If the so frequently uttered aphorism of mercantile economy--"labour is limited by capital"--were true, this question would be a definite one. But it is untrue; and that widely. Out of a given quantity of wages, more or less labour is to be had, according to the quantity of will with which we can inspire the workman; and the true limit of labour is only in the limit of this moral stimulus of the will, and the bodily power. In an ultimate, but entirely practical sense, labour is limited by capital, as it is by matter--that is to say, where there is no material, there can be no work--but in the practical sense, labour is limited only by the great original capital[77] of Head, Heart, and Hand. Even in the most artificial relations of commerce, it is to capital as fire to fuel: out of so much fuel you shall have so much fire--not in proportion to the mass of combustibles, but to the force of wind that fans and water that quenches; and the appliance of both. And labour is furthered, as conflagration is, not so much by added fuel, as by admitted air. [77] The aphorism, being hurried English for "labour is limited by want of capital," involves also awkward English in its denial, which cannot be helped. For which reasons, I had to insert, above, the qualifying "probably"; for it can never be said positively that the purchase money, or wages fund of any trade is withdrawn from some other trade. The object itself may be the stimulus of the production of the money which buys it; that is to say, the work by which the purchaser obtained the means of buying it would not have been done by him, unless he had wanted that particular thing. And the production of any article not intrinsically (nor in the process of manufacture) injurious, is useful, if the desire of it causes productive labour in other directions. In the national store, therefore, the presence of things intrinsically valueless does not imply an entirely correlative absence of things valuable. We cannot be certain that all the labour spent on vanity has been diverted from reality, and that for every bad thing produced, a precious thing has been lost. In great measure, the vain things represent the results of roused indolence; they have been carved, as toys, in extra time; and, if they had not been made, nothing else would have been made. Even to munitions of war this principle applies; they partly represent the work of men who, if they had not made spears, would never have made pruning-hooks, and who are incapable of any activities but those of contest.