2 54 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book in gem-engraving of the Greeks and Romans has rarely 



hapter 3 been equalled since, and has certainly never been 



surpassed. But we need not stop short at the 



antiquity of the Greeks and Romans. Many of the 



implements made by the prehistoric lake-dwellers 



could not, so far as mere manual workmanship is 



concerned, be better made by any workman or 



mechanic of to-day. Indeed, so far is the progress 



of material civilisation from depending on or coin- 



for very great ciding with any progress in manual skill, that it 



manual skill 111 i i r i 



does not pro- actually depends on a getting rid or the necessity, 



not certainly of all skill, but of skill of the rarer 

 kinds. If any machine, for example, depended for 

 its successful operation on an accurate finish in 

 certain essential parts which only one workman in 

 half a million could give, such a machine would be 

 practically almost worthless. A productive machine 

 is of use in the service of society generally in pro- 

 portion as the machines or processes by which it is 

 itself manufactured obviate the necessity for any 

 skill in manufacturing it beyond such as can be 

 obtained with considerable ease and constancy. 



Many sentimentalists and it is difficult not to 

 sympathise with them regret the manner in which 

 manufacture is thus superseding craftsmanship, or 

 that kind of production in which the beauty or 

 excellence of the product is the direct result and 

 expression of the skill of one producer. But this 

 natural regret, though most frequently expressed 

 by socialists, is defensible only on grounds of the 

 narrowest social exclusiveness. That the artist- 



