And in that lies the philosophy of political economy, the mystery of human brotherhood.

_Hic est sapientia_.

Let us pass from the hypothetical state of pure Nature into civilization.
The proprietor of the soil, who produces, I will suppose with the economists, by lending his instrument, receives at the foundation of a society so many bushels of grain for each acre of arable land.

As long as labor is weak, and the variety of its products small, the proprietor is powerful in comparison with the laborers; he has ten times, one hundred times, the portion of an honest man.

But let labor, by multiplying its inventions, multiply its enjoyments and wants, and the proprietor, if he wishes to enjoy the new products, will be obliged to reduce his income every day; and since the first products tend rather to depreciate than to rise in value,--in consequence of the continual addition of the new ones, which may be regarded as supplements of the first ones,--it follows that the idle proprietor grows poor as fast as public prosperity increases.