and, finally, how the several Markets are
related locally, nationally, internationally so as to yield the
complex structure of Industry as a whole. Or reversely, we may take
Industry as a whole, the Industrial Organism as it exists at any given
time, consider the nature and extent of the cohesion existing between
its several parts, and, further, resolving these parts into their
constituent elements, gain a close understanding of the extent to
which differentiation of industrial functions has been carried in the
several divisions.

Although in any sociological inquiry these two methods are equally
valid, or, more strictly speaking, are equally balanced in virtues and
defects, the latter method is here to be preferred, because by the
order of its descent from the whole to the constituent parts it brings
out more definitely the slight cohesiveness and integration of
industry beyond the national limits, and serves to emphasise those
qualities of nationalism and narrow localism which mark the character
of earlier eighteenth century industry. We are thus enabled better to
recognise the nature and scope of the work wrought by the modern
industrial forces which are the central object of study.

While the Market or the Trade is less and less determined or confined
by national or other political boundaries in modern times, and
nationalism is therefore a factor of diminishing importance in the
modern science of economics, the paramount domination of politics over
large commerce in the last century, acting in co-operation with other
racial and national forces, obliges any just analysis of eighteenth
century industry to give clear and early emphasis to the slight
character of the commercial interdependency among nations. The degree
of importance which statesmen and economists attached to this foreign
commerce as compared with home trade, and the large part it played in
the discussion and determination of public conduct, have given it a
prominence in written history far beyond its real value.[3]

It is true that through the Middle Ages a succession of European
nations rose to eminence by the development of navigation and
international trade, Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, and
England; but neither in size nor in character was this trade of the
first importance. Even in the case of those nations where it was most
developed it formed a very small proportion of the total industry of
the country, and it was chiefly confined