1902.] KEASBEY — A CLASSIFICATION OF ECONOMIES. 151 



nutriment when acquired is assimilated. During the process of 

 digestion a period of rest or play ensues until the original appetites 

 are re-aroused, when hunger again sets them in search of subsist- 

 ence with the same result. The life of the anaconda is the most 

 striking example of this circular sort of existence, though the 

 description applies in a less degree to all orders of animals, whose 

 existence for the most part amounts to a monotonous round of 

 acquisition and assimilation as long as life lasts, and is afterwards 

 carried on in much the same way by their offspring. Obviously 

 there is nothing in such a system to stimulate progress, for the 

 economic sequence once established is recurrent : demand tends 

 toward utility, utility leads to utilization, and utilization results in 

 supply, over and over again. 



Turning from the instinctive to the rational economy, the phe- 

 nomenon of progress becomes immediately apparent. If we 

 extend our survey to include the activities of mankind, it is evident 

 enough that utilization is a potent factor of development. Not 

 that the human species is not subject, like all other animals, to the 

 process of selection ; by no means — indeed, as ethnology shows, 

 the human species has in the course of time, through the interaction 

 of variability and environment and by dint of selection, become 

 differentiated into a number of ethnic stocks. Only the process of 



human development does not appear to stop there. In man's case 



and, as far as I can see, in man's case alone — utilization has made 

 for further progress along economic lines. That is to say : men of 

 the same descent, who do not differ from each other ethnically to 

 any appreciable extent, who are to all intents and purpose alike as far 

 as structure and function are concerned, still exhibit striking differ- 

 ences in their manner of life. Thus the Frenchman of the prov- 

 inces and the Frenchman of Paris are ethnically alike, but differ 

 enormously in their economic activities. And offspring that vary 

 ever so slightly from their parents in the organic sense very often show 

 decided increase of economic capacity. For example, the English- 

 men of to-day are very much like the Englishmen of three hundred 

 years ago, but in their manner of life they differ widely from their 

 ancestors. On the other hand, people of diverse ethnic stocks, if 

 placed under the same economic conditions, soon conform to an 

 established standard of life and adopt similar ways of living. Our 

 own country furnishes a striking instance of this. The population of 

 the United States is recruited from all countries of the world, but 



