A third law results from the determination, of the mass of the
 surplus-value produced, by the two factors: rate of surplus-value and amount
 of variable capital advanced. The rate of surplus-value, or the degree of
 exploitation of labour-power, and the value of labour-power, or the amount
 of necessary workingtime being given, it is selfevident that the greater
 the variable capital, the greater would be the mass of the value produced
 and of the surplus-value. If the limit of the working-day is given, and
 also the limit of its necessary constituent, the mass of 290value
 and surplus-value that an individual capitalist produces, is clearly exclusively
 dependent on the mass of labour that he sets in motion. But this, under
 the conditions supposed above, depends on the mass of labour-power, or
 the number of labourers whom he exploits, and this number in its turn is
 determined by the amount of the variable capital advanced. With a given
 rate of surplus-value, and a given value of labour-power, therefore, the
 masses of surplus-value produced vary directly as the amounts of the variable
 capitals advanced. Now we know that the capitalist divides his capital
 into two parts. One part he lays out in means of production. This is the
 constant part of his capital. The other part he lays out in living labour-power.
 This part forms his variable capital. On the basis of the same mode of
 social production, the division of capital into constant and variable differs
 in different branches of production, and within the same branch of production,
 too, this relation changes with changes in the technical conditions and
 in the social combinations of the processes of production. But in whatever
 proportion a given capital breaks up into a constant and a variable part,
 whether the latter is to the former as 1:2 or 1:10 or 1:x, the law just
 laid down is not affected by this. For, according to our previous analysis,
 the value of the constant capital reappears in the value of the product,
 but does not enter into the newly produced value, the newly created value product.
 To employ 1,000 spinners, more raw material, spindles, &c., are, of
 course, required, than to employ 100. The value of these additional means
 of production however may rise, fall, remain unaltered, be large or small;
 it has no influence on the process of creation of surplus-value by means
 of the labour-powers that put them in motion. The law demonstrated above
 now, therefore, takes this form: the masses of value and of surplus-value
 produced by different capitals — the value of labour-power being given
 and its degree of exploitation being equal — vary directly as the amounts
 of the variable constituents of these capitals, i.e., as their constituents
 transformed into living labour-power.