This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ...designates bank notes as productive capital. Wealth of Nations, Bk. II., ch. ii. t Trail d"Economie Polilique, p. 1. 1. Court d"Economic Politique, Part IV., ch. v. i Principles of Political Economy, Bk. III., ch. xii., 1. Whately is the only English economist that we are aware of who has drawn especial attention to incorporeal property. He says: "The only diff1culty I can foresee as attendant on the language I have been now using, is one which (i. e., defining political economy as the science of exchanges) vanishes so readily on a moment"s reflection as to be hardly worth mentioning. In many cases, where an exchange really takes place, the fact is liable (till the attention be called to it) to be overlooked, in consequence of our not seeing any actual transfer from hand to hand of a material object. For instance, when the copyright of a book is sold to a publisher, the article transferred is not the mere paper covered with writing, but the exclusive privilege of printing and publishing. It is plain, however, on a moment"s thought, that the transaction is as real an exchange as that which takes place between the bookseller and his customers who buy copies of the work. The payment of rent for land is a transaction of a similar kind, though the land itself is a material object; it is not this that is parted with to the tenant, but the right to till it, or to make use of it in some other specif1ed manner. Sometimes, for instance, rent is paid for a right of way through another"s field, or for liberty to erect a booth during a fair, or to race or exercise horses." And Whately says in a note to this passage: "This instance, by the way, evinces the impropriety of limiting the term wealth to material objects." Thus in this passage is found the...