There is in my Series one other chapter of principles, under the head of PRODUCTION. The time for its insertion in this place is past; and, on the principle of “forgetting those things which are behind,” I should have omitted all allusion to it, if the Number I am writing had been destined to circulate only in this country. But a large proportion of my readers are of a nation which has not yet absolved itself from the tremendous sin of holding man as property. Of the difficulties in the way of such absolution, it is for them, not for me, to speak. My business is with principles. Those which have obtained my assent are offered in the subjoined note, and humbly commended to my foreign readers.[B] The summary is placed there because I wish to introduce into the body of my text nothing which is irrelevant to the state and prospects of British society. A stronger acknowledgment than this of the blessedness of our penitent state, it is not in my power to make,—or I would make it. It may be that for centuries we may have to witness the remaining sufferings and degradation of those whom we have injured, and perhaps even yet to bear many painful consequences of our long transgression against the rights of man. But the weight of guilt is thrown off, the act of confession is made, and that of atonement is about to follow; and all the rest may well be borne. ----- Footnote B: PROPERTY is held by conventional, not natural, right. As the agreement to hold man in property never took place between the parties concerned, i. e., is not conventional, man has no right to hold man in property. LAW, i. e., the sanctioned agreement of the parties concerned, secures property. Where one of the parties under the law is held as property by another party, the law injures the one or the other as often as they are opposed. More-over, its very protection injures the protected party: as when a rebellious slave is hanged. -------------- Human labour is more valuable than brute labour, only because actuated by reason; for human strength is inferior to brute strength. The origin of labour, human and brute, is the will. The reason of slaves is not subjected to exercise, nor their will to more than a few weak motives. The labour of slaves is therefore less valuable than that of brutes, inasmuch as their strength is inferior; and less valuable than that of free labourers, inasmuch as their reason and will are feeble and alienated. -------------- Free and slave labour are equally owned by the capitalist. When the labourer is not held as capital, the capitalist pays for labour only. When the labourer is held as capital, the capitalist not only pays a much higher price for an equal quantity of labour, but also for waste, negligence, and theft, on the part of the labourer. Capital is thus sunk which ought to be reproduced.