Saving was for old age or for your children; but this was only in theory,--the virtue of the cake was that it was never to be consumed, neither by you nor by your children after you.
In writing thus I do not necessarily disparage the practices of that generation.

In the unconscious recesses of its being Society knew what it was about.

The cake was really very small in proportion to the appetites of consumption, and no one, if it were shared all round, would be much the better off by the cutting of it.

Society was working not for the small pleasures of to-day but for the future security and improvement of the race,--in fact for "progress." If only the cake were not cut but was allowed to grow in the geometrical proportion predicted by Malthus of population, but not less true of compound interest, perhaps a day might come when there would at last be enough to go round, and when posterity could enter into the enjoyment of _our_ labors.

In that day overwork, overcrowding, and underfeeding would have come to an end, and men, secure of the comforts and necessities of the body, could proceed to the nobler exercises of their faculties.