688 
m must have a sun outweighing the sum of 
itSparts, and necessarily can have but one. 
he physiological and cosmical analogies 
will not be equally satisfactory to all minds. 
A more mechanical argument, however, leads 
to the same result. As a permanent equilib- 
rium between any two or more rival centers is 
morally impossible, it follows that some one of 
them must seoner or later gain an advantage 
in mass and momentum that will tend there- 
after on every\\occasion to augment itself. 
For an illustration of the tendency, take the 
centralization at New York of the vast com- 
mercial developments of the third quarter of 
our century, such as the gold and silver prod- 
uct of the Pacific States, the railway and 
telegraph systems of the continent, or the 
multiplying lines of transatlantic steam-ships. 
A number of powerful causes have codper- 
ated in each of these centralizations, but a 
single sufficient cause may be, found in the 
determining attraction of the superior mass 
and magnitude of affairs at this :point. The 
presence of a superior bulk of business and 
capital at a certain point insures better equip- 
ment and larger opportunity there for im- 
portant transactions, and thus of \itself 
furnishes a controlling motive to draw such 
transactions together. Every new addition 
attracted to the controlling mass goes to make 
the motive and the certainty still stronger for 
the next, and so on, until the tendency becomes 
a necessity, fixed beyond all power on earth 
to change. It is true that, during the earlier 
development of the country, new conditions 
are liable to arise of sufficient power to re- 
verse the relative rank of its leading cities. 
One pound may overbalance two, if it can 
acquire a double leverage. The Erie Canal 
gave such a leverage to the city of New York 
against the once preponderant city of Phila- 
delphia; and so the minor mass overcame the 
greater and became the greater. It is con- 
ceivable that the like might happen again, in 
a country so young and vast as ours, and with 
such inscrutable possibilities yet in reserve. But 
it is certain that such oscillations must come 
to an end at length. There must be some point 
really strongest on the whole, and that point 
cannot fail to discover itself sooner or later. 
Thenceforward, the tendency of things to 
converge to that point increases by geomet- 
rical ratio, until the overpowering solarity of 
the accumulation precludes even the initia- 
tion of any counterbalancing movement. 
While the rival provincial centers are test- 
ing their possibilities, and thus determining 
the true national center, the country itself is 
involved in an analogous process, on the 
scale of ages and the world, slowly developing 
a/super-organization of the commonwealth of 
WILL NEW YORK BE THE FINAL WORLD METROPOLIS ? 
man. Organic centralization or headship is 
the necessary consummation of every grade 
of life, by which it reaches and passes to the 
plane above it—from individual being to 
that of family; to that of society and party; 
to that of nationality; to that, yet unper- 
fected, of the world, The past inchoate stages 
of world-organization, provisional, partly 
abortive, but every time progressive, stand 
out boldly in the historical retrospect, mainly 
three: Babylon, Rome, London. While na- 
tional centers, once fixed, however crudely, 
by the natural maturing of national organiza-— 
tion, have never been (naturally) displaced as 
such, the immaturity of the world itself, as well 
as the direction and destination of its grand 
advance, is indicated by the successive west- 
ward removals of its imperial head-quarters. 
There remains but one possible further stage 
and stopping-place to be made. A glance at 
the course of metropolitan development in 
the past will throw light upon its future 
method, direction, and final goal. 
Capitals were primarily of military origin, 
from which a political development naturally 
proceeded. This primitive politico-military 
motive was directly opposite in its require- 
ments to the later commercial motive of met- 
ropolitan growths. It shunned the then barren 
sea, from which the dangers of piracy and 
‘invasion came earlier than the blessings of 
commerce. -Consequently, civilization at first 
centered and fortified itself on the richest in- 
land plains or in natural strongholds. 
The rise of commerce at length brought a 
new influence to bear on the location of cap- 
itals, modifying but not overcoming the effect 
of the politico-military motive. They cautious- 
ly approached the sea, seeking an outlet by 
navigable rivers, but keeping at a defensible 
distance from their mouths. Examples: Rome 
on the Tiber; London on the Thames; Paris 
on the Seine; Vienna on the Danube; St. 
Petersburg on the, Neva; etc. Tyre and 
Venice, purely commercial capitals, inaugu- 
rated, or rather foreshadowed, the commercial 
era, and temporarily anticipated the possibility, 
which was long in becoming realized, of great 
sea-coast cities. Not until the modern epoch 
of international security under international 
law could commerce build her peaceful capi- 
tals, for the congress of nations, on the ocean 
harbors of Liverpool and Havre, Boston and 
’ New York. 
This radical change brings into the modern 
metropolitan re-organization of mankind new 
powers and resources immensely transcending 
the old. And it is a very potent conjunction, 
in our own horoscope, that the pure product 
of these: novel powers (hardly even yet per- 
mitted free course in Europe) is to be first, 
