be used to purchase all sorts of concrete goods—such as food and clothing—which are the real objects of desire. However, in the commercial world, and in ordinary life, we are very much in the habit of expressing income as a sum of money accruing within a period. This is perhaps the sense in which the term is most frequently used.
§ 7. Psychic income. A closer consideration, however, discloses the fact that there are many desirable results which cannot be included either under "real" or under "monetary" income. Many choices made by men are not directed to se curing material objects. The term real income can hardly be strained to include the services of the hired laborer, the man's own direct services to himself, the valued social esteem which leads one to take a lower salary for harder work, etc. It is difficult to estimate such things in monetary terms or in terms of other concrete goods, and often the attempt to do so is not made. For we are dealing here with things which are in the realm of feeling. We may call them psychic income, and we may define the term psychic income as desirable results pro duced in the realm of feeling by valuable objects or by valu able changes in the environment which accrue to or affect an economic subject within a given period.
We have here reached something fundamental in our analy sis. It is not merely that many items of income take this form and this form only—not being embodied in any tangible shape. But concrete, tangible objects (monetary or non-mone tary), are regarded as income, as something desirable, just be cause their ultimate effect is to bring about such changes in the realm of feeling as we are now discussing. The food that we eat banishes the sensation of hunger. Clothing protects us from the cold, gives the feeling of being well-dressed, etc. The musical instrument creates, through our nerves of hearing, the pleasurable feelings of harmony. The beautiful picture, the automobile, the pleasure yacht—all the many kinds of concrete goods which man desires—are objects of desire to him because of their capacity to affect the sensory system, and, through that, his mental life. It is clear, therefore, that any adequate enumeration of the group of things which we call income must take careful account of these psychic ele ments. The estimate of a man's income merely in dollars may leave out items which are of the greatest significance to him. A man will work for a certain salary in an occupation that he enjoys who might refuse several times the amount in a less enjoyable or actually disagreeable line of work. A family
may choose to live in a small house in a particular neighbor hood, rather than in a larger house with greater physical com forts in a less attractive neighborhood. A girl who can live at home may accept what would otherwise be an inadequate wage—an income which would not support her if she lived elsewhere.
§ 8. Motivating force of psychic income. It may be seen that (anticipated) total psychic income is what motivates our economic activity—at least as far as this activity is determined by conscious purpose. There are men holding public office to whom the salary received is an insignificant consideration. They are paid largely in public esteem, or in their own con sciousness of duty well performed. And in as far as men work for material rewards—money or goods—their ultimate ends are not material. They are in the realm of the psychic. Except to the miser, money is not an end in itself (if it is even in that case). Nor are stocks and bonds, or real estate, or even clothing and food, ends in themselves. Man's psychic life is the thing which is of ultimate concern to him, and all these things appeal to him because of their relation to that complex of sensations and feelings of which his psychic life is composed.
§ 9. The personal equation in psychic income. The mag nitude of the stream of psychic income depends in large meas ure on the natural temperament, on acquired habits of life and thought, and on the state of health of the individual. One person gets delight from small things; another is miserable in the midst of luxury. In 1913 the richest man and wife in Switzerland committed suicide together because they felt that they had nothing to live for; whereas the mass of the hard working Swiss with their scanty material incomes, are as joy ous and contented as any people in the world. Nothing can equalize these subjective differences between individuals, but each individual, in his choice, compares things with reference to their psychic income-value to himself; he does not judge them merely by their physical or by their pecuniary measure ments. But when in moralizing strain, we say that the source of happiness is within oneself, we speak within limits. For the most joyous and optimistic of persons must have some of "this world's goods" or life itself becomes impossible.