The expression “applying capital” is of course metaphorical: what is really applied is labor; capital being an indispensable condition. The food of laborers and the materials of production have no productive power; but labor can not exert its productive power unless provided with them. There can be no more industry than is supplied with materials to work up and food to eat. Self-evident as the thing is, it is often forgotten that the people of a country are maintained and have their wants supplied, not by the produce of present labor, but of past.
They consume what has been produced, not what is about to be produced. Now, of what has been produced, a part only is allotted to the support of productive labor; and there will not and can not be more of that labor than the portion [pg 075] so allotted (which is the capital of the country) can