§5. _Some Reflections upon Capital_. Another aspect of the great
cooperation is of even greater significance. It embraces not only a
multitude of living men, but it links the present together with the
future and the past. The goods and services which we enjoy to-day we
owe only in part to the labors of the week, the month, or the year,
only in part even to the efforts of our contemporaries. The men, long
since dead and forgotten, who built our railways, or sunk our coal
mines, or engaged in any of a great variety of tasks, are still
contributing to the satisfaction of our daily wants. The expression is
not altogether fanciful; for, had it not been reasonable to expect
that those labors would be of use to us to-day, many of them in all
probability would never have been undertaken. It was to meet our
present wants, and even our future wants, that many men toiled on
monotonous tasks ten, twenty, thirty years ago. And yet, of course, we
should deceive ourselves if we supposed that this was the motive of
these men, that our welfare was the centre of their heart's desire. We
in our turn dedicate to the future, and often to a distant future, an
immense portion of our energies. Let any reader who doubts this, study
the statistics of the occupations of the people, and reflect on how
long a period must elapse before the labors of this trade or that can
fulfil their ultimate function. How long would the period be in the
case of a man making bricks, which will later be employed in the
erection of a factory, where machinery will be made, to equip an
electrical generating station designed to supply, over a period of
many years, light, heat, and power to people living in a remote
Continent? A longer time, it may be hazarded, than he is accustomed
to look ahead.