though, from his standpoint, the slave is capital. He proceeds with the very uneconomic assertion that life consists in action (πρᾶξις), not in production (ποίησις),594 and concludes with the real goal of his argument, that the slave is an assistant (ὑπερέτης), or an animate instrument in the realm of action, not of production.595 The slave is therefore an instrument to increase the life or action of his master, who himself is not represented as a producer, but as a consumer of the present stock. Thus what bids fair to be a fruitful distinction ends in a denial of the primary importance of production. The purpose of Aristotle is here similar to that in some passages of Ruskin596 and Adam Smith,597 to emphasize consumption rather than production.
In another passage, he repeats his definition of capital in different terms. Goods are classified as for “purposes of production” or for “mere enjoyment,”598 but here again no theory of capital is developed. Yet these two definitions are sufficient evidence that he advanced beyond his predecessors in his apprehension of the meaning of the term.599 His division of production and finance, however, into the natural or limited, which deals only with natural resources,600 and the unnatural, which is unlimited, and includes commerce, usury, and even industry,601 reveals a mind neither greatly interested in capital, nor clear as to its true economic importance. His assertion in the Ethics602 that the prodigal (ἄσωτος) benefits many by his reckless expenditures, and that parsimoniousness (ἀνελευθερία) is a worse evil than prodigality also shows that he did not sufficiently emphasize the importance to society of economy, the mother of stored capital. On this point, Plato has the saner view,603 and the extreme attitude of Aristotle is certainly not characteristic of the Greeks in general.604 His failure to grasp the true theory of interest is a further evidence of his superficial apprehension of the function of money capital. He does not see, with Adam Smith, that money represents so much stored capital, potentially productive, and that “since something can everywhere be made by the use of money, something ought everywhere to be paid for the use of it.”605 In justice to him, however,