3 See below on coat, ch. 28, and on time-value, ch. 20, and ch. 21, sec. 2.
general method of industry from the advent of man upon the earth to the present moment has been that of appropriating natural objects as they are found in the world. Man takes these objects, improves them where he can, destroys (con sumes) some in the using, and repairs others as they wear out. That is all that "production of material goods" as an economic act ever can be—appropriating, bettering, conserving, and re pairing natural objects. Production is drawing out, leading forth something that is already there. The supplies of goods were at first conditioned and limited by the soil and climate, by flora and fauna. Man's part in "production" consisted at first in picking the fruits and in killing the animals which na ture had produced. Gradually, however, man has intervened more and more at earlier stages of the natural processes, has guided and aided them.
The attempt has been made to divide economic goods into two classes, ascribing to the one class permanency and calling them the natural agents (the unproduced goods) ; and to the other the possibility of indefinite increaseableness, the artificial agents (the produced goods). This is a futile distinction to
apply to goods in modern industrial countries, and it obscures the true nature of production. We take the original stuff of which everything is composed, whether arable field or house or watch-spring, as we find it in nature. Nearly everything not now underground (even land surface for business build ings, for residence, and for agriculture) is more or less arti ficial, that is, has in some degree been altered by man's action in leveling, digging, shaping, fertilizing, etc. The minerals beneath the surface of the earth remain most truly "natural" until they are appropriated, when many of them as elabo rated articles become the most artificial of all material goods.
Instead, therefore, of trying to classify concrete goods as artificial and natural, it is better to make a continuity classi fication and to distinguish the consumptive and durative qual ities of goods which are found in varying degrees in all agents. We shall later see how, in a variety of ways, men take account of these differing qualities and adjust their acts and their valuations accordingly.