History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3 - Henry Buckley

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with the difference in the cause. For, although all civilization must have for its antecedent the accumulation of wealth, still what subsequently occurs will be in no small degree determined by the conditions under which the accumulation took place. In Asia, and in Africa, the condition was a fertile soil, causing an abundant return; in Europe, it was a happier climate, causing more successful labour. In the former case, the effect depends on the relation between the soil and its produce; in other words, the mere operation of one part of external nature upon another. In the latter case, the effect depends on the relation between the climate and the labourer; that is, the operation of external nature not upon itself, but upon man. Of these two classes of relations, the first, being the less complicated, is the less liable to disturbance, and therefore came sooner into play. Hence it is, that, in the march of civilization, the priority is unquestionably due to the most fertile parts of Asia and Africa. But although their civilization was the earliest, it was very far, indeed, from being the best or most permanent. Owing to circumstances which I shall presently state, the only progress which is really effective depends, not upon the bounty of nature, but upon the energy of man. Therefore it is, that the civilization of Europe, which, in its earliest stage, was governed by climate, has shown a capacity of development unknown to those civilizations which were originated by soil. For the powers of nature, notwithstanding their apparent magnitude, are limited and stationary; at all events, we have not the slightest proof that they have ever increased, or that they will ever be able to increase. But the powers of man, so far as experience and analogy can guide us, are unlimited; nor are we possessed of any evidence which authorizes us to assign even an imaginary boundary at which the human intellect will, of necessity, be brought to a stand. And as this power which the mind possesses of increasing its own resources, is a peculiarity confined to man, and one eminently distinguishing him from what is commonly called external nature, it becomes evident that the agency of climate, which gives him wealth by stimulating his labour, is more favourable to his ultimate progress than the agency of soil, which likewise gives him wealth, but which does so, not by exciting his energies, but by virtue of a mere physical relation between the character of the soil and the quantity or value of the produce that it almost spontaneously affords.

      Thus far as to the different ways in which climate and soil affect the creation of wealth. But another point of equal, or perhaps of superior, importance remains behind. After the wealth has been created, a question arises as to how it is to be distributed; that is to say, what proportion is to go to the upper classes, and what to the lower. In an advanced stage of society, this depends upon several circumstances of great complexity, and which it is not necessary here to examine.57 But in a very early stage of society, and before its later and refined complications have begun, it may, I think, be proved that the distribution of wealth is, like its creation, governed entirely by physical laws; and that those laws are moreover so active as to have invariably kept a vast majority of the inhabitants of the fairest portion of the globe in a condition of constant and inextricable poverty. If this can be demonstrated, the immense importance of such laws is manifest. For since wealth is an undoubted source of power, it is evident that, supposing other things equal, an inquiry into the distribution of wealth is an inquiry into the distribution of power, and, as such, will throw great light on the origin of those social and political inequalities, the play and opposition of which form a considerable part of the history of every civilized country.

      If we take a general view of this subject, we may say that after the creation and accumulation of wealth have once fairly begun, it will be distributed among two classes, those who labour, and those who do not labour; the latter being, as a class, the more able, the former the more numerous. The fund by which both classes are supported is immediately created by the lower class, whose physical energies are directed, combined, and as it were economized, by the superior skill of the upper class. The reward of the workmen is called their wages; the reward of the contrivers is called their profits. At a later period, there will arise what may be called the saving class; that is, a body of men who neither contrive nor work, but lend their accumulations to those who contrive, and in return for the loan, receive a part of that reward which belongs to the contriving class. In this case, the members of the saving class are rewarded for their abstinence in refraining from spending their accumulations, and this reward is termed the interest of their money; so that there is made a threefold division – Interest, Profits, and Wages. But this is a subsequent arrangement, which can only take place to any extent when wealth has been considerably accumulated; and in the stage of society we are now considering, this third, or saving class, can hardly be said to have a separate existence.58 For our present purpose, therefore, it is enough to ascertain what those natural laws are, which, as soon as wealth is accumulated, regulate the proportion in which it is distributed to the two classes of labourers and employers.

      Now, it is evident that wages being the price paid for labour, the rate of wages must, like the price of all other commodities, vary according to the changes in the market. If the supply of labourers outstrips the demand, wages will fall; if the demand exceeds the supply, they will rise. Supposing, therefore, that in any country there is a given amount of wealth to be divided between employers and workmen, every increase in the number of the workmen will tend to lessen the average reward each can receive. And if we set aside those disturbing causes by which all general views are affected, it will be found that, in the long-run, the question of wages is a question of population; for although the total sum of the wages actually paid depends upon the largeness of the fund from which they are drawn, still the amount of wages received by each man must diminish as the claimants increase, unless, owing to other circumstances, the fund itself should so advance as to keep pace with the greater demands made upon it.59

      To know the circumstances most favourable to the increase of what may be termed the wages-fund is a matter of great moment, but is one with which we are not immediately concerned. The question we have now before us, regards not the accumulation of wealth, but its distribution; and the object is, to ascertain what those physical conditions are, which, by encouraging a rapid growth of population, over-supply the labour market, and thus keep the average rate of wages at a very low point.

      Of all the physical agents by which the increase of the labouring classes is affected, that of food is the most active and universal. If two countries, equal in all other respects, differ solely in this – that in one the national food is cheap and abundant, and in the other scarce and dear, the population of the former country will inevitably increase more rapidly than the population of the latter.60 And, by a parity of reasoning, the average rate of wages will be lower in the former than in the latter, simply because the labour-market will be more amply stocked.61 An inquiry, therefore, into the physical laws on which the food of different countries depends, is, for our present purpose, of the greatest importance; and fortunately it is one respecting which we are able, in the present state of chemistry and physiology, to arrive at some precise and definite conclusions.

      The food consumed by man produces two, and only two, effects necessary to his existence. These are, first to supply him with that animal heat without which the functions of life would stop; and secondly, to repair the waste constantly taking place in his tissues, that is, in the mechanism of his frame. For each of these separate purposes there is a separate food. The temperature of our body is kept up by substances which contain no nitrogen, and are called non-azotized; the incessant decay in our organism is repaired by what are known as azotized substances, in which nitrogen is always found.62 In the former case, the carbon of non-azotized food combines with the oxygen we take in, and gives rise to that internal combustion by which our animal heat is renewed. In the latter case, nitrogen having little affinity for oxygen,63 the nitrogenous or azotized food is, as it were, guarded against combustion;64 and being thus preserved, is able to perform its duty of repairing the tissues, and supplying those losses which the human organism constantly suffers in the wear and tear of daily life.

      These are the two great divisions of food;65 and if we inquire into the laws

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<p>57</p>

Indeed many of them are still unknown; for, as M. Rey justly observes, most writers pay too exclusive an attention to the production of wealth, and neglect the laws of its distribution. Rey, Science Sociale, vol. iii. p. 271. In confirmation of this, I may mention the theory of rent, which was only discovered about half a century ago, and which is connected with so many subtle arguments that it is not yet generally adopted; and even some of its advocates have shown themselves unequal to defending their own cause. The great law of the ratio between the cost of labour and the profits of stock, is the highest generalization we have reached respecting the distribution of wealth; but it cannot be consistently admitted by anyone who holds that rent enters into price.

<p>58</p>

In a still more advanced stage, there is a fourth division of wealth, and part of the produce of labour is absorbed by rent. This, however, is not an element of price, but a consequence of it; and in the ordinary march of affairs, considerable time must elapse before it can begin. Rent, in the proper sense of the word, is the price paid for using the natural and indestructible powers of the soil, and must not be confused with rent commonly so called; for this last also includes the profits of stock. I notice this, because several of the opponents of Ricardo have placed the beginning of rent too early, by overlooking the fact that apparent rent is very often profits disguised.

<p>59</p>

‘Wages depend, then, on the proportion between the number of the labouring population, and the capital or other funds devoted to the purchase of labour; we will say, for shortness, the capital. If wages are higher at one time or place than at another, if the subsistence and comfort of the class of hired labourers are more ample, it is, and can be, for no other reason than because capital bears a greater proportion to population. It is not the absolute amount of accumulation or of production that is of importance to the labouring class; it is not the amount even of the funds destined for distribution among the labourers; it is the proportion between those funds and the numbers among whom they are shared. The condition of the class can be bettered in no other way than by altering that proportion to their advantage; and every scheme for their benefit which does not proceed on this as its foundation, is, for all permanent purposes, a delusion.’ Mill's Principles of Political Economy, 1849, vol. i. p. 425. See also vol. ii. pp. 264, 265, and M'Culloch's Political Economy, pp. 379, 380. Ricardo, in his Essay on the Influence of a Low Price of Corn, has stated, with his usual terseness, the three possible forms of this question: ‘The rise or fall of wages is common to all states of society, whether it be the stationary, the advancing, or the retrograde state. In the stationary state, it is regulated wholly by the increase or falling-off of the population. In the advancing state, it depends on whether the capital or the population advance at the more rapid course. In the retrograde state, it depends on whether population or capital decrease with the greater rapidity.’ Ricardo's Works, p. 379.

<p>60</p>

The standard of comfort being of course supposed the same.

<p>61</p>

‘No point is better established, than that the supply of labourers will always ultimately be in proportion to the means of supporting them.’ Principles of Political Economy, chap. xxi. in Ricardo's Works, p. 176. Compare Smith's Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. xi. p. 86, and M'Culloch's Political Economy, p. 222.

<p>62</p>

The division of food into azotized and non-azotized is said to have been first pointed out by Magendie. See Müller's Physiology, vol. i. p. 525. It is now recognised by most of the best authorities. See, for instance, Liebig's Animal Chemistry, p. 134; Carpenter's Human Physiology, p. 685; Brande's Chemistry, vol. ii. pp. 1218, 1870. The first tables of food constructed according to it were by Boussingault; see an elaborate essay by Messrs. Lawes and Gilbert on The Composition of Foods, in Report of British Association for 1852, p. 323: but the experiments made by these gentlemen are neither numerous nor diversified enough to establish a general law; still less can we accept their singular assertion, p. 346, that the comparative prices of different foods are a test of the nutriment they comparatively contain.

<p>63</p>

‘Of all the elements of the animal body, nitrogen has the feeblest attraction for oxygen; and, what is still more remarkable, it deprives all combustible elements with which it combines, to a greater or less extent, of the power of combining with oxygen, that is, of undergoing combustion.’ Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, p. 372.

<p>64</p>

The doctrine of what may be called the protecting power of some substances is still imperfectly understood, and until late in the eighteenth century, its existence was hardly suspected. It is now known to be connected with the general theory of poisons. See Turner's Chemistry, vol. i. p. 516. To this we must probably ascribe the fact that several poisons which are fatal when applied to a wounded surface, may be taken into the stomach with impunity. Brodie's Physiological Researches, 1851, pp. 137, 138. It seems more reasonable to refer this to chemical laws than to hold, with Sir Benjamin Brodie, that some poisons ‘destroy life by paralysing the muscles of respiration without immediately affecting the action of the heart.’

<p>65</p>

Prout's well-known division into saccharine, oily, and albuminous, appears to me of much inferior value, though I observe that it is adopted in the last edition of Elliotson's Human Physiology, pp. 65, 160. The division by M. Lepelletier into ‘les alimens solides et les boissons’ is of course purely empirical. Lepelletier, Physiologie Médicale, vol. ii. p. 100, Paris, 1832. In regard to Prout's classification, compare Burdach's Traité de Physiologie, vol. ix. p. 240, with Wagner's Physiology, p. 452.