BIO-DYNAMICS 93 



must be restricted by the scarcity of coal, and the multiplication of 

 ship-yards and ship-builders must be checked by the want of iron. Thus, 

 in a community which has reached a state of moving equilibrium, though 

 any one industry directly affected by an additional demand, may rapidly 

 undergo a small extra growth, yet a growth beyond this requiring, as 

 it does, the building-up of subservient industries less directly and 

 strongly affected, as well as the partial unbuilding of other industries, 

 can take place only with comparative slowness. And a still further 

 growth, requiring structural modifications of industries still more 

 distantly affected, must take place still more slowly. 



The well-known complexity of the web of life is thus 

 strikingly brought home to us, though even so with some 

 important omissions. Thus " a competing mercantile nation," 

 though it may be "temporarily prostrated by famine or 

 pestilence," certainly is one that normally relies upon a 

 certain amount of international trade, i.e., on give and take 

 between nations. A mere competitive advantage gained over 

 another nation is only an apparent advantage. The true 

 advantage is the co-operative advantage. The true advantage 

 taken of a prostrate nation by temporarily supplying its needs, 

 for instance, is to gain a co-operative return of service as soon 

 as that nation's capacities for reciprocal activities are fully 

 restored. 



The gain is the greater, as the rejuvenated nation in all 

 probability will make the greater efforts not to remain a debtor 

 nation long and give of its own genius, thus making invaluable 

 contributions to the general welfare of the community of 

 nations. 



The gain of a nation relying upon international trust and 

 international exchange frequently is enormous, and it does not 

 depend, as Spencer would seem to suggest, on the prostration 

 of another nation, but, on the contrary, on the prosperity of 

 other nations* on their capacity to co-operate, to give, and to 



* This idea is made much clearer and more cogent if we get rid of the common 

 notion of a nation being like a manufacturer selling to an outside public and 

 competing with other manufacturers for the public's patronage ; and substitute 

 the true idea that the nations are a group of manufacturers, and there is no 

 outside public. Then it is abundantly clear that the more each can produce of 

 his own the more he will be able to buy of others, produce by exchange. The 

 co-operative nature, the mutuality of international trade is thus shown in 

 contrast to the competitive view of it commonly entertained. 



