EQUILIBRATION. 521 



by artificial production, and by successive improvements in 

 artificial production, a superior race continually alters the 

 limit which external conditions put to population ; yet there 

 is ever a checking of population at the temporary limit 

 reached. It is true that where the limit is being so rapidly 

 changed as among ourselves, there is no actual stoppage: 

 there is only a rhythmical variation in the rate of increase. 

 But in noting the causes of this rhythmical variation — in 

 watching how, during periods of abundance, the proportion 

 of marriages increases, and how it decreases during periods 

 of scarcity ; it will be seen that the expansive force produces 

 unusual advance whenever the repressive force diminishes, 

 and vice versa; and thus there is as near balancing of the 

 two as the changing conditions permit. 



The internal actions constituting social functions, exem- 

 plify the general principle no less clearly. Supply and de- 

 mand are continually being adjusted throughout all indus- 

 trial processes; and this equilibration is interpretable in the 

 same way as preceding ones. The production and distribu- 

 tion of a commodity, is the expression of a certain aggregate 

 of forces causing special kinds and amounts of motion. The 

 price of this commodity, is the measure of a certain other 

 aggregate of forces expended by the labourer who purchases 

 it, in other kinds and amounts of motion. And the varia- 

 tions of price represent a rhythmical balancing of these 

 forces. Every rise or fall in the rate of interest, or change 

 in the value of a particular security, implies a conflict of 

 forces in which some, becoming temporarily predominant, 

 cause a movement that is presently arrested or equilibrated 

 by the increase of opposing forces ; and amid these daily and 

 hourly oscillations, lies a more slowly-varying medium, into 

 which the value ever tends to settle ; and would settle but for 

 the constant addition of new influences. As in the 



individual organism so in the social organism, functional 

 equilibrations generate structural equilibrations. When on 

 the workers in any trade there comes an increased demand, 

 35 



