| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
|---|---|---|
| I. | Introductory | [5] |
| II. | Man as a Factor in Social Evolution | [19] |
| III. | Concept and Conduct | [37] |
| IV. | Some False Concepts | [59] |
| V. | The Nature of Society (I) | [79] |
| VI. | The Nature of Society (II) | [99] |
| VII. | The Social Soul | [125] |
| VIII. | The Social Body | [157] |
| IX. | The Nature of Work (I) | [179] |
| X. | The Nature of Work (II) | [203] |
| XI. | Specialisation | [227] |
| XII. | Production | [249] |
| XIII. | Distribution | [275] |
| XIV. | Consumption (I) | [299] |
| XV. | Consumption (II) | [321] |
| XVI. | Our Position To-day | [341] |
| XVII. | The True Position | [367] |
HUMAN WORK
I: INTRODUCTORY
Summary
Common facts hard to understand. Social phenomena most important to modern life, yet least understood. Complexity no obstacle if system is known. Practical knowledge of sociology quite possible. Coexistence does not prove true association. Social rudiments cause pain. Human pain always conspicuous. “The Star of Suffering.” Religions rest on conception of essential pain. Suicide a human specialty. Pain a social condition, remediable and preventable. Physical environment largely mastered, present difficulties social. Past societies died of internal diseases. Social indigestion. Human nature progressive. Language retarded by ignorance and superstitions. Civilisation retarded by same things. Economic difficulties our principal ones to-day. “The root of all evil.” Innutrition, over-nutrition, mal-nutrition, wrong action in body politic. Difficulty lies in false ideas. Effect of woman labour and slave labour. Consciousness proof of power. Modern society increasingly conscious. Pain most conspicuous, pathology precedes physiology. Errors of early therapeutics, personal and social. Need of scientific social physiology, as base of treatment. Must understand works to mend watch, or society. Knowledge enough to begin. This book a study of the economic processes of Society.
I
INTRODUCTORY
The most familiar facts are often hardest to understand. This is described by Ward as “the illusion of the near.” Because of nearness we get no perspective; because of continual presence we become used to one view and fail to perceive others.
To the consideration of new facts we come with comparatively open minds, impressed by each item and its relation to the rest; but facts long known are supposed to be understood, and we resent the slight offered to our intelligence in the proposal to reconsider. Yet the most revolutionary discoveries have been made among precisely the most familiar facts; as in the nature and use of steam, or the endless potentialities of coal tar.
We had, and used, and supposed we knew, our own bodies, through long centuries of living and dying, yet our late-learned physiology was able to show us facts most vitally important which we had never dreamed of. Social phenomena have been going on about us since we began to be human; they are as familiar as physical or physiological phenomena, but even less understood. Yet the interaction of social forces and social conditions form increasingly prominent factors in human life.
Primitive man was most affected by physical conditions, he had to adjust himself mainly to the exigencies of climate, of the soil, of animal competitors. Modern man has to adjust himself mainly to social conditions; he is most affected by governments, religions, economic systems, education, general customs. Yet the study of this especially pressing and important environment is but little advanced. The smooth-worn commonplace facts slip through our fingers, and we fail to see the meaning of our most important surroundings simply because we have always had them. Also we allow ourselves to be discouraged by the extent and complexity of social conditions. This is quite needless.
Grass may be studied in any patch, regardless of the acreage of our prairies, or the height of the plumes of the Pampas. A tree would seem appallingly complex if we tried to understand it from a cross-section taken through the branching top; but from root to leaf it is not so hard to follow. Moreover, early writers on this subject have frightened us with technicalities. Mention some patent fact about our social composition, show a relation, suggest a law, and your alarmed hearer cries: “Oh, that is Political Economy! I cannot understand that, it is too difficult!” It is really a pity that such awe should be felt in the contemplation of our social processes; as though a man were afraid to learn anything about his digestion on the ground that it was “physiology.”