EVOLUTION OF THE PROFESSIONS. 323 



banking, journalism, immense injuries have been done by 

 laws injuries afterwards healed by social forces which 

 have thereupon set up afresh the normal courses of growth. 

 So unconscious are men of the life of the social organism 

 that though the spontaneous actions of its units, each seek 

 ing livelihood, generate streams of food which touch at their 

 doors every hour though the water for the morning bath, 

 the lights for their rooms, the fires in their grates, the bus or 

 tram which takes them to the City, the business they carry 

 on (made possible by the distributing system they share in), 

 the evening &quot; Special &quot; they glance at, the theatre or con 

 cert to which they presently go, and the cab home, all result 

 from the unprompted workings of this organized humanity, 

 they remain blind. Though by its vital activities capital is 

 drafted to places where it is most wanted, supplies of com 

 modities balanced in every locality and prices universally 

 adjusted all without official supervision; yet, being ob 

 livious of the truth that these processes are socially origi 

 nated without design of any one, they cannot believe that 

 society will be bettered by natural agencies. And hence 

 when they see an evil to be cured or a good to be achieved, 

 they ask for legal coercion as the only possible means. 



More than this is true. If, as every parliamentary debate 

 and every political meeting shows, the demands for legisla 

 tion pay no attention to that beneficent social development 

 which has done so much and may be expected to increase 

 in efficiency, still more do they ignore the laws of that de 

 velopment still less do they recognize a natural order in 

 the changes by which society passes from its lower to its 

 higher stages. Though, as we have seen, the process of evo 

 lution exemplified in the genesis o&quot;f the professions is similar 

 in character to the process exemplified in the genesis of po 

 litical and ecclesiastical institutions and everywhere else; 

 and though the first inquiry rationally to be made respect 

 ing any proposed measure should be whether or not it falls 

 within the lines of this evolution, and what must be the 



