a broad sense of the term
may depend largely on a man's state of health, his temperament, his
conscience, or his relation to his friends; but the weal that is so
secured is not described as a state of wealth. That depends on the
possession of useful and material things, and the rich man has more of
them than other men. The term _wealth_, which originally signified the
state of being rich, afterwards came to be applied to the things which
make a man rich, and it is thus that the term is used in the science
of Economics.

_What Things constitute Wealth._--It is clear that useful things, like
air, which are at hand in unlimited quantity, do not make any one
rich in this comparative sense, for they benefit all alike; and, in so
far as they are concerned, all men are on the same level of welfare.
Moreover, since they are so abundant as to shower benefits everywhere
in profusion, the quantity of them that a man has at his disposal may
be lost or thrown away with entire impunity. He would only have to
help himself again from the abounding supply which nature thrusts on
him in order to be as well off as he was before. A bucketful of water
on the shore of Lake Superior is of no importance to the man who has
it. If it were spilled on the sand, the man would have only to dip up
another bucketful, with an expenditure of effort that would be too
small to take account of. If, however, fresh water were scarce, every
bucketful would have its importance, and the loss of that quantity
would make a distinct impression on the man's well-being. Whenever
each particular part of the supply has this power to make a possessor
better off than he would be without it, the substance is a form of
wealth. The quality of being _specifically_ important is, therefore,
the essential attribute of all the concrete forms of wealth. Sand by
the seashore does not have any specific importance, since it is so
abundant that the gain or loss of a wheelbarrow load would not make a
man better off or worse off; but a pile of sand by the side of an
unfinished building has this quality. There every barrow load is of
consequence, for the available quantity is so small that diminutions
reduce and additions increase the wealth of the possessor. Sand on the
shore has the inherent power to help make mortar, and water in Lake
Superior has the power to quench thirst, but neither of them has the
attribute which would make it a form of wealth, namely, specific
importance. Pa