But what constitutes the measure of our prosperity, or of our wealth? Is it the result of the effort? or is it the effort itself? A relation always subsists between the effort employed and the result obtained. Progress consists in the relative enhancement of the second or of the first term of this relation.
Both theses have been maintained; and in political economy they have divided the region of opinion and of thought.
According to the first system, wealth is the result of labour, increasing as the relative _proportion of result to effort increases_. Absolute perfection, of which God is the type, consists in the infinite distance interposed between the two terms--in this sense, effort is _nil_, result infinite.
The second system teaches that it is the effort itself which constitutes the measure of wealth. To make progress is to increase the relative proportion _which effort bears to result_. The ideal of this system may be found in the sterile and eternal efforts of Sisyphus.
The first system naturally welcomes everything which tends to diminish _pains_ and augment _products_; powerful machinery which increases the forces of man, exchange which allows him to derive greater advantage from natural agents distributed in various proportions over the face of the earth, intelligence which discovers, experience which proves, competition which stimulates, etc.
Logically, the second invokes everything which has the effect of increasing pains and diminishing products; privileges, monopolies, restrictions, prohibitions, suppression of machinery, sterility, etc.
It is well to remark that the _universal practice_ of mankind always points to the principle of the first system. We have never seen, we shall never see, a man who labours in any department, be he agriculturist, manufacturer, merchant, artificer, soldier, author, or philosopher, who does not devote all the powers of his mind to work better, to work with more rapidity, to work more economically--in a word, to effect _more with less_.
The opposite doctrine is in favour only with theorists, deputies, journalists, statesmen, ministers--men, in short, born to make experiments on the social body.
* For this reason, and for the sake of conciseness, the reader will pardon us for designating this system in the sequel by the name of _sisyphism_.