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KNOWLEDGE IS POWER:
A VIEW OF
THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES OF MODERN SOCIETY,
AND THE
RESULTS OF LABOUR, CAPITAL, AND SKILL.
BY CHARLES KNIGHT.
Illustrated with numerous Woodcuts.
"The empire of man over material things has for its only foundation
the sciences and the arts."--BACON.
_THE SECOND EDITION._
WITH TWENTY-FOUR ADDITIONAL CUTS OF MANUFACTURING PROCESSES.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1859.
_The right of Translation is reserved._
EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION.
"Without attempting to give this volume the formal shape of a
treatise on _Political Economy_, it is the wish of the author to
convey the broad parts of that science in a somewhat desultory
manner, but one which is not altogether devoid of logical
arrangement. He desires especially to be understood by _the young_;
for upon their right appreciation of the principles which govern
society will depend much of the security and happiness of our own
and the coming time."
LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD-STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.
TO
NEIL ARNOTT, ESQ., M.D.,
WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION OF THE DISINTERESTED SPIRIT IN WHICH HE HAS
DEVOTED HIS SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE TO THE PUBLIC GOOD; AND IN GRATEFUL
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS NEVER-FAILING KINDNESS DURING A LONG FRIENDSHIP,
THIS VOLUME
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION Page 1
CHAPTER I.
Feeble resources of civilized man in a desert--Ross Cox,
Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron--A Moskito
Indian on Juan Fernandez--Conditions necessary for the
production of utility 6
CHAPTER II.
Society a system of exchanges--Security of individual
property the principle of exchange--Alexander Selkirk and
Robinson Crusoe--Imperfect appropriation and unprofitable
labour 14
CHAPTER III.
Adventures of John Tanner--Habits of the American
Indians--Their sufferings from famine, and from the absence
among them of the principle of division of labour--Evils of
irregular labour--Respect to property--Their present improved
condition--Hudson's Bay Indians 23
CHAPTER IV.
The Prodigal--Advantages of the poorest man in civilized life
over the richest savage--Savings-banks, deposits, and
interest--Progress of accumulation--Insecurity of capital,
its causes and results--Property, its constituents--
Accumulation of capital 38
CHAPTER V.
Common interests of Capital and Labour--Labour directed by
Accumulation--Capital enhanced by Labour--Balance of rights
and duties--Relation of demand and supply--Money
exchanges--Intrinsic and representative value of money 49
CHAPTER VI.
Importance of capital to the profitable employment of
labour--Contrast between the prodigal and the prudent man:
the Dukes of Buckingham and Bridgewater--Making good for
trade--Unprofitable consumption--War against capital in the
middle ages--Evils of corporate privileges--Condition of the
people under Henry VIII. 60
CHAPTER VII.
Rights of labour--Effects of slavery on production--Condition
of the Anglo Saxons--Progress of freedom in England--Laws
regulating labour--Wages and prices--Poor-law--Law of
settlement 71
CHAPTER VIII.
Possessions of the different classes in England--Condition of
Colchester in 1301--Tools, stock-in-trade, furniture,
&c.--Supply of food--Comparative duration of human life--Want
of facilities for commerce--Plenty and civilization not
productive of effeminacy--Colchester in the present day 82
CHAPTER IX.
Certainty the stimulus to industry--Effects of
insecurity--Instances of unprofitable labour--Former notions
of commerce--National and class prejudices, and their remedy 96
CHAPTER X.
Employment of machinery in manufactures and
agriculture--Erroneous notions formerly prevalent on this
subject--Its advantages to the labourer--Spade-husbandry--The
principle of machinery--Machines and tools--Change in the
condition of England consequent on the introduction of
machinery--Modern New Zealanders and ancient Greeks--
Hand-mills and water-mills 106
CHAPTER XI.
Present and former condition of the country--Progress of
cultivation--Evil influence of feudalism--State of
agriculture in the sixteenth century--Modern
improvements--Prices of wheat--Increased breadth of land
under cultivation--Average consumption of wheat--Implements
of agriculture now in use--Number of agriculturists in
Great Britain 124
CHAPTER XII.
Production of a knife--Manufacture of iron--Raising coal--The
hot-blast--Iron bridges--Rolling bar-iron--Making
steel--Sheffield manufactures--Mining in Great
Britain--Numbers engaged in mines and metal manufactures 139
CHAPTER XIII.
Conveyance and extended use of coal--Consumption at various
periods--Condition of the roads in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries--Advantages of good roads--Want of roads
in Australia--Turnpike-roads--Canals--Railway of
1680--Railway statistics 157
CHAPTER XIV.
Houses--The Pyramids--Mechanical power--Carpenters'
tools--American machinery for building--Bricks--Slate--
Household fittings and furniture--Paper-hangings--Carpets--
Glass--Pottery--Improvements effected through the
reduction or repeal of duties on domestic requirements 174
CHAPTER XV.
Dwellings of the people--Oberlin--The Highlander's
candlesticks--Supply of water--London waterworks--
Street-lights--Sewers 199
CHAPTER XVI.
Early intercourse with foreign nations--Progress of the
cotton manufacture--Hand-spinning--Arkwright--Crompton--
Power-loom--Cartwright--Especial benefits of machinery in
this manufacture 213
CHAPTER XVII.
The woollen manufacture--Divisions of employment--Early
history--Prohibitory laws--The Jacquard loom--Middle-age
legislation--Sumptuary laws--The silk manufacture--
Ribbon-weaving--The linen manufacture--Cloth-printing--
Bleaching 233
CHAPTER XVIII.
Hosiery manufacture--The stocking-frame--The circular
hosiery-machine--Hats--Gloves--Boots and shoes--Straw-plat--
Artificial flowers--Fans--Lace--Bobbin-net machine--Pins--
Needles--Buttons--Toys--Lucifer-matches--Envelopes 255
CHAPTER XIX.
Labour-saving contrivances--The nick in Types--Tags of
laces--Casting shot--Candle-dipping--Tiring a wheel--
Globe-making--Domestic aids to labour--Aids to mental
labour--Effects of severe bodily labour on health and
duration of life 276
CHAPTER XX.
Influences of knowledge in the direction of labour and
capital--Astronomy: Chronometer--Mariner's compass--
Scientific travellers--New materials of manufactures--
India-rubber--Gutta-percha--Palm-oil--Geology--Inventions
that diminish risk--Science raising up new employments--
Electricity--Galvanism--Sun-light--Mental labourers--
Enlightened public sentiment 295
CHAPTER XXI.
Invention of printing--Effects of that art--A daily
newspaper--Provincial newspapers--News-writing of former
periods--Changes in the character of newspapers--Steam
conveyance--Electric telegraph--Organization of a London
newspaper-office--The printing-machine--The
paper-machine--Bookbinding--Paper-duty 323
CHAPTER XXII.
Power of skill--Cheap production--Population and
production--Partial and temporary evils--Intelligent
labour--Division of labour--General knowledge--'The Lowell
Offering'--Union of forces 344
CHAPTER XXIII.
Accumulation--Productive and unproductive consumption--Use of
capital--Credit--Security of property--Production applied to
the satisfaction of common wants--Increase of
comforts--Relations of capitalist and labourer 361
CHAPTER XXIV.
Natural law of wages--State-laws regulating wages--Enactments
regulating consumption--The labour-fund and the
want-fund--Ratio of capital to population--State of industry
at the end of the seventeenth century--Rise of
manufactures--Wages and prices--Turning over capital 381
CHAPTER XXV.
What political economy teaches--Skilled labour and trusted
labour--Competition of unskilled labour--Competition of
uncapitalled labour--Itinerant traders--The contrast of
organized industry--Factory-labour and garret-labour--
Communism--Proposals for state organization of labour--
Social Publishing Establishment--Practical co-operation 398
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
1. African Hut 12
2. Robinson Crusoe (from a design by Stothard) 20
3. Dying lion 25
4. Penn's treaty with the Indians 33
5. Pine-marten 37
6. Treasure-finding 45
7. Brindley 63
8. The hock-cart 66
9. Adam Smith 71
10. "Under his own vine" 100
11. Centre of gravity 113
12. A tool made a machine 115
13. Spinning a rope 118
14. Analysis of a cable 119
15. Mill at Guy's Cliff 122
16. Oriental plough 126
17. Clod-crusher 132
18. Scarifier 133
19. Horse-hoe 134
20. Moveable steam-engine and thrashing-machine 135
21. Thrashing-machine with horse-power 136
22. Draining-tile machine 137
23. The first iron bridge, Colebrook Dale 147
24. Rolling bar-iron 149
25. File-cutters 152
26. Cupids forging arrows (from Albani) 156
27. Telford 162
28. Modern Syrian cart 165
29. Brindley's aqueduct over the Irwell 168
30. Railway locomotive 171
31. Reindeer 173
32. Beaver 174
33. Pyramid and sphinx 176
34. Boulton 179
35. Carpenters and their tools (from an old German woodcut) 181
36. Egyptian labour in the brick-field 183
37. Scotch carpet-loom 188
38. Sheet-glass making 192
39. Potter's wheel of modern Egypt 195
40. Moulds for porcelain, and casts 196
41. Wedgwood 197
42. Ancient shadoof 202
43. Conduit in Westcheap 206
44. Old water-carrier of London 208
45. Plug in a frost 209
46. London street-lights, 1760 211
47. Cotton; showing a pod bursting 214
48. Distaff 216
49. A Hindoo woman spinning cotton 217
50. Sir Richard Arkwright 219
51. Arkwright's original spinning-machine 220
52. Samuel Crompton, inventor of the spinning-mule 222
53. Hindoo weaver at work in a field 228
54. Dr. Cartwright, inventor of the power-loom 229
55. Flemish weaver (from a print of 1568) 230
56. Mechanism of power-loom 242
57. Jacquard cards 243
58. Hanks of silk 247
59. Egyptian winding-reel 247
60. Silk-winding machine 248
61. Indigo-harvest In the West Indies 252
62. Gloves for the great 260
63. Cobbler's stall, about 1760 261
64. Men'seg, or Egyptian embroidery frame 263
65. Bobbin-net meshes 264
66. Essential parts of the bobbin-net machine 265
67. Stamping the eye of a needle 269
68. Stamping, pressing, and punching buttons.--Elliott's
factory 271
69. Envelope-making machine 275
70. Compositor at work 277
71. Machine for fixing tags to laces 278
72. Inclined plane for separating shot 279
73. Candle-dipping machine 281
74. Tiring a wheel 281
75. Harrison 298
76. Greenwich Observatory 299
77. Linnaeus in his Lapland dress 302
78. Elaeis Guineensis, and Cocoa butyracea, yielding palm-oil 306
79. Franklin medal 310
80. Newton 313
81. Ambrose Pare 314
82. Sir Walter Scott (from Sir F. Chantrey's bust) 319
83. Statue of Bacon 322
84. Old hand-gunner 330
85. Carrier-pigeon 332
86. Cowper's printing-machine 335
87. The 'Times' printing-machine 338
88. Papyrus 343
89. Medal to Locke 380
90. Vision of Henry I 381
91. Irish mud cabin 393
92. "Feed the hungry" (from Flaxman) 401
93. Costermonger 407
94. "Pots to mend" 411
95. Statue of Watt 424
* * * * *
THE PRESENT EDITION IS ILLUSTRATED WITH TWENTY-FOUR
ADDITIONAL CUTS, ON SEPARATE PAGES, OF MANUFACTURING
PROCESSES, &C., WHICH ARE TO BE PLACED AS FOLLOWS:--
Bursting of Dykes. The forces of Nature overcoming the
industry of Man 99
Making ropes by machinery 119
Steam-boiler making 145
Shear and tilt-hammers--Steel Manufacture 151
Ancient lead-mine in Derbyshire 154
Coal-railway 157
Locomotive-engine factory 170
Stone quarry, Portland 177
Timber rafts of the Tyrol 178
Glass-cutting 191
Plate-glass factory 192
The English potter 194
Mill-room of a pottery 196
Cotton mule-spinning 222
Power-looms 229
Jacquard power-looms 241
Interior of Marshall's flax-mill, Leeds 250
Calico-printing by cylinder 252
Bleaching-ground at Glasgow 254
Electro-gilding 311
Pianoforte manufactory 320
Bas-relief on Gutenberg's monument 323
Paper-making by hand 341
Processes of bookbinding 342
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
INTRODUCTION.
It has been wisely said by a French writer who has scattered abroad
sound and foolish opinions with a pretty equal hand, that "it requires a
great deal of philosophy to observe once what is seen every day."[1] To
no branch of human knowledge can this remark be more fitly applied than
to that which relates to the commonest things of the world,--namely, the
Wants of Man and the Means of satisfying them.
Man, it has been maintained, has greater natural wants and fewer natural
means than any other animal. That his wants are greater, even in the
rudest state of the species, than the wants of any quadruped--to say
nothing of animals lower in the scale of being--there can be no doubt.
But that his natural means are feebler and fewer we cannot believe; for
the exercise of his understanding, in a variety of ways which no brute
intelligence can reach, is the greatest of his natural means,--and that
power enables him to subdue all things to his use.
It is the almost unlimited extent of the wants of man in the social
state, and the consequent multiplicity and complexity of his means--both
his wants and means proceeding from the range of his mental
faculties--which have rendered it so difficult to observe and explain
the laws which govern the production, distribution, and consumption of
those articles of utility, essential to the subsistence and comfort of
the human race, which we call Wealth. It is not more than a century ago
that even those who had "a great deal of philosophy" first began to
apply themselves to observe "what is seen every day" exercising, in the
course of human industry, the greatest influence on the condition and
character of individuals and nations. The properties of light were
ascertained by Sir Isaac Newton long before men were agreed upon the
circumstances which determined the production of a loaf of bread; and
the return of a comet after an interval of seventy-six years was pretty
accurately foretold by Dr. Halley, when legislators were in almost
complete ignorance of the principle which regularly brought as many
cabbages to Covent Garden as there were purchasers to demand them.
Since those days immense efforts have been made to determine the great
circumstances of our social condition, which have such unbounded
influence on the welfare of mankind. But, unhappily for themselves and
for others, many of every nation still remain in comparative darkness,
with regard even to the elementary truths which the labours of some of
the most acute and benevolent inquirers that the world has produced have
succeeded in establishing. Something of this defect may be attributed to
the fact that subjects of this nature are considered difficult of
comprehension. Even the best educated sometimes shrink from the
examination of questions of political economy when presented in their
scientific form. Charles Fox said that he could not understand Adam
Smith. And yet Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' is essentially an
amusing book in many parts. Matters affecting the interests of every
human being, and involving a variety of facts having relation to the
condition of mankind in every age and country, are not necessarily, as
has been supposed, dry and difficult to understand, and consequently
only to be approached by systematic students. In this belief it is
proposed in this volume to exhibit the natural operation of the
principles by which Industry, as well as every other exchangeable
property, must be governed. The writer has to apply all the universal
laws which regulate the exchanges of mankind to the direction of that
exchange which the great bulk of the people are most interested in
carrying forward rapidly, certainly, and uninterruptedly--the exchange
of Labour for Capital. But he has also to regard those laws with
especial reference to that mighty Power which has become so absorbing
and controlling in our own day--the Power of Science applied to the
Arts, or, in other words, Knowledge. It is not too much to assert that,
henceforth, Labour must take its absolute direction from that Power. It
is now the great instrument of Capital. In time it will be understood
universally to be the best partner of Labour. "Wherever education and an
unrestricted press are allowed full scope to exercise their united
influence, progress and improvement are the certain results, and among
the many benefits which arise from their joint co-operation may be
ranked most prominently the value which they teach men to place upon
intelligent contrivance; the readiness with which they cause new
improvements to be received; and the impulse which they thus unavoidably
give to that inventive spirit which is gradually emancipating man from
the rude forms of labour, and making what were regarded as the luxuries
of one age to be looked upon in the next as the ordinary and necessary
conditions of human existence."[2]
The present volume is founded upon two little works which the author
wrote more than twenty years ago, and which were widely circulated. One
of these books, 'The Results of Machinery,' was published, in connexion
with the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, at a period of
great national alarm, when a blind rage against a power supposed to
interfere with the claims of labour was generally prevalent, and led, in
the southern agricultural districts especially, to many acts of daring
violence. Happily that spirit is passed away. The spirit of knowledge
has arisen; and we are told now, by an unquestionable authority, that
labourers themselves begin to regard the tedious work of the flail as
too irksome[3]--the same class that in 1830 broke the thrashing
machines. In remodelling that portion of the present volume it is
unnecessary to deprecate the evils of hostility to machinery; but rather
to look forward to its more complete union with skilled labour as the
triumph of the productive forces of modern society. In the other little
book upon which this volume is founded, 'Capital and Labour,' the
general subject of the _Production_ of wealth was popularly treated, and
the argument is here carried forward. But in the present work it will be
the further endeavour of the writer not to overlook the general
relations of Capital and Labour in the _Distribution_ of wealth. As the
mistakes about Production have yielded, in a great degree, to improved
education, so may those which belong to Distribution also yield to the
progress of Knowledge. These are not mistakes which are confined to one
class, and that the most numerous. The freedom of Industry has as much
claim to be regarded as the security of Capital. We have distinct
evidence that in another country these principles are better understood.
"The results which have been obtained in the United
States, by the application of machinery wherever it has
been practicable to manufactures, are rendered still more
remarkable by the fact that combinations to resist its
introduction there are unheard of. The workmen hail with
satisfaction all mechanical improvements, the importance
and value of which, as releasing them from the drudgery of
unskilled labour, they are enabled by education to
understand and appreciate. With the comparatively
superabundant supply of hands in this country, and
therefore a proportionate difficulty in obtaining
remunerative employment, the working classes have less
sympathy with the progress of invention. Their condition
is a less favourable one than that of their American
brethren for forming a just and unprejudiced estimate of
the influence which the introduction of machinery is
calculated to exercise on their state and prospects. I
cannot resist the conclusion, however, that the different
views taken by our operatives and those of the United
States upon this subject are determined by other and
powerful causes, besides those dependent on the supply of
labour in the two countries. The principles which ought to
regulate the relations between the employer and the
employed seem to be thoroughly understood and appreciated
in the United States; and while the law of limited
liability affords the most ample facilities for the
investment of capital in business, the intelligent and
educated artisan is left equally free to earn all that he
can, by making the best use of his hands, without let or
hindrance by his fellows."[4]
Without attempting to give this volume the formal shape of a treatise on
Political Economy, it is the wish of the author to convey the broad
parts of his subject in a somewhat desultory manner, but one which is
not altogether devoid of logical arrangement. He desires especially to
be understood by _the young_; for upon their right appreciation of the
principles which govern society will depend much of the security and
happiness of our own and the coming time. The danger of our present
period of transition is, that theory should expect too much, and that
practice should do too little, in the amelioration of the condition of
the people.
A great number of woodcuts have been for the first time introduced into
this volume, which illustrate mechanical inventions. But the author begs
distinctly to be understood that his object here is not to _describe_
processes. His notices of them, more or less extended, are simply to
illustrate the course of his argument; and in that way to make the book
more useful, because more attractive, for purposes of education.
[1] J. J. Rousseau.
[2] Special Report of Mr. Joseph Whitworth on the New York Industrial
Exhibition.
[3] Mr. Pusey's Report on Agricultural Implements.
[4] Mr. Whitworth's Special Report.
CHAPTER I.
Feeble resources of civilized man in a desert--Ross Cox,
Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron--A Moskito
Indian on Juan Fernandez--Conditions necessary for the
production of utility.
Let us suppose a man brought up in civilized life, cast upon a desert
land--without food, without clothes, without fire, without tools. We see
the human being in the very lowest state of helplessness. Most of the
knowledge he had acquired would be worse than useless; for it would not
be applicable in any way to his new position. Let the land upon which he
is thrown produce spontaneous fruits--let it be free from ferocious
animals--let the climate be most genial--still the man would be
exceedingly powerless and wretched. The first condition of his lot, to
enable him to maintain existence at all, would be that he should labour.
He must labour to gather the berries from the trees--he must labour to
obtain water from the rivulets--he must labour to form a garment of
leaves, or of some equally accessible material, to shield his body from
the sun--he must labour to render some cave or hollow tree a secure
place of shelter from the dews of night. There would be no intermission
of the labour necessary to provide a supply of food from hand to mouth,
even in the season when wild fruits were abundant. If this labour, in
the most favourable season, were interrupted for a single day, or at
most for two or three days, by sickness, he would in all probability
perish. But, when the autumn was past, and the wild fruits were gone, he
must prolong existence as some savage tribes are reported to do--by raw
fish and undressed roots. The labour of procuring these would be
infinitely greater than that of climbing trees for fruit. To catch fish
without nets, and scratch up roots with naked hands, is indeed painful
toil. The helplessness of this man's condition would principally be the
effect of one circumstance;--he would possess no accumulation of former
labour by which his present labour might be profitably directed. _The
power of labour would in his case be in its least productive state._ He
would partly justify the assertion that man has the feeblest natural
means of any animal;--because he would be utterly unpossessed of those
means which the reason of man has accumulated around every individual in
the social state.
We asked the reader to _suppose_ a civilized man in the very lowest
state in which the power of labour may be exercised, because there is no
record of any civilized man being for any length of time in such a
state.
Ross Cox, a Hudson's Bay trader, whose adventures were given to the
world some twenty years ago, was in this state for a fortnight; and his
sufferings may furnish some idea of the greater miseries of a
continuance in such a powerless condition. Having fallen asleep in the
woods of the north-west of America, which he had been traversing with a
large party, he missed the traces of his companions. The weather being
very hot, he had left nearly all his clothes with his horse when he
rambled from his friends. He had nothing to defend himself against the
wolves and serpents but a stick; he had nothing of which to make his bed
but long grass and rushes; he had nothing to eat but hips and wild
cherries. The man would doubtless have perished, unless he had met with
some Indians, who knew better how to avail themselves of the spontaneous
productions around them. But this is not an instance of the continuance
of Labour in the lowest state of its power.
The few individuals, also, who have been found exposed in forests, such
as Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron,--who were discovered,
the one about a century ago, in Germany, the other about forty years
since, in France,--differed from the civilized man cast naked upon a
desert shore in this particular--their _wants_ were of the lowest
nature. They were not raised above the desires of the most brutish
animals. They supplied those desires after the fashion of brutes. Peter
was enticed from the woods by the sight of two apples, which the man who
found him displayed. He did not like bread, but he eagerly peeled green
sticks, and chewed the rind. He had, doubtless, subsisted in this way in
the woods. He would not, at first, wear shoes, and delighted to throw
the hat which was given him into the river. He was brought to England,
and lived many years with a farmer in Hertfordshire. During the Scotch
Rebellion, in 1745, he wandered into Norfolk; and having been
apprehended as a suspicious character, was sent to prison. The gaol was
on fire; and Peter was found in a corner, enjoying the warmth of the
flames without any fear. The Savage of Aveyron, in the same manner, had
the lowest desires and the feeblest powers. He could use his hands, for
instance, for no other purpose than to seize upon an object; and his
sense of touch was so defective, that he could not distinguish a raised
surface, such as a carving, from a painting. This circumstance of the
low physical and intellectual powers of these unfortunate persons
prevents us exhibiting them as examples of the state which we asked the
reader to suppose.
Let us advance another step in our view of the power of Labour. Let us
take a man in one respect in the same condition that we supposed--left
upon a desert land, without any direct social aid; but with some help to
his labour by a small Accumulation of former industry. We have instances
on record of this next state.
In the year 1681 a Moskito Indian was left by accident on the island of
Juan Fernandez, in the Pacific Ocean; the English ship in which he was a
sailor having been chased off the coast by some hostile Spanish vessels.
Captain Dampier describes this man's condition in the following words:--
"This Indian lived here alone above three years; and
although he was several times sought after by the
Spaniards, who knew he was left on the island, yet they
could never find him. He was in the woods hunting for
goats, when Captain Watlin drew off his men, and the ship
was under sail before he came back to shore. He had with
him his gun, and a knife, with a small horn of powder, and
a few shot; which being spent, he contrived a way, by
notching his knife, to saw the barrel of his gun into
small pieces, wherewith he made harpoons, lances, hooks,
and a long knife; heating the pieces first in the fire,
which he struck with his gun-flint, and a piece of the
barrel of his gun, which he hardened, having learnt to do
that among the English. The hot pieces of iron he would
hammer out and bend as he pleased with stones, and saw
them with his jagged knife, or grind them to an edge by
long labour, and harden them to a good temper as there was
occasion.[5] With such instruments as he made in that
manner, he got such provisions as the island afforded,
either goats or fish. He told us that at first he was
forced to eat seal, which is very ordinary meat, before he
had made hooks; but afterwards he never killed any seals
but to make lines, cutting their skins into thongs. He had
a little house, or hut, half a mile from the sea, which
was lined with goat's skin; his couch, or barbecu of
sticks, lying along about two feet distance from the
ground, was spread with the same, and was all his bedding.
He had no clothes left, having worn out those he brought
from Watlin's ship, but only a skin about his waist. He
saw our ship the day before we came to an anchor, and did
believe we were English; and therefore killed three goats
in the morning, before we came to an anchor, and dressed
them with cabbage, to treat us when we came ashore."
Here, indeed, is a material alteration in the wealth of a man left on an
uninhabited island. He had a regular supply of goats and fish; he had
the means of cooking this food; he had a house lined with goats' skins,
and bedding of the same; his body was clothed with skins; he had
provisions in abundance to offer, properly cooked, when his old
companions came to him after three years' absence. What gave him this
power to labour profitably?--to maintain existence in tolerable comfort?
Simply, the gun, the knife, and the flint, which he accidentally had
with him when the ship sailed away. The flint and the bit of steel which
he hardened out of the gun-barrel gave him the means of procuring fire;
the gun became the material for making harpoons, lances, and hooks, with
which he could obtain fish and flesh. Till he had these tools, he was
compelled to eat seal's flesh. The instant he possessed the tools, he
could make a selection of what was most agreeable to his taste. It is
almost impossible to imagine a human being with less accumulation about
him. His small stock of powder and shot was soon spent, and he had only
an iron gun-barrel and a knife left, with the means of changing the form
of the gun-barrel by fire. Yet this single accumulation enabled him to
direct his labour, as all labour is directed even in its highest
employment, to the change of form and change of place of the natural
supplies by which he was surrounded. He created nothing; he only gave
his natural supplies a value by his labour. Until he laboured, the
things about him had no value, as far as he was concerned; when he did
obtain them by labour, they instantly acquired a value. He brought the
wild goat from the mountain to his hut in the valley--he changed its
place; he converted its flesh into cooked food, and its skin into a
lining for his bed--he changed its form. Change of form and change of
place are the beginning and end of all human labour; and the Moskito
Indian only employed the same principle for the supply of his wants
which directs the labour of all the producers of civilized life into the
channels of manufactures or commerce.
But the Moskito Indian, far removed as his situation was above the
condition of the man without any accumulation of former labour--that is,
of the man without any capital about him--was only _in the second stage
in which the power of labour can be exercised_, and in which it is
comparatively still weak and powerless. He laboured--he laboured with
accumulation--but he laboured without that other power which gives the
last and highest direction to profitable labour.
Let us state all the conditions necessary for the production of Utility,
or of what is essential to the support, comfort, and pleasure of human
life:--
1. _That there shall be Labour._
The man thrown upon a desert island without accumulation,--the
half-idiot boy who wandered into the German forests at so early an age
that he forgot all the usages of mankind,--were each compelled to
labour, and to labour unceasingly, to maintain existence. Even with an
unbounded command of the spontaneous productions of nature, this
condition is absolute. It applies to the inferior animals as well as to
man. The bee wanders from flower to flower, but it is to labour for the
honey. The sloth hangs upon the branches of a tree, but he labours till
he has devoured all the leaves, and then climbs another tree. The
condition of the support of animation is labour; and if the labour of
all animals were miraculously suspended for a season, very short as
compared with the duration of individual life, the reign of animated
nature upon this globe would be at an end.
[Illustration: African Hut.]
The second condition in the production of utility is,--
2. _That there shall be accumulation of former labour, or Capital._
Without accumulation, as we have seen, the condition of man is the
lowest in the scale of animal existence. The reason is obvious. Man
requires some accumulation to aid his natural powers of labouring; for
he is not provided with instruments of labour to anything like the
perfection in which they exist amongst the inferior animals. He wants
the gnawing teeth, the tearing claws, the sharp bills, the solid
mandibles that enable quadrupeds, and birds, and insects to secure their
food, and to provide shelter in so many ingenious ways, each leading us
to admire and reverence the directing Providence which presides over
such manifold contrivances. He must, therefore, to work profitably,
accumulate instruments of work. But he must do more, even in the
unsocial state, where he is at perfect liberty to direct his industry as
he pleases, uncontrolled by the rights of other men. He must accumulate
stores of covering and of shelter. He must have a hut and a bed of
skins, which are all accumulations, or capital. He must, further, have a
stock of food, which stock, being the most essential for human wants, is
called _provisions_, or things provided. He would require this provision
against the accidents which may occur to his own health, and the
obstacles of weather, which may prevent him from fishing or hunting. The
lowest savages have some stores. Many of the inferior animals display an
equal care to provide for the exigencies of the future. But still, all
such labour is extremely limited. When a man is occupied only in
providing immediately for his own wants--doing everything for himself,
consuming nothing but what he produces himself,--his labour must have a
very narrow range. The supply of the lowest necessities of our nature
can only be attended to, and these must be very ill supplied. The
Moskito Indian had fish, and goats' flesh, and a rude hut, and a girdle
of skins; and his power of obtaining this wealth was insured to him by
the absence of other individuals who would have been his competitors for
what the island spontaneously produced. Had other Indians landed in
numbers on the island, and had each set about procuring everything for
himself, as the active Moskito did, they would have soon approached the
point of starvation; and then each would have begun to plunder from the
other, unless they had found out the principle that would have given
them all plenty. There wanted, then, another power to give the labour of
the Indian a profitable direction, besides that of accumulation. It is a
power which can only exist where man is social, as it is his nature to
be;--and where the principles of civilization are in a certain degree
developed. It is, indeed, the beginning and the end of all civilization.
It is itself civilization, partial or complete. It is the last and the
most important condition in the production of useful commodities,--
3. _That there shall be exchanges._
There can be no exchanges without accumulation--there can be no
accumulation without labour. Exchange is that step beyond the constant
labour and the partial accumulation of the lower animals, which makes
man the lord of the world.
[5] It is difficult to understand how the Indian could convert the iron
gun-barrel into steel, which it appears from Dampier's account that he
did. Steel is produced by a scientific admixture of carbon with iron.
But we assume that the statement is correct, and that a conversion,
partial doubtless, of iron into steel did take place.