plus produce, for practising exchange, and division of employments amongst different bodies of men. Before we proceed to the practical conclusions which may be drawn from this principle, it seems right to notice an important distinction between simple and complex co-operation. Of the former, one is always conscious at the time of practising it: it is obvious to the most ignorant and vulgar eye. Of the latter, but a few of the vast numbers who practise it are in any degree conscious. The cause of this distinction is easily seen. When several men are employed in lifting the same weight, or pulling the same rope, at the same time, and in the same place, there can be no sort of doubt that they co-operate with each other; the fact is impressed on the mind by the mere sense of sight; but when several men, or bodies of men, are employed at different times and places, and in different pursuits, their co-operation with each other, though it may be quite as certain, is not so readily perceived as in the other case. In order to perceive it, a complex operation of the mind is required. And here, perhaps, we may discover the occasion of Adam Smith's error in confounding division of labor with division of employments, which are really incompatible with one another. "The division of employments," he says, "is commonly supposed to be carried farthest in some very trifling manufactures, not, perhaps, that it really is carried farther in them than in others of more importance; but in those trifling manufactures which are destined to supply the small wants of but a small number of people, the whole number of workmen must necessarily be small; and those employed in every different branch of the work can often be collected in the same workhouse, and placed at once under the view of the spectator. In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to supply the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch employs so great a number of workmen that it is impossible to collect them all into the same workhouse. We can seldom see more, at one time, than those employed in one single branch. Though in such manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into a much greater number of parts than in those of a more trifling nature, the division is not near so obvious, and has accordingly been much less observed." If the division of employments had been equally The co plain under all circumstances, Adam Smith would never, probably, have called it division of labor; he would not have done so, assuredly, if the complex co-operation which, by the aid of exchange, gives rise to the division of employments, had been as obvious as simple co-operation which originally provides surplus produce for exchange. But, be that as it may, there is this analúgy between division of employments and complex co-operation, that both are most easily perceived when the laborers who practise them work in the same place, and are not to be perceived without more careful examination, when the laborers who practise them work in different places. In a pin factory, where ten men produce forty-eight thousand pins in a day, the co-operation of those ten laborers is as evident as the division into separate parts of the whole business performed by their united labor. operation, on the contrary, which takes place between those pinmakers and the laborers who provide them with metal, tools, fire, clothes and food, is not to be discovered without reflection; and it would, moreover, be a hard task for the most enlightened philosopher to reckon the immense number of persons who co-operate before a single pin can be made and brought to market. "The woollen coat," says Adam Smith, "which covers the day-laborer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labor of a great number of workmen." Joint or united labor is another word for co-operation: If, "without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to what we very falsely imagine the very easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated," who shall venture to form an estimate of the number of people who combine their labor before the inhabitants of a city of Europe, at the present time, are supplied with all the useful and agreeable objects which they enjoy? The degree of combination of labor, or co-operation which is requisite for supplying a city with food alone, has been pointed out by Dr. Whately, with his usual facility. "Let any one," says he, "propose to himself the problem of supplying with daily provisions of all kinds such a city as our metropolis, containing above a million of inhabitants. Now let any one consider the problem in all its bearings, reflecting on the enormous and fluctuating num ber of persons to be fed; the immense quantity and variety of provisions to be furnished; the importance of a convenient distribution of them, and the necessity of husbanding them discreetly; and then let him reflect on the anxious toil which such a task would impose on a board of the most experienced and intelligent commissioners, who, after all, would be able to discharge their office but very inadequately. Yet this object is accomplished far better than it could be by any effort of human wisdom, through the agency of men who think each of nothing but his more immediate interest; who, with that object in view, perform their respective parts with cheerful zeal, and combine unconsciously to employ the wisest means for effecting an object, the vastness of which it would bewilder them even to contemplate." They are not more conscious of dividing into many distinct parts the whole employment of providing a city with provisions, than they are of co-operating for the purpose of such division; but neither the combination of labor, nor the division of employments, is less certain for being hidden from ignorant and vulgar observers. 134.-Fortune. LUCAS. [RICHARD LUCAS, D.D. Prebendary of Westminster, was the author of a popular book entitled an "Inquiry after Happiness," from which the following extract is taken. He also published "Practical Christianity," and "Sermons," extending to five volumes. He lived in the early part of the last century. The following extract from the Preface to the "Inquiry after Happiness," is a charming illustration of the character of this amiable divine : "It has pleased God that in a few years I should finish the more pleasant and delightful part of life, if sense were to be the judge and standard of pleasure; being confined (I will not say condemned), by well-nigh utter blindness, to retirement and solitude. In this state conversation has lost much of its former air and briskness. Business (wherein I could never pretend to any great address) gives me now more trouble than formerly, and that, too, without the usual dispatch or success. Study (which is the only employment left me) is clogged with this weight and incumbrance, that all the assistance I can receive from without must be conveyed by another's sense, not my own; which It may easily be believed are instruments or organs as ill fitted, and as awk. wardly managed by me, as wooden legs and hands by the maimed. "In this case, should I affect to procure myself a decent funeral, and leave an honorable remembrance of me behind, should I struggle to rescue mysel from that contempt to which this condition (wherein I may seem lost to the world and myself) exposes me, should I ambitiously affect to have my name march in the train of those All (though not all equally) great ones-Homer, Appius, Cn. Aufidius, Dydimus, Walkup, Père Jean l'Aveugle, &c., all of them eminent for their service and usefulness, as for their affliction of the same kind with mine; even this might seem almost a commendable infirmity; for the last thing a mind truly great and philosophical puts off is, the desire of glory. But this treatise oweth neither its conception nor birth to this principle; for, besides that I know my own insufficiency too well to flatter myself with the hopes of a romantic immortality from any performance of mine, in this ingenious and learned age, I must confess I never had a soul great enough to be acted on by the heroic heat which the love of fame and honor hath kindled in some. I have ever loved the security and contentment of privacy and retirement, almost to the guilt of singularity and affectation. "But the truth is plainly this: the vigor and activity of my mind, the health and strength of my body (being now in the flower of my age) continuing unbroken under this affliction, I found that, if I did not provide some employment that might entertain it, it would weary out itself with fruitless desires of, and vain attempts after, its wonted objects; and so that strength and vivacity of nature, which should render my state more comfortable, would make it much more intolerable. "I confess, my zeal for public good, by the propagation and endearment of divine truths, was less fervent in me than could well become the particular obligations of my profession, or the common ones which every Christian, in proportion to his talents, lies under. I was almost induced to believe, that this chastisement, which had removed me from the service of the altar, did at the same time discharge me from all duty owing to the public: but my good friend, Mr. Lamb, revived the dying sparks of a decaying zeal, and restored me to a proper sense of my duty in this point; for whether by design, or by providence governing chance, I know not (for he never seemed to address or design the discourse particularly to me), he had ever and anon in his mouth this excellent principle, that the life of man is to be esteemed by its usefulness and serviceablneess in the world. A sober reflection upon this wrought me up to a resolution strong enough to contemn all the difficulties which the loss of my sight could represent to me in an enterprise of this nature. Thus you see on what principle I became engaged in this work: I thought it my duty to set myself some task, which might serve at once to divert my thoughts from a melancholy application on my misfortune, and entertain my mind with such a rational employment as might render me most easy to myself and most serviceable to the world. Being now abundantly convinced that I am not released from that duty I owe that body of which I am still a member, by being cut off from a great part of the pleasure and advantages of it; therefore, like one that truly loves his country, when no way else is left him, he fights for it on his stumps; so will I ever, in the remains of a broken body, express, at least my affection for mankind, and breathe out my last gasp in their service."] What dost thou mean by fortune? If mere chance, then to envy the lot of others, or murmur at thy own, is folly; if Providence, then it is impiety; for whatever goodness, guided by unerring wisdom, doth, must be so well done that it cannot be mended; and whatever is merely in the power of a blind, giddy, and inconstant humor (which is the notion by which men choose to express fortune) can neither be prevented, fixed, or regulated. But what is it, secondly, thou dost put in the power of fortune? the understanding and liberty of men's minds; wisdom, temperance, industry, courage, and in one word, virtue? If thou dost not, she has no influence on thy happiness, she cannot prevent thy attainment of it, nor bereave thee of it when attained. If thou dost, thou dost enlarge the empire of fortune too far; let her rule and insult over soldiers, courtiers, lovers, factious demagogues and timeservers, but not over philosophers: let those who are her minions be her slaves; let her dispose of money, lands, farms, commissions, benefices, honors, graces, fame; nay, if you' will, crowns and sceptres too; virtue, and happiness, and souls are too precious commodities to be the sport and traffic of fortune. Solomon observed long ago, "Wisdom cries out, she uttereth her voice in the streets; she cries out in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city she utters her words." Prov. i. Our Saviour, in the great day of the feast, cried, saying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink," John vii., which is an invitation of the same nature with that of the prophet—“ Every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat, buy wine and milk without money, and without price." Isaiah lv. This ever was, and ever will be true; a great fortune is not necessary for the attainment of faith, hope, or charity; and he that is endowed with these cannot be miserable: you may learn the whole system of divine and important truths; you may acquit yourself with all the beauty and enjoyments of virtue at a very cheap rate; and you may learn temperance, fortitude, justice, modesty, constancy, patience, contempt |