derijberproducklJini,"and vol, XXVIl. pp. 343~3fi,1 ; Tngmn-Baranow■ky, Thtorit und Gettkichte dfr Uandflakrisfn in England, pp. 18-28; I-. Pohle, Perioditche Wirt$chafl»kri»tn, Mpecially ••c II. with lub^ joined nal«8.
THE THEOBY OF HODEBN WELFARE 183
The true, or what may be called the normal, crises, depressions, and exaltations in the business world are not the result of accidents, such as the failure of a crop. They come in the regular course of business. The depression and the exaltation are in a measure bound together. In the recent past, since depression and exaltation have been normal features of the situation, every strongly marked period of exaltation (prosperity) has had its attendant period of depression ; although it does not seem to follow in the nature of things that a wave of depression necessarily has its attendant reaction in the way of a period of business exaltation. In the recent past — the last twenty years or so — it has been by no means anomalous to have a period of hard times, or even a fairly pronounced crisis, without a wave of marked exaltation either preceding or following it in such close sequence as conveniently to connect the two as action and reaction. But it would be a matter of some perplexity to a student of this class of phenomena to come upon a wave of marked business exaltation (prosperity) that was not promptly followed by a crisis or by a period of depression more or less pronounced and prolonged. Indeed, as the organization of business has approached more and more nearly to the relatively consummate situation of to-day, — say during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, — periods of exaltation have.
■ to-day, — s;
H nineteenth