ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what becomes of capital in the progress of production, and how it is perpetuated and increased. After tracing capital through its various transformations in the department of agriculture, it will be easy to follow its transformations in the other two departments of manufacture and commerce. The capital employed on a productive operation is always a mere advance made for payment of productive services, and reimbursed by the value of their resulting product. In manufacture, as well as agriculture, there are some branches of capital that last for years; buildings and fixtures for instance, machinery and some kinds of tools; others, on the contrary, lose their form entirely; the oil and pot-ash used by soap-makers cease to be oil and pot-ash when they assume the form of soap. In the same manner, the drugs employed in dyeing indigo cease to be Brazil wood or annatto and are incorporated with the fabric they are employed in colouring.
