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ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book i 



which led to 



Smith in his Wealth of Nations ; and he seems to 

 regard it as one which is more or less mysterious 

 and recondite. The answer which he himself sug- 

 gests is, that there exists in man " a natural pro- 

 pensity to truck, barter, and exchange" The answer 

 given by Mr. Herbert Spencer is a curious illustra- 

 tion of how far, since the days of Adam Smith, 

 social science has progressed. 



Mr. Spencer shows us that the origin of the 

 division of labour was no special propensity 

 mysteriously innate in man. Its origin was the 

 natural diversity of the various districts inhabited by 

 the groups of men who originally took part in it. 

 Thus "some of the Fiji Islands" he writes, "are 

 famous for wooden implements, others for mats and 

 baskets, others for pots and pigments unlikenesses 

 between the natural products of the islands being 

 the causes. . . . So also . . . the shoes of the ancient 

 Peruvians were made in the provinces where aloes 

 are most abundant, for they were made of the leaves 

 of an aloe called ' maguey.' The arms were supplied 

 by the provinces where the materials for making 

 them were most abundant" Division of labour, in 

 short, was primarily a localisation of industries, 

 caused by the fact that a number of man's different 

 needs were each supplied most easily by industry 

 in some different locality. 



By means of this explanation of the origin of the 

 division of labour, Mr. Spencer proceeds to explain, 

 in a way which would have astonished Adam Smith 

 still more, other social phenomena of a kind which 



