The M ediation o f Nature through Society

labour must take as its starting-point, and its determinate

form, as mediated through men:
T he indifference o f material towards form develops from mere ob jecti
fied labour-tim e, in whose objective existence labour only continues to
subsist as the vanished, externa}form o f its natural substance. T he fi>rm
is itself external to the substance (as the form o f the table is external to
the wood, or the ibrm o f the roller is external to the iron), in other
words it m erely exists in the external form o f the material. T h e m aterial
does not maintain its form through any living, immanent law o f repro
duction, in the way that the tree maintains its form as a tree. The form
exists only as a form external to the material, or only M aterially
[M arxs capitalization]. For exam ple, wood maintains itself in the
definite form o f a tree, because this form is a form o f wood; whereas in
the case o f a table its form is an accidental property o f the wood, not
the immanent form o f its substance. W hen the material is destroyed,
therefore, the form is destroyed along with it.**

W ith the destruction o f the use-value, the quantum o f

labour embedded in its material is similarly lost.
We are dealing here, o f course, with a merely relative
indifference o f form towards material. In the abovementioned instance, where a product composed o f natural
material and labour is incorporated into further labourprocesses, the amount and type o f labour already concealed
within the product is by no means a matter o f indifference:
The quantity o f objectified labour is maintained by the maintenance o f
its quality as a source o f use-values for further labour through contact
with living labour.**

It is characteristic o f the simple process o f production

that in it the qualitative determinacy o f the labour already
expended continues to be upheld. T his maintenance o f
quality in the process o f creating value simultaneously
involves the maintenance o f the quantity o f labour. It is
true that living labour adds a new quantity o f labour to that
already objectified. But it is not the added quantity o f
labour which maintains the objectified labour, rather it is
labours quality as living labour in general. W hen added to
the product, it transcends the mutual indifference o f the
form and the material subsisting within it:
T he objectified labour ceases to exist as som ething dead, a form
external to, indifferent to the m aterial, since it. is again posited as a
moment o f livin g labour; as a relation o f living labour to itself in an