The truth is, of course, that the will is not master of us at all times, and in fact at few times. The findings of modern psychology indicate how much we are creatures of instinct and emotion. The grave error as to saving which most people make is the failure to hitch the saving idea to a really powerful instinct or emotion. It is true that Acquisition, Economy and Accumulation are authentically listed among the human instincts. But there are so many _other_ instincts which in a prosperous country like ours dull and diminish the accumulation instinct, that there is a losing fight put up by the saving instinct. For instance, among the other human instincts are Rivalry, Curiosity, Family Affection, Sex Love, Ego, Display, Construction, Imitation, Play, Pugnacity, Social Cooperation, Leadership, Pride, Hospitality, Sympathy. These instincts are constantly breaking down the Economy and Accumulation instincts, _except insofar as they cater to the satisfaction of these other instincts_. Thus we have millions of people in America who work hard and earn a great deal of money, but who are also the most prodigious _spenders_ in the world. They are not great savers.
Psychologically, what has happened is that, like our sense of smell, our sense of accumulation and economy is blunted by disuse. It is always in a country where living conditions are _hard_ that the instinct of accumulation and economy sharpens and develops. The Scotch and the New Englander (both living in stony countries) have developed these qualities to a point where it is part of their tradition. The old joke about the Scotchman’s purse, out of which, when he opened it, flew a moth, is one of hundreds of similar jokes. President Coolidge, as embodying the New England Yankee tradition of “closeness,” has the authentic tradition of Yankee thrift behind him, based also upon the hard-won accumulations of our Puritan ancestors.
Disuse of an instinct relaxes and rusts it, and in the last twenty years this has occurred to large numbers of Americans. The savage who lives in a land of luxury soon dulls his hunting instinct and his marksmanship; and if he suddenly is again thrust into hard conditions he dies. Whole tribes and even whole races of men have disappeared, for probably no other reason than that of living in soft luxury until a natural cataclysm put them up against conditions of which they were once masters, but had lost the power to conquer.
_The instinct to accumulate is basic and should not be permitted to atrophy in any human being._ The span of life inevitably brings most of us at some period to a point where we suffer if we do let it atrophy. (Naturally, of course, it should not be permitted to become abnormal or obsessing, either.)
How shall this atrophy be prevented, psychologically? It is best accomplished by routing all instincts over the “long circuit” in the mind; that is, subjecting all of them to review before the tribunal of reason. Most instincts are permitted to travel over the “short circuit” of the mind; that is, the feeling is permitted to arise and flow into expression and action before there is any attempt at correlation of ideas or the use of judgment. The ideal that made the Greeks the most balanced super-humans of all history was undoubtedly their dictum “_of nothing too much_.” This required long circuit mental processes; a brake of reason upon the crude excrescences of instinct and emotion. As Christopher Morley says in _Thunder on the Left_, if hunger can keep from taking the food within its reach, then is the life of the spirit begun. Also, then, is the saving instinct preserved in the modern welter of plenty; together with the fine character balance which is represented by “thought for the morrow.”
It should be pointed out also that _decision_ plays a vital part in saving. Psychologically speaking, decision (in the words of Prof. H. L. Hollingsworth, of Columbia), is “only another name for the final outcome of the rivalry of competing ideas or instincts.” Thus we see how important it is that the rivalry against the saving idea be not made unfair and disastrous, by opposing against it Display, Imitation, Hospitality, Ego, Rivalry, Ostentation, Curiosity, Envy, Jealousy and other instincts which break any decision to save. The instincts which _aid_ the saving instinct are Love of Family and Home, Construction, Social Cooperation, Leadership, Civic and National Pride, Self-Dependence, Sex Love. Many a young man never saves a penny until he meets a nice girl he wants to marry; or until he gets tired of wandering and develops a desire for a fireside.