nomical race always produces more than it requires, and lives (if it
is permitted to do so) in competence on the produce of its daily labour.
The quantity of its store, great or small, is therefore in many respects
indifferent to it, and cannot be inferred from its aspect. Similarly an
inactive and wasteful population, which cannot live by its daily labour,
but is dependent, partly or wholly, on consumption of its store, may be
(by various difficulties, hereafter to be examined, in realizing or
getting at such store) retained in a state of abject distress, though
its possessions may be immense. But the results always involved in the
magnitude of store are, the commercial power of the nation, its
security, and its mental character. Its commercial power, in that
according to the quantity of its store, may be the extent of its
dealings; its security, in that according to the quantity of its store
are its means of sudden exertion or sustained endurance; and its
character, in that certain conditions of civilization cannot be attained
without permanent and continually accumulating store, of great intrinsic
value, and of peculiar nature.[21]

55. Now, seeing that these three advantages arise from largeness of
store in proportion to population, the question arises immediately,
"Given the store--is the nation enriched by diminution of its numbers?
Are a successful national speculation, and a pestilence, economically
the same thing?"

This is in part a sophistical question; such as it would be to ask
whether a man was richer when struck by disease which must limit his
life within a predicable period, than he was when in health. He is
enabled to enlarge his current expenses, and has for all purposes a
larger sum at his immediate disposal (for, given the fortune, the
shorter the life, the larger the annuity); yet no man considers himself
richer because he is condemned by his physician.

56. The logical reply is that, since Wealth is by definition only the
means of life, a nation cannot be enriched by its own mortality. Or in
shorter words, the life is more than the meat; and existence itself,
more wealth than the means of existence. Whence, of two nations who have
equal store, the more numerous is to be considered the richer, provided
the type of the inhabitant be as high (for, though the relative bulk of
their store be less, its relative efficiency, or the amount of effectual
wealth, must be greater). But if the type of the popu