Here then, so far as the economy of production goes, men and machines stand on much the same footing: but while machinery is a mere implement of production, man's welfare is also its ultimate aim.We have already been occupied with the question whether the human race as a whole gains by carrying to an extreme that specialization of function which causes all the most difficult work to be done by a few people: but we have now to consider it more nearly with special reference to the work of business management.The main drift of the next three chapters is to inquire what are the causes which make different forms of business management the fittest to profit by their environment, and the most likely to prevail over others; but it is well that meanwhile we should have in our minds the question, how far they are severally fitted to benefit their environment.
Many of those economies in the use of specialized skill and machinery which are commonly regarded as within the reach of very large establishments, do not depend on the size of individual factories.Some depend on the aggregate volume of production of the kind in the neighbourhood; while others again, especially those connected with the growth of knowledge and the progress of the arts, depend chiefly on the aggregate volume of production in the whole civilized world.And here we may introduce two technical terms.
We may divide the economies arising from an increase in the scale of production of any kind of goods, into two classes --firstly, those dependent on the general development of the industry; and, secondly, those dependent on the resources of the individual houses of business engaged in it, on their organization and the efficiency of their management.We may call the former external economies, and the latter internal economies.
In the present chapter we have been chiefly discussing internal economies; but we now proceed to examine those very important external economies which can often be secured by the concentration of many small businesses of a similar character in particular localities: or, as is commonly said, by the localization of industry.
NOTES:
1.For instance, the first time a man attempts to skate he must give his whole attention to keeping his balance, his cerebrum has to exercise a direct control over every movement, and he has not much mental energy left for other things.But after a good deal of practice the action becomes semi-automatic, the local nerve centres undertake nearly all the work of regulating the muscles, the cerebrum is set free, and the man can carry on an independent train of thought; he can even alter his course to avoid an obstacle in his path, or to recover his balance after it has been disturbed by a slight unevenness, without in any way interrupting the course of his thoughts.It seems that the exercise of nerve force under the immediate direction of the thinking power residing in the cerebrum has gradually built up a set of connections, involving probably distinct physical change, between the nerves and nerve centres concerned; and these new connections may be regarded as a sort of capital of nerve force.There is probably something like an organized bureaucracy of the local nerve centres: the medulla, the spinal axis, and the larger ganglia generally acting the part of provincial authorities, and being able after a time to regulate the district and village authorities without troubling the supreme government.Very likely they send up messages as to what is going on: but if nothing much out of the way has happened, these are very little attended to.
When however a new feat has to be accomplished, as for instance learning to skate backwards, the whole thinking force will be called into requisition for the time; and will now be able by aid of the special skating organization of the nerves and nerve centres, which has been built up in ordinary skating, to do what would have been altogether impossible without such aid.
To take a higher instance: when an artist is painting at his best, his cerebrum is fully occupied with his work: his whole mental force is thrown into it, and the strain is too great to be kept up for a long time together.In a few hours of happy inspiration he may give utterance to thoughts that exert a perceptible influence on the character of coming generations.But his power of expression had been earned by numberless hours of plodding work in which he had gradually built up an intimate connection between eye and hand, sufficient to enable him to make good rough sketches of things with which he is tolerably familiar, even while he is engaged in an engrossing conversation and is scarcely conscious that he has a pencil in his hand.
2.J.S.Mill went so far as to maintain that his occupations at the India Office did not interfere with his pursuit of philosophical inquiries.But it seems probable that this diversion of his freshest powers lowered the quality of his best thought more than he was aware; and though it may have diminished but little his remarkable usefulness in his own generation, it probably affected very much his power of doing that kind of work which influences the course of thought in future generations.It was by husbanding every atom of his small physical strength that Darwin was enabled to do so much work of just that kind: and a social reformer who had succeeded in exploiting Darwin' s leisure hours in useful work on behalf of the community, would have done a very bad piece of business for it.
