16 PKOGKESS: ITS LAW AND CAIJSE. 



arated parts of the community ; the nation continues com- 

 paratively homogeneous in the respect that in each district 

 the same occupations are pursued. But when roads and 

 other means of transit become numerous and good, the dif- 

 ferent districts begin to assume different functions, and to 

 become mutually dependent. The calico manufacture lo- 

 cates itself in this county, the woollen-cloth manufacture in 

 that ; silks are produced here, lace there ; stockings in one 

 place, shoes in another ; pottery, hardware, cutlery, come 

 to have their special towns ; and ultimately every locality 

 becomes more or less distinguished from the rest by the 

 leading occupation carried on in it. l!^ay, more, this sub- 

 division of functions shows itself not only among the differ- 

 ent parts of the same nation, but among different nations. 

 That exchange of commodities which free-trade promises 

 so greatly to increase, will ultimately have the effect of 

 specializing, in a greater or less degree, the industry of 

 each people. So that beginning with a barbarous tribe, 

 almost if not quite homogeneous in the functions of its 

 members, the progress has been, and still is, towards an 

 economic aggregation of the whole human race ; growing 

 ever more heterogeneous in respect of the separate func- 

 tions assumed by separate nations, the separate functions 

 assumed by the local sections of each nation, the separate 

 functions assumed by the many kinds of makers and traders 

 in each town, and the separate functions assumed by the 

 workers united in producing each commodity. 



Not only is the law thus clearly exemplified in the evo 

 lution of the social organism, but it is exemplified with equal 

 clearness in the evolution of all products of human thought 

 and action, whether concrete or abstract, real or ideal. Let 

 us take Language as our first illustration. 



The lowest form of languasje is the exclamation, h\ 

 which an entire idea is vaguely conveyed through a single 

 iound : as amongr the lower animals. That human lanoruaf?e 



