_ 98 Palmieri_, Ricchezza nazionale, Introd. The greater number of the definitions of wealth are rather onesided than false. _Socrates_, for instance, looks only at the relation existing between means and their owner’s wants. (_Xenoph._ Memor., IV, 2, 37, seq. Œconom. II, 2 ff.). _Plato_, on the other hand, as the socialists are wont to do, looks to the excess over that possessed by others. (Legg. V, 742, seq.). _Xenophon’s_ observations, Hiero, 4, on the nature of wealth, are many-sided and beautiful. _Aristotle_ distinguishes between natural and artificial wealth: πλῆθος ὀργάνων οἰκονομακῶν καὶ πολιτικῶν—πλῆθος νομίσματος. (Polit, I, 3, 9, 16.) Compare _Cicero_, Parad. VI. The dominant idea of the so-called Mercantile System is thus expressed in a Saxon pamphlet of 1530 (Müntzbelangende Antwort, etc.): “Money is the real watchword; where there is much money, there is wealth, it is clear.” Compare _Luther_, Werke, Irmisch edition, XXII, p. 200 seq. See some excellent remarks in opposition hereto, in the Saxon pamphlet, Gemeyne Stimmen von der Müntz, 1530. _Schröder_, Fürstliche Schatz-und Rentkammer, 1686, ch XXIX. “A country grows rich in proportion as it draws gold or money, either from the earth or from other countries; poor, in proportion as money leaves it. The wealth of a country must be estimated by the quantity of gold and silver in it.” See a very passionate argument against this view in _Boisguillebert_, Dissertation sur la Nature des Richesses, written sometime between 1697 and 1714. _Berkeley_, Querist (1735), Nos. 562, 542. Among Englishmen, the correct view was prevalent much earlier, especially among the founders of the American colonial empire. See _Hachluyt_, Voyages (1600) III, 22 ff. 45 ff. 152 ff. 165 ff. 182 ff. 266 ff; but especially the work “Virginia’s Verger” in “Purchas Pilgrims” (1625), IV, p. 809 ff. However, several Spaniards were led by hard experience to adopt a view opposed to the Midas-view (compare _Aristotle_, Polit. I, ch. 3, 16), by which the first American explorers were carried away: _Garcilasso de la Vega_ (1609), Comment. reales II, ch. 6; _Saavedra Faxardo_, Idea Principis christiani (1640) Symb. 69: _potissimæ divitiæ ac opes terræ fructus sunt, nec ditiores in regnis fodinæ, quam agricultura; plus emolumenti, acclivia montis Vesuvii latera adverunt, quam Potosus mons_. Contemporary with those Englishmen, was the Italian, _Giov. Botero_, who called attention to the fact, that France and Italy were the countries of Europe richest in gold, although they possessed no mines of the precious metal themselves: Della Ragion di Stato (1591) p. 88 ff. Also _Sully_, who called agriculture and cattle-breeding the breasts of the state, the real mines and pearls