strange and incorrect to consider mere labour as wealth. No one would give anything for it if he were sure that it would yield no gratifying result. It is in the expectation of this result alone that labour is employed. The sick man employs a physician, not because he is pleased with the trouble which he gives him, but because he expects that his health may be benefited by the advice which he receives. The lawyer is consulted and feed, only because his client expects to derive some advantage from the opinion to be given, or the cause to be pleaded. And even the menial servant is not hired on account of the desire to see a man work, but on account of the trouble which he will save his master in performing certain offices for him, or the gratification afforded to his vanity by the shew of having a person at his command. The natural consequences of these difficulties is, that the ablest writers who have deserted matter, in their definition of wealth, have fallen almost inevitably into contradictions and inconsistencies.
M. Say, for instance, in his chapter on immaterial products, which he defines to be, “des valeurs qui sont consommées au moment de leur production,” and of such a nature “qu’on ne saurait les accumuler,”* can only refer to the personal services which are hired, or to some particular kinds of immaterial products. He cannot refer to immaterial products in general, because it is quite impossible to deny that knowledge, talents, and personal qualities are capable of being accumulated. Yet he says, “Une nation où il se trouverait une foule de musiciens, de prêtres, d’employés pourrait être une nation fort divertie, bien endoctrinée, et admirablement bien administrée; mais voilà tout; son capital ne recevrait de tous les travaux de ces hommes industrieux aucun accroissement direct, parce que leurs travaux seraient consommés à mesure qu’ils seraient créés.”† A few pages further on, he observes that most immaterial products “sont le résultat d’un
