CHAPTER 1V

CAPITAL

§ 1

In the foregoing introduction we have set forth several
fundamental concepts of economic science, — wealth,
property, services, satisfactions, utility, price, and value.
We have seen that wealth consists of material appropriated
objects, and property, of rights in these objects; that wealth
in its broadest sense includes human beings, and property
in its broadest sense includes all rights whatsoever; that
services are the benefits of wealth, satisfactions the enjoyment
 of services, and desirability or utility the desire for
wealth, property, services, or satisfactions: that prices are
the ratios of exchange between quantities of wealth, property,
 or services; and, finally, that value is the price of any
of these multiplied by the quantity. These concepts are
the chief tools needed in economic study.
Nothing has yet been said as to the relation of these
various magnitudes to that great “Independent variable”
of human experience, time. When we speak of a certain
quantity of wealth we may have reference either to a quantity
 existing at a particular instant of time, or to a quantity
 produced, consumed, exchanged, or transported during
a period of time. The first quantity is a stock (or fund)
of wealth; the second quantity is a flow (or stream) of
wealth. The contents of a granary at noon, January 1,
1906, is a stock of wheat; the amount of wheat which has
been hoisted into it during a week, or the amount of wheat
which has been exported from the port of New York during

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