They are crystallised mechanics, crystallised chemistry, crystallised mathematics--in short, crystallised intellect, knowledge, imagination, and executive capacity, of kinds which hardly exist in a dozen minds out of a million; and labour conduces to the production of such astonishing structures only because it submits itself to the guidance of these intellectual leaders.

And the same is the case with modern production generally.

Though labour is essential to the production of wealth even in the smallest quantities, the distinguishing productivity of industry in the modern world depends not on the labour, but on the ability with which the labour is directed; and in the modern world the primary function of capital is that of providing ability with its necessary instrument of direction.
No unprejudiced person, who is capable of coherent thought, can, when the matter is thus plainly stated, possibly deny this.

That it cannot be denied will be shown in the two following chapters by recent admissions on the part of socialists themselves, the more thoughtful of whom have now virtually abandoned the earlier theoretical framework of socialism altogether, and are trying to substitute a new one, with which we will deal later, and which will indeed prove the main subject of our inquiry.
FOOTNOTES: [1] When I insisted on this distinction between "labour" and "ability" in America, innumerable critics met me with two objections.

One of these, as stated by a writer who confessed himself otherwise in entire agreement with me, was this: "It is impossible, as Mr.Mallock attempts to do, to draw a hard-and-fast line between mental effort and muscular." No such attempt is made.