l exist, the structure developed for carrying on the
nutrition of society wholly ignores these boundaries: our great
cotton-manufacture spreads out of Lancashire into North Derbyshire;
Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire have long divided the stocking-trade
between them; one great centre for the production of iron and
iron-goods, includes parts of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and
Worcestershire; and those various specializations of agriculture which
have made different parts of England noted for different products, show
no more respect to county-boundaries than do our growing towns to the
boundaries of parishes.

If, after contemplating these analogies of structure, we inquire whether
there are any such analogies between the processes of organic change,
the answer is--yes. The causes which lead to increase of bulk in any
part of the body-politic, are of like nature with those which lead to
increase of bulk in any part of an individual body. In both cases the
antecedent is greater functional activity consequent on greater demand.
Each limb, viscus, gland, or other member of an animal, is developed by
exercise--by actively discharging the duties which the body at large
requires of it; and similarly, any class of labourers or artisans, any
manufacturing centre, or any official agency, begins to enlarge when the
community devolves on it more work. In each case, too, growth has its
conditions and its limits. That any organ in a living being may grow by
exercise, there needs a due supply of blood. All action implies waste;
blood brings the materials for repair; and before there can be growth,
the quantity of blood supplied must be more than is requisite for
repair. In a society it is the same. If to some district which
elaborates for the community particular commodities--say the woollens
of Yorkshire--there comes an augmented demand; and if, in fulfilment of
this demand, a certain expenditure and wear of the manufacturing
organization are incurred; and if, in payment for the extra quantity of
woollens sent away, there comes back only such quantity of commodities
as replaces the expenditure, and makes good the waste of life and
machinery; there can clearly be no growth. That there may be growth, the
commodities obtained in return must be more than sufficient for these
ends; and just in proportion as the surplus is great will the growth be
rapid. Whence it is manifest that what in commercial affairs we call
_profit_, answers to