t also, we could not say
that so much or so little of the effect was due to one cause, and so
much or so little to the other. If there were in the world only a
thousand shipwrights, and these men, working always under the same
director, always produced in a year one ship of an unchanging kind, we
could not say which of its parts or how much of its value were due to
the man directing, and which or how much were due to the men directed.
But if for one year this director were to retire and another was to take
his place, and, the same labourers being directed by this new master,
the result was the production not of one ship but of two; and if, when
the year was ended, and the old master came back again, the annual
product once more was not the two ships but one, we could then say, as a
matter of common-sense with regard to the year during which the two
vessels were built, that the second vessel, whatever might be the case
with the first, was due wholly to the ability of the master, and not to
the labour of the men. In other words, the ability of the director of
labour produces so much of the product, or of that product's value as
exceeds what was produced by the labourers before their labour was
directed by him, and would cease to be produced any longer as soon as
his direction was withdrawn.

That in the case of any result which requires separable causes for its
production, this method of allocating to these causes respectively so
much of the result and so much of it only, is a method always adopted in
all practical reasoning, may be seen by taking a result which is not
beneficial but criminal. 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