Let us assume that a vague purpose of foreign travel, for example, has presented itself in imagination, and that the preliminary stage of ethical judgment has been passed through, with the result that the purpose, in a more definite form than it could have at first, is now ready for economic consideration. In the first place the cost of the journey must be determined, and this step, in terms of our present point of view, is simply a methodological device whereby certain ends which the standards involved in the stage of ethical judgment could not suggest or could not effectually take into co-operation with themselves in their determination of the end are brought into play. Ascertaining the means suggests these disparate ends, these established modes of use of the means, with the result that the agent's "forward tendency" is checked. Shall the necessary sums be spent in foreign travel or shall they be spent in the present ways--in providing various physical necessities and comforts, or for various forms of amusement, or in increasing investments in business enterprises? These modes of use do not admit of ethical comparison with the plan of foreign travel, and the agent's interest must therefore now be centered on the means. It is in this check to the agent's forward tendency that the logical status of the means is evinced. As merely so much money the means could only serve to further the execution of the purpose that is forming, since under the circumstances it could only prompt immediate expenditure. Like the subject in factual judgment, the means in economic judgment have their problematic aspect which as effectually hinders the desired use of them as could any palpable physical defect. This problematic aspect consists in the fact of the present established mode of use which the now-forming purpose threatens to disturb, and it is the agent's interest in this mode of use that turns his attention to the valuation of the means.