n speaking of the necessaries he
consumes to enable him to work as "capital." "Some enjoyment is indeed
derived from the consumption of the necessaries of life which are
included under capital; but they are counted as capital because of the
work for the future which they enable people to do, and not on account
of the present pleasure which they afford." (_Principles_, 2nd edit.,
p. 125.)

These instances show that Jevons is wrong in attributing to English
economists a general acceptance of the belief that goods cease to be
capital when they come into the possession of consumers. They also
serve to explain the source of the conflict of judgment and the
confusion of expression. Economists who take it to be the end of
industrial activity to place in the possession of consumers goods
which shall satisfy their desires, regard "capital" as a convenient
term to cover those forms of wealth which are a means to this end, and
are thus logically driven to exclude all consumers' goods from
capital. This view of capital coincides with the ordinary accepted
commercial view which regards capital not from its productivity side
but from its income-yielding side. Those economists, on the other
hand, who actually, though not avowedly, take production to be the end
of industry, regard as "capital" all forms of material wealth which
are means to that end, and therefore include food, etc., productively
consumed by labourers. If work considered as distinct from enjoyment
be regarded as the end, it is reasonable enough that some term should
be used to cover all the forms of material wealth serviceable to that
end. It is, however, unfortunate that the term "capital" should be
twisted from its fairly consistent commercial use to this purpose.

Dr. Keynes,[170] who seems to think the sole difficulty as regards the
definition of capital arises from the difference in the point of view
of the individual and of the community, suggests the use of two terms,
"revenue capital" and "production capital." But these terms are doubly
unsatisfactory. In the first place, the "productive consumption"
economist might fairly claim that as his food, etc., enabled the
workman to obtain his wages or revenue, they belonged to revenue
capital. On the other hand, regarding it as essential to distinct
terminology to sever entirely consumptive goods from productive goods,
I should insist that the "production capital" of the community was
synonymous with its "revenue ca