1 40 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book ii Material progress, however, depends not only 



on the inventor and his machine. It depends 

 also on the uses to which his machine is to be 

 put. Here we shall find a new kind of greatness to 

 be necessary that which is called business ability ; 

 and we shall find that this operates precisely like 

 the greatness of the inventor, through the influence 

 which its possessor exercises over other men. 

 The man of All progress or development in commerce and 

 in the arts of production is in proportion to the 

 correspondence in every place and season of the 



others that the goods brought into the market with the con- 

 precise wants 



of the public temporary wants of the buyers. If it were not for 



are supplied. . . 



this correspondence 01 the economic supply with the 

 demand, progress in production would not be social 

 progress at all ; for just as a community does not 

 become materially civilised by the mere act of 

 wanting what it cannot get, so it does not become 

 materially civilised by being presented with what 

 it does not want clothes, for example, which it 

 could not possibly wear, and books in an unknown 

 language, which it could not possibly read, or 

 diminutive houses and furniture fit only for dolls. 

 Now in any progressive community the wants of 

 the buyers are in constant process not only of 

 development but fluctuation, and are rarely quite 

 the same in any two localities simultaneously. In 

 order, therefore, that what is supplied may be in 

 correspondence with what is wanted, it is necessary 

 that in each industry the nature of the commodities 

 produced be continually modified by men with a 



