156 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Crar. IX
tion, it would be necessary to include still other accounts.
If we should follow up all such leads we should soon have an
intricate network of related accounts. But the same prin-
ciple of the interaction as a self-effacing element would apply.
The only items of outgo which are not the negative sides of
interactions will be the items of subjective labor and
trouble. These alone will finally remain as uncanceled
elements of outgo.
§7 ;
The table given will throw light on the question, Of what
does income consist? The question is not a thoroughly
definite one. If we ask instead, Of what does the income
from a particular group of capital consist? we shall make it
definite. Whether the production of logs is income or not
depends upon the point of view. It is income from the
first link of capital (logging camp) in our series; it is not
income from the first two links combined, for in the second
link it occurs as outgo. Likewise, the use of the ware-
house is true income with respect to the first four links
or groups of capital, but is no longer income when the fifth
is included.
We see, therefore, that the income from any group of
capital does not consist in any degree of the interactions
taking place within it, but only of the final or outer fringe
of services performed by the group. As the group is en-
larged, this particular outer fringe disappears by being
joined to the next part of the economic fabric, and another
fringe, still more remote, appears. The question naturally
arises, When is the economic fabric complete, and has it any
final outer fringe? But this question must be deferred for
the present.
Nor do we yet inquire what relations exist between the
two sides of the same account, say the expense to the saw-
mill for logs and its income from sawn lumber. In the illus-
trative tables the latter is entered as greater than the
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