and a greater capital would be distributed in wages among the same number of laborers. There being no more labor than before, and no improvements to render the labor more efficient, there would not be any increase of the produce; and, as the capital, however largely increased, would only obtain the same gross return, the whole savings of each year would be exactly so much subtracted from the profits of the next and of every following year.
It is hardly necessary to say that in such circumstances profits would very soon fall to the point at which further increase of capital would cease. An augmentation of capital, much more rapid than that of population, must soon reach its extreme limit, unless accompanied by increased efficiency of labor (through inventions and discoveries, or improved mental and physical education), or unless some of the idle people, or of the unproductive laborers, became productive.
If population