him in theory. This is at least felt to be the economically
legitimate end of acquisition, which alone it is incumbent on the
theory to take account of. Such consumption may of course be
conceived to serve the consumer's physical wants -- his physical
comfort -- or his so-called higher wants -- spiritual, aesthetic,
intellectual, or what not; the latter class of wants being served
indirectly by an expenditure of goods, after the fashion familiar
to all economic readers.

But it is only when taken in a sense far removed from its naive
meaning that consumption of goods can be said to afford the
incentive from which accumulation invariably proceeds. The motive
that lies at the root of ownership is emulation; and the same
motive of emulation continues active in the further development
of the institution to which it has given rise and in the
development of all those features of the social structure which
this institution of ownership touches. The possession of wealth
confers honour; it is an invidious distinction. Nothing equally
cogent can be said for the consumption of goods, nor for any
other conceivable incentive to acquisition, and especially not
for any incentive to accumulation of wealth.

It is of course not to be overlooked that in a community where
nearly all goods are private property the necessity of earning a
livelihood is a powerful and ever present incentive for the
poorer members of the community. The need of subsistence and of
an increase of physical comfort may for a time be the dominant
motive of acquisition for those classes who are habitually
employed at manual labour, whose subsistence is on a precarious
footing, who possess little and ordinarily accumulate little; but