TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



691 



liigher grades of them) may by parity claim the greater part of the produce as their 

 ' own creation '—what would not have existed but for the exertion of their faculties. 



In short, we know no more than we knew at first — viz. that the distribuend is* 

 l)roduced jointly by the owners of brain and muscle, that the terms of the distribu- 

 tion are determined by Supply and Demand, and that in this, as in every other 

 market, each more favoured nature enjoys a rent, or differential advantage [the 

 nature of which is well illustrated by Messrs. Auspitz and Lichen's construction in- 

 dicated in our note (e)]. That the surplus earning of the superior entreprenexi.r is his 

 own creation is true of the individual, but not of the class ; in Division, but not in 

 Composition. 



However, Professor Walker may have tacitly made some specific assumptions as 

 to the quantities involved {e.g., the proportion of produce with which the marginal 



FiQ. 7. 



entreprerievrs are concerned) ; or I may have misinterpreted his statements. Even 

 so, the liability to such misconstruction is a defect in the purely literary method. 



It would be easy in the case of less eminent w-ritcrs to exemplify the part wliich 

 the mathematical ori/awwi may play in lopping the excrescences of verbal dialectics. 

 But I must content myself with briefly adverting to one of Prof. Walker's critics, 

 Mr. Sidney Webb. His able paper on the ' Rate of Interest and the Laws of Distri- 

 bution ' apiicars to me to contain several points deserving of attention ; with respect 

 to^ which mathematical conceptions may assist the reader in distinguishing the 

 original from the familiar, and the true from the misleading. 



(1.) Mr. Webb restates the theory formulated by Jevons, that capital is ideally 

 distributed according to the law of ' equal returns to the last increments.' (' Rate of 

 Interest and Laws of Di.stribution,' bv S. Webb, p. 10, 11, 21 of paper reprinted from 

 ■• Quarterly Journal of Economics,' Jan. 1888. 



In symbols (see above, note (/), p. G87) let the net earning of any Individual be 

 ^•"(cr) — iCr; where /r is a function differing for different individuals according to their 



T Y 2 



