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.