quality of
expectation. In order to elucidate the nature of this fact, and its
significance, I cannot do better than quote a passage from Ruskin,
admirable for its trenchant felicity, which, since it occurs in a book
much admired by socialists, may be commended to their special
attention.[29] Economic demand, Ruskin says, is the expression of
economic desires; but the constitution of human nature is such that
these desires are divisible into two distinct kinds--desires for the
commodities which men "need," and desires for commodities which they
"wish for." The former arise from those appetites and appetencies in
respect of which all are equal. They are virtually a fixed quantity, and
the economic commodities requisite for their healthy satisfaction
constitute a minimum which is virtually the same for all men. The
latter, instead of being fixed, are capable of indefinite variation, and
in these--the desires for what men "wish for" but do not "need"--we have
the origin "of three-fourths of the demands existing in the world."
"These demands are," he proceeds, "romantic. They are founded on
visions, idealisms, hopes, and affections, and the regulation of the
purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the heart."

With the demands which originate in men's equal needs we are not
concerned here. It is impossible to modify them appreciably either by
education or otherwise; but the desires or wishes which Ruskin so
happily calls "romantic" vary in intensity and character to an almost
indefinite degree, not only in different individuals, but also in the
same individuals when submitted to different circumstances. Those of
them, indeed, which are most generally felt are often, to speak
strictly, not so much desires as fancies; and while the image of their
fulfilment may please or amuse the imagination, their non-fulfilment
produces no sense of want. So long as they are merely fancies, they
raise no practical question. They raise a practical question only when
their insistence is such that their non-fulfilment produces an active
sense of privation; and whether in the case of any given individual
they reach or do not reach this pitch of intensity depends upon two
things. One of these is the individual's congenital temperament, his
talents, his strength of will, and the vividness or vagueness of his
imagination. Education, understood in its more general sense, is the
other. Now, men varying as they do in respect of th