The theory that profit is the wages of risk is answerable in substantially the same way. It does not in any way explain the increase in the aggregate wealth of the capitalist class to say that the individual capitalist must have a chance to receive interest upon his money in order to induce him to turn it into capital, to hazard losing it wholly or in part. While the theory of risk helps to explain some features of capitalism, the changes in the flow of capital into certain forms of investment, and, to some small extent, the commercial crises incidental thereto, it does not explain the vital problem, the source of capitalist income. The chances of gain, as a premium for the risks involved, explain satisfactorily enough the action of the gambler when he enters into a game of roulette or faro. It cannot be said, however, that the aggregate wealth of the gamblers is increased by playing roulette or faro. Then, too, the risks of the laborers are vastly more vital than those of the capitalist. Yet the premium for their risks of health and life itself does not appear, unless, indeed, it be in their wages, in which case the most superficial glance at our industrial statistics will show that wages are by no means highest in those occupations where the risks are greatest and most numerous. Further, the wages of the risks for capitalists and laborers alike are drawn from the same source, the product of the laborers' toil. To consider, even briefly, all the varied theories of surplus-value other than these would be a prolonged, dull, and profitless task. The theory of abstinence, that profit is the just reward of the capitalist for saving part of his wealth and using it as a means of production, is answerable by _a priori_ arguments and by a vast volume of facts. Abstinence obviously produces nothing; it can only save the wealth already produced by labor, and no automatic increase of that saved-up wealth is possible. If it is to increase without the labor of its owner, it can only be through the exploitation of the labor of others, so that the abstinence theory in no manner controverts the Marxian position. On the other hand, we see that those whose wealth increases most rapidly are not given to frugality or abstinence by any means. It may, certainly, be possible for an individual to save enough by practicing frugality and abstinence to enable him to invest in some profitable enterprise, but the source of his profit is not his abstinence. That must be sought elsewhere. Abstinence may provide him with the means for taking the profit, but the profit itself must come from the value created by human labor-power over and above its cost of production.