Whatever Mr. Darwins philosophy may be, or whether he has any, is a matter of no consequence at all, compared with the important questions, whether a theory to account for the origination and diversification of animal and vegetable forms through the operation of secondary causes does or does not exclude design; and whether the establishment by adequate evidence of Darwin s particular theory of diversification through variation and natural selection would essentially alter the present scientific and philosophical grounds for theistic views of Nature. The unqualified affirmative judgment rendered by the two Boston reviewers, evidently able and practised reasoners, "must give us pause." We hesitate to advance our conclusions in opposition to theirs. But, after full and serious consideration, we are constrained to say that, in our opinion, the adoption of a derivative hypothesis, and of Darwins particular hypothesis, if we understand it, would leave the doctrines of final causes, utility, and special design, just where they were before. We do not pretend that the subject is not environed with difficulties. Every view is so environed; and every shifting of the view is likely, if it removes some difficulties, to bring others into prominence. But we cannot perceive that Darwins theory brings in any new kind of scientific difficulty, that is, any with which philosophical naturalists were not already familiar.

Since natural science deals only with secondary or natural causes, the scientific terms of a theory of derivation of species—no less than of a theory of dynamics—must needs be the same to the theist as to the atheist. The difference appears only when the inquiry is carried up to the question of primary cause—a question which belongs to philosophy. Wherefore, Darwin s reticence about efficient cause does not disturb us. He considers only the scientific questions. As already stated, we think that a theistic view of Nature is implied in his book, and we must charitably refrain from suggesting the contrary until the contrary is logically deduced from his premises. If, however, he anywhere maintains that the natural causes through which species are diversified operate without an ordaining and directing intelligence, and that the orderly arrangements and admirable adaptations we see all around us are fortuitous or blind, undesigned results—that the eye, though it came to see, was not designed for seeing, nor the hand for handling—then, we suppose, he is justly chargeable with denying, and very needlessly denying, all design in organic Nature; otherwise, we suppose not. Why, if Darwins well-known passage about the eye[III-10] equivocal though some of the language be—does not imply ordaining and directing intelligence, then he refutes his own theory as effectually as any of his opponents are likely to do. He asks:

"May we not believe that [under variation proceeding long enough, generation multiplying the better variations times enough, and natural selection securing the improvements] a living optical instrument might be thus formed as superior to one of glass as the works of the Creator are to those of man?"

This must mean one of two things: either that the living instrument was made and perfected under (which is the same thing as by) an intelligent First Cause, or that it was not. If it was, then theism is asserted; and as to the mode of operation, how do we know, and why must we believe, that, fitting precedent forms being in existence, a living instrument (so different from a lifeless manufacture) would be originated and perfected in any other way, or that this is not the fitting way? If it means that it was not, if he so misuses words that by the Creator he intends an unintelligent power, undirected force, or necessity, then he has put his case so as to invite disbelief in it. For then blind forces have produced not only manifest adaptions of means to specific ends—which is absurd enough—but better adjusted and more perfect instruments or machines than intellect (that is, human intellect) can contrive and human skill execute—which no sane person will believe.

On the other hand, if Darwin even admits—we will not say adopts—the theistic view, he may save himself much needless trouble in the endeavor to account for the absence of every sort of intermediate form. Those in the line between one species and another supposed to be derived from it he may be bound to provide; but as to "an infinite number of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and purposeless, the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause," born only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his theory—rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative—the theistic view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do not now vary at all times and places and in all directions, nor produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason for supposing that they ever did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities, failures of purpose rather than purposeless, indeed, sometimes occur; but these are just as anomalous and unlikely upon Darwins theory as upon any other. For his particular theory is based, and even over-strictly insists, upon the most universal of physiological laws, namely, that successive generations shall differ only slightly, if at all, from their parents; and this effectively excludes crude and impotent forms. Wherefore, if we believe that the species were designed, and that natural propagation was designed, how can we say that the actual varieties of the species were not equally designed? Have we not similar grounds for inferring design in the supposed varieties of species, that we have in the case of the supposed species of a genus? When a

naturalist comes to regard as three closely related species what he before took to be so many varieties of one species how has he thereby strengthened our conviction that the three forms are designed to have the differences which they actually exhibit? Wherefore so long as gradatory, orderly, and adapted forms in Nature argue design, and at least while the physical cause of variation is utterly unknown and mysterious, we should advise Mr. Darwin to assume in the philosophy of his hypothesis that variation has been led along certain beneficial lines. Streams flowing over a sloping plain by gravitation (here the counterpart of natural selection) may have worn their actual channels as they flowed; yet their particular courses may have been assigned; and where we see them forming definite and useful lines of irrigation, after a manner unaccountable on the laws of gravitation and dynamics, we should believe that the distribution was designed.

To insist, therefore, that the new hypothesis of the derivative origin of the actual species is incompatible with final causes and design, is to take a position which we must consider philosophically untenable. We must also regard it as highly unwise and dangerous, in the present state and present prospects of physical and physiological science. We should expect the philosophical atheist or skeptic to take this ground; also, until better informed, the unlearned and unphilosophical believer; but we should think that the thoughtful theistic philosopher would take the other side. Not to do so seems to concede that only supernatural events can be shown to be designed, which no theist can admit—seems also to misconceive the scope and meaning of all ordinary arguments for design in Nature. This misconception is shared both by the reviewers and the reviewed. At least, Mr. Darwin uses expressions which imply that the natural forms which surround us, because they have a history or natural sequence, could have been only generally, but not particularly designed—a view at once superficial and contradictory; whereas his true line should be, that his hypothesis concerns the order and not the cause, the how and not the why of the phenomena, and so leaves the question of design just where it was before.

To illustrate this from the theists point of view: Transfer the question for a moment from the origination of species to the origination of individuals, which occurs, as we say, naturally. Because natural, that is, "stated, fixed, or settled," is it any the less designed on that account? We acknowledge that God is our maker—not merely the originator of the race, but our maker as individuals—and none the less so because it pleased him to make us in the way of ordinary generation. If any of us were born unlike our parents and grandparents, in a slight degree, or in whatever degree, would the case be altered in this regard?

The whole argument in natural theology proceeds upon the ground that the inference for a final cause of the structure of the hand and of the valves in the veins is just as valid now, in individuals produced through natural generation, as it would have been in the case of the first man, supernaturally created. Why not, then, just as good even on the supposition of the descent of men from chimpanzees and gorillas, since those animals possess these same contrivances? Or, to take a more supposable case: If the argument from structure to design is convincing when drawn from a particular animal, say a Newfoundland dog, and is not weakened by the knowledge that this dog came from similar parents, would it be at all weakened if, in tracing his genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the mastiff or some other breed, or that both these and other breeds came (as is suspected) from some wolf? If not, how is the argument for design in the structure of our particular dog affected by the supposition that his wolfish progenitor came from a post-tertiary wolf, perhaps less unlike an existing one than the dog in question is to some other of the numerous existing races of dogs, and that this post-tertiary came from an equally or more different tertiary wolf? And if the argument from structure to design is not invalidated by our present knowledge that our

individual dog was developed from a single organic cell, how is it invalidated by the supposition of an analogous natural descent, through a long line of connected forms, from such a cell, or from some simple animal, existing ages before there were any dogs?

Again, suppose we have two well-known and apparently most decidedly different animals or plants, A and D, both presenting, in their structure and in their adaptations to the conditions of existence, as valid and clear evidence of design as any animal or plant ever presented: suppose we have now discovered two intermediate species, B and C, which make up a series with equable differences from A to D. Is the proof of design or final cause in A and D, whatever it amounted to, at all weakened by the discovery of the intermediate forms? Rather does not the proof extend to the intermediate species, and go to show that all four were equally designed? Suppose, now, the number of intermediate forms to be much increased, and therefore the gradations to be closer yet—as close as those between the various sorts of dogs, or races of men, or of horned cattle: would the evidence of design, as shown in the structure of any of the members of the series, be any weaker than it was in the case of A and D? Whoever contends that it would be, should likewise maintain that the origination of individuals by generation is incompatible with design, or an impossibility in Nature. We might all have confidently thought the latter, antecedently to experience of the fact of reproduction. Let our experience teach us wisdom.

These illustrations make it clear that the evidence of design from structure and adaptation is furnished complete by the individual animal or plant itself, and that our knowledge or our ignorance of the history of its formation or mode of production adds nothing to it and takes nothing away. We infer design from certain arrangements and results; and we have no other way of ascertaining it. Testimony, unless infallible, cannot prove it, and is out of the question here. Testimony is not the appropriate proof of design: adaptation to purpose is. Some arrangements in Nature appear to be contrivances, but may leave us in doubt. Many others, of which the eye and the hand are notable examples, compel belief with a force not appreciably short of demonstration. Clearly to settle that such as these must have been designed goes far toward proving that other organs and other seemingly less explicit adaptations in Nature must also have been designed, and clinches our belief, from manifold considerations, that all Nature is a preconcerted arrangement, a manifested design. A strange contradiction would it be to insist that the shape and markings of certain rude pieces of flint, lately found in drift-deposits, prove design, but that nicer and thousand-fold more complex adaptations to use in animals and vegetables do not a fortiori argue design.

We could not affirm that the arguments for design in Nature are conclusive to all minds. But we may insist, upon grounds already intimated, that, whatever they were good for before Darwins book appeared, they are good for now. To our minds the argument from design always appeared conclusive of the being and continued operation of an intelligent First Cause, the Ordainer of Nature; and we do not see that the grounds of such belief would be disturbed or shifted by the adoption of Darwins hypothesis. We are not blind to the philosophical difficulties which the thoroughgoing implication of design in Nature has to encounter, nor is it our vocation to obviate them It suffices us to know that they are not new nor peculiar difficulties—that, as Darwin s theory and our reasonings upon it did not raise these perturbing spirits, they are not bound to lay them. Meanwhile, that the doctrine of design encounters the very same difficulties in the material that it does in the moral world is Just what ought to be expected.

So the issue between the skeptic and the theist is only the old one, long ago argued out—namely, whether organic Nature is a result of design or of chance. Variation and natural selection open no third alternative; they concern only the question how the results, whether fortuitous or designed, may have been brought about. Organic Nature abounds with unmistakable and irresistible indications of design, and, being a connected and consistent system, this evidence carries the implication of design throughout the whole. On the other hand, chance carries no probabilities with it, can never be developed into a consistent system, but, when applied to the explanation of orderly or beneficial results, heaps up improbabilities at every step beyond all computation. To us, a fortuitous Cosmos is simply inconceivable. The alternative is a designed Cosmos.

It is very easy to assume that, because events in Nature are in one sense accidental, and the operative forces which bring them to pass are themselves blind and unintelligent (physically considered, all forces are), therefore they are undirected, or that he who describes these events as the results of such forces thereby assumes that they are undirected. This is the assumption of the Boston reviewers, and of Mr. Agassiz, who insists that the only alternative to the doctrine, that all organized beings were supernaturally created just as they are, is, that they have arisen spontaneously through the omnipotence of matter.[III-11]

As to all this, nothing is easier than to bring out in the conclusion what you introduce in the premises. If you import atheism into your conception of variation and natural selection, you can readily exhibit it in the result. If you do not put it in, perhaps there need be none to come out. While the mechanician is considering a steamboat or locomotive-engine as a material organism, and contemplating the fuel, water, and steam, the source of the mechanical forces, and how they operate, he may not have occasion to mention the engineer. But, the orderly and special results accomplished, the why the movements are in this or that particular direction, etc., is inexplicable without him. If Mr. Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have occurred and the results we behold were undirected and undesigned, or if the physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers phenomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show that such belief is atheism. But the admission of the phenomena and of these natural processes and forces does not necessitate any such belief, nor even render it one whit less improbable than before.

Surely, too, the accidental element may play its part in Nature without negativing design in the theists view. He believes that the earths surface has been very gradually prepared for man and the existing animal races, that vegetable matter has through a long series of generations imparted fertility to the soil in order that it may support its present occupants, that even beds of coal have been stored up for mans benefit Yet what is more accidental, and more simply the consequence of physical agencies than the accumulation of vegetable matter in a peat bog and its transformation into coal? No scientific person at this day doubts that our solar system is a progressive development, whether in his conception he begins with molten masses, or aeriform or nebulous masses, or with a fluid revolving mass of vast extent, from which the specific existing worlds have been developed one by one What theist doubts that the actual results of the development in the inorganic worlds are not merely compatible with design but are in the truest sense designed re suits? Not Mr. Agassiz, certainly, who adopts a remarkable illustration of design directly founded on the nebular hypothesis drawing from the position and times of the revolution of the world, so originated direct evidence that the physical world has been ordained in conformity with laws which obtain also among living beings But the reader of the interesting exposition[III-12] will notice that the designed result has been brought to pass through what, speaking after the manner of men, might be called a chapter of accidents.

A natural corollary of this demonstration would seem to be, that a material connection between a series of created things—such as the development of one of them from another, or of all from a common stock—is highly compatible with their intellectual connection, namely, with their being designed and directed by one mind. Yet upon some ground which is not explained, and which we are unable to conjecture, Mr. Agassiz concludes to the contrary in the organic kingdoms, and insists that, because the members of such a series have an intellectual connection, "they cannot be the result of a material differentiation of the objects themselves,"[III-13] that is, they cannot have had a genealogical connection. But is there not as much intellectual connection between the successive generations of any species as there is between the several species of a genus, or the several genera of an order? As the intellectual connection here is realized through the material connection, why may it not be so in the case of species and genera? On all sides, therefore, the implication seems to be quite the other way.

Returning to the accidental element, it is evident that the strongest point against the compatibility of Darwins hypothesis with design in Nature is made when natural selection is referred to as picking out those variations which are improvements from a vast number which are not improvements, but perhaps the contrary, and therefore useless or purposeless, and born to perish. But even here the difficulty is not peculiar; for Nature abounds with analogous instances. Some of our race are useless, or worse, as regards the improvement of mankind; yet the race may be designed to improve, and may be actually improving. Or, to avoid the complication with free agency—the whole animate life of a country depends absolutely upon the vegetation, the vegetation upon the rain. The moisture is furnished by the ocean, is raised by the suns heat from the oceans surface, and is wafted inland by the winds. But what multitudes of raindrops fall back into the ocean—are as much without a final cause as the incipient varieties which come to nothing! Does it therefore follow that the rains which are bestowed upon the soil with such rule and average regularity were not designed to support vegetable and animal life? Consider, likewise, the vast proportion of seeds and pollen, of ova and young—a thousand or more to one—which come to nothing, and are therefore purposeless in the same sense, and only in the same sense, as are Darwins unimproved and unused slight variations. The world is full of such cases; and these must answer the argument—for we cannot, except by thus showing that it proves too much.

Finally, it is worth noticing that, though natural selection is scientifically explicable, variation is not. Thus far the cause of variation, or the reason why the offspring is sometimes unlike the parents, is just as mysterious as the reason why it is generally like the parents. It is now as inexplicable as any other origination; and, if ever explained, the explanation will only carry up the sequence of secondary causes one step farther, and bring us in face of a somewhat different problem, but which will have the same element of mystery that the problem of variation has now. Circumstances may preserve or may destroy the variations man may use or direct them but selection whether artificial or natural no more originates them than man originates the power which turns a wheel when he dams a stream and lets the water fall upon it The origination of this power is a question about efficient cause. The tendency of science in respect to this obviously is not toward the omnipotence of matter, as some suppose, but to ward the omnipotence of spirit.

So the real question we come to is as to the way in which we are to conceive intelligent and efficient cause to be exerted, and upon what exerted. Are we bound to suppose efficient cause in all cases exerted upon nothing to evoke something into existence—and this thousands of times repeated, when a slight change in the details would make all the difference between successive species? Why may not the new species, or some of them, be designed diversifications of the old?

There are, perhaps, only three views of efficient cause which may claim to be both philosophical and theistic:

1. The view of its exertion at the beginning of time, endowing matter and created things with forces which do the work and produce the phenomena.

2. This same view, with the theory of insulated interpositions, or occasional direct action, engrafted upon it—the view that events and operations in general go on in virtue simply of forces communicated at the first, but that now and then, and only now and then, the Deity puts his hand directly to the work.

3. The theory of the immediate, orderly, and constant, however infinitely diversified, action of the intelligent efficient Cause.

It must be allowed that, while the third is preeminently the Christian view, all three are philosophically compatible with design in Nature. The second is probably the popular conception. Perhaps most thoughtful people oscillate from the middle view toward the first or the third—adopting the first on some occasions, the third on others. Those philosophers who like and expect to settle all mooted questions will take one or the other extreme. The Examiner inclines toward, the North American reviewer fully adopts, the third view, to the logical extent of maintaining that "the origin of an individual, as well as the origin of a species or a genus, can be explained only by the direct action of an intelligent creative cause." To silence his critics, this is the line for Mr. Darwin to take; for it at once and completely relieves his scientific theory from every theological objection which his reviewers have urged against it.

At present we suspect that our author prefers the first conception, though he might contend that his hypothesis is compatible with either of the three. That it is also compatible with an atheistic or pantheistic conception of the universe, is an objection which, being shared by all physical, and some ethical or moral science, cannot specially be urged against Darwins system. As he rejects spontaneous generation, and admits of intervention at the beginning of organic life, and probably in more than one instance, he is not wholly excluded from adopting the middle view, although the interventions he would allow are few and far back. Yet one interposition admits the principle as well as more. Interposition presupposes particular necessity or reason for it, and raises the question, when and how often it may have been necessary. It might be the natural supposition, if we had only one set of species to account for, or if the successive inhabitants of the earth had no other connections or resemblances than those which adaptation to similar conditions, which final causes in the narrower sense, might explain. But if this explanation of organic Nature requires one to "believe that, at innumerable periods in the earths history, certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues," and this when the results are seen to be strictly connected and systematic, we cannot wonder that such interventions should at length be considered, not as interpositions or interferences, but rather—to use the reviewers own language—as "exertions so frequent and beneficent that we come to regard them as the ordinary action of Him who laid the foundation of the earth, and without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground."[III-14] What does the difference between Mr. Darwin and his reviewer now amount to? If we say that according to one view the origination of species is natural, according to the other miraculous, Mr. Darwin agrees that "what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent mind to render it so— that is, to effect it continually or at stated times—as what is supernatural does to effect it for once."[III-15] He merely inquires into the form of the miracle, may remind us that all recorded miracles (except the primal creation of matter) were transformations or actions in and upon natural things, and will ask how many times and how frequently may the origination of successive species be repeated before the supernatural merges in the natural.

In short, Darwin maintains that the origination of a species, no less than that of an individual, is natural; the reviewer, that the natural origination of an individual, no less than the origination of a species, requires and presupposes Divine power. A fortiori, then, the origination of a variety requires and presupposes Divine power. And so between the scientific hypothesis of the one and the philosophical conception of the other no contrariety remains. And so, concludes the North American reviewer, "a proper view of the nature of causation places the vital doctrine of the being and the providence of a God on ground that can never be shaken."[III-16] A worthy conclusion, and a sufficient answer to the denunciations and arguments of the rest of the article, so far as philosophy and natural theology are concerned. If a writer must needs use his own favorite dogma as a weapon with which to give coup de grace to a pernicious theory, he should be careful to seize his edge-tool by the handle, and not by the blade.

We can barely glance at a subsidiary philosophical objection of the North American reviewer, which the Examiner also raises, though less explicitly. Like all geologists, Mr. Darwin draws upon time in the most unlimited manner. He is not peculiar in this regard. Mr. Agassiz tells us that the conviction is "now universal, among well-informed naturalists, that this globe has been in existence for innumerable ages, and that the length of time elapsed since it first became inhabited cannot be counted in years;" Pictet, that the imagination refuses to calculate the immense number of years and of ages during which the faunas of thirty or more epochs have succeeded one another, and developed their long succession of generations. Now, the reviewer declares that such indefinite succession of ages is "virtually infinite," "lacks no characteristic of eternity except its name," at least, that "the difference between such a conception and that of the strictly infinite, if any, is not appreciable." But infinity belongs to metaphysics. Therefore, he concludes, Darwin supports his theory, not by scientific but by metaphysical evidence; his theory is "essentially and completely metaphysical in character, resting altogether upon that idea of the infinite which the human mind can neither put aside nor comprehend."[III-17] And so a theory which will be generally regarded as much too physical is transferred by a single syllogism to metaphysics.

Well, physical geology must go with it: for, even on the soberest view, it demands an indefinitely long time antecedent to the introduction of organic life upon our earth. A fortiori is physical astronomy a branch of metaphysics, demanding, as it does, still larger "instalments of infinity," as the reviewer calls them, both as to time and number. Moreover, far the greater part of physical inquiries now relate to molecular actions, which, a distinguished natural philosopher informs us, "we have to regard as the results of an infinite number of in finitely small material particles, acting on each other at infinitely small distances"—a triad of infinities—and so physics becomes the most metaphysical of sciences. Verily, if this style of reasoning is to prevail—

"Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, And naught is everything, and everything is naught."

The leading objection of Mr. Agassiz is likewise of a philosophical character. It is, that species exist only "as categories of thought"—that, having no material existence, they can have had no material variation, and no material community of origin. Here the predication is of species in the subjective sense, the inference in the objective sense. Reduced to plain terms, the argument seems to be: Species are ideas; therefore the objects from which the idea is derived cannot vary or blend, and cannot have had a genealogical connection.

The common view of species is, that, although they are generalizations, yet they have a direct objective ground in Nature, which genera, orders, etc., have not. According to the succinct definition of Jussieu—and that of Linnaeus is identical in meaning—a species is the perennial succession of similar individuals in continued generations. The species is the chain of which the individuals are the links. The sum of the genealogically-connected similar individuals constitutes the species, which thus has an actuality and ground of distinction not shared by genera and other groups which were not supposed to be genealogically connected. How a derivative hypothesis would modify this view, in assigning to species only a temporary fixity, is obvious. Yet, if naturalists adopt that hypothesis, they will still retain Jussieus definition, which leaves untouched the question as to how and when the "perennial successions" were established. The practical question will only be, How much difference between two sets of individuals entitles them to rank under distinct species? and that is the practical question now, on whatever theory. The theoretical question is—as stated at the beginning of this article—whether these specific lines were always as distinct as now.

Mr. Agassiz has "lost no opportunity of urging the idea that, while species have no material existence, they yet exist as categories of thought in the same way [and only in the same way] as genera, families, orders, classes," etc. He

"has taken the ground that all the natural divisions in the animal kingdom are primarily distinct, founded upon different categories of characters, and that all exist in the same way, that is, as categories of thought, embodied in individual living forms. I have attempted to show that branches in the animal kingdom are founded upon different plans of structure, and for that very reason have embraced from the beginning representatives between which there could be no community of origin; that classes are founded upon different modes of execution of these plans, and therefore they also embrace representatives which could have no community of origin; that orders represent the different degrees of complication in the mode of execution of each class, and therefore embrace representatives which could not have a community of origin any more than the members of different classes or branches; that families are founded upon different patterns of form, and embrace, representatives equally independent in their origin; that genera are founded upon ultimate peculiarities of structure, embracing representatives which, from the very nature of their peculiarities, could have no community of origin; and that, finally, species are based upon relations—and proportions that exclude, as much as all the preceding distinctions, the idea of a common descent.

"As the community of characters among the beings belonging to these different categories arises from the intellectual connection which shows them to be categories of thought, they cannot be the result of a gradual

material differentiation of the objects themselves. The argument on which these views are founded may be summed up in the following few words: Species, genera, families, etc., exist as thoughts, individuals as facts."[III-18]

An ingenious dilemma caps the argument:

"It seems to me that there is much confusion of ideas in the general statement of the variability of species so often repeated lately. If species do not exist at all, as the supporters of the transmutation theory maintain, how can they vary? And if individuals alone exist, how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the variability of species?"

Now, we imagine that Mr. Darwin need not be dangerously gored by either horn of this curious dilemma. Although we ourselves cherish old-fashioned prejudices in favor of the probable permanence, and therefore of a more stable objective ground of species, yet we agree—and Mr. Darwin will agree fully with Mr. Agassiz—that species, and he will add varieties, "exist as categories of thought," that is, as cognizable distinctions—which is all that we can make of the phrase here, whatever it may mean in the Aristotelian metaphysics. Admitting that species are only categories of thought, and not facts or things, how does this prevent the individuals, which are material things, from having varied in the course of time, so as to exemplify the present almost innumerable categories of thought, or embodiments of Divine thought in material forms, or—viewed on the human side—in forms marked with such orderly and graduated resemblances and differences as to suggest to our minds the idea of species, genera, orders, etc., and to our reason the inference of a Divine Original? We have no clear idea how Mr. Agassiz intends to answer this question, in saying that branches are founded upon different plans of structure, classes upon different mode of execution of these plans, orders on different degrees of complication in the mode of execution, families upon different patterns of form, genera upon ultimate peculiarities of structure, and species upon relations and proportions. That is, we do not perceive how these several "categories of thought" exclude the possibility or the probability that the individuals which manifest or suggest the thoughts had an ultimate community of origin.

Moreover, Mr. Darwin might insinuate that the particular philosophy of classification upon which this whole argument reposes is as purely hypothetical and as little accepted as is his own doctrine. If both are pure hypotheses, it is hardly fair or satisfactory to extinguish the one by the other. If there is no real contradiction between them, nothing is gained by the attempt.

As to the dilemma propounded, suppose we try it upon that category of thought which we call chair. This is a genus, comprising a common chair (Sella vulgaris), arm or easy chair (S. cathedra), the rocking-chair (S. oscillans)—widely distributed in the United States—and some others, each of which has sported, as the gardeners say, into many varieties. But now, as the genus and the species have no material existence, how can they vary? If only individual chairs exist, how can the differences which may be observed among them prove the variability of the species? To which we reply by asking, Which does the question refer to, the category of thought, or the individual embodiment? If the former, then we would remark that our categories of thought vary from time to time in the readiest manner. And, although the Divine thoughts are eternal, yet they are manifested to us in time and succession, and by their manifestation only can we know them, how imperfectly! Allowing that what has no material existence can have had no material connection or variation, we should yet infer that what has intellectual existence and connection might have intellectual variation; and, turning to the individuals, which represent the species, we do not see how all this shows that they may not vary. Observation shows us that they do. Wherefore, taught by fact that successive individuals do vary, we safely infer that the idea must have varied, and that this variation of the individual representatives proves the variability of the species, whether objectively or subjectively regarded.

Each species or sort of chair, as we have said, has its varieties, and one species shades off by gradations into another. And—note it well—these numerous and successively slight variations and gradations, far from suggesting an accidental origin to chairs and to their forms, are very proofs of design.

Again, edifice is a generic category of thought. Egyptian, Grecian, Byzantine, and Gothic buildings are well-marked species, of which each individual building of the sort is a material embodiment. Now, the question is, whether these categories or ideas may not have been evolved, one from another in succession, or from some primal, less specialized, edificial category. What better evidence for such hypothesis could we have than the variations and grades which connect these species with each other? We might extend the parallel, and get some good illustrations of natural selection from the history of architecture, and the origin of the different styles under different climates and conditions. Two considerations may qualify or limit the comparison. One, that houses do not propagate, so as to produce continuing lines of each sort and variety; but this is of small moment on Agassizs view, he holding that genealogical connection is not of the essence of a species at all. The other, that the formation and development of the ideas upon which human works proceed are gradual; or, as the same great naturalist well states it, "while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is simultaneous." But we have no right to affirm this of Divine action.

We must close here. We meant to review some of the more general scientific objections which we thought not altogether tenable. But, after all, we are not so anxious just now to know whether the new theory is well founded on facts, as whether it would be harmless if it were. Besides, we feel quite unable to answer some of these objections, and it is pleasanter to take up those which one thinks he can.

Among the unanswerable, perhaps the weightiest of the objections, is that of the absence, in geological deposits, of vestiges of the intermediate forms which the theory requires to have existed. Here all that Mr. Darwin can do is to insist upon the extreme imperfection of the geological record and the uncertainty of negative evidence. But, withal, he allows the force of the objection almost as much as his opponents urge it—so much so, indeed, that two of his English critics turn the concession unfairly upon him, and charge him with actually basing his hypothesis upon these and similar difficulties—as if he held it because of the difficulties, and not in spite of them; a handsome return for his candor!

As to this imperfection of the geological record, perhaps we should get a fair and intelligible illustration of it by imagining the existing animals and plants of New England, with all their remains and products since the arrival of the Mayflower, to be annihilated; and that, in the coming time, the geologists of a new colony, dropped by the New Zealand fleet on its way to explore the ruins of London, undertake, after fifty years of examination, to reconstruct in a catalogue the flora and fauna of our day, that is, from the close of the glacial period to the present time. With all the advantages of a surface exploration, what a beggarly account it would be! How many of the land animals and plants which are enumerated in the Massachusetts official reports would it be likely to contain?

Another unanswerable question asked by the Boston reviewers is, Why, when structure and instinct or habit vary— as they must have varied, on Darwins hypothesis—they vary together and harmoniously, instead of vaguely? We cannot tell, because we cannot tell why either varies at all. Yet, as they both do vary in successive generations—as is seen under domestication—and are correlated, we can only adduce the fact. Darwin may be precluded from our answer, but we may say that they vary together because designed to do so. A reviewer says that the chance of their varying together is inconceivably small; yet, if they do not, the variant individuals must all perish. Then it is well that it is not left to chance. To refer to a parallel case: before we were born, nourishment and the equivalent to respiration took place in a certain way. But the moment we were ushered into this breathing world, our actions promptly conformed, both as to respiration and nourishment, to the before unused structure and to the new surroundings.

"Now," says the Examiner, "suppose, for instance, the gills of an aquatic animal converted into lungs, while instinct still compelled a continuance under water, would not drowning ensue?" No doubt. But—simply contemplating the facts, instead of theorizing—we notice that young frogs do not keep their heads under water after ceasing to be tadpoles. The instinct promptly changes with the structure, without supernatural interposition—just as Darwin would have it, if the development of a variety or incipient species, though rare, were as natural as a metamorphosis.

"Or if a quadruped, not yet furnished with wings, were suddenly inspired with the instinct of a bird, and precipitated itself from a cliff, would not the descent be hazardously rapid?" Doubtless the animal would be no better supported than the objection. But Darwin makes very little indeed of voluntary efforts as a cause of change, and even poor Lamarck need not be caricatured. He never supposed that an elephant would take such a notion into his wise head, or that a squirrel would begin with other than short and easy leaps; yet might not the length of the leap be increased by practice?

The North American reviewers position, that the higher brute animals have comparatively little instinct and no intelligence, is a heavy blow and great discouragement to dogs, horses, elephants, and monkeys. Thus stripped of their all, and left to shift for themselves as they may in this hard world, their pursuit and seeming attainment of knowledge under such peculiar difficulties are interesting to contemplate. However, we are not so sure as is the critic that instinct regularly increases downward and decreases upward in the scale of being. Now that the case of the bee is reduced to moderate proportions,[III-19] we know of nothing in instinct surpassing that of an animal so high as a bird, the talegal, the male of which plumes himself upon making a hot-bed in which to batch his partners eggs—which he tends and regulates the beat of about as carefully and skillfully as the unplumed biped does an eccaleobion.[III-20]

As to the real intelligence of the higher brutes, it has been ably defended by a far more competent observer, Mr. Agassiz, to whose conclusions we yield a general assent, although we cannot quite place the best of dogs "in that respect upon a level with a considerable proportion of poor humanity," nor indulge the hope, or indeed the desire, of a renewed acquaintance with the whole animal kingdom in a future life.

The assertion that acquired habitudes or instincts, and acquired structures, are not heritable, any breeder or good observer can refute. That "the human mind has become what it is out of a developed instinct," is a statement which Mr. Darwin nowhere makes, and, we presume, would not accept. That he would have us believe that individual animals acquire their instincts gradually,[III-21] is a statement which must have been penned in inadvertence both of the very definition of instinct, and of everything we know of in Mr. Darwins book.

It has been attempted to destroy the very foundation of Darwins hypothesis by denying that there are any wild varieties, to speak of, for natural selection to operate upon. We cannot gravely sit down to prove that wild varieties abound. We should think it just as necessary to prove that snow falls in winter. That variation among plants cannot be largely due to hybridism, and that their variation in Nature is not essentially different from much that occurs in domestication, and, in the long-run, probably hardly less in amount, we could show if our space permitted.

As to the sterility of hybrids, that can no longer be insisted upon as absolutely true, nor be practically used as a test between species and varieties, unless we allow that hares and rabbits are of one species. That such sterility, whether total or partial, subserves a purpose in keeping species apart, and was so designed, we do not doubt. But the critics fail to perceive that this sterility proves nothing whatever against the derivative origin of the actual species; for it may as well have been intended to keep separate those forms which have reached a certain amount of divergence, as those which were always thus distinct.

The argument for the permanence of species, drawn from the identity with those now living of cats, birds, and other animals preserved in Egyptian catacombs, was good enough as used by Cuvier against St.-Hilaire, that is, against the supposition that time brings about a gradual alteration of whole species; but it goes for little against Darwin, unless it be proved that species never vary, or that the perpetuation of a variety necessitates the extinction of the parent breed. For Darwin clearly maintains—what the facts warrant—that the mass of a species remains fixed so long as it exists at all, though it may set off a variety now and then. The variety may finally supersede the parent form, or it may coexist with it; yet it does not in the least hinder the unvaried stock from continuing true to the breed, unless it crosses with it. The common law of inheritance may be expected to keep both the original and the variety mainly true as long as they last, and none the less so because they have given rise to occasional varieties. The tailless Manx cats, like the curtailed fox in the fable, have not induced the normal breeds to dispense with their tails, nor have the Dorkings (apparently known to Pliny) affected the permanence of the common sort of fowl.

As to the objection that the lower forms of life ought, on Darwins theory, to have been long ago improved out of existence, and replaced by higher forms, the objectors forget what a vacuum that would leave below, and what a vast field there is to which a simple organization is best adapted, and where an advance would be no improvement, but the contrary. To accumulate the greatest amount of being upon a given space, and to provide as much enjoyment of life as can be under the conditions, is what Nature seems to aim at; and this is effected by diversification.

Finally, we advise nobody to accept Darwins or any other derivative theory as true. The time has not come for that, and perhaps never will. We also advise against a similar credulity on the other side, in a blind faith that species—that the manifold sorts and forms of existing animals and vegetables—"have no secondary cause." The contrary is already not unlikely, and we suppose will hereafter become more and more probable. But we are confident that, if a derivative hypothesis ever is established, it will be so on a solid theistic ground.

Meanwhile an inevitable and legitimate hypothesis is on trial—an hypothesis thus far not untenable—a trial just now very useful to science, and, we conclude, not harmful to religion, unless injudicious assailants temporarily make it so.

One good effect is already manifest; its enabling the advocates of the hypothesis of a multiplicity of human species to perceive the double insecurity of their ground. When the races of men are admitted to be of one species, the corollary, that they are of one origin, may be expected to follow. Those who allow them to be of one species must admit an actual diversification into strongly-marked and persistent varieties, and so admit the basis of fact upon which the Darwinian hypothesis is built; while those, on the other hand, who recognize several or numerous human species, will hardly be able to maintain that such species were primordial and supernatural in the ordinary sense of the word.

The English mind is prone to positivism and kindred forms of materialistic philosophy, and we must expect the derivative theory to be taken up in that interest. We have no predilection for that school, but the contrary. If we had, we might have looked complacently upon a line of criticism which would indirectly, but effectively, play into the hands of positivists and materialistic atheists generally. The wiser and stronger ground to take is, that the derivative hypothesis leaves the argument for design, and therefore for a designer, as valid as it ever was; that to do any work by an instrument must require, and therefore presuppose, the exertion rather of more than of less power than to do it directly; that whoever would be a consistent theist should believe that Design in the natural world is coextensive with Providence, and hold as firmly to the one as he does to the other, in spite of the wholly similar and apparently insuperable difficulties which the mind encounters whenever it endeavors to develop the idea into a system, either in the material and organic, or in the moral world. It is enough, in the way of obviating objections, to show that the philosophical difficulties of the one are the same, and only the same, as of the other.



IV.

CAPITAL—THE MOTHER OF LABOUR

AN ECONOMICAL PROBLEM DISCUSSED FROM A PHYSIOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW

[1890.]

THE first act of a new-born child is to draw a deep breath. In fact, it will never draw a deeper, inasmuch as the passages and chambers of the lungs, once distended with air, do not empty themselves again; it is only a fraction of their contents which passes in and out with the flow and the ebb of the respiratory tide. Mechanically, this act of drawing breath, or inspiration, is of the same nature as that by which the handles of a bellows are separated, in order to fill the bellows with air; and, in like manner, it involves that expenditure of energy which we call exertion, or work, or labour. It is, therefore, no mere metaphor to say that man is destined to a life of toil: the work of respiration which began with his first breath ends only with his last; nor does one born in the purple get off with a lighter task than the child who first sees light under a hedge.

[148] How is it that the new-born infant is enabled to perform this first instalment of the sentence of life-long labour which no man may escape? Whatever else a child may be, in respect of this particular question, it is a complicated piece of mechanism, built up out of materials supplied by its mother; and in the course of such building-up, provided with a set of motors—the muscles. Each of these muscles contains a stock of substance capable of yielding energy under certain conditions, one of which is a change of state in the nerve fibres connected with it. The powder in a loaded gun is such another stock of substance capable of yielding energy in consequence of a change of state in the mechanism of the lock, which intervenes between the finger of the man who pulls the trigger and the cartridge. If that change is brought about, the potential energy of the powder passes suddenly into actual energy, and does the work of propelling the bullet. The powder, therefore, may be appropriately called work-stuff, not only because it is stuff which is easily made to yield work in the physical sense, but because a good deal of work in the economical sense has contributed to its production. Labour was necessary to collect, transport, and purify the raw sulphur and saltpetre; to cut wood and convert it into powdered charcoal; to mix these ingredients in the right proportions; to give the mixture the proper grain, and so on. The powder [149] once formed part of the stock, or capital, of a powder-maker: and it is not only certain natural bodies which are collected and stored in the gunpowder, but the labour bestowed on the operations mentioned may be figuratively said to be incorporated in it.

In principle, the work-stuff stored in the muscles of the new-born child is comparable to that stored in the gun-barrel. The infant is launched into altogether new surroundings; and these operate through the mechanism of the nervous machinery, with the result that the potential energy of some of the work-stuff in the muscles which bring about inspiration is suddenly converted into actual energy; and this, operating through the mechanism of the respiratory apparatus, gives rise to an act of inspiration. As the bullet is propelled by the "going off" of the powder, as it might be said that the ribs are raised and the midriff depressed by the "going off" of certain portions of muscular work-stuff. This work-stuff is part of a stock or capital of that commodity stored up in the child's organism before birth, at the expense of the mother; and the mother has made good her expenditure by drawing upon the capital of food-stuffs which furnished her daily maintenance.

Under these circumstances, it does not appear to me to be open to doubt that the primary act of outward labour in the series which necessarily accompany [150] the life of man is dependent upon the pre-existence of a stock of material which is not only of use to him, but which is disposed in such a manner as to be utilisable with facility. And I further imagine that the propriety of the application of the term 'capital' to this stock of useful substance cannot be justly called in question; inasmuch as it is easy to prove that the essential constituents of the work-stuff accumulated in the child's muscles have merely been transferred from the store of food-stuffs, which everybody admits to be capital, by means of the maternal organism to that of the child, in which they are again deposited to await use. Every subsequent act of labour, in like manner, involves an equivalent consumption of the child's store of work-stuff—its vital capital; and one of the main objects of the process of breathing is to get rid of some of the effects of that consumption. It follows, then, that, even if no other than the respiratory work were going on in the organism, the capital of work-stuff, which the child brought with it into the world, must sooner or later be used up, and the movements of breathing must come to an end; just as the see-saw of the piston of a steam-engine stops when the coal in the fireplace has burnt away.

Milk, however, is a stock of materials which essentially consists of savings from the food-stuffs supplied to the mother. And these savings are [151] in such a physical and chemical condition that the organism of the child can easily convert them into work-stuff. That is to say, by borrowing directly from the vital capital of the mother, indirectly from the store in the natural bodies accessible to her, it can make good the loss of its own. The operation of borrowing, however, involves further work; that is, the labour of sucking, which is a mechanical operation of much the same nature as breathing. The child thus pays for the capital it borrows in labour; but as the value in work-stuff of the milk obtained is very far greater than the value of that labour, estimated by the consumption of work-stuff it involves, the operation yields a large profit to the infant. The overplus of food-stuff suffices to increase the child's capital of work-stuff; and to supply not only the materials for the enlargement of the "buildings and machinery" which is expressed by the child's growth, but also the energy required to put all these materials together, and to carry them to their proper places. Thus, throughout the years of infancy, and so long thereafter as the youth or man is not thrown upon his own resources, he lives by consuming the vital capital provided by others. To use a terminology which is more common than appropriate, whatever work he performs (and he does a good deal, if only in mere locomotion) is unproductive.

[152] Let us now suppose the child come to man's estate in the condition of a wandering savage, dependent for his food upon what he can pick up or catch, after the fashion of the Australian aborigines. It is plain that the place of mother, as the supplier of vital capital, is now taken by the fruits, seeds, and roots of plants and by various kinds of animals. It is they alone which contain stocks of those substances which can be converted within the man's organism into work-stuff; and of the other matters, except air and water, required to supply the constant consumption of his capital and to keep his organic machinery going. In no way does the savage contribute to the production of these substances. Whatever labour he bestows upon such vegetable and animal bodies, on the contrary, is devoted to their destruction; and it is a mere matter of accident whether a little labour yields him a great deal—as in the case, for example, of a stranded whale; or whether much labour yields next to nothing—as in times of long-continued drought. The savage, like the child, borrows the capital he needs, and, at any rate, intentionally, does nothing towards repayment; it would plainly be an improper use of the word "produce" to say that his labour in hunting for the roots, or the fruits, or the eggs, or the grubs and snakes, which he finds and eats, "pro duces" or contributes to "produce" them. The same thing is true of more advanced tribes, who [153] are still merely hunters, such as the Esquimaux. They may expend more labour and skill; but it is spent in destruction.

When we pass from these to men who lead a purely pastoral life, like the South American Gauchos, or some Asiatic nomads, there is an important change. Let us suppose the owner of a flock of sheep to live on the milk, cheese, and flesh which they yield. It is obvious that the flock stands to him in the economic relation of the mother to the child, inasmuch as it supplies him with food-stuffs competent to make good the daily and hourly losses of his capital of workstuff. If we imagine our sheep-owner to have access to extensive pastures and to be troubled neither by predacious animals nor by rival shepherds, the performance of his pastoral functions will hardly involve the expenditure of any more labour than is needful to provide him with the exercise required to maintain health. And this is true, even if we take into account the trouble originally devoted to the domestication of the sheep. It surely would be a most singular pretension for the shepherd to talk of the flock as the "produce" of his labour in any but a very limited sense. In truth, his labour would have been a mere accessory of production of very little consequence. Under the circumstances supposed, a ram and some ewes, left to themselves for a few years, would probably generate as large a flock; [154] and the superadded labour of the shepherd would have little more effect upon their production than upon that of the blackberries on the bushes about the pastures. For the most part the increment would be thoroughly unearned; and, if it is a rule of absolute political ethics that owners have no claim upon "betterment" brought about independently of their own labour, then the shepherd would have no claim to at least nine-tenths of the increase of the flock.

But if the shepherd has no real claim to the title of "producer," who has? Are the rams and ewes the true "producers"? Certainly their title is better if, borrowing from the old terminology of chemistry, they only claim to be regarded as the "proximate principles" of production. And yet, if strict justice is to be dispensed, even they are to be regarded rather as collectors and distributors than as "producers." For all that they really do is to collect, slightly modify, and render easily accessible, the vital capital which already exists in the green herbs on which they feed, but in such a form as to be practically out of the reach of man.

Thus, from an economic point of view, the sheep are more comparable to confectioners than to producers. The usefulness of biscuit lies in the raw flour of which it is made; but raw flour does not answer as an article of human diet, and biscuit does. So the usefulness of mutton lies mainly in certain chemical compounds which it [155] contains: the sheep gets them out of grass; we cannot live on grass, but we can on mutton.

Now, herbaceous and all other green plants stand alone among terrestrial natural bodies, in so far as, under the influence of light, they possess the power to build up, out of the carbonic acid gas in the atmosphere, water and certain nitrogenous and mineral salts, those substances which in the animal organism are utilised as work-stuff. They are the chief and, for practical purposes, the sole producers of that vital capital which we have seen to be the necessary antecedent of every act of labour. Every green plant is a laboratory in which, so long as the sun shines upon it, materials furnished by the mineral world, gases, water, saline compounds, are worked up into those foodstuffs without which animal life cannot be carried on. And since, up to the present time, synthetic chemistry has not advanced so far as to achieve this feat, the green plant may be said to be the only living worker whose labour directly results in the production of that vital capital which is the necessary antecedent of human labour.* Nor is this statement a paradox involving perpetual motion, because the energy by which the plant does its work is supplied by the sun—the primordial capitalist so far as we are concerned. But [156] it cannot be too strongly impressed upon the mind that sunshine, air, water, the best soil that is to be found on the surface of the earth, might co-exist; yet without plants, there is no known agency competent to generate the so-called "protein compounds," by which alone animal life can be permanently supported. And not only are plants thus essential; but, in respect of particular kinds of animals, they must be plants of a particular nature. If there were no terrestrial green plants but, say, cypresses and mosses, pastoral and agricultural life would be alike impossible; indeed, it is difficult to imagine the possibility of the existence of any large animal, as the labour required to get at a sufficiency of the store of food-stuffs, contained in such plants as these, could hardly extract from them an equivalent for the waste involved in that expenditure of work.

* It remains to be seen whether the plants which have no chlorophyll, and flourish in darkness, such as the Fungi, can live upon purely mineral food.

We are compact of dust and air; from that we set out, and to that complexion must we come at last. The plant either directly, or by some animal intermediary, lends us the capital which enables us to carry on the business of life, as we flit through the upper world, from the one term of our journey to the other. Popularly, no doubt, it is permissible to speak of the soil as a "producer," just as we may talk of the daily movement of the sun. But, as I have elsewhere remarked, propositions which are to bear any deductive strain that may be put upon them must run the risk of [157] seeming pedantic, rather than that of being inaccurate. And the statement that land, in the sense of cultivable soil, is a producer, or even one of the essentials of economic production, is anything but accurate. The process of water-culture, in which a plant is not "planted" in any soil, but is merely supported in water containing in solution the mineral ingredients essential to that plant, is now thoroughly understood; and, if it were worth while, a crop yielding abundant food-stuffs could be raised on an acre of fresh water, no less than on an acre of dry land. In the Arctic regions, again, land has nothing to do with "production" in the social economy of the Esquimaux, who live on seals and other marine animals; and might, like Proteus, shepherd the flocks of Poseidon if they had a mind for pastoral life. But the seals and the bears are dependent on other inhabitants of the sea, until, somewhere in the series, we come to the minute green plants which float in the ocean, and are the real "producers" by which the whole of its vast animal population is supported.* Thus, when we find set forth as an "absolute" [158] truth the statement that the essential factors in economic production are land, capital and labour—when this is offered as an axiom whence all sorts of other important truths may be deduced—it is needful to remember that the assertion is true only with a qualification. Undoubtedly "vital capital" is essential; for, as we have seen, no human work can be done unless it exists, not even that internal work of the body which is necessary to passive life. But, with respect to labour (that is, human labour) I hope to have left no doubt on the reader's mind that, in regard to production, the importance of human labour may be so small as to be almost a vanishing quantity. Moreover, it is certain that there is no approximation to a fixed ratio between the expenditure of labour and the production of that vital capital which is the foundation of all wealth. For, suppose that we introduce into our suppositious pastoral paradise beasts of prey and rival shepherds, the amount of labour thrown upon the sheep-owner may increase almost indefinitely, and its importance as a condition of production may be enormously augmented, while the quantity of produce remains stationary. Compare for a moment the unimportance of the shepherd's labour, under the circumstances first defined, with its indispensability in countries in which the water for the sheep has to be drawn from deep [159] wells, or in which the flock has to be defended from wolves or from human depredators. As to land, it has been shown that, except as affording mere room and standing ground, the importance of land, great as it may be, is secondary. The one thing needful for economic production is the green plant, as the sole producer of vital capital from natural inorganic bodies. Men might exist without labour (in the ordinary sense) and without land; without plants they must inevitably perish.

* In some remarkable passages of the Botany of Sir James Ross's Antarctic voyage, which took place half a century ago, Sir Joseph Hooker demonstrated the dependence of the animal life of the sea upon the minute, indeed microscopic, plants which float in it: a marvellous example of what may be done by water-culture. One might indulge in dreams of cultivating and improving diatoms, until the domesticated bore the same relation to the wild forms, as cauliflowers to the primitive Brassica oleracea, without passing beyond the limits of fair scientific speculation.

That which is true of the purely pastoral condition is a fortiori true of the purely agricultural* condition, in which the existence of the cultivator is directly dependent on the production of vital capital by the plants which he cultivates. Here, again, the condition precedent of the work of each year is vital capital. Suppose that a man lives exclusively upon the plants which he cultivates. It is obvious that he must have food-stuffs to live upon, while he prepares the soil for sowing and throughout the period which elapses between this and harvest. These food-stuffs must be yielded by the stock remaining over from former crops. The result is the same as before—the pre-existence of vital capital is the necessary antecedent of labour. Moreover, the amount of labour which contributes, as an accessory condition, to the production [160] of the crop varies as widely in the case of plant-raising as in that of cattle-raising. With favourable soil, climate and other conditions, it may be very small, with unfavourable, very great, for the same revenue or yield of food-stuffs.

* It is a pity that we have no word that signifies plant-culture exclusively. But for the present purpose I may restrict agriculture to that sense.

Thus, I do not think it is possible to dispute the following proposition: the existence of any man, or of any number of men, whether organised into a polity or not, depends on the production of foodstuffs (that is, vital capital) readily accessible to man, either directly or indirectly, by plants. But it follows that the number of men who can exist, say for one year, on any given area of land, taken by itself, depends upon the quantity of food-stuffs produced by such plants growing on the area in one year. If a is that quantity, and b the minimum of food-stuffs required for each man, A/B=N, the maximum number of men who can exist on the area. Now the amount of production (a) is limited by the extent of area occupied; by the quantity of sunshine which falls upon the area; by the range and distribution of temperature; by the force of the winds; by the supply of water; by the composition and the physical characters of the soil; by animal and vegetable competitors and destroyers. The labour of man neither does, nor can, produce vital capital; all that it can do is to modify, favourably or unfavourably, the conditions of its production. The most important of these— [161] namely, sunshine, range of daily and nightly temperature, wind—are practically out of men's reach.* On the other hand, the supply of water, the physical and chemical qualities of the soil, and the influences of competitors and destroyers, can often, though by no means always, be largely affected by labour and skill. And there is no harm in calling the effect of such labour "production," if it is clearly understood that "production" in this sense is a very different thing from the "production" of food-stuffs by a plant.

* I do not forget electric lighting, greenhouses and hothouses, and the various modes of affording shelter against violent winds: but in regard to production of food-stuffs on the large scale they may be neglected. Even if synthetic chemistry should effect the construction of proteids, the Laborato ry will hardly enter into competition with the Farm within any time which the present generation need trouble itself about.

We have been dealing hitherto with suppositions the materials of which are furnished by everyday experience, not with mere a priori assumptions. Our hypothetical solitary shepherd with his flock, or the solitary farmer with his grain field, are mere bits of such experience, cut out, as it were, for easy study. Still borrowing from daily experience, let us suppose that either sheep-owner or farmer, for any reason that may be imagined, desires the help of one or more other men; and that, in exchange for their labour, he offers so many sheep, or quarts of milk, or pounds of [162] cheese, or so many measures of grain, for a year's service. I fail to discover any a priori "rights of labour" in virtue of which these men may insist on being employed, if they are not wanted. But, on the other hand, I think it is clear that there is only one condition upon which the persons to whom the offer of these "wages" is made can accept it; and that is that the things offered in exchange for a year's work shall contain at least as much vital capital as a man uses up in doing the year's work. For no rational man could knowingly and willingly accept conditions which necessarily involve starvation. Therefore there is an irreducible minimum of wages; it is such an amount of vital capital as suffices to replace the inevitable consumption of the person hired. Now, surely, it is beyond a doubt that these wages, whether at or above the irreducible minimum, are paid out of the capital disposable after the wants of the owner of the flock or of the crop of grain are satisfied; and, from what has been said already, it follows that there is a limit to the number of men, whether hired, or brought in any other way, who can be maintained by the sheep owner or landowner out of his own resources. Since no amount of labour can produce an ounce of foodstuff beyond the maximum producible by a limited number of plants, under the most favourable circumstances in regard to those conditions which are not affected by labour, it follows [163] that, if the number of men to be fed increases indefinitely, a time must come when some will have to starve. That is the essence of the so-called Malthusian doctrine; and it is a truth which, to my mind, is as plain as the general proposition that a quantity which constantly increases will, some time or other, exceed any greater quantity the amount of which is fixed.

The foregoing considerations leave no doubt about the fundamental condition of the existence of any polity, or organised society of men, either in a purely pastoral or purely agricultural state, or in any mixture of both states. It must possess a store of vital capital to start with, and the means of repairing the consumption of that capital which takes place as a consequence of the work of the members of the society. And, if the polity occupies a completely isolated area of the earth's surface, the numerical strength of that polity can never exceed the quotient of the maximum quantity of food-stuffs producible by the green plants on that area, in each year, divided by the quantity necessary for the maintenance of each person during the year. But, there is a third mode of existence possible to a polity; it may, conceivably, be neither purely pastoral nor purely agricultural, but purely manufacturing. Let us suppose three islands, like Gran Canaria, Teneriffe and Lanzerote, in the Canaries, to be quite cut off from the rest of the world. Let Gran Canaria be [164] inhabited by grain-raisers, Teneriffe by cattle-breeders; while the population of Lanzerote (which we may suppose to be utterly barren) consists of carpenters, woollen manufacturers, and shoemakers. Then the facts of daily experience teach us that the people of Lanzerote could never have existed unless they came to the island provided with a stock of food-stuffs; and that they could not continue to exist, unless that stock, as it was consumed, was made up by contributions from the vital capital of either Gran Canaria, or Teneriffe, or both. Moreover, the carpenters of Lanzerote could do nothing, unless they were provided with wood from the other islands; nor could the wool spinners and weavers or the shoemakers work without wool and skins from the same sources. The wood and the wool and the skins are, in fact, the capital without which their work as manufacturers in their respective trades is impossible—so that the vital and other capital supplied by Gran Canaria and Teneriffe is most indubitably the necessary antecedent of the industrial labour of Lanzerote. It is perfectly true that by the time the wood, the wool, and the skins reached Lanzerote a good deal of labour in cutting, shearing, skinning, transport, and so on, would have been spent upon them. But this does not alter the fact that the only "production" which is essential to the existence of the population of Teneriffe and Gran Canaria is that effected by the [165] green plants in both islands; and that all the labour spent upon the raw produce useful in manufacture, directly or indirectly yielded by them—by the inhabitants of these islands and by those of Lanzerote into the bargain—will not provide one solitary Lanzerotian with a dinner, unless the Teneriffians and Canariotes happen to want his goods and to be willing to give some of their vital capital in exchange for them.

Under the circumstances defined, if Teneriffe and Gran Canaria disappeared, or if their inhabitants ceased to care for carpentry, clothing, or shoes, the people of Lanzerote must starve. But if they wish to buy, then the Lanzerotians, by "cultivating" the buyers, indirectly favour the cultivation of the produce of those buyers.

Thus, if the question is asked whether the labour employed in manufacture in Lanzerote is "productive" or "unproductive" there can be only one reply. If anybody will exchange vital capital, or that which can be exchanged for vital capital, for Lanzerote goods, it is productive; if not, it is unproductive.

In the case of the manufacturer, the dependence of labour upon capital is still more intimate than in that of the herdsman or agriculturist. When the latter are once started they can go on, without troubling themselves about the existence of any other people. But the manufacturer depends on pre-existing capital, not only at the [166] beginning, but at the end of his operations. However great the expenditure of his labour and of his skill, the result, for the purpose of maintaining his existence, is just the same as if he had done nothing, unless there is a customer able and willing to exchange food-stuffs for that which his labour and skill have achieved.

There is another point concerning which it is very necessary to have clear ideas. Suppose a carpenter in Lanzerote to be engaged in making chests of drawers. Let us suppose that a, the timber, and b, the grain and meat needful for the man's sustenance until he can finish a chest of drawers, have to be paid for by that chest. Then the capital with which he starts is represented by a + b. He could not start at all unless he had it; day by day, he must destroy more or less of the substance and of the general adaptability of a in order to work it up into the special forms needed to constitute the chest of drawers; and, day by day, he must use up at least so much of b as will replace his loss of vital capital by the work of that day. Suppose it takes the carpenter and his workmen ten days to saw up the timber, to plane the boards, and to give them the shape and size proper for the various parts of the chest of drawers. And suppose that he then offers his heap of boards to the advancer of a + b as an equivalent for the wood + ten days' supply of vital capital? The latter will surely say: "No. [167] I did not ask for a heap of boards. I asked for a chest of drawers. Up to this time, so far as I am concerned, you have done nothing and are as much in my debt as ever." And if the carpenter maintained that he had "virtually" created two-thirds of a chest of drawers, inasmuch as it would take only five days more to put together the pieces of wood, and that the heap of boards ought to be accepted as the equivalent of two-thirds of his debt, I am afraid the creditor would regard him as little better than an impudent swindler. It obviously makes no sort of difference whether the Canariote or Teneriffian buyer advanced the wood and the food-stuffs, on which the carpenter had to maintain himself; or whether the carpenter had a stock of both, the consumption of which must be recouped by the exchange of a chest of drawers for a fresh supply. In the latter case, it is even less doubtful that, if the carpenter offered his boards to the man who wanted a chest of drawers, the latter would laugh in his face. And if he took the chest of drawers for himself, then so much of his vital capital would be sunk in it past recovery. Again, the payment of goods in a lump, for the chest of drawers, comes to the same thing as the payment of daily wages for the fifteen days that the carpenter was occupied in making it. If, at the end of each day, the carpenter chose to say to himself "I have 'virtually' created, by my day's labour, a fifteenth of what I shall get for the chest [168] of drawers—therefore my wages are the produce of my day's labour"—there is no great harm in such metaphorical speech, so long as the poor man does not delude himself into the supposition that it represents the exact truth. "Virtually" is apt to cover more intellectual sins than "charity" does moral delicts. After what has been said, it surely must be plain enough that each day's work has involved the consumption of the carpenter's vital capital, and the fashioning of his timber, at the expense of more or less consumption of those forms of capital. Whether the a + b to be exchanged for the chest has been advanced as a loan, or is paid daily or weekly as wages, or, at some later time, as the price of a finished commodity—the essential element of the transaction, and the only essential element, is, that it must, at least, effect the replacement of the vital capital consumed. Neither boards nor chest of drawers are eatable; and, so far from the carpenter having produced the essential part of his wages by each day's labour, he has merely wasted that labour, unless somebody who happens to want a chest of drawers offers to exchange vital capital, or something that can procure it, equivalent to the amount consumed during the process of manufacture.*

* See the discussion of this subject further on.

That it should be necessary, at this time of day, to set forth such elementary truths as these may [169] well seem strange; but no one who consults that interesting museum of political delusions, "Progress and Poverty," some of the treasures of which I have already brought to light, will doubt the fact, if he bestows proper attention upon the first book of that widely-read work. At page 15 it is thus written:

"The proposition I shall endeavour to prove is: that wages, instead of being drawn from capital, are, in reality, drawn from the product of the labour for which they are paid."