Definition Of Wealth

The term "wealth" seems to have been forined by eombination of the two old Saxon words, "weal" and "things;" and the process may have been like this: Weal things, weal-things, wealth (pronounced as two syllables, with 'ings'' dropped), and finally wealth as we now have it. But, however formed, that the term wealth is identical in meaning with weal-things there can be no doubt. liy examining these two words, therofore ascertaining their meanings and combining them, if the work be well done, the exact and complete meaning of the word wealth will appear. The word "thing," says the Chicago Journal, springs from an old Saxon root which signifies "to be heavy." But what is heavy is of material substance and is an object of sense. A thing, then, is any material object cognizable by the senses. But it is especially used of what is without life, though in common speech all living beings below man are spoken of as things, and even man himself when thought of as belonging to the animal kingdom, as in the phrase, "all animáis and inanimate things. " But strictly speaking, man is not accounted a thing, because he is a moral person, and this higher element of personality raises him above the sphere of things. Weal has the same root as well. To be well - that is to be in a state that is weal - is to be in health, and that is to be in the state of fullest, most active and most unimpaired life. This is the keynote word of the whole matter - life. To be well is to be in a state that is weal - is to be in the fullest degree alive. The thiugs that make for weal are the things which make for to-be-well: that is to be alive, that is again, for life. The things which make for weal, that is for life, crne in human speech to be called weal-things, and this compound word was contracted into wealth. l!y these steps the correct and complete definition of our term is brought plainly into view. Wealth is one, or more, or the sum of things which make for life. And here, in passing, it may be said that life, and especi;Uy life as found in man, is the keynote word of all that is eontainiKl in what men have been wont to cali "political eeonomy." Now take this deünition as a measuring staiï in the hand and go abroad through the world and measv.re off the urray of things therein. All things which make for life are weal things- wealth. Wheat, corn, grain. l'ruits, root crops, food things of evcry sort, are wealth. So are all ünplemonts to próvido them. So are clothing, fuel and all implcments to provide these. So are all things to help about them. as in transportation and exchange. Hut human life has grades, and those things which feed it in its higher grades are also wealth - as works of art, to illustrate the higher, spiritual side of human life, or hospitals +o illustrate it again. But are muskets and cannon, and all the munitions of war, wealth? In so far as they are needful to help some life preserve itself against destruction by other life, they are wealth to the lives they preserve; but they are death, which is "illth" to those whom they kill in preserving alive those whom they defend. But to the whole sum of human life on the earth, they are a monstrous evil, to be swept off from the earth as the heartof human kind is healed of its impulses to rob and kill. In a true economie sense nothing that is made for killing men is wealth; but only what is made to make for life for all. But, finally, are not human faculties, powers, actions, activities and the like wealth? No: they come not under this word. There must be another word for them, if one would escape confusión of mind and utter clear thought in accurate speech. Only the material things which make for life are wealth, and all those things ♦hat word includes.