2QO 



ARISTO CRA CY AND E VOL UTION 



Book IV 

 Chapter 2 



They ques- 

 tioned the doc- 

 trine only when 

 they came to 

 see that the 

 great man is a 

 producer also ; 

 and they con- 

 fine their 

 questioning to 

 his case. 



But if the 

 labourer 

 desires to 

 possess what 

 he produces, 

 much more 

 will the great 

 man do so ; 



tion. In making these attempts, however, they 

 have, with a judicious eclecticism, been content to 

 apply them to the exceptional man only ; and the 

 common man and his motives they leave undis- 

 turbed, except when they venture on the doctrine 

 that the common man's motive for production will 

 in the future be the desire of possessing, not only 

 all that he produces, but all that he produces and a 

 great deal else besides. 



If, then, it is unlikely that this desire to possess 

 the product will cease to be operative as the motive 

 to production amongst the masses, that it will cease 

 to be operative amongst the few is more unlikely 

 still ; for the man who is possessed of average 

 powers only, cannot hope to produce more than the 

 average man requires, and his object in producing 

 tends to represent itself to his mind in terms of 

 the comfort which he hopes to experience, rather 

 than in terms of the value of products which he 

 hopes to possess. But the exceptional man, 

 whose peculiarity as a producer is this, that he 

 produces not only as much as the average man 

 requires, but an indefinite amount in addition to 

 it, is constantly balancing his products not with 

 his immediate wants, but with the amount of 

 intellectual effort which he has expended in the 

 process of production. Indeed, the more closely we 

 consider the matter, the more strongly we shall be 

 convinced that the desire of possessing wealth pro- 

 portionate to the amount produced by them becomes 

 as a motive to production stronger in men, not 



