[Sidenote ◆2 And, like Labour itself, they have remained unchanged up till quite recent times.] [Sidenote ◆3 But even if invented by Ability, we should still attribute the wealth now produced by them to Labour;] Now the argument implied in this charming letter, so far as it goes, is sound; and I will put it presently in a more comprehensive form. Its fault is that it goes a very little way, and does not even approach the position it is adduced to combat. To say that if one man who lived thousands of years ago could be shown to be the sole and only inventor of the plough, then all the increase of wealth that has since been produced by ploughing ought to be credited to the Ability of this one man, is practically no doubt as absurd[41] as the writer of the letter thinks it; and were such the result of the reasoning in this volume, it would reduce that reasoning to an absurdity. ◆¹ That reasoning, however, leads to no result of the kind; and it is necessary to explain to the reader exactly why it fails to do so. It fails to do so because ploughs, and other implements equally simple, instead of representing those conditions of production to which alone the reasoning in this volume applies, represent conditions which are altogether opposed to them. The plough, or at least such a plough as was in use in ancient Egypt, is the very type and embodiment of the non-progressive nature of Labour, as opposed to, and contrasted with, the progressive nature of Ability. The plough, indeed, in its simplest form, was probably not the result of Ability at all, but rather of the experience of multitudes of common men, acting on the intelligence which common men possess; just as, even more obviously, was the use of a stick to walk with, or of a flail for thrashing corn. It will perhaps, however, be said that in that case, according to the definition given by me, the plough would be the result of Ability all the same, only that it would prove Ability to be a faculty almost as universal as Labour. And no doubt it would prove this of Ability of a low kind; indeed, we may admit that it does prove it. Everybody has a little Ability in him, just as everybody has a little poetry; but in cases of this kind everything is a question of degree; and for practical purposes we are compelled to classify men not according to faculties which, strictly speaking, they possess, but according to the degree in which they possess them. Cold, strictly speaking, is merely a low degree of heat; but for all practical purposes winter is opposed to summer. Similarly, a man who has just enough poetry in him to be able—as most men can—to scribble a verse of doggerel, is for all practical purposes opposed to a Shakespeare or a Dante; and similarly also the man who has just enough Ability in him to discover the use of a stick, a flail, or a plough, is for all practical purposes opposed to the men who are capable of