APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I§ 1 (to Ch. I, § 1)

Quotations from Professor Canning's book

The importance to the accountant of a clear and consistentconcept of income and of capital is emphasized by ProfessorJohn B. Canning in his book, The Economics of Accountancy;A Critical Analysis of Accounting Theory.

It may not be amiss at this point to put forward a comparativeappraisal of the accountant’s views and those of Fisher. And it maybe convenient to make that appraisal upon the basis adopted forcomparison, viz., scope of subject matter contemplated, mode ofanalysis pursued, and point of view taken.

With respect to the first there can be no possible doubt thatFisher’s work is immensely superior. How much of his views willultimately prevail among economists and among accountants noone need consider. Only a guess could be made. What the eventwill ultimately prove, too, might as readily be a fact about the twoprofessions as a fact about Fisher’s theory. But as a general, com-prehensive treatment of the theory of income, there is nothing tocompare favorably with it in either literature, (p. 172.)

* * * *

In a late article Fisher says: “I believe that the concept of incomeis, without exception, the most vital central concept in economicscience and that on fully grasping its nature and interrelations withother concepts largely depends the full fruition both of economictheory and of its applications to taxation and statistics.” 1 If hehad written instead that income is, without exception, the simplestand most fundamental concept of economic science, that only by meansof this concept can other economic concepts ever be fully developed andunderstood, and that upon beginning with this concept depends the full1 American Economic Review, Vol. XIV, p. 64.

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