But it might be shown as well that a type of man does exist, exceptional no doubt, who, being capable of spending without hurt to himself or to others more money than he has actually got, can enrich his life in the broadest sense by an increase of fortune, and may therefore become the happier for it. He is a man who is indifferent to the enjoyment of material possessions and probably would be regarded in the eyes of the world as the last man who was competent to use money properly. But even he would be entirely overwhelmed by anything like a large increase of fortune, and would be as incapable as any one else of disposing of it without inflicting injury. “Could not riches be used well?” asks Jean Marie in Stevenson’s _Treasure of Franchard_. “In theory, yes,” replied the doctor. “But it is found in experience that no one does so. All the world imagine they will be exceptional when they grow wealthy; but possession is debasing, new desires spring up, and the silly taste for ostentation eats out the heart of pleasure.” Money is, after all, responsibility and nothing else. We are all of us capable of undertaking a certain amount. Some of us are capable of undertaking a good deal. No one is capable of undertaking more than a relatively limited amount. But the trouble is that most of us think ourselves capable of undertaking far more than we properly can. Autocrats are ceasing to exist not so much because certain monarchs proved themselves dangerously incapable, but because the world has learned that no conceivable human being has the capacity to rule a country single-handed. We do not yet admit this incapacity with regard to the autocrats over capital, although it is equally true, and when we do so we shall find considerable difficulty in dethroning them. Another important inference to be deduced from the argument here set forth is that the surplus money which no individual does or can spend beneficially remains in his hands in stagnant unproductivity, is deflected from other remunerative channels, and is therefore the chief cause of the existence of some of the gravest economic ills which we have to face in our social life. Money cannot rest, it is an active instrument for producing good or for producing evil. Its presence in one quarter may not produce visible evil, but its _consequent_ absence in another quarter will produce very visible and very positive evil. The word consequent must be emphasised because wealth is like water--to pump it up artificially on one side is to lower it automatically on the other.