OF SOCIETY. 



559 



the principle of the division of labour, " that great 

 principle to which human society owes the most im- 

 portant attributes which raise it above such aggregates 

 as we find in certain animal families." And he looked 

 forward to a time when through " the condensation of 

 our species and the ever-increasing competition in a 

 given space the division of labour would be driven 

 to such a point that each individual would be employed 

 according to his special ability." This idea has been 

 taken up and further developed by M. Durkheim with 

 the assistance of the evolutionist ideas introduced by 

 Darwin and Spencer.^ It acquires with him a higher 



which the leaders of social reform 

 are only tardily recognisiug. (See 

 lugram, loc. cit., p. 227.) " It 

 is quite singular how little . . . 

 the function of the entrepreneur is 

 taken into account. Bagehot ob- 

 jects to the phrase ' wages of 

 superintendence ' commonly used 

 to express his reward, as suggesting 

 altogether erroneous ideas of the 

 nature of his work, and well de- 

 scribes the large and varied range 

 of his activity and usefulness, and 

 the rare combination of gifts and 

 acquirements which go to make up 

 the perfection of his equipment. 

 It can scarcely be doubted t^iat a 

 foregone conclusion in favour of 

 the system of [so - called] co- 

 operation has sometimes led Econ- 

 omists to keep these important 

 considerations in the background. 

 They have been brought into due 

 prominence of late in the treatises 

 of Profs. Marshall and F. A. Walker, 

 who, however, have scarcely made 

 clear, and certainly have not jus- 

 tified, the principle on which the 

 amount of the remuneration of the 

 entrepreneur is determined." 



^ Already long before the time 

 of Darwin, the celebrated French 



zoologist, Henri Milne-Edwards, 

 had (1827) stated the principle 

 of the division of physiological la- 

 bour, and shown that this division 

 was the criterion of the degree of 

 perfection of each specie.?, and of 

 the position it should occupy in 

 the Echclle des £trcs. This theory 

 about the degree of perfection has 

 been much exploited by French 

 sociologists, though Comte him- 

 self took no notice of it. In gen- 

 eral, the tendency to work with 

 physiological and even mechanical 

 analogies is very prominent, and 

 nowhere more than with M. Durk- 

 heim. Dr Earth {loc. cit., p. 290) 

 remarks on this tendency, and 

 shows how after all " this parallel- 

 ism of the animal and sociological 

 series could have been carried much 

 further, and if this had been done, 

 the limit of the applicability of this 

 analogy would have shown itself." 

 And he indicates his own view 

 in the following passage: "The 

 contrast of nature and mind 

 arises in society as soon as mind 

 or society itself becomes the sub- 

 ject of scientific thinking This 

 moment, however, does not wait 

 for the appearance of a special 



