Of the Nutrition and Procreation of a Commonwealth
The “nutrition” of a commonwealth consisteth in the “plenty” and “distribution” of “materials” conducing to life; in “concoction,” or “preparation”; and, when concocted, in the “conveyance” of it, by convenient conduits, to the public use.
As for the plenty of matter, it is a thing limited by Nature to those commodities which from the two breasts of our common mother, land and sea, God usually either freely giveth, or for labour selleth to mankind.
For the matter of this nutriment, consisting in animals, vegetals, and minerals, God hath freely laid them before us, in or near to the face of the earth; so as there needeth no more but the labour and industry of receiving them. Insomuch as plenty dependeth, next to God’s favour, merely on the labour and industry of men.
This matter, commonly called commodities, is partly “native,” and partly “foreign”; “native,” that which is to be had within the territory of the commonwealth; “foreign,” that which is imported from without. And because there is no territory under the dominion of one commonwealth, except it be of very vast extent, that produceth all things needful for the maintenance and motion of the whole body; and few that produce not something more than necessary; the superfluous commodities to be had within, become no more superfluous, but supply these wants at home, by importation of that which may be had abroad, either by exchange, or by just war, or by labour. For a man’s labour also is a commodity exchangeable for benefit, as well as any other thing; and there have been commonwealths that having no more territory than hath served them for