With profits this inquiry has manifestly nothing to do. Consistently with the definitions of political economists, I shall therefore use the term interest as signifying that part of the produce which goes to capital. In returns to these three factors is the whole produce distributed. These terms mutually exclude each other. There must be land before labour can be exerted, and labour must be exerted before capital can be produced.
Capital is a result of labour, and is used by labour to assist it in further production.
Labour is the active and initial force, and labour is therefore the employer of capital. Labour can only be exerted upon land, and it is from land that the matter which labour transmutes into wealth must be drawn. Land, therefore, is the condition precedent, the field and material of labour. The term rent, in its economic sense, differs in meaning from the word rent as commonly used. In some respects is the economic meaning is narrower than the common meaning, in other respects it is wider.