A review of the present practice of banking and the elements of financial theory upon which it is founded suggests to the student of the subject certain broader considerations which must be taken into account in forming a general conception of the subject and in giving it its proper place both as an important, not to say fundamental, phase of modern economic organization, and as a highly developed department of business life. The business man is inclined to accept existing institutions for what they are, and to use and deal with them in their present form and without a very critical estimate of their significance. This is unavoidable. Business activity is immediate and practical and is concerned with the attainment of results rather than with the alteration or reform of methods.

Nevertheless, it is true that business life is progressive and that all economic institutions are undergoing a process of steady evolution and change. The broad-minded student of business, and equally as much so the broad-minded participant in business, will therefore make a far more intelligent and effective use of the institutions with which he comes into contact if he accustoms himself to recognize their broad social significance and their place in the economic organization of society.

In the opening chapters of the present volume it was explained that the banking and credit organization of modern business is practically essential to the maintenance of the principle of the division of labor and to the more complete and full development of such division. This may perhaps be taken as unquestionable; as nothing more than the statement of a more or less obvious economic fact. From it, however, certain inferences must be drawn and upon it certain conclusions must rest.