An excellent translation into French of "The Customs of the Sea," which are the most valuable portion of the _Book of the Consulate_, was published by Pardessus in the second volume of his _Collection des lois maritimes_ (Paris, 1834), under the title of "La Compilation connue sous le nom de consulat de la mer." See introduction, by Sir Travers Twiss, to the _Black Book of the Admiralty_ (London, 1874), which in the appendix to vol. iii. contains his translation of "The Customs of the Sea," with the Catalan text. (T. T.) CONSUMPTION (Lat. _consumere_), literally, the act of consuming or destroying. Thus the word is popularly applied to phthisis, a "wasting away" of the lungs due to tuberculosis (q.v.). In economics the word has a special significance as a technical term. It has been defined as the destruction of utilities, and thus opposed to "production," which is the creation of utilities, a utility in this connexion being anything which satisfies a desire or serves a purpose. Consumption may be either productive or unproductive; productive where it is a means directly or indirectly to the satisfaction of any economic want, unproductive when it is devoted to pleasures or luxuries. Its place in the science of economics, and its close relation with production, are treated of in every text-book, but special reference may be made to W. Roscher, _Nationaloekonomie_, 1883, and G. Schoenberg, _Handbuch d. polit. Oekonomie_, 1890-1891. CONSUS, an ancient Italian deity, originally a god of agriculture. The time at which his festival was held (after harvest and seed-sowing), the nature of its ceremonies and amusements, his altar at the end of the Circus Maximus always covered with earth except on such occasions, all point to his connexion with the earth. In accordance with this, the name has been derived from _condere_ (= Condius, as the "keeper" of grain or the "hidden" god, whose life-producing influence works in the depths of the earth). Another etymology is from _conserere_ ("sow," cf. Ops Consiva and her festival Opiconsivia). Amongst the ancients (Livy i. 9; Dion. Halic. ii. 31) Census was most commonly identified with [Greek: Poseidon Hippios] (Neptunus Equester), and in later Latin poets Consus is used for Neptunus, but this idea was due to the horse and chariot races which took place at his festival; otherwise, the two deities have nothing in common. According to another view, he was the god of good counsel, who was said to have "advised" Romulus to carry off the Sabine women (Ovid, _Fasti_, iii. 199) when they visited Rome for the first celebration of his festival (Consualia). In later times, with the introduction of Greek gods into the Roman theological system, Consus, who had never been the object of special reverence, sank to the level of a secondary deity, whose character was rather abstract and intellectual.