CHAPTER II THE EXCHEQUER OF LIFE “This last lustrum has enabled us to make an astounding discovery, of which neither Adam Smith nor Cobden nor Malthus dreamed--that a nation is composed not of property nor of provinces, but of men.”--Tille (1904), quoted by Forel. The main thesis which the last chapter was intended to introduce is, in the words of Ruskin, simply this: “There is no wealth but life.” The assumption throughout this book is that Ruskin is the real founder of political economy, he first of moderns having seen this supreme truth. We speak of a nation's possessions, but possessions imply a possessor or possessors. Wealth, as Ruskin teaches us, is “the possession of the valuable by the valiant.” If our national possessions were made over to a race of monkeys, “they being inherently and eternally incapable of wealth,” what would they be worth? Furthermore, to possess and to be possessed by, are totally diverse things. Says Ruskin, “Lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the passengers fastened a belt about him with two hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was found afterwards at the bottom. Now, as he was sinking--had he the gold or had the gold him?” =Vital economics.=--We have already alluded to the unique property of mankind in virtue of which the radical character of the essential wealth, which is life, has only too commonly been forgotten. In the case of any animal or vegetable species we should have no difficulty, if asked regarding its “success” and “prospects,” in directing our enquiry to essentials. We should examine the individuals of that species, young and old, its death-rate and its birth-rate, and these would supply us with the answer. In the case of man there is the almost incalculable complication involved in the fact that he is capable of making external acquirements,--material possessions and spiritual possessions which, so long as he remains capable of possessing them, are of real value, and, on account of what they mean for life, are a true though secondary wealth. Amongst civilised mankind, therefore, the essential question as to the breed of men and women is obscured by the secondary question as to their traditional or transmitted possessions or external acquirements. But if we remember the case of the drowning man and his gold we shall realise that, fundamentally, the case is the same for the human as for any other species. No one can openly question this, but not one publicist or politician in a thousand believes it in any living sense. The true function of government, said Ruskin, is the production and recognition of human worth. This has only to be said to be admitted; it is one of the thoughts that shine, as Joubert says. No one denies it and no one acts upon it.