DEXTERITY NOT PROGRESSIVE 1 4 5 



struggle to which modern progress is due. Pro- Book n 

 _gress, in the sense of the rapid and appreciable 

 movement which alone concerns us here, is to 

 confine ourselves for a moment to the domain of 

 industry not the result of a struggle to execute 

 work in the best way, but is the result of a struggle 

 to_give the best orders for its execution. It pre- 

 supposes the existence of a certain amount of skill ; 

 but it does not, except in its very earliest stages, 

 depend on the struggle of so many thousand men, 

 each to become individually a more skilful worker 

 than his fellows. It is, on the contrary, when its 

 earliest stages have been passed, so independent of But this is not 

 any further increase of skill in the individual worker, 

 that it continues its course whilst skill remains 

 stationary. 



This is shown by the fact that some of the greatest 

 advances ever made in material civilisation have 

 been made during the active lifetime, and with the 

 aid of the hands and muscles, of a single generation for the most 

 of workers, and has implied no improvement at all 

 either in their acquired faculties or their inherited. 



Let us take, for instance, the introduction of the ft 53 in the 



labourers. 



electric light, and the way in which it is superseding 

 gas. The mechanics first employed to make the 

 appliances for its production were none of them 

 asked to perform any task which required on their 

 part any new knowledge or dexterity. All they were 

 asked to do, and all they did, was to submit their 

 existing faculties to some new external guidance : 

 and the electric light, in so far as it has superseded 



