employments which did not exist
fifty years ago. These trades arise without any Act of Parliament to
make them or allow them. There is no law to say how many trades there
shall be, nor how many people shall go into each trade, because nobody
can tell what will be wanted in future years. These things are arranged
by a kind of #social instinct#. Each person takes up the kind of work
which seems to suit him and to pay him best at the time.

Another and a totally different kind of combination of labour arises
when men arrange to assist each other in doing the same work. Thus,
sailors pulling at the same rope combine their labour together; other
instances are, carrying the same ladder, rowing the same boat, and so
forth. In this case there is said to be #simple combination of labour#,
because the men do the same sort of work. When the men have different
operations to perform, there is said to be #complex combination of
labour#, as when one man points a pin and another makes the head. On
board a ship there is both simple and complex combination. When several
men work at the same capstan the combination is simple, because one man
does exactly the same as the others. But the captain, mate, steersman,
carpenter, boatswain, and cook work together in complex combination,
since each attends to his own proper duties. Similarly, in a company of
soldiers the privates act together in simple combination, but the
officers of different ranks have distinct duties to perform, so that
the combination becomes complex. Men who thus assist each other are
usually able to do far more work than if they acted separately.

#32. Disadvantages of the Division of Labour.# There are certainly some
evils which arise out of the great division of labour now existing in
civilised countries. These evils are of no account compared with the
immense benefits which we receive; still it is well to notice them.

In the first place, #division of labour tends to make a man's power
narrow and restricted#; he does one kind of work so constantly, that he
has no time to learn and practice other kinds of work. A man becomes, as
it has been said, worth only the tenth part of a pin; that is, there are
men who know only how to make, for instance, the head of a pin. In the
time of the Romans it was said, _ne sutor ultra crepidam_, let not the
shoemaker go beyond his last. When a man accustomed only to making pins
or shoes goes into the far west states of America, he finds