SOCIAL SUSTENANCE. 739 



If tasks differ in importance as well as in the character of their 

 operations, so men differ in their total industrial potencies as well as 

 in their special aptitudes. A does not always excel Z in one kind of 

 work only, he may excel him in several kinds or in all kinds. No- 

 body would hesitate to admit this if A were an able-bodied man and 

 Z an idiotic weakling. In that case the essential difference between 

 A and Z as industrial factors is plainly seen to be quantitative. There 

 is more of A than there is of Z. As we are wont to say, there is more 

 in him. 



Now, the fact we have to recognize is, that all the way from A to Z 

 there is a quantitative as well as a qualitative difference between the 

 human beings who are helping one another to make a living. Because 

 a man is weak in one way it does not follow that he is strong in another. 

 Because he is strong in one way it does not follow that he is weak in 

 all other ways. So one country may excel others in a great variety of 

 resources as well as in one. No doubt we could find two countries of 

 which one excelled the other in every capacity for the sustenance of man, 

 and yet under the most absolute freedom trade would go on, and ought 

 to go on, between the two countries. 



Let us define our use of the term special aptitude. Let us use it 

 with reference to the other aptitudes of the same person or country, 

 not with reference to those of another person or country. When we 

 say that a person has a special aptitude for a certain work, let us mean 

 that, while he may not be good at that work, he is better at that than 

 at anything else. 



When a person is apter at one thing than another, it may be that 

 he is really and positively apt at that thing, or the trouble may be 

 only that he is inapt at the other. A special aptitude is entirely con- 

 sistent with, and may even proceed from, a general inaptitude. 



On what principles, then, shall the allotment of specialties be 

 made? 



1. The most important specialties will naturally and rightly com- 

 mand the services of the persons most competent in them. 



2. The demands of those which, from the nature of the soil or its 

 ocupants, are most profitable, will and should be met. 



3. Each person should do the work at which he can earn most, 

 whether or not he is as capable as others in the same work, and whether 

 or not he must leave to others work in which he is more capable than 

 they. 



4. The incapable must be allowed to bungle away at some kind of 

 work rather than waste their time. 



5. The same privilege must be accorded to those who, like most 

 women, are prevented by circumstances from exercising even the in- 

 dustrial powers they have or might under other circumstances develop. 



And speaking of woman, what we have said in another place of 

 her inherited special aptitude must be taken in connection with what 



