Let us endeavour to advance another step in the illustration of these positions, by going back to the prodigal who had spent all his substance. Let us survey him at the moment when he had made the wise, and in many respects heroic, resolution to pass from the condition of a consumer into that of a producer. The story says, "The first thing that drew his attention was a heap of coals shot out of a cart on the pavement before a house. He offered himself to shovel or wheel them into the place where they were to be laid, and was employed." Here, then, we see that the labour of this man was wholly and imperatively directed by accumulation. It was directed as absolutely by the accumulation of others as the labour of Dampier's Moskito Indian was directed by his own accumulation. The Indian could not labour profitably--he could not obtain fish and goats for his food, instead of seal's flesh--till he had called into action the power which he possessed in his knife and his gun-barrel. The prodigal had no accumulation whatever of his own. He had not even the accumulation of peculiar skill in any mode of labour;--for a continual process of waste enlarges neither the mental nor physical faculties, and generally leaves the wretched being who has to pass into the new condition of a producer as helpless as the weakest child. He had nothing but the lowest power, of labouring without peculiar knowledge or skill. He had, however, an intensity and consistency of purpose which raised this humble power into real strength. He was determined never to go backward--always to go on. He knew, too, his duties as well as his rights; and he saw that he must wholly accommodate his power to the greater power which was in action around him. When he passed into the condition of a producer, he saw that his powers and rights were wholly limited and directed by the principles necessary to advance production; and that his own share of what he assisted in producing must be measured by the laws which enabled him to produce at all. He found himself in a position where his labour was absolutely governed by the system of exchanges. No other system could operate around him, because he was in a civilized country. Had he been thrown upon a desert land without food and shelter, his labour must have been instantly and directly applied to procuring food and shelter. He was equally without food and shelter in a civilized country. But the system of exchanges being in action, he did not apply his labour directly to the production of food and lodging for himself. He added by his labour a new value to a heap of coals; he enabled another man more readily to acquire the means of warmth; and by this service, which he exchanged for "a few pence" and "a small gratuity of meat and drink," he indirectly obtained food and lodging. He conferred an additional value upon a heap of coals; and that additional value was represented by the "few pence" and "a small gratuity of meat