Besides these two parties benefited, there is a gain, too, for the community at large in deposit-banking; inasmuch as a new capital as such has been thereby created, a series of new values, which would not otherwise have existed at all. Were there no deposit-bank in that locality, every man now a customer of it would of course keep his own reserves for himself for prospective contingencies: now, all these little reserves are aggregated in the bank, the convenience of them for each customer's contingencies is just as great as if he kept his own in his own safe or wallet, but the banker finds that he can use, say two-thirds of the whole, and still answer each customer's call. Here is a new capital. Here are scattered valuables brought together to be loaned out to a profit, which were otherwise barren and useless for the time being. Industry is quickened in a wide circle, products are created and brought to market, wages are paid and profits are gained, in direct consequence of bringing together under favorable auspices for safe loaning the little hoards and driblets of many individuals, which were practically useless in isolated hands. It may easily be objected at this point, that it is entirely possible that any banker might be called upon to pay off all his deposit-liabilities at once in money, which, if it happened, would break him of course; so it is abstractly possible that all the lives insured in a Life Insurance Company might terminate in one day, in which case no Company in the world could meet its obligations; and so it is abstractly possible that all the houses insured in a Fire Insurance Company might be burned up in a single night, which, if it happened, would cause the collapse of the soundest company; but in all these cases of possibility there is a _certainty_ that the possibility will not become a fact. _Ex nihilo nihil fit._ A supposition practically impossible to become a fact can yield no logical inference whatever. The Greek language has a special grammatical form for a hypothesis impossible to be realized in fact: would that the English had also such a form of speech! It would save us a mess of bad reasoning. If, however, any banker may have misjudged for his locality at any time the proper ratio of reserves kept to deposits received, and be crowded in consequence, he must sell some of the securities bought with the excess, or borrow money on them.