JB_017_222.xml

Title: [30 Aug 1801 Polit. Economy]

Description: 30 Aug 1801

Polit. Economy

A1 V

Method

I. Sponte Acta

2

{ Matter. This, considered with reference to the final cause, well-being may be termed (such parts of it as by the use made of them become subservient to well-being the final cause) matter of wealth.

The term matter of wealth is applicable in common to

1. Articles or instruments of subsistence

2. Instruments of defence

3. Instruments of enjoyment

Articles of subsistence are either of constant use, or occasional use

Articles of constant use.

1. Articles of nourishment: viz: food and drink: i:e: liquid or solid the distinction between which is at their point of nearest approach undeterminable.

2. Articles serving for the regulation of temperature and state of the air in respect of moisture. These are either lodging or cloathing.

These if carried by a man about his person at the time of his using them, belong to the head of apparel; if not, to that of lodging, whether fixed or moveable. See Receptacles[?].

Articles of occasional use are articles of medicine.}

JB_017_221.xml

Title: [30 Aug 1801 Polit Economy A1]

Description: 30 Aug 1801

Polit Economy

A1 V

Method

1. Sponte Acta

1

* { 1. Sponte Acta - Here follow the first steps in an analytical survey, {in the

form of an Encyclopedical tree,} shewing how to draw an arch round the subject,

and how to mount or discover what remains to be invented or discovered in this

quarter of the field of human knowledge.

Causes of Wealth or the /say/ matter of wealth are

1. Final - Well-being.

2. Material - Matter - considered in respect of its possessing or being capable

of possessing value: viz: subserviency to well-being - the final cause.

3. Efficient - viz: Motion.

1. Well-being - its modification ranged in the order of their importance -

1. Subsistence (present)

2. Security in respect of defence: viz: against the evils to which human nature

is exposed: particularly from the action of exterior agents agents exterior to a

man's own body. Security in respect of future subsistence see Subsistence

3. Enjoyment - viz: mere enjoyment distinct from the maintenance of subsistence,

and the contemplation of security.}

JB_017_225.xml

Title: [30 Aug. 1801 Polit. Economy]

Description: 30 Aug. 1801

Polit. Economy

A1

Method

I. Sponte Acta

5

20

The habit /practice/ of exchange being established, each modification of the

matter of wealth to which soever of the three abovementioned divisions it

belongs, is in virtue of that practice, convertible with more or less facility

and certainty into every other.

The richer a community, the better secured it is thereby against hostility and

famine.}

A stock of instruments of mere enjoyment presupposes on the part of each

individual a pre-assured stock of the articles of subsistence. The stock of

articles of subsistence capable of existing /being produced and kept up/ in a

country in any other wise than that of exchange has its limits: it can never

extend much beyond the stock necessary for the subsistence of the inhabitants

the stock of instruments of mere enjoyment is without limit.

It is only in respect and in virtue of the quantity of the stock of instruments

of mere enjoyment that one country can exceed another in wealth. The quantity of

wealth in any /every/ country is as the quantity of its instruments of

enjoyment.

[Marginal rubric:] A pine apple contains for one particle of subsistence a

hundred of mere enjoyment x potatoe

+ Note

To '.1[?]. Objects Note concluded

It is in consequence of {the} interconvertibility abovementioned that wealth in

any one shape is wealth in every other: that every instrument of mere enjoyment

{is} a pledge of security: and that national power, so far as depends upon

wealth, is in proportion not to absolute, but only to relative opulence: not to

the absolute quantity of the matter of wealth in a nation, but to its ratio to

the mass of population. For, of the aggregate value of the aggregate mass of the

matter of wealth in a nation, the part dedicated to enjoyment is the only

disposable part: the only part applicable to the purpose of defence. What is

necessary to subsistence must be applied to subsistence, or the man must starve.

Hence, the reason why France, so much superior to Britain not only in population

but in absolute wealth, is yet inferior in power, except with relation to

countries, so near adjacent, that the expence of invading them, may be more or

less defrayed by the contributions made in them.