is most advantageous to the state.' Self-interest,
therefore, the individual's desire of adding to his 'fortune,' is the
mainspring or _causa causans_ of all improvement.[363] This is, of
course, part of the familiar system, which applies equally in ethics
and politics. M'Culloch is simply generalising Adam Smith's congenial
doctrine that statesmen are guilty of absurd presumption when they try
to interfere with a man's management of his own property.[364] This
theory, again, is expressed by the familiar maxim _pas trop
gouverner_, which is common to the whole school, and often accepted
explicitly.[365]

It will be quite enough to notice one or two characteristic results.
The most important concern the relation between the labourer and the
capitalist. Malthus gives the starting-point. Torrens, for example,
says that the 'real wages of labour have a constant tendency to settle
down' to the amount rendered necessary by 'custom and climate' in
order to keep up his numbers.[366] Mill observes in his terse way that
the capitalist in the present state of society 'is as much the owner
of the labour' as the manufacturer who operates with slaves. The only
'difference is in the mode of purchasing.'[367] One buys a man's whole
labour; the other his labour for a day. The rate of wages can
therefore be raised, like the price of slaves, only by limiting the
supply. Hence the 'grand practical problem is to find the means of
limiting the number of births.'[368] M'Culloch is equally clear, and
infers that every scheme 'not bottomed on' the principle of
proportioning labour to capital must be 'completely nugatory and
ineffectual.'[369]

The doctrine common to the whole school led M'Culloch to conclusions
which became afterwards notorious enough to require a word of notice.
Torrens, like Ricardo, speaks of capital as 'accumulated labour,' but
makes a great point of observing that, although this is true, the case
is radically changed in a developed state of society. The value of
things no longer depends upon the labour, but upon the amount of
capital employed in their production.[370] This, indeed, may seem to
be the most natural way of stating the accepted principle. M'Culloch
replies that the change makes no difference in the principle,[371]
inasmuch as capital being 'accumulated labour,' value is still
proportioned to labour, though in a transubstantiated shape. M'Culloch
supposed that by carrying out this principle systematically he