292 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 



Book iv ism, which would aim at depriving them of anything 

 that they might possibly give, than the fact that a 

 man would with pleasure give five shillings to a 

 beggar is a proof that he would be equally pleased if 

 the beggar were to pick his pocket. Even the men 

 who produce wealth and no doubt there are such 

 without any conscious sense that they produce it 

 because of their desire to possess it, would show 

 that such was their motive by their instinctive and 

 indignant refusal to go on producing it, if they knew 

 that it would be forcibly taken from them. 

 There is no And now, since we have seen that "greed" as 



sign, therefore, . 111-1 i 



that the desire a motive to wealth-production shows no internal 

 weaith C is P iosing tendency to lose its old efficiency, let us turn to those 

 other motives which the socialists tell us are to 

 supersede it, and ask whether there is anything in 

 their known operations hitherto which indicates that 

 in the domain of wealth-production they will acquire 

 an efficiency similar to it. This is not an inquiry 

 which is very difficult to pursue, for the motives in 

 question are of a very familiar kind, and the kinds 

 of activity which they have produced hitherto are 

 notorious. 

 Are, then, What these motives are has been sufficiently 



other desires , 11*1 i ir i 1 



acquiring new shown already in language borrowed from the social- 

 [nodvet to IS ^ C writers themselves the pleasure of " excelling" 

 weaith-produo- fa & "joy in creative work," the pleasure of doing good 

 to others, and, lastly, the enjoyment of the approba- 

 tion of others, or of the yet more flattering tribute 

 commonly called "honour" Now these motives, it 

 will be seen, are of two distinct kinds, the first three 



