Page:Manual of Political Economy.djvu/68

Rh to employ productively is capital. But this affords no correct estimate of the quantity of this wealth which will be ultimately employed as capital. The intentions of the individual owners may change; he who to-day intends to devote to productive employment so much wealth as is represented by a certain quantity of wheat in his possession, may next day resolve to spend it on unproductive consumption, and therefore, to speak correctly, the amount of the capital of a country varies from day to day, on account of the shifting caprice of individuals. It has been supposed that the whole of this wheat will have been consumed when the next harvest arrives, and then the exact quantity of the wheat which has been employed as capital would of course be known, if the portion of it which had been devoted to productive purposes could be ascertained.

A difficulty may here probably suggest itself, which it is very important should be cleared away. A prime necessary of life such as wheat is never to any large extent wasted or squandered luxuriously; the great bulk of it being always devoted to satisfy the most necessary wants of life. It may therefore be asked. Should not all the wheat which a country possesses be regarded as a portion of its capital, when it is consumed as usefully as any commodity can be? A prodigal farmer may sell his wheat, and squander the money which he obtains for it, but the wheat will not be wasted, and therefore it might be very plausibly urged that the individual owner of a commodity like wheat does not prevent it being productively employed, or, in other words, has not the power of determining whether it shall or shall not form a portion of the capital of the country. We have thus gradually found our way to a difficulty. The subject of capital cannot be considered under too many aspects; it is here that the young student in political economy finds himself most beset with difficulty. He will never become familiar with the fundamental principles of capital by exhibiting them in the form of propositions; they had better be suggested to him by following out some illustration. An adequate grasp is never obtained of the physical principles of mechanics, until the student has solved problems for himself.