on the lecture you have
been giving me.

F. Have you finished your own dissertation? As for me, I have scarcely
begun mine. I have not yet spoken of the _hatred_ of capital, of
gratuitous credit--a fatal notion, a deplorable mistake, which takes
its rise from the same source.

B. What! does this frightful commotion of the populace against
capitalists arise from money being confounded with wealth?

F. It is the result of different causes. Unfortunately, certain
capitalists have arrogated to themselves monopolies and privileges which
are quite sufficient to account for this feeling. But when the theorists
of democracy have wished to justify it, to systematize it, to give it
the appearance of a reasonable opinion, and to turn it against the very
nature of capital, they have had recourse to that false political
economy at whose root the same confusion is always to be found. They
have said to the people:--"Take a crown, put it under a glass; forget it
for a year; then go and look at it, and you will be convinced that it
has not produced ten sous, nor five sous, nor any fraction of a sou.
Therefore, money produces no interest." Then, substituting for the word
money its pretended sign, _capital_, they have made it by their logic
undergo this modification--"Then capital produces no interest." Then
follow this series of consequences--"Therefore he who lends a capital
ought to obtain nothing from it; therefore he who lends you a capital,
if he gains something by it, is robbing you; therefore all capitalists
are robbers; therefore wealth, which ought to serve gratuitously those
who borrow it, belongs in reality to those to whom it does not belong;
therefore there is no such thing as property; therefore everything
belongs to everybody; therefore ..."

B. This is very serious; the more so, from the syllogism being so
admirably formed. I should very much like to be enlightened on the
subject. But, alas! I can no longer command my attention. There is such
a confusion in my head of the words _cash_, _money_, _services_,
_capital_, _interest_, that, really, I hardly know where I am. We will,
if you please, resume the conversation another day.

F. In the meantime, here is a little work entitled _Capital and Rent_.
It may perhaps remove some of your doubts. Just look at it, when you are
in want of a little amusement.

B. To amuse me?

F. Who knows? One nail drives in another; one wearisome thing drives
away another.

B. I have