But even some of the animali are guided by their feeble intelligence or by instinct to make choices that do involve a relation between goods in the present and in the future. Squirrels, bees, and ants store up in the season of superfluity for the season of scarcity. Man, and especially civilized man, in a far greater measure, takes the future into account in his plans, his calculations, and his labors. He lives his eco nomic life of choice, so to speak, both in the present and in the future. His economic life and his economic judgment comprehend a great number of periods at once. He attempts to provide for the needs of the future almost as carefully as for those of the present. This means a much more compli cated adjustment of goods to desires. The typical animal choice is lacking the time-dimension (the objects and uses are synchronous). The typical human choice is between goods in different periods (the objects and uses are § 3. Cases where future use is preferred. It should, however, be carefully observed that time-preference is not always preference for present goods as compared with future goods. We sometimes, indeed very frequently, prefer to have certain things in the future. After any meal, the present use of the remaining food in the pantry, the cellar, the granary, is worth less than its possibility of future uses, some of which are a few hours, others a few days, others perhaps weeks distant. (See above, Chapter 4, section 6 and section 7). The changes of the seasons with their effects on the abundance 1 Agreeable or disagreeable mean here only so in accord with (in agreement with) the nervous organization (or vice versa) that the animal reaches out toward, or withdraws from, the object.
2 See note on "Present and future goods, uses, desires," at end of chapter.
of plant and animal life cause a pretty regular cycle of valua tions. When the crops are harvested in the fall, the fanner, while setting apart some of the fruits of the field to provide for the present nourishment of himself and family, yet stores up the rest for later use. His immediate needs are over supplied, and his anticipated future needs induce him to save. In a fishing tribe after a great haul of fish a present fish is worth less than the certainty of a fish six months later when fish will be scarce. After a successful buffalo hunt, when all the members of the tribe are sated with meat, present meat is worth less than the chance of an equal amount of meat any time for nearly a year. Ice has less value in winter both because the need for ice in refrigerators is less, and because ice is more plentiful. In January one would gladly exchange a larger amount of present ice for a smaller amount to be de livered the following July. Crops of fruit, vegetables, etc., are on the average worth less per unit at the moment they are gathered than at any other time in the year until the next crop is due. Coal and wood are worth somewhat less in spring and summer than in the following winter. Fresh eggs in the months of April and May when most plentiful could hardly be exchanged for half the quantity to be delivered in Novem ber and December,—despite the attempts to keep them over and thus equalize conditions and values by cold-storage and preserving in enormous quantities.
Such seasonal changes within the year comprise a large proportion of the cases in which present uses are worth less than future uses. The present values of most goods as antici pated through a series of years are adjusted to a pretty reg ular scale. So far as men can see in advance, one year is going to be much like another. Differences can be allowed for on the average, but no one knows just when the greater crop or the crop failure is to occur. So all must be estimated in advance in relation to the average, or normal! But see ch. 21, sec. 7, for examples of individual differences in esti mates.
The preference for future over present use appears in many other relations of life. A fire-engine is less valuable now than it will be when the fire breaks out; indeed its present value is but a diminished reflection of the value we anticipate it will then have. We would gladly exchange the useless en gine now, with the trouble and expense of care it involves, for the certainty of a similar engine when the fire occurs. In like manner a warship is less valuable now than is the prospect of its use when war occurs. The gift of a trip to Europe this year is less welcome when one is unable to go than would have been the promise of a trip for next year when one expects a vacation. In countless cases may be heard the words, "I don't care for it just now," or "If only it had been later." § 4. Cases where present use is preferred. But with all his foresight, and with all his appreciation of future needs, even the most provident of men are, like the animals, com pelled to live very largely in the present. There is no such thing as a future desire; there are only present desires for either present or future goods. The needs of the present and the desires for present goods are, in much the larger number of cases, the more insistent. It is not rational (or even pos sible) to provide for the future until a certain minimum pro vision, at least, is made for the present. The typical or aver- • age preference of men is for present goods or uses. This does not mean, of course, that there is not desire for future goods, but simply that a larger quantity of future goods will ex change for a smaller quantity of present goods. The smaller / amount of present goods is regarded as worth as much as the 4 This proposition that present goods of specific kinds are often valued less than the prospect of like goods later has been so strongly emphasized here because a different statement is often met in economic writings, namely, that present goods are always worth more than future goods of like kind and quantity. The erroneous idea results from think ing in terms of money, the loan of which in a developed money economy comes to command a general prevailing premium, to which the prices of other goods are adjusted. But a piece of money itself may be worth less now than later.