SECTION 20. STUDIES PREPARATORY TO ALL INVESTIGATIONS. 171 



as the alternative was to know the separate constituents of 

 reality or nothing at all, the choice was not difficult for the 

 majority of thinkers, though some desired either to grasp reality 

 in its fulness or to abjure the search for truth altogether. 



Yet here also we are dealing with a transitional state. The 

 immense ignorance compelled more and more minute division 

 of labour in science, and demanded virtually exclusive attention 

 to a narrowly circumscribed speciality. This was unfortunately 

 carried so far that in numberless cases hundreds of unconnected 

 and petty enquiries were conducted by individual men of science. 

 Against the continuance of this trend we have repeatedly pro- 

 tested in this volume, though even here the method was pro- 

 bably suggested at first by the impracticability in certain his- 

 toric stages of a subject, of doing more than just touching the 

 fringe of a small fringe of a general fact. 



With the accumulation of organised data to a certain point, 

 extreme specialisation seemed to be inevitable ; but as the store 

 of important scientific material assumed ever more formidable 

 dimensions, a new methodological theory, widely diverging from 

 that prevalent a century ago, developed. 



To begin with the practical life. The local trade union, 

 limited to one craft, entered into relations with similar unions 

 in adjacent localities. In the process it gained experience 

 sufficient to enable it to federate with other local unions, fur- 

 ther afield. New experiences gradually rendered it practicable 

 to form national and international unions. Tentative efforts 

 were also concurrently made to federate with cognate unions 

 and to form unions comprising a whole general branch of 

 industry until, once more with growth of experience, eventually 

 the whole of labour, professional, skilled, and unskilled, was 

 organised in unions, and these unions were welded into a 

 single national and, partly to anticipate, international federation. 



Firms also profited by experience, and were thus enabled to 

 establish many scores of agencies and branches. Numerous 

 firms, interested in a certain speciality, amalgamated, until 

 maturing experience permitted all the firms of a country, and 

 even of several countries, who carried on a certain trade, to 

 form into one company. Such combines or trusts found it 

 advantageous to absorb auxiliary trades, with the result that 

 stupendous economic organisations came to be formed and 

 successfully conducted. Nor is this apparently the end of the 

 process. Increased knowledge of organisation has enabled com- 

 panies to manage numerous businesses having no special rela- 

 tions to one another, to establish factories where widely differ- 

 ing articles are produced, and to dot the country with "uni- 

 versal" stores selling almost every conceivable commodity and 

 ready to perform a multiplicity of other services. 



With growth of experience, as we have seen, division of 

 labour tends almost, to disappear in the practical life. Tbis 



