58. All capital in money, and all amounts of value, are
equivalent to land producing a revenue equal to some portion of
that capital or value. First employment of capitals. Purchase of
lands.
Let us now go back to the time after the introduction of
money. The facility of accumulating it has soon rendered it the
most desirable part of personal property, and has afforded the
means of augmenting, by economy, the quantity of it without
limits. Whoever, either by the revenue of his land. or by the
salary of his labour or industry, receives every year a higher
income than he needs to spend, may lay up the residue and
accumulate it: these accumulated values are what we name a
capital. The pusillanimous miser, that keeps his money with the
mere view of soothing his imagination against apprehension of
distress in the uncertainty of futurity, keeps his money in a
hoard. If the dangers he had foreseen should eventually take
place, and he in his poverty be reduced to live every year upon
the treasure, or a prodigal successor lavish it by degrees, this
treasure would soon be exhausted, and the capital totally lost to
the possessor. The latter can draw a far greater advantage from
it; for an estate in land of a certain revenue, being but an
equivalent of a sum of value equal to the revenue, taken a
certain number of times, it follows, that any sum whatsoever of
value is equivalent to an estate in land, producing a revenue
equal to a fixed proportion of that sum. It is perfectly the same
whether the amount of this capital consists in a mass of metal,
or any other matter, since money represents all kinds of value.
as well as all kinds of value represent money. By these means the
possessor of a capital may at first employ it in the purchase of
lands; but he is not without other resources.
