The discussion which has been given here has been in view of the separation of in the operations of a workshop or a factory. but it must be equally obvious that like gains result from the differentiation of functions among the people generally from the increase of specialism, not only in trade and commerce. but also in pro fessional and scientific activities. Nor need space be given to the demonstration of the fact that the division of labor la-tween localities and between nations creates in each special aptitudes which might not otherwise be awakened. and thus increases the sum of gra tifieat ions which are in the reach of mankind at large. To offset these advantages, which are almost self-evident, there have been urged against the division of labor dis advantages of considerable weight. it has been contended that the production of it workman whose only knowledge was how to polish the point of a pin was a pitiable spectacle for which modern industry was responsible. Not only is it urged that such extreme specialization is deleterious to the intelligence and that it saps the vitality, but it has been pertinently pointed out that in the revolutions to which in dustry is subject such a man might find hiniself without a place, and without a living. When the facts are as stated, there can be no question of the hardship caused the individual. But the ease is probably extreme. While it is true that well-rounded workmen are less frequent to-day than formerly, it is also true that the mechanical operations of factories are not so widely dis similar that one who is displaced from one type of factory might not find suitable employment in another, with somewhat similar operations, but with somewhat different materials. Nor should
it he forgotten that in comparisons between the workman of to-clay and the man of yesterday, it is not infrequent that the average man of to-day is compared with the skilled man of yesterday, and that while years ago there were many skilled carpenters, there were also many who were quite unskilled, and the man who at the present time performs a single operation in a planing-null has perhaps deteriorated from the skilled and efficient craftsman who was his predecessor, but has risen on the other hand from one who bungled at the trade because be had not the aptitude to acquire skillfully all of its processes, and was not per mitted under the older organization to devote himself to that one in which lie would have been most efficient. It is further pointed out that with the subdivision of industry, and the increas ing use of machines, there is opportunity through the reduction of working hours for mental de velopment outside, even if the mental stimulus which comes from the work itself is not so great as formerly. In short. the disadvantages of the division of labor which were set forth with so much apprehension by writers of fifty years ago have not in the development of things proved so serious in their effects upon the working classes as they appeared. There can he little doubt that during the century just ended the progress of the working classes, not only in their material wel fare. but in their intellectual development, has been greater than in any preceding period of the world's history. See POLITICAL ECONOMY; PRO DUCTION.