II. PRIMITIVE AND RUDIMENTARY Condition OF INDUSTRY. Another distinctive trait of this primitive organization is, that a kind of intimate neighborhood existed in it amongst men, not less than among those forming the identical society, in such a fashion that they performed the larger part of their labors in frequent, and made a direct division of the fruits of those labors. All those occupations, so numerous and diversified, that are carried on individually in society as it now exists, opening a subject to so many professions or different careers, were then in a sure approach mingled and confounded, within the sense that they had been exercised in flip by the same individuals, though in a very imperfect and rude manner. To realize this object efficiently, it is nicely understood that what we’ve to contemplate is industry because it exists, akin to civilization has made it, that’s to say, with all of the organic components developed in it by time. Considered from this broad and basic viewpoint, industry is, as we shall see in the article POLITICAL Economy the true object of the investigations of economic science, which research its group and explains its legal guidelines. If, for example, we go to the distant frontier of the United States, we shall discover here and there isolated farms, on which a small number of males, belonging generally to the identical household, reside collectively, and fulfill all their very own needs themselves with out contact with the remainder of the human race.

We shall now see how, in consequence of the progress of trade, all these elements, mingled at first, became detached from each other, and what the new order was which was established. In order to search out its traces it is not absolutely obligatory to go back, as now we have completed previously, to the infancy of society, or to comply with man within the savage state; we will discover a more or less faithful image of it, even to-day, wherever a small group of males reside separate from the remainder of society, or without atypical communication with it. This is the extra important since it is not developed commonly, in the sense that its group is equally advanced everywhere; it’s, quite the opposite, very unequally developed according to locality, and we discover here and there, in places even far superior in civilization, remnants of its primitive group. This picture of primitive society is just not complete, it’s true, but it’s close to enough to the sort which it represents. These patriarchs, it’s true, knew the use of money, which exhibits that change was practiced amongst them to a sure extent; but it is obvious that they had recourse to alternate solely at long intervals, in exceptional cases, and that on the whole they themselves provided all the things which was wanted to satisfy their every day wants.

It’s true, subsequently, that in this small group, composed of so few men, all of the important functions of the social order were united. It is important to indicate, so far as is possible in a abstract evaluation, how these phenomena are organized and connected, with the intention to point out the place which each one in every of them occupies in the industrial order; that is the easiest way of showing, at the same time, the extent of the sector which financial science must cover. Still, as industry, thought-about with reference to the group of the labors which it embraces, is an basically progressive phenomenon, which though subject to sure invariable laws derived from the nature of man itself, is built up in a gradual and progressive method; since it begins in a rude state and rises gradually to the miracles of organization, which we witness to day, like the tree which, contained at first within the germ, develops solely with time, and throws out its branches successively, it seems to us helpful to consider it in its rudimentary and primitive state.

With this exception, they embody the kind of primitive industry, within the sense that all labors necessary to their support are carried on by themselves, and all the features of social life are united and concentrated within the little group which they form. A truer image of this primitive structure of industry may be found, maybe, in the lives of the patriarchs, as offered to us in the Scriptures. It was a small picture of the world, because it exists in its present situation; with this sole difference that, on the earth of the tribe, all these capabilities had been mingled, confounded, exercised by the same brokers, whereas on this planet of to-day they are separated and intrusted to different brokers, without ceasing on that account to be united and dependent on one another, as a lot as they may probably be the first day. But if we are freed from insisting on this level, we have now one other job to satisfy, that of showing at a tough estimate how industry is organized as a whole; to current a miniature image of this organization, and indicate at least its principal features. The distinction so frequently established between the industrial arts and the professions referred to as liberal, appears false or empty, at the very least when taken in an absolute sense.