andard which the man hopes to maintain is a rising, a
stationary, or a falling one. The average man, indeed, does hope to
maintain at least a stationary standard during so much of the future
as he cares much about. This mode of distributing pleasures appears in
matters both small and great. In taking a walk for pleasure one is
more likely to go up a rising grade first and descend afterward than
he is to go down at first and afterward bear the fatigue of climbing.
While there may be those who would rather play in the forenoon and
work in the afternoon, when the choice is presented at the beginning
of the day, there are certainly more among the classes that society
depends on for capital who would put the work in the forenoon and the
pleasure in the afternoon or evening. If a man were taking a canoeing
trip on a swiftly flowing stream, he would paddle his boat up the
stream and then come down with the current, rather than let it float
down with the current and then paddle it back. If it be thought that
this is true of only a specially rational mind, one may say that the
capitalist class represents men who in this respect are more than
ordinarily rational. They are generous, foresighted, and in their
relation to descendants affectionate. The men who really do the saving
for society have more to make them think and act in the intelligent
way we have described than do ordinary men. The miser, the paragon of
abstinence, can hardly be said to be the man who thinks too much of
future enjoyments, for he contemplates no such enjoyments that call
for spending money, for he never means to spend it. He is an abnormal
type and fortunately a rare one. With him there is a standard of
_possessions_ to be maintained, rather than one of enjoyments, and it
is always a rising standard, since he cares for nothing so much as to
see his possessions increasing. To make them increase at any given
rate when the direct earnings of capital are small requires severer
abstinence than it would if the capital yielded a larger return.

_The Effect of an Increase in the Number of Persons who seek to
maintain a Rising Standard of Living._--While it is true that even the
half-evolved intellects that care little for coming years do, if they
care for them at all, find themselves impelled to save more capital
when interest is small than they do when it is large; it is also true
that minds of a high order save more than minds of a low one. In order
to live dur