have power of exchanging either for something we like better. But our
power of effecting such exchange, and yet more, of effecting it to
advantage, depends absolutely on the number of accessible persons who
can understand the book, or enjoy the painting, and who will dispute the
possession of them. Thus the actual worth of either, even to us, depends
no more on their essential goodness than on the capacity existing
somewhere for the perception of it; and it is vain in any completed
system of production to think of obtaining one without the other. So
that, though the true political economist knows that co-existence of
capacity for use with temporary possession cannot be always secured, the
final fact, on which he bases all action and administration, is that, in
the whole nation, or group of nations, he has to deal with, for every
atom of intrinsic value produced he must with exactest chemistry produce
its twin atom of acceptant digestion, or understanding capacity; or, in
the degree of his failure, he has no wealth. Nature's challenge to us
is, in earnest, as the Assyrians mock; "I will give thee two thousand
horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them." Bavieca's
paces are brave, if the Cid backs him; but woe to us, if we take the
dust of capacity, wearing the armour of it, for capacity itself, for so
all procession, however goodly in the show of it, is to the tomb.

36. The second error in this popular view of wealth is, that in giving
the name of wealth to things which we cannot use, we in reality confuse
wealth with money. The land we have no skill to cultivate, the book
which is sealed to us, or dress which is superfluous, may indeed be
exchangeable, but as such are nothing more than a cumbrous form of
bank-note, of doubtful or slow convertibility. As long as we retain
possession of them, we merely keep our bank-notes in the shape of gravel
or clay, of book-leaves, or of embroidered tissue. Circumstances may,
perhaps, render such forms the safest, or a certain complacency may
attach to the exhibition of them; into both these advantages we shall
inquire afterwards; I wish the reader only to observe here, that
exchangeable property which we cannot use is, to us personally, merely
one of the forms of money, not of wealth.

37. The third error in the popular view is the confusion of Guardianship
with Possession; the real state of men of property being, too commonly,
that of curators, not possessors, of w