smaller ability to pay, or upon the bad means of communication at their disposal. Hence it is, that in villages, small cities, and still more on isolated farms, many branches of business are carried on by one person, which are divided among many in larger cities; and this is especially true in the case of businesses which have a chiefly local demand. While, in small places, the barber is also frequently the physician, in larger ones there are dentists, oculists, accoucheurs, surgeons etc.1; and while, in the former, the tavern keeper is both dry goods merchant and grocer, there are, in the latter, tea merchants, cigar-dealers, dealers in mourning goods (in London childbed-linen warehouses) etc., and hotels for all the different classes of travelers. There can be a distinct class of porters, hack-men etc., only where commerce is very active. And even in cities like Paris, where the costly industries that minister to luxury, that of the jeweler, for instance, admit of only a limited division of labor, this effect depends on the smallness of the market; a market, in

2 In the highlands of Scotland, in Adam Smith's time, there were no smiths who manufactured nails only; for the reason that no smith had a market for more than 1,000 nails a year, that is not for so many as might be manufac tured in a single day.

3 It is of course very different when there is question of a foreign market, even if it be only indirectly. Thus, for instance, there are in the Hartz mountains, persons who are simply post-makers, trough-makers, chess-woodmakers, block-hewers, shingle-makers etc.

4 Too much should not be inferred from the existence among the Egyptians of physicians, specialists for the several members of the body. Herodot., II, 84. Something analagous is to be found even among barbarous nations; but it is accounted for entirely by the superstition of the people. See Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, I, 266.

In the whole of Hesse, there were under Philip the Magnanimous, only two apothecaries, one at Cassel and one at Marburg. Rommel, Gesch. v. Hessen, IV, p. 419, note. And there were no bakers among the Romans before the time of the war with Perseus. All the bread needed by the family was baked by the wife or by female domestics. Plin., H. N. XVIII, 28. The common oven in new towns marks the period of transition. Even yet, in the central part of France, there are localities where each family bakes its own bread for a whole month in advance; and, in the Alpine departments for even a year in advance. M. Chevalier, Cours II, 366.

deed, which geographically may extend over the whole earth, but which, in an economic sense, must always remain small, on account of the small number of customers who have the ability to pay for their products. The real wonders produced by the division of labor and the employment of machinery we must look for in the manufacture of the cheapest and commonest commodities."

SECTION LXI.

THE DIVISION OF LABOR MEANS OF INCREASING IT.

Whoever, therefore, would increase the division of labor among the people, must, first of all, extend their market; and this is done most efficiently by improving the means of communication. Even in our day, it is over the water-highroads that the heaviest articles are carrried with the least expenditure of force; but where civilization is not advanced, these highroads possess still greater advantages, because of their safety, convenience and priority. And here is the explanation of the intimate connection of the beginnings of all civilizations with the existence, near the scene of such beginnings, of good natural water-roads. "Even the wildest inhabitant of the sea coast very soon obtains the idea of distance, which is altogether wanting to the inhabitant of the primeval forest. No sooner does he catch sight of the far-off island than his yearning after the distant assumes a well-defined characBits of wood floating past him suggest to his mind the

ter.

It is obvious from the foregoing that, in decaying nations, in which the market contracts and capital decreases, the division of labor also must grow less.

1 According to Arago, a horse uses the same amount of force to draw 20 cwt. along an ordinary road that he does to draw 200 over a railroad track, or 1,200 on a canal. He could carry scarcely 2 or 3 on his back! Moniteur, 1838, No. 116. It is, however, certain that the introduction of our railroads has somewhat detracted from the advantages of coasts.

8

best material to buoy himself up upon the water, and a fish the best form for his craft." (Klemm.) Hence the Mediterranean sea, especially the eastern portion, with the various peoples and products of its coasts, with its numerous islands, peninsulas and bays, its easy navigation, but little influenced by the tides or by ocean currents, was the principal seat of ancient civilization. The literal meaning of Attica is coast-land. (Strabo.) The colonization of a new country is wont, where possible, to begin on the coast, especially on islands near the coast; and to follow the course of rivers into the interior. Even whole continents occupy, for the most part, in the history of the world, the position assigned them by their coast-development. While it is hard to determine whether, in the case of the European continent, its limbs predominate or its trunk, Africa may be said to be a trunk without members. Its islands, most of them insignificant in themselves, are almost entirely cut off from it by ocean currents. This explains why Madagascar had not, by any any means, the influence on African civilization which Crete, Sicily and Britain have had on the civilization of Europe. Asia occupies, in this respect, about a middle position between Europe and Africa. The trunk of that continent bears to its members about the proportion of 670,000 to 150,000 square miles. And what is worst of all, the middle of the whole is an almost insurmountable wall between north, south, east and west Asia. Hence the tenacious peculiarity and isolated development of the Chinese, Malayan, Indian and Arabic civilizations; while the three peninsulas of southern Europe, for instance, have affected one another so largely, and in so many different ways.* The northern hemisphere compared with the southern, pre

• Compare Humboldt, Essai politique sur l'Ile de Cuba, II, 205.

3 Strabo, II, 121 ff. In Europe, there is one mile of coast to every 31 square miles in the interior; in North America, to 56; in South America, 91; in Asia, 100; in Africa, 142. (Humboldt.)

If the original connection of the Caspian sea and the sea of Aral with the Frozen Ocean were still in existence, it is probable that an Asiatic Scandinavia would have been formed in consequence.

sents a contrast similar to that between Europe and Africa, or of the rich coast-groups of the Atlantic compared with the poor ones of the Pacific. But it is most especially, large, well-watered plains that are best adapted to the construction of roads, and thus to facilitate the division of labor. And while we find, in many countries, that the mountainous regions reached a certain stage of development earlier than any others, because they were more easily protected by military force, we find, too, that even here, plains, have, for the most part, had the largest share of power and of civilization (northern Italy, northern France, the plains of Switzerland and

What is true of the sea in this respect may be claimed, also, though in a less degree, for the streams that carry the civilizing fruits of the coasts far into the interior. Nearly all large cities not situated on the harbors of coasts derive their importance from rivers; especially when they have been built on spots adapted by nature to the transhipment of merchandise. That Venice finally eclipsed Genoa is to be ascribed, in greatest part, to its control of an important stream, the Po. The economic importance of Holland, of Hamburg and Bremen will, in the long run, bear the same relation to one another as the geographical importance of the valleys of the Rhine, Elbe and Weser. As nothing is more disastrous to a nation than the loss of its coast (we need only cite the efforts of the Lybian kings and, later, of Philip of Macedon to conquer the Greek colonies on their coasts; and in more recent times, of Russia before Peter the Great, or of the Zollverein without the shores of the German sea), so, also, the economic and political influence of a stream increases as one approaches its mouth. Hence the justification of the great interest taken by Germany and Austria in the question of the Danubian principalities. The United States recognized this fact when they purchased Louisiana for 80,000,000 francs. Bignon, Hist. de France III, 111 seq. Readers of history are familiar with the important part played by the three Asiatic Mesopotamias: that between the Euphrates and the Tigris; that between the Ganges and the Brahmapootra; that between the Hoang-Ho and the Yang-tse-Kiang, to which finally the Punjab might be added. This relation is recognized by popular consciousness, in the case of the Ganges, by the belief in the sacredness of the stream. No river has had so much influence on civilization as the Nile: its periodical risings have made the labor of agriculture extraordinarily easy; their extent and regularity favored the progress of astronomy; the flooding over of the land led to geodesy; the hydraulic labors necessitated by the rising of the waters produced a school of architecture to which the river furnished an excellent means of transportation for the enormous masses to be moved. K. Ritter,

north Germany). See § 36.6 We must not, however, fail to consider the reverse side of the picture of the great highways of the world. The same reasons that raise them to the dignity of lines of commerce, make them lines of war; and even the contagion of great plagues and of the ruling vices follows, as a rule, the avenues of trade.

SECTION LXII.

THE REVERSE, OR DARK SIDE OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR.

There are hardships often attending the highly developed division of labor, the dark and bright sides of which are most strikingly observable only in large cities. However, when it is charged with adding to the natural inequality of men, the accusation can be met only by the answer, that, without the division of labor, we should be all equally poor and equally coarse; for each one would be absorbed by the necessity of providing for his lower wants, and no one would be in a way to develop his higher faculties. Even the poorest man has more enjoyment in consequence of the division of labor, than he could have living in a state of isolation from his fellow men. The most wretched among us, the invalid without propertyof any kind, the father of a family with more children than he can support, would simply starve in the primeval forest.

Erdkunde, I, p. 880 seq; VI, p. 1,168 seq. In this matter, also, America and Europe have the advantage over Asia and Africa. While the Danube is, in places, scarcely three German miles from the Rhine — which, however, flows in an almost opposite direction — in Asia, the eastern streams are separated from the western, and the northern from the southern, by a strip of land difficult to be traveled, and about 300 German miles in extent. Besides, the principal streams of northern Asia have their exit into the Frozen Ocean, a fact which diminishes their importance greatly. The source of the Missouri is only about one mile distant from the Columbia river, although the two flow towards opposite seas.

The law governing the march of civilization from the mountain to the plain and to coast lands was observed even by Strabo, XIII, 592, and partly by Plato, De Leg., 677 ff.