The Kinetic Theory of Economic Crises 37 



here in order to show that the clear conception of environments 

 would have been helpful to orthodox economies by keeping always 

 in view the distinction between ultimate tendencies and the imme- 

 diate effects of a given course of economic action, whether in the 

 case of society or in that of the individual. 



The present discussion has to do essentially with short-time 

 causes, with forces, with motion. These causes act, not by pre- 

 venting motion, nor by confining motion within given channels 

 as do the environments, or conjunctures, but they rather embody 

 the motion itself. The more psychic elements are ever in motion, 

 and are ever put to the test of valid normality by the more mate- 

 rialistic. Those that fail in the test are rejected; or, to resume 

 the physical analogy, those that do not conform to the crust of 

 the earth lose their energy in its mass. Taking the example of 

 a machine, its relatively environmental part consists of the frame- 

 work, its causal part consists of the moving pieces (not to speak 

 of the steam or electricity, usually quite invisible or intangible). 

 Now, we do not look upon the tanks, pipes, and retorts, nor upon 

 the frame-work, as constituting a process ; we look upon them 

 rather as the necessary conditions of the process : they are the 

 structure, not the function. The chemical reactions and molec- 

 ular space-transformations are the process. The "causes" of the 

 product, in this sense of the word, are the forces at work in the 

 transformation from moment to moment without regard to the 

 permanent conditions, the frame-work of the machine. 



Clearly it is a casuistic misfortune that the word "cause" has 

 this double meaning. All controversy as to whether the structure 

 or the function is the true cause is waste of time ; and yet much 

 casuistry is of this order. It is as if two boys were each named 

 George, and then a dispute should arise as to which was the true 

 "George." Nor is it worth while spending much time on the 

 inquiry whether it is in the environment or in the functional 

 processes that we find the characteristically economic causes. All 

 processes are economic if they exist in industry, including all 

 the arrangements and promises for satisfying our material wants ; 

 and all conjunctures are economic if they condition economic 

 processes. Probably we shall not be able to get rid of this ambig- 



37 



