inually becoming more and more favorable to the increase of
population from domestic sources. The old man-slaughtering medicine was
being driven out of civilized communities; houses were becoming larger;
the food and clothing of the people were becoming ampler and better. Nor
was the cause which, about 1840 or 1850, began to retard the growth of
population here to be found in the climate which Mr. Clibborne
stigmatizes so severely. The climate of the United States has been
benign enough to enable us to take the English shorthorn and greatly to
improve it, as the re-exportation of that animal to England at monstrous
prices abundantly proves; to take the English race-horse and to improve
him to a degree of which the startling victories of Parole, Iroquois,
and Foxhall afford but a suggestion; to take the Englishman and to
improve him, too, adding agility to his strength, making his eye keener
and his hand steadier, so that in rowing, in riding, in shooting, and in
boxing, the American of pure English stock is today the better animal.
No! Whatever were the causes which checked the growth of the native
population, they were neither physiological nor climatic. They were
mainly social and economic; and chief among them was the access of vast
hordes of foreign immigrants, bringing with them a standard of living at
which our own people revolted.

C. ECONOMIC COMPETITION

1. Changing Forms of Economic Competition[192]

There is a sense in which much of the orthodox system of political
economy is eternally true. Conclusions reached by valid reasoning are
always as true as the hypotheses from which they are deduced. It will
remain forever true that if unlimited competition existed, most of the
traditional laws would be realized in the practical world. It will also
be true that in those corners of the industrial field which still show
an approximation to Ricardian competition there will be seen as much of
correspondence between theory and fact as candid reasoners claim. If
political economy will but content itself with this kind of truth, it
need never be disturbed by industrial revolutions. The science need not
trouble itself to progress.

This hypothetical truth, or science of what would take place if society
were fashioned after an ideal pattern, is not what Ricardo believed that
he had discovered. His system was positive; actual life suggested it by
developing tendencies for which the scientific formulas which at that
t