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4 The great economic study of the wants and requirements of the present day, and the means to satisfy them, is evolved in many ways; and the varied aspects of the question present an ever-changing front, an ever-varying quantity, sometimes giving rise to much speculation, and always the subject of much controversial argument. The growth of human knowledge and often the preponderating influence of human ignorance, the increased and exacting requirements of civilization; the discoveries of science, and their consequent developments in turning these factors to practical account, have, during the last century especially, all contributed towards a cosmos, complex in its composition, and changeable as the kaleidoscope in its disposition. Old-established laws and customs, in every known branch of trade and profession, give way to new: old sources of supply become dried up, and in turn have become sources of demand. Staple articles of trade and commerce lose ground and become supplanted by others whose existence hitherto had barely maintained a place in economy, from their very uselessness for any known purpose. Science having investigated the various capabilities of the products of the earth, one class is kept in check by the resources of the other. Should the price of one article rise by attempted monopoly to a prohibitive basis, another product is called in to supply its place, which, by intrinsic merits, or by combination with others based on scientific authority, supplants the previous competitor.

This is an iconoclastic age: an age realistic rather than idealistic; an age of inventions, of perfecting of scientific discoveries; an age no longer of steam, but of electricity, which not only puts a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, but which grasps the lightning from the clouds to do its bidding. Prometheus stole fire from the sun to illumine the world, and was thrown into Tartarus by Zeus: the present age subdues the cloud compeller, Zeus, and yokes him in bondage to toil for the good of man. The question arouses many and various speculations and theories in the mind of anyone who studies the aims and ends of those whose lot it is, by circumstance or by