My scope is much more modest. I have nothing to do with that portion of a man's wealth which consists of land, or fine residence, or valuable pictures, or even, and best of all, the wealth which lies in his superior energy and intelligence. These are, indeed, wealth, but not of the kind with which I wish to deal. I use the word Money in its popular, or, at least one of its popular senses. I' mean by it the surplus wealth implied in the answer to the common enquiry, What is he worth The answer may include much that is invested in trade, or in property of different kinds, (only, however, of such a nature as can be readily realised) but the terms of the answer will be expressed in money. You will be told, not that he has so much corn, or cattle, or cotton, but that he is worth so many hundreds or thousands of pounds. Of course it is as much as your life is worth to suggest to an economist that capital is synonymous with money, and I must not be understood to be preach: ing any such heresy to-night. It is only persons unused to reflection upon the subject, says John Stuart Mill, who would suppose that capital and money were the same thing. Well, let us, as persons not, I hope, wholly unused to reflection, abjure that error and still Jet us admit that Money, if not the whole, is at least a part of Capital. And, as it happens, just that part of Capital of which I wish to speak.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.