106 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cmae. VII 
The choice of the commodities to be included has usually 
fallen on the less durable varieties, such as food, fuel, 
and clothing, while the objects the uses of which have been 
included have been the more durable instruments, 
such as dwelling-houses. In the case of intermediate types, 
such as carriages, furniture, and musical instruments, no 
fixed rule seems to have been observed. Some economists 
are inclined to regard a newly acquired piano as a part of 
real income, others to regard the music which comes from 
it as the real income, while still others apparently regard 
both the piano and its music as real income. Evidently 
such a patchwork of arbitrarily selected elements is in- 
capable of furnishing any consistent, reliable, and logical 
theory of income. 
§ 4 
The only true method, in our view, is to regard uniformly 
as income the service of a dwelling to its owner (shelter 
or money rental), the service of a piano (music), and 
the service of food (nourishment); and in the same uni- 
form manner to exclude alike from the category of income 
the dwelling, the piano, and even the food. These are capi- 
tal, not income; and the instant we include any such con- 
crete wealth under the head of income, that instant we begin 
to confuse capital and income. The newly purchased or 
newly constructed house is not an element of income, but 
of capital. The income appears afterward in the services 
the house yields its owner, — the shelter it affords through 
subsequent years or the bringing in of a money rent to its 
owner. In like manner the newly acquired piano and loaf 
of bread are not income, but capital. Their income fol- 
lows later in the form of piano music and nourishment. 
No reason has ever been given why the short-lived bread 
should be treated differently from the long-lived dwelling. 
The use of the bread is just as distinct from the bread as 
the use of the dwelling is distinct from the dwelling. The