[Footnote 213-4: This advance is generally observed to be introduced by the _jus fortioris_. _Steuart_, Principles I, ch. 7. (Compare §§ 45-6-8.) In this way, the earliest oriental despotisms have unwittingly been of great service to mankind. What the sultan here accomplished with his few favorites was done in the lower stages of civilization of the west by the aristocracy of great vassals, in a manner more worthy of human beings, and in a much more stable form. (_J. S. Mill_, Principles I, 14 ff.)] [Footnote 213-5: _Banfield_, Organization of Industry, 1848, 11.] SECTION CCXIV. CAUSES OF AN INCREASE OF PRODUCTION. Only when wants increase does production increase also.[214-1] The old maxim: _Si quem volueris esse divitem, non est quod augeas divitias, sed minuas cupiditates (Seneca)_, would, if consistently carried out, have thwarted the advance of civilization and frustrated the improvement of man's condition. On the other hand, most political economists, without more ado, assume that individuals, and still more nations, are wont to extend the aggregate of their enjoyments just as far as there is a possibility of satisfying their wants. But they forget here how great a part is played in the world, as men are constituted, by the principle of inertia.[214-2] At the first blush, what seems more natural than that the less labor a people need employ to obtain the most indispensable means of subsistence, the more time and taste would remain to them to satisfy their more refined wants. According to this, we should expect to discover a more refined civilization, especially, in intellectual matters, in the earliest periods, when population is small, when land exists in excess and is not yet exhausted. But, in reality, precisely the reverse is the case. In the earliest stages of civilization accessible to our observation, we find materialism prevailing in its coarsest form, and life absorbed entirely by the lowest physical wants. (Tropical lands.) Where bread grows on the trees, and one needs only to reach out his hand and pluck it; where all one wants to cover his nakedness is a few palm leaves, ordinary souls find no incentive to an ant-like activity, or to a union among themselves for economic purposes.[214-3] When a Mexican countryman earns enough to keep himself and his family from absolute want by two days' labor in a week, he idles away the other five. It never occurs to him that he might devote his leisure time to putting his hut or his household furniture, etc., in better shape. The necessity of foresight even is almost unknown; and in the most luxuriantly fertile country in the world, a bad harvest immediately leads to the most frightful famine. Humboldt was assured that there was no hope of making the people more industrious except by the destruction of the banana plantations.[214-4] But, indeed, there would be little gained by such compulsory industry. To work for any