3 o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



profit on even the most promising kinds of capital during recent years 

 has been everywhere exceptionally low. 



Another notable tendency among investigators is to assign to 

 clearly secondary causes or results, positions of primary importance. 

 Thus (general) over-production,* or an amount of production of com- 

 modities in excess of demand at remunerative prices, finds greater favor 

 as an agency of current economic disturbance than any other. But 

 surely all nations and people could not, with one accord and almost 

 concurrently, have entered upon a course of unprofitable production 

 without being impelled by an agency so universal and so irresistible 

 as to almost become invested with the character of a natural law ; 

 and hence over-production obviously, in any broad inquiry, must be 

 accepted as a result rather than a cause. And so, also, in respect 

 to " metallism " and the enactment of laws restrictive of commerce ; 

 for no one can seriously suppose that silver has been demonetized or 

 tariffs enacted inadvertently, or at the whim and caprice of individuals, 

 with a view of occasioning either domestic or international economic 

 disturbances ; but, on the contrary, the only reasonable supposition is, 

 that antecedent conditions or agencies have prompted to action in 

 both cases, by inducing a belief that measures of the kind specified 

 were in the nature of safeguards against threatened economic evils, or 

 as helps to, at least, local prosperity. And as crop failures, the rav- 

 ages of insects, the diseases of animals, the disappearance of fish, and 

 maladministration of government, are local and not necessarily per- 

 manent, they must all clearly, in any investigation, be regarded as 

 secondary and not primary agencies. In short, the general recogni- 

 tion, by all investigators, that the striking characteristic of the eco- 

 nomic disturbance that has prevailed since 1873 is its universality, of 

 necessity compels a recognition of the fact that the agency which was 

 mainly instrumental in producing it could not have been local, and 

 must have been universal in its influence and action. And the ques- 

 tion of interest which next presents itself is, can any such agency, thus 

 operative and thus potential, be recognized ? Let us inquire. 



* No term has been used more loosely in the discussion of this subject of trade de- 

 pression than that of "over-production." The idea that there can be such a thing as a 

 general production of useful or desirable commodities in excess of what is wanted is an 

 absurdity; but there may be, as above stated, an amount of production in excess of 

 demand at remunerative prices, or, what is substantially the same thing, an excess of 

 capacity for production; or the term may be properly used to indicate a check on the 

 distribution of products consequent on the existence of such conditions. 



Professor Ferdinand ConN, in a paper on "Vital Questions," considers that 

 we have half solved the riddle of life, inasmuch as we have grasped its mechan- 

 ism and the physical and chemical forces that set it in motion. But as we still 

 have to face other phenomena and active forces, the full solution of the problem 

 is yet far deferred. 



