tical
changes involving doubtful consequences. States where the capital is still
circulating may readily venture upon experiments financial or political,
since little time is lost even in destructive results. People in new
countries take risks readily because they have less to risk.

Chapter V. Personal Attainments.

_Accumulated energies._--The force accumulated through personal effort in
training, education and discipline is similar to capital in the fact that
it represents a period of time between the effort and its full
accomplishment, and that it is devoted to production of wealth. It differs
from capital in being immaterial human energy, exceedingly useful in
combination with capital, but a part of the laborer, not his tools. It is
gained by devoting time, attention, thought and practice to acquiring
methods of greatest efficiency in any act of labor. It requires surplus
energy in labor at any task to gain, not only the material result, but
power to do the same task better and more easily next time. All the time
expended in acquiring such powers is put into the value of what is finally
produced. Any peculiar tact or ability developed becomes an essential part
of individual powers, and its product, like that of any form of exertion,
becomes the property of the individual.

In this way, not only is the cost of gaining skill or education, or of
establishing habits, returned in the product, but often a considerable
increment, or gain, from the larger demand for such abilities. A skilled
artisan's labor meets more urgent demands for its use.

_Skill._--If this extra exertion takes the form of training muscles, nerves
and brain to act with speed and accuracy as judgment directs, we call the
attainment _skill_. Even if the action required is simple, dexterity comes
only by practice, and in special cases may multiply the product many
times. Two men may shear sheep with equal accuracy, but one has three
times the speed of the other. His skill secures employment at three times
the wages of the other, with profit to the employer, because the extra
speed saves room, attendance and risk over employing three men at
one-third the rate. The shearer profits by the rarity of his skill in
getting the wages of three men, with the support of but one, and in more
constant employment. When the operation is more complex, and success
involves larger interests, skill counts indefinitely more, and as society
grows complex the roo