We see, accordingly, that in Credit our science of Economics takes partial possession of future time for certain purposes of its own. Exchange sets its throne and reigns pre-eminently in present time; but its sceptre extends also over past time, so far as all capital is concerned, and so far as all material commodities (the result of past work) are exposed for sale in the present; and its right hand of rule goes forth also to grasp the future, under limitations indeed both as to the stretch of time covered and as to the character of the persons concerned, but still there is there a fair domain and a broad domain, and a realm on the whole winning a wider and wider circuit. It is one of the proud boasts of Political Economy as a science, as it is too one of the exalted traits of human nature, that the lordly impulse to buy and sell does not confine itself to what the Past offers in all its accumulated valuables, nor to what the Present unfolds in the unlimited desires and efforts of congregated men, but reaches out also into the Future, and makes that pay tribute more and more into the vast treasury of its Gains. And this too is legitimate. Man is at once and all the time actor and historian and prophet. The future is not wholly unknown. Given the one assumption, that Earth and Men go on as heretofore, Exchange knows well enough, and better and better, whom of the coming men to trust and for how long a time. The doctrine of averages and of probabilities comes along to guide and to enhearten the investor. Any thoroughly established government of to-day can borrow all the money that it wants on its public pledge to repay the principal fifty years hence. England has borrowed millions of pounds sterling, giving no day certain in the future for its repayment. These funds are called "Consolidated Annuities": the interest on them is paid on a day nominated in the bond: the principal is to be paid when the borrower chooses, or never.