50 W. G. Langworthy Taylor 



vidual debt in the world, although the debtor substituted be 

 personally unknown to either principal. 



The operation of the analogy of stimulus in the psycho-set-off 

 or credit system is interesting and instructive. True to the 

 analogy, the psychic system can not originate within itself the 

 stimulus of industry. A system of trolley cars operates by elec- 

 tricity generated by steam power, the latter in turn generated by 

 ordinary combustion ; or else the electricity is still more directly 

 and brutally generated by the momentum of naturally falling 

 water, as at Niagara, Sault Ste. Marie, or on the North Yuba 

 river, California. So, in the credit system, all impulse conies 

 originally from mother earth, that is, from the physical workers 

 and those directly connected with them. But it does not always 

 have that appearance. 



There is in finance something analogous to an induced current 

 of electricity, which appears to have its origin in some source 

 peculiarly and exclusively elect: ic and imponderable. Financiers 

 invest vast capitals. Their operations are like bolts of lightning 

 in that they seem to come from the impalpable sky and yet can 

 set mighty forests on fire. But the friction of the clouds and 

 the less known means of producing natural aerial electric phe- 

 nomena are themselves perhaps generated by the revolving of the 

 earth or by equally molar-physical or cosmical causes. 



Although the apparently independent process of investment is 

 only the seeming, and far from being the sole part of the elec- 

 tricity of credit, its stimulating operation is manifest. The desire 

 to invest is sometimes local. From one locality it passes to 

 another, sometimes spreading over the whole industrial world, 

 and sometimes dying out in one place when it is kindled afresh 

 in another. The social mind acts by impulse of imitation, by 

 suggestion of example, refreshed after a period of quiescence. 

 The indicia of indebtedness are transmitted by mail, are antici- 

 pated by telegraph, and thus the minute psycho-physical stim- 

 ulus for investment is furnished. Leaders are at hand in every 

 financial market. They perceive the opportunities for new pro- 

 duction, for the economizing and revolutionizing of old organi- 

 zations. Others flock to the leaders. Combinations of sreneral 



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