INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL SURPLUS 563 



modern methods of production. It remains to be seen whether the east 

 will use this increased power over nature, gained by voluntary imita- 

 tion, for the development of a higher plane of living or will merely 

 increase the total population of the Orient on the present plane of 

 misery. The argument from the past is never wholly safe but so far as 

 that argument applies to the present problem it seems to indicate that, 

 as man continues to profit by the method of proving all things and hold- 

 ing fast to that which is good, he will learn in the east as well as in the 

 west that progress will occur by the discovery and rational imitation of 

 those processes which, to use terms employed by Mr. Herbert Spencer, 

 develop individuation with the least necessary expenditure for genesis, 

 or, in terms of this essay, will produce the greatest surplus with the 

 minimum expenditure for survival. When that lesson has been learned 

 man may turn more of his energies from the effort to live, to the 

 endeavor to live well. 



