The spinner produces in 12 hours 20 lbs. of yarn, or in 1 hour
 1⅔ lbs; consequently he produces in 8 hours 13⅔ lbs., or a partial
 product equal in value to all the cotton that is spun in a whole day. In
 like manner the partial product of the next period of 1 hour and 36 minutes,
 is 2⅔ lbs. of yarn: this represents the value of the instruments of
 labour that are consumed in 12 hours. In the following hour and 12 minutes,
 the spinner produces 2 lbs. of yarn worth 3 shillings, a value equal to
 the whole value he creates in his 6 hours’ necessary labour. Finally, in
 the last hour and 12 minutes he produces another 2 lbs. of yarn, whose
 value is equal to the surplus-value, created by his surplus-labour during
 half a day. This method of calculation serves the English manufacturer
 for every-day use; it shows, he will say, that in the first 8 hours, or
 ⅔ of the working-day, he gets back the value of his cotton; and so on
 for the remaining hours. It is also a perfectly correct method: being in
 fact the first method given above with this difference, that instead of
 being applied to space, in which the different parts of the completed product
 lie side by side, it deals with time, in which those parts are successively
 produced. But it can also be accompanied by very barbarian notions, more
 especially in the heads of those who are as much interested, practically,
 in the process of making value beget value, as they are in misunderstanding
 that process theoretically. Such people may get the notion into their heads,
 that our spinner, for example, produces or replaces in the first 8 hours
 of his working-day the value of the cotton; in the following hour
 and 36 minutes the value of the instruments of labour worn away;
 in the next hour and 12 minutes the value of the wages; and that
 he devotes to the production of surplus-value for the manufacturer, only
 that well known “last hour.” In this way the poor spinner is made to perform
 the two-fold miracle not only of producing cotton, spindles, steam-engine,
 coal, oil, &c., at the same time that he spins with them, but also
 of turning one working-day into five; for, in the example we are considering,
 the production of the raw material and instruments of labour demands four
 working-days of twelve hours each, and their conversion into yarn requires
 another such day. That the love of lucre induces an easy belief in such
 miracles, and that sycophant doctrinaires are never wanting to prove them,
 is vouched for by the following incident of historical celebrity.