ployment and to
become dependent upon others. The problems of subsistence open
opportunities for exploitation and the stronger become related to great
numbers of weaker members of the community. Thus men's lives are
intensified, and the conditions out of which thought and feeling arise
are social conditions rather than individual.

The country community under these circumstances rises into new
significance. In the early pioneer days the country community for a
similar reason was much in thought and feeling, because then men were
seeking a bare subsistence in the contest with nature. This
consciousness was lost as soon as the pioneer days were past and the
abundance of nature began to enrich mankind instead of antagonizing him.
Now, again, the country community has come into prominence because men
are confronted with a struggle to maintain an acceptable standard of
living.

In dealing with a social whole, to accomplish certain purposes one must
deal with it in social terms. Social service is not quantitative, but
qualitative. Ministry to a community is not uniformly applied to all the
members. In social service there is no such thing as equality of all the
population. The differing values of men in a social population are
determined, as other values are measured, by the working of the law of
diminishing returns.

Roughly stated, this law is that successive additions of any valued
thing bring ever diminished returns. The first quantity of anything is
of infinite value. For later increments the value is measurable, and
ever less with the increase. The application of this law in economics is
stated as follows by Professor John Bates Clark:

"Labor, as thus applied to land, is subject to a law of diminishing
returns. Put one man on a quarter section of land, containing prairie
and forest, and he will get a rich return. Two laborers on the same
ground will get less per man; three will get still less; and, if you
enlarge the force to ten, it may be that the last man will get wages
only."

"Modern studies of value, show that doses of consumer's goods, given in
a series to the same person have less and less utility per dose. The
final utility theory of value rests on the same principle as does the
theory of diminishing returns from agriculture; and this principle has a
far wider range of new applications."

"We have undertaken to generalize the law that is at the basis of the
theory of value. In reality, it is all-compre