The argument is plausible but not conclusive. If the rate of interest is so low that a man must save for forty-seven years in order to obtain a sufficient interest-income to support him in his declining years, he will rarely attain that end. In the great majority of instances men who are unable to save more annually than the amount that they will need each year in old age, will expect and be compelled to use up a part or all of their capital in the period following the cessation of their economic usefulness. Nevertheless, it does not follow that they will save less at one and one-half per cent. than at six per cent. The determining factor in the situation is the attitude of the saver toward the _capital sum accumulated_. He either desires or does not desire to leave this behind him. In the latter case he will save only as much as is necessary to provide an annual income composed partly of interest and partly of the principal. If this contemplated income is two thousand dollars, and the rate of interest is six per cent., he will not need to save that much annually for as long a period as ten years. He can diminish either the yearly amount saved or the length of time devoted to saving. On the other hand, if the rate is only one and one-half per cent. he will be compelled to save a larger total in order to secure an equal accumulation and an equal provision for the future. In all cases, therefore, in which the saving is carried on merely for the saver's own lifetime it will be increased instead of decreased by a low rate of interest. If the saver does desire to bequeath his capital he will not always be deterred from this purpose merely because he is compelled to use some of the capital for the satisfaction of his own wants. Take the man who can save two thousand dollars a year, and with the rate of interest at six per cent. assure himself an interest-income of the same amount, and who intends to leave the principal (some thirty-three thousand dollars) to his children. Should the rate fall to one and one-half per cent. he would be unable to accumulate and bequeath nearly such a large sum. Surely this fact, discouraging as it is, will not determine him to save nothing. He will not, as Cassel's argument assumes, decide to leave nothing to his children, and content himself with that amount of saving which will suffice to provide for his own future. In all probability he will try to accumulate a sum which, even when diminished by future deductions for his own wants, will approximate as closely as possible the amount that he could have bequeathed had the rate remained at six per cent. This means that he will save more at the low than at the high rate of interest.