In the Economic realm all human exertion is usually and appropriately distinguished by the technical term “Labor.” This Economic term for human exertion in the production of satisfactions for human wants has been much abused by colloquial interpretations. So interpreted, Labor is often limited in meaning to the exertions of persons hired in “lower class” pursuits for fixed “wages.” For somewhat “higher” grades of service, “salaries” instead of “wages” are paid. For self-employers still other terms are colloquially used, such as “profits” for the services of merchants and manufacturers and contractors; “fees” for the services of lawyers and physicians; “commissions” for the services of salesmen and brokers; and “discounts” for the services of bankers. Those verbal variations are of course admissible for such secondary purposes as private business may require; but for fundamental or general Economic distinctions which concern the whole human family, they are recklessly undiscriminative and hopelessly confusing. This lack of discrimination is attributable to a tendency in Economic study toward devotion to infinite detail regardless of precise generalization. The result is a confusion of fundamentally different objects in messy categories, such as Labor with Labor-products; such as Labor-products with Natural Resources; such as income from Natural Resources with income from Labor--as, for instance, “Land” (Natural Resources) with “Capital” (Artificial Objects). It is like thinking of oil and water as a chemical compound when they happen to be in the same receptacle. Fundamental conclusions in Economics cannot be based upon unassorted details. Students must concentrate their study upon the big facts, the Basic Facts, those primary categories which distinctively classify the whole swarm of secondary facts. Well enough it may be not to start out with assumed principles, nor with the scientific substitute known as “hypotheses;” but all rational study of Economics must begin with the Basic Facts and proceed thence to a consideration of details with reference to their basic relations. The distinctive phase of the present Lesson with reference to human exertion is exertion of the Economic type. Whatever its kind as matter of secondary classification, all human exertion comes within the meaning of the comprehensive Economic term for human service, which, as already stated, is Labor.