The laying-aside of resources, or saving, is a basic phenomenon among men, as it is among bees. It is a basis of material civilization.

Toynbee has demonstrated the existence of twenty-nine human civilizations. He has studied these in a monumental masterwork.

We believe that on the material level this effort can be expressed in one sentence: There is a close correlation between the rate of investment by a group or community and the expansion of its civilization.

This conviction is the starting point of our short analytical essay on the phenomena of investment. The essay is far from exhaustive. The reader will judge whether it is nonetheless useful.