◆¹ And now let us go back to the subject of Capital. I have said that Capital is one kind of Human Exertion guiding and controlling another kind. We can at last express this with more brevity, and say that Capital is Ability guiding and controlling Labour. This is no mere rhetorical or metaphorical statement. It is the accurate expression of what is at once a theoretical truth and an historical fact; and to show the reader that it is so, let me remove certain objections which may very possibly suggest themselves. In the first place, it may be said that Capital belongs constantly to idle and foolish persons, or even indeed to idiots, to all of whom it yields a revenue. This is true; but such an objection altogether ignores the fact that though such persons own the Capital, they do not administer it. An idiot inherits shares in a great commercial house; but the men who manage the business are not idiots. They only pay the idiot a certain sum for allowing his Capital to be made use of by their Ability. It may, however, be said further that many men, neither idle nor idiotic, had administered Capital themselves, and had succeeded merely in wasting it. This again is true; but where Capital is wasted the productive powers of the nation are not increased by it. It is, however, a broad historical fact that, by the application of Capital the productive powers of the nation have been increasing continually for more than a hundred years, and are increasing still; and this is the fact, or the phenomenon, which we are engaged in studying. Capital for us, then, means Capital applied successfully; and when I say that Capital is Ability guiding and controlling Labour, it is of Capital applied successfully, and not of Capital wasted, that I must in every case be understood to be speaking; just as if it were said that a battle was won by British bayonets, the bayonets meant would be those that the combatants used, not those that deserters happened to throw away. The fact, indeed, that in certain hands so much Capital is thrown away and wasted, is nothing but a proof of what I say, that as a productive agent Capital represents, and practically _is_, Ability. [Sidenote ◆1 Capital is to Ability something like what the brain is to the mind.]