Page:Manual of Political Economy.djvu/104

55 movements, and yet before they finish one thing they are often called upon to do a dozen different things. Gardeners are generally extremely intelligent, and yet there is the most constant variation in their employments. Before machinery was so largely used in agriculture as it is at the present time, the work of the agricultural labourer was far more monotonous. There are many labourers still living, who during twenty years of their life spent ten hours a day during ten months of the year in thrashing with the flail. Such a labourer might perhaps be somewhat stronger as a thrasher, but he passed his life as a machine, and it was impossible that an active intelligence should be preserved through such an ordeal.

The third advantage which arises from the division of labour, as enumerated by Adam Smith, is "the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many." There is some ambiguity in Adam Smith's conception of the causes which influence the invention of such machines. Returning to our original example, each of the workmen employed in pin-making has his attention concentrated upon some distinct operation of the manufacture, and it is therefore maintained that he will be more likely to suggest some improvement in the particular operation in which he is constantly engaged, than would another workman whose attention is distracted by a great number of the processes of pin-making. The supposition may be verified by some striking instances. The boy whose only employment consisted in opening and shutting the valve of a steam-engine invented a self-acting apparatus, which had not suggested itself to Watt and other accomplished mechanicians. The spinning-jenny and the mule were invented by working men; but there is no general principle which regulates the invention of machines of industrial usefulness; many most important mechanical improvements have been suggested by those who perhaps for the first time may have watched the operations of a particular industry. Novelty has often been the prompter of an invention, and improvements in machinery have often, as it were, been forced upon a trade. The practical