them. If the commodities have been produced by manual labour exclusively, aided at least only by the unappropriated bounties of nature, and brought to market immediately, the whole remuneration will of course belong to the labourer, and the usual money price of this remuneration in the existing state of the society would be the usual price of the commodity.
The second condition to be fulfilled is, that the assistance which may have been given to the labourer, by the previous accumulation of objects which facilitate future production, should be so remunerated as to continue the application of this assistance to the production of the commodities required. If by means of certain advances to the labourer of machinery, food and materials previously collected, he can execute eight or ten times as much work as he could without such assistance, the person furnishing them might appear at first to be entitled to the difference between the powers of unassisted labour, and the powers of labour so assisted. But the prices of commodities do not depend upon their intrinsic utility, but upon the supply and demand. The increased powers of labour would naturally produce an increased supply of commodities; their prices would consequently fall, and the remuneration for the capital advanced would soon be reduced to what was necessary in the existing state of the society, to encourage the application of such capital to the production in question, in the quantity required by the effectual demand. With regard to the labourers employed, as neither their exertions, nor their skill would necessarily be greater than if they had worked unassisted, their remuneration in money would be nearly the same as before, and would depend entirely upon the kind of labour employed, estimated in the usual way, by the money demand compared with the supply. But the price of labour so determined would, under the influence of good machinery, give the labourer a greater quantity than before of the produce obtained, though not necessarily a greater pro-
