SPECIALIZATION AND DIVISION OF LABOUR. 359 



vision of labour. Beyond the fact that, as in the social 

 organism so in the individual organism, there are regulative 

 parts and operative parts the nervous organs and the vari 

 ous other organs we have the fact that among these organs 

 there is both a simultaneous and a serial division of labour. 

 While we see bones, muscles, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, 

 &c., carrying on their respective functions at the same time, 

 we see the parts of the alimentary canal performing their 

 functions one after another. There come in succession mas 

 tication, insalivation, deglutition, trituration, chymih cation, 

 chylification, and eventually absorption by the lacteals. 



And here indeed it is curious to remark a unique case in 

 which two sets of sociological divisions of labour of the serial 

 kind, are joined to this physiological series of divisions of 

 labour. We have first the ploughing, harrowing, sowing, 

 reaping, carting, threshing, hauling to market, transfer to 

 corn-factor s stores, removal thence to be ground, and final 

 carriage of the flour to the bakers; w r here, also, certain 

 serial processes are gone through in making loaves, or, if we 

 follow that part of the flour from which biscuits are made, 

 we see that there are linked together the processes above de 

 scribed. Finally, in one who eats of the loaves or the bis 

 cuits, there occurs the physiological series of divisions of 

 labour. So that from the ploughing to the absorption of 

 nutriment, three series of divisions of labour become, in a 

 sense, parts of a united series. 



735. One more section must be added. Conformity to 

 the general law of evolution has been noted in several places. 

 Here, going behind that redistribution of matter and motion 

 which universally constitutes Evolution, let us observe how, 

 in the industrial world, there is everywhere exemplified the 

 law that motion is along the line of least resistance or the 

 line of greatest traction or the resultant of the two. 



The grow r th of a society as a whole takes place most over 



regions where the obstacles to be overcome are least. Along 

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