Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/54

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may start, but also to be maintained in working order, and provision has to be made for their renewal when they are worn out or superseded by a new invention. Time is also a highly important element, because this need for time is one of the most striking requirements which mark the work of man as an industrial animal. The wild beast gets its food and eats it. In providing its material needs, it makes no alteration in the stuff which nature or its hunting skill provides, but consumes it then and there. It may watch for days for its prey, but having caught its hare it confines its further efforts to eating and digesting it. Man takes the goods which nature provides, and subjects them to an elaborate and often very lengthy process before he has changed them into articles which he regards as desirable for consumption. He builds ships that sail the seas for years, and railways that may last for centuries, to carry materials and goods from place to place. Nearly everything that we consume is provided for us and despatched to us with the help of work that has been done long ago, perhaps before we were born. There is then the necessity that during the process of production those who are at work on it should be fed, clothed, housed and otherwise provided for out