Sec. 11] PROPERTY 39
increased simply by multiplying the titles to it, would be
checked, and the usual atrocities of double taxation, for in-
stance, of farm and mortgage, or of railways and railway
shares, would be avoided.
If we bear in mind the distinctions in this and in the
previous chapter, we shall see that there is no advantage,
but much disadvantage, in including any “immaterial”
elements in wealth. ‘Immaterial wealth” is, in fact, one
of those bugaboos which have done a great deal to obscure
the simplicity of economic relations. Legal advice or
medical attendance are not “immaterial wealth”; they are,
as we have seen, simply services of wealth (human wealth
in this case). The “properties and powers of nature’
are not wealth, but, as explained in the previous chapter,
are attributes of land and enter economic science merely
as giving characterization to that particular kind of wealth.
They cannot be counted as wealth in addition to the land
any more properly than can the elasticity of rubber be
counted as wealth in addition to the rubber. Likewise,
swift horses are wealth, but not their swiftness; honest, wise,
successful, and healthy men are wealth, but not their hon-
esty, wisdom, skill, or health. Most of the mystery of
banking to the ordinary mind consists in the mistaken no-
tion that credit is something “inflated,” without a tangible
basis. A mere inspection of a bank’s balance sheet should
serve to make clear the fact that behind every claim upon
the bank is something to make it good. If the anterior
something be itself a claim on some other bank or person,
there lies behind it, in turn, some basis, and so on until a
concrete instrument is finally found.
Another common error is the belief that “wealth con-
sists of utility.” If this were true, the law of diminishing
1 See Report of Professor Edward W. Bemis and Carl H. Nau, on
Value of Ohio Railroads, 1903; also, Report of the Interstate Com-
merce Commission on Railways in the United States in 1902, 1903,
Part V.
