of Edinburgh, Session 1883 - 84 . 
955 
Such detailed studies are, of course, largely scattered through 
economic literature, nor does any one dispute their relevance. Such 
abundant extant investigations as those upon the phenomena of 
trade and money, or the vast historical labours which are specially 
due to the German school, furnish abundant partly co-ordinated 
material. The present aim is, however, to suggest how such positive 
results must be systematised and interpreted in terms of physics. 
And it must now be further shown that not only are our studies of 
economic processes, so far as consistent with fact, capable of physical 
expression, and (1) that this leads to greater systematisation — to 
greater precision of treatment in detail j but also (2) that this mode 
of treatment involves a considerable change in the conventional 
theoretic point of view; and (3) that it furnishes grounds for a 
systematisation of practical action. 
§ 18. Quantitative Analysis. — The conception of the processes of 
production and consumption as one vast mechanical process ; the 
view of society as a machine, in which all phenomena are interpreted 
as integration or disintegration of matter, with transformation or 
dissipation of energy, affords not only a generalisation of the widest, 
but a systematisation of the most thorough kind ; nor is its applica- 
bility qualitative only. It is legitimate, nay inevitable, to apply the 
quantitative conceptions of physics — the modern measurements of 
matter and energy. Such and such quantity of matter is exploited, 
say a units ; so much is lost in each process of production (6 -t- c -f ff) ; 
so much remains as ultimate product (a- (6 + c -F cf)) ; after con- 
sumption so much of this becomes available for new exploitation as 
a waste product. Again, so many units of energy a are exploited ; 
the processes of exploitation, transport, &c., cost so many units, say 
h ; the remainder {a - h) is the energy available. This idea is ex 
pressed by the upper portion of the diagram, fig. 3 {q.v.). The amount 
of energy and matter exploited during unit time is denoted by the 
first rectangle, and the quantity disintegrated and dissipated in the 
process by its upper dotted portion; the difference passes to the 
manufacturer, whose waste and expenditure of matter and energy 
are similarly denoted ; the remainder, after again suffering deduction 
for the processes of movement, and the accompanying losses, repre- 
sents the amount of ultimate product, of which the transitory and 
permanent portions are similarly estimable. Taking, for example. 
