INVENTION AND PRODUCTION 243 



dissipated are thus steadily eliminated, leaving those whose use 

 of goods tends to create surplus energy. Every increase of pro- 

 ductive power adds to the quantity of goods consumed, and these 

 if properly used augment the surplus energy of workers." ^ 



Nowhere is his recent emphasis on active adaptation so clearly 

 revealed as in his criticism of his own theory of " pleasure-pain " 

 economies. " I now regard this division as defective," he says. 

 " To love pleasure is a higher manifestation of life than to fear 

 pain; but the pleasure of action is in advance of the pleasure of 

 consumption. Action creates what pleasure uses up. This 

 would divide progress into three stages: a pain economy, a 

 pleasure economy and a creative economy. Each stage has its 

 own mode of thought, and its own social institutions." His new 

 complete theory is thus visualized. ^ 



The importance of the active factor in securing adjustment is 

 revealed in his list of checks to expenditure which tend to bring 

 the family budget to an equilibrium. ^ His conclusion is of in- 

 terest for it is his last word to date in his social philosophy. 

 " Surplus promotes activity and that activity transforms the 

 natural surplus into wealth. With wealth come price relations 

 through which ancestral control is broken and wealth control put 

 in its place. Price relations give rise to budgetary concepts. In 

 the endeavor to bring the family budget to an equilibrium, 

 activity is increased and consumption is put on a cultural basis 

 by increasing the intensity of new wants. This brings on a self- 

 repression which is the essence of character building. The 



* Theory of Prosperity j p. 15; Seager, op. cit., p. 83. 



2 " Reconstruction of Economic Theory," Annals, American Academy Political 

 and Social Science, 191 2, (Supplement), p. 92. 

 ' Ihid., p. 62. 



