On both sides it has been assumed that men of exceptional powers will not produce exceptional amounts of wealth, unless they are allowed the right of enjoying some substantial proportion of it.

This is a psychological truth which, together with its social consequences, has been dealt with elaborately in two of our earlier chapters.

It was there shown that the production of exceptional wealth by those men whose peculiar powers alone enable them to produce it, involves efforts on their part which, unlike labour, cannot be exacted of them by any outside compulsion, but can only be educed by the prospect of a secured reward; and that this reward consists, as has just been said, of the enjoyment of a part of the product proportionate to the magnitude of the whole.

But what the proportion should be, and in what manner it should be enjoyed, were questions which were then passed over.

They were passed over in order that they might be discussed separately.