PRESIDENTS ADDRESS—SECTION F. Zs 
This cannot be answered effectively without some enquiry into 
that form of wealth which constitutes man’s chief satisfactions. 
Are these sufficient in the aggregate to suflice for all, if proper 
means for effecting distribution were employed, supposing such 
means were possible? Or is the aggregate supply of primary 
wants insufficient to provide for ail needs, even were the most 
thorough means devised for its distribution ? 
Wants or Man. 
The satisfaction of the wants of man is the mainspring of all 
his activities. Wants are interminable. Some affect his very 
existence, while others only concern his greater degree of comfort 
or happiness. In all enquiries into matters deeply concerning 
the existence and welfare of man it is well, therefore, to keep 
these fundamental distinctions clearly in view; for not a few 
of our misconceptions arise from a failure on the part of social 
and political economists to establish a satisfactory classification 
of wants according to their varying importance. 
Broadly speaking, these may be divided into three great. 
groups :— 
(1.) Wants Essential to Life Itself. 
(2.) Wants Essential to Comfort. 
(3.) Luxurious Wants. 
Whatever eccentricities may be exhibited by isolated 
individuals at times, it is unmistakable that the intensity 
of the struggle for wants among communities is determined by 
the zaturve of the wants; and, invariably, so long as the reason 
of man is preserved, the greater intensity of the struggle— 
beginning with the most important—is in the order before given, 
viz. :— 
Wants essential to— : 
(1.) Life. 
(2.) Comfort. 
(3.) Luxury. 
Man can, and, unfortunately, the masses of men are often 
obliged to, exist without the enjoyment of luxurious wants. 
He may even be deprived of all wants beyond the frst group, 
and still maintain a more or less extended life-struggle with 
misery of some kind; but if the wants of the frst group be ever 
so little curtailed below a certain minimum, he will speedily 
perish miserably. 
Preserve to man his life, and, if needs be, he will eagerly 
exchange for its preservation all his comforts and luxuries. 
Deny him life, and ali other forms of the Economist’s wealth of 
exchange becomes to him as dross—absolutely valueless. It is 
for many reasons necessary at this stage to confine attention to 
5 
those primary wants essential to life itself; and for greater 
