522 EQUILIBRATION. 



and when in return for the increased supply, there is given to 

 them an amount of other commodities larger than was before 

 habitual when, consequently, the resistances overcome by 

 them in sustaining life are less than the resistances overcome 

 by other workers; there results a flow of other workers into 

 this trade. This flow continues until the extra demand is 

 met, and the wages so far fall again, that the total resistance 

 overcome in obtaining a given amount of produce, is as 

 great in this newly-adopted occupation as in the occupations 

 whence it drew recruits. The occurrence of motion along 

 lines of least resistance, was before shown to necessitate the 

 growth of population in those places where the labour re- 

 quired for self -maintenance is the smallest ; and here we fur- 

 ther see that those engaged in any such advantageous local- 

 ity, or advantageous business, must multiply till there arises 

 an approximate balance between this locality or business and 

 others accessible to the same citizens. In determining 

 the career of every youth, we see an estimation by parents of 

 the respective advantages offered by all that are available, 

 and a choice of the one which promises best; and through 

 the consequent influx into trades that are at the time most 

 profitable, and the withholding of recruits from over-stocked 

 trades, there is insured a general equipoise between the 

 power of each social organ and the function it has to per- 

 form. 



The various industrial actions and re-actions thus con- 

 tinually alternating, constitute a dependent moving equi- 

 librium like that which is maintained among the functions 

 of an individual organism. And this dependent moving 

 equilibrium parallels those already contemplated, in its 

 tendency to become more complete. During early stages of 

 social evolution, while yet the resources of the locality in- 

 habited are unexplored, and the arts of production undevel- 

 oped, there is never anything more than a temporary and 

 partial balancing of such actions, under the form of accelera- 

 tion or retardation of growth. But when a society ap- 





