320 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book iv society more vile and bestial than anything which 

 the world has ever known. For the sole advantage 

 which in that case wealth would bring to its pro- 

 ducer would consist in the meat and drink and other 

 means of physical pleasure which he and his family 

 could consume or enjoy during his lifetime before 

 he retired to the grave, and his wife and children 

 to the workhouse. 



wealth is The main value of wealth in the eyes of the 



becauselt is g reat wealth-producer does not consist in its minis- 



- term g to brief spasms of self-indulgence, but in the 

 largediife; f act o f J S being the foundation of an equable and 

 sustained life, in which the physical pleasures are 

 refined rather than intensified, and the time em- 

 ployed by the majority in producing the necessaries 

 of existence is given not to sloth, but to other 

 kinds of exertion. A life of this kind is impossible 

 except in a society of which a large section not only 

 and there must possesses wealth, but is accustomed to its possession, 

 he an d is characterised by accomplishments, tastes, 

 of principles, and kinds of knowledge, which can be 

 developed and acquired only when the continuance 

 of its possession is assured. In other words, those 

 men on whose exceptional business ability the pro- 

 ductive processes of the entire community depend, 

 and who are the cause of growth in the incomes of 

 the mass of the community, just as truly as they 

 are the producers of their own fortunes, are motived 

 to activity less by the desire of the wealth which 

 comes to them day by day through their own 

 direct exertions, and which would cease instantly 



