Note 10 — Chapter II · LIFE AND MIND.

It would take too long to elaborate, but it may be here noted that in the human group the impelling force is not so much needs as desires, and that fact raises the whole issue from the level of biology to that of psychology. So long as life is at a certain level man shares with the animal the mere need for food. But at another level there arises not merely the need for food, but a desire for certain kind of food, cooked in a particular manner, and served in a special style. And provided that we do not by hunger reduce man to the level of the beast again, the desire will be paramount and will determine whether food shall be eaten or not. So, again, with the fact of sex and marriage. At the animal level we have the crude fact of sex, and this is, indeed, inescapable at any stage. But the growth of civilization brings about the fact that the need for the gratification of the sexual appetite is regulated by the secondary qualities of grace of form, or of disposition, which are the immediate determinants of whether a particular man shall marry a particular woman or not. Again, it is the desire for power and distinction, not the need for money that impels men to spend their lives in building up huge fortunes. And, finally, we have the fact that a great many of our present needs are transformed desires. The working man of to-day counts as needs, as do we all more or less, a number of things that began as pure desires. We say we need books, pictures, music, etc. But none of these things can be really brought under the category of things necessary to life. They are the creation of man's mental cravings. Without them we say life would not be worth living, and it is well that we should all feel so. Professor Marshall rightly dwells upon this point by saying: "Although it is man's wants in the early stages of development that give rise to his activities, yet afterwards each new step is to be regarded as the development of new activities giving rise to new wants, rather than of new wants giving rise to new activities."—(Principles of Economics, Vol. I., p. 164.)