to find their
whole being sunk into an unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a
heap of mechanism, numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its
hammer strokes;--this nature bade not,--this God blesses not,--this
humanity for no long time is able to endure.

We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized
invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It
is not, truly speaking; the labour that is divided; but the
men:--Divided into mere segments of men--broken into small fragments
and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that
is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts
itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now it is a
good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we
could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished,--sand
of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what
it is,--we should think there might be some loss in it also. And the
great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than
their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this,--that we manufacture
everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel,
and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to
refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our
estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging
our myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching nor preaching,
for to teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach to
them, if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can be
met only by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what
kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and making them happy;
by a determined sacrifice of such convenience, or beauty, or cheapness
as is to be got only by the degradation of the workman; and by equally
determined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling
labour.

And how, it will be asked, are these products to be recognized, and
this demand to be regulated? Easily: by the observance of three broad
and simple rules:

1. Never encourage the manufacture of any article not absolutely
necessary, in the production of which _Invention_ has no share.

2. Never demand an exact finish for its own sake, but only for some
practical or noble end.

3. Never encourage imitation or copying of any ki