time: the refreshing river 



the heat that is in it) but push out more matter, and do that action 

 which we call germinating? Can these germs choose but pierce the 

 earth in small strings, as they are able to make their way? Thus by 

 drawing the thrid carefully through your fingers and staying at every 

 knot to see how it is tyed, you see that this difficult progresse of the 

 generation of living creatures is obvious enough to be comprehended 

 and the steps of it set down; if one would but take the paines and 

 afford the time that is necessary to note diligently all the circumstances 

 in every change of it." This was almost the first declaration of belief 

 in the comprehensibility of the mechanism of generation. It was 

 fundamental for the future of biology. But side by side with this, 

 there went a similar application of mechanical causation to economics, 

 equally fundamental for the future, but not of such happy augury. 

 In 1622 Gervase Malynes, in his Lex Mercatoria, wrote :^ "We see 

 how one thing driveth or enforceth another, like as in a clock where 

 there are many wheels, the first wheel being stirred driveth the next 

 and that the third and so forth, till the last that moveth the instrument 

 striketh the clock; or like as in a press going in a strait, where the 

 foremost is driven by him that is next to him, and the next by him 

 that followeth him." So men were to be thought of as selfish monads 

 or corpuscles, like the atoms of natural science, with the automatic 

 price-mechanisms taking the place of the Newtonian laws of motion. 



Thus the theocratically legislative state of the mediaeval clerk was 

 dying, and could no longer attempt to control the great merchants 

 of London, Antwerp, or Venice, who looked after themselves, and 

 expected others to do the same. Thenceforward, there was to be no 

 interference with the free play of capitalist interests. All that was 

 lacking was the supreme piece of cant elaborated by the eighteenth 

 century, the opinion that when the "natural economic appetites" and 

 selfishnesses of men are allowed to take their course to the end, a 

 society results which does, by a strange but beneficent dispensation 

 of Providence, provide the maximum of attainable happiness for all 

 classes. 



Mechanical causation was one concept taken over by seventeenth- 

 century economics from science; atomism was another. It is question- 

 able whether the social implications of these changes have been suffi- 



^ Malynes, G., Consuetudo, vel Lex Mercatoria, or the Antient Law-Merchan (London, 

 1622), Malynes defends usury, and describes (p. 263) certain silver mines which the 

 owner will not allow to be worked. "Howsoever I thought good to remember this for our 

 posteritie, for there may come a time when industrious men shall be more regarded." 



86 



