which, if considered by themselves, defy all attempts at explanation.
The mystery surrounding the origin of our wealth was already indicated above in showing the peculiar property of our wealth to grow and shrink irrespective of any addition to, or diminution from, the material substances of which it consists. This mystery deepens the further we go into the examination of the production of wealth in our society, and even more so when we come to consider its distribution. Only some of the more characteristic phenomena which puzzle the inquirer into the nature of the wealth of capitalistic nations need be mentioned here in order to show the nature of our problem.
While, as we have already stated, the amount of our wealth may grow or diminish irrespective of the growth or diminution of the articles of which it consists, thus showing clearly that our value-wealth is something extrinsic and independent of the nature and uses of those articles, yet there is something in the very independence of value-wealth from its material substance which shows a close connection between them. It is true that this connection is rather in the nature of a hostility, partaking of the antagonism already pointed out between use-value and exchange-value, but the connection is nevertheless clearly defined and resembles in its character the connection of polarity, to borrow an example from another field of scientific research. It has, namely, been observed that there is a constantly growing difference between the accumulation of use-value and exchange-value, a constantly growing difference between the amounts of our value-wealth and the material substances of which it consists. That is to say, it has been observed that with the increase of the production of goods commodities diminish in value, so that the larger the increase in our "natural" wealth, that is in useful articles which go to make up the stores of our social or value-wealth, the smaller the increase of the latter. In other words the growth of our value-wealth constantly and systematically falls behind the growth
