Seo. 2] CAPITAL 53 
The railways of the country are capital; their services of 
transportation or the dividends from the sale of that 
transportation are the income they yield. 
The distinction between capital and income is somewhat 
analogous to the distinction between desirability and satvs- 
factions, which was emphasized in Chapter III; for desira- 
bility was shown to relate to a point of time and satisfactions 
to a period of time. 
§ 2 
The foregoing definitions of capital and income are not, 
it is true, universally accepted. Many authors attempt 
to define capital, not as wealth in a particular as- 
pect with reference to time, but as a particular kind or 
species of wealth, or as wealth restricted to a particular 
purpose; in short, as some specific part of wealth instead 
of any or all of it. We are obliged, therefore, to pause a 
moment to consider these opinions. In this chapter 
we are concerned with the concept of capital only. 
From the time of Adam Smith it has been asserted 
by economists, though not usually by business men, 
that only particular kinds of wealth could be capital, and 
the burning question has been, What kinds? But the fail- 
ure to agree on any dividing line between wealth which is 
and wealth which is not capital, after a century and a half 
of discussion, certainly suggests the suspicion that no 
such line exists.! What Senior wrote seven decades ago 
is true to-day: “Capital has been so variously defined, 
that it may be doubtful whether it have any generally 
received meaning.” ? In consequence, ‘almost every 
year there appears some new attempt to settle the disputed 
conception, but, unfortunately, no authoritative result 
has as yet followed these attempts. On the contrary, 
1 For a fuller statement than that which follows of the dis- 
agreements and confusions on this subject, see the writer's “ What is 
Capital?” Economic Journal, December, 1896. 
3 “Political Economy,” Encyclopedia M. etropolitana, Vol. VI, p. 153.