SUPPLY AND VALUE 53

the price anticipated, which, if we assume steady production
for a steady demand, must be that corresponding to the
equilibrium of supply and demand. Should conditions of
production change in the direction of greater economy, this
profit will be increased, and, by stimulating to an enlarged
production, lead to a permanent increase of supply, and the
establishment of a new position of equilibrium with demand,
at a lower price. A similar statement may be made in
regard to changes leading to increase of costs, Changes of
taste or habit on the part of consumers may have corresponding
 effects, in causing a fresh adjustment of supply to the
changes in demand that are thereby implied. If changes
of both kinds are in progress together, the result may be no
change of the price, or no change in the amount of supply
needed to cause supply and demand to balance, but such a
perfect compensation of the one change by the other is not
in itself to be expected, and the new conditions of production
and demand may probably lead to a new equilibrium, with
modified price and supply, each either greater or less than
before the change. Even during the transition, it may be
possible to define the conditions of supply and of demand at
the stage of change actually reached, and to deduce the
amount of supply and the price which would be established
under the influence of the conditions of that stage. When
the change is a slow one, considerable interest attaches to
the result of contemplating the temporary conditions as if
they were final. When, however, the change is rapid and
progressive, the examination of the goal of the change, and
of the conditions associated with the situation which will
be established when the goal is reached, possesses greater
interest. When the goal is unknown, perhaps the most
useful course is to follow the changing conditions, by
conceiving of them as a series of consecutive states,
stereotyped for purposes of examination, somewhat as if a
series of instantaneous views of the momentarily dominating
conditions were examined. The help thus rendered in
understanding the current situation is not small The
adjustment of different parts of the social mechanism to
changed conditions cannot be effected instantaneously, and