London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) (79 page)

But in the act of seeking for substances fitted to replace that which is lost in respiration, nerves must be excited and muscles moved; and recent discoveries have shown that such excitation and motion are attended with decomposition of the organs in which they occur. Muscular action gives rise to the destruction of muscular tissue, nervous action to a change in the nervous matter; and this destruction and decomposition necessarily involve a fresh supply of
nitrogenous
matter, in order that the loss may be repaired.

Now a tree, being inactive, has little or no waste. All the food that it obtains goes to the invigoration of its frame; not one atom is destroyed in seeking more: but the essential condition of animal life is muscular action; the essential condition of muscular action is the destruction of muscular tissue; and the essential condition of the destruction of muscular tissue is a supply of food fitted for the reformation of it, or –
death
. It is impossible for an animal – like a vegetable – to stand still and not destroy. If the limbs are not moving, the heart is beating, the lungs playing, the bosom heaving. Hence an animal, in order to continue its existence, must obtain its subsistence either by its own exertions or by those of others – in a word, it must be
autobious
or
allobious
.

The procuration of sustenance, then, is the necessary condition of animal life, and constitutes the sole apparent reason for the addition of the locomotive apparatus to the vegetative functions of sentient nature; but the faculties of comparison and volition have been further added to the animal nature of Man, in order to enable him, among other things, the better to gratify his wants – to give him such a mastery over the elements of material nature, that he may force the external world the more readily to contribute to his support. Hence the derangement of either one of those functions must degrade the human being – as regards his means of sustenance – to the level of the brute. If his intellect be impaired, and the faculty of perceiving ‘the fitness of things’ be consequently lost to him – or, this being sound, if the power of moving his muscles in compliance with his will be deficient – then the individual becomes no longer capable, like his fellows, of continuing his existence by his own exertions.

Hence, in every state, we have two extensive causes of allobiism, or living by the labour of others; the one intellectual, as in the case of lunatics and idiots, and the other physical, as in the case of the infirm, the crippled, and the maimed – the old and the young.

But a third, and a more extensive class, still remains to be particularized. The members of every community may be divided into the
energetic
and the
an-ergetic
; that is to say, into the hardworking and the non-working, the industrious and the indolent classes; the distinguishing characteristic of the
anergetic
being the extreme irksomeness of all labour to them, and their consequent indisposition to work for their subsistence. Now, in the circumstances above enumerated, we have three capital causes why, in every State, a certain portion of the community must derive their subsistence from the exertions of the rest; the first proceeds from some
physical
defect, as in the case of the old and the young, the super-annuated and the sub-annuated, the crippled and the maimed; the second from some
intellectual
defect, as in the case of lunatics and idiots; and the third from some
moral
defect, as in the case of the indolent, the vagrant, the professional mendicant, and the criminal. In all civilized countries, there will necessarily be a greater or less number of human parasites living on the sustenance of their fellows. The industrious must labour to support the lazy, and the sane to keep the insane, and the able-bodied to maintain the infirm.

Still, to complete the social fabric, another class requires to be specified. As yet, regard has been paid only to those who must needs labour for their living, or who, in default of so doing, must prey on the proceeds of the industry of their more active or more stalwart brethren. There is, however, in all civilized society, a farther portion of the people distinct from either of those above mentioned, who, being already provided – no matter how – with a sufficient stock of sustenance, or what will exchange for such, have no occasion to toil for an additional supply.

Hence all society would appear to arrange itself into four different classes:

I. Those that will work

II. Those that cannot work

III. Those that will not work

IV. Those that need not work

Under one or other section of this quadruple division, every member, not only of our community, but of every other civilized State, must necessarily be included; the rich, the poor, the industrious, the idle, the
honest, the dishonest, the virtuous, and the vicious – each and all must be comprised therein.

Let me now proceed specially to treat of each of these classes – to distribute under one or other of these four categories the diverse modes of living peculiar to the members of our own community, and so to enunciate, for the first time, the natural history, as it were, of the industry and idleness of Great Britain in the nineteenth century.

It is no easy matter, however, to classify the different kinds of labour scientifically. To arrange the several varieties of work into ‘orders’, and to group the manifold species of arts under a few comprehensive genera – so that the mind may grasp the whole at one effort – is a task of a most perplexing character. Moreover, the first attempt to bring any number of diverse phenomena within the rules of logical division is not only a matter of considerable difficulty, but one, unfortunately, that is generally unsuccessful. It is impossible, however, to proceed with the present inquiry without making some attempt at systematic arrangement; for of all scientific processes, the classification of the various phenomena, in connection with a given subject, is perhaps the most important; indeed, if we consider that the function of cognition is essentially
discriminative
, it is evident, that without distinguishing between one object and another, there can be no knowledge, nor, indeed, any perception. Even as the seizing of a particular difference causes the mind to
apprehend
the special character of an object, so does the discovery of the agreements and differences among the several phenomena of a subject enable the understanding to
comprehend
it. What the generalization of events is to the ascertainment of natural laws, the generalization of things is to the discovery of natural systems. But classification is no less dangerous than it is important to science; for in precisely the same proportion as a correct grouping of objects into genera and species, orders and varieties, expands and assists our understanding, so does any erroneous arrangement cripple and retard all true knowledge. The reduction of all external substances into four elements by the ancients – earth, air, fire, and water – perhaps did more to obstruct the progress of chemical science than even a prohibition of the study could have effected.

But the branches of industry are so multifarious, the divisions of labour so minute and manifold, that it seems at first almost impossible to reduce them to any system. Moreover, the crude generalizations expressed in the names of the several arts, render the subject still more perplexing.

Some kinds of workmen, for example, are called after the
articles they make
– as saddlers, hatters, boot-makers, dress-makers, breeches-makers,
stay-makers, lace-makers, button-makers, glovers, cabinet-makers, artificial-flower-makers, ship-builders, organ-builders, boat-builders, nailers, pin-makers, basket-makers, pump-makers, clock and watch makers, wheel-wrights, ship-wrights, and so forth.

Some operatives, on the other hand, take their names not from what they make, but from the
kind of work they perform
. Hence we have carvers, joiners, bricklayers, weavers, knitters, engravers, embroiderers, tanners, curriers, bleachers, thatchers, lime-burners, glass-blowers, seamstresses, assayers, refiners, embossers, chasers, painters, paper-hangers, printers, book-binders, cab-drivers, fishermen, graziers, and so on.

Other artizans, again, are styled after the
materials upon which they work
, such as tinmen, jewellers, lapidaries, goldsmiths, braziers, plumbers, pewterers, glaziers, &c. &c.

And lastly, a few operatives are named after the
tools they use
; thus we have ploughmen, sawyers, and needlewomen.

But these divisions, it is evident, are as unscientific as they are arbitrary; nor would it be possible, by adopting such a classification, to arrive at any practical result.

Now, I
had
hoped to have derived some little assistance in my attempt to reduce the several varieties of work to system from the arrangement of the products of industry and art at ‘the Great Exhibition’. I knew, however, that the point of classification had proved the great stumbling block to the French Industrial Exhibitions. In the Exposition of the Arts and Manufactures of France in 1806, for instance, M. Costaz adopted a topographical arrangement, according to the departments of the kingdom whence the specimens were sent. In 1819, again, finding the previous arrangement conveyed little or no knowledge, depending, as it did, on the mere local association of the places of manufacture, the same philosopher attempted to classify all arts into a sort of natural system, but the separate divisions amounted to thirty-nine, and were found to be confused and inconvenient. In 1827 M. Payon adopted a classification into five great divisions, arranging the arts according as they are chemical, mechanical, physical, economical, or ‘miscellaneous’ in their nature. It was found, however, in practice, that two, or even three, of these characteristics often belonged to the same manufacture. In 1834 M. Dupin proposed a classification that was found to work better than any which preceded it. He viewed man as a locomotive animal, a clothed animal, a domiciled animal, &c., and thus tracing him through his various daily wants and employments, he arrived at a classification in which all arts are placed under nine headings, according as they contribute to the alimentary, sanitary,
vestiary, domiciliar, locomotive, sensitive, intellectual, preparative, or social tendencies of man. In 1844 and 1849 attempts were made towards an eclectic combination of two or three of the above-mentioned systems, but it does not appear that the latter arrangements presented any marked advantages.

Now, with all the experience of the French nation to guide us, I naturally expected that especial attention would be directed towards the point of classification with us, and that a technological system would be propounded, which would be found at least an improvement on the bungling systems of the French. It must be confessed, however, that no nation could possibly have stultified itself so egregiously as we have done in this respect. Never was there anything half so puerile as the classification of the works of industry in our own Exhibition!

But this comes of the patronage of Princes; for we are told that at one of the earliest meetings at Buckingham Palace his Royal Highness
propounded
the system of classification according to which the works of industry
were to be
arranged. The published minutes of the meeting on the 30th of June, 1849, inform us –

‘His Royal Highness communicated his views regarding the formation of a Great Collection of Works of Industry and Art in London in 1851, for the purposes of exhibition, and of competition and encouragement. His Royal Highness considered that such a collection and exhibition should consist of the following divisions:

Raw Materials

Machinery and Mechanical Inventions

Manufactures

Sculpture and Plastic Art generally.’

Now, were it possible for monarchs to do with natural laws as with social ones, namely, to blow a trumpet and declaring ‘
le roi le veut,
’ to have their will pass into one of the statutes of creation, it might be advantageous to science that Princes should seek to lay down orders of arrangement and propound systems of classification. But seeing that Science is as pure a republic as Letters, and that there are no ‘Highnesses’ in philosophy – for if there be any aristocracy at all in such matters, it is at least an aristocracy of intellect – it is rather an injury than a benefit that those who are high in authority should interfere in these affairs at all; since, from the very circumstances of their position it is utterly impossible for them to arrive at anything more than the merest surface knowledge on such subjects. The influence, too, that their mere ‘authority’ has over men’s minds is directly opposed to the perception of truth, preventing that free and
independent exercise of the intellect from which alone all discovery and knowledge can proceed.

Judging the quadruple arrangement of the Great Exhibition by the laws of logical division, we find that the three classes – Raw Materials, Machinery, and Manufactures – which refer more particularly to the Works of Industry, are neither distinct nor do they include the whole. What is a raw material, and what a manufacture? It is from the difficulty of distinguishing between these two conditions that leather is placed under Manufactures, and steel under Raw Materials – though surely steel is iron
plus
carbon, and leather skin
plus
tannin; so that, technologically considered, there is no difference between them. If by the term raw material is meant some natural product in its crude state, then it is evident that ‘Geological maps, plans, and sections; prussiate of potash, and other mixed chemical manufactures; sulphuric, muriatic, nitric, and other acids; medicinal tinctures, cod liver oil, dried fruits, fermented liquors and spirits, preserved meats, portable soups, glue, and the alloys’ cannot possibly rank as
raw
materials, though one and all of these articles are to be found so ‘classified’ at the Great Exhibition; but if the meaning of a ‘raw material’ be extended to any product which constitutes the substance to be operated upon in an industrial art, then the answer is that leather, which is the material of shoes and harness, is no more a manufacture than steel, which is placed among the raw materials, because forming the constituent substance of cutlery and tools. So interlinked are the various arts and manufactures, that what is the product of one process of industry is the material of another – thus, yarn is the product of spinning, and the material of weaving, and in the same manner the cloth, which is the product of weaving, becomes the material of tailoring.