Sec. 3] CAPITAL 57 
elements, “capital goods”; Knies,' the futurity of satis- 
factions; Jevons,® and Landry,’ specifically the time be- 
tween the “investment” of the capital and its return. 
§3 
It is idle to attempt any reconciliation between concepts 
of capital so conflicting, and yet there are elements of 
truth in all. Though generally wrongly and narrowly 
interpreted, there are certain recurrent ideas which are 
entirely correct. The definitions concur in striving to ex- 
press the important facts that capital is productive, that it 
is antithetical to income, that it is a provision jor the future, 
or that it is a reserve. But they assume that only a part of 
all wealth can conform to these conditions. To the authors 
of the definitions quoted, it would seem absurd to include all 
wealth as capital, as there would be nothing left with which 
to contrast it and by which to define it. And yet, as 
Professor Marshall says, when one attempts to draw a 
hard-and-fast line between wealth which is capital and 
wealth which is not capital, he finds himself “on an in- 
clined plane,” constantly tending, by being more liberal 
in his interpretation of terms, to include more and more in 
the term capital, until there is little or nothing left outside 
of it. We are told, for instance, that capital is “wealth 
for future use.” But “future” is an elastic term. As was 
shown in Chapter II, all wealth is, strictly speaking, for 
future use. It is impossible to push back its use into the 
past; neither is it possible to confine it to the present. 
The present is but an instant of time, and all use of wealth 
requires some duration of time. A plateful of food, how- 
ever hurriedly it is being eaten, is still for future use, though 
the future is but the next few seconds; and if by “future” 
we mean to exclude the “immediate future,” where is the 
! Das Geld, 2d ed., 1885, pp. 69-70. 
2 Theory of Political Economy, 3d ed., 1888, Chup. VII, pp. 222-242 
8 I’ Intérét du Capital, Paris (Giard), 1904, p. 16.