prosperity and government interest, the cause is in part to be found in the fact that the number of men engaged in agriculture has dropped from 90 per cent of the total in 1790 to 36 per cent in 1910 and 29 per cent in 1920. The professions, as we shall note later, are also rapidly coming under the domination of the business man’s type of civilization. Thus, unlike Europe, the business man with us finds himself the dominant power in the life of the nation and almost alone in his control over the direction of its entire life, economic, social, intellectual, religious, and political. It is a situation that, so far as I know, is unique in history and well worth analyzing. II First let us analyze the business man himself. Is there such a thing as a business “type”? Thinking of all the[Pg 17] variations among those one knows, much as one thinks of one’s varied French friends, one may think it impossible to classify them under one head; but just, as contrasting one’s French friends with English or Russian, a French type does emerge, so contrasting a man who is in business all his life with those engaged in other pursuits, a business type does also take form. Apart from initial tastes and nature, a man is bound to be molded by the aims, ideas, ideals, and whole nature of the career to which he devotes practically his entire energies and time. It is obvious that a poet or musician will react to the facts of existence differently from the way a steel manufacturer, an admiral, a high ecclesiastic, a politician, or a Supreme Court judge would do. All of them naturally have to provide themselves with a living, but the fundamental facts that regulate their reactions to the world about them are different. For a business man that fundamental fact is, and is bound to be, profit. Having made money, the business man may be, as he often is, more generous and careless with it than an aristocrat or a churchman; but that does not alter the fact that the main function of his work, his main preoccupation, and the point from which he views everything connected with his work is that of a profit. For one thing, all men, whether they be poets, soldiers, diplomats, or department-store owners, crave, as we have said, success and recognition in their chosen field. The hallmark of success in business is the extent of profit a man gets out of it. An artist may find no public for his wares but, if he is doing great work, he will be supported by the opinion of his peers. A doctor may struggle in a country village with nothing but a pittance but he has the satisfaction of a noble work nobly done.[Pg 18] A man like Asquith may spend his whole life in the service of his country and yet retire as prime minister with the income of a bank clerk. But a man who spends his life in business and ends no wealthier than he began is voted a failure by all his fellows, even though he may have personal qualities that endear him to his friends.