140 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK 
A 
RL 3 iE 
(e. g., Dunbar, Macvane, Laughlin, Sumner) a reactionary move- 
ment toward a new affirmation of Ricardian “orthodoxy” as 
reformulated in the work of J. S. Mill. Even Francis A. Walker 
did not develop his father Amasa’s more original American treat- 
ment, but built his scheme of distributive theory on the older 
foundations of “land, labor and capital.” There was thus, in the 
thinking of both the rival schools of thought of that time, a lack 
of reality and of rootage in the solid earth of our own economic 
conditions. American economic theorizing suffered then and still 
suffers from this defect. Clark’s reformation of the capital con- 
cept, though couched in excessively abstract phrases, was the 
most vital attempt made in that period to find that reality. It 
was a new and distinct declaration of independence for American 
economic thinking. 
PRE: 
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3. Traces of German Economic Philosophy 
Almost equally lacking in Clark’s writings are any suggestions 
that the ideas now under discussion were derived from German 
sources; but that such is the case can hardly be doubted in view 
of all the circumstances. Clark was a student in Germany in 
1876-1877 and was for a considerable period at Heidelberg under 
Karl Knies. Clark’s writings in the first ten years after his 
return, mostly embodied in his Philosophy of Wealth, evidence 
the deep influence of the ideas of the historical school and of the 
economic-ethical doctrines then current in Germany. Knies him- 
self had published in 1873 Das Geld subtitled also “a discussion of 
capital”; a second, enlarged edition of this was dated 1885. In 
this work appears a conception of capital strikingly like the one 
of Clark which we are examining. This conception had become 
traditional in German economics after the original work of Pro- 
fessor F. B. W. Hermann * first began to exercise an influence 
upon German thought. Hermann based his capital concept on 
property,—though it cannot be said that he succeeded in cléarly 
distinguishing the thought of the value of property from the 
thought of the concrete goods. He included not only land within 
the concept of capital, but also immaterial goods or legal rights 
to income, even though the claims were upon persons and to 
services, and not to material goods. Probably the greatest change 
made by Herrmann was to extend the definition of capital beyond 
t Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen, etc., Munich, 1832.