ABSTRACT
It has been usual in expositions of economic theory to speak of capital as an array of "productive goods". Now, whatever may or may not be true for human conduct in some other bearing, in the economic respect man has never lived an isolated, self-sufficient life as an individual, either actually or potentially. The complement of technological knowledge so held, used, and transmitted in the life of the community is, of course, made up out of the experience of individuals. The nature of landed wealth, in point of economic theory, especially as regards its productivity, has been sifted with the most jealous precautions and the most tenacious logic during the past century. Economic inquiry would belong under that category if the human response to the forces of the environment were instinctive and variational only, including nothing in the way of a technology.
