intimate nature of interest? I must not leave off without remarking upon
a beautiful moral which may be drawn from this law:--"The depression of
interest is proportioned to the abundance of capitals." This law being
granted, if there is a class of men to whom it is more important than to
any other that capitals be formed, accumulate, multiply, abound, and
superabound, it is certainly the class which borrows them directly or
indirectly; it is those men who operate upon _materials_, who gain
assistance by _instruments_, who live upon _provisions_, produced and
economised by other men.

Imagine, in a vast and fertile country, a population of a thousand
inhabitants, destitute of all capital thus defined. It will assuredly
perish by the pangs of hunger. Let us suppose a case hardly less cruel.
Let us suppose that ten of these savages are provided with instruments
and provisions sufficient to work and to live themselves until harvest
time, as well as to remunerate the services of eighty labourers. The
inevitable result will be the death of nine hundred human beings. It is
clear, then, that since 990 men, urged by want, will crowd upon the
supports which would only maintain a hundred, the ten capitalists will
be masters of the market. They will obtain labour on the hardest
conditions, for they will put it up to auction, or the highest bidder.
And observe this,--if these capitalists entertain such pious sentiments
as would induce them to impose personal privations on themselves, in
order to diminish the sufferings of some of their brethren, this
generosity, which attaches to morality, will be as noble in its
principle as useful in its effects. But if, duped by that false
philosophy which persons wish so inconsiderately to mingle with economic
laws, they take to remunerating labour largely, far from doing good,
they will do harm. They will give double wages, it may be. But then,
forty-five men will be better provided for, whilst forty-five others