Page:An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798).djvu/310

 way. He benefits the state, because he adds to its general capital; and because wealth employed as capital, not only sets in motion more labour, than when spent as income, but the labour is besides of a more valuable kind. But the avaricious man of Mr. Godwin locks up his wealth in a chest and sets in motion no labour of any kind, either productive or unproductive. This is so essential a difference, that Mr. Godwin's decision in his essay, appears at once as evidently false, as Dr. Adam Smith's position is evidently true. It could not, indeed, but occur to Mr. Godwin that some present inconvenience might arise to the poor, from thus locking up the funds destined for the maintenance of labour. The only way, therefore, he had of weakening this objection, was to compare the two characters chiefly with regard to their tendency to accelerate the