If the line _AB_ represents by its distance above _CD_ a fixed standard of living during a period of ten years, the highly rational man will prefer to take something from the enjoyments of the first five and bestow them on the second five. The consciousness of improvement, of the fact that every year will bring a new enjoyment never before experienced, makes the whole life brighter than it could be with any other disposition of the available means of pleasure. The man's standard of living during the whole ten-year period will be represented by the rising dotted line _EF_. _The Effect of Robbing the Future._--If a man pursued the opposite course, of taking something from the future to add to the desirableness of the present, thus establishing a falling standard of living, he would have to relinquish every year something to which he was accustomed, which would cause him a keen pain. The very excessive gains of the present would thus become sources of unhappiness at a later period, while the anticipation of the later unhappinesses would throw a shadow over the present. The men who in spite of all this live recklessly and waste their present substance do so, not so much because they undervalue so much of the future as falls within their purview, as because they are so extremely short-sighted that over nearly all of the future they have practically no vision at all. _The Actual Conduct of a very Reasonable Man._--The real fact in the case of a reasonable man is represented by the following figure:-- [Illustration] Line _EF_ measures fifty years and line _FG_ another fifty. The heavy line _AB_, rising toward the right, represents the rising standard of living which the man's reason makes him maintain during the period over which his vision is clear, while the dotted line _BC_ represents the standard for which, in an imperfect way, he makes provision during the next fifty years. Over later periods his vision does not extend at all. It loses clearness after the point _B_ is passed, and in the same proportion it loses influence over the man's conduct. He therefore reconciles himself to whatever standard may prevail, even though it were a stationary one during the latter part of the time. Very seldom, however, would the man consciously lower the standard even during this later period.