This ctesohedonic error (lust for possession) has produced consequences of which we proceed to speak. Just as individuals fancy that they will be better off with larger possessions, so peoples imagine that their prosperity and happiness will be in direct proportion to the territorial extent of their country. Hence one of the silliest aberrations of the human mind--the fatuous idolatry of square miles. A great many Germans still figure it out that they will have a larger sum of happiness if their country contains 208,670 square miles instead of 203,070.[22] Few errors are more evident. There are thousands of examples to prove that the welfare of citizens is in no way a function of the extent of the state. If it were so, Russia would be the richest country in Europe, while everybody knows it is exactly the contrary. Taxation in that country is pushed to limits that might almost be called absurd, and for that reason the extent of the nation is one of the greatest obstacles to its prosperity. As an example to illustrate the absurdity of the idolatry of square miles, take California, which now has 158,360 square miles,[23] and 1,200,000 inhabitants. If in another century the population should rise to forty millions, it might be expedient for the good government of these men to divide the State into several. If the conservatives of that period should declare that they would give the last drop of their blood to preserve the unity of their Commonwealth, they would be afflicted with the square-mile craze, and as foolish as the Europeans. Territorial divisions are made for men, not men for territorial divisions. The object enlightened patriots should pursue is not that a certain geographical extent should be included under one name or many, but that the divisions should conform to the aspirations and desires of the citizens. They should impose as little restraint as possible upon the economical and intellectual progress of societies.