esources, or in other words, the formation of capital,
is indispensable. The primitive cultivators of the soil, whether those
of ancient times or the pioneers who formed settlements in the forests
of the New World, soon discovered that their labour would be rendered
more effective by implements and auxiliary powers of various kinds, and
that until the produce from existing means of cultivation exceeded what
was necessary for their subsistence, there could be neither labour on
their part to produce such implements and auxiliaries, nor means to
purchase them. Every branch of industry has thus had a demand for
capital within its own circles from the earliest times. The flint
arrow-heads, the stone and bronze utensils of fossiliferous origin, and
the rude implements of agriculture, war and navigation, of which we read
in Homer, were the forerunners of that rich and wonderful display of
tools, machines, engines, furnaces and countless ingenious and costly
appliances, which represent so large a portion of the capital of
civilized countries, and without the pre-existing capital could not have
been developed. Nor in the cultivation of land, or the production simply
of food, is the need of implements, and of other auxiliary power,
whether animal or mechanical, the only need immediately experienced. The
demands on the surplus of produce over consumption are various and
incessant. Near the space of reclaimed ground, from which the cultivator
derives but a bare livelihood, are some marshy acres that, if drained
and enclosed, would add considerably in two or three years to the
produce; the forest and other natural obstructions might also be driven
farther back with the result, in a few more years, of profit; fences are
necessary to allow of pasture and field crops, roads have to be made and
farm buildings to be erected; as the work proceeds more artificial
investments follow, and by these successive outlays of past savings in
improvements, renewed and enhanced from generation to generation, the
land, of little value in its natural state either to the owner and
cultivator or the community, is at length brought into a highly
productive condition. The history of capital in the soil is
substantially the history of capital in all other spheres. No progress
can be made in any sphere, small or large, without reserved funds
possessed by few or more persons, in small or large amounts, and the
progress in all cases is adventured under self-depr