_Wealth to be consumed for welfare._—The only economic motive for the accumulation of wealth is its use in promotion of welfare. While the old maxim says, “A penny saved is worth two gained,” every one recognizes the penny as absolutely worthless except in view of some utility to be gained in spending it. So with every form of wealth. All economic value disappears when the thought of use is wanting. Such use, whether practically instantaneous, like the destruction of the gunpowder projecting the bullet, or extended through hundreds of years, as in the wearing out of a castle, or a bridge, is properly called consumption of wealth. A majority of the great problems concerning social welfare are connected with the use of wealth, and therefore fall under the discussion of consumption. Indeed, so long as there is little accumulated wealth, as in the savage state, social problems have little significance. The statement of the Apostle Paul, “The love of money is the root of all evil,” while not confined in application to wealth already accumulated, has its most important bearing in the fact that wealth accumulated is itself a power to be used or abused by whoever controls it. The saying of Emerson, “The best political economy is care and culture of men,” applies most strictly to the uses of wealth and the methods of its consumption. The great question of today in every civilized land is, How can the accumulations of power in the shape of wealth made by this generation be used to establish a continuous welfare, not only for this generation, but for its successors? The wants of society today include not only a reasonable provision for life and health and wisdom and virtue during the life of those who are now active, but an equal provision for the same wants increased with each succeeding generation. In all thought of consuming wealth, we must remember that power in this form is rightly used only when power in some other form results. Thus wealth is consumed, according to natural laws, either for reproducing itself in more advantageous form or for sustaining human power in form of health or wisdom or virtue.