ibitory system
in its simplest form. If it appears absurd to you, thus stated, it is
because the two qualities of producer and consumer are here united in
the same person.

--Let us pass, then, to a more complicated instance.

--Willingly. Some time after all this, Robinson having met Friday, they
united, and began to work in common. They hunted for six hours each
morning and brought home four hampers of game. They worked in the garden
for six hours each afternoon, and obtained four baskets of vegetables.

One day a canoe touched at the Island of Despair. A good-looking
stranger landed, and was allowed to dine with our two hermits. He
tasted, and praised the products of the garden, and before taking leave
of his hosts, said to them:

"Generous Islanders, I dwell in a country much richer in game than this,
but where horticulture is unknown. It would be easy for me to bring you
every evening four hampers of game if you would give me only two baskets
of vegetables."

At these words Robinson and Friday stepped on one side, to have a
consultation, and the debate which followed is too interesting not to be
given _in extenso_:

_Friday._ Friend, what do you think of it?

_Robinson._ If we accept we are ruined.

_Friday._ Is that certain? Calculate!

_Robinson._ It is all calculated. Hunting, crushed out by competition,
will be a lost branch of industry for us.

_Friday._ What difference does that make, if we have the game?

_Robinson._ Theory! It will not be the product of our labor.

_Friday._ Yes, it will, since we will have to give vegetables to get it.

_Robinson._ Then what shall we make?

_Friday._ The four hampers of game cost us six hours' labor. The
stranger gives them to us for two baskets of vegetables, which take us
but three hours. Thus three hours remain at our disposal.

_Robinson._ Say rather that they are taken from our activity. There is
our loss. _Labor is wealth_, and if we lose a fourth of our time we are
one-fourth poorer.

_Friday._ Friend, you make an enormous mistake. The same amount of game
and vegetables and three free hours to boot make progress, or there is
none in the world.

_Robinson._ Mere generalities. What will we do with these three hours?

_Friday._ We will do _something else_.

_Robinson._ Ah, now I have you. You can specify nothing. It is very easy
to say _something else--something else_.

_Friday._ We will fish. We will adorn our houses. We will read the
Bible.