I take it that native metals, coal and brick clay, are "mineral products"; and I quite believe that they are properly termed "wealth." But when a seam of coal crops out at the surface, and lumps of coal are to be had for the picking up; or when native copper lies about in nuggets, or [171] when brick clay forms a superficial stratum, it appears to me that these things are supplied to, nay almost thrust upon, man without his labour. According to the definition, therefore, they are not "wealth." According to the enumeration, however, they are "wealth": a tolerably fair specimen of a contradiction in terms. Or does "Progress and Poverty" really suggest that a coal seam which crops out at the surface is not wealth; but that if somebody breaks off a piece and carries it away, the bestowal of this amount of labour upon that particular lump makes it wealth; while the rest remains "not wealth"? The notion that the value of a thing bears any necessary relation to the amount of labour (average or otherwise) bestowed upon it, is a fallacy which needs no further refutation than it has already received. The average amount of labour bestowed upon warming-pans confers no value upon them in the eyes of a Gold-Coast negro; nor would an Esquimaux give a slice of blubber for the most elaborate of ice-machines. So much for the doctrine of "Progress and Poverty" touching the nature of wealth. Let us now consider its teachings respecting capital as wealth or a part of wealth. Adam Smith's definition "that part of a man's stock which he expects to yield him a revenue is called his capital" is quoted with approval (p. 32); elsewhere capital is said to be that part of wealth "which [172] is devoted to the aid of production" (p. 28); and yet again it is said to be . . . "wealth in course of exchange,* understanding exchange to include, not merely the passing from hand to hand, but also such transmutations as occur when the reproductive or transforming forces of nature are utilised for the increase of wealth" (p. 32). * The italics are the author's. But if too much pondering over the possible senses and scope of these definitions should weary the reader, he will be relieved by the following acknowledgment:-- . . . "Nor is the definition of capital I have suggested of any importance" (p. 33).