THE PATH OF VISION
VII
CHANGE AND EXCHANGE
WHATEVER the characteristics of the
age we live in, its principal tendency
is one of exchange—exchange of culture
as well as commodities. We give of our
surplus for what we receive of the surplus
of others. And not infrequently our own
products, whether of the mind or the
machine, undergo, as they pass from hand
to hand, a modification, a transformation,
which makes them welcome again at our
door. Our luxuries come back to us as
necessities; our enthusiams, as firm resolutions;
our ideals, as practical standards
of living.
And consciously or not, something is always being done to guard against a break in the circle. One wave is followed by another and the circling stream is ever flowing between the civilized nations of the world. Apparently it dries up sometimes in certain places; but in reality it has only
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