Possession gives the owner various kinds of satisfaction. The instinctive satisfaction in possession itself may be quite irrespective of the values of the objects owned, and deprivation may be fiercely resisted out of all proportion to the value of the objects. Especially will this be the case if the object possessed has become surrounded with other emotional attachments, so that an individual may be as bitterly chagrined and piqued by being deprived of some slight memoir or keepsake as of a large sum of money. In the same way the fighting spirit of a whole tribe or nation may be aroused by the invasion or seizure of a small and unimportant bit of land, or by the chance of its possession. The instinctive sense of satisfaction, as in the last mentioned case is enhanced by the sense of importance which comes from possession, and which enhances one's own individuality and personality. A man's vast holdings in wealth, land, factories, machinery, or private estates is, in a sense, regarded by him as an extension of his personality. He is confirmed in this impression because it is so regarded by his neighbors and the whole social group. A great landowner is a celebrity throughout the countryside, and, as Mr. Veblen points out, a large part of the luxurious display and expenditure of the leisure classes is their way of publicly and conspicuously indicating the amount of their possessions. As in the case of any other strong native tendency, interference with the instinct of acquisition, whether displayed by the individual or the group, provokes often fierce anger and bitter combat. The history of wars of aggrandizement throughout the history of Europe are testimonies to the efficacy of this instinct at least in the initiation of war. The progress of civilization beyond its earliest states is held, by some sociologists and economists, to be ascribed to the power of the acquisitive instinct. The acquisition of material wealth or capital, the development of the institution of private property with its concomitant individual development of land and natural resources is maintained by Lester Ward to be of paramount importance in social advance: ... Objects of desire multiplied themselves and their possession became an end of effort. Slowly the notion of property came into being and in acquiring this, as history shows, the larger share of all human energy has been absorbed. The ruling passion has for a time long anterior to any recorded annals always been proprietary acquisition.... Both the passion and the means of satisfying it were conditions to the development of society itself, and rightly viewed they have also been leading factors in civilization.[1] [Footnote 1: Lester Ward: _The Psychic Factors of Civilization_, p. 156.]