iVS EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN 



of tending the children and roughly cultivating 

 the soil, for the sake of a little grain and a few 

 coarse vegetables. 



As population thickened, the principle of 

 division of labour came to be, not only practised, 

 but understood, as a mere necessity of life. Thus, 

 in process of time came, with ever fast growing 

 numbers, the great mercantile struggle, to obtain 

 success in which it became essential to still 

 further subdivide labour ; until now at last there 

 is scarcely any work in the factory or the mill 

 which is other than, in appearance, an aimless, 

 objectless, uninteresting fraction of some far- 

 distant whole of multiple parts, of which the 

 workman probably never thinks. Many years 

 ago, when all things that can be made with tools, 

 and even the tools themselves, were fashioned 

 by human hands, division of labour was 

 practised, of such fineness that already the work 

 of manufacture had become extremely mono- 

 tonous : this still goes on, but for human hands 

 have been substituted to a large extent ingenious 

 machines. These machines do the work, but it 

 is necessary to watch and guide them, and to do 

 this one thing all day, and day after day : so the 

 monotony is there just the same, and perhaps 

 is even intensified. Now the point is that there 

 is no going back to primitive days ; there is no 

 way in which to produce all that is required 

 except by division of labour of the first degree. 

 And that being so, as long as work is carried 

 on exactly as it now is, that fine division of labour 

 must continue to carry with it its inevitable 



