themselves the field of business in your day, and sat up nights devising
tricks to deceive, defeat, and overreach one another."

"But how about the elaborate statistics on which you base the
calculations that guide production? There at least is need of a good deal
of figuring."

"Your national and State governments," replied Mr. Chapin, "published
annually great masses of similar statistics, which, while often very
inaccurate, must have cost far more trouble to accumulate, seeing that
they involved an unwelcome inquisition into the affairs of private
persons instead of a mere collection of reports from the books of
different departments of one great business. Forecasts of probable
consumption every manufacturer, merchant, and storekeeper had to make in
your day, and mistakes meant ruin. Nevertheless, he could but guess,
because he had no sufficient data. Given the complete data that we have,
and a forecast is as much increased in certainty as it is simplified in
difficulty."

"Kindly spare me any further demonstration of the stupidity of my
criticism."

"Dear me, Mr. West, there is no question of stupidity. A wholly new
system of things always impresses the mind at first sight with an effect
of complexity, although it may be found on examination to be simplicity
itself. But please do not stop me just yet, for I have told you only one
side of the matter. I have shown you how few and simple are the accounts
we keep compared with those in corresponding relations kept by you; but
the biggest part of the subject is the accounts you had to keep which we
do not keep at all. Debit and credit are no longer known; interest,