DIVISION OF LABOR-GENERAL SUMMARY.

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cially seen where the process admits of division, and each laborer performs that part for which his knowledge and skill renders him best adapted. Hence the necessity of classification and division of labor.

Furthermore, as justice requires that the gain of all industrial effort should be distributed to each participant in proportion to his ability to labor effectually, we have another important element of political economy, namely, that of distribution. The consideration of the consumption of value, as connected with subsistence and production, furnishes an additional topic in the discussion of the principles involved in the economy of labor.

From what has been stated, therefore, it appears that man, in order to exist must produce, and that all production is the offspring of labor and capital. That labor and capital may be most advantageously employed, there must be knowledge, and a classification and division of labor. That productive labor may most readily and equitably satisfy the wants and desires of man, there must be exchanges, and a distribution of values. Upon the existence of these principles, and a proper administration of the laws which govern them, the prosperity and security of every society depends. That community only can attain the highest prosperity, in which industry is free, capital secure, division and classification of labor intelligent, exchange untrammeled, and distribution of wealth equitable.

The maxim of the Preacher-"The profit of the earth is for all"-contains the essence of all political economy.

It is proposed in the succeeding chapters to explain somewhat in detail, and illustrate by familiar examples, the relation which the several principles we have touched upon sustain to each other, and to man, both in his individual and social capacities.

CHAPTER II.

FEEBLE RESOURCES OF CIVILIZED MAN IN A DESERT.-ROSS COX, PETER THE WILD BOY, AND THE SAVAGE OF AVEYRON.-A MOSQUITO INDIAN ON JUAN FERNANDEZ.-CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR THE PRODUCTION OF UTILITY.

LET us suppose a man brought up in civilized life cast upon a desert land-without food, without clothes, without fire, without tools. We see the human being in the very lowest state of helplessness. Most of the knowledge he had acquired would be worse than useless; for it would not be applicable in any way to his new position. Let the land upon which he is thrown produce spontaneous fruits-let it be free from ferocious animals-let the climate be most genial-still the man would be exceedingly powerless and wretched. The first condition of his lot, to enable him to maintain existence at all, would be that he should labor. He must labor to gather the berries from the trees-he must labor to obtain water from the rivulets-he must labor to form a garment of leaves, or of some equally accessible material, to shield his body from the sun-he must labor to render some cave or hollow tree a secure place of shelter from the dews of night. There would be no intermission of the labor necessary to provide a supply of food from hand to mouth, even in the season when wild fruits were abundant. If this labor, in the most favorable season, were interrupted for a single day, or at most for two or three days, by sickness, he would in all probability perish.

CIVILIZED MAN IN A DESERT-ROSS COX.

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But, when the autumn was past, and the wild fruits were gone, he must prolong existence as some savage tribes are reported to do-by raw fish and undressed roots. The labor of procuring these would be infinitely greater than that of climbing trees for fruit. To catch fish without nets, and scratch up roots with naked hands, is indeed painful toil. The hopelessness of this man's condition would principally be the effect of one circumstance; he would possess no accumulation of former labor by which his present labor might be profitably directed. The power of labor would in his case be in its least productive state. He would partly justify the assertion that man has the feeblest natural means of any animal; because he would be utterly unpossessed of those means by which the reason of man has accumulated around every individual in the social state.

We asked the reader to suppose a civilized man in the very lowest state in which the power of labor may be exercised, because there is no record of any civilized man being for any length of time in such a state.

Ross Cox, a Hudson's Bay trader, whose adventures were given to the world some twenty years ago, was in this state for a fortnight; and his sufferings may furnish some idea of the greater miseries of a continuance in such a powerless condition. Having fallen asleep in the woods of the northwest of America, which he had been traversing with a large party, he missed the traces of his companions. The weather being very hot, he had left nearly all his clothes with his horse when he rambled from his friends. He had nothing to defend himself against the wolves and serpents, but a stick; he had nothing of which to make his bed but long grass and rushes; he had nothing to eat but roots and wild fruits. The man would doubtless have perished, unless he had met with some Indians, who knew better how to avail themselves of the spontaneous productions around them.

But this is not an instance of the continuance of labor in the lowest state of its power.

The few individuals, also, who have been found exposed in forests, such as Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron-who were discovered, the one about a century ago, in Germany, the other about forty years since, in France differed from the civilized man cast naked upon a desert shore in this particular-their wants were of the lowest nature. They were not raised above the desires of the most brutish animals. They applied those desires after the fashion of brutes. Peter was enticed from the woods by the sight of two apples, which the man who found him displayed. He did not like bread, but he eagerly peeled green sticks, and chewed the rind. He had, doubtless, subsisted in this way in the woods. He would not, at first, wear shoes, and delighted to throw the hat which was given him into the river. He was brought to England, and lived many years with a farmer in the country. During the Scotch Rebellion, in 1745, he wandered into an adjacent district; and having been apprehended as a suspicious character, was sent to prison. The jail was on fire; and Peter was found in a corner, enjoying the warmth of the flames without any fear. The Savage of Aveyron, in the same manner, had the lowest desires and the feeblest powers. He could use his hands, for instance, for no other purpose than to seize upon an object; and his sense of touch was so defective that he could not distinguish a raised surface, such as a carving, from a painting. This circumstance of the low physical and intellectual powers of these unfortunate persons prevents us exhibiting them as examples of the state which we asked the reader to suppose.

Let us advance another step in our view of the power of labor. Let us take a man in one respect in the same condition that we supposed-left upon a desert land, without any

AN INDIAN ON JUAN FERNANDEZ.

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direct social aid; but with some help to his labor by a small accumulation of former industry. We have instances on record of this next state.

In the year 1681 a Mosquito Indian was left by accident on the island of Juan Fernandez, in the Pacific Ocean; the English ship in which he was a sailor having been chased off the coast by some hostile Spanish vessels. Captain Dampier describes this man's condition in the following words:

"This Indian lived here alone above three years; and although he was several times sought after by the Spaniards, who knew he was left on the island, yet they could never find him. He was in the woods hunting for goats, when Captain Watlin drew off his men, and the ship was under sail before he came back to shore. He had with him his gun, and a knife, with a small horn of powder, and a few shot; which being spent, he contrived a way, by notching his knife, to saw the barrel of his gun into small pieces, wherewith he made harpoons, lances, hooks, and a long knife; heating the pieces first in the fire, which he struck with his gun-flint, and a piece of the barrel of his gun, which he hardened, having learned to do that among the English. The hot pieces of iron he would hammer out and bend as he pleased with stones, and saw them with his jagged knife, or grind them to an edge by long labor, and harden them to a good temper as there was occasion. With such instruments as he made in that manner, he got such provisions as the island afforded, either goats or fish. He told us that at first he was forced to eat seal, which is very ordinary meat, before he had made hooks; but afterward he never killed any seals but to make lines, cutting their skins into thongs. He had a little house, or hut, half a mile from the sea, which was lined with goat's skin; his couch, or platform of sticks, lying along about two feet distance from the ground, was