fleem at first eight not to lend themselves tc standardization, either in their production or their use, are subjected to uniform scales of measurement ; as, e.g., water-power, steam, electricity, and human labor. The latter is perhaps the leaat amenable to standardization, but, for all that, it is bargained for, delivered, and turned to account on schedules of time, speed, and intensity which are continually sought to be reduced to a more precise measurement and a more sweeping uniformity.
The like is true of the finished products. Moderft consumers in great part supply their wants with commodities that conform to certain staple Hpecifications of size, weight, and grade. The consiuner (that is to say the vulgar consumer) furnishes his house, hla table, and his person with supplies of standard weight and measure, and he can to an appreciable degree specify his needs and his consumption in the notation of the standard gauge. As regards the mass of civilized mankind, the idiosyncrasies of the individual consumers are required to conform to the uniform gradations imposed upon consumable goods by the comprehensive mechanical processes of industry. " Local color," it is said, is falling into abeyance in modem life, and where it is still found it tends to assert itself in units of the standard gauge.
From this mechanical standardization of consumable goods it follows, on the one hand, that the
demaDd for goods settles upon certain defined lines of production which handle certain materials of definite grade, in certain, somewhat invariable forma and proportiona ; which leads to well-defined methods and measurements in the processes of production, shortening the average