In other words, he could spend his income in consumable goods, but he could not invest either in productive machinery or in land." [24] This is merely saying that all economic effort has, for its ultimate aim, a desirable state of consciousness, which might be contemptible if it really depended on looking on at dances, or refined if it depended on the cultivation of flowers, or listening to great singers, or witnessing the performance of great plays, or on the enlargement of the mind by travel..