INCOME-YIELDING CAPITAL 317 



its root in the facts of family affection. In spite of Book iv 



the selfishness which distinguishes so much of human 



action, a man's desire to secure for his family such is what mainly 



, , i . f , . - makes men 



wealth as he can is one of the strongest motives of anxious to pro- 



human activity known ; and the fact that it operates dl 



in the case of many who are otherwise selfish shows 



how deeply it is engrained in the human character. 



It may, indeed, be regarded as a kind of selfishness 



itself; and the vigorous and practical men who 



have exceptional faculties for wealth-production are 



precisely those in whom it is strongest and most 



persistent. Men like these would never for a 



moment tolerate an arrangement which permitted 



the head of the family to keep his wife and ch ildren since if in- 



in luxury so long as he lived, but would condemn capital could 



all of them, the moment he happened to die, to be 



turned by the butler and footmen into the street as 



could make no 

 provision for 



It has been said that this family feeling on the their families, 

 part of the great wealth-producer may be regarded 

 as a species of selfishness ; and there is nothing very 

 recondite in the process by which it comes to be so. 

 Such a man, no matter how selfish, values his family 

 because it happens to be his own. His own im- 

 portance is enhanced by the success and brilliancy of 

 its members ; and the possession of a fashionable 

 wife, and a popular and well-bred son, reflects 

 almost as much credit on him as the possession of a 

 gentleman for his grandfather. For this reason, if 

 for no others, he will do for them everything that 

 exceptional wealth will enable him to do. Wealth, 



