This life—­for this enterprise and its objects are types of a considerable portion of life—­is not without its ideal, its hero, its highest expression, its consummate flower.  It is expressed in a word which I use without any sense of its personality, as the French use the word Barnum—­for our crude young nation has the distinction of adding a verb to the French language, the verb to barnum—­it is expressed in the well-known name Croesus.  This is a standard—­impossible to be reached perhaps, but a standard.  If one may say so, the country is sown with seeds of Croesus, and the crop is forward and promising.  The interest to us now in the observation of this phase of modern life is not in the least for purposes of satire or of reform.  We are inquiring how wholly this conception of life is divorced from the desire to learn what has been done and said to the end that better things may be done and said hereafter, in order that we may understand the popular conception of the insignificant value of literature in human affairs.  But it is not aside from our subject, rather right in its path, to take heed of what the philosophers say of the effect in other respects of the pursuit of wealth.

One cause of the decay of the power of defense in a state, says the Athenian Stranger in Plato’s Laws—­one cause is the love of wealth, which wholly absorbs men and never for a moment allows them to think of anything but their private possessions; on this the soul of every citizen hangs suspended, and can attend to nothing but his daily gain; mankind are ready to learn any branch of knowledge and to follow any pursuit which tends to this end, and they laugh at any other; that is the reason why a city will not be in earnest about war or any other good and honorable pursuit.

The accumulation of gold in the treasury of private individuals, says Socrates, in the Republic, is the ruin of democracy.  They invent illegal modes of expenditure; and what do they or their wives care about the law?

“And then one, seeing another’s display, proposes to rival him, and thus the whole body of citizens acquires a similar character.

“After that they get on in a trade, and the more they think of making a fortune, the less they think of virtue; for when riches and virtue are placed together in the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.

“And in proportion as riches and rich men are honored in the state, virtue and the virtuous are dishonored.

“And what is honored is cultivated, and that which has no honor is neglected.

“And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and money, and they honor and reverence the rich man and make a ruler of him, and dishonor the poor man.

“They do so.”

The object of a reasonable statesman (it is Plato who is really speaking in the Laws) is not that the state should be as great and rich as possible, should possess gold and silver, and have the greatest empire by sea and land.