220 THE PATH OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



which are the first to disappear, are usually of 

 more recent origin. Very frequently, however, 

 the new roads follow a rather different direction, 

 and, although more recently constructed, are not 

 the first to disappear. 



It is the same with great commercial crises. It 

 is quite inexact to say with Ribot, who is respon- 

 sible for the analogy : " Old houses offer the best 

 resistance to the storm ; it is the new houses 

 which, being less solid, crumble and fall." l 



After the time of the cotton famine, during the 

 American war of Independence, the greater part of 

 the old firms of Gand became bankrupt, whereas 

 most of the large, newly-established joint-stock 

 companies survived the crisis. 



Moreover, in those cases where the most recently 

 formed structures are the first to decay, it cannot 

 be deduced that evolution is reversed, and that 

 the institution returns to its primitive condition, 

 for there is no reappearance of the intermediate 

 structures. 



1 Ribot, Les Maladies de la Memoire, p. 99. 



