ss and power--that is by ambition and rivalry; much by the
idea that pecuniary success is itself an achievement, a mark of ability
and leadership. The ordinary hopes of the multitude of men, such as the
desire for a secure existence for themselves and their family, and the
wish to figure among their friends as an equal, have been the steadiest
motives of all. Saving is not one of the most deeply implanted habits.
It is a habit that is closely bound up with the qualities of personal
ambition, calculation and the desire for responsibility. That is the
reason why rich men are so seldom very likable. It is the reason also
why those who are the most needy are at times least disposed to save
when they have a chance. And if in the immediate future, the
responsibility for accumulation is to be more widely diffused than at
present, there will have to be a general cultivation of these
qualities--qualities, indeed, most requisite for a complex, mechanical
civilization like our own.

The accumulation of capital, as has been said, enables industry to
utilize such methods of production as result in a high volume of product
for a given expenditure of effort. Much of the hopefulness and energy
which has characterized our industrial life arose out of the belief that
the continuous course of capital accumulation, since it made possible
the utilization of new inventions and improved methods of production,
was preparing the way for a future that would be marked by even a wider
distribution of comfort than men saw around them. Thus it has been urged
that by devotion to industry and by consuming less than was produced,
the time would come when the world would be so well equipped that none
of its workers would have to be in want of the economic essentials of a
satisfactory life. In Mr. Keynes words, "Society was working not for the
small pleasures of to-day, but for the future security and improvement
of the race,--in fact for 'progress.' If only the cake were not cut,
but was allowed to grow in the geometrical proportion predicted by
Malthus of population, but not less true of compound interest, perhaps a
day might come when there would be at last the enjoyment of our labors.
In that day, overwork, overcrowding and underfeeding would come to an
end and men secure of the comforts and necessities of the body could
proceed to the nobler exercise of their faculties."[10]

Under the guiding force of this conviction, and in the United States,
wit