CHOICE EXAMPLES OF CLASSIC SCULPTURE.

HERMES.

From the original bronze statue in the Museo Borbonico at Naples.

Hermes, called Mercurus by the Romans, was a son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Maia, the daughter of Atlas. In Mythology he is the god of trade and the messenger of Olympus. He is frequently represented with a winged cap, wings on both feet, and a short staff, winged and entwined with serpents.

employed for reproduction comes within the designation of capital, there are parts of capital which do not agree with the definition of either species of it; for instance, the stock of finished goods which a manufacturer or dealer at any times possesses unsold in his warehouses. But this, though capital as to its destination, is not yet capital in actual exercise: it is not engaged in production, but has first to be sold or exchanged, that is, converted into an equivalent value of some other commodities; and therefore is not yet either fixed or circulating capital; but will become either one or the other, or be eventually divided between them. With the proceeds of his finished goods, a manufacturer will partly pay his work-people, partly replenish his stock of the materials of his manufacture, and partly provide new buildings and machinery, or repair the old; but how much will be devoted to one purpose, and how much to another, depends on the nature of the manufacture, and the requirements of the particular moment.

It should be observed further, that the portion of capital consumed in the form of seed or material, though, unlike fixed capital, it requires to be at once replaced from the gross produce, stands yet in the same relation to the employment of labor as fixed capital does. What is expended in materials is as much withdrawn from the maintenance and remuneration of laborers, as what is fixed in machinery; and if capital now expended in wages were diverted to the providing of materials, the effect on the laborers would be as prejudicial as if it were converted into fixed capital. This, however, is a kind of change which never takes place. The tendency of improvements in production is always to economize, never to increase, the expenditure of seed or material for a given produce; and the interest of the laborers has no detriment to apprehend from this source.

Chapter VII. On what Depends the Degree of Productiveness of Productive Agents

§ I. We have concluded our general survey of the requisites. of production. We have found that they may be reduced to three: labor, capital, and the materials and motive forces afforded by nature. Of these, labor and the raw material of the globe are primary and indispensable. Natural motive powers may be called in to the assistance of labor, and are a help, but

not an essential, of production. The remaining requisite, capital, is itself the product of labor: its instrumentality in production is therefore, in reality, that of labor in an indirect shape. It does not the less require to be specified separately. A previous application of labor to produce the capital required for consumption during the work, is no less essential than the application of labor to the work itself. Of capital, again, one, and by far the largest, portion, conduces to production only by sustaining in existence the labor which produces: the remainder, namely the instruments and materials, contribute to it directly, in the same manner with natural agents, and the materials supplied by nature.

We now advance to the second great question in political economy; on what the degree of productiveness of these agents depends. For it is evident that their productive efficacy varies greatly at various times and places. With the same population and extent of territory, some countries have a much larger amount of production than others, and the same country at one time a greater amount than itself at another. Compare England either with a similar extent of territory in Russia, or with an equal population of Russians. Compare England now with England in the Middle Ages; Sicily, Northern Africa, or Syria at present, with the same countries at the time of their greatest prosperity, before the Roman conquest. Some of the causes which contribute to this difference of productiveness are obvious; others not so much so. We proceed to specify several of them.

§ 2. The most evident cause of superior productiveness is what are called natural advantages. These are various. Fertility of soil is one of the principal. In this there are great varieties, from the deserts of Arabia to the alluvial plains of the Ganges, the Niger, and the Mississippi. A favorable climate is even more important than a rich soil. There are countries capable of being inhabited, but too cold to be compatible with agriculture. Their inhabitants cannot pass beyond the nomadic state; they must live, like the Laplanders, by the domestication of the reindeer, if not by hunting or fishing, like the miserable Esquimaux. There are countries where oats will ripen, but not wheat, such as the North of Scotland; others where wheat can be grown, but from excess of moisture and want of sunshine, affords but a precarious crop; as in parts