But by what do we measure our well-being? By our riches? By the result
of our effort, or by the effort itself? There exists always a
proportion between the effort employed and the result obtained. Does
progress consist in the relative increase of the second or of the
first term of this proportion--between effort or result?

Both propositions have been sustained, and in political economy
opinions are divided between them.

According to the first system, riches are the result of labor. They
increase in the same ratio as _the result does to the effort_.
Absolute perfection, of which God is the type, consists in the
infinite distance between these two terms in this relation, viz.,
effort none, result infinite.

The second system maintains that it is the effort itself which forms
the measure of, and constitutes, our riches. Progression is the
increase of the _proportion of the effect to the result_. Its ideal
extreme may be represented by the eternal and fruitless efforts of
Sisyphus.[A]

[Footnote A: We will therefore beg the reader to allow us in future,
for the sake of conciseness, to designate this system under the term
of _Sisyphism_, from Sisyphus, who, in punishment of his crimes, was
compelled to roll a stone up hill, which fell to the bottom as fast as
he rolled it to the top, so that his labor was interminable as well as
fruitless.]

The first system tends naturally to the encouragement of everything