144 EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



organ in a living being may grow by exercise, 

 there needs to be a due supply of blood." All 

 action implies waste; blood brings the mate- 

 rials for repair; and before there can be 

 growth, the quantity of blood supplied must 

 be more than is requisite for repair. 



"In a society it is the same. If to some 

 district which elaborates for the community 

 particular commodities — say the woolens of 

 Yorkshire — there comes an augmented de- 

 mand ; and if in fulfillment of this demand, a 

 certain expenditure and wear and tear of the 

 manufacturing organization are incurred ; 

 and if, in payment for the extra quantity of 

 woolens sent away there comes back only 

 such quantity of commodities as replaces the 

 expenditure, and makes good the waste of life 

 and machinery; there can clearly be no 

 growth. That there may be growth, the com- 

 modities obtained in return must be more than 

 sufficient for these ends ; and just in proportion 

 as the surplus is great will the growth be 

 rapid. Whence it is manifest that what in 

 commercial affairs we call profit, answers to 

 the excess of nutrition over waste in a living 

 body." 



This is "physiologicar' political economy 

 with a vengeance and shows to what straits 

 bourgeois apologists are reduced to find a 



