get the means of subsistence from Nature, the one who has capital has
immeasurable advantages over the other. If it were not so capital would
not be formed. Capital is only formed by self-denial, and if the
possession of it did not secure advantages and superiorities of a high
order men would never submit to what is necessary to get it. The first
accumulation costs by far the most, and the rate of increase by profits
at first seems pitiful. Among the metaphors which partially illustrate
capital--all of which, however, are imperfect and inadequate--the
snow-ball is useful to show some facts about capital. Its first
accumulation is slow, but as it proceeds the accumulation becomes rapid
in a high ratio, and the element of self-denial declines. This fact,
also, is favorable to the accumulation of capital, for if the
self-denial continued to be as great per unit when the accumulation had
become great, there would speedily come a point at which further
accumulation would not pay. The man who has capital has secured his
future, won leisure which he can employ in winning secondary objects of
necessity and advantage, and emancipated himself from those things in
life which are gross and belittling. The possession of capital is,
therefore, an indispensable prerequisite of educational, scientific,
and moral goods. This is not saying that a man in the narrowest
circumstances may not be a good man. It is saying that the extension
and elevation of all the moral and metaphysical interests of the race
are conditioned on that extension of civilization of which capital is
the prerequisite, and that he who has capital can participate in and
move along with the highest developments of his time. Hence it appears
that the man who has his self-denial before him, however good may be
his intention, cannot be as the man who has his self-denial behind him.
Some seem to think that this is very unjust, but they get their notions
of justice from some occult source of inspiration, not from observing
the facts of this world as it has been made and exists.