Thus the two chief factors in the production of the national income—in the production of that wealth which must be produced before it can be distributed—are not Labour and Capital, which terms, as commonly used, mean living labourers on the one hand, and dead material on the other; but they are two distinct bodies of living men—labourers on the one hand, and on the other men of Ability. The great practical truth, then, which is to be drawn from the foregoing arguments is this—and it is to be drawn from them in the interest of all classes alike—that the action of Ability should never be checked or hampered in such a way as to diminish its productive efficacy, either by so interfering with its control of Capital, or by so diminishing its rewards, as to diminish the vigour with which it exerts itself; but that, on the contrary, all these social conditions should be jealously maintained and guarded which tend to stimulate it most, by the nature of the rewards they offer it, and which secure for it also the most favourable conditions for its exercise. By such means, and by such means only, is there any possibility of the national wealth being increased, or even preserved from disastrous and rapid diminution. [Sidenote ◆1 But this is very far from being the whole lesson taught, or indeed the chief part of it.] ◆¹ This, however, is but one half of the case; and, taken by itself, it may seem to have no connection with the problem which forms the main subject of this volume, namely, the social hopes and interests, not of Ability, but of Labour. For, taken by itself, the conclusion which has just been stated may strike the reader at first sight as amounting merely to this: that the sum total of the national income will be largest when the most numerous minority of able men produce the largest possible incomes,—incomes which they themselves consume; and that, unless they are allowed to consume them, they will soon cease to produce them. From the labourer’s point of view, such a conclusion would indeed be a barren one. It might show him that he could not better himself by attacking the fortunes of the minority; but it would, on the other hand, fail to show him that he was much interested in their maintenance, since, if Ability consumes the whole of the annual wealth which it adds to the wealth annually produced by Labour, the total might be diminished by the whole of the added portion, and Labour itself be no worse off than formerly. But when I said just now that it was to the interest of all classes alike not to diminish the rewards which Ability may hope for by exerting itself, this was said with a special qualification. I did not say that it was to the interest of the labourers to allow Ability to retain the whole of what it produced, or to abstain themselves from appropriating a certain portion of it; but what I did say was that any portion appropriated thus should not be so large, nor appropriated in such a way, as to make