 
 untoward chances, prevented my proceeding with the body 
 of the book ; — seven years have passed ineffectually ; and 
 I am now fain to reprint the Preface by itself, under the 
 title which I intended for the whole. 
 
XXIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Not discontentedly ; being, at this time of life, resigned 
 to the sense of failure ; and also, because the preface is 
 complete in itself as a body of definitions, which I now 
 require for reference in the course of my Letters to Work- 
 men / by which also, in time, I trust less formally to 
 accomplish the chief purpose of Munera Pulvei^is^ practi- 
 <5ally summed in the two paragraj)hs 27 and 28 : namely, 
 to examine the moral results and possible rectifications of 
 the laws of distribution of wealth, which have prevailed 
 hitherto without debate among men. Laws which ordi- 
 nary economists assume to be inviolable, and which ordi- 
 nary socialists imagine to be on the eve of total abroga- 
 tion. But they are both alike deceived. The laws which 
 at present regulate the possession of wealth are unjust, 
 because the motivfisjwl^h provoke jto its attainment are 
 impur^ but no socialism can effect their abrogation, 
 unless it can abrogate al^o covetousness and p>ri^ which 
 it is by no means yet in the way of doing. Nor can the 
 change be, in any case, to the extent that has been ima- 
 gined. Extremes of luxury may be forbidden, and agony 
 of penury relieved ; but nature intends, and the utmost 
 efi-orts of socialism will not hinder the fulfilment of hei* 
 intention, that a provident person shall always be richer 
 than a spendthrift ; and an ingenious one more comforta- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XXV 
 
 ble than a fool. But, indeed, the adjustment of the 
 possession of the products of industry depends more oii 
 their nature than their quantity, and on wise determination 
 therefore of the aims of industry. A nation which desires 
 true wealth, desires it moderately, and can therefore dis- 
 tribute it with kindness, and possess it with pleasure ; but 
 one which desires false wealth, desires it immoderately, 
 and can neither dispense it with justice, nor enjoy it in 
 peace. 
 
 Therefore, needing, constantly in my present work, to 
 refer to the definitions of true and false wealth given in 
 the following Essays, I republish them with careful re- 
 visal. They were written abroad ; partly at Milan, partly 
 during a winter residence on the south-eastern slope of the 
 Mont Saleve, near Geneva ; and sent to London in as 
 ble MS. as I could write ; but I never revised the press 
 sheets, and have been obliged, accordingly, now to amend 
 the text here and there, or correct it in unimportant par- 
 ticulars. Wherever any modification has involved change 
 in the sense, it is enclosed in square brackets ; and what 
 few explanatory comments I have felt it necessary to add, 
 have been indicated in the same manner. Ko explanatory 
 comments, I regret to perceive, will suffice to remedy the 
 mischief of my affected concentration of language, into 
 
XXVI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 the habit of which I fell bj thinking too long over parti- 
 cular passages, in many and many a solitary walk towards 
 the mountains of Bonneville or Annecy, But I never 
 intended the book for anything else than a dictionary of 
 reference, and that for earnest readers ; who will, I have 
 good hope, if they find what they want in it, forgive the 
 affectedly curt expressions. 
 
 The Essays, as originally published, were, as I have just 
 stated, four in number. I have now, more conveniently, 
 divided the wEole into six chapters ; and (as I purpose 
 throughout this edition of my works) numbered the par- 
 agraphs. 
 
 I inscribed the first volume of this series to the friend 
 Avho aided me in chief sorrow. Let me inscribe the 
 second to the friend and guide who has urged me to all 
 chief labour, Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 I would that some better means were in my power of 
 showing reverence to the man wlio alone, of all our mas- 
 ters of literature, has written, without thought of himself, 
 what he knew it to be needful for the people of his time 
 to hear, if the will to hear were in them : whom, therefore, 
 as the time draws near when his task must be ended, Be- 
 publican and Free-thoughted England assaults with imj)a- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 XX VI I 
 
 tient reproach ; and out of the abyss of her cowardice in 
 policy and dishonour in trade, sets the hacks of her litera- 
 ture to speak evil, grateful to her ears, of the Solitary 
 Teacher who has asked her to be brave for the help of 
 Man, and just, for the love of God. 
 
 Denmark Hill, 
 
 '25th November, 1871. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 “TE MARIS ET TERR.® NUMEROQUE CARENTIS AREN® 
 
 Mensorem cohibent, Archyta, 
 
 PULVERIS EXIGTJI PROPE LITUS PARVA MaTINITM 
 
 Munera.” 
 
 C ir A P T E E I. 
 
 DEFINITIONS. 
 
 1. As domestic economy regulates the acts and habits 
 of a household, Political economy regulates those of a 
 society or State, with reference to the means of its main- 
 tenance. 
 
 P(d^al economy Js neither an art nor a science ; but 
 a_ syirtem of conduct and legislature, founded on the 
 sciences, directing the arts, and impossible, except under 
 certain conditions of moral culture. 
 
 2. The study which lately in England has been called 
 Political Economy is in reality nothing more than the 
 investigation of some accidental phenomena of modern 
 commercial operations, nor has it been true in its investi- 
 gation even of these. It has no connection whatever with 
 
 political economy, as understood and treated of by the 
 1 
 
MUNEEA PELVEEIS. 
 
 2 
 
 great thinkers of past ages ; and as long as its unscholarly 
 and undefined statements are allowed to pass under the 
 same name, every word written on the subject by those 
 thinkers — and chiefiy the words of Plato, Xenophon, 
 Cicero and Bacon — -niust be nearly useless to mankind. 
 The reader must not, therefore, be surprised at the care 
 and insistance with which I have retained the literal and 
 earliest sense of all important terms used in these papers ; 
 for a word is usually well made at the time it is first 
 wanted ; its youngest meaning has in it the full strength of 
 its youth ; subsequent senses are commonly warped or 
 weakened; and as all careful thinkers are sure to have 
 used their words accurately, the first condition, in order to 
 be able to avail ourselves of their sayings at all, is firm 
 definition of terms. 
 
 3. By the “maintenance” of a State is to be understood 
 the support of its population in healthy and happy life ; 
 and the increase of their numbers, so far as that increase 
 is consistent with their happiness. It is not tlie object of 
 political economy to increase the numbers of a nation at 
 the cost of common health or comfort; nor to increase 
 indefinitely the comfort of individuals, by sacrifice of sui- 
 rounding lives, or possibilities of life. 
 
 4. The assumption which lies at the root of nearly all 
 erroneous reasoning on political economy,— namely, that 
 its object is to accumulate money or exchangeable pro- 
 perty, — may be shown in a few words to be without foun- 
 dation. For no economist would admit national economy 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 3 
 
 to be legitimate wbicli proposed to itself only the building 
 of a pyramid of gold. lie would declare the gold to be 
 wasted, were it to remain in the monumental form, and 
 would say it ouglit to be employed. But to what end ? 
 Either it must be used only to gain more gold, and build j 
 a larger pyramid, or for some purpose other than the gain-:/ 
 ing of gold. And this other purpose, however at first 
 apprehended, will be found to resolve itself finally into 
 the service of man that is to say, the extension, defence, 
 or comfort of his life. The golden pyramid may perhaps 
 be providently built, perhaps improvidently ; but the 
 wisdom or folly of the accumulation can only be deter- 
 mined by our having first clearly stated the aim of all 
 econon^, namely, the exten^on of li fe. 
 
 If the accumulation of money, or of exchangeable 
 property, were a certain means of extending existence, it 
 would be useless, in discussing economical questions, to 
 fix our attention upon the more distant object — life — in- 
 stead of the immediate one— money. But it is not so. 
 Money may sometimes be accumulated at the cost of life, 
 or by limitations of it; that is to say, either by hastening 
 the deaths of men, or preventing their births. It is 
 therefore necessary to keep clearly in view the ultimate 
 object of economy; and to determine the expediency of 
 minor operations with reference to that ulterior end. 
 
 5. It has been just stated that the object of political 
 economy is the continuance not only of life, but of healthy 
 and happy life. But all true happiness is both a conse- 
 
4 
 
 MUNEKA PULYEEIS. 
 
 qnence and cause of life : it is a sign of its vigor, and 
 source of its continuance. All true suffering is in like 
 manner a consequence and cause of death. I shall there- 
 fore, in future, use the word “ Life” singly : but let it 
 he understood to include in its signification the happiness 
 and power of the entire human nature, body and soul. 
 
 6. That human nature, as its Creator made it, and 
 maintains it wherever His laws are observed, is entirely 
 liarmonious. Ho physical error can be more profound, no 
 moral error more dangerous, than that involved in the 
 monkish doctrine of the opposition of body to soul. Ho 
 soul can be perfect in an imperfect body : no body per- 
 fect without perfect soul. Every right action and tme 
 thought sets the seal of its beauty, on person and face ; 
 every wrong action and foul thought its seal of distortion ; 
 and the various aspects of humanity might be read as 
 plainly as a printed history, were it not that the impres- 
 sions are so complex that it must always in some cases 
 (and, in the present state of our knowledge, in all cases) 
 be impossible to decipher them completely, nevertheless, 
 the face of a consistently just, and of a consistently unjust 
 1 person, may always be rightly distinguished at a glance ; 
 
 ' and if the qualities are continued by descent through a 
 generation or two, there arises a complete distinction of 
 race. Both moral and physical qualities are communi- 
 cated by descent, far more than they can be developed by 
 education; (though both may be destroyed by want of 
 education), and there is as yet no ascertained limit to the 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 5 
 
 nobleness of person and mind which the human creature 
 may attain, by perseyeriiig observance of the laws of God 
 respecting its birth and training. 
 
 7. We must therefore yet farther define the aim of 
 political economy to be “ The multiplication of human 
 life at the highest standard.” It might at first seem ques- 
 tionable whether we should endeavour to maintain a small 
 number of persons of the highest type of beauty and 
 intelligence, or a larger number of an inferior class. But 
 I shall be able to show in the sequel, that the way to main- 
 tain the largest number is first to aim at the highest stand- 
 ard. Determine the noblest type of man, and aim simply 
 at maintaining the largest possible number of persons of 
 that class, and it will be found that the largest possible 
 number of every healthy subordinate class must necessarily 
 be produced also. 
 
 8. The perfect type of manhood, as just stated, involves 
 the perfections (whatever we may hereafter determine 
 these to be) of his body, affections, and intelligence. The • 
 material things, therefore, which it is the object of politi- 
 cal economy to produce and use, (or accumulate for use,)^ 
 are things which serve either to sustain and comfort the 
 body, or exercise rightly the affections and form the intelli- 
 gence.* Whatever truly serves either of these purposes 
 is “useful” to man, wholesome, healthful, helpful, or 
 holy. By seeking such things, man prolongs and increases- 
 his life upon the earth. 
 
 See Appendix I. 
 
6 
 
 MUNERA PULVEBIS. 
 
 On the other hand, whatever does not serve either of 
 these purposes, — much more whatever counteracts them, 
 — is in like manner useless to man, unwholesome, unhelp- 
 ful, or unholy ; and by seeking such things man shortens 
 and diminishes his life upon the earth. 
 
 9. And neither with respect to things useful or useless 
 can man’s estimate of them alter their nature. Certain 
 substances being good for his food, and others noxious to 
 him, what he thinks or wishes respecting them can neither 
 change, nor prevent, their power. If he eats corn, he will 
 live ; if nightshade, he will die. If he produce or make 
 good and beautiful things, they Re-Create him : (note 
 the solemnity and weight of the word) ; if bad and ugly 
 
 things, they will “ corrupt” or.“ break^n p ” — tha^is, 
 
 in the exact degree of their po wer. Kill h im. For every 
 hour of labour, however enthusiastic or well intended, 
 which he spends for that which is not bread, so much 
 possibility of life is lost to him. His fancies, likings, 
 beliefs, however brilliant, eager, or obstinate, are of no 
 avail if they are set on a false object. Of all that he has 
 laboured for, the eternal law of heaven and earth measures 
 out to him for reward, to the utmost atom, that part which 
 he ought to have laboured for, and withdraws fi-om him 
 (or enforces on him, it may be) inexorably, that part which 
 he ought not to have laboured for until, on his summer 
 threshing-floor, stands his heap of corn; little or much, 
 not according to his labour, but to his discretion. Ho 
 commercial arrangements,” no painting of surfaces, nor 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 7 
 
 alloying of substances, will avail him a pennyweight. 
 Kature asks of him calmly and inevitably, What have you 
 found, or formed — the right thing or the wrong ? By the 
 right thing you shall live ; by the wrong you shall die. 
 
 10. To thoughtless persons it seems otherwise. The 
 world looks to them as if they could cozen it out of some 
 ways and means of life. But they cannot cozen it : they 
 can oidy cozen their neighbours. The world is not to be 
 cheated of a grain ; not so much as a breath of its air can 
 be drawn surreptitiously. For every piece of wise work 
 done, so much life is granted ; for every piece of foolish 
 work, nothing ; for every piece of wicked work, so much 
 death is allotted. This is as sure as the courses of day and 
 night. But when the means of life are once produced, 
 men, by their v'arious struggles and industries of accumu- 
 lation or exchange, may variously gather, waste, restrain, 
 or distribute them ; necessitating, in proportion to the 
 waste or restraint, accurately, so much more death. 
 The rate and range of additional death are measured by 
 the rate and range of waste ; and are inevitable ; — the oidy 
 question (determined mostly by fraud in peace, and force 
 in war) is, IVlio is to die, and how ? 
 
 11. Such being the everlasting law of human existence, 
 the essential work of the political economist is to detei*- 
 mine what are in reality useful or life-giving things, and 
 by what^'degrees and kinds of labour they are attainable 
 and distributable. This investigation divides itself under 
 three great heads ; — the studies, namely, of the phe- 
 
8 
 
 MUNEKA PULVEKIS. 
 
 nomena, first, of Wealth ; secondly, of Money ; and 
 thirdly, of Eiches. 
 
 These terms are often used as synonymous, but they 
 signify entirely different things. “Wealth” consists of 
 things in themselves valuable ; “ Money,” of documentary 
 claims to the possession of such things ; and “ Eiches ” is 
 a relative term, expressing the magnitude of the posses- 
 sions of one person or society as compared with those of 
 other persons or societies. 
 
 The study of Wealth is a province of natural science 
 it deals with the essential properties of things. 
 
 The study of Money is a province of commercial sci- 
 ence i— it deals with conditions of engagement and ex- 
 change. 
 
 The study of Eiches is a province of moral science : — 
 it deals with the due relations of men to each other in 
 regard of material possessions; and with the just laws of. 
 their association for purposes of labour. 
 
 I shall in this first chapter shortly sketch out the range 
 of subjects which will come before us as we follow these 
 three branches of inquiry. 
 
 12. And first of Weai.th' which, it has been said, 
 consists of things essentially valuable. We now, there- 
 fore, need a definition of “value.” 
 
 “Table” signifies the strength, or “availing” of any- 
 thing towards the sustaining of life, and is always two- 
 fold ; that is to say, primarily, intrinsic, and secondarily, 
 effectual. 
 
MUNERA rULVERIS. 
 
 9 
 
 The reader must, by anticipation, be warned against 
 confusing yalue with cost, or with price. 
 l^fe-giving jpower of anything / cost^ the quantity of 
 labour required to jproduce it / jprice^ the quantity of 
 labour which its possessor will take in exchange for it.^ 
 
 Cost and price are commercial conditions, to be studied 
 under the head of money. 
 
 1 3. Intrinsic value is the absolute power of anything 
 
 to support life. A sheaf of wheat of given quality and 
 w^eight has in it a measurable power of sustaining the 
 substance of the body ; a cubic foot of pure air, a fixed 
 power of sustaining its w^armth ; and a cluster of flowei*s 
 of given beauty a fixed power of enlivening or animating 
 the senses and heart. • 
 
 It does not in the least affect the intrinsic value of the\ n 
 wheat, the air, or the flowers, that men refuse or despise ] 
 them. Used or not, their own power is in them, and thaw , 
 
 particular power is in nothing else. 
 
 14. But in order that this value of theirs may become 
 effectual, a certain state is necessary in the recipient of it. 
 
 The digesting, breathing, and perceiving functions must 
 be perfect in the human creature before the food, air, or 
 flowers can become of ti^ir full value to it. The produc- U 
 tion of effectual value, therefore, always involves two 
 needs first, the production of a thing essentia lly usef uli 
 hen die pyrod^uction of the capacity to use it. pWliere the 
 
 / 
 
 ^ 4 
 
 
 [* Observe these definitions, — they are of much importance, — and 
 connect with them the sentences in italics on this and the next page. ] 
 
 1 * 
 
10 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 intrinsic value and acceptant capacity come together there 
 is Effectual value, or vrealth; where there is either no 
 intrinsic value, or no acceptant capacity, there is no 
 effectual value ; that is to say, no wealth. A horse is no, 
 wealth to us if we cannot ride, nor a picture if we cannot 
 see, noT., can any noble thing be wealthy except to a noble 
 person. As the aptness of the user increases, the effectual 
 value of the thing used increases; and in its entirety 
 can co-exist only with perfect skill of use, and fitness of 
 nature. 
 
 15. Yaluable material things may he conveniently re- 
 ferred to five heads : 
 
 (i.) Land, with its associated air, water, and organisms. 
 
 (ii.) Houses, furniture, and instruments. 
 
 (iii.) Stored or prepared food, medicine, and articles of 
 bodily luxury, including clothing. 
 
 (iv.) Books. 
 
 (v.) Works of art. 
 
 The conditions of value in these things are briefly as 
 follows : — 
 
 16. (i.) Land. Its value is twofold ; first, as producing 
 food and mechanical power; secondly, as an object of 
 sight and thought, producing intellectual power. 
 
 Its value, as a means of producing food and mechanical 
 power, varies with its form (as mountain or plain), with 
 its substance (in, soil or mineral contents), and with its 
 climate. All these conditions of intrinsic value must be 
 known and complied with by the men who have to deal 
 
MUNERA PULVERI8. 
 
 11 
 
 with it, in order to give effectual value ; but at any given 
 time and place, the intrinsic value is fixed : such and such 
 a piece of land, with its associated lakes and seas, rightly 
 treated in surface and substance, can produce precisely 
 so much food and power, and no more. 
 
 The second element of value in land being its beauty, 
 united with such conditions of space and form as are ne- 
 cessary for exercise, and for fullness of animal life, land 
 of the highest value in these respects will be that lying in 
 temperate climates, and boldly varied in form ; removed 
 from unhealthy or dangerous influences (as of miasm or 
 volcano) ; and capable of sustaining a rich fauna and 
 flora. Such .land, carefully tended by the hand of man, 
 so far as to remove from it unsightlinesses and evidences 
 of decay, guarded from violence, and inhabited, under 
 man’s affectionate protection, by every kind of living 
 creature that can occupy it in peace, is the most precious 
 property.’’ that human beings can possess. 
 
 17. (ii.) Buildings, furniture, and instruments. 
 
 The value of buildings consists, flrst, in permanent 
 strength, with convenience of form, of size, and of 
 position ; so as to render employment peaceful, social 
 fintercourse easy, temperature and air healthy. The ad- 
 visable or possible magnitude of cities and mode of their 
 distribution in squares, streets, courts, &c. ; the relative 
 value of sites of land, and the modes of structure which 
 are healthiest and most permanent, have to be studied 
 under this head. 
 
12 
 
 MUNEEA PULVEEIS. 
 
 The value of buildings consists secondly in historical 
 association, and architectural beauty, of which we have to 
 examine the influence on manners and life. 
 
 The value of instruments consists, flrst, in their power 
 of shortening labour, or otherwise accomplishing what 
 human strength unaided could not. The kinds of work 
 which are severally best accomplished by hand or by 
 ^machine ; — the effect of machinery in gathering and mul- 
 tiplying population, and its influence on the minds and 
 bodies of such population ; together with the conceivable 
 uses of machinery on a colossal scale in accomplishing 
 ' mighty and useful works, hitherto unthought of, such as 
 the deepening of large river channels ; — changing the sur- 
 face of mountainous districts ; — ^irrigating tracts of desert 
 in the torrid zone; — breaking up, and thus rendering 
 capable of quicker fusion, edges of ice in the northern 
 and southern Arctic seas, &c., so rendering parts of the 
 earth habitable which hitherto have been lifeless, are to 
 be studied under this head. 
 
 The value of instruments is, secondarily, in their aid to 
 abstract sciences. The degree in which the multiplica- 
 tion of such instruments should be encouraged, so as to 
 make them, if large, easy of access to numbers (as costly 
 telescopes), or so cheap as that they might, in a service- 
 able form, become a common part of the furniture of 
 households, is to be considered under this head.* 
 
 [ * I cannot now recast these sentences, pedantic in their generaliza- 
 tion, and intended more for index than statement, but I must guard 
 
MUNERA PULVERI8. 
 
 13 
 
 18. (iii.) Food, medicine, and articles of luxury. Under 
 tliis head we shall have to examine the possible methods 
 of obtaining pure food in such security and equality of 
 supply as to avoid both waste and famine : then the econ- 
 omy of medicine and just range of sanitary law : finally 
 the economy of luxury, partly an gesthetic and partly an 
 ethical question. 
 
 19. (iv.) Books. The value of these consists. 
 
 First, in their power of preserving and communicating 
 the knowledge of facts. 
 
 Secondly, in their power of exciting vital or noble emo- 
 tion and intellectual action. They have also their corre- 
 sponding negative powers of disguising and effacing the 
 memory of facts, and killing the noble emotions, or 
 exciting base ones. Under these two heads we have to 
 consider the economical and educational value, positive 
 and negative, of literature the means of producing and 
 educating good authors, and the means and advisability 
 of rendering good books generally accessible, and direct- 
 ing the reader’s choice to them. 
 
 20. (v.) Works of art. The value of these is of the 
 same nature as that of books ; but the laws of their pro- 
 duction and possible modes of distribution are very differ- 
 ent, and require separate examination. 
 
 the reader from thinking that I ever wish for cheapness by bad quality. 
 A poor boy need not always learn mathematics; but, if you set him to 
 do so, have the farther kindness to give him good compasses, not cheap 
 ones, whose points bend like lead.] 
 
14 
 
 MUNERA PTJLVERIS. 
 
 21. II. — Money. Under this head, we shall have to 
 examine the laws of currency and exchange ; of which I 
 will note here the first principles. 
 
 Money has been inaccurately spoken of as merely a 
 means of exchange. But it is far more than this. It is a 
 documentary expression of legal claim. It is not wealth, 
 but a documentary claim to wealth, being the sign of the 
 relative quantities of it, or of the labour producing it, to 
 which, at a given time, persons, or societies, are entitled. 
 
 If all the money in the world, notes and gold, were 
 destroyed in an instant, it would leave the world neither 
 richer nor poorer than it was. But it would leave the 
 individual inhabitants of it in different relations. 
 
 Money is, therefore, correspondent in its nature to the 
 title-deed of an estate. Though the deed be burned, the 
 estate still exists, but the right to it has become disputable. 
 
 22. The real worth of money reniaips unchanged, as 
 long as the proportion of the quantity of existing money 
 to the quantity of existing wealth or available labour 
 remains unchanged. 
 
 If the wealth increases, but not the money, the worth 
 of the money increases ; if the money increases, but not 
 the wealth, the worth of the money diminishes. 
 
 23. Money, therefore, cannot be arbitrarily multiplied, 
 any more than title-deeds can. So long as the existing 
 wealth or available labour is not fully represented by the 
 currency, the currency may be increased without diminu- 
 tion of the assigned worth of its pieces. But when the 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 15 
 
 existing wealth, or available labour is once fully repre- 
 sented, every piece of money thrown into circulation 
 diminishes the worth of every other existing piece, in the 
 proportion it bears to the number of them, provided the 
 new piece be received with equal credit ; if not, the de- 
 precia^tion of wnrth takes place, according to the degree 
 of its credit. 
 
 24. Wlien, however, new money, composed of some 
 substance of supposed intrinsic value (as of gold), is 
 brought into the market, or when new notes are issued 
 which are supposed to be deserving of credit, the desire 
 to obtain the money wdll, under certain circumstances, 
 stimulate industry : an additional quantity of wealth is 
 immediately produced, and if this be in proportion to the 
 new claims advanced, tlie value of the existing currency 
 is undepreciated. If the stimulus given be so great as 
 to produce more goods than are proportioned to the 
 additional coinage, the worth of the existing currency 
 will be raised. 
 
 Arbitrary control and issues of currency affect the pro- 
 duction of wealth, by acting on the hopes and fears of 
 men, and are, under certain circumstances, wise. But the 
 issue of additional currency to meet the exigencies of im- 
 mediate expense, is merely one of the disguised forms of 
 borrowing or taxing. It is, however, in the present low 
 state of economical knowledge, often possible for govern- 
 ments to venture on an issue of currency, when they 
 could not venture on an additional loan or tax, because 
 
16 
 
 MUNEKA PULVEKIS. 
 
 the real operation of snch issue is not understood by the 
 people, and the pressure of it is irregularly distributed, 
 and with an unperceived gradation. 
 
 25. The use of substances of intrinsic value as the ma- 
 terials of a currency, is a barbarism ; — a remnant of the 
 conditions of barter, which alone render commerce possi- 
 ble among savage nations. It is, however, still necessary, 
 partly as a mechanical check on arbitrary issues ; partly 
 as a means of exchanges with foreign nations. In pro- 
 portion to the extension of civilization, and increase of 
 trustworthiness in Governments, it will cease. So long as 
 it exists, the phenomena of the cost and price of the arti- 
 cles used for currency are mingled with those proper to 
 currency itself , in an almost inextricable manner : and the 
 market worth of bullion is affected by multitudinous 
 accidental circumstances, which have been traced, with 
 more or less success, by writers on commercial operations : 
 but with these variations the true political economist has 
 no more to do than an engineer, fortifying a harbour of 
 refuge against Atlantic tide, has to concern himself with 
 the cries or quarrels of children who dig pools with their 
 fingers for its streams among the sand. 
 
 26. III. — Riches. According to the various industry, 
 capacity, good fortune, and desires of men, they obtain 
 greater or smaller share of, and claim upon, the wealth of 
 the world. 
 
 The inequalities between these shares, always in some ^ 
 degree just and necessary, may be either restrained by 
 
MUNERA PULVERI8. 
 
 17 
 
 law or circumstance within certain limits; or may in- 
 crease indefinitely. 
 
 Where no moral or legal restraint is put upon the exer- 
 cise of the will and intellect of the stronger, shrewder, or 
 more covetous men, these differences become ultimately 
 enormous. But as soon as they become so distinct in 
 their extremes as that, on one side, there shall be manifest 
 redundance of possession, and on the other manifest pres- 
 sure of need, — the terms “riches” and “poverty” are 
 used to express the opposite states ; being contrary only 
 as the terms “warmth” and “cold” are contraries, of 
 which neither implies an actual degree, but only a rela- 
 tion to other degrees, of temperature. 
 
 27. Bespecting riches, the economist has to inquire, 
 first, into the advisable modes of their collection ; secondly, 
 into the advisable modes of their administration. 
 
 Bespecting the collection, of national riches, he has to 
 inquire, first, whether he is justified in calling the nation 
 rich, if the quantity of wealth it possesses relatively to the 
 wealth of other nations, be large; irrespectively of the 
 manner of its distribution. Or does the mode of distri- 
 bution in any wise afi'ect the nature of the riches ? Thus, 
 if the king alone be rich — suppose Croesus or Mausolus — 
 are the Lydians or Carians therefore a rich nation? Or 
 if a few slave-masters are rich, and the nation is other- 
 wise composed of slaves, is it to be called a rich nation ? 
 For if not, and the ideas of a certain mode of distribution 
 or operation in the riches, and of a certain degree of free- 
 
18 
 
 MUNEEA PTJLVEEIS. 
 
 f^om in the people, enter into our idea of riches as attri- 
 buted to a people, we shall have to define the degree of 
 fiuency, or circulative character which is essential to the 
 nature of common wealth; and the degree of indepen- 
 dence of action required in its possessors. Questions 
 which look as if they would take time in answering.* 
 
 28. And farther. Since the inequality, which is the 
 condition of riches, may be established in two opposite 
 modes — nameljq by increase of possession on the qne side, 
 and by decrease of it on the other— we have to inquire, 
 with respect to any given state of riches, precisely in what 
 manner the correlative poverty was produced ; that is to 
 say, whether by being surpassed only, or being depressed 
 also ; and if by being depressed, what are the advantages, 
 or the contrary, conceivable in the depression. For in-’^ 
 stance, it being one of the commonest advantages of being 
 rich to entertain a number of servants, we have to inquire, 
 on the one side, what economical process produced the 
 riches of the master ; and on the other, what economical 
 process produced the poverty of the persons who serve 
 him ; and what advantages each, on his own side, derives 
 from the result. 
 
 29. These being the main questions touching the col- 
 
 [ * I regret the ironical manner in which this passage, one of great 
 importance in the matter of it, was written. The gist of it is, that the 
 first of all inquiries respecting the wealth of any nation is not, how 
 much it has ; but whether it is in a form that can be used, and in the 
 possession of persons who can use it. ] 
 
MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 19 
 
 lection o£ riches, the next, or last, part of the inquiry is 
 into their administration. 
 
 Their possession involves three great economical powers 
 which require separate examination : namely, the powers 
 of selection, direction, and provision. 
 
 The power of Selection relates to things of which the 
 supply is limited (as the supply of best things is always). 
 When it becomes matter of question- to whom such things 
 are to belong, the richest person has necessarily the first 
 choice, unless some arbitrary mode of distribution be 
 otherwise determined upon. The business of the econo- 
 mist is to show how this choice may be a wise one. 
 
 The power of Diep]ction arises out of the necessary 
 relation of rich men to poor, wdiich ultimately, in one 
 way or another, involves the direction of, or authority 
 over, the labour of the poor; and this nearly as much 
 over their mental as their, bodily labour. The business 
 of the economist is to show how this direction may be a 
 Just one. 
 
 The powder of Provision is dependent upon the re- 
 dundance of wealth, which may of course by active 
 persons be made available in preparation for future w^ork 
 or future profit ; in which function riches have generally 
 received the name of capital ; that is to say, of head-, or 
 source-material. The business of the economist is to 
 show how this provision may be a Distant one. 
 
 30. The examination of these three functions of riches 
 will embrace every final problem of political economy; — 
 
20 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 and, above, or before all, this curious and vital problem, 
 — whether, since the wholesome action of riches in these 
 three functions will depend (it appears), on the Wisdom, 
 Justice, and Farsightedness of the holders ; and it is by 
 no means to be assumed that persons primarily rich, 
 must therefore be just and wise, — ^it may not be ulti- 
 mately possible so, or somewhat so, to arrange matters, 
 as that persons primarily just and wise, should therefore 
 be rich ? 
 
 Such being the general plan of the inquiry before us, 
 I shall not limit myself to any consecutive following of 
 it, having hardly any good hope of being able to complete 
 so laborious a work as it must prove to me; but from time 
 to time, as I have leisure, shall endeavour to carry for- 
 ward this part or that, as may be immediately possible ; 
 indicating always with accuracy the place which the 
 particular essay will or should take in the completed 
 system. 
 
MUNEEA PULVEEIS. 
 
 21 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 S T O R E-K E E P I N G. 
 
 31. The first chapter having consisted of little more 
 than definition of terms, I purpose, in this, to expand 
 and illustrate the given definitions. 
 
 The view which has here been taken of the nature of 
 wealth, namely, that it consists in an intrinsic value 
 developed by a vital power, is directly opposed to two. 
 nearly universal conceptions of wealth. In the assertion 
 that value is primarily inti-insic, it opposes the idea that 
 anything which is an object of desire to numbers, and is 
 limited in quantity, so as to have rated worth in exchange, 
 may be called, or virtually become, wealth. And in the 
 assertion that value is, secondarily, dependent upon power 
 in the possessor, it opposes the idea that the worth of 
 things depends on the demand for them, instead of on 
 the use of them. Before going farther, we will make 
 these two positions clearer. 
 
 32. I. First. All wealth is intrinsic, and is not con- 
 stituted by the judgment of men. This is easily seen in 
 the case of things affecting the body ; we know, that no 
 force of fantasy will make stones nourishing, or poison 
 .nnocent; but it is less apparent in things affecting the 
 
22 
 
 MUNEKA PULVERIS. 
 
 mind. We are easily — perhaps willingly — misled by the 
 appearance of beneficial results obtained by industi’ies 
 addressed wholly to the gratification of fanciful desire ; 
 and apt to suppose that whatever is widely coveted, 
 dearly bought, and pleasurable in possession, must be 
 included in our definition of wealth. It is the more 
 difiicult to quit ourselves of this error because many 
 things which are true wealth in moderate use, become 
 false wealth in immoderate ; and many things are mixed 
 ipf good and evil, — as mostly, books, and works of art, — 
 out of which one person will get the good, and another 
 the evil ; so that it seems as if there were no fixed good 
 or evil in the things themselves, but only in the view 
 taken, and use made of them. 
 
 But that is not so. The evil and good are fixed; in 
 essence, and in proportion. And in things in which evil 
 depends upon excess, the point of excess, though inde- 
 finable, is fixed ; and the power of the thing is on the 
 hither side for good, and on the farther side for evil. 
 And in all cases this power is inherent, not dependent 
 on opinion or choice. Our thoughts of things neither 
 make, nor mar their eternal force ; nor — which is the 
 most serious point for future consideration — can they 
 prevent the effect of it (within certain limits) upon 
 ourselves. 
 
 33. Therefore, the object of any special analysis of 
 wealth will be not so much to enumerate what is service- 
 able, as to distinguish what is destructive ; and to show 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 23 
 
 that it is inevitably destructive ; that to receive pleasure 
 from an evil thing is not to escape from, or alter the evil 
 of it, but to be altered hy it; that is, to suffer from it to 
 the utmost, having our own nature, in that degree, made 
 evil also. And it may be shown farther, that, through 
 whatever length of time or subtleties of connexion the 
 harm is accomplished, (being also less or more according 
 to the fineness and worth of the humanity on which it is 
 wrought), still, nothing hut harm ever comes of a bad 
 thing. 
 
 34. So that, in sum, the term wealth is never to be 
 attached to the accidental object of a morbid desire, but 
 only to the constant object of a legitimate onef^ By the 
 fury of ignorance, and fitfulness of caprice, large interests 
 may be continually attached to things unserviceable or 
 hurtful ; if their nature could be altered by our passions, 
 the science of Political Economy would remain, what it 
 has been hitherto among us, the weighing of clouds, and 
 the portioning out of shadows. But of ignorance there 
 is no science; and of caprice no law. Their disturbing 
 forces interfere with the operations of faithful Economy, 
 but have nothing in common with them: she, the calm 
 arbiter of national destiny, regards only essential po-wer 
 for good in all that she accumulates, and alike dis- 
 
 [* Remember carefully this statement, that Wealth consists only in 
 the things which the nature of humanity has rendered in all ages, and 
 must render in all ages to come, (that is what I meant by “ constant”), 
 the objects of legitimate desire. And see Appendix II.] 
 
24 
 
 MUNERA PULVEEIS. 
 
 / dains the wanderings* of imagination, and the thirsts of 
 disease. 
 
 35. II. Secondly. The assertion that wealth is not only 
 intrinsic, but dependent, in order to become effectual, on 
 a given degree of vital power in its possessor, is opposed 
 to another popular view of wealth; — namely, that though 
 it may always be constituted by caprice, it is, when so 
 constituted, a substantial thing, of which given quantities 
 may be counted as existing here, or there, and exchangeable 
 at rated prices. 
 
 In this view there are three errors. The first and chief 
 is the overlooking the fact that all exchangeableness of 
 commodity, or effective demand for it, depends on the 
 sum of capacity for its use existing, here or elsewhere. 
 The book we cannot read, or picture we take no delight 
 in, may indeed be called part of our wealth, in so far as 
 we have power of exchanging either for something we 
 like better. But our power of effecting such exchange, 
 and yet more, of effecting it to advantage, depends abso- 
 lutely on the number of accessible persons who can un- 
 derstand the book, or enjoy the painting, and who will 
 dispute the possession of them. Thus the actual worth 
 of either, even to us, depends no more on their essential 
 goodness than on the capacity existing somewhere for the 
 perception of it ; and it is vain in any completed system 
 of production to think of obtaining one without the other. 
 
 [* The Wanderings, observe, not the Right goings, of Imagination. 
 She is very far from despising these.] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 25 
 
 So that, thoRgli the true political economist knows that 
 (io-existence of capacity for use with temporary possession 
 cannot be always secured, the final fact, on which he 
 bases all action and administration, is that, in the whole 
 nation, or group of nations, he has to deal with, for every 
 atom of intrinsic value produced he must with exactest 
 chemistry produce its twin atom of acceptant digestion, 
 or understanding capacity ; or, in the degree of his failure, 
 he has no wealth. Nature’s challenge to us is, in earnest, 
 as the Assyrians mock; will give thee two thousand 
 horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon 
 them.” Bavieca’s paces are brave, if the Cid backs him ; 
 but woe to us, if we take the dust of capacity, wearing 
 the armour of it, for capacity itself, for so all procession, 
 hovrever goodly in the show of it, is to the tomb. 
 
 36. The second error in this popular view of wealth is, 
 that in giving the name of wealth to things which we can- 
 not use, we in reality confuse wealth with money. The 
 land we have no skill to cultivate, the book which is sealed 
 to us, or dress which is superfiuous, may indeed be ex- 
 changeable, but as such are nothing more than a cumbrous 
 form of bank-note, of doubtful or slow convertibility. As 
 long as we retain possession of them, we merely keep our 
 bank-notes in the shape of gravel or clay, of book-leaves, 
 or of embroidered tissue. Circumstances may, perhaps, 
 render such forms the safest, or a certain complacency 
 may attach to the exhibition of them ; into both these ad- 
 vantages we shall inquire afterwards ; I wish the reader 
 2 
 
26 
 
 MUNEKA PULVEEIS. 
 
 only to observe here, that exchangeable property which we 
 cannot use is, to ns pei’sonally, merely one of the forms 
 of money, not of wealth. 
 
 37. The third error in the popular view is the confusion 
 of Guardianship with Possession ; the real state of men 
 of property being, too commonly, that of curators, not 
 possessors, of wealth. 
 
 A man’s power over his property is at the widest range 
 of it, fivefold ; it is power of Use, for himself. Adminis- 
 tration, to others. Ostentation, Destruction, or Bequest : 
 and possession is in use only, which for each man is sternly 
 limited ; so that such things, and so much of them as he 
 can use, are, indeed, well for him, or Wealth; and more 
 of them, or any other things, are ill for him, or Illth.* 
 Plunged to the lips in Orinoco, he shall di’ink to his thii*st 
 measure ; more, at his peril : with a thousand oxen on his 
 lands, he shall eat to his hunger measure ; more, at his 
 peril. He cannot live in two houses at once ; a few bales 
 of silk or wool will suffice for the fabric of all the clothes 
 he can ever wear, and a few books will probably hold all 
 the furniture good for his brain. Beyond these, in the 
 best of us but narrow, capacities, we have but the power 
 of administering, or ?/?^j^^administering, wealth : (that is 
 to say, distributing, lending, or increasing it) ; — of exhibit- 
 ing it (as in magnificence of retinue or furniture), — of 
 destroying, or, finally, of bequeathing ih And with mul- 
 titudes of rich men, administration degenerates into 
 * See Appendix III. ' 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 27 
 
 curatorship ; they merely hold their property in charge, as 
 Trustees, for the benefit of some person or persons to 
 whom it is to be delivered upon their death; and the 
 position, explained in clear terms, would hardly seem a 
 covetable one. What would be the probable feelings of a 
 youth, on his entrance into life, to whom the career hoped 
 for him was proposed in terms such as these: “ You must 
 •work unremittingly, and with your utmost intelligence, 
 during all your available years, you will thus accumulate 
 wealth to a large amount ; but you must touch none of it, 
 beyond what is needful for your support. Whatever sums 
 you gain, beyond those required for your decent and mode- 
 rate maintenance, and whatever beautiful things you may 
 obtain possession of, shall be properly taken care of by 
 servants, for whose maintenance you will be charged, and 
 whom you will have the trouble of superintending, and 
 on your death-bed you shall have the power of determin- 
 ing to whom the accumulated property shall belong, or to 
 what purposes be applied.” 
 
 38. The labour of life, under such conditions, would 
 probably be neither zealous nor cheerful; yet the only 
 difference between this position and that of the ordinary, 
 ,capitalist is the power which the latter supposes himself 
 to possess, and which is attributed to him by others, of 
 spending his money at any moment. This pleasure, taken 
 in the imagination of power to part with that with which 
 we have no intention of parting^ is one of the most 
 curious, though commonest forms of the Eidolon, or Phan- 
 
28 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 tasm of Wealth. But the political economist has nothing 
 to do with this idealism, and looks only to the practical 
 issue of it — namely, that the holder of wealth, in such 
 temper, may be regarded simply as a mechanical means 
 of collection ; or as a money-chest with a slit in it, not only 
 receptant but suctional, set in the public thoroughfare ; — 
 chest of which only Death has the key, and evil Chance 
 the distribution of the contents. In his function of 
 Lender (Avhich, however, is one of administration, not use, 
 as far as he is himself concerned), the capitalist takes, 
 indeed, a more interesting aspect ; but even in that func- 
 tion, his relations with the state are apt to degenerate 
 into a mechanism for the convenient contraction of debt ; 
 — a function the more mischievous, because a nation inva- 
 riably appeases its conscience with respect to an unjusti- 
 hable expense, by meeting it with borrowed funds, ex- 
 presses its repentance of a foolish piece of business, by 
 letting its tradesmen wait for their money, and always 
 leaves its descendants to pay for the work which will be 
 of the least advantage to them.* 
 
 39. Quit of these three sources of misconception, the 
 reader will have little farther difficulty in apprehending 
 the real nature of Effectual value. He may, however, at 
 first not without surprise, perceive the consequences in- 
 volved in his acceptance of the definition. For if the 
 
 [ * I would beg the reader’s very close attention to these 37th and 
 38th paragraphs. It would be well if a dogged conviction could be 
 enforced on nations, as on individuals, that, with few exceptions, what 
 they cannot at present pay for, they should not at present have.] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 29 
 
 actual existence of wealth be dependent on the power 
 of its possessor, it follows that the sum of wealth held by 
 the nation, instead of being constant or calculable, varies 
 hourly, nay, momentarily, with the number and character 
 of its holders ! and that in changing hands, it changes in 
 quantity. And farther, since the worth of the currency 
 is proportioned to the sum of material wealth which it re- 
 presents, if the sum of the wealth changes, the worth of 
 the currency changes. And thus both the sum of the 
 property, and power of the currency, of the state, vary 
 momentarily as the character and number of the holders. 
 And not only so, but different rates and kinds of variation 
 are caused by the character of the holders of different 
 kinds of wealth. The transitions of value caused by the 
 character of the holders of land differ in mode from those 
 caused by character in holders of works of art ; and these 
 again from those caused by character in holders of ma- 
 chinery or other working capital. But we cannot examine 
 these special phenomena of any kind of wealth until we 
 have a clear idea of the way in Avhich true currency ex- 
 presses them; and of the resulting modes in which the 
 cost and price of any article are related to its value. To 
 obtain this we must approach the subject in its first 
 elements. 
 
 40. Let us suppose a national store of wealth, composed 
 of material things either useful, or belived to be so, taken 
 charge of by the Government,* and that every workman, 
 * See Appendix IV. 
 
30 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 having produced any article involving labonr in its pro- 
 duction, and for which he has no immediate use, brings it 
 to add to this store, receiving from the Government, in ex- 
 change, an order either for the return of the thing itself, 
 or of its equivalent in other things, such as he may choose 
 out of the store, at any time when he needs them. The 
 question of equivalence itself (liow much wine a man is to 
 receive in return for so much corn, or how much coal in 
 return for so much iron) is a quite separate one, which we 
 will examine presently. For the time, let it he assumed 
 that this equivalence has been determined, and that the 
 Government order, in exchange for a fixed weight of any 
 article (called, suppose a), is either for the return of that 
 weight of the article itself, or of another fixed weight of 
 the article 5, or another of the article c, and so on. 
 
 Kow, supposing that the labourer speedily and continu- 
 ally presents these general orders, or, in common language, 
 “ spends the money,” he has neither changed the circum- 
 stances of the nation, nor his own, except in so far as he 
 may have produced useful and consumed useless articles, 
 or vice versa. But if he does not use, or uses in part only, 
 the orders he receives, and lays aside some portion of 
 them; and thus every day bringing his contribution to 
 the national store, lays by some per-centage of the orders 
 received in exchange for it, he increases the national 
 wealth daily by as much as he does not use of the received 
 order, and to the same amount accumulates a monetary 
 claim on the Government. It is, of course, always in his 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 31 
 
 power, as it is his legal right, to bring forward this accu- 
 mulation of claim, and at once to consume, destroy, or 
 distribute, the sum of his wealth. Supposing he never 
 does so, but dies, leaving his claim to others, he has en- 
 riched the State during his life by the quantity of wealth 
 over which that claim extends, or has, in other words, ren- 
 dered so much additional life possible in the State, of 
 which additional life he bequeaths the immediate possi- 
 bility to those whom he invests with his claim. Supposing 
 him to cancel the claim, he would distribute this possi- 
 bility of life among the nation at large. 
 
 41, We hitherto consider the Government itself as sim- 
 ply a conservative power, taking charge of the wealth 
 entrusted to it. 
 
 But a Government may be more or less than a conser- 
 vative power. It may be either an improving, or destruc- 
 tive one. 
 
 If it be an improving power, using all the wealth 
 entrusted to it to the best advantage, the nation is en- 
 riched in root and branch at once, and the Government 
 is enabled, for every order presented, to return a quantity 
 of wealth greater than the order was written for, accord- 
 ing to the fructiiication obtained in the interim. This 
 ability may be either concealed, in which case the cur- 
 rency does not completely represent the wealth of the 
 country, or it may be manifested by the continual pay- 
 ment of the excess of value on each order, in which case 
 there is (irrespectively, observe, of collateral results after- 
 
32 
 
 MUNERA PULVEBIS. 
 
 wards to be examined) a perpetual rise in tbe worth of 
 the currency, that is to say, a fall in the price of all 
 articles represented by it. 
 
 42. But if the Government be destructive, or a <3on- 
 suming power, it becomes unable to return the value 
 received on the presentation of the order. 
 
 This inability may either be concealed by meeting 
 demands to the full, until it issue in bankruptcy, or in 
 some form of national debt; — or it may be concealed 
 during oscillatory movements between destructiveness 
 and productiveness, which result on the whole in stabil- 
 ity; — or it may be manifested by the consistent retm’n 
 of less than value received on each presented order, in 
 which case there is a consistent fall in the worth of the 
 currency, or rise in the price of the things represented by it, 
 
 43. Xow, if for this conception of a central Govern- 
 ment, we substitute that of a body of persons occupied in 
 industrial pursuits, of whom each adds in his private 
 capacity to the common store, we at once obtain an ap- 
 proximation to the actual condition of a civilized mercan- 
 tile community, from which approximation we might 
 easily proceed into still completer analysis. I purpose, 
 however, to arrive at every result by the gradual expan- 
 sion of the simpler conception ; but I wish the reader to 
 observe, in the meantime, that both the social conditions 
 thus supposed (and I will by anticipation say also, all 
 possible social conditions), agree in two great points ; 
 namely, in the primal importance of the supposed national 
 
MUNEEA PULVEEI8. 
 
 33 
 
 store or stock, and in its destmctibility or improveability 
 by the holders of it. 
 
 44. I. Observe that in both conditions, that of central 
 Government-holding, and diffused private-holding, the 
 quantity of stock is of the same national moment. In the 
 one case, indeed, its amount may be known by examina- 
 tion of the persons to whom it is confided ; in the other it 
 cannot be known but by exposing the private affairs of 
 every individual. But, known or unknown, its signifi- 
 cance is the same under each condition. The riches of 
 the nation consist in the abundance, and their wealth de- 
 pends on the nature, of this store. 
 
 45. II. In the second place, both conditions, (and all 
 other possible ones) agree in the destmctibility or im- 
 proveability of the store by its holders. Whether in pri- 
 vate hands, or under Government charge, the national 
 store may be daily consumed, or daily enlarged, by its 
 possessors ; and while the currency remains apparently 
 unaltered, the property it represents may diminish or in- 
 crease. 
 
 46. The fii-st question, then, which we have to put under 
 our simple conception of central Government, namely, 
 “What store has it?” is one of equal importance, what- 
 ever may be the constitution of the State; while the 
 second question — namely, “ Who are the holders of the 
 store ? ” involves the discussion of the constitution of the 
 State itself. 
 
 The first inquiry resolves itself into three heads : 
 
 2 * 
 
34 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 1. What is the nature of the store ? 
 
 2. What is its quantity in relation to the population ? 
 
 3. What is its quantity in relation to the currency ? 
 
 The second inquiry into two : 
 
 1. Who are the Holders of the store, and in what pro- 
 portions ? 
 
 2. Who are the Claimants of the store, (that is to say, 
 the holders of the currency,) and in what proportions ? 
 
 We will examine the range of the first three questions 
 in the present paper ; of the two following, in the sequel. 
 
 47. I. Question First. What is the nature of the 
 store ? Has the nation hitherto worked for and gathered 
 the right thing or the wrong ? On that issue rest the 
 possibilities of its life. 
 
 For example, let us imagine a society, of no great 
 extent, occupied in procuring and laying up store of 
 com, wine, wool, silk, and other such preservable mate- 
 rials of food and clothing; and that it has a currency 
 representing them. Imagine farther, that on days of 
 festivity, the society, discovering itself to derive satisfac- 
 tion from pyrotechnics, gradually turns its attention more 
 and more to the manufacture of gunpowder; so that an 
 increasing number of labourers, giving what time they 
 can spare to this branch of industry, bring increasing 
 quantities of combustibles into the store, and use the 
 general orders received in exchange to obtain such wine, 
 wool, or corn, as they may have need of. The currency 
 remains the same, and represents precisely the same 
 
MUNERA PUI.VERIS. 
 
 35 
 
 amount of material in the store, and of labour spent in 
 producing it. But the corn and wine gradually vanisli, 
 and in their place, as gradually, appear sulphur and salt- 
 petre, till at last the labourers who have consumed corn 
 and supplied nitre, presenting on a festal morning some 
 of their currency to obtain materials for the feast, dis- 
 cover that no amount of currency will command anything 
 Festive, except Fire. The supply of rockets is unlimited, 
 but that of food, limited, in a quite final manner; and 
 the whole currency in the hands of the society represents 
 an infinite power of detonation, but none of existence. 
 
 48. This statement, caricatured as it may seem, is only 
 exaggerated in assuming the persistence of the folly to 
 extremity, unchecked, as in reality it would be, by the 
 gradual rise in price of food. But it falls short of the 
 actual facts of human life in expression of the depth and 
 intensity of the folly itself. . For a great part (the reader 
 would not believe how great until he saw the statistics in 
 detail) of the most earnest and ingenious industry of the 
 world is spent in producing munitions of war ; gathering, 
 that is to say the materials, not of festive, but of con- 
 suming fire ; filling its stores with all power of the instru- 
 ments of pain, and all affluence of the ministries of death. 
 It was no true Trionfo della Mortd^ which men have 
 seen and feared (sometimes scarcely feared) so long ; 
 
 [* I little thought, what Trionfo della Morte would be, for this very 
 cause, and in literal fulfilment of the closing words of the 47th para- 
 graph, over the fields and houses of Europe, and over its fairest city — 
 within seven years from the day I wrote it.] 
 
36 
 
 MUNERA PULVEEIS. 
 
 wherein he brought them rest from their labours. We 
 see, and share, another and higher form of his triumph 
 now. Task-master, instead of Eeleaser, he rules the dust 
 of the arena no less than of the tomb ; and, content once 
 in the grave whither man went, to make his works to 
 cease and his devices to vanish, — now, in the busy city 
 and on the serviceable sea, makes his work to increase, 
 and his devices to multiply. 
 
 49. To this doubled loss, or negative power of labour, 
 spent in producing means of destruction, we have to add, 
 in our estimate of the consequences of human folly, what- 
 ever more insidious waste of toil there is in production of 
 unnecessary luxury. Such and such an occupation (it is 
 said) supports so many labourers, because so many obtain 
 wages in following it; but it is never considered that 
 unless there be a supporting power in the product of the 
 occupation, the wages given to one man are merely with- 
 drawn from another. We cannot say of any trade that 
 it maintains such and such a number of persons, unless 
 we know how and where the money, now spent in the 
 purchase of its produce, would have been spent, if that 
 produce had not been manufactured. The purchasing 
 funds truly support a number of people in making This ; 
 but (probably) leave unsupported an equal number who 
 are making, or could have made That. The manufac- 
 turers of small watches thrive at Geneva ; — it is well ; — 
 but where would the money spent on small watches have 
 gone, had there been no small watches to buy? 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 37 
 
 50. If the so frequently uttered aphorism of mercantile 
 economy — “ labour is limited by capital,” were true, this 
 question would be a definite one. But it is untrue ; and 
 that widely. Out of a given quantity of funds for wages, 
 more or less labour is to be had, according to the quantity 
 of will with which we can inspire the workman ; and the 
 true limit of labour is only in the limit of this moral, 
 stimulus of the will, and of the bodily power. In an: 
 ultimate, but entirely unpractical sense, labour is limited 
 by capital, as it is by matter — that is to say, where there 
 is no material, there can be no work, — but in the practical 
 sense, labour is limited only by the great original capital 
 of head, heart, and hand. Even in the most artificial 
 relations of commerce, labour is to capital as fire to fuel : 
 out of so much fuel, you can have only so much fire ; but 
 out of so much fuel you Bhall have so much fire, — not in 
 proportion to the mass of combustible, but to the force of 
 wind that fans and water that quenches ; and the appliance 
 of both. And labour is furthered, as conflagration is, not 
 so much by added fuel, as by admitted air.* 
 
 51. For which reasons, I had to insert, in § 49, the quali- 
 fying “ probably;” for it can never be said positively that 
 the purchase-money, or wages fund of any trade is with- 
 drawn from some other trade. The object itself may be 
 
 [* The meaning of which is, that you may spend a great deal of 
 money, and get very little work for it, and that little bad ; but having 
 good “air,” or “spirit,” to put life into it, with very little money, you 
 may get a great deal of work, and all good; which, observe, is an 
 arithmetical, not at all a poetical or visionary circumstance.]. 
 
38 
 
 MUNERA PULYERIS. 
 
 the stimulus of the production of the money which buys it ; 
 that is to say, the work by which the purchaser obtained 
 the means of buying it, would not have been done by him 
 unless he had wanted that particular thing. And the pro- 
 duction of any article not intrinsically (nor in the process 
 of manufacture) injurious, is useful, if the desire of it 
 causes productive labour in other directions. 
 
 52. In the national store, therefore, the presence of 
 things intrinsically valueless does not imply an entirely 
 
 j correlative absence of things valuable. We cannot be 
 certain that all the labour spent on vanity has been di- 
 verted from reality, and that for every bad thing produced, 
 a precious thing has been lost. In great measure, the vain 
 things represent the results of roused indolencO; they 
 have been carved, as toys, in extra time ; and, if they 
 had not been made, nothing else would have been made. 
 Even to munitions of war this principle applies; they 
 partly represent the work of men who, if they had not 
 made spears, would never have made pruning hooks, and 
 who are incapable of any activities but those of contest. 
 
 53. Thus then, finally, the nature of the store has to be 
 considered under two main lights ; the one, that of its im- 
 mediate and actual utility; the other, that of the past 
 national character which it signifies by its production, and 
 future character which it must develop by its use. And 
 the issue of this investigation will be to show us that 
 
 Economy does not depend merely on principles of 
 “ demand and supply,” but primarily on what is de- 
 
MUNEJRA rULVEETS. 
 
 39 
 
 manded, and wliat is supplied ; which I will beg of you 
 to observe, and take to heart. 
 
 54. II. Question Second. — What is the quantity of the 
 store, in relation to the population ? 
 
 It follows from what has been already stated that the 
 accurate foiin in which this question has to be put is — 
 ‘‘What quantity of each article composing the store ex- 
 ists in proportion to the real need for it by the population ? ” 
 But we shall for the time assume, in order to keep all onr 
 terms at the simplest, that the store is w^holly composed 
 of useful articles, and accurately proportioned to the seve- 
 ral needs for them. 
 
 How it cannot be assumed, because the store is large in 
 p c portion to the number of the people, that the people 
 must be in comfort; nor because it is small, that they 
 must be in distress. An -active and economical race 
 always produces more than it requires, and lives (if it is 
 permitted to do so) in competence on the produce of its 
 daily labour. The quantity of its store, great or small, is 
 therefore in many respects indifferent to it, and cannot be 
 inferred from its aspect. Similarly an inactive and waste- 
 ful population, which cannot live by its daily labour, but 
 is dependent, partly or wholly, on consumption of its, store, 
 may be (by various difficulties, hereafter to be examined, 
 in realizing or getting at such store) retained in a state of 
 abject distress, though its possessions may be immense. 
 But the results always involved in the magnitude of store 
 
40 
 
 MUNERA PELVERIS. 
 
 are, the commercial power of the nation, its security, and 
 its mental character. Its commercial power, in that accord- 
 ing to the quantity of its store, may be the extent of its 
 dealings; its security, in that according to the quantity 
 of its store are its means of sudden exertion or sustained 
 endurance ; and its character, in that certain conditions of 
 civilization cannot be attained without permanent and 
 continually accumulating store, of great intrinsic value, 
 and of peculiar nature.* 
 
 55. IS'ow, seeing that these three advantages arise from 
 largeness of store in proportion to population, the question 
 arises immediately, “ Given the store — ^is the nation enriched 
 by diminution of its numbers ? Are a successful national 
 speculation, and a pestilence, economically the same thing? 
 
 This is in part a sophistical question ; such as it would 
 be to ask whether a man was richer when struck by disease 
 which must limit his life within a predicable period, than 
 he was when in health. He is enabled to enlarge his cur- 
 rent expenses, and has for all purposes a larger sum at his 
 immediate disposal (for, given the fortune, the shorter the 
 life, the larger the annuity) ; yet no man considers himself 
 richer because he is condemned by his physician. 
 
 56. The logical reply is that, since Wealth is by defini- 
 tion only the means of life, a nation cannot be enriched 
 by its own mortality. Or in shorter words, the life is more 
 than the meat ; and existence itself, more wealth than the 
 means of existence. Whence, of two nations who have 
 
 f* More especially, works of great art.] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 41 
 
 equal store, the more numerous is to be considered the 
 richer, provided the type of the inhabitant be as high (for, 
 tliough the relative bulk of their store be less, its relative 
 eflicienc}^, or the amount of effectual wealth, must be 
 greater). But if the type of the po]3ulation be deteri- 
 orated by increase of its numbers, we have evidence of 
 poverty in its worst influence; and then, to determine 
 whether the nation in its total may still be justifiably 
 esteemed rich, we must set or weigh, tlie number of the 
 poor against that of the rich. 
 
 To effect which piece of scale-work, it is of course neces- 
 sary to determine, first, who are poor and who are rich ; 
 nor this only, but also how poor and how rich they are. 
 Which will prove a curious thermometrical investigation ; 
 for we shall have to do for gold and for silver, what we 
 have done for quicksilver ; — determine, namely, their 
 freezing-point, their zero, their temperate and fever-heat 
 points ; finally, their vaporescent point, at which riches, 
 sometimes explosively, as lately in America, “ make to 
 themselves wings : ” — and correspondently, the number of 
 degrees helow zero at which poverty, ceasing to brace 
 with any wholesome cold, burns to the bone.'^ 
 
 [* The meaning of that, in plain English, is, that we must find out 
 how far poverty and riches are good or bad for people, and what is the 
 difference between being miserably poor — so as, perhaps, to be driven 
 to crime, or to pass life in suffering — and being blessedly poor, in the 
 sense meant in the Sermon on the Mount. For I suppose the people 
 who believe that sermon, do not think (if they ever honestly ask them- 
 selves what they do think), either that Luke vi. 24. is a merely poetical 
 
42 
 
 MIJNEEA PULYERIS. 
 
 57. For the performance of these operations, in the 
 strictest sense scientific, we will fimt look to the existing 
 so-called science ” of Political Economy ; we will ask it 
 to define for ns the comparatively and superlatively rich, 
 and the comparatively and superlatively poor ; and on its 
 own terms — if any terms it can pronounce — examine, in 
 our prosperous England, how many rich and how many 
 poor people there are ; and whether the quantity and in- 
 tensity of the poverty is indeed so overbalanced by the 
 quantity and intensity of wealth, that we may permit our- 
 selves a luxurious blindness to it, and call ourselves, com- 
 placently, a rich country. And if we find no clear defini- 
 tion in the existing science, we will endeavour for ourselves 
 to fix the true degrees of the scale, and to apply them.* 
 
 58. Question Third. What is the quantity of the store 
 in relation to the Currency ? 
 
 We have seen that the real worth of the currency, so 
 far as dependent on its relation to the magnitude of the 
 store, may vary, within certain limits, without affecting its 
 worth in exchange. The diminution or increase of the 
 represented wealth may be unperceived, arid tlie cm-rency 
 may be taken either for more or less than it is truly worth. 
 Usually it is taken for much more ; and its power in ex- 
 
 exclamation, or that the Beatitude of Poverty has yet been attained in 
 St. Martin’s Lane and other back streets of London.] 
 
 [ * Large plans ! — Eight years are gone, and nothing done yet. But 
 I keep my purpose of making one day this balance, or want of balance, 
 visible, in those so seldom used scales of Justice.] 
 
MUNEExV PULVERIS. 
 
 4; 
 
 change, or credit-power, is thus increased up to a given 
 strain upon its relation to existing wealth. This credit- 
 power is of chief importance in the thoughts, because most 
 sharply present to the experience, of a mercantile commu- 
 nity : but the conditions of its stability * and all other re- 
 lations of the currency to the material store are entirely 
 simple in principle, if not in action. Far other than sim- 
 ple are the relations of the currency to the available labour 
 which it also represents. For this relation is involved not 
 only with that of the magnitude of the store to the number, 
 but with that of the magnitude of the store to the mind, 
 of the population. Its proportion to their number, and 
 the resulting worth of currency, are calculable ; but its 
 proportion to their will for labour is not. The worth of 
 the piece of money which claims a given quantity of the 
 store is, in exchange, less or greater according to the 
 
 * These are nearly all briefly represented by the image used for the 
 force of money by Dante, of mast and sail : — 
 
 Quali dal vento le gonfiate vele 
 Caggiono awolte, poi che Falber fiacca 
 Tal cadde a terra la fiera crudele. 
 
 The image may be followed out, like all of Dante’s, into as close de- 
 tail as the reader chooses. Thus the stress of the sail must be propor- 
 tioned to the strength of the mast, and it is only in unforeseen danger ' 
 ,that a skilful seaman ever carries all the canvas his spars will bear ; 
 states of mercantile languor are like the flap of the sail in a calm ; of 
 mercantile precaution, like taking in reefs ; and mercantile ruin is in- 
 stant on the breaking of the mast. 
 
 [I moan by credit-power, the general impression on the national 
 mind that a sovereign, or any other coin, is worth so much bread and 
 cheese — so much wine — so much horse and carriage — or so much fine 
 art : it may be really worth, when tried, less or more than is thought : 
 the thought of it is the credit-power.] 
 
44 
 
 MTTNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 facility of obtaining the same quantity of the same thing 
 without having recourse to the store. In other words, 
 it depends on the immediate Cost and Price of the thing. 
 We must now, therefore, complete the definition of 
 these terms. 
 
 59. All cost and price are counted in Labour. We 
 must know first, therefore, what is to be counted as Labour. 
 
 I have already defined labour to be the Contest of the 
 life of man with an opposite. Literally, it is the quantity 
 of Lapse,” loss, or failure of hmnan life, caused by any 
 effort. It is usually confused with effort itself, or the 
 application of power (opera) ; but there is much effort 
 which is merely a mode of recreation, or of pleasure. 
 The most beautiful actions of the human body, and the 
 highest results of the human intelligence, are conditions, 
 or achievements, of quite unlaborious, — nay, of recrea- 
 tive, — effort. But labour is the suffering in effort. It 
 is the negative quantity, or quantity of de-feat, which 
 has to be counted against every Feat, and of de-fect which 
 has to be counted against every Fact, or Deed of men. 
 In brief, it is “ that quantity of our toil which we die in.” 
 
 We might, therefore, d gyriori^ conjecture (as we shall 
 ultimately find), that it cannot be bought, nor sold. 
 Everything else is bought and sold for Labour, but 
 labour itself cannot be bought nor sold for anything, 
 being priceless.* The idea that it is a commodity to be 
 
 * The object of Political Economy is not to buy, nor to sell labour, 
 but to spare it. Every attempt to buy or sell it is, in the outcome, 
 
MUNERA PTJLVERIS. 
 
 45 
 
 bought or sold, is the alplia and omega of Politico-Econo- 
 mic fallacy. 
 
 60. This being the nature of labour, the “Cost” of 
 anything is the quantity of labour necessary to obtain 
 it; — the quantity for which, or at which, it “stands” 
 (constat). It is literally the “ Constancy ” of the thing ; — 
 you shall win it — move it — come at it, for no less than 
 this. 
 
 Cost is measured and measurable (using the accurate 
 Latin terms) only in “labor,” not in “ opera.” It does 
 not matter how much work a thing needs to produce it ; 
 it matters only how much distress. Generally the more 
 the power it requires, the less the distress ; so that the 
 noblest w^orks of man cost less than the meanest. 
 
 True labour, or spending of life, is either of the body, 
 in fatigue c>r pain ; of the temper or heart (as in perse- 
 verance of search for things, — patience in waiting for 
 
 ineffectual ; so far as successful, it is not sale, but Betrayal ; and the 
 purchase-money is a part of that thirty pieces which bought, first the 
 greatest of labours, and afterwards the burial-field of the Stranger ; 
 for this purchase-money, being in its very smallness or vileness the 
 exactly measured opposite of the “vilisannona amicorum,” makes all 
 men strangers to each other. 
 
 * Cicero’s distinction, “ sordidi quaestus, quorum opera3, non quorum 
 artes emuntur,” admirable in principle, is inaccurate in expression, 
 because Cicero did not practically know how much operative dexterity 
 is necessary in all the higher arts ; but the cost of this dexterity is in- 
 calculable. Be it great or small, the “cost” of the mere perfectness of 
 touch in a hammer-stroke of Donatello’s, or a pencil-touch of Cor- 
 reggio’s, is inestimable by any ordinary arithmetic. 
 
 [Old notes, these, more embarrassing I now perceive, than elucida- 
 tory ; but right, and worth retaining.] 
 
46 
 
 MUNEEA PULYERIS. 
 
 them, — fortitude or degradation in suffering for them, 
 and the like), or of the intellect. All these kinds of la- 
 bour are supposed to be included in the general term, and 
 the quantity of labour is then expressed by the time it 
 lasts. So that a unit of labour is “an hour’s work” or a 
 day’s work, as we may determine.* 
 
 61. Cost, like value, is both intrinsic and effectual. In- 
 trinsic cost is that of getting the thing in the right way ; 
 effectual cost is that of getting the thing in the way we 
 set about it. But intrinsic cost cannot be made a subject 
 of analytical investigation, being only partially discover- 
 able, and that by long experience. Effectual cost is all 
 that the political Economist can deal with ; that is to say, 
 the cost of the thing under existing circumstances, and by 
 known processes. 
 
 Cost, being dependent much on application of method, 
 varies with the quantity of the thing wanted, and with the 
 number of persons who work for it. It is easy to get a 
 little of some things, but difficult to get much ; it is im- 
 possible to get some things with few hands, but easy to 
 get them with many. 
 
 62. The cost and value of things, however difficult to 
 determine accm’ately, are thus both dependent on ascer- 
 tainable physical circumstances.f 
 
 * Only observe, as some labour is more destructive of life than other 
 labour, the hour or day of the more destructive toil is supposed to in- 
 clude proportionate rest. Though men do not, or cannot, usually take 
 such rest, except in death. 
 
 f There is, therefore, observe, no such thing as cheapness (in the 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 47 
 
 But price is dependent on the human will. 
 
 Su^li and such a thing is demonstrably good for so 
 much. And it may demonstrably be had for so much. 
 
 common use of that term), without some error or injustice. A thing- is 
 said to be cheap, not because it is common, but because it is supposed 
 to be sold under its worth. Everything- has its proper and true worth 
 at any given time, in relation to everything else ; and at that worth 
 should be bought and sold. If sold under it, it is cheap to the buyer 
 by exactly so much as the seller loses, and no more. Putrid meat, at 
 twopence a pound, is not ‘ ‘ cheaper ” than wholesome meat at seven- 
 pence a pound ; it is probably much dearer ; but if, by watching your 
 opportunity, you can get the wholesome meat for sixpence a pound, it 
 is cheaper to you by a penny, which you have gained, and the seller 
 has lost. The present rage for cheapness is either, therefore, simply 
 and literally a rage for badness of all commodities, or it is an attempt to 
 find persons whose necessities will force them to let you have more than 
 you should for your money. It is quite easy to produce such persons, 
 and in large numbers ; for the more distress there is in a nation, the 
 more cheapness of this sort you can obtain, and your boasted cheapness 
 is thus merely a measure of the extent of your national distress. 
 
 There is, indeed, a condition of apparent cheapness, which we 
 have some right to be triumphant in ; namely, the real reduction in 
 cost of articles by right application of labour. But in this case the 
 article is only cheap with reference to its foi'mer price ; the so-called 
 cheapness is only our expression for the sensation of contrast between 
 its former and existing prices. So soon as the new methods of 
 producing the article are established, it ceases to be esteemed either 
 cheap or dear, at the new price, as at the old one, and is felt to be 
 cheap only when accident enables it to be purchased beneath this new 
 value. And it is no advantage to produce the article more easily, 
 except as it enables you to multiply your population. Cheapness of 
 this kind is merely the discovery that more men can be maintained on 
 the same ground ; and the question how many you will maintain in 
 proportion to your additional means, remains exactly in the same terms 
 that it did before. 
 
 A form of immediate cheapness results, however, in many cases, 
 without distress, from the labour of a population where food is redund- 
 ant, or where the labour by which the food is produced leaves much 
 
48 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 But it remains questionable, and in all maimer of ways 
 questionable, whether I choose to give so much.* 
 
 This choice is always a relative one. It is a choice to 
 give a price for this, rather than for that ; — a resolution to 
 have the thing, if getting it does not involve the loss of a 
 better thing. Price depends, therefore, not only on the 
 cost of the commodity itself, but on its relation to the 
 cost of every other attainable thing. 
 
 Farther. The jpower of choice is also a relative one* 
 It depends not merely on om* own estimate of the thing, 
 but on everybody else’s estimate ; therefore on the number 
 and force of the will of the conciuTent buyers, and on the 
 
 idle time on their hands, which may be applied to the production of 
 “ cheap ” articles. 
 
 All such phenomena indicate to the political economist places where 
 the labour is unbalanced. In the first case, the just balance is to be 
 effected by taking labourers from the spot where pressure exists, and 
 sending them to that where food is redundant. In the second, the 
 cheapness is a local accident, advantageous to the local purchaser, dis- 
 advantageous to the local producer. It is one of the first duties of com- 
 merce to extend the market, and thus give the local producer his full 
 advantage. 
 
 Cheapness caused by natural accidents of harvest, weather, &c . , is 
 always counterbalanced, in due time., by natural scarcity, simHarlj 
 caused. It is the part of wise government, and healthy commerce, so 
 to provide in times and places of plenty for times and places of dearth, 
 as that there shall never be waste, nor famine. 
 
 Cheapness caused by gluts of the market is merely a disease of 
 clumsy and wanton commerce. 
 
 * Price has been already defined (p. 9) to be the quantity of labour 
 which the possessor of a thing is willing to take for it. It is best to 
 consider the price to be that fixed by the possessor, because the pos- 
 sessor has absolute power of refusing sale, while the purchaser has no 
 absolute power of compelling it ; but the effectual or market price is 
 that at which their estimates coincide. 
 
Ml/NERA PULVERIS. 
 
 49 
 
 existing quantity of the thing in proportion to that num- 
 ber and force. 
 
 Hence the price of anything depends on four variables. 
 
 (1.) Its cost. 
 
 (2.) Its attainable quantity at that cost. 
 
 (3.) The number and power of the persons who want it. 
 
 (4.) The estimate they have formed of its desirableness. 
 
 Its value only affects its price so far as it is contem- 
 plated in this estimate ; perhaps, therefore, not at all. 
 
 63. How, in order to show the manner in which price 
 is expressed in terms of a currency, we must assume these 
 four quantities to be known, and the estimate of desir- 
 ableness,’’ commonly called the Demand, to be certain. 
 We will take the number of persons at the lovrest. Let 
 A and B be two labourers who “ demand,” that is to say, 
 have resolved to labour for, two articles, a and h. Their 
 demand for these articles (if the reader likes better, he 
 may say their need) is to be conceived as absolute, their 
 existence depending on the getting these two things. 
 Suppose, for instance, that they are bread and fuel, in a 
 cold country, and let a represent the least quantity of 
 bread, and h the least quantity of fuel, which will support 
 a man’s life for a day. Let a be producible by an hour’s 
 labour, but h only by two hours’ labour. 
 
 Then the cost of a is one hour, and of h two (cost, by 
 our definition, being expressible in terms of time). If, 
 therefore, each man worked both for his corn and fuel, 
 each would have to work three hours a day. But they 
 
60 
 
 MTJlfERA PULVERIS. 
 
 divide the labour for its greater ease.* Then if A works 
 three hours, he produces 3 which is one a more than 
 both the men want. And if B works three hours, he pro- 
 duces only \\ 5, or half of I less than both want. But if 
 A work three hours and B six, A has 3 «, and B has 3 J, 
 a maintenance in the right proportion for both for a day 
 and half ; so that each might take half a day’s rest. But 
 as B has worked double time, the whole of this day’s rest 
 belongs in equity to him. Therefore the just exchange 
 should be, A giving two a for one 5, has one a and one 1) / 
 —maintenance for a day. B giving one h for two has 
 two a and two — maintenance for two days. 
 
 But B cannot rest on the second day, or A would be 
 left without the article which B produces. Kor is there 
 any means of making the exchange just, unless a third 
 labourer is called in. Then one workman, A, produces 
 and two, B and C, produce h : — A, working three hours, 
 has three a /- — B, three hours, h / — C, three hours, h. 
 
 B and C each give half of 5 for and all have their 
 equal daily maintenance for equal daily work. 
 
 To carry the example a single step farther, let three 
 articles, a, 5, and g be needed. 
 
 Let a need one hour’s work, h two, and c four ; then the 
 day’s work must be seven hours, and one man in a day’s 
 work can make 7 a, or 3^ J, or If c. 
 
 * This “ greater ease ” ought to be allowed for by a diminution in 
 the times of the divided work ; but as the proportion of times would 
 remain the same, I do not introduce this unnecessary complexity into 
 the calculation. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 51 
 
 Therefore one A works for producing ^ a ; two B’s 
 work for producing 7 J ; four C’s work for c, produc- 
 ing 7 G, 
 
 A has six a to spare, and gives two a for one and four 
 a for one c. Each B has 2^- h to spare, and gives -J- h for 
 one and two 5 for one c. 
 
 Each C has f of c to spare, and gives i c for one J, and 
 J of c for one a. 
 
 And all have their day’s maintenance. 
 
 Generally, therefore, it follows that if the demand is 
 constant,* the relative prices of things are as their costs, or. 
 as th(; quantities of labour involved in production. 
 
 64. Then, in order to express their prices in terms of a 
 currency, we have only to put the currency into the form 
 of orders for a certain quantity of any given article (with 
 us it is in the form of orders for gold), and all quantities 
 of other articles are priced by the relation they bear to 
 the article which the currency claims. 
 
 Blit the worth of the currency itself is not in the slight- 
 est degree founded more on the worth of the article which 
 it either claims or consists in (as gold) than on the worth 
 of every other article for which the gold is exchangeable. 
 It is just as accurate to sa}^, “ so many pounds are worth an 
 acre of land,” as “ an acre of land is worth so many 
 pounds.” The worth of gold, of land, of houses, and of 
 food, and of all other things, depends at any moment on 
 the existing quantities and relative demands for all and 
 * Compare Unto this Last^ p. 115, et seq. 
 
52 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 each ; and a change in the worth of, or demand for, any 
 one, involves an instantaneously correspondent change in 
 the worth of, and demand for, all the rest ; — a change as 
 inevitable and as accurately balanced (though often in its 
 process as untraceable) as the change in volume of the 
 outflowing river from some vast lake, caused by change in 
 the volume of the inflowing streams, though no eye can 
 trace, nor instrument detect, motion, either on its surface, 
 or in the depth. 
 
 65. Thus, then, the real working power or worth of the 
 currency is founded on the entire sum of the relative esti- 
 mates formed by the population of its possessions ; a 
 change in ^his estimate in any direction (and therefore 
 every change in the national character), instantly altei*s 
 the value of money, in its second great function of com- 
 manding labour. But we must alwa^^s carefully and sternly 
 distinguish between this worth of currency, dependent on 
 the conceived or appreciated value of what it represents, 
 and the worth of it, dependent on the existence of what 
 it represents. A currency is true^ or false, in proportion 
 to the security with which it gives claim to the possession 
 of land, house, horse, or picture ; but a currency is strong 
 or weahf worth much, or worth little, in proportion to 
 the degree of estimate in which the nation holds the house, 
 
 horse, or picture which is claimed. Thus the power of the 
 
 [ * That is to say, the love of money is founded first on the intense - 
 ness of desire for given things ; a youth will rob the till, now-a-days, 
 for pantomime tickets and cigars; the “strength” of the currency 
 being irresistible to him, in consequence of his desire for those luxuries.] 
 
MrNERA rULVERIS. 
 
 58 
 
 Englisli currency has been, till of late, largely based on 
 the national estimate of horses and of wine : so that a man 
 might always give any price to furnish choicely his stable, 
 or his cellar ; and receive public approval therefore : but 
 if he gave the same sum to furnish his library, he was 
 called mad, or a biblio-maniac. And although he might 
 lose his fortune by his horses, and his health or life by his 
 cellar, and rarely lost either by his books, he was yet never 
 called a Hippo-maniac nor an Oino-maniac ; but only 
 Biblio-maniac, because the current worth of money wa?i 
 understood to be legitimately founded on cattle and wine^ 
 but not on literature. The prices lately given at sales foi> 
 pictures and MSS. indicate some tendency to change in 
 the national character in this respect, so that the worth ol 
 the currency may even come in time to rest, in an acknow 
 ledged manner, somewhat on the state and keeping of th(r 
 Bedford missal, as well as on the health of Caractacus or 
 Blink Bonny ; and old pictures be considered property, no 
 less than old port. They might have been so before now, . 
 but that it is more difficult to choose the one than the 
 other. 
 
 66. How, observe, all these sources of variation in the 
 power of the currency exist, wholly irrespective of the 
 influences of vice, indolence, and improvidence. We 
 have hitherto supposed, throughout the analysis, every 
 professing labourer to labour honestly, heartily, and in 
 harmony with his fellows. We have now to bring farther 
 into the calculation the effects of relative industry, honour. 
 
64 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 and foretliought ; and thus to follow out the bearings of 
 our second inquiry : Who are the holders of the Store and 
 Currency, and in what proportions ? 
 
 This, however, we must reserve for our next paper 
 - — noticing here only that, however distinct the several 
 branches of the subject are, radically, they are so inter- 
 woven in their issues that we cannot rightly treat any one, 
 till we have taken cognizance of all. Thus the need of 
 the currency in proportion to number of population is 
 materially influenced by the probable number of the hold- 
 ers in proportion to the non-holders ; and this again, by 
 the number of holders of goods, or wealth, in proportion 
 to the non-holders of goods. For as, by definition, the 
 currency is a claim to goods which are not possessed, its 
 quantity indicates the number of claimants in proportion 
 to the number of holders ; and the force and complexity 
 of claim. For if the claims be not complex, currency as 
 a means of exchange may be very small in quantity. A 
 sells some corn to B, receiving a promise from B to pay 
 in cattle, which A then hands over to C, to get some wine. 
 C in due time claims the cattle from B ; and B takes back 
 his promise. These exchanges have, or might have been, 
 all effected with a single coiii or promise ; and the propor- 
 tion of the currency to the store would in such circum- 
 stances indicate only the circulating vitality of it — that 
 is to say, the quantity and convenient divisibility of that 
 part of the store which the habits of the nation keep in 
 circulation. If a cattle breeder is content to live with his 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 55 
 
 honseliold chiefly on meat and milk, and does not want 
 rich furnitnre, or jewels, or books — if a wine and corn 
 grower maintains himself and his men chiefly on grapes 
 and bread ; — if the wives and daughters of families weave 
 and spin the clothing of the household, and the nation, as 
 a whole, remains content with the produce of its own soil 
 and the work of its own hands, it has little occasion for 
 circulating media. It pledges and promises little and sel- 
 dom ; exchanges only so far as exchange is necessary for 
 life. The store belongs to the people in whose hands it is 
 found, and money is little needed either as an expression 
 of right, or practical means of division and exchange. 
 
 67. But in proportion as the habits of the nation be- 
 come complex and fantastic (and they may be both, with- 
 out therefore being civilized), its circulating medium must 
 increase in proportion to its store. If every one wants 
 a little of everything, — if food must be of many kindSj 
 and dress of many fashions, — if multitudes live by work 
 which, ministering to fancy, has its pay measured by 
 fancy, so that large prices will be given by one person for 
 what is valueless to another, — if there are great inequali- 
 ties of knowledge, causing great inequalities of estimate, 
 — and, finally, and worst of all, if the currency itself, 
 from its largeness, and the power which the possession of 
 it implies, becomes the sole object of desire with large 
 numbers of the nation, so that the holding of it is dis- 
 puted among them as the main object of life : — in each 
 and all of these cases, the currency necessarily enlarges 
 
50 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 in proportion to the store; and as a means of exchange 
 and division, as a bond of right, and as an object of pas- 
 sion, has a more and more important and malignant power 
 c>ver the nation’s dealings, character, and life. 
 
 Against which power, when, as a bond of Kight, it 
 becomes too conspicuous and too burdensome, t-he popular 
 voice is apt to be raised in a violent and irrational man- 
 ner, leading to revolution instead of remedy. Whereas 
 all possibility of Economy depends on the clear assertion 
 and maintenance of this bond of right, however burden- 
 some. The first necessity of all economical government 
 is to secure the unquestioned and unquestionable working 
 of the great law of Property — ^that a man who works for 
 a thing shall be allowed to get it, keep it, and consume it, 
 in peace ; and that he who does not eat his cake to-day, 
 shall be seen, without grudging, to have his cake to-mor- 
 row. This, I say, is the first point to be secured by social 
 law ; without this, no political advance, nay, no political 
 existence, is in any sort possible. Whatever evil, luxury, 
 iniquity, may seem to result from it, this is nevertheless 
 the first of all Equities ; and to the enforcement of this, 
 by law and by police-truncheon, the nation must always 
 primarily set its mind — that the cupboard door may have 
 a firm lock to it, and no man’s dinner be carried off by 
 the mob, on its way home from the baker’s. Which, thus 
 fearlessly asserting, we shall endeavour in next paper to 
 consider how far it may be practicable for the mob itself, 
 also, in due breadth of dish, to have dinners to carry home. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 57 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 COIN-KEEPING. 
 
 <38. It will be seen by reference to the last chapter that 
 our present task is to examine the relation of holders of 
 store to holders of currency ; and of both to those who 
 hold neither. In order to do this, we must determine on 
 wdiich side we are to place substances such as gold, com- 
 monly known as bases of currency. By aid of previous 
 definitions the reader will now be able to understand 
 closer statements than have yet been possible. 
 
 69. The cuTTency of any country consists of every 
 document achnowledying debt^ which is transferable in 
 the country!^ 
 
 This transferableness depends upon its intelligibility 
 and credit. Its intelligibility depends chiefiy on the 
 difficulty of hwgiiig anything like it; — its credit much 
 on national character, but ultimately always on the 
 existence of substantial means of meeting its demand.^ 
 
 [* Remember this definition : it is of great importance as opposed to 
 the imperfect ones usually given. When first these essays were pub- 
 lished, I remember one of their reviewers asking contemptuously, “ Is 
 half -a- crown a document ? ” it never having before occurred to him that 
 a document might be stamped as well as written, and stamped on silver 
 as well as on parchment.] 
 
 ff I do not mean the demand of the holder of a five -pound note for 
 
58 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 As the degrees of transferableness are Yariable, (some 
 documents passing only in certain places, and othei*s 
 passing, if at all, for less than their inscribed value), both 
 the mass, and, so to speak, fluidity, of the currency, are 
 variable. True or perfect currency flows freely, like a 
 pure stream ; it becomes sluggish or stagnant in propor- 
 tion to the quantity of less transferable matter which 
 mixes with it, adding to its bulk, but diminishing its 
 purity. [Articles of commercial value, on which bills are 
 drawm, increase the currency indefinitely ; and substances 
 of intrinsic value if stamped or signed without restriction 
 so as to become acknowledgments of debt, increase it 
 indefinitely also.] Every bit of gold found in Australia, 
 so long as it remains uncoined, is an ai’ticle offered for 
 sale like any other ; but as soon as it is coined into 
 pounds, it diminishes the value of every pound we have 
 now in our pockets. 
 
 TO. ^ Legally authorized or national currency, in its per- 
 fect condition, is a form of public acknowledgment of 
 debt, so regulated and divided that any pei'son present- 
 ing a commodity of tried worth in the public market, 
 shall, if he please, receive in exchange for it a document 
 giving him claim to the retmm of its equivalent, (1) in 
 any place, (2) at any time, and (3) in any kind. 
 
 When currency is quite healthy and vital, the pei’sons 
 entrusted with its management are always able to give 
 on demand either, 
 
 five pounds, but the demand of the holder of a pound for a pound’s 
 worth of something good. ] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 50 
 
 A. Tlie assigning document for the assigned quantity 
 cf goods. Or, 
 
 B. The assigned quantity of goods for the assigning 
 document. 
 
 If they cannot give document for goods, the national 
 exchange is at fault. 
 
 If they cannot give goods for document, the national 
 credit is at fault. 
 
 The nature and povrer of the document are there- 
 fore to be examined under the three relations it bears 
 to Place, Time, and Kind. 
 
 71. (1.) It gives claim to the return of equivalent 
 wealth in any Place. Its use in this function is to 
 save carriage, so that parting with a bushel of corn 
 in London, we may receive an order for a bushel of 
 corn at the Antipodes, or elsewhere. To be perfect 
 in this use, the substance of currency must be to 
 the maximum portable, credible, and intelligible. Its 
 non-acceptance or discredit results always from some 
 form of ignorance or dishonour: so far as such inter- 
 ruptions rise out of differences in denomination, there 
 is no ground for their continuance among civilized na- 
 |iions. It may be convenient in one country to use 
 chiefly copper for coinage, in another silver, and in an- 
 other gold, — reckoning accordingly in centimes, francs, 
 or zecchins: but that a franc should be different in 
 weight and value from a shilling, and a zwanziger vary 
 from both, is wanton loss of commercial power. 
 
60 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 72. (2.) It gives claim to the return of equivalent 
 wealth at any Time, In this second use, currency is 
 the exponent of accumulation : it renders the laying-up 
 of store at the command of individuals unlimitedly pos- 
 sible ; — whereas, but for its intervention, all gathering 
 would be confined within certain limits by the bulk of 
 property, or by its decay, or the difficulty of its guar- 
 dianship. “ I will pull down my barns and build 
 greater,” cannot be a daily saying ; and all matei ial in- 
 vestment is enlargement of care. The national cur- 
 rency transfers the guardianship of the store to many; 
 and preserves to the original producer the right of re- 
 entering on its possession at any future period. 
 
 73. (3.) It gives claim (practical, though not legal) to 
 the return of equivalent wealth in any Kind, It is a 
 transferable right, not merely to this or that, but to 
 anything; and its power in this function is propor- 
 tioned to the range of choice. If you give a child 
 an apple or a toy, you give him a determinate pleas- 
 ure, but if yon give him a penny, an indeterminate 
 one, proportioned to the range of selection offered by 
 the shops in the village. The power of the world’s 
 (jurrency is similarly in proportion to the openness of 
 the world’s fair, and, commonly, enhanced by the bril- 
 liancy of external aspect, rather than solidity of its 
 wares. 
 
 74. We have said that the currency consists of orders 
 for equivalent goods. If equivalent, their quality must 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 61 
 
 be guaranteed. The kinds of goods chosen for specific 
 claim must, therefore, be capable of test, while, also, 
 that a store may be kept in hand to meet the call of 
 the currency, smallness of bulk, with great relative 
 value, is desirable; and indestructibility, over at least a 
 certain period, essential. 
 
 Such indestructibility, and facility of being tested, 
 are united in gold; its intrinsic value is great, and its 
 imaginary value greater; so that, partly through indo- 
 lence, partly through necessity and want of organiza- 
 tion, most nations have agreed to take gold for the 
 only basis of their currencies ; — with this grave disad- 
 vantage, that its portability enabling the metal to be- 
 come an active part of the medium of exchange, the 
 stream of the currency itself becomes opaque with gold 
 — half currency and half commodity, in unison of 
 functions which partly neuti’alize, partly enhance each 
 other’s force. 
 
 75. They partly neutralize, since in so far as the 
 gold is commodity, it is bad currency, because liable 
 to sale ; and in so far as it is currency, it is bad 
 commodity, because its exchange value interferes with 
 its practical use. Especially its employment in the 
 higher branches of the arts becomes unsafe on account 
 of its liability to be melted down for exchange. 
 
 Again. They partly enhance, since in so far as the 
 gold has acknowledged intrinsic value, it is good cur- 
 rency, because everywhere acceptable ; and in so far as 
 
62 
 
 MUNERA PULVEBIS. 
 
 it has legal exchangeable value, its worth as a commo- 
 dity is increased. We want no gold in the form of 
 dust or crystal; but we seek for it coined, because 
 in that form it will pay baker and butcher. And 
 this worth in exchange not only absorbs a large 
 quantity in that use,* but greatly increases the effect 
 on the imagination of the quantity used in the arts. 
 Thus, in brief, the force of the functions is increased, 
 but their precision blunted, by their unison. 
 
 76. These inconveniences, however, attach to gold as a 
 basis of currency on account of its portability and pre- 
 ciousness. But a far greater inconvenience attaches to it 
 as the only legal basis of currency. Imagine gold to be 
 only attainable in masses weighing several pounds each, 
 and its value, like that of malachite or marble, propor- 
 tioned to its largeness of bulk; — it could not then get 
 
 * [Read and think over, the following note very carefully.] 
 
 The waste of labour in obtaining the gold, though it cannot be 
 estimated by help of any existing data, may be understood in its 
 bearing on entire economy by supposing it limited to transactions 
 between two persons. If two farmers in Australia have been ex- 
 changing corn and cattle with each other for years, keeping their 
 accounts of reciprocal debt in any simple way, the sum of the pos- 
 sessions of either would not be diminished, though the part of it 
 which was lent or borrowed were only reckoned by marks on a 
 stone, or notches on a tree ; and the one counted himself accord- 
 ingly, so many scratches, or so many notches, better than the other. 
 But it would soon be seriously diminished if, discovering gold in 
 their fields, each resolved only to accept golden counters for a reck- 
 oning; and accordingly, whenever he wanted a sack of corn or a 
 cow, was obliged to go and wash sand for a week before he could 
 get the means of giving a receipt for them. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 03 
 
 itself confused with the currency in daily use, but it 
 might still remain as its basis ; and this second inconveni- 
 ence would still affect it, namely, that its significance as 
 an expression of debt varies, as that of every other article 
 would, with the popular estimate of its desirableness, and 
 with the quantity offered in the market. My power of 
 obtaining other goods for gold depends always on the 
 strength of public passion for gold, and on the limitation 
 of its quantity, so that when either of two things happen 
 — that the world esteems gold less, or finds it more easily 
 — my right of claim is in that degree effaced / and it has 
 been even gravely maintained that a discovery of a 
 mountain of gold would cancel the National Debt; in 
 other words, that men may be paid for w^hat costs much 
 in what costs nothing. . Now, it is true that there is little 
 chance of sudden convulsion in this respect; the world 
 will not so rapidly increase in wisdom as to despise gold 
 on a sudden ; and perhaps may [for a little time] desire 
 it more eagerly the more easily it is obtained ; neverthe- 
 less, the right of debt ought not to rest on a basis of 
 imagination ; nor should the frame of a national currency 
 vibrate with every miser’s panic, and eveiy merchant’s 
 imprudence. 
 
 77. There are two methods of avoiding this insecurity, 
 which would have been .fallen upon long ago, if, instead 
 of calculating the conditions of the supply of gold, men 
 had only considered how the w^orld might live and man- 
 
64 
 
 MUNERA PULVERK. 
 
 age its affairs without gold at all.* One is, to hase the 
 currency on substances of truer intrinsic value ; the other, 
 to base it on several substances instead of one. If I can 
 only claim gold, the discovery of a golden mountain 
 starves me ; but if I can claim bread, the discovery of a 
 continent of corn-fields need not trouble me. If, how- 
 ever, I wish to exchange my bread for other things, a 
 good harvest will for the time limit my power in thi-s 
 respect ; but if I can claim either bread, iron, or silk at 
 pleasure, the standard of value has three feet instead of 
 one, and will be proportionately firm. Thus, ultimately, 
 the steadiness of currency depends upon the breadth of 
 its base ; but the difficulty of organization increasing 
 with this breadth, the discovery of the condition at once 
 safest and most convenient f can only be by long analysis, 
 which must for the present be deferred. Gold or silver J 
 
 * It is difficult to estimate the curious futility of discussions such as 
 that which lately occupied a section of the British Association, on the 
 absorption of gold, while no one can produce even the simplest of the 
 data necessary for the inquiry. To take the first occurring one, — ^What 
 means have we of ascertaining the weight of gold employed this year in 
 the toilettes of the women of Europe (not to speak of Asia) ; and, sup- 
 posing it known, what means of conjecturing the weight by v/hich, next 
 year, their fancies, and the changes of style among their jewellers, will 
 diminish or increase it ? 
 
 f See, in Pope’s epistle to Lord Bathurst, his sketch of the difficul- 
 ties and uses of a currency literally “ pecuniary ” — (consisting of herds 
 of cattle.) 
 
 “ His Grace will game— to White’s a bull be led,” &c. 
 
 X Perhaps both ; perhaps silver only. It may be found expedient 
 ultimately to leave gold free for use in the arts. As a means of reckon- 
 ing, the standard might be, and in some cases has already been, entirely 
 ideal . — See Mill’s Political Economy^ book iii. chap, vii. at beginning. 
 
MUNERA rULYERTS. 
 
 65 
 
 may always be retained in limited use, as a luxury of 
 coinage and questionless standard, of one weight and alloy 
 among all nations* varying only in the die. The purity 
 of coinage, when metallic, is closely indicative of the 
 honesty of the system of revenue, and even of the general 
 dignity of the State.* 
 
 78. Whatever the article or articles may be \vhich the 
 
 national currency promises to pay, a premium on that 
 article indicates bankruptcy of the government in that 
 proportion, the division of its assets being restrained 
 only by the remaining confidence of the holders of notes 
 in the return of prosperity to the firm. Currencies of 
 forced accej^tance, or of unlimited issue, are merely vari- 
 ous modes of disguising taxation, and delaying its pres- 
 sure, until it is too late to interfere with the cause of 
 
 pressure. To do away with the possibility of such dis- 
 
 guise would have been among the first results of a true 
 economical science, had any such existed ; but there have 
 been too many motives for the concealment, so long as it 
 could by any artifices be maintained, to permit hitherto 
 even the founding of such a science. 
 
 79. And indeed, it is only through evil conduct, wil- 
 
 fully persisted in, that there is any embarrassment, either 
 in the theory or working of currency. Iso exchequer is 
 
 * The purity of the drachma and zecchin were not without signifi- 
 
 cance of the state of intellect, art, and policy, both in Athens and V en- 
 ice ; — a fact first impressed upon me ten years ago, when, in taking 
 daguerreotypes at V enice, I found no purchaseable gold pure enough to 
 gild them with, except that of the old Venetian zecchin. 
 
66 
 
 MTJNEEA EULVEEIS. 
 
 ever embairassed, nor is any financial question difficiilt 
 of solution, when people keep their practlcaJiDXLest, and 
 their heads cool. But when governments lose all office 
 of pilotage, protection, or scrutiny ; and live only in 
 magnificence of antliorized larceny, and polished men- 
 dicity ; or when the people, choosing Specnlation (the s 
 nsnally redundant in the spelling) instead of Toil, visit 
 no dishonesty with chastisement, that each may with im- 
 punity take his dishonest tnrn;-“there are no tricks of 
 financial terminology that will save them ; all signature 
 and mintage do hnt magnify the ruin they retard ;■ and 
 even the riches that remain, stagnant or current, change 
 only from the slime of Avernns to the sand of Phlegethon 
 ‘ — qtdcks>and at the embouchure ; — land fluently recom- 
 mended by recent auctioneers as “eligible for building 
 leases.” 
 
 80. Finally, then, the power of true currency is four- 
 fold. 
 
 (1.) Credit power. Its worth in exchange, dependent 
 on public opinion of the stability and honesty of the 
 issuer. 
 
 (2.) Beal worth. Supposing the gold, or whatever else 
 the currency expressly promises, to be required from 
 the issuer, for all his notes ; and that the call cannot be 
 met in full. Then the actual worth of the document 
 would be, and its actual worth at any moment is, there- 
 fore to be defined as, what the division of the assets of 
 the issuer would produce for it. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 67 
 
 (3.) The exchange power of its base. Granting that 
 we can get five pounds in gold for onr note, it remains a 
 question how mu(;h of other things we can get for five 
 pounds in gold. The more of other things exist, and the 
 less gold, the greater this power. 
 
 (4.) The power over labour, exercised by the given 
 quantity of the base, or of the things to be got for it. 
 The question in this case is, how much work, and (ques- 
 tion of questions !) whose work, is to be had for the food 
 which five pounds will buy. This depends on the number 
 of the population, on their gifts, and on their disposi- 
 tions, with which, down to their slightest humours, and up 
 to their strongest impulses, the power of the currency 
 varies. 
 
 81. Such being the main conditions of national cur- 
 rency, we proceed to examine those of the total currency, 
 under the broad definition,- “ transferable acknowledg- 
 ment of debt ; ” * among the many forms of which there 
 
 * Under which term, observe, we include all documents of debt 
 which, being honest, might be transferable, though they practically are 
 not transferred ; while we exclude all documents which are in reality 
 worthless, though in fact transferred temporarily, as bad money is. 
 The document of honest debt, not transferred, is merely to paper cur- 
 rency as gold withdrawn from circulation is to that of bullion. Much 
 confusion has crept into the reasoning on this subject from the idea that 
 the withdrawal from circulation is a definable state, whereas it is a 
 graduated state, and indefinable. The sovereign in my pocket is with- 
 drawn from circulation as long as I choose to keep it there. It is no 
 otherwise withdrawn if I bury it, nor even if I choose to make it, and 
 others, into a golden cup, and drink out of them ; since a rise in the 
 price of the wine, or of other things, may at any time cause me to melt 
 the cup and throw it back into currency ; and the bullion operates on 
 
68 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 are in effect only two, distinctly opposed ; namely, tlie 
 acknowledgments of debts which wdll be paid, and of 
 debts wdiich will not. Documents, whether in whole or 
 part, of bad debt, being to those of good debt as bad 
 money to bullion, we put for the present these forms of 
 imposture aside (as in analysing a metal we should wash 
 it clear of dross), and then range, in their exact quantities, 
 the true currency of the country on one side, and the 
 store or property of the country on the other. We place 
 gold, and all such substances, on the side of documents, as 
 far as they operate by signature ; — on the side of store as 
 far as they operate by value. Then the currency repre- 
 sents the quantity of debt in the country, and the store the 
 quantity of its possession. The ownership of all the 
 property is divided between the holders of currency and 
 holders of store, and whatever the claiming value of the 
 currency is at any moment, that value is to be deducted 
 from the riches of the store-holders. 
 
 82. Farther, as true currency represents by definition 
 
 the prices of the things in the market as directly, though not as forcibly, 
 while it is in the form of a cup as it does in the form of a sovereign. 
 No calculation can be founded on my humour in either case. If I like 
 to handle rouleaus, and therefore keep a quantity of gold, to play with, 
 in the form of jointed basaltic columns, it is all one in its effect on the 
 market as if I kept it in the form of twisted filigree, or, steadily 
 “amicus lamnse,” beat the narrow gold pieces into broad ones, and 
 dined off them. The probability is greater that I break the rouleau 
 than that I melt the plate ; but the increased probability is not calcula- 
 ble.' Thus, documents are only withdrawn from the currency when 
 cancelled, and bullion when it is so effectually lost as that the pro- 
 bability of finding it is no greater than of finding new gold in the mine. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 69 
 
 debts which will be paid, it represents either the debtor’s 
 wealth, or his ability and willingness; that is to say, 
 either wealth existing in his hands transferred to him by 
 the creditor, or wealth which, as he is at some time surely 
 to return it, he is either increasing, or, if diminishing, has 
 the will and strength to reproduce. A sound currency 
 therefore, as by its increase it represents enlarging debt, 
 represents also enlarging means ; but in this curious way,., 
 that a certain quantity of it marks the deficiency of the- 
 wealth of the country from what it would have been rf, 
 that currency had not existed.* In this respect it is like* 
 the detritus of a mountain ; assume that it lies at a fixed' 
 angle, and the more the detritus, the larger must be the- 
 mountain; but it would have been larger still, had there 
 been none. 
 
 83. Farther, though, as above stated, every man possess- 
 ing money has usually also some property beyond what is 
 
 * For example, suppose an active peasant, having got M's ground into 
 good order and built himself a comfortable house, finding time still on 
 his hands, sees one of his neighbours little able to work, and ill-lodged, 
 and offers to built him also a house, and to put his land in order, on 
 condition of receiving for a given period rent for the building and tithe 
 of the fruits. The offer is accepted, and a document given promissory 
 of rent and tithe. This note is money. It can only be good money ifi 
 the man who has incurred the debt so far recovers his strength as to be ' 
 able to take advantage of the help he has received, and meet the de- 
 mand of the note ; if he lets his house fall to ruin, and his field to 
 waste, his promissory note will soon be valueless : but the existence of 
 the note at all is a consequence of his not having worked so stoutly as 
 the other. Let him gain as much as to be able to pay back the entire 
 debt ; the note is cancelled, and we have twa rich store-holders and no 
 currency. 
 
70 
 
 MUNEKA PULVEKIS. 
 
 necessary for his immediate wants, and men possessing 
 property nsnally also hold currency beyond what is neces- 
 sary for their immediate exchanges, it mainly determines 
 the class to which they belong, whether in their eyes the 
 money is an adjunct of the property, or the property of 
 the money. In the first case the holder’s pleasure is in his 
 possessions, and in his money subordinately, as the means 
 of bettering or adding to them. In the second, his 
 pleasure in his money, and in his possessions only as 
 representing it. (In the first case the money is as an 
 atmosphere surrounding the wealth, rising from it and 
 raining back upon it ; but in the second, it is as a deluge, 
 with the wealth fioating, and for the most part perishing 
 in it.*) The shortest distinction between the men is that 
 the one wishes always to buy, and the other to sell. 
 
 84:. Such being the great relations of the classes, 
 their several characters are of the highest importance to 
 the nation ; for on the character of the store-holders 
 chiefiy depend the preservation, display, and serviceable- 
 ness of its wealth; on that of the currency-holders, its 
 distribution ; on that of both, its reproduction. 
 
 — 'We shall, therefore, ultimately find it to be of in- 
 comparably greater importance to the nation in whose 
 hands the thing is put, than how much of it is got ; 
 and that the character of the holders may be conjectured 
 
 [* You need not trouble yourself to make out the sentence in paren- 
 thesis, unless you like, but do not think it is mere metaphor. It states 
 a fact which I could not have stated so shortly, but by metaphor.] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 71 
 
 by the quality of the store ; for such and such a man 
 always asks for such and such a thing; nor only 
 asks for it, but if it ('.an be bettered, betters it : so 
 that possession and possessor reciprocally act on each 
 other, through the entire sum of national possession. 
 The base nation, asking for base things, sinks daily 
 to deeper vileness of nature and weakness in use ; while 
 the noble nation, asking for noble things, rises daily 
 into diviner eminence in both ; the tendency to degra- 
 dation being surely marked by ara^ia ; ” that is to 
 say, (expanding the Greek thought), by carelessness as 
 to the hands in which things are put, consequent dispute 
 for the acquisition of them, disorderliness in accumula- 
 tion of them, inaccuracy in estimate of them, and blunt- 
 ness in conception as to the entire nature of possession. 
 
 85. The currency-holders always increase in number 
 and influence in proportion to the bluntness of nature 
 and clumsiness of the store-holders; for the less use 
 people can make of things, the more they want of 
 them, and the sooner weary of them, and want to 
 change them for something else ; and all frequency of 
 change increases the quantity and power of currency. 
 The large currency-holder himself is essentially a person 
 wdio never has been able to make up his mind as to 
 what he will have, and proceeds, therefore, in vague 
 collection and aggregation, with more and more infuriate 
 passion, urged by complacency in progress, vacancy in 
 idea, and pride of conquest. 
 
72 
 
 MUNERA PULVEEIS. 
 
 While, however, there is this obscurity in the nature 
 of possession of currency, there is a charm in the 
 seclusion of it, wiiich is to some people very enticing. 
 In the enjoyment of real property, others must partly 
 share. The groom has some enjoyment of the stud, 
 and the gardener of the garden; but the money is, or 
 seems, shut up ; it is wholly enviable. Ho one else can 
 haA^e part in any complacencies arising from it. 
 
 The power of arithmetical comparison is also a great 
 thing to unimaginative people. They know always they 
 are so much better than they were, in money ; so much 
 better than others, in money ; but wit cannot be so 
 compared, nor character. My neighbour cannot be 
 convinced that I am wiser than he is, but he can, 
 that 1 am worth so much more; and the universality 
 of the conviction is no less flattering than its clearness. 
 Only a few can understand, — none measure — and feAV 
 will Avillingly adore, superiorities in other things ; but 
 everybody can understand money, e\^erybody can count 
 it, and most will worship it. 
 
 86. How, these various temptations to accumulation 
 would be politically harmless if what was vainly 
 accumulated had any fair chance of being wisely spent. 
 For as accumulation cannot go on for ever, but must 
 some day end in its reverse— if this reverse w^ere indeed 
 a beneflcial distribution and use, as irrigation from 
 reservoir, the fever of gathering, though perilous to 
 the gatherer, might be serviceable to the community. 
 
MUNEEA rULVERIS. 
 
 78 
 
 But it constantly happens (so constantly, that it may 
 be stated as a political law having few exceptions), 
 that what is unreasonably gathered is also unreasonal)ly 
 spent by the persons into whose hands it finally falls. 
 Very frequently it is spent in war, or else in a stupifying 
 luxury, twice hurtful, both in being indulged by the 
 rich and witnessed by .the poor. So that the mol tener 
 and mal dare are as correlative as complementary 
 colours; and the circulation of wealth, which ought 
 to be soft, steady, strong, far-sweeping, and full of 
 warmth, like the Gulf stream, being narrowed into 
 an eddy, and concentrated on a point, changes into the 
 alternate suction and surrender of Charybdis. Which 
 is indeed, I doubt not, the true meaning of that marvel- 
 lous fable, “ infinite,” as Bacon said of it, “ in matter of 
 meditation.” * 
 
 87. It is a strange habit of wise humanity to speak j 
 in enigmas only, so that the highest truths and usefullest r 
 laws must be hunted for through whole picture-galleries 
 of dreams, which to the vulgar seem dreams only. ^ THus^ 
 Homer, the Greek tragedians, Plato, Dante, Chaucer, 
 Shakspeare, and Goethe, have hidden all that is chiefly 
 serviceable in their work, and in all the various literature 
 they absorbed and re-embodied, under types which have 
 rendered it quite useless to the multitude. Wliat is worse, 
 
 [ * What follows, to the end of the chapter, was a note only, in the 
 first printing ; but for after service, it is of more value than any other 
 part of the book, so I have put it into the main text.] 
 
T4 
 
 MUNEEA PULVEKIS. 
 
 tlie two primal declarers of moral discovery, Homer and 
 Plato, are partly at issue; for Plato’s logical power 
 qiieiiched his imagination, and he became incapable of 
 understanding the purely imaginative element either in 
 poetry or painting : he therefore somewhat overrates the 
 pure discipline of passionate art in song and music, and 
 misses that of meditative art. There is, however, a deeper 
 reason for his distrust of Homer. His love of justice, 
 and reverently religious nature, made him dread, as 
 death, every form of fallacy; but chiefly, fallacy re- 
 specting the world to come (his owni myths being only 
 symbolic exponents of a rational hope). We shall perhaps 
 now every day discover more clearly how right Plato was 
 in this, and feel ourselves more and more wonderstruck 
 that men such as Homer and Dante (and, in an inferior 
 sphere, Milton), not to speak of the great sculptors and 
 painters of every age, have permitted themselves, though 
 full of all nobleness and wisdom, to coin idle imaginations 
 of the mysteries of eternity, and guide the faiths of the 
 families of the earth by the courses of their own vague 
 and visionary arts : while the indisputable truths of 
 human life and duty, respecting which they all have but 
 one voice, lie hidden behind these veils of phantasy, 
 unsought, and often unsuspected. I will gather carefully, 
 out of Dante and Homer, what, in this kind, bears on our 
 subject, in its due place ; the flrst broad intention of their 
 symbols may be sketched at once. 
 
 88. The rewards of a worthy use of riches, subordinate 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 to other ends, are shown by Dante in the fifth and sixth 
 orbs of Paradise ; for the punishment of their unworth}^ 
 use, three places are assigned ; one for the avaricious and 
 prodigal whose souls are lost, (Ilell^ canto T ) ; one for the 
 avaricious and prodigal whose souls are capable of purifi- 
 cation, {Purgatory^ canto 19) ; and one for the usurers, of 
 whom none can be redeemed {Hell, canto 17). The first 
 group, the largest in all hell (“gente pin die altrove 
 troppa,” compare Yirgil’s “ quae maxima turba”), meet in 
 contrary currents, as the waves of Charyhdis, casting 
 weights at each other from opposite sides. This weari- 
 ness of contention is the chief element of their torture ; 
 so marked by the beautiful lines beginning “ Or puoi, 
 figliuol,” &c. : (but the usurers, who made their money 
 inactively, sit on the sand, equally without rest, however. 
 
 Di qua, di la, soccorrien, &c.) For it i^gt_a^^i_ce, but 
 Gont^ri^n for riches, leading to this double misuse of 
 them, which, in Dante’s light, is the unredeemable sin. 
 The place of its punishment is guarded by Plutus, “ the 
 great enemy,” and “ la fiera crudele,” a spirit quite differ- 
 ent from the Greek Plutus, who, though old and blind, is 
 not cruel, and is curable, so as to become far-sighted. 
 fv rv(j)X6(; o^v ^XeTrcov, — Plato’s epithets in first book 
 of the Laws.) Still more does this Dantesque type differ 
 from the resplendent Plutus of Goethe in the second part 
 of Faust, who is the personified power of wealth for good 
 or evil — not the passion for wealth ; and again from the 
 Plutus of Spenser, who is the passion of mere aggrega- 
 
76 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 tion. Dante’s Pliitiis is specially and definitely the Spirit 
 of Contention and Competition, or Evil Commerce ; be- 
 cause, as I showed before, this kind of commerce “ makes 
 all men strangers ; ” his speech is therefore unintelligible, 
 and no single soul of all those ruined by him has recog- 
 nizable features. 
 
 On the other hand, the redeemable sins of avarice and 
 prodigality are, in Dante’s sight, those which are without 
 deliberate or calculated operation. The lust, or lavish- 
 ness, of riches can be purged, so long as there has been no 
 servile consistency of dispute and competition for them. 
 The sin is spoken of as that of degradation by the love of 
 earth; it is purified by deeper humiliation— the souls 
 crawl on their bellies ; their chant is, “ my soul cleaveth 
 unto the dust.” But the spirits thus condemned are all 
 recognizable, and even the worst examples of the thirst 
 for gold, which they are compelled to tell the histories of 
 during the night, are of men swept by the passion of 
 avarice into violent crime, but not sold to its steady work. 
 
 89. The precept given to each of these spirits for its de- 
 liverance is — Turn thine eyes to the lucre (lure) which the 
 Eternal King rolls with the mighty wheels. Otherwise, 
 the wheels of the “ G-reater Fortune,” of which the con- 
 stellation is ascending when Dante’s dream begins. Com- 
 pare George Herbert— 
 
 ‘‘ Lift up thy head ; 
 
 Take stars for money ; stars, not to he told 
 By any art, yet to be purchased.” 
 
MUNERA PULVERI8. 
 
 77 
 
 And Plato’s notable sentence in the third book of the 
 Polity : — Tell them they have divine gold and silver 
 in their souls for ever ; that they need no money stamped 
 of men — neither may they otherwise than impiously 
 mingle the gathering: of the divine with the mortal 
 treasure, ybr through that which the law of the multitude 
 has coined^ endless crimes ham heen done and suffered / 
 l)ut in their'^s is neither pollution nor sorrow?"' 
 
 90. At the entrance of this place of punishment an evil 
 spirit is seen by Dante, quite other than the “ Gran Nemi- 
 CO.” The great enemy is obeyed knowingly and will 
 ingly ; but this spirit — feminine — and called a Siren — is 
 the “ Deceitfulness of riches,” airdriri ttXovtov of the Gos- 
 pels, winning obedience by guile. This is the Idol of 
 riches, made doubly phantasmal by Dante’s seeing her in a 
 dream. She is lovely to look upon, and enchants by her 
 sweet singing, but her womb is loathsome. Now, Dante 
 does not call her one of the Sirens carelessly, any more 
 than he speaks of Charybdis carelessly; and though he 
 had got at the meaning of the Homeric fable only 
 through Virgil’s obscure tradition of it, the clue he has 
 given us is quite enough. Bacon’s interpretation, “ the 
 Sirens, or pleasures^' which has become universal since 
 his time, is opposed alike to Plato’s meaning and Homer’s. 
 The Sirens are not pleasures, but Desires : in the Odyssey 
 they are the phantoms of vain desire ; but in Plato’s Vis- 
 ion of '^stiny, phantoms of divine desire ; singing each a 
 different note on the circles of the distaff of Necessity, 
 
78 
 
 MUNERA PTJLVERIS. 
 
 but forming one harmony, to which the three great Fates 
 put words. Dante, however, adopted the Homeric con- 
 ception of them, wliich was that they were demons of the 
 Imagination, not carnal ; (desire of the eyes ; not lust of 
 the flesh) ; therefore said to be daughters of the Muses. 
 Yet not of the Muses, heavenly or historical, but of the 
 Muse of pleasure ; and they are at first winged, because 
 even vain hope excites and helps when flrst formed ; but 
 afterwards, contending for the possession of the imagina- 
 tion with the Muses themselves, they are deprived of their 
 wings. 
 
 91. And thus we are to distinguish the Siren power 
 from the power of Circe, who is no daughter of the 
 Muses, but of the strong elements. Sun and Sea ; her 
 power is that of frank, and full vital pleasure, which, if 
 governed and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, 
 and having no “ moly,” bitterness or delay, mixed with it, 
 turns men into beasts, but does not slay them,- — leaves 
 them, on the contrary, power of revival. She is herself 
 indeed an Enchantress ; — pure Animal life ; transforming 
 — or degrading — but always wonderful (she puts the 
 stores on board the ship invisibly, and is gone again, like 
 a ghost); even the wild beasts rejoice and are softened 
 around her cave; the transforming poisons she gives to 
 men are mixed with no rich feast, but with pure and right 
 nourishment, — Pramnian wine, cheese, and flour ; that is, 
 wine, milk, and corn, the three great sustain ers of life — it 
 is their own fault if these make swine of them ; (see Ap- 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 70 
 
 pendix Y.) and swine are chosen merely as the type of 
 consumption ; as Plato’s vmv TroXt?, in the second book of 
 the Polity^ and perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper 
 knowledge of the likeness in variety of nourishment, and 
 internal form of body. 
 
 “Et quel est, s’il vous plait, cet audacieux animal qui se 
 permet d’etre bad au dedans comme une jolie petite 
 fille % 
 
 “ Helas ! ch^re enfant, j’ai honte de le nommer, et il ne 
 faudra pas m’en vouloir. C’est . . . c’est le cochon. Ce 
 n’est pas prdcisement flatteur pour vous ; mais nous en 
 sornmes tous la, et si cela vous contrarie par trop, il faut 
 aller vous plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les 
 choses fussent arrangees ainsi : seulement le cochon, qui 
 ne pense qu’a manger, a I’estomac bien plus vaste que 
 nous et c’est toujours une consolation .” — {Histoire Pune 
 Bouchee de Pain^ Lettre ix.) . 
 
 92. But the deadly Sirens are in all things opposed to 
 the Circean power. They promise pleasure, but never 
 give it. They nourish in no wise ; but slay by slow death. 
 And whereas they corrupt the heart and the head, instead 
 of merely betraying the senses, there is no recovery from 
 their power ; the}^ do not tear nor scratch, like Scylla, but 
 the men who have listened to them are poisoned, and 
 waste away. Hote that the Sirens’ field is covered, not 
 merely with the bones, but with the skins, of those who 
 have been consumed there. They address themselves, in 
 the part of the song which Homer gives, not to the 
 
80 
 
 MUNEKA PULVEEIS. 
 
 passions of Ulysses, but to his vanity, and the only man 
 T^ho ever came within hearing of them, and escaped 
 nntempted, was Orpheus, who silenced the vain imagi- 
 nations by singing the praises of the gods. 
 
 93. It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes 
 as the phantasm or deceitfulness of riches; but note 
 further, that she says it was her song that deceived 
 Ulysses. Look back to Dante’s account of Ulysses’ death, 
 and we find it was not the love of money, but pride of 
 knowledge, that betrayed him ; whence we get the clue to 
 Dante’s complete meaning : that the souls whose love of 
 wealth is pardonable have been first deceived into pursuit 
 of it by a dream of its higher uses, or by ambition. His 
 Siren is therefore the Philotime of Spenser, daughter of 
 Mammon — 
 
 “ Whom all that folk with such contention 
 Do flock about, my deare, my daughter is — 
 
 Honour and dignitie from her alone 
 Derived are.” 
 
 By comparing Spenser’s entire account of this Philo- 
 time with Dante’s of the Wealth-Siren, we shall get at the 
 full meaning of both poets ; but that of Homer lies 
 hidden much more deeply. For his Sirens are indefinite ; 
 and they are desires of any evil thing ; power of wealth 
 is not specially indicated by him, until, escaping the har- 
 monious danger of imagination, Ulysses has to choose 
 between two practical ways of life, indicated by the two 
 rocks of Scylla and Charybdis. The monsters that haunt 
 
MUNEKA PULVEEIS. 
 
 81 
 
 them are quite distinct from the rocks themselves, which, 
 having many other subordinate significations, are in the 
 main Labour and Idleness, or getting and spending ; each 
 with its attendant monster, or betraying demon. The 
 rock of gaining has its summit in the clouds, invisible, 
 and not to be climbed ; that of spending is low, but 
 marked by the cursed fig-tree, which has leaves’ but no 
 fruit. We know the type elsewhere; and there is a 
 curious lateral allusion to it by Dante w^hen Jacopo di 
 8ant’ Andrea, who had ruined himself by profusion and 
 committed suicide, scatters the leaves of the bush of Lotto 
 degli Agli, endeavouring to hide himself among them. 
 We shall hereafter examine the type completely ; here I 
 will only give an approximate rendering of Homer’s 
 Tvords, which have been obscured more by translation 
 than even by tradition. 
 
 94. “ They are overhanging rocks. The great waves of 
 blue water break round them ; and the blessed Gods call 
 them the Wanderers. 
 
 “ By one of them no winged thing can pass — not even 
 the wild doves that bring ambrosia to their father Jove — - 
 but the smooth rock seizes its sacrifice of them.” (Hot 
 even ambrosia to be had without Labour. The word is 
 peculiar — as a part of anything is offered for sacrifice ; 
 especially used of heave-offering.) “ It reaches the wude 
 heaven with its top, and a dark blue cloud rests on it, and 
 never passes ; neither does the clear sky hold it, in sum- 
 mer nor in harvest. Hor can any man climb it — not if 
 
 4 * 
 
82 
 
 MUNEEA PTTLVEEIS. 
 
 he had twenty feet and hands, for it is smooth as though 
 it were hewn. 
 
 “ And in the midst of it is a cave which is turned the 
 way of hell. And therein dwells Scylla, whining for prey : 
 her cry, indeed, is no louder than that of a newly-born 
 whelp : but she herself is an awful thing— nor can any 
 creature see her face and be glad; no, though it were a 
 god that rose against her. For she has twelve feet, all 
 fore-feet, and six necks, and terrible heads on them ; and 
 each has three rows of teeth, full of black death. 
 
 But the opposite rock is lower than this, though but 
 a bow-shot distant ; and upon it there is a great fig-tree, 
 full of leaves ; and under it the terrible Charybdis sucks 
 down the black water. Thrice in the day she sucks it 
 down, and thrice casts it up again ; be not thou there 
 when she sucks down, for IN^eptune himself could not save 
 thee.” 
 
 [Thus far went my rambling note, in Fraser^ s Maga- 
 zine. The Editor sent me a compliment on it— of which 
 I was very proud ; what the Publisher thought of it, I mn 
 not informed ; only I know that eventually he stopped the 
 papers. I think a great deal of it myself, now, and have 
 put it all in large print accordingly, and should like to 
 write more ; but will, on the contrary, self-denyingly, and 
 in gratitude to any reader who has got through so much, 
 end my chapter.] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 83 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 95. As the currency conveys right of choice out of 
 many things in exchange for one, so Commerce is the 
 agency by which the power of choice is obtained ; so that 
 countries producing only timber can obtain for their tim- 
 ber silk and gold; or, naturally producing only jewels and 
 frankincense, can obtain for them cattle and corn. In this 
 function, commerce is of more importance to a country in 
 proportion to the limitations of its products, and the rest- 
 lessness of its fancy; — generally of greater importance 
 towards Northern latitudes. ' 
 
 96. Commerce is necessary, however, not only to ex- 
 change local products, but local skill. Labour requiring 
 the agency of fire can only be given abundantly in cold 
 countries; labour requiring suppleness of body and sen- 
 sitiveness of touch, only in warm ones; labour involving 
 accurate vivacity of thought only in temperate ones ; while 
 peculiar imaginative actions are produced by extremes of 
 heat and cold, and of light and darkness. The production 
 of great art is limited to climates warm enough to admit 
 of repose in the open air, and cool enough to render such 
 repose delightful. Minor variations in modes of skill 
 
84 : 
 
 MUNEBA PELVEEIS. 
 
 distinguish every locality. The labour which at any place 
 is easiest, is in that place cheapest; and it becomes often 
 desirable that products raised in one country should be 
 wrought in another. Hence have arisen discussions on 
 “ International values” w^hich will be one day remembered 
 as highly curious exercises of the human mind. For it 
 will be discovered, in due course of tide and time, that 
 international value is regulated just as inter-provincial or 
 inter-parishional value is. Coals and hops are exchanged 
 between Northumberland and Kent on absolutely the 
 same principles as iron and wine between Lancashire and 
 Spain. The greater breadth of an arm of the sea increases 
 the cost, but does not modify the principle of exchange ; 
 and a bargain written in two languages will have no other 
 economical results than a bargain written in one. The 
 distances of nations are measured, not by seas, but by 
 ignorances; and their divisions determined, not by dia- 
 lects, but by enmities.^ 
 
 97 . Of course, a system of international values may 
 always be constructed if we assume a relation of moral 
 law to physical geography ; as, for instance, that it is 
 right to cheat or rob across a river, though not across a 
 
 [* I have repeated the substance of this and the next paragraph so 
 often since, that I am ashamed and weary. The thing is too true, and 
 too simple, it seems, for anybody ever to believe. Meantime, the 
 theories of “international values,” as explained by Modern Political 
 Economy, have brought about last year’s pillage of Prance by G-ermany, 
 and the affectionate relations now existing in consequence between the 
 inhabitants of the right and left banks of the Rhine.] 
 
MUNEKA PULVERI8. 
 
 85 
 
 road ; or across a sea, though not across a river, &c. ; — 
 again, a s^’stem of such values may be constructed by as- 
 suming similar relations of taxation to physical geography ; 
 as, for instance, that an article should be taxed in crossing 
 a river, but not in crossing a road; or in being carried 
 fifty miles, but not in being carried five, &c. ; such posi- 
 tions are indeed not easily maintained when once put in 
 logical form ; but one law of international value is maim- 
 tai liable in any form: namely, that the farther your 
 neighbour lives from you, and the less he understands you,. 
 the more you are hound to he true in your dealings with 
 him; because your power over him is greater in propor- 
 tion to his ignorance, and his remedy more difficult in 
 proportion to his distance.* 
 
 98. I have just said the breadth of sea increases the 
 cost of exchange. Kow note that exchange, or commerce, 
 in itself^ is always costly ; the sum of the value of the 
 goods being diminished by the cost of their conveyance, 
 and by the maintenance of the persons employed in it ; so 
 that it is only when there is advantage to both producers 
 (in getting the one thing for the other) greater than the 
 loss in conveyance, that the exchange is expedient. And 
 it can only be justly conducted when the porters kept by 
 the producers (commonly called merchants) expect mere 
 pay, and not profit. f For in just commerce there are but 
 
 [* I wish some one would examine and publish accurately the late? 
 dealings of the Governors of the Cape with the Caffirs. ] 
 
 [f By “ pay,” I mean wages for labour or skill; by “ profit,” gaia 
 dependent on the state of the market. ] 
 
86 
 
 MIJNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 three parties — the two persons or societies exchanging, 
 and the agent or agents of exchange; the value of the 
 things to be exchanged is known by both the exchangers, 
 and each receives equal value, neither gaining nor losing 
 (for whatever one gains the other loses). The intermedi- 
 ate agent is paid a known per-centage by both, partly for 
 labour in conveyance, partly for care, knowledge, and risk; 
 every attempt at concealment of the amount of the pay 
 indicates either effort on the part of the agent to obtain 
 unjust profit, or effort on the part of the exchangers to re- 
 fuse him just pay. But for the most part it is the first, 
 /namely, the effort on the part of the merchant to obtain 
 I larger profit (so-called) by buying cheap and selling dear, 
 i Some part, indeed, of this larger gain is deserved, and 
 might be openly demanded, because it is the reward of 
 ' the merchant’s knowledge, and foresight of probable ne- 
 ^ cessity ; but the greater part of such gain is unjust; and 
 ' unjust in this most fatal way, that it depends, first, on 
 keeping the exchangers ignorant of the exchange value of 
 the articles ; and, secondly, on taking advantage of the 
 buyer’s need and the seller’s poverty. It is, therefore, one 
 of the essential, and quite the most fatal, forms of usury ; 
 for usury means merely taking an exorbitant * sum for 
 
 [* Since I wrote this, I have worked out the question of interest of 
 money, which always, until lately, had embarrassed and defeated me ; 
 and I find that the payment of interest of any amount whatever is real 
 “ usury,” and entirely unjustifiable. I was shown this chiefly by the 
 pamphlets issued by Mr. W. C. Sillar, though I greatly regret the impa- 
 
MUNERA rULVERIS. 
 
 87 
 
 the use of anything ; and it is no matter whether the ex- 
 orbitance is on loan or exchange, on rent or on price — the 
 essence of the usury being that it is obtained by advantage 
 of opportunity or necessity, and not as due reward for la- 
 bour. All the great thinkers, therefore, have held it to be 
 unnatural and impious, in so far as it feeds on the distress 
 of others, or their folly.* Nevertheless, attempts to re- 
 press it by law must for ever be ineffective ; though Plato, 
 Bacon, and the First Napoleon — all three of them men 
 who knew somewhat more of humanity than the “ British 
 merchant ” usually does — tried their hands at it, and have 
 left some (probably) good moderative forms of law, which 
 we will examine in their place. But the only final check 
 upo^itmuslLbe radical purifying of the national charac- 
 ter, i or being, as Bacon calls it, “ concessum propter duri- 
 tiem cordis,” it is to be done away with, by_tquching ^e 
 hear^_only ; not, however, wnthout medicinal law — as in 
 the case of the other permission, “propter duritiem.” But 
 in this more than in anything (though much in all, 
 and though in this he would not himself allow of their ap- 
 plication, for his own laws against usury are sharp enough), 
 Plato’s w^ords in the fourth book of the Polity are true, 
 that neither drugs, nor charms, nor burnings, will touch a 
 deep-lying political sore, any more than a deep bodily one ; 
 
 tlence which causes Mr. Sillar to regard usury as the radical crime in 
 political economy. There are others worse, that act with it.] 
 
 * Hence Dante’s companionship of Cahors, Inf.^ canto xi., supported 
 by the view taken of the matter throughout the middle ages, in common 
 with the Greeks. 
 
88 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 but only right and utter change of constitution : and that 
 “they do but lose their labour who think that by any 
 tricks of law they can get the better of these mischiefs of 
 commerce, and see not that they hew at a Hydra.” 
 
 99. And indeed this Hydra seems so nnslayable, and 
 Bin sticks so fast between the joinings of the stones of 
 buying and selling, that “ to trade ” in things, or literally 
 “ cross-give ” them, has warped itself, by the instinct of na- 
 tions, into their worst word for fraud ; for, because in 
 trade there cannot but be trust, and it seems also that there 
 cannot but also be injury in answer to it, what ds merely 
 fraud between enemies becomes treachery among friends : 
 and “trader,” “ traditor,” and “traitor” are but the same 
 word. For which simplicity of language there is more 
 reason than at first appears: for as in true commerce 
 tkere is no “ profit,” so in true commerce there is no “ sale.” 
 The idea of sale is that of an interchange between enemies 
 respectively endeavouring to get the better one of another; 
 but commerce is an exchange between friends ; and there 
 is no desire but that it should be just, any more than there 
 
 be between members of the same family.* The 
 moment there is a bargain over the pottage, the family re- 
 lation is dissolved : — typically, “ the days of mourning for 
 
 [* I do uot wonder when I re-read this, that people talk about my 
 “sentiment.” But there is no sentiment whatever in the matter. It 
 is a hard and bare commercial fact, that if two people deal together 
 who don’t try to cheat each other, they will in a given time, make more 
 money out of each other than if they do. See § 104.] 
 
MUNEKA PULVEKIS. 
 
 89 
 
 my father are at hand.” Whereupon follows the resolve, 
 “ tlien will I slay my brother.” 
 
 100. This inlinmanity of mercenary commerce is the 
 more notable because it is a fnlfilment of the law that the 
 corruption of the best is the worst. For as, taking the 
 body natural for symbol of the body politic, the governing 
 and forming powers may be likened to the brain, and the 
 labouring to the limbs, the mercantile, presiding over cir- 
 culation and communication of things in changed utilities, 
 is symbolized by the heart ; and, if that hardens, all is 
 lost. And this is the ultimate lesson which the leader of 
 English intellect meant for us, (a lesson, indeed, not all 
 liis own, but part of the old wisdom of humanity), in the 
 tale of the Merchant of Venice / in which the true and 
 incorrupt merchant, — kind and free, beyond every other 
 Shaksjoearian conception of men, — is opposed to the cor- 
 rupted merchant, or usurer ; the lesson being deepened by 
 the expression of the strange hatred which the corrupted 
 mercliant beai-s to the pure one, mixed with intense 
 scorn, — 
 
 “ This is the fool that lent out money gratis ; look to 
 liim, jailer,” (as to lunatic no less than criminal) the 
 enmity, observe, having its symbolism literally carried out 
 by being aimed straight at the heart, and finally foiled by 
 a literal appeal to the great moral law that fiesh and blood 
 cannot be weighed, enforced by “ Portia ” (“ Portion”), 
 
 * Shakspeare would certainly never have chosen this name had he 
 been forced to retain the Roman spelling. Like Perdita, “ lost lady,” 
 
90 
 
 MUNEKA PULVEEIS. 
 
 the type of divine Fortune, found, not in gold, nor in 
 silver, but in lead, that is to say, in endurance and 
 patience, not in splendour ; and finally taught by her lips 
 also, declaring, instead of the law and quality of “merces,” 
 the greater law and quality of mercy, which is not strained, 
 but drops as the rain, blessing him that gives and him that 
 takes. And observe that this “ mercy ” is not the mean 
 “ Misericordia,” but the mighty “ Gratia,” answered by 
 Gratitude, (observe Shylock’s learning on the, to him 
 detestable, w'ord, gratis^ and compare the relations of 
 Grace to Equity given in the second chapter of the second 
 book of the Memorahilia /) that is to say, it is the gi-a- 
 cious or loving, instead of the strained, or competing 
 manner, of doing things, answered, not only with “ merces” 
 or pay, but with “ merci ” or thanks. And this is indeed 
 
 or Cordelia, “ heart-lady,” Portia is “fortune” lady. The two great 
 relative groups of words, Fortuna, fero, and fors — Portio, porto, and 
 pars (with the lateral branch, op-portune, im-portune, opportunity, &c.), 
 are of deep and intricate significance ; their various senses of bringing, 
 abstracting, and sustaining being all centralized by the wheel (which 
 bears and moves at once), or still better, the ball (spera) of Fortune, — 
 “ Volve sua spera, e beata si gode : ” the motive power of this wheel 
 distinguishing its goddess from the fixed majesty of Necessitas with her 
 iron nails ; or aydyKT}, with her pillar of fire and iridescent orbits, Jicced 
 at the centre. Portus and porta, and gate in its connexion with gain, 
 form another interesting branch group ; and Mors, the concentration ol 
 delaying, is always to be remembered with Fors, the concentration of 
 bringing and bearing, passing on into Fortis and Fortitude. 
 
 [This note is literally a mere memorandum for the future work which 
 I am now completing in Fors Clavigera ; it was printed partly in vanity , 
 but also with real desire to get people to share the interest I found in 
 the careful study of the leading words in noble languages. Compare 
 the next note. ] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 91 
 
 the meaning of the great benediction “ Grace, mercy, and 
 peace,” for there can be no peace without grace, (not even 
 by help of rifled cannon), nor even without triplicity of 
 graciousness, for the Greeks, who began but with one 
 Grace, had to open their scheme into three before they 
 had done. 
 
 101. With the usual tendency of long repeated thought, 
 to take the surface for the deep, we have conceived these 
 goddesses as if they only gave loveliness to gesture ; 
 whereas their true function is to give graciousness to deed, 
 the Other loveliness arising naturally out of that. In 
 which function Charis becomes Charitas ; * and has a 
 
 * As Charis becomes Charitas, the word “ Cher,” or “Dear,” passes 
 from Shylock’s sense of it (to buy cheap and sell dear) into Antonio’s 
 sense of it ; emphasized with the final i in tender “ Cheri,” and hushed 
 to English calmness in our noble “ Cherish.” The reader must not think 
 that any care can be misspent in tracing the connexion and power of the 
 words which we have to use in the sequel. (See Appendix VI.) Much 
 education sums itself in making men economize their words, and under- 
 stand them. Nor is it possible to estimate the harm which has been done, 
 in matters of higher speculation and conduct, by loose verbiage, though 
 we may guess at it by observing the dislike which people show to having 
 anything about their religion said to them in simple words, because 
 then they understand it. Thus congregations meet weekly to invoke the 
 influence of a Spirit of Life and Truth ; yet if any part of that character ’ 
 were intelligibly expressed to them by the formulas of the service, they 
 Vould be offended. Suppose, for instance, in the closing benediction, 
 the clergyman were to give vital significance to the vague word “Holy,” 
 and were to say, ‘ ‘ the fellowship of the Helpful and Honest Ghost be 
 with you, and remain with you always,” what would be the horror of 
 many, first at the irreverence of so intelligible an expression ; and 
 secondly, at the discomfortable occurrence of the suspicion that while 
 throughout the commercial dealings of the week they had denied the 
 propriety of Help, and possibility of Honesty, the Person whose com- 
 
92 
 
 MUNEEA PULVEKIS. 
 
 name and praise even greater than that of Faith or Truth, 
 for these may be maintained sullenly and proudly; but 
 Oharis is in her countenance always gladdening (Aglaia), 
 and in her service instant and humble ; and the true wife 
 of Yulcan, or Labour. And it is not until her sincerity 
 of function is lost, and her mere beauty contemplated 
 instead of her patience, that she is born again of the foam 
 hake, and becomes Aphrodite ; and it is then only that she 
 becomes capable of joining herself to war and to the 
 enmities of men, instead of to labour and their services. 
 Therefore the fable of Mars and Yenus is chosen by 
 Homer, picturing himself as Demodocus, to sing at the 
 games in the court of Alcinous. Phseacia is the Homeric 
 island of Atlantis; an image of noble and wise govern- 
 ment, concealed, (how slightly !) merely by the change of 
 a short vowel for a long one in the name of its queen ; 
 yet misunderstood by all later writers, (even by Horace, 
 in his “ pinguis, Phseaxque ”). That fable expresses the 
 l^erpetual error of men in thinking that grace and dignity 
 can only be reached by the soldier, and never by the 
 artisan; so that commerce and the useful arts have had 
 the honour and beauty taken away, and only the Fraud 
 and Pain left to them, with the lucre. Which is, indeed, 
 one great reason of the continual blundering about the 
 offices of government with lespect to commerce. The 
 higher classes are ashamed to employ themselves in it ; 
 
 pany they had been now asking to be blessed with could have no fellow- 
 ship with crael people or knaves. 
 
MUNEKA PULVERIS. 
 
 93 
 
 and though ready enough to fight for (or occasionally 
 against) the people, — to preach to them,— or judge them, 
 will not break bread for them ; the refined upper servant 
 who has willingly looked after the burnishing of the 
 armoury and ordering of the library, not liking to set foot 
 in the larder. 
 
 102. Farther still. As Charis becomes Charitas on the 
 one side, she becomes — better still — Chara, Joy, on the 
 other ; or rather this is her very mother’s milk and the 
 beauty of her childhood ; for God brings no enduring 
 Love, nor any other good, out of pain ; nor out of conten- 
 tion ; but out of joy and harmony. And in this sense, 
 human and divine, music and gladness, and the measures 
 of both, come into her name ; and Cher becomes full- 
 vowelled Cheer, and Cheerful ; and Chara opens into 
 Choir and Choral.* 
 
 103. And lastly. As Grace passes into Freedom of 
 action, Charis becomes Eleutheria, or Liberality ; a form 
 of liberty quite curiously and intensely different from the 
 
 * “ TO /x(v ovv &\\a oifK exeij' aX<r6r](riu ruv iv ra7s Kiv-fiaeai 
 ovSe ara^icij/, ols dr] pvOfihs ovop.a Kal apfioyia' rj/mlv de ous rovs 
 
 6€ous (Apollo, the Muses, and Bacchus — the grave Bacchus, that is — rul- 
 ing the choir of age ; or Bacchus restraining ; ‘ saeva tene, cum Berecyntio 
 cornu, tympana,^ &c. ) (rvyxop^^ras d edo <r 6 ai , rovrovs eipai Kal rovs 
 ded^Koras r^u evpv9p.6p T€ Kal ivap/xopiop ain6r](Hv joe'J’ rjdovrjs . . . 
 wuofiaK€pai TTapa rrjs e/x^vrov oj/o^o.” “ Other animals have no per- 
 
 ception of order nor of disorder in motion ; but for us, Apollo and Bac- 
 chus and the Muses are appointed to mingle in our dances ; and these 
 are they who have given us the sense of delight in rhythm and har- 
 mony. And the name of choir, choral dance, (we may believe,) came 
 from chara (delight).” — Laws, book ii. 
 
94 
 
 MUNEEA PULVEEIS. 
 
 thing usually understood by “ Liberty ” in modern lan- 
 guage : indeed, much more like what some people would 
 call slavery : for a Greek always undei'stood, primarily, 
 by liberty, deliverance from the law of his own passions 
 (or from what the Christian wndters call bondage of cor- 
 ruption), and this a complete liberty : not being merely 
 safe from the Siren, but also unbound from the mast, and 
 not liaving to resist the passion, but making it fawn upon, 
 and follow him — (this may be again partly the meaning 
 of the fawning beasts about the Circean cave ; so, again, 
 George Herbert — 
 
 Correct thy passion’s spite, 
 
 Then may the beasts draw thee to happy light) — 
 
 And it is only in such generosity that any man becomes 
 capable of so governing others as to take true part in any 
 system of national economy. Hor is there any other eter- 
 nal distinction between tlie upper and low^er classes than 
 this form of liberty, Eleutheria, or benignity, in the one, 
 and its opposite of slavery, Douleia, or malignity, in the 
 other ; the separation of these two orders of men, and the 
 firm government of the lower by the higher, ,being the 
 first conditions of possible wealth and economy in any 
 state, — the Gods giving it no greater gift than the power 
 to discern its true freemen, and “ malignum spernere 
 Yulgus.” 
 
 104. While I have traced the finer and higher laws of 
 this matter for those , whom they concern, I have also to 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 95 
 
 note the material law — vulgarly expressed in the proverb, 
 “ Honesty is the best policy.” That proverb is indeed 
 wholly inapplicable to matters of private interest. It is 
 not true that honesty, as far as material gain is concerned, 
 profits individuals. A clever and cruel knave will in a 
 mixed society always be richer than an honest person can 
 be. But Honesty is the best “ policy,” if policy mean 
 practice of State. For fraud gains nothing in a State. It 
 only enables the knaves in it to live at the expense of 
 honest people ; while there is for every act of fraud, how- 
 ever small, a loss of wealth to the community. Whatever 
 the fraudulent person gains, some other person loses, as 
 fraud produces nothing ; and there is, besides, the loss of 
 the time and thought spent in accomplishing the fraud, 
 and of the strength otherwise obtainable by mutual help 
 (not to speak of the fevers of anxiety and jealousy in the 
 blood, which are a heavy physical loss, as I will show in 
 due time). Practically, when the nation is deeply cor- 
 rupt, cheat answers to cheat ; every one is in turn imposed 
 upon, and there is to the body politic the dead loss of the 
 ingenuity, together with the incalculable mischief of the 
 injury to each defrauded person, producing collateral 
 effect unexpectedly. My neighbour sells me bad meat : I 
 sell him in return flawed iron. We neither of us get one 
 atom of pecuniary advantage on the whole transaction, 
 l)ut we both suffer unexpected inconvenience ; my men 
 get scurvy, and his cattle-truck runs off the rails. 
 
 105. The examination of this form of Charis must, 
 
96 
 
 MTJNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 tlierefore, lead ns into the discussion of the principles of 
 government in general, and especially of that of the poor 
 hy the rich, discovering how the Graciousness joined with 
 the Greatness, or Love with Majestas, is the true Dei 
 Gratia, or Divine flight, of every form and manner of 
 King; i, e.^ specifically, of the thrones, dominations, 
 princedoms, virtues, and powers of the earth : — of the 
 thrones, stable, or “ ruling,” literally right-doing powers 
 ( rex eris, recte si facies ” ) : — of the dominations — lordly, 
 edifying, dominant and harmonious powers ; chiefiy domes- 
 tic, over the “ built thing,” domus, or house ; and inherently 
 twofold, Dominus and Domina ; Lord and Lady : — of the 
 Princedoms, pre-eminent, incipient, creative, and demon- 
 strative powers ; thus poetic and mercantile, in the “ prin- 
 ceps carmen deduxisse ” and the merchant-prince : — of the 
 Virtues or Courages ; militant, guiding, or Ducal powers : 
 -—and finally of the Strengths, or Forces pure ; magistral 
 powers, of the More over the less, and the forceful and 
 jjree over thVweak and servile elements of life. 
 
 Subject enough for the next paper, involving econo- 
 mical ” pri iicip l^s of some importance, of which, for 
 theme, here is a sentence, which I do not care to translate, 
 for it would sound harsh in English,'^ though, truly, it is 
 
 [* My way now, is to say things plainly, if I can, whether they 
 sound harsh or not; — this is the translation — “ Is it poesible, then, that 
 as a horse is only a mischief to any one who attempts to use him with- 
 out knowing how, so also our brother, if we attempt to use him without 
 knowing how, may be a mischief to us ? ”] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 97 
 
 one of the teiiderest ever uttered by man ; which may be 
 meditated over, or rather through^ in the meanwhile, l>y 
 any one who will take the pains : — 
 
 ’Ap 6lv^ &<rirep '/iriros t<3 ttvemaT^fioui fx'fv tyx^tpovvri 8e 
 iarlv^ ouTw Kal a8e\^bs, oray ns awTW iiri(Tr6.p.fvos «7X®‘P C^J®*® 
 
 e(TTt ; 
 
 5 
 
98 
 
 MTJNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 CHAPTEE y. 
 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 106. It remains for ns, as I stated in the close of the last 
 chapter, to examine first the principles of government in 
 general, and then those of the government of the Poor by 
 the Eich. 
 
 The government of a state consists in its customs, laws, 
 and councils, and their enforcements. 
 
 I. Customs. 
 
 As one person primarily differs from another by fineness 
 of nature, and, secondarily, by fineness of training, so 
 also, a polite nation differs from a savage one, first, by the 
 refinement of its nature, and secondly by the delicacy of 
 its customs. 
 
 In the completeness of custom, which is the nation’s 
 selfigovernment, there are three stages — first, fineness in 
 method of doing or of being; — called the manner or 
 moral of acts ; secondly, firmness in holding such method 
 after adoption, so that it shall become a habit in the char- 
 acter : i. 6., a constant “ having ” or “ behaving ; ” and, 
 lastly, ethical power in performance and endurance, which 
 
MUNERA PULVERI8. 
 
 99 
 
 is the skill following on habit, and the ease reached hy 
 frequency of right doing. 
 
 The sensibility of the nation is indicated by the fineness 
 of its customs ; its courage, continence, and self-respect by 
 its persistence in them. 
 
 By sensibility I mean its natural perception of beauty, 
 fitness, and rightness ; or of what is lovely, decent, and 
 just : faculties dependent much on race, and the primal 
 signs of fine breeding in man; but cultivable also by edu- 
 cation, and necessarily perishing without it. True educa- 
 tion has, indeed, no other function than the development 
 of these faculties, and of the relative will. It has been 
 the great error of modern intelligence to mistake science 
 for education. You do not educate a man by telling him 
 what he knew not, but by making him what he was not. 
 
 And making him what he will remain for ever: for no 
 wash of weeds will bring back the faded purple. And in 
 that dyeing there are two processes — first, the cleansing and 
 wringing-out, which is the baptism with water ; and then 
 the infusing of the blue and scarlet colours, gentleness 
 and justice, which is the baptism with fire. 
 
 107 * customs and manners of a sensitive and 
 highly-trained race are always Vital : that is to say, they 
 are orderly manifestations of intense life, like the habitual 
 action of the fingers of a musician. The customs and 
 
 [* Think over this paragraph carefully ; it should have been much ex- 
 panded to be quite intelligible ; but it contains all that I want it to 
 contain.] 
 
100 
 
 MtJNEKA PULYERIS. 
 
 manners of a vile and rnde race, on the contrary, are con- 
 ditions of decay : they are not, properly speaking, habits, 
 l)iit incrustations; not restraints, or forms, of life; but 
 gangrenes, noisome, and the beginnings of death. 
 
 And generally, so far as custom attaches itself to indo- 
 lence instead of action, and to prejudice instead of 
 perception, it takes this deadly character, so that thus 
 
 Custom hangs upon us with a weight 
 Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life. 
 
 But that weight, if it become impetus, (living instead 
 of dead weight) is just what gives value to custom, when 
 it works with life, instead of against it. 
 
 108. The high ethical training of a nation implies per- 
 fect Grace, Pitifulness, and Peace ; it is ii'reconcilably 
 inconsistent with filthy or mechanical employments, — with 
 the desire of money, — and with mental states of anxiety, 
 jealousy, or indifference to pain. The present insensi- 
 bility of the upper classes of Europe to the surrounding 
 aspects of suffering, uncleanness, and crime, binds them 
 not only into one responsibility with the sin, but into one 
 dishonom* with the foulness, which rot at their thresholds. 
 The crimes daily recorded in the police-courts of London 
 and Paris (and much more those which are ?/?irecorded) 
 are a disgrace to the whole body politic ; * they are, as in 
 
 * “ The ordinary brute, who flourishes in the very centre of ornate 
 life, tells us of unknown depths on the verge of which we totter, being 
 bound to thank our stars every day we live that there is not a general 
 
MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 101 
 
 the body natural, stains of disease on a face of delicate 
 skin, making the delicacy itself frightful. Similarly, the 
 tilth and poverty permitted or ignored in the midst of us 
 are as dishonourable to the whole social body, as in the 
 body natural it is to wash the face, but leave the hands 
 and feet foul. Christ’s way is the only true one : begin at 
 the feet ; the face will take care of itself. 
 
 109. Yet, since necessarily, in the frame of a nation,, 
 nothing but the head can be of gold, and the feet, for tho 
 w'ork they have to do, must be part of iron, part of clay ; — 
 foul or mechanical work is always reduced by a noble race 
 to the minimum in quantity ; and, even then, performed 
 and endured, not without sense of degradation, as a fine 
 temper is wounded by tlie sight of the lower offices of the 
 body. The highest conditions of human society reached 
 hitherto have cast such work to slaves; but supposing 
 slavery of a politically defined kind to be done away wnth, 
 mechanical and foul employment must, in all highly or 
 ganized states, take the aspect either of punishment or 
 probation. All criminals should at once be set to the 
 most dangerous and painful forms of it, especially to work 
 in mines and at furnaces,'*'* so as to relieve the' innocent 
 
 outbreak, and a revolt from the yoke of civilization ,” — Times leader- 
 Dec. 25, 1862. Admitting that our stars are to be thanked for our safety, 
 ■whom are we to thank for the danger ? 
 
 * Our politicians, even the best of them, regard only the distress 
 caused by the failure of mechanical labour. The degradation caused 
 by its excess is a far more serious subject of thought, and of future fear. 
 I shall examine tkia part of our subject at length hereafter. There cast 
 
102 
 
 MUNEBA PTJLVERIS. 
 
 population as far as possible : of merely rough (not me- 
 chanical) manual labour, especially agricultural, a large 
 jyortion should he done hy the ujpjyer classes ; — hodily 
 healthy and sufficient coiitrast and repose for the onental 
 
 hardly be any doubt, at present, cast on the truth of the above passages, 
 as all the great thinkers are unanimous on the matter. Plato’s words 
 are terrific in their scorn and pity whenever he touches on the mechan- 
 ical arts. He calls the men employed in them not even human, but 
 partially and diminutively human, avOpuTtLanoL^'" and opposes such 
 work to noble occupations, not merely as prison is opposed to freedom, 
 but as a convict’s dishonoured prison is to the temple (escape from them 
 being like that of a criminal to the sanctuary) ; and the destruction 
 caused by them being of soul no less than body. — Rep. vi. 9. Compare 
 Laws^ V. 11. Xenophon dwells on the evil of occupations at the fur- 
 nace and especially their aoxoAia^ want of leisure.” — Econ. i. 4. 
 (Modern England, with all its pride of education, has lost that first 
 sense of the word “school;” and till it recover that, it will find 
 no other rightly. ) His word for the harm to the soul is to “break” 
 it, as we say of the heart. — Econ. i. 6. And herein, also, is the root 
 of the scorn, otherwise apparently most strange and cruel, with which 
 Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare always speak of the populace ; for it is 
 entirely true that, in great states, the lower orders are low by nature as 
 well as by task, being precisely that part of the commonwealth which 
 has been thrust down for its coarseness or unworthiness (by coarseness I 
 mean especially insensibility and irreverence — the “ profane” of Horace) ; 
 and when this ceases to be so, and the corruption and profanity are in 
 the higher instead of the lower orders, there arises, first, helpless confu- 
 sion ; then, if the lower classes deserve power, ensues swift revolution, 
 and they get it ; but if neither the populace nor their rulers deserve it, 
 there follows mere darkness and dissolution, till, out of the putrid ele- 
 ments, some new capacity of order rises, like grass on a grave ; if not, 
 there is no more hope, nor shadqw of turning, for that nation. ^ Atropos 
 has her way with it. 
 
 So that the law of national health is like that of a great lake or sea, 
 in perfect but slow circulation, letting the dregs fall continually to the 
 lowest place, and the clear water rise ; yet so as that there shall be no 
 neglect of the lower orders, but perfect supervision and sympathy, so 
 that if one member suffer, all members shall suffer with it. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 103 
 
 fimctions, being \mattainable without it ; what neces- 
 sarily inferior labour remains to be done, as especially in 
 manufactures, should, and always will, when the relations 
 of society are reverent and harmonious, fall to the lot of 
 those who, for the time, are fit for nothing better. For 
 as, whatever the perfectness of the educational system, 
 there must remain infinite differences between the natures 
 and capacities of men; and these differing natures are 
 generally rangeable under the two qualities of lordly, (or 
 tending towards rule, construction, and harmony), and ser- 
 vile (or tending towards misrule, destruction, and discord) ; 
 and, since the lordly part is only in a state of profitable- 
 ness while ruling, and the servile only in a state of 
 redeemableness while serving, the whole health of the state 
 depends on the manifest separation of these two elements 
 of its mind ; for, if the servile part be not separated and 
 rendered visible in service, it nlixes with, and corrupts, the 
 entire body of the state ; and if the lordly part be not dis- 
 tinguished, and set to rule, it is crushed and lost, being 
 turned to no account, so that the rarest qualities of the 
 nation are all given to it in vain.* 
 
 II. Laws. 
 
 110. These are the definitions and bonds of custom, 
 or of what the nation desires should become custom. 
 
 ♦ “ Kai -yiyvofievijgy (Little, and that little born in vain.) 
 
 The bitter sentence never was so true as at this day. 
 
104 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 Law is either archie,* (of direction), meristic, (of divi- 
 ■sion), or critic, (of judgment). 
 
 Archie law is that of appointment and precept: it des- 
 tines what is and is not to be done. 
 
 Meristic law is that of balance and distribution : it de- 
 fines what is and is not to ho; jpossessed. 
 
 Critic law is that of discernment and award : it defines 
 wdiat is and is not to be suffered. 
 
 111. A. Archio Law. If we choose to unite the laws 
 of precept and distribution under the head of “statutes,” 
 all law is simply either of statute or judgment; that is, 
 fii-st the establishment of ordinance, and, secondly, the 
 assignment of the reward, or penalty, due to its observance 
 or violation. 
 
 To some extent these two forms of law must be asso- 
 ciated, and, with every ordinance, the penalty of disobe- 
 dience to it be also determined. But since the degrees 
 
 * [This following- note is a mere cluster of memoranda, but I keep 
 it for reference.] Thetic, or Thesmic, would perhaps be a better term 
 than archie ; but liable to be confused with some which we shall want 
 relating to Theoria. The administrators of the three great divisions of 
 law are severally Archons, Merists, and Dicasts. The Archons are the 
 true princes, or beginners of things; or leaders (as of an orchestra). 
 The Merists are properly the Domini, or Lords of houses and nations. 
 The Dicasts, properly, the judges, and that with Olympian justice, 
 which reaches to heaven and hell. The violation of archie law is afiaprla 
 (error), Trovrjpia (failure), or irAr/ju/xeAeia (discord). The violation of meristic 
 law is avofiia (iniquity). The violation of critic law is hBiKia (injury); 
 Iniquity is the central generic term ; for all law is fatal ; it is the 
 division to men of their fate ; as the fold of their pasture, it is »'0;uos ; 
 as the assigning of their portion, juoTpa. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 105 
 
 ^ncl guilt of disobedience vary, the determination of due 
 reward and punishment must be moditied by discernment 
 of special fact, which is peculiarly the office of the judge, 
 as distinguished from that of the lawgiver and law-sus- 
 tainer, or king ; not but that the two offices are always 
 theoretically, and in early stages, or limited numbers, of 
 society, are often practically, united in the same person or 
 persons. 
 
 112. Also, it is necessary to keep clearly in view the 
 distinction between these two kinds of law, because the 
 possible range of law is wider in proportion to their sepa- 
 ration. There are many j)oints of conduct respecting 
 which the nation may wisely express its will by a written 
 precept or resolve, yet not enforce it by penalty :* and the 
 expedient degree of penalty is always quite a separate 
 consideration from the expedience of the statute ; for the 
 {Statute may often be better enforced by mercy than 
 severity, and is also easier in the bearing, and less likely 
 to be abrogated. Farther, laws of precept have reference 
 especially to youth, and concern themselves with training ; 
 but laws of judgment to manhood, and concern themselYes 
 with remedy and reward. There is a highly curious 
 
 [* This is the only sentence which, in revising these essays, I am 
 now inclined to question ; but the point is one of extreme difficulty. 
 There might be a law, for instance, of curfew, that candles should be 
 put out, unless for necessary service, at such and such an hour, the idea 
 of necessary service ” being quite indefinable, and no penalty possible ; 
 yet there would be a distinct consciousness of illegal conduct in young 
 ladies’ minds who danced by candlelight till dawn. J 
 
106 
 
 MUNEKA PULVERIS. 
 
 feeling in the English mind against educational law: we 
 think no man’s liberty should be interfered with till he 
 has done irrevocable wrong; whereas it is then just too 
 late for the only gracious and kingly interference, which 
 is to hinder him from doing it. Make your educational 
 laws strict, and yom* criminal ones may be gentle; but, 
 leave youth its liberty, and you will have to dig dungeons 
 for age. And it is good for a man that he “ wear the yoke 
 in his youth: ” for the reins may then be -of silken thread; 
 and with sweet chime of silver bells at the bridle; but, 
 for the captivity of age, you must forge the ii’on fetter, 
 and cast the passing bell. 
 
 11'3. Since no law can be, in a final or true sense, estab- 
 lished, but by right, (all unjust laws involving the ultimate 
 necessity of their own abrogation), the law-giving can only 
 become a law-sustaining power in so far as it is Royal, or 
 “ right doing ; ” — in so far, that is, as it rules, not mis- 
 rules, and orders, not dis-orders, the tilings submitted to it. 
 Throned on this rock of justice, the kingly power becomes 
 established and establishing ; “ or divine, and, 
 
 therefore, it is literally true that no ruler can err, so long 
 as he is a ruler, or dp)((ov ovSeU dfiapravei Tore orav 
 dpx(t>v y ; perverted by careless thought, which has cost 
 the world somewhat, into — “ the king can do no wi'ong.” 
 
 114. B. Meristic Law,* or that of the tenure of pro- 
 
 (* Read tMs and the next paragraph with attention ; they contain 
 clear statements, which I cannot mend, of things most necessary.] 
 
MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 107 
 
 perty, first determines wliat every individual possesses by 
 right, and secures it to him; and what he possesses by 
 wrong, and deprives him of it. But it has a far higher 
 provisory function : it determines what every man should 
 possess, and puts it within his reach on due conditions ; 
 and what he should not possess, and puts this out of his 
 reach, conclusively. 
 
 115. Every article of human wealth has certain condi- 
 tions attached to its merited possession; when these are 
 unobserved, possession becomes rapine. And the object 
 of meristic law is not only to secure to every man his 
 rightful share (the share, that is, which he has worked for, 
 produced, or received by gift from a rightful owner), but 
 to enforce the due conditions of possession, as far as law 
 may conveniently reach ; for instance, that land shall not 
 be wantonly allowed to run to waste, that streams shall 
 not be poisoned by the persons through whose properties 
 they pass, nor air be rendered unwholesome beyond given 
 limits. Laws of this kind exist already in rudimentary 
 degree, but need large development: the just laws re- 
 specting the possession of works of art have not hitherto 
 been so much as conceived, and the daily loss of national 
 \vealth, and of its use, in this respect, is quite incalculable. 
 And these laws need revision quite as much respecting 
 property in national as in private hands. For instance : 
 the public are under a vague impression that, because they 
 have paid for the contents of the British Museum, every 
 one has an equal right to see and to handle them. But the 
 
108 
 
 MUNERA PULVERI8. 
 
 public have similarly paid for the contents of Woolwich 
 arsenal ; yet do not expect free access to it, or handling of 
 its contents. The British Museum is neither a free circu- 
 lating library, nor a free school : it is a place for the safe 
 preservation, and exhibition on due occasion, of unique 
 books, unique objects of natural history, and unique works 
 of art ; its books can no more be used by everybody than its 
 coins can be handled, or its statues cast. There ought to 
 be free libraries in every quarter of London, with large 
 and complete reading-rooms attached ; so also free educa- 
 tional museums should be open in eveiy quarter of Lon- 
 don, all day long, until late at night, well lighted, well 
 catalogued, and rich in contents both of art and natural 
 history. But neither the British Museum nor I^ational 
 Gallery is a school ; they are treasuries ; and both should 
 be severely restricted in access and in use. Unless some 
 order of this kind is made, and that soon, for the MSS. 
 department of the Museum, (its superintendents have sor- 
 rowfully told me this, and repeatedly), the best MSS. in 
 the collection will be destroyed, irretrievably, by the care- 
 less and continual handling to which they are now^ sub- 
 jected. 
 
 Finally, in certain conditions of a nation’s progress, laws 
 limiting accumulation of any kind of property may be 
 found expedient. 
 
 116. C. Critic Law determines questions of injury, and 
 assigns due rewards and punishments to conduct. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 109 
 
 Two curious economical questions arise laterally with 
 respect to this branch of law, namely, the cost of crime, 
 and the cost of judgment. Tlie cost of crime is endured 
 by nations ignorantly, that expense being nowhere stated 
 in their budgets; the cost of judgment, patiently, (pro- 
 vided only it can be had pure for the money), because the 
 science, or perhaps we ought rather to say the art, of law, 
 is felt to found a noble profession and discipline ; so that 
 civilized nations are usually glad that a number of per- 
 sons should be supported by exercise in oratory and analy- 
 sis. But it has not yet been calculated what the practical 
 value might have been, in other directions, of the intelli- 
 gence now occupied in deciding, through courses of years, 
 what might have been decided as justly, had the date of 
 judgment been fixed, in as many hours. Imagine one 
 half of the funds which any great nation devotes to dis- 
 pute by law, applied to the determination of physical 
 questions in medicine, agriculture, and theoretic science ; 
 and calculate the probable results within the next ten 
 years ! 
 
 I say nothing yet of the more deadly, more lamentable 
 loss, involved in the use of purchased, instead of personal, 
 justice — “ €7ra/tr« Trap’ aWcov — airopla olKeioav.’’^ 
 
 117. In order to true anylysis of critic law, we must 
 understand the real meaning of the word “ injury.” 
 
 We commonly understand by it, any kind of harm done 
 by one man to another ; but we do not define the idea of 
 harm : sometimes we limit it to the harm which the suf- 
 
110 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 ferer is conscious of; whereas much the worst injuries 
 are those he is 'w?^conscious of ; and, at other times, we 
 limit the idea to violence, or restraint ; whereas much the 
 worse forms of injury are to be accomplished by indo- 
 lence, and the withdrawal of restraint. 
 
 118. “Injury” is then simply the refusal, or violation 
 of, any man’s right or claim upon his fellows: which 
 claim, much talked of in modern times, under the term 
 “right,” is mainly resolvable into two branches : a man’s 
 claim not to be hindered from doing what he should ; and 
 his claim to be hindered from doing what he should not ; 
 these two forms of hindrance being intensified by reward, 
 help, and fortune, or Fors, on one side, and by punish- 
 ment, impediment, and even final arrest, or Mors, on the 
 other. 
 
 119. Now, in order to a man’s obtaining these two 
 rights, it is clearly needful that the worth of him should 
 be approximately known ; as well as the want of w^orth, 
 which has, unhappily, been usually the principal subject 
 of study for critic law, careful hitherto only to mark 
 -degrees of de-merit, instead of merit; — assigning, indeed, 
 to the Z^^ficiencies (not always, alas! even to these) just 
 estimate, fine, or penalty ; but to the .^ficiencies, on the 
 other side, which are by much the more interesting, as well 
 as the only profitable part of its subject, assigning neither 
 estimate nor aid. 
 
 120. Now, it is in this higher and perfect function of 
 critic law, enabling instead of Z^5abling, that it becomes 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 truly Kingly, instead of Draconic : (what Providence gave 
 the great, wrathful legislator his name?): that is, it be- 
 comes the law of man and of life, instead of the law of 
 the worm and of death — both of these laws being set in 
 changeless poise one against another, and the enforcement 
 of both being the eternal function of the lawgiver, and 
 true claim of every living soul : such claim being indeed 
 strong to be mercifully hindered, and even, if need be, 
 abolished, when longer existence means only deeper de- 
 struction, but stronger still to be mercifully helped, and 
 recreated, when longer existence and new creation mean 
 nobler life. So that reward and punishment will be found 
 to resolve themselves mainly* into help and hindrance ; 
 and these again will issue naturally from true recognition 
 of deserving, and the just reverence and just wrath which 
 follow instinctively on such recognition. 
 
 121. I say, “ follow,” but, in reality, they are part of 
 the recognition. PeA’erence is as instinctive as anger ; — 
 both of them instant on true vision : it is sight and under 
 standing that we have to teach, and these are reverence. 
 Make a man perceive worth, and in its reflection he sees 
 his own relative unworth, and worships thereupon inevi- 
 tably, not with stiff courtesy, but rejoicingly, passionately, 
 and, best of all, restfuUy : for the inner capacity of awe 
 and love is infinite in man ; and only in finding these, can 
 
 [* Mainly ; not altogether. Conclusive reward of high virtue is 
 loving and crowning, not helping ; and conclusive punishment of deep 
 vice is hating and crushing, not merely hindering.] 
 
112 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 Ave find peace. And the common insolences and petu- 
 lances of the people, and their talk of equality, are not 
 irreverence in them in the least, but mere blindness, stupe- 
 faction, and fog in the brains,* tlie first sign of any 
 cleansing away of which is, that they gain some power of 
 discerning, and some patience in submitting to, their true 
 counsellors and governors. In the mode of such discern- 
 ment consists the real “ constitution ” of the state, more 
 than in the titles or offices of the discerned person; for it 
 is no matter, save in degree of mischief, to what ofiice a 
 man is appointed, if he cannot fulfil it. 
 
 122. III. Governjvient by Council. 
 
 This is the determination, by living authority, of the 
 national conduct to be observed under existing circum- 
 stances ; and the modification or enlargement, abrogation 
 or enforcement, of the code of national law according 'to 
 present needs or purposes. This government is necessa- 
 rily always by council, for though the authonty of it may 
 be vested in one person, that person cannot form aii}^ 
 opinion on a matter of public interest but by (voluntarily 
 or involuntarily) submitting himself to the influence of 
 others. 
 
 This government is always twofold — Aisible and in- 
 visible. 
 
 * Compare Chaucer’s “ villany ” (clownisliness). 
 
 Full foul and chorlishe seemed she, 
 
 And eke villanous for to be, 
 
 And little coulde of norture ‘ 
 
 To worship any creature. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 113 
 
 The visible government is that which nominally carries 
 on the national business ; determines its foreign relations, 
 raises taxes, levies soldiers, orders war or peace, and other- 
 wise becomes the arbiter of the national fortune. The 
 invisible government is that exercised by all energetic and 
 intelligent men, each in his sphere, regulating the inner 
 will and secret ways of the people, essentially forming its 
 character, and preparing its fate. 
 
 Visible governments are the toys of some nations, the 
 diseases of others, tlie harness of some, the burdens of 
 more, the necessity of all. Sometimes their career is quite 
 distinct from that of the people, and to write it, as the 
 national history, is as if one should number the accidents 
 which befall a man’s weapons and wardrobe, and call the 
 list his biography. Nevertheless, a truly noble and wise 
 nation necessarily has a noble and wdse visible govern- 
 ment, for its wisdom issues in that conclusively. 
 
 123. Visible governments are, in their agencies, capable 
 of three pure forms, and of no more than three. 
 
 They are either monarchies, where the authority is 
 vested in one person ; oligarchies, w^hen it is vested in a 
 minority ; or democracies, when vested in a majority. 
 
 But these three forms are not only, in practice, variously 
 limited and combined, but capable of infinite difference 
 in character and use, receiving specific names according 
 to their variations; which names, being nowise agreed 
 upon, nor consistently used, either in thought or writing, 
 no man can at present tell, in speaking of any kind of 
 
114 
 
 MUKEKA PULVERIS. 
 
 governmentj whether he is understood ; nor, in hearing, 
 whether he understands. Thus we usually call a just 
 government by one person a monarchy, and an unjust or 
 cruel one, a tyranny : this might be reasonable if it had 
 reference to the divinity of true government ; but to limit 
 the term “ oligarchy ” to government by a few rich people, 
 and to call government by a few wise or noble people 
 “ aristocracy,” is evidently absurd, unless it were proved 
 that rich people never could be wise, or noble people rich; 
 and farther absurd, because there are other distinctions in 
 character, as well as riches or wisdom (greater purity of 
 race, or strength, of purpose, for instance), which may give 
 the power of government to the few. So that if we had 
 to give names to every group or kind of minority, we 
 should have verbiage enough. But there is only one right 
 name— “ oligarchy.” 
 
 ^ 124. So also the terms “ republic ” and “ democracy ” * 
 are confused, especially in modern use ; and both of them 
 are liable to every sort of misconception. A republic 
 means, properly, a polity in which the state, with its all, is 
 at every man’s service, and every man, with his all, at the 
 state’s service — (people are apt to lose sight of the last 
 condition), but its government may nevertheless be oligar- 
 chic (consular, or decemviral, for instance), or monarchic 
 (dictatorial). But a democracy means a state in which the 
 
 [ * I leave this paragraph, in every syllable, as it was written, during 
 the rage of the American .war ; it was meant to refer, however, chiefly 
 to the Northerns : what modifications its hot and partial terms require 
 I will give in another place ; let it stand here as it stood.] 
 
MUJNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 115 
 
 government rests direetly with the majority of the citizens. 
 And both these conditions have been judged only l)y such 
 accidents and aspects of them as each of us has had expe- 
 rience of; and sometimes both have been confused with 
 anarchy, as it is the fashion at present to talk of the 
 “ failure of republican institutions in America,” when there 
 has never yet been in America any such thing as an insti- 
 tution, but only defiance of institution; neither any such 
 thing as a res-piMica, but only a multitudinous res-privata / 
 every man for himself. It is not republicanism wdiich 
 fails now in America ; it is your model science of political 
 economy, brought to its perfect practice. There you may 
 see competition, and the “ law of demand and supply ” 
 (especially in paper), in beautiful and unhindered opera- 
 tion.* Lust of wealth, and trust in it ; vulgar faith in 
 magnitude and multitude, instead of nobleness ; besides 
 that faith natural to backwoodsmen— “ lucum ligna,”t — 
 perpetual self-contemplation, issuing in passionate vanity ; 
 total ignorance of tlie finer and higher arts, and of all 
 that they teach and bestow ; and the discontent of ener- 
 getic minds unoccupied, frantic with hope of uncompre- 
 
 * Supply and demand ! Alas ! for what noble work was there ever 
 any audible “demand” in that poor sense (Past and Present) ? Nay, 
 the demand is not loud, even for ignoble work. See “ Average Earnings 
 of Betty Taylor,” in Timee of 4th February of this year [1863] ; 
 “ Worked from Monday morning at 8 a.m. to Friday night at 5.30 p.m. 
 for 1«. 5^c ?.” — Laissez faire. [This kind of slavery finds no Abolitionists 
 that I hear of. ] 
 
 [f “ That the sacred grove is nothing but logs.”] 
 
116 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 bended change, and progress they know not whither ; * — 
 these are the things that have “ failed ” in America ; and 
 yet not altogether failed — it is not collapse, hnt collision ; 
 the greatest railroad accident on record, with fire caught 
 from the furnace, and Catiline’s quenching “ non aqu^, sed 
 ruina.”t But I see not, in any of our talk of them, 
 justice enough done to their erratic strength of purpose, 
 nor any estimate taken of the strength of endurance of 
 domestic sorrow, in what their women and children sup- 
 pose a righteous cause. And out of that endurance and 
 suffering, its own fruit will he bom with time ; \not aboli- 
 tion of slavery, however. See § 130.] and Carlyle’s pro- 
 phecy of them (June, 1850), as it has now come true in 
 the first clause, will, in the last ; — 
 
 “ America, too, will find that caucuses, divisionalists, 
 stump-oratory, and speeches to Buncombe wilb not carry 
 men to the immortal gods ; that the Washington Congress, 
 
 * Ames, by report of Waldo Emerson, says “ that a monarchy is a 
 merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and 
 go to the bottom ; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, but 
 then your feet are always in the water.” Yes, that is comfortable; and 
 though your raft cannot sink (being too worthless for that), it may go to 
 pieces, I suppose, when the four winds (your only pilots) steer competi- 
 tively from its four corners, and carry it, wq ovcopiyhc Boperjc; <pop4riaiv 
 aKaveaq^ and then more than your feet will be in the water. 
 
 [f “Not with water, but with ruin.” The worst ruin being that 
 which the Americans chiefly boast of. They sent all their best and 
 honestest youths. Harvard University men and the like, to that accursed 
 war ; got them nearly all shot ; wrote pretty biographies (to the ages of 
 17, 18, 19) and epitaphs for them ; and so, having washed all the salt 
 out of the nation in blood, left themselves to putrefaction, and the 
 morality of New York.] 
 
MUNERA PULVEEIS. 
 
 m 
 
 and constitutional battle of Kilkenny cats is there, as here, 
 naught for such objects ; quite incompetent for such ; and, 
 in fine, that said sublime constitutional arrangement will 
 require to be (with terrible throes, and travail such as few 
 expect yet) remodelled, abridged, extended, suppressed, 
 torn asunder, put together again; — not without heroic 
 labour and effort, quite other than that of the stump- 
 orator and the revival preacher, one day.” 
 
 125.* Understand, then, once for all, that no form of 
 government, provided it be a government at all, is, as such, 
 to be either condemned or praised, or contested for in any- 
 wise, but by fools. But all forms of government are good 
 just so far as they attain this one vital necessity of policy 
 — that the wise and Jcind, few or many, shall govern the 
 unwise and unkind ; and they are evil so far as they miss 
 of this, or reverse it. Kor does the form, in any case, sig- 
 nify one whit, but firmness ,- adaptation to the need ; 
 for if there be many foolish persons in a state, and few wise, 
 then it is good that the few govern ; and if there be many 
 wise, and few foolish, then it is good that the many govern 
 and if many be wise, yet one wiser, then, it is good that 
 one should govern ; and so on. Thus,, we may have “ the 
 ant’s republic, and the realm of bees,” both, good in their 
 kind ; one for groping, and the other for building ; and 
 nobler still, for fiying; — the Ducal monarchy f of those. 
 Intelligent of seasons, that set forth 
 The aery caravan, high, over seas, 
 
 [* This paragraph contains the gist of all that precede.] 
 
 [f Whenever you are puzzled by any apparently mistaken use of 
 
118 
 
 MUNERA PULVEEIS. 
 
 126. Nor need we want examples, among the inferior 
 creatures, of dissoluteness, as well as resoluteness, in 
 government. I once saw democracy finely illustrated by 
 the beetles of North Switzerland, who by universal suf- 
 frage, and elytric acclamation, one May twilight, carried 
 it, that they would fiy over the Lake of Zug ; and fiew 
 short, to the great disfigurement of the Lake of Zug, — 
 KavOdpov — over some leagues square, and to the 
 
 close of the cockchafer democracy for that year. Then, 
 for tyranny, the old fable of the frogs and the stork finely 
 touches one form of it ; but truth will image it more 
 closely than fable, for tyranny is not complete when it is 
 only over the idle, but when it is over the laborious and 
 the blind. This description of pelicans and climbing 
 perch, which I find quoted in one of our popular natural 
 histories, out of Sir Emerson Tennant’s Ceylon, comes as 
 near as may be to the true image of the thing 
 
 Heavy rains came on, and as we stood on the high 
 ground, we observed a pelican on the margin of the shal- 
 low pool gorging himself ; our people went towards him, 
 and raised a cry of ‘ Fish, fish!’ We hurried down, and 
 found numbers of fish struggling upward through the 
 grass, in the rills formed by the trickling of the rain. 
 There was scarcely water to cover them, but nevertheless 
 
 words in these essays, take your dictionary, remembering I had to fix 
 terms, as well as principles. A Duke is a “dux” or “leader;” the 
 flying wedge of cranes is under a “ ducal monarch ” — a very different 
 personage from a queen-bee. The Venetians, with a beautiful instinct, 
 gave the name to their King of the Sea.] 
 
MUNERA PULVEEie. 
 
 119 
 
 they made rapid progress up the bank, on which our fol- 
 lowers collected about two baskets of them. They were 
 forcing their way up the knoll, and had they not been 
 interrupted, first by the pelican, and afterwards by our- 
 selves, they would in a few minutes have gained tliQ 
 highest point, and descended on the other side into a pool 
 which formed another portion of the tank. In going this 
 distance, however, they must have used muscular exertion 
 enough to have taken them half a mile on level ground ; 
 for at these places all the cattle and wild animals of the 
 neighbourhood had latterly come to drink, so that the sur- 
 face was everywhere indented with footmarks, in addition 
 to the cracks in the surrounding baked mud, into which 
 the fish tumbled in their progress. In those holes, which 
 were deep, and the sides perpendicular, they remained to 
 die, and were carried off by kites and croAvs.” * 
 
 127. But whether governments be bad or good, one 
 general disadvantage seems to attach to them in modern 
 times — that they are all costly. \ This, however, is not 
 essentially the fault of the governments. If nations 
 choose to play at war, they will always find their govern- 
 ments willing to lead the game, and soon coming under 
 that term of Aristophanes, KdirrfKoc a<77rtSa)i/,” “ shield- 
 
 [* This is a perfect picture of the French under the tyrannies of 
 their Pelican Kings, before the Eevolution. But they must find other 
 than Pelican Kings — or rather, Pelican Kings of the Divine brood, that 
 feed their children, and with their best blood.] 
 
 [f Read carefully, from this point ; because here begins the statement 
 of things requiring to be done, which I am now re-trying to make 
 definite in Fors Clavigera.] 
 
120 
 
 MUNEKA PTJLVEEIS. 
 
 sellers.” And when eVt irruxaTi, *) the shields take 
 
 the form of iron ships, with apparatus “ for defence 
 against liquid fire,” — as I see by latest accounts they are 
 now arranging the decks in English dockyards — they 
 become costly biers enough for the grey convoy of chief- 
 mourner waves, wreathed with funereal foam, to bear back 
 the dead upon; the massy shoulders of those corpse- 
 bearers being intended for quite other work, and to bear 
 the living, and food for the living, if we would let them. 
 
 128. Nor have we the least right to complain of our gov- 
 ernments being expensive, so long as we set the government 
 to do jorecisel^ the worlc which brings no return. If our 
 present doctrines of political economy be just, let ns trust 
 them to the utmost ; take that war business out of the 
 government’s hands, and test therein the principles of 
 supply and demand. Let our future sieges of Sebastopol 
 be done by contract — no capture, no pay — (I admit that 
 things might sometimes go better so) ; and let us sell the 
 commands of our prospective battles, with our vicarages, 
 to the lowest bidder ; so may we have cheap victories, and 
 ■divinity. On the other hand, if we have so much suspi- 
 cion of our science that we dare not trust it on military 
 or spiritual business, would it not be but reasonable to try 
 whether some authoritative handling may not prosper in 
 matters utilitarian % If we were to set our governments 
 to do useful tilings instead of mischievous, possibly even 
 
 [* “ Evil on the top of Evil.” Delphic oracle, meaning iron on the 
 anviL] 
 
MUNEEA rULVERIS. 
 
 121 
 
 the apparatus itself might in time come to be less costly. 
 The machine, applied to the building of the house, might 
 perhaps pay, when it seems not to pay, applied to pulling 
 it down. If we made in our dockyards ships to cany 
 timber and (toals, instead of cannon, and with provision 
 for the brightening of domestic solid culinary fire, in- 
 stead of for the scattering of liquid hostile fii’e, it 
 might have some effect on the taxes. Or suppose that we 
 tried the experiment on land instead of water carriage ; 
 already the government, not unapproved, carries letters 
 and parcels for us ; larger packages may in time follow ; 
 — even general merchandise — why not, at last, ourselves ? 
 Had the money spent in local mistakes and vain private 
 litigation, on the railroads of England, been laid out, 
 instead, under proper government restraint, on really 
 useful railroad work, and had no absurd expense been 
 incurred in ornamenting stations, we might already have 
 had, — what ultimately it will be found we must have, — 
 quadruple rails, two for passengers, and two for traffic, on 
 every great line ; and we might have been carried in swift 
 safety, and watched and warded by well-paid pointsmen, 
 for half the present fares. [For, of course, a railroad 
 company is merely an association of turnpike-keepers, who 
 make the tolls as high as they can, not to mend the roads 
 with, but to pocket. The public will in time discover 
 this, and do away with turnpikes on railroads, as on all 
 other public-ways.] 
 
 129. Suppose it should thus turn out, finally, that a true 
 6 
 
122 
 
 MUNEKA PULVEKIS. 
 
 government set to true work, instead of being a costly 
 engine, was a paying one ? that your government, rightly 
 organized, instead of itself subsisting by an income-tax, 
 would produce its subjects some subsistence in the shape 
 of an income dividend? — police, and judges duly paid 
 besides, only with less work than the state at present pro- 
 vides for them. 
 
 A true government set to true work ! — ^Xot easily to be 
 imagined, still less obtained ; but not beyond human hope 
 or ingenuity. Only you will have to alter your election 
 systems somewhat, first. Not by universal suffrage, noi 
 by votes purchasable with beer, is such government to be 
 had. That is to say, not by universal eqital suffrage. 
 Every man upwards of twenty, who had been convicted 
 of no legal crime, should have his say in this matter ; but 
 afterwards a louder voice, as he grows older, and approves 
 himself wiser. If he has one vote at twenty, he should 
 have two at thirty, four at forty, ten at fifty. For every 
 single vote which he has with an income of a hundred a 
 year, he should have ten with an income of a thousand, 
 (provided you first see to it that wealth is, as nature in- 
 tended it to be, the reward of sagacity and industry — ^not 
 of good luck in a scramble or a lottery). For every single 
 vote which he had as subordinate in any business, he 
 should have two when he became a master; and every 
 office and authority nationally bestowed, implying trust- 
 worthiness and intellect, should have its known proportion- 
 al number of votes attached to it. But into the detail and 
 
MUNEKA PULVERIS. 
 
 123 
 
 working of a true system in these matters we cannot now 
 enter ; we are concerned as yet with definitions only, and 
 statements of first principles, which will be established 
 now sufticiently for our purposes when we have examined 
 the nature of that form of government last on the list in 
 § 105, — the purely Magistral,” exciting at present its 
 full share of public notice, under its ambiguous title of 
 “ slavery.” 
 
 130. I have not, however, been able to ascertain in 
 definite terms, from the declaimers against slavery, 
 what they understand by it. If they mean only the im- 
 prisonment or compulsion of one person by another, such 
 imprisonment or compulsion being in many cases highly 
 expedient, slavery, so defined, would be no evil in itself, 
 but only in its abuse ; that is, when men are slaves, who 
 should not be, or masters, who should not be, or even the 
 fittest characters for either state, placed in it under condi- 
 tions which should not be. It is not, for instance, a ne- 
 cessary condition of slavery, nor a desirable one, that 
 parents should be separated from children, or husbands 
 from wdves ; but the institution of war, against which 
 people declaim with less violence, effects such separations, 
 '—not unfrequently in a very permanent manner. To 
 press a sailor, seize a white youth by conscription for a 
 soldier, or carry off a black one for a labourer, may all be 
 riglit acts, or all wrong ones, according to needs and cir- 
 cumstances. It is wTong to scourge a man unnecessarily. 
 So it is to shoot him. Both must be done on occasion ; 
 
124 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 and it is better and kinder to flog a man to his work, than 
 to leave him idle till he robs, and flog him afterwards. 
 The essential thing for all creatures is to be made to do 
 right ; how they are made to do it — by pleasant promises, 
 or hard necessities, pathetic oratory, or the whip — ^is com- 
 paratively immaterial.* To be deceived is perhaps as 
 incomp itible with human dignity as to be whipped ; and 
 1 suspect the last method to be not the worst, for the help 
 of many individuals. The Jewish nation throve under it, 
 in the hand of a monarch reputed not unwise ; it is only 
 the change of whip for scorpion which is inexpedient; 
 and that change is as likely to come to pass on the side of 
 license as of law. For the true scorpion whips are those 
 of the nation’s pleasant vices, which are to it as St. John’s 
 locusts — crown on the head, ravin in the mouth, and sting 
 in the tail. If it will not bear the rule of Athena and 
 Apollo, who shepherd without smiting (ou TrXrjyfj vifjLovTef}), 
 Athena at last calls no more in the corners of the streets ; 
 and then follows the rule of Tisiphone, who smites with- 
 out shepherding. 
 
 131. If, however, by slavery, instead of absolute com- 
 pulsion, is meant the purchase, hy money ^ of the right of 
 compulsion^ such purchase is necessarily made whenever 
 a portion of any territory is transferred, for money, from 
 one monarch to another : which has happened frequently 
 
 [* Permit me to enforce and reinforce this statement, with all ear- 
 nestness. It is the sum of what needs most to be understood in the 
 matter of education.] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 125 
 
 euough in history, without its being supposed that the in- 
 habitants of the districts so transferred became therefore 
 slaves. In this, as in the former case, the dispute seems 
 about the fashion of the thing, rather than the fact of it. 
 There are two rocks in mid-sea, on each of which, neg- 
 lected equally by instructive and commercial powers, a 
 handful of inhabitants live as they may. Two merchants 
 bid for the two properties, but not in the same terms. One 
 bids for the people, buys ihem^ and sets them to work, 
 under pain of scourge ; the other bids for the rock, buys 
 it^ and throws the inhabitants into the sea. The former is 
 the American, the latter the English method, of slavery ; 
 much is to be said for, and something against, both, which 
 I hope to say in due time and place.* 
 
 132. If, however, slavery mean not merely the purchase 
 of the right of compulsion, but tJie purchase of the hody 
 and soul of the creature itself for money ^ it is not, I 
 think, among the black races that purchases of this kind 
 are most extensively made, or that separate souls of a fine 
 make fetch the highest price. This branch of the inquiry 
 we shall have occasion also to follow out at some length, 
 for in the worst instances of the selling of souls, we are 
 apt to get, when we ask if the sale is valid, only Pyrrhon’s 
 answer t — “None can know.” 
 
 133. The fact is that slavery is not a political institution 
 
 [* A pregnant paragraph, meant against English and Scotch landlords 
 who drive their people off the land ] 
 
 [f In Lucian's dialogue, “The sale of hves.”] 
 
126 
 
 MUNEEA PULVERIS. 
 
 at all, 'but an inherent^ natural^ and eternal inheritance 
 of a large portion of the human race — to whom, the more 
 you give of their own free will, the more slaves they will 
 make themselves. In common parlance, we idly confuse 
 captivity with slavery, and are always thinking of the dif- 
 ference between pine-trunks (Ariel in the pine), and cow- 
 slip-bells (“ in the cowslip-bell I lie ”), or between carrying 
 wood and drinking (Caliban’s slavery and freedom), in- 
 stead of noting the far more serious differences between 
 Ariel and Caliban themselves, and the means by which, 
 practically, that difference may be brought about or di- 
 minished. 
 
 134.* Plato’s slave, in the Polity\ who, well dressed 
 and washed, aspires to the hand of his master’s daughter, 
 corresponds curiously to Caliban attacking Prospero’s 
 cell ; and there is an undercurrent of meaning throughout, 
 in the Terypest as well as in the Merchant of Venice^' re- 
 ferring in this case to government, as in that to commerce. 
 Miranda t (“the wonderful,” so addressed first by Perdi- 
 
 [* I raise this analysis of the Tempest into my text ; bnt it is nothing 
 but a hurried note, which I may never have time to expand. I have re- 
 touched it here and there a little, however.] 
 
 f Of Shakspeare’s names I will afterwards speak at more length ; 
 they are curiously — often barbarously — much by Providence, — but 
 assuredly not without Shakspeare’s cunning purpose — mixed out of 
 the various traditions he confusedly adopted, and languages which he 
 imperfectly knew. Three of the clearest in meaning have been already 
 noticed. Desdemona, “ (ha^aifiov'iap “ miserable fortune,” is also 
 plain enough. Othello is, I believe, “the careful;” all the calamity 
 of the tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his magnificently 
 collected strength. Ophelia, “ serviceableness,” the true lost wife of 
 Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that of her brother, 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 127 
 
 naiid, “ Oh, you wonder ! ”) corresponds to Homer’s Arete : 
 Ariel and Caliban are respectively the spirits of faithful 
 and imaginative labour, opposed to rebellious, hurtful, 
 and slavish labour. Prospero (“ for hope ”), a true gover- 
 nor, is opposed to Sycorax, the mother of slavery, her 
 name “Swine-raven,” indicating at once brutality and 
 deathf ulness ; hence the line — 
 
 “ As wicked dew as e’er my motker brushed, with ramn^ 8 feather^'' — &c. 
 
 For all these dreams of Shakspeare, as those of true and 
 strong men must be, are “ (j>avTda/xaTa Oela^ Kal GKial tojv 
 ovrwv ” — divine phantasms, and shadows of things that 
 are. We hardly tell our children, willingly, a fable with 
 no purport in it ; yet we think God sends his best messen- 
 gers only to sing fairy tales to us, fond and empty. The 
 Tempest is just like a grotesque in a rich missal, “clasped 
 where paynims pray.” Ariel is the spirit of generous and 
 free-hearted service, in early stages of human society op- 
 pressed by ignorance and wild tyranny : venting groans as 
 fast as mill-wheels strike ; in shipwreck of states, dreadful ; 
 
 Laertes; and its signification is once exquisitely alluded to in that 
 brother’s last word of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to 
 the uselessness of the churlish clergy — “ A ministering angel shall my 
 sister be, when thou liest howling.” Hamlet is, I believe, connected 
 in some way with “ homely,” the entire event of the tragedy turning on 
 betrayal of home duty. Hermione {epga)^ “pillar-like” (ij eUog 
 Xpvafjg ' A(^po6irrjg) . Titania “the queen;” Benedict and 
 
 Beatrice, “ blessed and blessing;” Valentine and Proteus, enduring 
 (or strong), (valens), and changeful. lago and lachimo have evidently 
 the same root — probably the Spanish lago, Jacob, “the supplanter.” 
 Leonatus, and other such names, are interpreted, or played with, in the 
 plays themselves. Por the interpretation of Sycorax, and reference to 
 her raven’s feather, I am indebted to Mr. John R. Wise. 
 
128 
 
 MUNERA PULVEEIS. 
 
 SO that “ all but mariners plunge in the brine, and quit the 
 vessel, then all afire with yet having in itself the will 
 and sweetness of truest peace, whence that is especially 
 called “Ariel’s” song, “ Come unto these yellow sands, and 
 there, tahe hands^^ “ courtesied when you have, and kissed, 
 the wild waves whist : ” (mind, it is “ cortesia,” not “ curt- 
 sey,”) and read “ quiet ” for “ whist,” if you want the full 
 sense. Then you may indeed foot it featly, and sweet 
 spirits bear the burden for you — -with watch in the night, 
 and call in early morning. The vis viva in elemental 
 transformation follows — “ Full fathom five thy father lies, 
 of his bones are coral made.” Then, giving rest after 
 labour, it “ fetches dew from the still vext Bermoothes, 
 and, with a charm joined to their suffered labour, leaves 
 men asleep.” Snatching away the feast of the cruel, it 
 seems to them as a harpy ; followed by the utterly vile, who 
 cannot see it in any shape, but to whom it is the picture 
 of nobody, it still gives shrill harmony to their false and 
 mocking catch, “ Thought is free ; ” but leads them into 
 briers and foul places, and at last hollas the hounds upon 
 them. Minister of fate against the great criminal, it joins 
 itself with the “ incensed seas and shores ” — the sword that 
 layeth at it cannot hold, and may “ with bemoeked-at stabs as 
 soon kill the still-closing waters, as diminish one dowle that 
 is in its plume.” As the guide and aid of true love, it is 
 always called by Prospero “ fine ” (the French “ fine,” not 
 the English), or “ delicate ” — another long note would be 
 needed to explain all the meaning in this word. Lastly, 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 129 
 
 its work done, and war, it resolves itself into the elements. 
 The intense significance of the last song, “ Where the bee 
 sucks,” I will examine in its due place. 
 
 The types of slavery in Caliban are more palpable, and 
 need not be dwelt on now : though I will notice them also, 
 severally, in their proper places ; — the heart of his slavery 
 is in his worship : “ That’s a brave god, and bears celes- 
 tial — liquor.” But, in illustration of the sense in which 
 the Latin ‘‘ benignus ” and “ malignus ” are to be coupled 
 with Eleutheria and Douleia, note that Caliban’s torment 
 is always the physical refiection of his own nature-— 
 “ cramps ” and “ side stitches that shall pen thy breath up ; 
 thou shalt be pinched, as thick as honeycombs : ” the whole 
 nature of slavery being one cramp and cretinous contrac- 
 tion. Fancy this of Ariel ! You may fetter him, but you 
 set no mark on him ; you may put him to hard work and 
 far journey, but you cannot give him a cramp. 
 
 135. I should dwell, even in these prefatory papers, at 
 more length on this subject of slavery, had not all I would 
 say been said already, in A^ain, (not, as I hope, ultimately in 
 vain), by Carlyle, in the first of the Latter-day Pamphlets, 
 which I commend to the reader’s gravest reading ; together 
 Avith that as much neglected, and still more immedi- 
 ately needed, on model prisons, and with the great chapter 
 on “ Permanence ” (fifth of the last section of “ Past and 
 Present ”), which sums what is known, and foreshadows, 
 or rather forelights, all that is to be learned of National 
 Discipline. I have only here farther to examine the na- 
 C* 
 
130 
 
 MtJKERA PTJLVERIS. 
 
 tiire of one world-wide and everlasting form of slavery, 
 wholesome in nse, as deadly in abuse the service of the 
 rich by the poor. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 131 
 
 CHAPTER yi. 
 
 MASTERSHIP. 
 
 136. As in all previous discussions of our subject, we 
 must study the relation of the commanding rich to the 
 obeying poor in its simplest elements, in order to reach its 
 first principles. 
 
 The simplest state of it, then, is this : * a wise and pro- 
 vident person works much, consumes little, and lays by a 
 Store ; an improvident person works little, consumes all his 
 produce, and lays by no store. Accident interrupts the 
 daily work, or renders it less productive ; the idle person 
 must then starve, or be supported by the provident one, 
 who, having him thus at his mercy, may either refuse to 
 maintain him altogether, or, which will evidently be more 
 to his own interest, say to him, “ I will maintain you, in- 
 deed, but you shafl now work hard, instead of indolently, 
 and instead of being allowed to lay by what you save, as 
 you might have done, had you remained independent, I 
 will take all the surplus. You would not lay it up for 
 youi'self ; it is wholly your own fault that has thrown you 
 
 * In the present general examination I concede so much to ordinary 
 economists as to ignore all innocent poverty. I adapt my reasoning, 
 for once, to the modern English practical mind, by assuming poverty 
 to be always criminal ; the conceivable exceptions we will examine 
 afterwards. 
 
132 
 
 MUNEEA PULVEEIS. 
 
 into my power, and I will force yon to work, or starve ; 
 yet yon shall have no profit of yonr work, only yonr daily 
 bread for it ; [and competition shall determine how much 
 of that*].” This mode of treatment has now become so 
 nniversal that it is supposed to be the only natural — nay, 
 the only possible one ; and the market wages are calmly 
 defined by economists as “ the sum which will maintain 
 the labourer.” 
 
 137. The power of the provident person to do this is 
 only checked by the correlative power of some neighbour 
 of similarly frugal habits, who says to the labourer— “ I 
 will give you a little more than this other provident per- 
 son : come and work for me.” 
 
 The power of the provident over the improvident de- 
 pends thus, primarily, on their relative numbers ; seconda- 
 rily, on the modes of agreement of the adverse parties with 
 each other. The accidental level of wages is a variable 
 function of the number of provident and idle persons in 
 the world, of the enmity between them as classes, and of 
 the agreement between those of the same class. It de- 
 2 >ends, from heginning to end^ on moral conditions. 
 
 138. Supposing the rich to be entirely selfish, it is ad- 
 ways for their interest that the jyoor should he as numer- 
 ous as they can employ^ and restrain. For, granting that 
 the entire population is no larger than the ground can 
 
 [* I have no terms of English, and can find none in Greek nor Latin, 
 nor in any other strong language known to me, contemptuous enough 
 to attach to the bestial idiotism of the modem theory that wages are to 
 be measured by competition.] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 easily maintain — that the classes are stringently divided — 
 and that there is sense or strength of hand enough with 
 the rich to secure obedience; then, if nine-tenths of a 
 nation are poor, the remaining tenth have the service of 
 nine persons each ; but, if eight-tenths are poor, only of 
 four each ; if seven-tenths are poor, of two and a third 
 each ; if six-tenths are poor, of one and a half each ; and 
 if five-tenths are poor, of only one each. But, practically, 
 if the rich strive always to obtain more power over the' 
 poor, instead of to raise them — and if, on the other hand,, 
 the poor become continually more vicious and numerous, 
 through neglect and oppression, — though the range of the 
 power of the rich increases, its tenure becomes less secure ; 
 until, at last, the measure of iniquity being full, revolu- 
 tion, civil war, or the subjection of the state to a healthier 
 or stronger one, closes the moral corruption, and industrial 
 disease.f 
 
 139. It is rarely, however, that things come to this 
 extremity. Kind persons among the rich, and wise 
 among the poor, modify the connexion of the classes : the 
 efforts made to raise and relieve on the one side, and the 
 
 * I say nothing yet of the quality of the servants, which, neverthe- 
 less, is the gist of the business. Will you have Paul Veronese to paint 
 your ceiling, or the plumber from over the way ? Both will work for 
 the same money ; Paul, if anything, a little the cheaper of the two, if 
 you keep him in good humour ; only you have to discern him first, which; 
 will need eyes. 
 
 [f I have not altered a syllable in these three paragraphs, 137, 138, 
 139, on revision ; but have much italicised : the principles stated being 
 as vital, as they are little known.] 
 
134 
 
 MUNEEA PTJLVERIS. 
 
 success of honest toil on the other, hind and blend the 
 orders of society into the confused tissue of half -felt obli- 
 gation, sullenly-rendered obedience, and variously-directed, 
 or mis-directed, toil, which form the w^arp of daily life. 
 But this great law rules all the wild design : that success 
 (while society is guided by laws of competition) signifies 
 always so rmich victory over your neighbour as to obtain 
 the direction of his work, and to take the profits of it. 
 This is the real source of all great riches. Xo man can 
 become largely rich by his personal toil.* The work of 
 his own hands, wisely directed, will indeed always main- 
 tain himself and his family, and make fitting pro\’ision 
 for his age. B%it it is only by the discovery of some 
 methods of taxing the labour of others that he can become 
 ojyulent. Every increase of his capital enables him to 
 extend this taxation more widely ; that is, to invest largei- 
 funds in the maintenance of labourers, — to direct, accord- 
 ingly, vaster and yet vaster masses of labour, and to 
 appropriate its profits. 
 
 140. There is much confusion of idea on the subject of 
 this appropriation. It is, of course, the interest of the 
 employer to disguise it from the persons employed ; and, 
 for his own comfort and complacency, he often desires no 
 less to disguise it from himself. And it is matter of much 
 doubt with me, how far the foul and foolish arguments 
 
 * By liis art lie may; but only when its produce, or the sight or 
 hearing of it, becomes a subject of dispute, so as to enable the artist to 
 tax the labour of multitudes highly, in exchange for his own. 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 135 
 
 used liabitnally on this subject are indeed tlie honest 
 expression of foul and foolish convictions ; — or rather (as 
 I am sometimes forced to conclude from the irritation 
 with which they are advanced) are resolutely dishonest, 
 wilful, and malicious sophisms, arranged so as to mask, 
 to the last moment, the real laws of economy, and future 
 duties of men. By taking a simple example, and working 
 it thoroughly out, the subject may be rescued from all but 
 such detemiined misrepresentation. 
 
 141. Let us imagine a society of peasants, living on a 
 river-shore, exposed to destructive inundation at somewhat 
 extended intervals ; and that each peasant possesses of this 
 good, but imperilled, ground, more than he needs to culti- 
 vate for immediate subsistence. We will assume farther 
 (and with too great probability of justice), that the greater 
 part of them indolently keep in tillage just as much land 
 as supplies them with daily food ; — that they leave their 
 children idle, and take no precautions against the rise of 
 the stream. But one of them, (we will say but one, for 
 the sake of greater clearness) cultivates carefully all the 
 ground of his estate ; makes his children work hard and 
 healthily ; uses his spare time and theirs in building a 
 rampart against the river ; and, at the end of some years, 
 has in his storehouses large reserves of food and clothing, 
 — in his stables a well-tended breed of cattle, and aronnd 
 his fields a wedge of wall against flood. 
 
 The torrent rises at last — sweeps away the harvests, and 
 half the cottages of the careless peasants, and leaves them 
 
136 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 destitute. They naturally come for help to the provident 
 one, whose fields are unwasted, and whose granaries are 
 full. He has the right to refuse it to them : no one dis- 
 putes this right.* But he will probably Tiot refuse it 5 it 
 is not his interest to do so, even were he entirely selfish 
 and cruel. The only question with him will be on what 
 terms his aid is to be granted. 
 
 /142. Clearly, not on terms of mere charity. To main- 
 /tain his neighbours in idleness would be not only his ruin, 
 
 / but theirs. He will require work from them, in exchange 
 / for their maintenance ; and, whether in kindness or cruel- 
 ty, all the work they can give. Hot now the three or four 
 hours they were wont to spend on their own land, but the 
 eight or ten hours they ought to have spent.f But how 
 will he apply this labour ? The men are now his slaves ; 
 
 ^nothing less, and nothing more. On pain of starvation, 
 
 he can force them to work in the manner, and to the end, 
 he chooses. And it is by his wisdom in this choice that 
 the worthiness of his mastership is proved, or its unworthi- 
 hess. Evidently, he must first set them to bank out the 
 water in some temporary way, and to get their ground 
 cleansed and resown; else, in any case, their continued 
 maintenance will be impossible. That done, and while 
 he has still to feed them, suppose he makes them raise a 
 
 [* Observe this ; the legal right to keep what you have worked for, 
 and use it as you please, is the corner-stone of all economy : compare 
 the end of Chap. II.] 
 
 [f I should now put the time of necessary labour rather under than 
 over the third of the day.] 
 
MUNERA rULVERIS. 
 
 137 
 
 secure rampart for their own ground against all future 
 hood, and rebuild their houses in safer places, with the 
 best material they can iind; being allowed time out of 
 their working hours to fetch such material from a distance. 
 And for the food and clothing advanced, he takes security 
 in land that as much shall be returned at a convenient 
 period. 
 
 143. We may conceive this security to be redeemed, 
 and the debt paid at the end of a few years. The pru- 
 dent peasant has sustained no loss ; is no richer than 
 he was, and has had all his trouble for nothing. But he 
 has enriched his neighbours materially ; bettered their 
 houses, secured their land, and rendered them, in worldly 
 matters, equal to himself. In all rational and final sense, 
 lie has been throughout their true Lord and King. 
 
 144. We will next trace his probable line of conduct, 
 presuming his object to be exclusively the increase of his 
 own fortune. After roughly recovering and cleansing 
 the ground, he allows the ruined peasantry only to build 
 huts upon it, such as he thinks protective enough from 
 the weather to keep them in working health. The rest of 
 their time he occupies, first in pulling down, and rebuild- 
 ing on a magnificent scale, his own house, and in adding 
 large dependencies to it. This done, in exchange for his 
 continued supply of corn, he buys as much of his neigh- 
 bours’ land as he thinks he can superintend the manage- 
 ment of ; and makes the former owners securely embank 
 and protect the ceded portion. By this arrangement, he 
 
138 
 
 MUNEKA PULVEKIS. 
 
 leaves to a certain number of the peasantry only as much 
 ground as will just maintain them in their existing num- 
 bers ; as the population increases, he takes the extra 
 hands, who cannot be maintained on the narrowed estates, 
 for his own servants; employs some to cultivate the 
 ground he has bought, giving them of its produce merely 
 enough for subsistence ; mth the surplus, which, under 
 his energetic and careful superintendence, will be large, 
 he maintains a train of servants for state, and a body of 
 workmen, whom he educates in ornamental arts. He now 
 can splendidly decorate his house, lay out its grounds 
 magnificently, and richly supply his table, and that of his 
 household and retinue. And thus, without any abuse of 
 right, we should find established all the phenomena of 
 poverty and riches, which' (it is supposed ilecessarily) 
 accompany modern civilization. In one part of the dis- 
 trict, we should have unhealthy land, miserable dwellings, 
 and half -starved poor ; in another, a well-ordered estate, 
 well-fed servants, and refined conditions of highly-edu- 
 cated and luxurious life. 
 
 145. I have put the two cases in simplicity, and to some 
 extremity. But though in more complex and qualified 
 operation, all the relations of society are but the expansion 
 of these two typical sequences of conduct and result. I 
 do not say, observe, that the first procedure is entirely 
 recommendable ; or even entirely right ; still less, that the 
 second is wholly wrong. Servants, and artists, and splen- 
 dour of habitation and retinue, have all their use, pro- 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 139 
 
 priety, and office. But I am determined that the reader 
 shall understand clearly what they cost ; and see that the 
 condition of having them is the subjection to us of a 
 certain number of imprudent or unfortunate persons (or, 
 it may be, more fortunate than their masters), over whose 
 destinies we exercise a boundless control. “Riches” mean 
 eternally and essentially this; and God send at last a 
 time when those wmds of our best-reputed economist 
 shall be true, and we shall indeed “ all know what it is to 
 be rich ; that it is to be slave-master over farthest earth, 
 and over all ways and thoughts of men. Every operative 
 you employ is your true servant: distant or near, subject 
 to your immediate orders, or ministering to your widely- 
 communicated caprice, — for the pay he stipulates, or the 
 price he tempts, — all are alike under this great dominion 
 of the gold. The milliner wdio makes the dress is as 
 much a servant (more so, in that she uses more intelli- 
 gence in the service) as the maid who puts it on ; the 
 carpenter who smooths the door, as the footman who 
 opens it; the tradesmen who supply the table, as the 
 labourers and sailors who supply the tradesmen. Why 
 speak of these lower services? Painters and singers 
 ^(whether of note or rhyme,) jesters and story-tellers, 
 moralists, historians, priests, — so far as these, in any de- 
 gree, paint, or sing, or tell their tale, or charm their 
 charm, or “perform” their viiQ^for jpay ^ — in so far, they 
 are all slaves; abject utterly, if the service be for pay 
 
 [* See Preface to Unto this Last.\ 
 
140 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 only ; abject less and less in proportion to the degrees of 
 love and of wisdom which enter into their duty, or can 
 enter into it, according as their function is to do the bid- 
 ding and the work of a manly people; — or to amuse, 
 tempt, and deceive, a childish one. 
 
 146. There is always, in such amusement and tempta- 
 tion, to a certain extent, a government of the rich by the 
 
 ^oor, as of the poor by the rich; but the latter is the 
 prevailing and necessary one, and it consists, when it is 
 lionourable, in the collection of the profits of labour from 
 those who would have misused them, and the administra- 
 tion of those profits for the service either of the same 
 persons in future, or of others ; and when it is dishonour- 
 
 Nable;^ as is more frequently the case in modern times, it 
 consists in the collection of the profits of labour from 
 those who would have rightly used them, and their appro- 
 priation to the service of the collector himself. 
 
 147. The examination of these various modes of collec- 
 tion and use of riches will form the third branch of our 
 future inquiries; but the key to the whole subject lies in 
 the clear understanding of the difference between selfish 
 and unselfish expenditure. It is not easy, by any course 
 of reasoning, to enforce this on the generally unwilling 
 hearer ; yet the definition of unselfish expenditure is brief 
 and simple. It is expenditure which, if you are a capital- 
 ist, does not pay you^ but pays somebody else ; and if you 
 are a consumer, does not please you^ but pleases somebody 
 else. Take one special instance, in further illustration of 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 141 
 
 the general type given above. I did not invent that type, 
 but spoke of a real river, and of real peasantry, the 
 languid and sickly race which inhabits, or haunts — for 
 they are often more like spectres than living men — the 
 tliorny desolation of the banks of the Arve in Savoy. 
 Some years ago, a society, formed at Geneva, offered to 
 embank the river for the ground which would have been 
 recovered by the operation ; but the offer was refused by 
 the (then Sardinian) government. The capitalists saw 
 that this expenditure would have “ paid ” if the ground 
 saved from the river was to be theirs. But if, when the 
 offer that had this aspect of profit was refused, they had 
 nevertheless persisted in the plan, and merely taking 
 security for the return of their outlay, lent the funds for 
 the work, and thus saved a whole race of human souls 
 from perishing in a pestiferous fen (as, I presume, some 
 among them would, at personal risk, have dragged any one 
 drowning creature out of the current of the stream, and 
 not expected payment therefor), such expenditure vrould 
 have precisely corresponded to the use of liis power made, 
 in the first instance, by our supposed richer peasant — it 
 would have been the king’s, of grace, instead of the 
 usurer’s, for gain. 
 
 148. “ Impossible, absurd, Utopian ! ” exclaim nine- 
 tenths of the few readers whom these words may find. 
 
 Uo, good reader, this is not Utopian: but I will tell 
 you what would have seemed, if we had not seen it, 
 Utopian on the side of evil instead of good; that ever 
 
142 
 
 MUNEEA PULVEEIS. 
 
 men should have come to value their money so much 
 more than their lives, that if you call upon them to 
 become soldiers, and take chance of a bullet through their 
 heart, and of wife and children being left desolate, for 
 their pride’s sake, they will do it gaily, without thinking 
 twice; but if you ask them, for their country’s sake, to 
 spend a hundred pounds without security of getting back 
 a hundred-and-five,* they will laugh in your face. 
 
 149. I^ot but that also this game of life-giving and 
 taking is, in the end, somewhat more costly than other 
 forms of play might be. Rifle practice is, indeed, a not 
 unhealthy pastime, and a feather on the top of the head is 
 a pleasing appendage ; but while learning the stops and 
 Angering of the sweet instrument, does no one ever calcin 
 
 * I have not hitherto touched on the subject of interest of money ; 
 it is too complex, and must be reserved for its proper place in the body 
 of the work. The definition of interest (apart from compensation for 
 risk) is, “ the exponent of the comfort of accomplished labour, sepa- 
 rated from its power ; ” the power being what is lent : and the French 
 economists who have maintained the entire illegality of interest are 
 wrong ; yet by no means so curiously or wildly wrong as the English 
 and French ones opposed to them, whose opinions have been collected 
 by Dr. Whewell at page 41 of his Lectures ; it never seeming to occur 
 to the mind of the compiler, any more than to the writers whom 
 he quotes, that it is quite possible, and even (according to Jewish 
 proverb) prudent, for men to hoard as ants and mice do, for use, not 
 usury ; and lay by something for winter nights, in the expectation of 
 rather sharing than lending the scrapings. My Savoyard squirrels would 
 pass a pleasant time of it under the snow-laden pine-branches, if they 
 always declined to economize because no one would pay them interest 
 on nuts. 
 
 [I leave this note as it stood : but, as I have above stated, should 
 now side wholly with the French economists spoken of, in asserting the 
 absolute illegality of interest.] 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 143 
 
 late the cost of an overture ? What melody does Tityrus 
 meditate on his tenderly spiral pipe ? The leaden seed of 
 it, broad-cast, true conical “ Dents de Lion ” seed —need- 
 ing less allowance for the wind than is usual with that kind 
 of herb — what crop are you likely to have of it % Sup- 
 pose, instead of this volunteer marching and countermarch- 
 ing, you were to do a little volunteer ploughing and counter- 
 ploughing % It is more difficult to do it straight : the dust 
 of the earth, so disturbed, is more grateful than for merely 
 rhythmic footsteps. Golden cups, also, given for good 
 ploughing, would be more suitable in colour : (ruby glass, 
 for the wine which “ giveth his colour ” on the ground, 
 might be fitter for the rifie prize in ladies’ hands). Or, 
 conceive a little volunteer exercise with the spade, other 
 than such as is needed for moat and breastwork, or even 
 for the burial of the fruit of the leaden avena-seed, sub- 
 ject to the shrill Lemiires’ criticism — • 
 
 Wer hat das Haus so schlecht gebanet ? 
 
 If you were to embank Lincolnshire more stoutly against 
 the sea % or strip the peat of Solway, or plant Plinlimmon 
 moors with larch — then, in due season, some amateur 
 reaping and threshing ? 
 
 “ Nay, we reap and thresh by steam, in these advanced 
 days.” 
 
 I know it, my wise and economical friends. The stout 
 arms God gave you to win your bread by, you would fain 
 
144 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 shoot your neighbours, and God’s sweet singers with ; then 
 you invoke the fiends to your farm-service ; and — 
 
 When young and old come foiili to play 
 On a sulphurous holiday. 
 
 Tell how the darkling goblin sweat 
 (His feast of cindere duly set), 
 
 And, belching night, where breathed the mom. 
 
 His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn 
 That ten day-labourers could not end. 
 
 150. Going back to the matter in hand, we will press 
 the example closer. On a green knoll above that plain of 
 the Arve, between Cluse and Bonneville, there was, in the 
 year 1860, a cottage, inhabited by a well-doing family — 
 man and wife, three childi’en, and the grandmother. I call 
 it a cottage, but in truth, it was a large chimney on the 
 ground, wide at the bottom, so that the family might live 
 round the fire ; lighted by one small broken window, and 
 entered by an unclosing door. The family, I say, was 
 
 * Compare Chaucer’s feeling respecting birds (from Canace’s falcon, 
 to the nightingale, singing, “ Domine, labia — " to the Lord of Love) 
 tvith the usual modem British sentiments on this subject. Or even 
 Cowley’s ; — 
 
 ‘ ‘ What prince’s choir of music can excel 
 That which within this shade does dwell. 
 
 To which we nothing pay, or give, 
 
 They, like all other poets, live 
 
 Without reward, or thanks for their obISging pains ! 
 
 ’Tis well if they become not prey.” 
 
 Yes ; it is better than well ; particularly since the seed sown by the 
 wayside has been protected by the peculiar appropriation of part of 
 the church-rates in our country parishes. See the remonstrance from 
 
MUNERA PULVEEIS. 
 
 145 
 
 “ well-doing ; ” at least, it was hopeful and cheerful ; the 
 wife healthy, the children, for Savoyards, pretty and 
 active, but the husband threatened with decline, from ex- 
 posure under the cliffs of the Mont Y ergi by day, and to 
 draughts between every plank of his chimney in the frosty 
 nights. 
 
 “ Why could he not plaster the chinks ? ’’ asks the prac- 
 tical reader. For the same reason that your child cannot 
 wash its face and hands till you have washed them many 
 a day for it, and will not wash them when it can, till you 
 force it. 
 
 151. I passed this cottage often in my walks, had its 
 window and door mended ; sometimes mended also a little 
 the meal of sour bread and broth, and generally got kind 
 greeting and smile from the face of young or old ; which 
 greeting, this year, narrowed itself into the half-recogniz- 
 ing stare of the elder child, and the old woman’s tears ; 
 for the father and mother were both dead, — one of sick- 
 ness, the other of sorrow. It happened that I passed not 
 alone, but with a companion, a practised English joiner, 
 
 a “ Country Parson,” in The Times of June 4th (or 5th ; the letter is 
 dated June 3rd,) 1862: — “I have heard at a vestry meeting a good 
 deal of higgling over a few shillings’ outlay in cleaning the church ; 
 but I have never heard any dissatisfaction expressed on account of 
 that part of the rate which is invested in 50 or 100 dozens of birds’ 
 heads.” 
 
 [If we could trace the innermost of all causes of modem war, I 
 believe it would be found, not in the avarice nor ambition of nations, 
 but in the mere idleness of the upper classes. They have nothing to 
 do but to teach the peasantry to kill each other,] 
 
 7 
 
146 
 
 MUNERA PL'LVERIS. 
 
 who, while these people were dying of cold, had been em- 
 ployed from six in the morning to six in the evening, for 
 two months, in fitting, without nails, the panels of a single 
 door in a large house in London. Three days of his work 
 taken, at the right time, from fastening the oak panels with 
 useless precision, and applied to fasten the larch timbers 
 "v^ith decent strength, would have saved these Savoyards’ 
 lives. He would have been maintained equally ; (I sup- 
 pose him equally paid for his work by the owner of the 
 greater house, only the work not consumed selfishly on his 
 own walls ; ) and the two peasants, and eventually, probably 
 their children, saved. 
 
 152. There are, therefore,— let me finally enforce, and 
 leave with the reader, this broad conclusion,— three things 
 to be considered in employing any poor person. It is not 
 enough to give him employment. You must employ him 
 first to produce useful things ; seccmdly, of the several 
 (suppose equally useful) things he can equally well pro- 
 duce, you must set him to make that which will cause him 
 to lead the healthiest life j lastly, of the things produced, 
 it remains a question of wisdom and conscience how much 
 you are to take yourself, and how much to leave to others. 
 A large quantity, remember, unless you destroy it, rmist 
 always be so left at one time or another ; the only ques- 
 tions you have to decide are, not what you will give, but 
 when^ and how, and to whom, you will give. The natural 
 law of human life is, of course, that in youth a man shall 
 labour and lay by store for his old age, and when age 
 
Mt'NERA PULVERIS. 
 
 147 
 
 comes, shall use what he has laid by, gradually slackening 
 his toil, and allowing himself more frank use of his store ; 
 taking (3are always to leave himself as much as will surely 
 suffice for him beyond any possible length of life. What 
 he has gained, or by tranquil and unanxious toil continues 
 to gain, more than is enough for his own need, he ought 
 so to administer, while he yet lives, as to see the good of 
 it again beginning, in other hands ; for thus he has himself 
 the greatest sum of pleasure from it, and faithfully uses 
 his sagacity in its control. Whereas most men, it appears, 
 dislike the sight of their fortunes going out into service 
 again, and say to themselves, — I can indeed nowise pre- 
 vent this money from falling at last into the hands of 
 others, nor hinder the good of it from becoming theirs, 
 not mine ; but at least let a merciful death save me from 
 being a witness of their satisfaction ; and may God so far 
 be gracious to me as to let, no good come of any of this 
 money of mine before my eyes.” 
 
 153. Supposing this feeling unconquerable, the safest 
 way of rationally indulging it would be for the capitalist 
 at once to spend all his fortune on himself, which might 
 actually, in many cases, be quite the rightest as well as the 
 pleasantest thing to do, if he had just tastes and worthy 
 passions. But, whether for himself only, or through the 
 hands, and for the sake, of others also, the law of wise 
 life is, that the maker of the money should also be the 
 spender of it, and spend it, approximately, all, before he 
 dies ; so that his true ambition as an economist should be. 
 
148 
 
 MIJNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 to die, not as rich, bnt as poor, as possible,* calculating 
 the ebb tide of possession in true and calm proportion to 
 the ebb tide of life. Which law, checking the wing of 
 accumulative desire in the mid-vollej,f and leading to 
 peace of possession and fulness of fruition in old age, is 
 also wholesome, in that by the freedom of gift, together 
 with present help and counsel, it at once endears and 
 dignifies age in the sight of youth, which then no longer 
 strips the bodies of the dead, but receives the grace of the 
 living. Its chief use would (or will be, for men are 
 indeed capable of attaining to this much use of their 
 reason), that some temperance and measure will be put to 
 the acquisitiveness of commerce.:]: For as things stand, a 
 
 man holds it his duty to be temperate in his food, and of 
 his body, but for no duty to be temperate in his riches, 
 and of his mind. He sees that he ought not to waste his 
 
 [* See tlie Life of Fenelon. “ The labouring- peasantry were at all 
 times the objects of his tenderest care; his palace at Cambray, with all 
 his books and writings, being consumed by fire, he bore the misfortune 
 with unruffled calmness, and said it was better his palace should be 
 burnt than the cottage of a poor peasant.” (These thoroughly good 
 men always go too far, and lose their power over the mass.) He died 
 exemplifying the mean he had always observed between prodigality and 
 avarice, leaving neither debts nor money.] 
 
 f KaX Treviav vjyovfievavs elvai rh r)]v ov<rlav iXarra iroiuv aWa rh t^v 
 aTrK'i](TTiav irxdo). “ And thinking (wisely) that poverty consists not in 
 making one’s possessions less, but one’s avarice more.” — Laws, v. 8. 
 Head the context, and compare. “ He who spends for all that is noble, 
 and gains by nothing but what is just, will hardly be notably wealthy, 
 or distressfully poor.” — Laws^ v. 42. 
 
 X The fury of modern trade arises chiefly out of the possibility of 
 making sudden fortunes by largeness of transaction, and accident of 
 discovery or contrivance. I have no doubt that the final interest 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 140 
 
 youth and his flesh for luxury ; but he will waste his age, 
 and his soul, for money, and think he does no wrong, nor 
 know the delirium tremens of the intellect for disease. 
 But the law of life is, that a man should flx the sum he 
 desires to make annually, as the food he desires to eat 
 daily ; and stay when he has reached the limit, refusing 
 increase of business, and leaving it to others, so obtaining 
 due freedom of time for better thoughts.'^' How the 
 gluttony of business is punished, a bill of health for the 
 principals of the richest city houses, issued annually, 
 would show in a sufliciently impressive manner. 
 
 154. I know, of course, that these statements will be 
 received by the modern merchant as an active border rider 
 of the sixteenth century would have heard of its being 
 proper for men of the Marches to get their living by the 
 spade, instead of the spur. But my business is only to 
 state veracities and necessities ; I neither look for the 
 acceptance of the one, nor hope for the nearness of the 
 other. Hear or distant, the day will assuredly come when 
 the merchants of a state shall be its true ministers of 
 exchange, its porters, in the double sense of carriers and 
 gate-keepers, bringing all lands into frank and faithful 
 
 of every nation is to check the action of these commercial lotteries;: 
 and that all great accidental gains or losses should be national, — not 
 individual. But speculation absolute, unconnected with commercial 
 effort, is an unmitigated evil in a state, and the root of countless evils 
 beside, 
 
 [* I desire in the strongest terms to reinforce all that is contained in 
 this paragraph.] 
 
MTJNEKA PULVERIS, 
 
 communication, and knowing for their master of guild, 
 Hermes the herald, instead of Mercury the gain-guarder. 
 
 155. And now, finally, for immediate rule to all who 
 will accept it. 
 
 ' The distress of any population means that they need 
 food, house-room, clothes, and fuel. You can never, 
 therefore, be wrong in employing any labourer to produce 
 food, house-room, clothes, or fuel; but you are always 
 wrong if you employ him to produce nothing, (for then 
 some other labourer must be worked double time to feed 
 him) ; and you are generally wrong, at present, if you 
 employ him (unless he can do nothing else) to produce 
 works of art or luxuries ; because modern art is mostly on 
 a false basis, and modern luxury is criminally great.* 
 
 * It is especially necessary tliat the reader should keep his mind fixed 
 on the methods of consumption and destruction, as the true sources of 
 national poverty. Men are apt to call every exchange “expenditure,” 
 but it is only consumption which is expenditure. A large number of the 
 purchases made by the richer classes are mere forms of interchange of 
 unused property, wholly without effect on national prosperity. It mat 
 ters nothing to the state whether, if a china pipkin be rated as worth a 
 hundred pounds, A has the pipkin and B the pounds, or A the pounds 
 and B the pipkin. But if the pipkin is pretty, and A or B breaks it, 
 there is national loss, not otherwise. So again, when the loss has really 
 taken place, no shifting of the shoulders that bear it will do away with 
 the reality of it. There is an intensely ludicrous notion in the public 
 mind respecting the abolishment of debt by denyiag it. When a debt 
 is denied, the lender loses instead of the borrower, that is all ; the loss 
 is precisely, accurately, everlastingly the same. The Americans borrow 
 money to spend in blowing up their own houses. They deny their debt, 
 by one -third already [1863], gold being at fifty premium ; and they will 
 probably deny it wholly. That merely means that the holders of the 
 notes are to be the losers instead of the issuers. The quantity of loss 
 is precisely equal, and irrevocable ; it is the quantity of human industry 
 
mu:nera ruLVERis. 
 
 151 
 
 156. The way to produce more food is mainly to bring 
 in fresh ground, and increase facilities of carriage; — to 
 break rock, exchange earth, drain the moist, and water 
 the dry, to mend roads, and build harbours of refuge. 
 Taxation thus spent will annihilate taxation, but spent in 
 war, it annihilates revenue. 
 
 157. The way to produce liouse-room is to apply your 
 force first to the humblest dwellings. When your brick- 
 layers are out of employ, do not build splendid new 
 streets, but better the old ones ; send your paviours and 
 slaters to the poorest villages, and see tiiat your poor are 
 healthily lodged, before you try your hand on stately archi- 
 tecture. You will find its stateliness rise better under the 
 trowel afterw^ards ; and we do not yet build so well that 
 we need hasten to display our skill to future ages. Had 
 the labour which has decorated the Houses of Parliament 
 filled, instead, rents in walls and roofs throughout the 
 county of Middlesex ; and our deputies met to talk within 
 massive walls that would have needed no stucco for five 
 hundred years, — the decoration might have been after- 
 wards, and the talk now. And touching even our highly 
 conscientious church building, it may be well to remember 
 that in the best days of church plans, their masons called 
 themselves logeurs du bon Dieu ; ” and that since, accord- 
 ing to the most trusted reports, God spends a good deal 
 
 spent in effecting the explosion, plus the quantity of goods exploded. 
 Honour only decides wlw shall pay the sura lost not whether it is to be 
 paid or not. Paid it raust be, and to the uttermost farthing. 
 
152 
 
 MX'NEKA PULVERIS. 
 
 of Ills time in cottages as well as in cliurches, He might 
 perhaps like to be a little better lodged there also. 
 
 158. The way to get more clothes is — not, necessarily, 
 to get more cotton. There were words written twenty 
 years ago * which would liaA^e saved many of us some 
 shivering, had they been minded in time. Shall we read 
 them again ? 
 
 “ The Continental people, it would seem, are importing 
 our machinery, beginning to spin cotton, and manufacture 
 for themselves ; to cut us out of this market, and then out 
 of that ! Sad news, indeed ; but irremediable. By no 
 means the saddest news — the saddest news, is that we 
 should find our national existence, as I sometimes hear it 
 said, depend on selling manufactured cotton at a farthing 
 an ell cheaper than any other people. A most narrow 
 stand for a great nation to base itself on ! A stand which, 
 with all the Corn-law abrogations conceivable, I do not 
 think will be capable of enduring. 
 
 - My friends, suppose we quitted that stand ; suppose 
 we came honestly down from it and said — ‘ This is our 
 ininimum of cotton prices ; we care not, for the present, to 
 make cotton any cheaper. Do you, if it seem so blessed 
 to you, make cotton cheaper. Fill your lungs with cotton 
 fur, your heart with copperas fumes, with rage and mutiny ; 
 
 [* {Past and Present, Cliap. IX. of Third Section.) To think that 
 for these twenty — now twenty-six — years, this one voice of Carlyle’s 
 has been the only faithful and useful utterance in all England, and 
 has sounded through all these years in vain ! See Fors Clamgera^ 
 Letter X.] 
 
MUNEKA PULVEKIB. 
 
 become ye the general gnomes of Europe, slaves of the 
 lamp!’ I admire a nation which fancies it will die if it 
 do not undersell all other nations to the end of the world. 
 Brothers, we will cease to undersell them ; we will he 
 content to equal-sell them ; to be happy selling equally 
 with them ! I do not see the use of underselling them : 
 cotton-cloth is already twopence a yard, or lower ; and yet 
 bare backs were never more numerous among us. Let 
 inventive men cease to spend their existence incessantly 
 cjontrivdng how cotton can be made cheaper ; and try to 
 invent a little how cotton at its present cheapness could be 
 somewhat justlier divided among us. 
 
 “ Let inventive men consider — whether the secret of this 
 universe does after all consist in making money. With a 
 hell which means— failing to make money,’ I do not think 
 there is any heaven possible that would suit one well. In 
 brief, all this Mammon gospel of supply-and-demand, com- 
 petition, laissez faire^ and devil take the hindmost (fore- 
 most, is it not, rather, Mr. Carlyle?), ‘begins to be one of 
 the shabbiest gospels ever preached.’ ” 
 
 159. The way to produce more fuel*^ is first to make 
 your coal mines safer, by sinking more shafts ; then 
 set all your convicts to work in them, and if, as is to be 
 hoped, you succeed in diminishing the supply of that 
 sort of labourer, consider what means there may be, first, 
 
 [* We don’t want to produce more fuel just now, but much less; and 
 to use what we get for cooking and warming ourselves, instead of for 
 running from place to place.] 
 
 7 * 
 
154 
 
 MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 of growing forest where its growth will improve climate ; 
 secondly, of splintering the forests which now make con- 
 tinents of fruitful land pathless and poisonous, into fagots 
 for fire ; — so gaining at once dominion icewards and sun- 
 wards. Your steam powder has been given (you will find 
 eventually) for work such as that : and not for excursion 
 trains, to give the labourer a moment’s breath, at the peril 
 of his breath for ever, from amidst the cities which it has 
 crushed into masses of corruption. When you know how 
 to build cities, and how to rule them, you will be able to 
 breathe in their streets, and the “ excursion ” will be the 
 afternoon’s walk or game in tlie fields round them. 
 
 160. “ But nothing of this work will pay ? ” 
 
 IS’o ; no more than it pays to dust your rooms, or wash 
 your doorsteps. It wdll pay ; not at first in currency, but 
 in that which is the end and the source of currency, — in 
 life ; (and in currency richly afterwards). It will pay in 
 that which is more than life, — in light, whose true price 
 has not yet been reckoned in any currency, and yet into 
 the image of which, all Avealth, one way or other, must be 
 cast. For your riches must either be as the lightning, 
 which. 
 
 Begot but in a cloud, 
 
 Though shining bright, and speaking loud, 
 
 Whilst it begins, concludes its violent race ; 
 
 And, where it gilds, it wounds the place ; — 
 
 or else, as the lightning of the sacred sign, which shines 
 from one part of the heaven to the other. There is no 
 
MUNERA PULVERIS. 
 
 155 
 
 other choice ; you must either take dust for deity, spectre 
 for possession, fettered dream for life, and for epitapli, 
 this reversed verse of the great Hebrew hymn of economy 
 (Psalm cxii.) : — “He hath gathered together, he hath 
 stripped the poor, his iniquity remaineth for ever : ” — or 
 else, having the sun of justice to shine on you, and the 
 sincere substance of good in your possession, and the pure 
 law and liberty of life within you, leave men to write this 
 better legend over your grave : — 
 
 “He hath dispersed abroad. He hath given to the 
 poor. His righteousness remaineth for ever.” 
 
APPEITDIOES. 
 
 [I HAVE brought together in these last pages a few notes, 
 which were not properly to be incorporated with the text, 
 and which, at the bottom of pages, checked the reader’s 
 attention to the main argument. They contain, however, 
 several statements to which I wish to be able to refer, or 
 have already referred, in other of my books, so that I 
 think right to preserve them.] 
 
 APPENDIX L— (p. 6.) 
 
 The greatest of all economists are those most opposed to the doctrine 
 of “ laissez faire,” namely, the fortifying virtues, which the wisest 
 men of all time have arranged under the general heads of Prudence, 
 or Discretion (the spirit which discerns and adopts rightly) ; Justice 
 (the spirit which rules and divides rightly) ; Fortitude (the spirit 
 which persists and endures rightly); and Temperance (the spirit 
 which stops and refuses rightly). These cardinal and sentinel virtues 
 are not only the means of protecting and prolonging life itself, but 
 they are the chief guards, or sources, of the material means of life, 
 and the governing powers and princes of economy. Thus, precisely 
 according to the number of just men in a nation, is their power of 
 avoiding either intestine or foreign war. All disputes may be 
 
APPENDICES. 
 
 157 
 
 peaceably settled, if a sufficient number of persons havg been trained 
 to submit to the principles of justice, while the necessity for war is 
 in direct ratio to the number of unjust persons who are incapable 
 of determining a quarrel but by violence. Whether the injustice 
 take the form of the desire of dominion, or of refusal to submit to 
 it, or of lust of territory, or lust of money, or of mere irregular 
 passion and wanton will, the result is economically the same ; — loss 
 of the quantity of power and life consumed in repressing the injus- 
 tice, added to the material and moral destruction caused by the fact 
 of war. The early civil wars of England, and the existing* war in 
 America, are curious examples — these under monarchical, this under 
 republican, institutions — of the results on large masses of nations of 
 the want of education in principles of justice. But the mere dread 
 or distrust resulting from the want of the inner virtues of Faith and 
 Charity prove often no less costly than war itself. The fear wliich 
 France and England have of each other costs each nation about 
 fifteen millions sterling annually, besides various paralyses of com- 
 merce; that sum being spent in the manufacture of means of 
 destruction instead of means of production. There is no more 
 ^•eason in the nature of things that France and England should be 
 hostile to each other than that England and Scotland should be, or 
 Lancashire and Yorkshire ; and the reciprocal ten-ors of the opposite 
 sides of the English Channel are neither more necessary, more 
 economical, nor more virtuous, than the old riding and reiving on 
 the opposite flanks of the Cheviots, or than England’s own weaving 
 for herself of crowns of thorn, from the stems of her Red and 
 White roses. 
 
 [* Written in 1862. I little thought that when I next corrected my 
 type, the ‘ ‘ existing ” war best illustrative of the sentence, would be 
 between Frenchmen in the Elysian Fields of Paris.] 
 
153 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 APPENDIX n.— (p. 26.) 
 
 Pew passages of the book which at least some part of the nations 
 at present most advanced in civilization accept as an expression of 
 final truth, have been more distorted than those bearing on Idolatry. 
 For the idolatry there denounced is neither sculpture, nor veneration 
 of sculpture. It is simply the substitution of an “Eidolon,” phan- 
 tasm, or imagination of Good, for that which is real and enduring ; 
 from the Highest Living Good, which gives life, to the lowest 
 material good wMch ministers to it. The Creator, and the things 
 created, which He is said to have “ seen good ” in creating, are in 
 this their eternal goodness appointed always to be “ worshipped,” — 
 ?. to have goodness and worth ascribed to them from the heart; 
 and the sweep and range of idolatry extend to the rejection of any 
 or all of these, “ calling evil good, and good evil, — putting bitter 
 for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” * For in that rejection and substi- 
 tution we betray the first of all Loyalties, to the fixed Law of life, 
 and with resolute opposite loyalty serve our own imagination of 
 good, which is the law, not of the House, but of the Grave, (other- 
 wise called the law of “ mark missing,” which we translate “ law of 
 Sin ”) ; these “ two masters,” between whose services we have to 
 choose, being otherwise distinguished as God and Mammon, which 
 Mammon, though we narrowly take it as the power of money only, is 
 in truth the great evil Spirit of false and fond desire, or “ Covetous- 
 ness, which is Idolatry.” So that Iconoclasm — ^zma^e-breaking — is 
 easy ; but an Idol cannot be broken — it must be forsaken ; and this 
 is not so easy, either to do, or persuade to doing. For men may 
 readily be convinced of the weakness of an image ; but not of the 
 emptiness of an imagination. 
 
 * Compare the close of the Fourth Lecture in Aratra Pent did. 
 
APPENDICES. 
 
 159 
 
 APPENDIX IIL— (p. 30.) 
 
 I HAVE not attempted to support, by the authority of other writers, 
 any of the statements made in these papers ; indeed, if sueh authori- 
 ties were rightly collected, there would be no occasion for my 
 writing at all. Even in the scattered passages referring to this 
 subject in three books of Carlyle’s — Sartor Kesartus, Past and 
 Present, and the Latter Day Pamphlets, — aU has been said that 
 needs to be said, and far better than I shall' ever say it again. But 
 the habit of the public mind at present is to require everytliing to 
 be uttered diffusely, loudly, and a hundred times over, before it will 
 listen ; and it has revolted against these papers of mine as if they 
 contained things daring and new, when there is not one assertion in 
 them of which the truth has not been for ages known to the wisest, 
 and proclaimed by the most eloquent of men. It would be [I had 
 written will be ; but have now reached a time of life for which there 
 is but one mood — the conditional,] a far greater pleasure to mo 
 hereafter, to collect their words than to add to mine ; Horace’s clear 
 rendering of the substance of the passages in the text may be found 
 room for at once. 
 
 Si quis emat citharas, emptas comportet in unum 
 Nec studio citharae, nec Musae deditus ulli ; 
 
 Si scalpra et formas non sutor, nautica vela 
 Aversus mercaturis, delirus et amens 
 TJndique dicatur merito. Qui discrepat istis 
 Qui nummos aurumqiie recondit, nescius uti 
 Compositis ; metuensque velut contingere sacrum ? 
 
 [Which may be roughly thus translated: — 
 
 “ Were anybody to buy fiddles, and collect a number, being in no 
 wise given to fiddling, nor fond of music : or if, being no cobbler, 
 he collected awls and lasts, or, having no mind for sea-adventure, 
 bought sails, every one would call him a madman, and deservedly. 
 
160 
 
 APPENDICES- 
 
 But what difference is there between such a man and one who lays 
 by coins and gold, and does not know how to use, when he has got 
 them ? ”] 
 
 With which it is perhaps desirable also to give Xenophon’s state- 
 ment, it being clearer than any English one can be, owing to the 
 power of the general Greek term for wealth, “ useable things.” 
 
 [I have cut out the Greek because I can’t be troubled to correct 
 the accents, and am always nervous about them; here it is in 
 English, as well as I can do it : — 
 
 “This being so, it follows that things are only property to tlie 
 man who knows how to use them ; as flutes, for instance, are pro- 
 perty to the man who can pipe upon them respectably ; but to pne 
 who knows not how to pipe, they are no property, unless he can get 
 lid of them advantageously. . . For if they are not sold, the 
 
 flutes are no property (being serviceable for nothing) ; but, sold, they 
 become property. To which Socrates made answer, — ‘and only 
 then if he knows how to sell them, for if he sell them to anothei 
 man who cannot play on them, still they are no property.’ ”] 
 
 APPENDIX IV.— (p. 34.) 
 
 The reader is to include here in the idea of “ Government,” any 
 branch of the Executive, or even any body of private pemons, 
 entrusted with the practical management of public interests uncon- 
 nected directly with their own personal ones. In theoretical discus- 
 sions of legislative interference with political economy, it is usually, 
 and of course unnecessarily, assumed that Government must be 
 always of that forai and force in which we have been accustomed to 
 see it ; — that its abuses can never be less, nor its wisdom greater, nor 
 
APPENDICES. 
 
 101 
 
 its powers more numerous. But, jjractically, the custom in most 
 civilized countries is, for every man to deprecate the interference of 
 Govermnent as long as things tell for his personal advantage, and to 
 call for it when they cease to do so. The request of the Manchester 
 Economists to be supplied with cotton by Government (the system 
 of supply and demand having, for the time, fallen sorrowfully short 
 of the expectations of scientific persons from it), is an interesting 
 case in point. It were to be wished that less wide and bitter suffering, 
 suffering, too, of the innocent, had been needed to force the nation, 
 or some part of it, to ask itself why a body of men, already con- 
 fessedly capable of managing matters both military and divine, 
 should not be permitted, or even requested, at need, to provide in 
 some wise for sustenance as well as for defence ; and secure, if it 
 might be, — (and it might, I think, even the rather be), — purity of 
 bodily, as well as of spiritual, aliment ? Why, having made many 
 roads for the passage of armies, may they not make a few for the 
 conveyance of food ; and after organizing, with applause, various 
 schemes of theological instruction for the Public, organize, more- 
 over, some methods of bodily nourishment for them ? Or is the soul 
 BO much less trustworthy in its instincts than the stomach, that legis- 
 lation is necessary for the one, but inapplicable to the other. 
 
 APPENDIX V.— (p. 90.) 
 
 I DEBATED with myself whether to make the note on Homer longer 
 by examining the typical meaning of the shipwreck of Ulysses, and 
 his escape from Charybdis by help of her figtree ; but as I should 
 have had to go on to the lovely myth of Leucothea’s veil, and did not 
 care to spoil this by a hurried account of it, I left it for future exami- 
 
162 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 nation ; and, three days after the paper was published, obseiwed that 
 the reviewers, with their customary helpfulness, were endeavouring 
 to throw the whole subject back into confusion by dwelling on this 
 single (as they imagined) oversight. I omitted also a note on the 
 sense of the word kvyi)6r, with respect to the pharmacy of Circe, and 
 herb-fields of Helen, (compare its use in Odyssey, xvii., 473, &c.), 
 which would farther have illustrated the nature of the Circean power. 
 But, not to be led too far into the subtleties of these myths, '.>?:>serve 
 respecting them all, that even in very simple parables, it is not always 
 easy to attach indisputable meaning to every part of them. I recol- 
 lect some years ago, throAving an assembly of learned persons who 
 had met to delight themselves with interpretations of the parable of 
 the prodigal son, (interpretations which had up to that moment gone 
 very smoothly,) into mute indignation, by inadvertently asking who 
 the t^rtprodigal son was, and what was to be learned by hU example. 
 The leading divine of the company, Mr. Molyneux, at last explained 
 to me that the unprodigal son was a lay figure, put in for dramatic 
 etfect, to make the story prettier, and that no note was to be taken 
 of him. Without, however, admitting that Homer put in the last 
 escape of Ulysses merely to make his story prettier, this is neverthe- 
 less true of all Creek myths, that they have many opposite lights and 
 shades ; they are as changeful as opal, and like opal, usually have 
 one colour by reflected, and another by transmitted light. But they 
 are true jewels for all that, and full of noble enchantment for those 
 vdio can use them ; for those who cannot, I am content to repeat the 
 words I wrote four years ago, in the appendix to the Two Paths — 
 
 “ The entire purpose of a great thinker may be difiicult to fathom, 
 and we may be over and over again more or less mistaken in guessing 
 at his meaning ; but the real, profound, nay, quite bottomless and 
 unredeemable mistake, is the fool’s thought, that he had wo meaning.” 
 
APPENDICES. 
 
 163 
 
 APPENDIX VL— (p. 104.) 
 
 The derivation of words is like that of rivers: there is one real 
 source, usually small, unlikely, and difficult to find, far up among 
 the hills ; then, as the word fiows on and comes into service, it takes 
 in the force of other words from other sources, and becomes quite 
 another word — often much more than one word, after the junction — ■ 
 a word as it were of many waters, sometimes both sweet and bitter. 
 Thus the wliole force of our English “ charity” depends on the gut- 
 tural in “ chans ” getting confused with the c of the Latin “ earns; ” 
 thenceforward throughout the middle ages, the two ideas ran on to- 
 gether, and both got confused with St. Paul’s ayaTtr], which expresses 
 a different idea in all sorts of ways ; our “ charity ” having not only 
 brought in the entirely foreign sense of almsgiving, but lost the es- 
 sential sense of contentment, and lost much more in getting too far 
 away from the “charis” of the final Gospel benedictions. For truly 
 it is fine Christianity we have come to, which, professing to expect 
 the perpetual grace or charity of its Pounder, has not itself grace or 
 charity enough to hinder it from overreaching its friends in sixpenny 
 bargains ; and which, supplicating evening and morning the forgive- 
 ness of its own debts, goes forth at noon to take its fellow-servants 
 by the throat, sajfing, — -not merely “ Pay me that thou owest,” but 
 “ Pay me that thou owest me woi.” 
 
 It is true that we sometimes wear Ophelia’s rue with a difference, 
 and call it “ Herb o’ grace o’ Sundays,” taking consolation out of 
 the offertory with — •“ Look, what he layeth out, it shall be paid him 
 again.” Comfortable words indeed, and good to set against the old 
 royalty of Largesse — 
 
 Whose moste joie was, I ■vvis, 
 
 When that she gave, and said, “ Have this.” 
 
 [I am glad to end, for this time, with these lovely words of Chau- 
 
104 
 
 APPENDICES. 
 
 cer. We have heard only too much lately of “Indiscriminate cha- 
 rity,” with implied reproval, not of the Indiscrimination merely, but 
 of the Charity also. We have partly succeeded in enforcing on the 
 minds of the poor the idea that it is disgraceful to receive ; and are 
 likely, without much difficulty, to succeed in persuading not a few 
 of the rich that it is disgraceful to give. But the political economy 
 of a great state makes both giving and receiving graceful ; and the 
 political economy of true religion interprets the saying that “it is 
 more blessed to give than to receive,” not as the promise of reward 
 in another life for mortified selfishness in this, but as pledge of be- 
 stowal upon us of that sweet and better nature, which does not mor- 
 tify itself in givmg.] 
 
 Brantwood, Coniston, 
 bt7i October^ 1871. 
 

 
 
 

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