x PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 



have recognised that this is the proper domain of 

 economics, and have attempted to treat their science 

 from this point of view. The main subject of social 

 economy that is, the economy of energy required for the 

 satisfaction of human needs is consequently the last 

 subject which one expects to find treated in a concrete 

 form in economical treatises. 



The following pages are a contribution to a portion 

 of this vast subject. They contain a discussion of the 

 advantages which civilised societies could derive 

 from a combination of industrial pursuits with in- 

 tensive agriculture, and of brain work with manual 

 work. 



The importance of such a combination has not 

 escaped the attention of a number of students of 

 social science. It was eagerly discussed some fifty 

 years ago under the names of " harmonised labour," 

 " integral education," and so on. It was pointed out 

 at that time that the greatest sum total of well-being 

 can be obtained when a variety of agricultural, in- 

 dustrial and intellectual pursuits are combined in each 

 community ; and that man shows his best when he is 

 in a position to apply his usually-varied capacities 

 to several pursuits in the farm, the workshop, the 

 factory, the study or the studio, instead of being 

 riveted for life to one of these pursuits only. 



At a much more recent date, in the 'seventies, 

 Herbert Spencer's theory of evolution gave origin in 

 Russia to a remarkable work, The Theory of Progress, 

 by M. M. Mikhailovsky. The part which belongs in 

 progressive evolution to differentiation, and the part 

 which belongs in it to an integration of aptitudes and 

 activities, were discussed by the Russian author with 

 depth of thought, and Spencer's differentiation-formula 

 was accordingly completed. 



