MAN AND NATURE 



before, the meaning of work in its relations to human 

 development; and in particular the meaning of modern 

 work, as carried out with the aid of modern mechanical 

 contrivances, in its relations to modern civilization. 



The full force of these relations may best be permitted 

 to unfold itself as the story proceeds. There is, how- 

 ever, one fundamental principle which I would ask 

 the reader to bear constantly in mind, as an aid to the 

 full appreciation of the importance of our subject. It is 

 that in considering the output of the worker we have 

 constantly to do with one form or another of property, 

 and that property is the very foundation-stone of civili- 

 zation. "It is impossible," says Morgan, in his work 

 on Ancient Society, "to overestimate the influence of 

 property in the civilization of mankind. It was the 

 power that brought the Aryan and Semitic nations out 

 of barbarism into civilization. The growth of the idea 

 of property in the human mind commenced in feeble- 

 ness and ended in becoming its master passion. Gov- 

 ernments and laws are instituted with primary reference 

 to its creation, protection, and enjoyment. It intro- 

 duced human slavery in its production; and, after 

 the experience of several thousand years, it caused the 

 abolition of slavery upon the discovery that the freeman 

 was a better property-making machine." If, then, we 

 recall that without labor there is no property, we shall 

 be in an attitude of mind to appreciate the importance 

 of our subject; we shall realize, somewhat beyond the 

 bounds of its more tangible and sordid relations, the 

 essential dignity, the fundamental importance in a 

 word, the true meaning of Work. 



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