GROWTH. 159 



which he makes by little sales to poor people ; and if, avoid 

 ing bad debts, he is able by strict economy to accumulate 

 anything, it can be but a triile. A large retail trader is 

 obliged to lay out much money in fitting up an adequate 

 establishment; he must invest a still greater sum in stock; 

 and he must have a further floating capital to meet the 

 charges that fall due before his returns come in. Setting 

 out, however, with means enough for these purposes, he is 

 able to make many and large sales; and so to get greater 

 and more numerous increments of profit. Similarly, to get 

 returns in thousands merchants and manufacturers must 

 make their investments in tens of thousands. In brief, the 

 rate at which a man s wealth accumulates is measured by 

 the surplus of income over expenditure; and this, save in 

 exceptionably favourable cases, is determined by the capital 

 with which he begins business. Now applying the 



analogy, we may trace in the transactions of an organism, 

 the same three ultimate elements. There is the expenditure 

 required for the obtainment and digestion of food; there is 

 the gross return in the shape of nutriment assimilated or fit 

 for assimilation; and there is the difference between this 

 gross return of nutriment and the nutriment that was used 

 up in the labour of securing it a difference which may be a 

 profit or a loss. Clearly, however, a surplus implies that the 

 force expended is less than the force latent in the assimilated 

 food. Clearly, too, the increment of growth is limited to 

 the amount of this surplus of income over expenditure; so 

 (hat large growth implies both that the excess of nutrition 

 over waste shall be relatively considerable, and that the waste 

 and nutrition shall be on extensive scales. And clearly, 

 the ability of an organism to expend largely and assimilate 

 largely, so as to make a large surplus, presupposes a large 

 physiological capital in the shape of organic matter more or 

 less developed in its structural arrangements. 



Throughout the vegetal kingdom, the illustrations of this 



