antity of velvet;
but with the possession of this additional plate, and velvet, they could
employ no more labour than before; because as the exchangeable value of
velvet and of plate would be lowered, they must part with
proportionally more of these species of riches to purchase a day's
labour. Riches then cannot be estimated by the quantity of labour which
they can purchase.

From what has been said, it will be seen that the wealth of a country
may be increased in two ways: it may be increased by employing a greater
portion of revenue in the maintenance of productive labour,--which will
not only add to the quantity, but to the value of the mass of
commodities; or it may be increased, without employing any additional
quantity of labour, by making the same quantity more productive,--which
will add to the abundance, but not to the value of commodities.

In the first case, a country would not only become rich, but the value
of its riches would increase. It would become rich by parsimony; by
diminishing its expenditure on objects of luxury and enjoyment; and
employing those savings in reproduction.

In the second case, there will not necessarily be either any diminished
expenditure on luxuries and enjoyments, or any increased quantity of
productive labour employed, but with the same labour more would be
produced; wealth would increase, but not value. Of these two modes of
increasing wealth, the last must be preferred, since it produces the
same effect without the privation and diminution of enjoyments, which
can never fail to accompany the first mode. Capital is that part of the
wealth of a country which is employed with a view to future production,
and may be increased in the same manner as wealth. An additional capital
will be equally efficacious in the production of future wealth, whether
it be obtained from improvements in skill and machinery, or from using
more revenue reproductively; for wealth always depends on the quantity
of commodities produced, without any regard to the facility with which
the instruments employed in production may have been procured. A certain
quantity of clothes and provisions will maintain and employ the same
number of men, and will therefore procure the same quantity of work to
be done, whether they be produced by the labour of 100 or of 200 men;
but they will be of twice the value if 200 have been employed on their
production.

M. Say appears to me to have been singularly unfortunate in