roducer, in order to influence him invisibly to seek
the one and to avoid the other.

Again: when an inventor succeeds in his labor-saving machine, the
_immediate_ benefit of this success is received by him. This again is
necessary, to determine him to devote his attention to it. It is also
just; because it is just that an effort crowned with success should
bring its own reward.

But these effects, good and bad, although permanent in themselves, are
not so as regards the producer. If they had been so, a principle of
progressive and consequently infinite inequality would have been
introduced among men. This good, and this evil, both therefore pass
on, to become absorbed in the general destinies of humanity.

How does this come about? I will try to make it understood by some
examples.

Let us go back to the thirteenth century. Men who gave themselves up
to the business of copying, received for this service _a remuneration
regulated by the general rate of the profits_. Among them is found
one, who seeks and finds the means of rapidly multiplying copies of
the same work. He invents printing. The first effect of this is, that
the individual is enriched, while many more are impoverished. At the
first view, wonderful as the discovery is, one hesitates in deciding
whether it is not more injurious than useful. It seems to have
introduced into the world, as I said above, an element of infinite
inequality. Guttenberg makes large profits by this invention, and
perfects the invention by the profits, until all other copyists are
ruined. As for the public--the consumer--it gains but little, for
Guttenberg takes care to lower the price of books only just so much as
is necessary to undersell all rivals.

But the great Mind which put harmony into the movements of celestial
bodies, could also give it to the internal mechanism of society. We
will see the advantages of this invention escaping from the
individual, to become for ever the common patrimony of mankind.

The process finally becomes known. Guttenberg is no longer alone in
his art; others imitate him. Their profits are at first considerable.
They are recompensed for being the first who made the effort to
imitate the processes of the newly-invented art. This again was
necessary, in order that they might be induced to the effort, and thus
forward the great and final result to which we approach. They gain
largely; but they gain less than the inventor, for _competition_ has
com