402 lotka: efficiency in organic evolution 



lead to an ultimately unbounded accumulation of stock. It is 

 of course imaginable that there might be periods of excessive 

 production alternating with periods of excessive consumption. 

 But there are good reasons to believe that such fluctuations, in 

 so far as they do occur, do not exceed certain limits, so that 

 as a first approximation, at any rate, conditions may be regarded 

 as steady. The steady state is a permanent state. Other states 

 in general are transient. For this reason a particular interest 

 attaches to the steady state, which fully justifies any special 

 attention paid to it. At the same time it presents the simplest 

 problem and should therefore receive j^rsi attention. A precisely 

 similar state of affairs to that which confronts us here is familiar 

 to every student of thermodynamics in connection with the 

 theory of Change of State. 



5. Certain limitations are introduced by an incompleteness 

 of the Jevons' equation. This equation takes account of only 

 two kinds of terms, those relating to pleasure derived from con- 

 sumption, and those derived from displeasure bound up with 

 production. Many activities are sufficiently covered by two 

 such classes of terms, but there are certain notable exceptions. 



For the individual may labor without any definite calculation 

 of reward, for the mere love of the labor, under the impulse of 

 the instinct of loorkmanship, production itself being a source of 

 pleasure. A flippant disciple of modern industrialism might 

 perhaps remark that cases of this kind are so rare that little 

 error is introduced in leaving them out of account. The writer 

 believes that this is a misconception; that the instinct of work- 

 manship fulfils a very definite function in the scheme of nature: 



The individual can assist in preserving the species by acts 

 aimed at self preservation; certain egoistic instincts take care 

 of that. 



Or, he may assist in preserving the species by acts of service 

 to other individuals of his species. Another set of instincts, 

 altruistic instincts, have been evolved to take care of this. They 

 take various shapes and manifest themselves in different phases 

 of the life of the individual. One of them is the instinct of work- 

 manship, which is found not only in man, but also in other species 

 possessing a definite social system, such as the bee. 



