WEALTH DESIRED AS A MEANS 307 



there are three principal kinds. One of them is the Book iv 

 pleasure of power, which in their analysis of human 

 motives the socialists conveniently overlook ; and it is desired 

 the two others happen to be the very pleasures by meanJ to 3 a 

 the desire of which the socialists themselves declare ^^j^ d l 

 the exceptional wealth-producers are to be principally P leasur es 



* A ' which socialists 



marked in the future namely, the pleasures of self- offer instead 

 realisation and the pleasures of social honour. 

 Wealth is coveted by all really great wealth- 

 producers, not in preference to these, but as a 

 means to all or one of them. To many of our 

 great wealth-producers, with their strong practical 

 faculties, wealth would be nothing if it brought to 

 them no accession of influence ; to many it would 

 be nothing if it did not bring them the means of 

 indulging their tastes, as distinct from their physical 

 appetites ; to nearly all it would be nothing if they 

 did not, or if they did not hope it would, secure for 

 them the approbation and the respectful homage of 

 others. 



The only alternatives, then, which we have before 

 us are as follows : If the great wealth-producer is a 

 man of such coarse fibre that none of those desires 

 just mentioned are really his neither the desire of 

 power, nor the desire of social honour, nor the desire 

 for that larger development of taste and moral 

 activities which is rendered possible by the posses- 

 sion of exceptional wealth then it is obvious that 

 the sole motive left to him will be the gross or 

 unreasoning desire for the possession of wealth 

 as such ; and we are brought back to the original 



