tures of business through shrewd investments and coalitions with other business men.
As shown above, the modern industrial system is a concatenation of processes which has much of the character of a single, comprehensive, balanced mechanical process. A disturbance of the balance at any point means a differential advantage (or disadvantage) to one or more of the owners of the sub-processes between which the disturbance falls ; and it may also frequently mean gain or loss to many remoter members in the concatenation of processes, for the balance throughout the sequence is a delicate one, and the transmission of a disturbance often goes far. It may even take on a cumulative character, and . may thereby seriously cripple or accelerate branches of industry that are out of direct touch with those members of the concatenation upon which the initial disturbance falls. Such is the case, for instance, in an industrial crisis, when an apparently slight initial disturbance may become the occasion of a widespread derangement. And such, on the other hand, is also the case when some favorable condition abruptly supervenes in a given
to uother point of investment, tt is therefore only ob the biismea«I ■itoation has ftpproacbed the modem form that the law of nibstltution! bu come U> be of considerable importaiiice to economic theory ; for • ', theory of businesg, aiich aa businesB naa in mediieval and earl; modem tnnes, thit Uir need acarcely have been formulated.