And if we extend our analogy of the worm from the separate employments of a single nation to the world as a whole, - with each nation as a separate relatively independent segment, each segment in structure and composition the duplicate or facsimile of all the rest, and with only the merest formal bond of connection between them, - this will also sufficiently represent Adam Smith's conception of the economics of the world as a whole, where the welfare of each nation is best subserved by its investing its capital in the same order of employments as every other, and in the hierarchy which he has presented, and where each looks to land, manufactures, and its home trade as its first concern, while the foreign or colonial trade, - as the bond of commerce between the separate nations, - comes last and lowest in order of importance, and must be postponed, in consequence, as a field of investment, until all the home trades have been filled to overflowing.

How unlike all this is to any image that can possibly be formed of Industry as it exists at the present day, either in its organization, its processes, or its development, whether in a single nation or in the circle of nations trading with each other and making up the industrial world as a whole! Instead of being constructed on the type of the lowly organized worm, its true analogy is to be found only in the vertebrate kingdom, where there is neither priority of function nor gradation in the order of importance of one organ over the rest, - as of heart over lungs, lungs over stomach, stomach over organs of locomotion; nor yet priority in order of time of the advent of one organ over another, for all must develop pari passu before any increase in growth can take place; nor yet a constitution of parts or organs all duplicates of one another and each with a semi-independence of its own, like the segments of the worm; but all on the contrary are bound together in the closest network of relationship and organization, each being different from every other in its structure and function, and all so sympathetically responsive to each others' condition that nothing can affect any one of them, however insignificant or remote from the centre, whether for evil or good, but is reflected back on all the rest, to their detriment or welfare as the case may be.

Now this analogy of present day industry to the organization, processes, and development of a vertebrate animal, will be found to hold good in every particular, both in reference to the industry of a single nation, and to the industries and inter-trade of the aggregate of nations making up the economic world as a whole. And the advantages which I have proposed to myself by way of exposition in thus pursuing these analogies are two; - firstly, that they serve as picture frames by which to bring out more clearly the three cardinal illusions which pervade the system of Adam Smith: and secondly, that if they are sufficiently exact for our purpose, they will give us a priori assurance, at least, that however much modern Free Traders may agree with Adam Smith in support of the principle of Free Trade, the detailed arguments by which he and they respectively support it, must, if they are logically consistent, mutually destroy each other.

Now these three illusions are -

First, that Nature lends her gratuitous aid to man in Agriculture only, but not in Manufactures.

Second, that the capital of a country distributed among its various employments is, like a rigid rod of definite length, fixed in amount; and that its separate divisions or segments operating independently, draw capital away from each other, instead of the profits of each reinforcing the capitals of all the rest as additional contributions to a common fund.

Third, that the economic procedure which would best advantage the world as a single economic whole, would also necessarily best advantage each nation when in trade relations with other nations.

Now that these are all illusions will be seen if we apply our analogy of a vertebrate animal to the organization, processes, and development of industry at the present day. To begin then with each nation as a separate unit; - the first point we would note is that there is no absolute supremacy of Agriculture as an investment over all other investments of capital, - over manufactures, for example, or the shipping and foreign trades - on the ground which Adam Smith claims for it, that it is only in Agriculture that man gets the assistance of the powers of Nature; for at the present day the gratuitous assistance given to man in Manufactures, Transport, and Shipping, by the powers of steam, electricity, etc., is a hundred to one for each unit of time and unit of cost incurred, compared with that given to man in Agriculture, even at its present advanced stage of cultivation and productiveness. Nor is there any definite order or hierarchy of precedence in which the different employments of capital ought to follow one another if they are to yield the greatest amount of wealth either to individuals or nations, as Adam Smith contends, but on the contrary agriculture, manufactures, and transport facilities must form an organized group and all be present together before wealth can begin to accumulate at all.

And therefore to put all available capital into the land until it can absorb no more, before you allow it to overflow into some kind of manufactures to make the product available for human use, would be to have that product rot on your hands, as corn would do without some kind of mill to grind it or utensil to cook it; and if at the same time there were no facilities for transport either - no roads or bridges or boats or canals to carry the corn from the points at which it was produced to the points where it was wanted for human needs, - what would the capital sunk in the land and manufactures avail? For just as in the vertebrate animal body there is no definite order or precedence of functions, but the vital resources of the whole are always concentrated on the parts that are most in need of help through injury or disease - in casting off germs that impair nutrition, or poisons that impede digestion, or in repairing broken bones that destroy locomotion - so, that particular investment of capital will be best for the individual or the nation, which at the given time or place supplies a gap in the production of articles or implements needed for the full efficiency of the rest, or which removes some obstruction to their harmonious co-operation, - whether it be primarily a matter of agriculture or manufactures, of transport or the demands of foreign trade, matters not.