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flowed. At the same time that this change took place, without the intervention of force, the art of war changed in favour of wealthy nations, but the changes took place by slow degrees, and the power of nations now may almost be estimated by their disposable incomes.
This change, however, has by no means secured the prosperity of wealthy nations; it has only prevented poor ones, unable by means of fair competition to do by conquest what they could not effect by perseverance in arts and industry; for, in other respects, though it makes the prosperity of a nation more dependant =sic= on wealth, and more independent of violence; it prevents any nation from preserving its political importance after it loses its riches. It does not by any means interrupt that progress by which poor nations gradually rise up and rival richer ones in arts. It has not done away the advantages that arise from superior industry and attention to business, or from the gradual introduction of knowledge amongst the more ignorant, thereby lessening their inferiority, and tending to bring nations to a level; on the contrary, by increasing the advantages, and securing the gradual triumphs gained by arts and industry, from the violence of war, it makes wealth a more desirable object, and the loss of it a greater misfortune. It tends to augment the natural propensity that there is in poor nations to equal richer ones {22}, although it, at the same time, augments the difficulty of accomplishing their intentions.
The superior energy of poverty and necessity which leads men, under this pressure, to act incessantly in whatever way they have it in their power to act, and that seems likely to bring them on a level with those that are richer, is then the ground-work of the rise and fall of nations, as well as of individuals. This tendency is sometimes favoured by particular circumstances, and sometimes it is counteracted by them; but its operation is incessant, and it has never yet failed in producing its effect, for the triumph of poverty over wealth on the great scale as on the small, though very irregular in its pace, has continued without interruption from the earliest records to the present moment.
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{22} The present inferiority of Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal, compared with the rank they held in former times, is easily accounted for by looking at the scale of their revenues.
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CHAP. III.
Of the Nations that rose to Wealth and Power previously to the Conquests in Asia and Africa, and the Causes which ruined them.