The ultimate object of each is, in one way or another, to make his capital provide him with the life that he most desires; but the first man is thoughtful, far-seeing, and shrewd, while the second cares for nothing but the gaiety and pleasure of the moment; and they deal with their capitals in accordance with their respective characters.

The first meets, let us say, with the inventor of an agricultural machine, which will, if successfully manufactured, double the wheat crop of every acre to the cultivation of which it is applied.

He places his capital, as a loan, in this inventor's hands.

The machine is constructed, and used with the results desired; and the man who has lent the capital receives each year a proportion of the new loaves which are due to the machine's efficiency, and would not have existed otherwise.

The second man invests his fortune in any kind of security which has the advantage of being turned easily into cash, and draws out month by month so many hundred pounds, without reference to anything but the pleasures he desires to purchase; and by the end of a few years both his capital and his income have disappeared.
Now, any one judging these men by the current standards of common-sense would, while praising the first as a model of moral prudence, condemn the second as a fool who had brought his ruin upon himself, and curtly dismiss him, if a bachelor, as being nobody's enemy but his own.