64 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



health. As much to cure people as to prevent them from being 

 ill ! It is as if the Department of Agriculture at Washington 

 spent its money in picking the scale from the leaves of orange 

 trees rather than in discovering how to eradicate this obnoxious 

 blight. 



Although I have thus emphasized the economic aspects of 

 health, I believe that the psychological aspects are still more 

 important. We might dwell upon the effect of poor health in 

 promoting crime, vice, stupidity, and misery. Let us confine our- 

 selves, however, to business, and let us see why there is reason to 

 believe that the psychological effect of ill health is even greater 

 than the economic effect. One of the chief reasons for this con- 

 clusion is that an obvious economic factor, such as the crops 

 which are the greatest single material resource of the United 

 States, by no means shows so close a connection with business 

 fluctuations as does the deathrate. Important as is the economic 

 effect of ill health, it can scarcely have so great an effect as the 

 crops. The crops have not only their purely material effect but 

 also the great psychological effect which comes from their con- 

 stant discussion in the papers. The economic effect of ill health 

 has no such reenforcement through publicity. In the second 

 place, if the economic factor in ill health were dominant, it seems 

 as if it would make itself apparent in England. The absence of 

 any apparent effect there, as we have seen, is in accordance with 

 the psychological explanation but not with the economic. The 

 economic effects in England must be similar to those in America, 

 but the psychological effect is apparently far less because of the 

 less severe climate. Again, if it should be found that some of the 

 minor movements of prices on the stock market are associated 

 with fluctuations in the deathrate, it would be strong evidence of 

 the psychological effect of health. Finally, the fact that business 

 men themselves are so strongly convinced of the importance of 

 psychology in business fluctuations seems to be a weighty argu- 



