CHAPTER II. Definition of Wealth-and of Labour.—All Labour productive.-Labour rather a pleasure than a sucrifice-must, however, be free-and sufficiently remunerated.-Minimum of sufficient remuneration.-Wealth no certain measure of happiness.—Test proposed. WEALTH, then, in its relation to happiness, is the subject of the investigations of Political Economy; and by wealth we profess to understand all the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life which are habitually bought and sold, or exchanged. If a brief definition of wealth were desired, it might be declared to comprehend all the purchaseable means of human enjoyment.' There are many things which contribute to the enjoyment of man,-such as air, water, the light and warmth of the sun, the beauties of nature, the blessings of health, and the exercise of the social affections, which yet are never considered (unless metaphorically) as wealth. They are valuable in the common sense of the term; but they possess no value in exchange. They are not capable of being made the subject of purchase and sale, or of being guaranteed by the law as property: the economist, therefore, has no concern with them. The range of his inquiries is limited to such objects of human desire as are capable of appropriation by the law, and of transfer by sale or exchange. The regulation of those elements of happiness, physical or mental, over whose supply man exercises no control, he leaves to Providence ;-to the moralist, the divine, the physician, he leaves the study of those which fall within the sphere of their several influences. His peculiar object is to ascertain the means of augmenting the happiness of mankind, in as far as it is affected by the abundance or distribution of those more tangible and appreciable matters which compose the purchaseable necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life *. One of two circumstances is necessary to confer exchangeable value on an object, in addition to its useful or desirable qualities, viz.-that it require some labour to produce it, or that it exist in less quantity than is wanted,-in technical terms, that its supply be short of the demand for it. Water, however useful, nay, necessary, to man-however valuable in the ordinary meaning of the word * Mr. Malthus and other economists have much puzzled themselves and their disciples by raising a needless debate about some particular things, of which it is disputed whether they are to be considered wealth, and therefore within the range of Political Economy, or not. For example, the services of menials, and of artists and actors, &c. have caused much hot dispute. Mr. Malthus excludes them from the category of wealth, on the ground that they are immaterial. Inasmuch as they are habitually bought and sold, I should consider them comprehended in the definition of wealth given above. I can see no essential distinction between the services of a nobleman's outrider and those of the horse he rides between the value conferred upon a piece of canvas by an artist, and that conferred upon a piece of cotton by a calico-printer: they are equally purchased in exchange for wealth; they are equally reckoned as the signs of wealth by the vulgar; they are equally enjoyed as wealth by their possessor. But, in truth, the attempt to refine upon the subject with such minute accuracy of definition is much more likely to lead to confusion than clearness. WEALTH PRODUCED BY LABOUR. 45 yet, wherever it is to be had in abundance without trouble, as by the side of a river, has no exchange. able value: it costs nothing, and will, therefore, sell for nothing. But at a distance from springs or rivers, as in a town, where water is not to be obtained without some trouble, it acquires a value in exchange, and that value will depend chiefly upon the trouble or labour it costs to procure it. An additional element in value is scarcity, or an insufficient supply to meet the demand. In the deserts of Africa a skin of water may at times acquire a value infinitely exceeding the cost of conveying it there from the nearest well. A rare jewel, or book, or object of art, often obtains a value bearing no relation to the labour by which it was procured or produced. But the primary element of value in most things is cost of procurement; and the cost of procurement consists almost wholly of the trouble or labour necessary for procuring the article. What, for example, gives their value to the fruits of the earth? Not their adaptation to the appetite of man. The finest fruits, if they grew spontaneously in such abundance over all the inhabited earth, that every one might satisfy his longings for them by the mere trouble of lifting his hand to them, would have no selling value. But inasmuch as fruits grow only in particular situations, and require much trouble in planting, protecting, gathering, and bringing them to market, they acquire a proportionate value,-since those who wish to obtain them must either take all the trouble necessary for procuring them, or give something in exchange for them which shall be considered a satisfactory equivalent for all this trouble by those who have taken it in order to produce them. All saleable property, or wealth, therefore, is the produce of trouble or labour. And in order to avoid confusion, it is desirable to confine this term labour, to such exertion as is productive of wealth. Men exert themselves for amusement, health, or recreation, and may fatigue themselves as much in so doing as a ploughman or a mason; but their exertion neither produces nor is intended to produce anything which can be exchanged or sold, and it will be desirable, therefore, not to call such exertion labour. The limitation of the term labour to such occupations as are productive of wealth, and exerted for the sake of gain, will serve to put an end to all the unprofitable and futile discussion, so common in works on political economy, as to what kinds of labour are productive and what unproductive.* Though it is a law of nature that labour, in some shape, is necessary for the support of man's existence, since even the necessaries of life are in no quarter of the globe to be procured without it, yet those persons are surely in error who consider this condition as an evil, and labour as essentially a *The difficulties with which the ultra refining and mathematical school of political economists have to contend, are well exhibited in the disputes between them as to the limits of productiveness. Mr. Malthus denies that the labour of a cook, a coachman, an author, or an actor is productive, though asserting the productiveness of that of a butcher, a coachmaker, a printer, and a scene painter. Mr. M'Culloch, running into the other extreme, insists that the occupations of billiard playing, blowing soap-bubbles, nay, of eating, drinking, and sleeping, are productive! LABOUR A PLEASURE. 47 sacrifice and privation. Eating and drinking are, likewise, necessary for the maintenance of life; but they are not on that account usually considered as sacrifices. As has just been remarked, we often see the amateur artist, gardener, farmer, or mechanic, fatigue himself as much for the mere pleasure afforded by the employment, as those who do the same things for their daily bread, or for gain. So far from complete inaction being perfect enjoyment, there are few sufferings greater than that which the total absence of occupation generally induces. Count Caylus, the celebrated French antiquary, spent much time in engraving the plates which illustrate his valuable works. When his friends asked him why he worked so hard at such an almost mechanical occupation, he replied Je grave pour ne pas me pendre.' When Napoleon was slowly withering away from disease and ennui together, on the rock of St. Helena, it was told him that one of his old friends, an ex-colonel in his Italian army, was dead. 'What disease killed him?' asked Napoleon. That of having nothing to do,' it was answered. Enough,' sighed Napoleon,' even had he been an Emperor.' Even severe manual labour is not necessarily a sacrifice. There is an animal pleasure in toil. It is questionable whether the mental or bodily labour to which the highest and wealthiest classes are driven to resort as a resource against ennui, communicates, in general, so pleasurable an excitement as the muscular exertions of the common hind, when not overworked. Nature has likewise beneficently provided, that if the greater proportion of her sons must earn their bread by the sweat of |