remain outside this classification, which (to use Carlyle’s phrase) “are boarded and lodged on the industry” of the community to which they belong,—the doctor, the clergyman, the lawyer, the teacher, the actor, the artist, the journalist; yet so strong and imperious is the commercial tradition that the non-productive vocations are required to justify their existence by providing the inspiration, the health, the recreation and the knowledge necessary to the effectual and prosperous working of the economic machine. Society seems (outside the “leisure class”) feverishly engaged in keeping itself alive. Yet if its only purpose were to keep itself alive, it would not need to be so busy. But to the first impulse of production and exchange has been added another interest, that of making profit and accumulating wealth. In the process of exchange the opportunity was found of securing a margin of personal advantage; and gradually this margin of personal advantage has become the chief incentive to commercial enterprise. It does not belong to our purpose to trace the history of this change; it is enough that we should observe the fact that the profit-seeking motive has become the real driving force of modern commerce, and that historical circumstances, such as the introduction of large scale processes, the world-wide ramifications of commerce through improved facilities of travel and transportation, the invention of the telephone and the telegraph, the growth of trusts, combines, and monopolies have made possible fabulous increments and accumulations of profit.[12] Footnote 12: For an analysis of the process by which simple barter has grown into the modern intricate system of commerce, with its fine flower in “big finance,” see Thorstein Veblen, _The Instinct of Workmanship_, chap. V., VI., VIII. More summarily in Geddes and Slater, _Ideas at War_, Chap. III., IV., V. For a useful analysis of the current commercial organisation see Cole, _Self-Government in Industry_, pp. 178, 179.