This we may remark at least, that the general law of beings, capable of making experiments, of acquiring information, and of rectifying mistakes, is progress. The probability, then, is, that at any given period a certain amount of time and pains will effect greater results than were effected by the same agency at an anterior period: whence we may conclude that the prevailing tendency of ‹value›, ‹incorporated› with a commodity, is to fall. If, for example, we suppose the cup which I took by way of illustration, and as a symbol of other products, to have been made many years ago, the probability is that it has undergone depreciation, inasmuch as we have at the present day more resources for the manufacture of such articles, more skill, better tools, capital [p178] obtained on easier terms, and a more extended division of labour. In this way the person who wishes to obtain the cup does not say to its possessor, Tell me the exact amount of labour (quantity and quality both taken into account) which that cup has cost you, in order that I may remunerate you accordingly. No, he says, Now-a-days, in consequence of the progress of art, I can make for myself, or procure by exchange, a similar cup at the expense of so much labour of such a quality; and that is the limit of the remuneration which I can consent to give you. Hence it follows that all labour incorporated with commodities, in other words, all accumulated labour, all capital, has a tendency to become depreciated in presence of services naturally improvable and increasingly and progressively productive; and that, in exchanging present labour against anterior labour, the advantage is generally on the side of present labour, as it ought to be, seeing that it renders a greater amount of service. This shows us how empty are the declamations which we hear continually directed against the value of landed property. That value differs from other values in nothing—neither in its origin, nor in its nature, nor in the general law of its slow depreciation, as compared with the labour which it originally cost.