In the second place (and too much stress cannot be laid upon this in any comparison of the business-life of the two peoples) the American is always trading on a rising market. This is true of the individual and true of the nation. Temporary fluctuations there are of course, but after every setback the country has only gone ahead faster than before. The man with faith in the future, provided only that he looked far enough ahead to be protected against temporary times of depression, has always won. Just as the railway companies push their lines out into the wilderness, confident of the population that will follow, and are never disappointed, so in all other lines the man who is always in advance, who does not wait for the demand to be there before he enlarges his plant to meet it, but who sees it coming and is ready for it when it comes--the man who has always acted in the belief that the future will be bigger than the present,--that man has never failed to reap his reward. Of course the necessary danger in such a condition is that of over-speculation. But nearly every man who amasses wealth or wins large commercial success in the United States habitually takes risks which would be folly in England. They are not folly in him, because the universal growth of the country, dragging with it and buoying up all industries and all values, as it goes, is on his side. It is inevitable that there should result a national temperament more buoyant, more enterprising, more alert. * * * * * What is important, too, is that whereas in England the field is already more or less full and was handed down to the present generation well occupied, so that new industries can, as it were, only be erected on the ruins of old, and a site has to be cleared of one factory before another can be built (all of which is, in a measure, only relative and metaphorical), in the United States there is always room for the newcomers. New population is pouring in to create new markets: new resources are being developed to provide the raw material for new industries; there is abundance of new land, new cities, new sites whereon the new factories can be built. This is why "America" and "opportunity" are interchangeable terms; why young men need never lack friends or backing or the chance to be the architects of their own fortunes. Society can afford to encourage the individual to assert himself, because there is space for and need of him.