our first legislator.
It is at the establishment of conventions that the just and unjust, properly speaking, commence.
SECTION 7.
Conclusion.
The general considerations just read begin to diffuse some light over the subject with which we are occupied, but they are not sufficient. We must see more in detail what are the numerous results of our actions; what are the different sentiments which arise from our first desires, and what is the best possible manner of directing these actions and sentiments. Here will be found the division which I have announced.
I shall begin by speaking of our actions.
First Part
of the
Treatise on the Will and Its Effects.
Of Our Actions.
CHAPTER I.
Of Society.
In the introduction to a treatise on the will it was proper to indicate the generation of some general ideas which are the necessary consequences of this faculty.
It was even incumbent on us to examine summarily,
1st. What are inanimate beings, that is to say beings neither sentient nor willing.
2d. What sentient beings would be with indifference without will.
3d. What are sentient and willing beings but isolated.
4th. Finally, what are sentient and willing beings like ourselves, but placed in contact with similar beings.
It is with the latter we are now exclusively to occupy ourselves, for man can exist only in society.
The necessity of reproduction and the propensity to sympathy necessarily lead him to this state, and his judgment makes him perceive its advantages.
I proceed then to speak of society.
I shall consider it only with respect to economy, because this first part concerns our actions only and not as yet our sentiments.
Under this relation society consists only in a continual succession of exchanges, and exchange is a transaction of such a nature that both contracting parties always gain by it. (This observation will hereafter throw great light on the nature and effects of commerce.)
We cannot cast our eyes on a civilized country without seeing with astonishment how much this continual succession of small advantages, un-perceived but incessantly repeated, adds to the primitive power of man.
It is because this succession of exchanges, which constitutes society, has three remarkable properties. It produces concurrence of forces, increase and preservation of intelligence and division of labour.
The utility of these three effects is continually augmenting. It will be better perceived when we shall have seen how our riches are formed.
CHAPTER II.
Of Production, or the formation of our Riches.
In the first place what ought we to understand by the word production?
We create nothing. We operate only changes of form and of place.
To produce is to give to things a utility which they had not before.
All labour from which utility results is productive.
That relative to agriculture has in this respect nothing particular.
A farm is truly a manufactory.
A field is a real tool, or in other words a stock of first materials.
All the laborious class is productive.
The truly sterile class is that of the idle.
Manufacturers fabricate, merchants transport. This is our industry. It consists in the production of utility.
CHAPTER III.
Of the measure of Utility, or of Value.
Whatever contributes to augment our enjoyments and to diminish our sufferings, is useful to us.
We are frequently very unjust appreciators of the real utility of things.
But the measure of utility which, right or wrong, we ascribe to a thing is the sum of the sacrifices we are disposed to make to procure its possession.
This is what is called the price of this thing, it is its real value in relation to riches.
The mean then of enriching ourselves is to devote ourselves to that species of labour which is most dearly paid for, whatever be its nature. This is true as to a nation as well as to an individual.
Observe always that the conventional value, the market price of a thing, being determined by the balance of the resistance of sellers and buyers, a thing without being less desired becomes less dear, when it is more easily produced.
This is the great advantage of the progress of the arts. It causes us to be provided for on better terms, because we are so with less trouble.
CHAPTER IV.
Of the change of form, or of manufacturing Industry, comprising Agriculture.
In every species of industry there are three things: theory, application and execution.
Hence three kinds of labourers; the man of science, the entrepreneur, and the workman.
All are obliged to expend more or less before they can receive, and especially the entrepreneur.
These advances are furnished by anterior economies, and are called capitals.
The man of science and the workman are regularly compensated by the entrepreneur; but he has no benefit but in proportion to the success of his manufacturing.
It is indispensable that the labors most necessary should be the most moderately recompensed.
This is true most especially of those relative to agricultural industry.
This has moreover the inconvenience that the agricultural entrepreneur cannot make up for the mediocrity of his profits by the great extension of his business.
Accordingly this profession has no attractions for the rich.
The proprietors of land who do not cultivate it are strangers to agricultural industry. They are merely lenders of funds.
They dispose of them according to the convenience of those whom they can engage to labor them.
There are four sorts of entrepreneurs; two with greater or smaller means, the lessees of great and small farms; and two almost without means, those who farm as sharecroppers and labourers.
Hence four species of cultivation essentially different.
The division into great and small culture is insufficient and subject to ambiguity.
Agriculture then is the first of arts in relation to necessity, but not in regard to riches.
It is because our means of subsistence and our means of existence are two very different things, and we are wrong to confound them.
CHAPTER V.
Of the change of place, or of Commercial Industry.
The isolated man might manufacture but could not trade.
For commerce and society are one and the same thing.
It