Twenty Russian labourers, all loyal to the Czar, are, let us say, employed to dig out a cellar under a certain street, and to fill it with cases which ostensibly contain wine.
Subsequently, as the Czar is passing, he is killed by a huge explosion.
It then becomes apparent that the so-called cellar was a mine, and the harmless-looking cases had really been filled with dynamite.

Now, if all those concerned in the consummation of this catastrophe were tried, it is perfectly evident that the part played by the labourers would be sharply discriminated from that played by the man employing them; and, although they contributed something which was necessary to the production of the result, it would certainly have been admitted by General Trepoff himself that they had contributed nothing to its essential and criminal elements.

It is equally evident that the increment of wealth which results from the obedience of labourers to injunctions which do not emanate from themselves, is produced by the man who gives the injunctions, and not by the men who obey them.
But here we must return to the argument, already mentioned in passing, which may be restated thus: A thousand labourers, directed by their own intelligence only, produce a product whose amount we will call a thousand.

The same labourers are directed by a man of ability, and the product rises from one thousand to two.

But if the production of this second thousand is to be credited to the man of ability on the ground that, were the ability absent, no second thousand would be produced, we may reach by the same reasoning a conclusion precisely opposite, and credit not only the first, but both the thousands to labour, on the ground that, if the labour were absent, nothing would be produced at all.