Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/621

Rh we imply only a new direction given to forces already active. But man is also a consumer of the wealth he acquires and of his own powers. In order, therefore, that he may accumulate, production must be in excess of consumption. Every act we perform involves an expenditure of muscular or intellectual energy; and the same is true with regard to the implements we employ for our work. If, however, by such expenditure we render available for human uses what before was unserviceable, and if this acquisition is of greater value than the outlay, there is a clear profit for humanity. Yet this gain has no value as a civilizing element, except in so far as it puts man in the way of making new products, whether by augmenting the power of his organs or faculties, by putting in his hands a new implement, by leading to some useful discovery, or by affecting favorably political relations, which in turn react upon production and upon progress in general.

This excess of production over consumption is not the only source of power. There is another which is of equal importance, and that is the perfecting of organization, whether among the forces which make up the individual, the society, or the race. Here, again, there is no creation, but only utilization of force. This organic adaptation diminishes friction, and permits the utilization of forces which else would be wasted. Organization, furthermore, brings together like capacities, and enables them to combine their strength, and thus forces which separately would be weak, being united, produce great results. In thus grouping together like forces, the first step is to detach them from those which are dissimilar, and consequently a perfect organization leads to the separation of faculties, the localization of functions, and the division of labor. We now proceed to confirm our inductions by particular applications of them to actual facts. And, first, we will consider those elements of civilization which are extrinsic to man. We can more easily understand the world around us than the interior phenomena of the mind, and the study of these external phenomena will furnish us with many analogies to guide us in the study of the more recondite internal phenomena.

The word capital is employed to denote the sum of external forces accumulated by man, and which he can use for new productions. We do not, however, agree with certain contemporaneous economists who say that capital is only labor accumulated. This definition, though plausible, is inexact, and besides it involves a dangerous confusion of ideas, and has supplied the socialists with a portion of their arguments against capital, civilization, and political economy itself.

No doubt capital is an accumulation, but not an accumulation of labor; it is not even the product of labor. Though Proudhon ("Manuel du Speculateur") defines capital to be "labor accumulated," he contradicts himself a few lines farther on, when he says, "The first