Meanwhile the above considerations have an important bearing on the rewards which can often be obtained from risky enterprises. The number of individuals who are in a position to envisage a business opportunity, and to assess with some confidence the chances of success and failure is very limited. Not only must they possess special knowledge, ability, imagination, confidence in their own judgment, and the capacity to act on it; they must also have at their disposal considerable financial resources. To combine all these advantages represents a union of circumstances which is distinctly rare. The fortunate few, who do combine them, are thus generally able to extract in the form of profits a high price for their services, a price which covers not only the strict reward of risk-bearing, and the necessary remuneration of their own service, but a handsome payment for the special qualities and advantages which have been indicated. Profits, moreover, may vary between one industry and another, not only in accordance with the real risk which is entailed, but with the degree to which the supply of special knowledge, etc., is scarce or abundant. This consideration goes a long way to explain the large fortunes which enterprising business men are often able to amass. It also throws some much-needed light upon the functions which such men discharge. They perform to a large extent the work of management; they supply capital on what may be a considerable scale; but it is the taking of business risk which is perhaps their most characteristic function. It is the union of these functions which distinguishes them as an essentially different type from the salaried manager who has invested his savings in rubber or in oil. In other languages there is a specific name for the man who combines all these three functions; in French he is called an "entrepreneur," in German an "Unternehmer." It is much to be regretted that in English we have no clear corresponding word. The word "capitalist" is not uncommonly employed to do duty in this connection, but this is a source of much confusion. For the word is also used, and more appropriately, to include all investors, whether or not they are active business men.