EQUILIBRATION. 523 



proaclies the maturity of that type on which it is organized, 

 the various industrial activities settle down into a compara- 

 tively constant state. Moreover, it is observable that advance 

 in organization, as well as advance in growth, is conducive 

 to a better equilibrium of industrial functions. While the 

 diffusion of mercantile information is slow, and the means of 

 transport deficient, the adjustment of supply to demand is 

 extremely imperfect: great over-production of each com- 

 modity followed by great under-production, constitute a 

 rhythm having extremes that depart very widely from the 

 mean state in which demand and supply are equilibrated. 

 But when good roads are made, and there is a rapid diffusion 

 of printed or written intelligence, and still more when rail- 

 ways and telegraphs come into existence — when the periodi- 

 cal fairs of early days lapse into weekly markets, and these 

 into daily markets ; there is gradually produced a better bal- 

 ance of production and consumption. Extra demand is 

 much more quickly followed by augmented supply ; and the 

 rapid oscillations of price within narrow limits on either side 

 of a comparatively uniform mean, indicate a near approach 

 to equilibrium. Evidently this industrial progress 



has for its limit, that which Mr. Mill has called " the sta- 

 tionary state." When population shall have become dense 

 over all habitable parts of the globe ; when the resources of 

 every region have been fully explored; and when the pro- 

 ductive arts admit of no further improvements; there must 

 result an almost complete balance, both between the fertility 

 and mortality of each society, and between its producing and 

 consuming activities. Each society will exhibit only minor 

 deviations from its average number, and the rhythm of its 

 industrial functions will go on from day to day and year 

 to year with comparatively insignificant perturbations. This 

 limit, however, though we are inevitably advancing towards 

 it, is indefinitely remote ; and can never indeed be absolutely 

 reached. The peopling of the Earth up to the point sup- 

 posed, cannot take place by simple spreading. In the fu- 



