Again, he may transfer this warrant to another, to use it as he pleases, under the double condition of ‹restitution›, and of a ‹service›, at a fixed date. If we go to the bottom of the matter, we shall find that in this case the person who lends or transfers capital [p201] ‹deprives himself›, in favour of the cessionary or recipient, either of an immediate satisfaction, which he defers for some years, or of an instrument of labour which would have increased his power of production, procured him the co-operation of natural agents, and augmented, to his profit, the proportion of satisfactions to efforts. He strips himself of these advantages, in order to invest another with them. This is undoubtedly to render a ‹service›, and in equity this service is entitled to a return. Mere restitution at the year’s end cannot be considered as the remuneration of this special service. Observe that the transaction here is not a sale, where the delivery of the thing sold is immediate, and the return or remuneration is immediate also. What we have to do with here is delay. And this delay is ‹in itself› a special service, seeing that it imposes a sacrifice on the person who accords it, and confers an advantage on the person who asks for it. There must, then, be remuneration, or we must give up that supreme law of society, ‹service for service›. This remuneration is variously denominated, according to circumstances—‹hire›, ‹rent›, yearly ‹income›—but its generic name is ‹Interest›.[51] Every ‹service› then is, or may become, a Capital, an admirable phenomenon due to the mechanism of exchange. If workmen are to commence the construction of a railway ten years hence, we could not at the present moment store up in kind the corn which is to feed them, the stuff which is to clothe them, and the barrows and implements of which they will have need during that protracted operation. But we can save up and transmit to them the ‹value› of these things. For this purpose it is enough that we render present services to society, and obtain for these services the warrants, in money or credits of which I have spoken, which can be converted into corn or cloth ten years hence. It is not even necessary that we should leave these warrants dormant and unproductive in the interval. There are merchants, bankers, and others in society who, for the use of our services or their results, render us the service of imposing upon themselves these privations in our place.