4° W. G. Lanzivorthy Taylor 



to a coal strike, the dominating cause or motion is evidently 

 psychic. The doctrine (in philosophy) of energism, if it 

 claims that a materialistic cause is essentially psychic in that a 

 common energy pervades all creation, proves too much for the 

 purposes of economic theory. Identity of the materialistic with 

 the psychic can not be economically postulated. They are dif- 

 ferent phenomena. Doubtless they may be modalities of a higher, 

 common element, from a transcendental point of view. But this 

 can not be the economic point of view, for economics necessarily 

 analyzes phenomena composed of two contrasted orders — the ma- 

 terialistic and the psychic. The moment this contrast is lost 

 sight of, or the study no longer dwells on the continuity between 

 these extremes, from that moment we are no longer within the 

 economic field. 



The economic process is evolutionary, and is explained through 

 the analogies of equilibrium and stimulation. By "evolutionary" 

 is meant that we are interested in a large number of phenomena 

 which act and react upon each other with the apparent result of 

 producing progress in the whole. Perhaps it is more exact to 

 say that the progress of the whole is signalized by a complex of 

 changes in the different particulars (wages, profits, capitalism, 

 poverty, inventions, food-supply, organization, prices,. monopoly, 

 etc.), and that these changes are so interrelated that a change 

 occurring in one category is always accompanied by changes in 

 all the others. On account of the law of simultaneity, it follows 

 that there must be a fairly parallel development all along the line, 

 and that, if we wish to observe a separate, solitary change we 

 must choose a very short period of time. In such a period one 

 category may have experienced a change before others have been 

 affected. Indeed, we may assume that this is always the case, 

 and that the order and operation of these little successive changes 

 in the particular categories of phenomena (accompanied by a 

 general progress) constitute the process. 



The growth of a biological organism is by precisely the same 

 process. Its life-forces assume various classes of forms which 

 are embodied, in each class, in the individuals of that class. These 

 corpuscles, cells, membranes, processes, etc., have individuality, 



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