CAN ORGANS RESUME THEIR PRIMITIVE FUNCTIONS? 239 



It may be definitely asserted then that a re- 

 duced, but still persistent, institution never again 

 becomes actively functional. The following are a 

 few examples which will serve to illustrate this 

 point : 



1. The truck system and clearing-house. Some 

 forms of the primitive system of exchange sur- 

 vive, not only in countries where money is 

 unknown, but in certain industries where the 

 workers continue to be paid in kind (the truck 

 system). 



On the other hand, there seems to be a modern 

 tendency towards the elimination of money as an 

 instrument of exchange. The clearing-house system 

 is singularly analogous to the old exchange system. 

 "The truck system," says Stanley Jevons, "represents 

 the first and the last stage ; but it appears for the 

 second time in a very different form. Gold and 

 silver money continue theoretically to be the 

 instrument for buying and selling, but practically 

 metal no longer constitutes the real medium of 

 exchange, and has ceased to pass from the hands 

 of the purchaser into those of the vendor." 



In this transformation there is obviously no 

 return to primitive systems, the last vestiges of 

 which, far from being revived, are rapidly dis- 

 appearing. 



social development in general and a progressive advance towards 

 an improved system of family life. A more exact definition would 

 have prevented this erroneous conclusion. 



