--_Merchant of Venice._

It is only intelligent energy that can produce wealth. Even the
natural resources must be subdued and shaped by intelligent energy to
be of service to man. Trees do not betake themselves into the form of
houses. Land does not transform itself into farms and gardens. Coal
does not come to our fires without hands. Ore is not iron, nor is clay
pottery. They must be carefully manipulated by the intelligent
laborer.

Nothing man can make has the power of self propagation. All wealth is
as barren as silver and gold, though Shylock claimed he could make
them breed like ewes and rams. Life alone is productive, and the
secrets of life man has not touched.

A tree or animal grows by the life that is in it, but the accretions
of wealth are from the efforts of intelligent energy outside of
itself. Wealth is an effect, a result. The vital energy of a person,
of "a willing intelligent being" produces wealth, but it does not
follow that it has the qualities of its cause. It has no intelligence,
nor has it self-determining power, nor is it vital, nor has it energy,
it has not in itself the force to overcome its inertia, the energy
must be applied. It has no power to increase or grow. A fortune is
built, as a building is built, brick after brick is added by
intelligent hands.

All wealth must have the living hands applied to cause it to increase
even the smallest amount. There is no such thing as "productive"
capital. It is so called when it is used to gather and appropriate the
earnings of others, but wealth in none of its forms has the quality or
power of producing.

Money, the most familiar form, is barren. A bag of dollars stored for
ages will not have increased a single coin. No one holds or handles
money on the assumption that it will increase in his hands. Money is a
care, and the broker who holds or handles it relies for his
compensation, not on the increase of the dollars in his hands, but on
the increase from some producer to whom he lends it. If there is no
borrower he takes a direct commission from the amount itself, as
trustee or administrator or custodian.

Money is readily exchanged for any other property. Money has a number
of functions but in exchange it is a medium by which the value of
articles is conveyed. It takes the place of the bags which conveyed
the wheat, of the crates which contained the potatoes, of the baskets
which carried the peaches, and the wra