equal),--this force is LABOR. Labor differs in quantity and
quality with the producer; in this respect it is like all the
great principles of Nature and the most general laws, simple in
their action and formula, but infinitely modified by a multitude
of special causes, and manifesting themselves under an
innumerable variety of forms. It is labor, labor alone, that
produces all the elements of wealth, and that combines them to
their last molecules according to a law of variable, but certain,
proportionality. It is labor, in fine, that, as the principle of
life, agitates (mens agitat) the material (molem) of wealth, and
proportions it.

Society, or the collective man, produces an infinitude of
objects, the enjoyment of which constitutes its WELL-BEING.
This well-being is developed not only in the ratio of the
QUANTITY of the products, but also in the ratio of their
VARIETY (quality) and PROPORTION. From this fundamental datum
it follows that society always, at each instant of its life, must
strive for such proportion in its products as will give the
greatest amount of well-being, considering the power and means of
production. Abundance, variety, and proportion in products are
the three factors which constitute WEALTH: wealth, the object of
social economy, is subject to the same conditions of existence as
beauty, the object of art; virtue, the object of morality; and
truth, the object of metaphysics.

But how establish this marvelous proportion, so essential that
without it a portion of human labor is lost,--that is, useless,
inharmonious, untrue, and consequently synonymous with poverty
and annihilation?