It is now clear to the capitalist that this increment of value springs from the productive processes undertaken with the capital, that it therefore springs from the capital itself, because it is there after the production process, while it is not there before it. As for the capital consumed in production, the surplus-value seems to spring equally from all its different elements of value consisting of means of production and labour. For all these elements contribute equally to the formation of the cost-price. All of them add their values, obtaining as advanced capital, to the value of the product, and are not differentiated as constant and variable magnitudes of value. This becomes obvious if we assume for a moment that all the expended capital consisted either exclusively of wages, or exclusively of the value of the means of production. In the first case, we should then have the commodity-value of 500v + 100s instead of the commodity-value of 400c + 100v + 100s. The capital of £500 laid out in wages represents the value of all the labour expended in the production of the commodity-value of £600, and for just this reason forms the cost-price of the entire product. But the formation of this cost-price, whereby the value of the expended capital is reproduced as a constituent part of the value of the product, is the only process in the formation of this commodity-value that is known to us. We do not know how its surplus-value portion of £100 is formed. The same is true in the second case, in which the commodity-value = 500c + 100s. We know in both cases that surplus-value is derived from a given value, because this value was advanced in the form of productive capital, be it in the form of labour or of means of production. On the other hand, this advanced capital-value cannot form surplus-value for the reason that it has been expended and therefore constitutes the cost-price of the commodity. Precisely because it forms the cost-price of the commodity, it does not form any surplus-value, but merely an equivalent, a value replacing the expended capital. So far, therefore, as it forms surplus-value, it does so not in its specific capacity as expended, but rather as advanced, and hence utilised, capital. For this reason, the surplus-value arises as much out of the portion of the advanced capital which goes into the cost-price of the commodity, as out of the portion which does not. In short, it arises equally out of the fixed and the circulating components of the utilised capital. The aggregate capital serves materially as the creator of products, the means of labour as well as the materials of production, and the labour. The total capital materially enters into the actual labour-process, even though only a portion of it enters the process of self-expansion. This is, perhaps, the very reason why it contributes only in part to the formation of the cost-price, but totally to the formation of surplus-value. However that may be, the outcome is that surplus-value springs simultaneously from all portions of the invested capital. This deduction may be substantially abbreviated, by saying pointedly and concisely in the words of Malthus: