Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 25:100 (Oct 1868)
Article: The Natural Theology Of Social Science
Author: John Bascom

BSac 25:100 (Oct 1868) p. 645

The Natural Theology Of Social Science

Rev. John Bascom

Labor And Capital

Labor is the element of production which man furnishes; it is exertion which has value. In strict analysis all that labor can directly accomplish is transfer, a movement of bodies as wholes; a removal or readjustment of their parts; a commutation or commingling of particles preparatory to vital or to chemical action. All beyond this, and even much of this, is accomplished by natural forces. The farmer breaks up the soil and casts in the seed, and for the present his labor is ended. The manufacturer unites fitting material, or brings together appropriate ingredients, but does not impart the strength of fiber which binds the cloth, the cohesive force which compacts into a machine the wood and the metal, nor the affinity which causes the oil and the alkali to unite in soap.

This resolution of manual labor into simple mechanical changes has no particular importance, as the objects contemplated in the transfers are very different, and give the ground of its chief decisions. A first object is increase of quantity: a multiplication of that complete in itself, but deficient in amount. This end gives us the department of agriculture. The laborer works with the vital forces of nature, and meets their mechanical conditions in breaking up, enriching, planting the soil; in feeding herds and sheltering flocks, It becomes the study of the farmer to understand the laws of vegetable and animal life, and to avail himself skilfully of those forces which work reproduction. He is, in the highest sense, a producer, employing powers little less marvellous than those of creation.

BSac 25:100 (Oct 1868) p. 646

The second aim of manual labor is to change the form of that already secured. This gives us the department of manufacture. The laborer avails himself of the cohesive and chemical forces of nature; relies on the qualities given by the one and the new compounds secured by the other; selects material for the offices it has to subserve, shapes it to its position, and combines those elements which are the ingredients of his dyes, paints, or medicines. There is here a change of form in that which has been gained, but no increase of its quantity. In this department a lower grade of forces is employed. It is molecular and mechanical, not vital, properties that the artizan considers.

The third object of labor is a transfer in place. This transfer is not obscure, incidental to some other process aimed at, but is itself the immediate end. If a thread of wool barely cohesive is twisted, we change the position of its fibres; but this change is not wrought for itself, but for the modification of form, and the increased strength which follow from it. If a skein of yarn is...