14 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
food to maintain both themselves and the other labourers, he is said 
to invest his capital and to live on the interest. The more he gives to 
the labourers and the less he uses for himself, the more he is said to 
save. Of course there can be no limit to the saving of this kind which 
it is desirable that he shall make, short of his not keeping enough to 
maintain himself in average comfort. All that he saves is consumed by 
the workmen, so that the community as a whole stores up nothing. 
Both capitalist and workmen cannot save at the same time, except, as 
before said, by making new implements. If they both persist in refusing 
to consume the wealth produced, their barns would be filled with grain 
for the benefit of the rats, and their warehouses with cloth and iron 
for the moth and rust to corrupt; but they could not go on for ever 
in that way, and would have eventually to cease work. Any indivi- 
dual workman may save, that is, he may refrain from consuming his share 
and invest it, by giving it to his fellow-workmen who would consume it; 
but the whole body of workmen can only become capitalists by making new 
implements, unless other capitalists live beyond their incomes. 
It must not be forgotten that implements are made for the purpose of 
being at once useful and not for the sake of storing wealth. If one genera- 
tion gets any advantage from the labour of its predecessor, it is due to the 
accident that most implements, and some articles of direct wealth, are made 
of durable materials, and not to any saving made intentionally with the view 
of benefiting posterity. One generation, however, owes very little to its 
foregoers of the material wealth it enjoys. The greater part of the wealth 
of the community was made within the last year, and very little is ten 
years old. The accumulations we have received from our fathers, and 
owe to our sons, are knowledge of the laws of nature, good laws, and habits 
of labour. If these are increased, the means of producing material wealth 
are also increased; with the same labour our sons will be able to live better 
than we, unless their numbers increase so much that they cannot produce 
sufficient food without increasing the proportion of those employed in 
producing it as compared with the whole community. 
Capital. 
This word has not been as closely defined as its importance requires, 
nor is it uniformly used in its defined meaning. Mill says it is “a requisite 
without which no productive operations beyond the rude and scanty 
beginnings of primitive industry are possible.” His first definition already 
quoted, makes it equivalent to all exchangeable wealth, except land and its 
spontaneous productions. With this meaning it is clearly an unnecessary 
word. Landis simply an implement, and does not require to be classed 
