54 W. G. Langworthy Taylor 



trols stimuli. Again, even the brain does not originate stimuli, 

 but simply responds to stimuli originating in the inferior nerves, 

 which are closely associated with the environment. 



In other words, stimulus is a force, and as such it must orig- 

 inate in connection with brute matter. We must look for the 

 stimulus to progress in close connection with the industrial 

 process. The primary current that disturbs the preexisting- 

 equilibria must start in the lower industries; it is then collected 

 and controlled by the financial brain (itself enlightened by the 

 financial mind), and returns to direct the terrestrial forces toward 

 higher planes. So far as the physical analogy goes, it is suffi- 

 cient to say that social stimulus is analogous to organic stimulus 

 and hence must originate in those social circumstances which are 

 analogous to the physical circumstances that attend the inception 

 of organic stimulus. However, the resemblance in question is 

 closer than mere analogy. Social stimulus acts only by imitation 

 and suggestion from individual to individual ; therefore socio-in- 

 dustrial stimulus is but a manifestation of individual' nerve and 

 brain action. Now individual action arises from environmental 

 suggestion. Hence it follows that the original suggestion or stim- 

 ulus to industry can only arise in connection with those essen- 

 tially economic processes where man is closely associated with 

 physical activities. 



The invention of the Bessemer process was the disturbing and 

 original stimulus that upset the whole set of equilibria established 

 by the liquidation following the crisis of 1873, and made possible 

 the competition of wheat lands, the downfall of English agri- 

 culture, the advance of the English carrying trade, the opening 

 of the West, the rise of the steel industry in America, the incep- 

 tion of the age of steel, with all the financial readjustments 

 therein involved. This explanation is neither materialistic nor 

 dualistic. It simply describes the mutual relations of mind and 

 matter, — the materialistic conditions under which mind acts and 

 the psychic conditions under which matter acts, in economic 

 progress. 



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