What they who do that labour aim at, is not wages
but exemption from toil: their wish is not so much to be wealthy and
have leisure themselves as to found a family in wealth and
leisure,--the one possible foundation of such a family being a store
of private capital. Socialists of course will offer nobler prizes for
the best productive labour,--honour, and the satisfaction of having
served the community, a satisfaction which they would have men trained
from childhood to relish above all other joys. Unfortunately, this
taste is yet unformed, and the stimulus of these nobler prizes is
still unproved by experience. Meanwhile men do work hard, to the
advantage of the community, for the ignobler prize of family affluence
and ease. Socialists are going to take away the good boy's cake and
give him a sunflower.
11. The second reason for leaving capital in private, even
unproductive hands, begins from the consideration, that the highest
end of man on earth is not production, just as it is not consumption,
of the necessaries and luxuries of life. Aristotle bids us, as much as
possible in this life, "to play the immortal ([Greek: athanatizein]),
and do our utmost to live by the best element in our nature," that is,
the intellect.
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