As a historical judgment this is very misleading. Adam Smith, chiefly impressed by the necessity of separating consumptive goods from goods used as a means of making an income--_e.g._, commercial capital, quite logically severed revenue from capital as a distinct species of the community's stock. His "followers," however, differed very widely, and usually expressed themselves obscurely. Generally speaking, the English economists of the first half of this century inclined to the inclusion of certain consumptive goods in the possession of labourers under capital. Ricardo, for example, thus expresses himself:--"In every society the capital which is employed in production is necessarily of limited durability. The food and clothing consumed by the labourer, the buildings in which he works, the implements with which his labour is assisted, are all of a perishable value. There is, however, a vast difference in the time for which all these different capitals will endure. A steam engine will last longer than a ship, a ship than the clothing of the labourer, and the clothing of the labourer than the food which he consumes." (_Principles of Political Economy_, 1817, p. 22.) The last sentence is conclusive in its inclusion under capital of goods in the possession of labourers. McCulloch again regrets Smith's exclusion of "revenue" from capital, insisting that "it is enough to entitle an article to be considered capital that it can directly contribute to the support of man or assist him in appropriating or producing commodities," and he would even go so far as to include "a horse yoked to a gentleman's coach," on the ground that it was "possessed of the capacity to assist in production." (_Principles of Political Economy_, Part I., chap. ii. § 3.)