I say indefinite, not infinite, for nothing connected with man is infinite. It is precisely because our faculties go on developing themselves ‹ad infinitum›, that they have no assignable limits, although they may have absolute limits. There are many points above the present range of humanity, which we may never succeed in attaining, and yet for all that, the time may never come when we shall cease to approach nearer them.[22] I don’t at all mean to say that ‹desire›, and the ‹means› of satisfying desire, march in parallel lines and with equal rapidity. The former runs—the latter limps after it. The prompt and adventurous nature of desire, compared with the slowness of our faculties, shews us very clearly that in every stage of civilisation, at every step of our progress, suffering to a certain extent is, and ever must be, the lot of man. But it shews us likewise that this suffering has a mission, for desire could no longer be an incentive to our faculties if it followed, in place of preceding, their exercise. Let us not, however, accuse nature of cruelty in the construction of this mechanism, for we cannot fail to remark that desire is never transformed into want, strictly so called, that is, into ‹painful desire›, until it has been made such by ‹habit›; in other words, until the ‹means› of satisfying the desire have been found and placed irrevocably within our reach.[23] [p086] We have now to examine the question,—What means have we of providing for our wants? It seems evident to me that there are two—namely, Nature and Labour, the gifts of God, and the fruits of our efforts—or, if you will, the application of our faculties to the things which Nature has placed at our service. No school that I know of has attributed the satisfaction of our wants to Nature ‹alone›. Such an assertion is clearly contradicted by experience, and we need not learn Political Economy to perceive that the intervention of our ‹faculties› is necessary. But there are schools who have attributed this privilege to Labour alone. Their axiom is, “All wealth comes from labour—labour is wealth.” I cannot help anticipating, so far as to remark, that these formulas, taken literally, have led to monstrous errors of doctrine, and, consequently, to deplorable legislative blunders. I shall return to this subject. I confine myself here to establishing, as a fact, that ‹Nature› and ‹Labour› co-operate for the satisfaction of our wants and desires. Let us examine the facts. The first want which we have placed at the head of our list is that of ‹breathing›. As regards respiration, we have already shown that ‹nature› in general is at the whole cost, and that human ‹labour› intervenes only in certain exceptional cases, as where it becomes necessary to purify the atmosphere.