CHAPTER III.
EFFORT--RESULT.
We have seen that between our wants and their gratification many obstacles are interposed.

We conquer or weaken these by the employment of our faculties.

It may be said, in general terms, that industry is an effort followed by a result.
But by what do we measure our well-being?
By our riches?
By the result of our effort, or by the effort itself?
There exists always a proportion between the effort employed and the result obtained.

Does progress consist in the relative increase of the second or of the first term of this proportion--between effort or result?
Both propositions have been sustained, and in political economy opinions are divided between them.
According to the first system, riches are the result of labor.

They increase in the same ratio as _the result does to the effort_.
Absolute perfection, of which God is the type, consists in the infinite distance between these two terms in this relation, viz., effort none, result infinite.
The second system maintains that it is the effort itself which forms the measure of, and constitutes, our riches.