Synthetic production was impossible. However, the wonderful simplification of the technical processes in both industry and agriculture, partly due to an ever-increasing division of labour — in analogy with what we see in biology — has rendered the synthesis possible; and a distinct tendency towards a synthesis of human activities becomes now apparent in modern economical evolution. This tendency is analysed in the subsequent chapters — a special weight being laid upon the present possibilities of agriculture, which are illustrated by a number of examples borrowed from different countries, and upon the small industries to which a new impetus is being given by the new methods of transmission of motive power.
The substance of these essays was published in 1888–1890 in the Nineteenth Century, and of one of them in the Forum. However, the tendencies indicated there have been confirmed during the last ten years by such a mass of evidence that a very considerable amount of new matter had to be introduced, while the chapters on agriculture and the small trades had to be written anew.
I take advantage of this opportunity to address my best thanks to the editors of the Nineteenth Centuryand the Forumfor their kind permission of reproducing these essays in a new form, as also to those friends and correspondents who have aided me in collecting information about agriculture and the petty trades.