In this entire section we have discussed only the turnovers of the circulating capital, not those of the fixed, for the simple reason that the question at issue has nothing to do with fixed capital. The instruments of labour, etc., employed in the process of production form only fixed capital, inasmuch as their time of employment exceeds the period of turnover of the circulating capital; inasmuch as the period of time during which these instruments of labour continue to serve in perpetually repeated labour-processes is greater than the period of turnover of the circulating capital, and hence equal to the n periods of turnover of the circulating capital. Regardless of whether the total time represented by these n periods of turnover of the circulating capital is longer or shorter, that portion of the productive capital which was advanced for this time in fixed capital is not advanced anew during its course. It continues its functions in its old use-form. The difference is merely this: In proportion to the varying length of a single working period of each period of turnover of the circulating capital, the fixed capital gives up a greater or smaller part of its original value to the product of that working period, and proportionally to the duration of the circulation time of each period of turnover this value-part of the fixed capital given up to the product returns quicker or slower in money-form. The nature of the subject we are discussing in this section — the turnover of the circulating portion of productive capital — derives from the very nature of this portion. The circulating capital employed in a working period cannot be applied in a new working period until it has completed its turnover, until it has been transformed into commodity-capital, from that into money-capital, and from that back into productive capital. Hence, in order that the first working period may be immediately followed by a second, capital must be advanced anew and converted into the circulating elements of productive capital, and its quantity must be sufficient to fill the void occasioned by the circulation period of the circulating capital advanced or the first working period. This is the source of the influence exerted by the length of the working period of the circulating capital over the scale of the labour-process and the division of the advanced capital or the addition of new portions of capital. This was precisely what we had to examine in this section.