[263-3] D. Hume, Discourses, No. 3, On Money.
[263-4] England is especially well situated in this respect, in consequence of its excellent commercial position and its surplus of the principal auxiliary products, such as coal, iron, etc. Should the coal-beds of such a manufacturing country be ever entirely exhausted, it is scarcely possible to see, from our present point of view, how the most rapid and most frightful decline of its national economy could be averted! Compare the opening address before the British Association, by Armstrong, at Newcastle (1863), who prophecies the exhaustion of the English coal-beds in 212 years at the rate at which coal had been consumed during the eight preceding years. According to the report of the royal committee on the coal question (1871, vol. III), Great Britain has still attainable deposits, that is 4,000 feet deep, 90,207,000,000 tons of coal in its coal beds already known; and in beds not yet worked, 56,273,000,000 tons. Compare, also, Jevons, The Coal Question (1866). It is estimated that the most productive French coal-field will be exhausted in 100 years. (M. Chevalier, Rapport du Jury international de 1867, 57.)
[263-5] Even J. S. Mill's views on the probability of perpetual peace on earth are altogether too rosy: Principles III, ch. 17, 5. This is still truer of Buckle. History of Civilization, I, ch. 4. In the modern state-system of Europe, there is wont to be in each generation, a peaceful half and a warlike one, which follow each other as ebb and flow. I need only mention the preponderance of peace between 1714 and 1740, between 1763 and 1793, and between 1815 and 1853. It happens frequently that at the close of the period of peace, intelligent and noble but unhistorical and therefore short-sighted minds begin to dream of perpetual peace. Even a man like Dohm (Ueber die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Juden, 227 seq.) expected, in 1785, that considering the size and quality of armies, and the mutual knowledge of all countries of one another, that instead of actually waging war, nations might send to each other well authenticated statements of the strength, for instance, of their navies and of the sums necessary to maintain them for a number of years.
[263-6] The Mongols saw the abandonment of their nomadic life in so gloomy a light that they seriously thought of turning all China with its countless human beings into pasture-land! (Gibbon, History of the Roman Empire, ch. 34.)
[263-7] It is a fact characteristic of the history of England, that Norman supremacy and afterwards bondage were wiped out so gradually that contemporary historians have nothing to say of the transformation. (Macaulay, History of England, ch. 1.) Repeal of the corn laws vis-a-vis of the most recent industrial advance of the country.
[263-8] Even Ricardo says that in a highly civilized country the continual making of savings is by no means desirable. Carried to an extreme, saving would lead to the equal poverty of all. (Principles, ch. 5.)
[263-9] The Beccaria, Economia publica I, 3, 31, teaches that the limits of population are to be found at the point where agriculture cannot be made to yield an additional increase of products, and where foreign countries do not offer any more a counter value of their products in exchange for the manufactured articles and the services to be furnished them. Similarly, Büsch, Geldumlauf III, 7; otherwise, indeed, V, 15, in which, in opposition to Adam Smith, it is claimed that the work to be performed by one nation for others has no limits which cannot be exceeded. Steuart's theory of the limits to the production of every commercial nation: Principles, I, ch. 18. Lauderdale, Inquiry, ch. 5, 274 ff., says categorically, that all wealth which is produced by the transformation of raw material depends on the production of such raw material, and of the means of subsistence necessary for the support of the labor employed in such transformation. Excellent investigations by Malthus in the additions (1817) to the Essay on the Principles of Population, II, ch. 9-13. Compare Roscher Nationalöcon. des Ackerbaues, § 162. As early a writer as Mirabeau, Philosophie rurale, ch. X, was of opinion that a country whose industries were on as large a scale as those of Holland, dispersed its people indeed over the whole earth, made them independent at home, but almost destroyed their nationality.
THE DECLINE OF NATIONS.
That, after a whole nation has reached the zenith of its prosperity, it is subject to old age and to decline, and cannot avoid them, is in general, a proposition susceptible neither of proof nor refutation.[264-1] This uncertainty is practically very useful, for were it otherwise, mediocre statesmen might become either discouraged or indifferent. However, we should not assume, as so many do,[264-2] without proof, the earthly immortality of nations, provided only they observe a proper diet; nor call the science of the physiology or medicine of nations a chimera, simply because it confesses that it knows of no preventive against such old age. It has doubtless been the fate of many nations to die, that is, not precisely to be destroyed—just as in the physical world, not a particle of matter is lost—but to see their former national personality disappear, and themselves continue to exist only as component parts of some other nation.[264-3] This phenomenon, indeed, finds its analogon in every thing that is human, but seems to contradict a law of nature which very widely prevails, viz.: that it is easier to advance in a certain direction in proportion to the distance gone over in it already.[264-4]