A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Money
Part I.: The Theories of Commerce, Money, and Exchanges, I.: Of wealth, what, and wherein it consists.
19th Century John Ramsay McCulloch (ed.) English- THE earth abounds with an infinite variety of materials, for the comfortable subsistence of human life: Besides the great diversity of food, vegetable and animal, more than sufficient to satiate the most gluttonous appetite; how admirably are wood, stones, metals, &c. adapted to their various uses! What is there left unprovided, and of what kind is that other material that could have added to human conveniency? But amidst this vast profusion of things, the earth spontaneously produces but few that are ready fitted for our use: Some pains and industry are required on our part, without which our condition upon this globe would, perhaps, be the most forlorn and uncomfortable of any of its inhabitants. But of this we have no cause to complain: Labour or bodily exercise, in a certain degree, is not only easy but pleasant to us, conducive to our health, and every way suited to our nature; and we are endued with ample powers for adopting and fitting the materials about us, according to our various exigencies and occasions. Land and labour together are the sources of all wealth; without a competency of land, there would be no subsistence; and but a very poor and uncomfortable one, without labour. So that wealth or riches consist either in a propriety in land, or in the products of land and labour.