_Production extended._--In all these three directions, or in any combination of them, transporting, transforming and transmuting materials, men seek the production of a supply for meeting anticipated wants, and so contribute directly or indirectly to welfare. No one way of producing what men need, where they need it, and when they need it, has any superior claim to the name production. All are making the material yield up welfare to the one who needs it, and produce wealth just so far as their services are necessary in bringing the welfare. If ever any step in the process becomes useless, it ceases to be productive of wealth and becomes waste. The inventive powers of mankind are always at work to shorten the processes and hasten the advantages of production. Men study the minutest workings of nature to find the conditions under which she does her part of the work. The application of such minute knowledge is a chief part of every art. This is also the object of science; for, as Guizot says, "It only began to have a well defined existence when it confined itself to seeking the 'how' rather than the 'why' of nature's workings." This purpose sustains in the United States more than fifty agricultural experiment stations, united in a great organization, to find how the natural forces used by farmers do their work.
This prophecy of a noted economist is warranted: "Probably the greatest economic revolution which the youth of today may in his old age behold, will be found in this all-important branch of our industries." When we know how nature works, we can adjust our little motions in time and place to promote that work; we shall have the art of moving things to suit our needs. Nothing can be truer than Tennyson's line, "We rule by obeying nature's powers."
Chapter II. Forces In Production Of Wealth.
_Nature._--When men learn to meet their wants by exertion in accord with nature's ways, they are said to use the forces of nature in production of wealth. Every accumulation of materials for satisfying future needs implies some control over natural objects. If advantage is taken of natural motions or other activities to bring about larger accumulation, the man whose plans secure this has gained control over, and so property-rights in, the natural force which he has harnessed. The wind caught by a sail and the water controlled by a dam contribute to the power, and indirectly to the wealth, of the man who contrives to make them move things for him. The directive actions of men necessarily appropriate the natural objects which they use, together with all the qualities of those objects.