Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/747

Rh natural course of trade. When the circulatory system of the body politic is complete, the evolution of the body is complete. And, if the discovery of some Keely motor or of some practicable method of navigating the air is made, we shall probably enter on another period of transition as violent as the last. But there is very little expectation of anything of the kind. Unless a "negative gravity," like that in Mr. Stockton's clever story, is discovered, it is not easy to see how even the navigation of the air would effect much change in our system of transportation, for air-ships could hardly carry coal or heavy merchandise. The probability seems to be, therefore, that we have approximated our limit. Subsequent improvements will be matters of detail, such as the extension of existing lines or the perfecting of economical railroad operation. A system under which a piano can be shipped a thousand miles for less than the price charged by the drayman who takes it to the final destination, is hardly susceptible of revolutionary improvements. Producers at any one locality are already practical competitors with the rest in their line of business. No system of transportation, however perfect, can accomplish very much more.

2. When will the violence of the transition brought about by steam and electricity subside? When will the industrial population become adapted to the new environment? When will society cease to pay such high premiums on organizing ability? Clearly when the necessary organization is approximately complete. So long as wealth can be more advantageously employed in unaccustomed amounts or in unaccustomed ways, this premium will be paid and the present phenomena will continue, for owing to the inertia which possesses capital as well as everything else, the demand for it in the particular directions will be greater than the supply, and a rise of price will be the result. Now, it may be said with some confidence that the crisis is already past. In England the year 1845 may be taken as the highest point of the disturbance in departing from the old homogeneous system to the modern division-of-labor system; and in America, probably the year 1869, which witnessed the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, is a corresponding period. The severity of the financial crises which overtook both countries near the years mentioned seems to indicate the substantial accuracy of this estimate. If this conjecture is valid, we are justified in saying that men are now running a more even race for business success. Differences between individuals in the common business qualities are, of course, quite great; but no one person and no hundred persons so far surpass all others as to cause such results as those seen in the past twenty years.

If, then, we may take the view that the great modern inventions have spent the greater part of their disturbing force, we may conclude that we are passing from a period where "multiplication of effects," or divergence, has been the rule, to one of segregation and