60 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Crar. IV
nition of the time principle here propounded. The “capi-
tal account” of a railway, for instance, gives the condition
of the railway at a particular instant of time, and the ““in-
come account’ gives its operation through a period of time.
$5
It has been objected that the proposed definition does
not conform to established usage. So far as economic prece-
dent is concerned, we have already seen that there is no
established usage.! Moreover, in the immense literature
on the subject there is no lack of precedent for the defini-'
tion here proposed. Turgot? employed the term capital
in practically the sense of a stock of wealth. J. B. Say?
Courcelle-Seneuil,* and Guyot * followed. Edwin Cannan,®
among present economists, reintroduced it, and in a very
tlear and explicit way. To-day it is used in five or six
standard works,” as well as in some minor writings. Many
economists have orally expressed their approval of the pro-
posed definition.
Others virtually or approximately adopt it, as, for in-
stance, Knies,® Clark ® Pareto,® Giffen,’ De Foville,”® Flux,
1 For a fuller statement of this fact see the writer’s “Precedents
for Defining Capital,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1904.
2 Formation and Distribution of Riches, § 58, Ashley’s translation
(Macmillan, New York), pp. 50-59.
3 See Tuttle, “The Real Capital Concept,” Quarterly Journal of
Beonomics, November, 1903, p. 83; but cf. Bohm-Bawerk, Positive
Theory, English translation, p. 59, n.
4 Traité théorique et pratique d’ Economie Politique, 1867, tome I, p. 47.
5 Principles of Social Economy, English translation, p. 50.
® Theories of Production and Distribution, London, 1894, p. 14.
" Among them are Cannan’s History of Theories of Distribution,
Hadley’s Economics, Smart’s Distribution of Income, Daniels’s Fi-
nance, Fetter’s Principles of Economics, Seligman’s Principles of Eco-
nomics.
8 See “What is Capital?” loc. cit.
® In his Growth of Capital.
In his “Wealth of France and of Other Countries,” English
translation, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 1894.
1 Economic Principles, London (Methuen), 1904, pp. 16-18.
