It has been shown, in the preceding chapter, that, in communities where an extensive knowledge of the materials within reach of the industry of their members has generated numerous arts, we can assign no limit, in the nature of the materials themselves, to the capacity for the supply of future wants that might be given to them: but, that the instruments so formed, pass, by a gradual and uninterrupted progress, to orders of slower and slower return.It is scarcely necessary to observe, that the increase to the capacity which may be given to instruments, cannot be restricted by inability to devote additional labor to their construction; for, as all instruments at the period of their exhaustion return more than the cost of their formation, they give the means of reconstructing others, returning also, somewhat more largely than themselves.There are, nevertheless, in every society causes, effectually bounding the advance of instruments to orders capable of embracing a larger and larger circle of materials, and the determination of those causes is the subject, now claiming our attention.
Instruments are all formed by one amount of labor, or some equivalent to it, that is, by something either capable of yielding, or itself constituting some of the necessaries, conveniences, or amusements of life, and they return another greater amount of labor or its equivalents.The formation of every instrument therefore, implies the sacrifice of some smaller present good, for the production of some greater future good.If, then, the production of that future greater good, be conceived to deserve the sacrifice of this present smaller good, the instrument will be formed, if not, it will not be formed.According to the series in which we have arranged instruments, they double the cost of their formation in one, two, three, etc., years.
Consequently, the order to which in any society the formation of instruments will advance, will be determined by the length of the period, to which the inclination of its members to yield up a present good, for the purpose of producing the double of it at the expiration of that period, will extend, according as it stretches to one, two, three, twenty, forty, etc., years will the formation of instruments be carried, to the orders, A, B, C, T, n, etc.and, at the point where the willingness to make there the sacrifice ceases, there the formation of instruments must stop.The circumstances therefore, on such occasions governing the decision of the members of all societies, must be the causes, fixing the point, to which the formation of instruments may in any society be carried, and beyond which it cannot advance.The determination to sacrifice a certain amount of present good, to obtain another greater mount of good, at some future period, may be termed the effective desire of accumulation.All men may be said to have a desire of this sort, for all men prefer a greater to a less; but to be effective it must prompt to action.
Were life to endure for ever, were the capacity to enjoy in perfection all its goods, both mental and corporeal, to be prolonged with it, and were we guided solely by the dictates of reason, there could be no limit to the formation of means for future gratification, till our utmost wishes were supplied.A pleasure to be enjoyed, or a pain to be endured, fifty or a hundred years hence, would be considered deserving the same attention as If it were to befall us fifty or a hundred minutes hence, and the sacrifice of a smaller present good, for a greater future good, would be readily made, to whatever period that futurity might extend.But life, and the power to enjoy it, are the most uncertain of all things, and we are not guided altogether by reason.We know not the period when death may come upon us, but we know that it may come in a few days, and must come in a few years.Why then be providing goods that cannot be enjoyed until times, which, though not very remote, may never come to us, or until times still more remote, and which we are convinced we shall never see? If life, too, is of uncertain duration and the time that death comes between us and all our possessions unknown, the approaches of old age are at least certain, and are duffing, day by day, the relish of every pleasure.
A mere reasonable regard to their own interest, would, therefore, place the present very t:ar above the future, in the estimation of most men.
But, it is besides to be remarked, that such pleasures as may now be enjoyed, generally awaken a passion strongly prompting to the partaking of them.
The actual presence of the immediate object of desire in the mind, by exciting the attention, seems to rouse all the faculties, as it were, to fix their view on it, and leads them to a very lively conception of the enjoyments which it offers to their instant possession.The prospects of future good, which future years may hold out to us, seem at such a moment dull and dubious, and are apt to be slighted, for objects on which the day-light is falling strongly, and showing us in all their freshness just within our grasp.
There is no man perhaps, to whom a good to be enjoyed to day, would not seem of very different importance, from one exactly similar to be enjoyed twelve years hence, even though the arrival of both were equally certain.
