4 . Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
very important quality in connection with the distribution of wealth, and 
should, therefore, be accurately defined and carefully studied, but it should 
not be treated as a specific distinction of wealth itself. Mill himself says 
(Book III., chap. i.), that “The conditions and laws of production would be 
the same as they are if the arrangements of society did not depend on 
exchange, or did not admit of it." Here **production" means the pro- 
duetion of things whieh must, by the definition, possess exchangeable 
value; but if the arrangements of society did not admit of the existence 
of exchangeable value at all, how could the production of things possessing 
it becarried on? Again, he says: “ Exchange is not the fundamental law 
of the distribution of the produce, no more than roads and carriages are the 
essential laws of motion, but merely a part of the machinery for effecting 
it.” A definition, however, of motion, which made it dependent on the 
existence of roads and carriages, would be exactly parallel to a definition 
which makes wealth dependent on exchangeable value. 
It is always undesirable to use a definition which pointedly draws the 
attention to any accidental quality of the thing defined, in such a manner 
that this quality may come to be regarded as essential. More especially is 
this the case when there already exists a tendency to regard the accidental 
quality as the only necessary and essential one. There can be no doubt of 
the existence of such a tendeney as regards the exchange value of wealth. 
How many people look upon a short harvest as a not very great misfortune, 
because they think the high prices for which it is sold make up for the 
shortness of the crop? In one of President Grant's annual messages he 
congratulates his fellow-countrymen on the rise of prices in grain and pork 
which the Franco-German war had caused, and which he thought must be 
of great advantage to the United States. He evidently looked upon the rise 
in the exchange value of these commodities as equivalent to an increase of 
their utility, and that a scarcity of the necessaries of life was no real mis- 
fortune to the labouring classes of his country as long as it was accompanied 
by high prices. "Where such opinions are held, even by men of education, 
it is surely well not to carelessly use a definition which gives a sort of 
plausibility to the error. 
I propose to define wealth to be anything which is useful to man, by 
enabling him to live more comfortably or elegantly than he could with- 
out it. 
Of the total wealth existing in a community a part is usually called 
capital. Unfortunately, this word has several different meanings in com- 
mon language, and confusion and error have arisen from its being used 
in one of these instead of in its defined meaning. It sometimes denotes not 
actual wealth, but a right to a certain share of the wealth of the community. 
