Further, his excellence is checked by the interaction of parts,—all his tools being part of him, and modifying each other. The more things he can do, the less perfectly he does them; the more perfectly he does a thing, the fewer things he can do. The beaver, for instance, is a highly developed builder, but he cannot run well, or climb trees. Where you find the most perfect specialisation of an animal’s machinery to a particular function, you find the creature practically helpless otherwise—as the ant-eater. So we find the executive capacity of an individual animal limited, first, by his body and its slow methods of adaptation.
His stimuli are also limited. This small machine is kept going by its own supply of nervous energy, replenished by food, sleep, air, and water. It will run so long, and then must rest and be “fired up.” Special excitants of fear, pain, or unusual hunger may temporarily accelerate his activity, but he has then to rest the longer. His executive capacity is thus limited, second, by his small nervous energy and narrow range of stimulus.
It is further confined, thirdly, by the narrow circle of his instincts, desires, or ideas, if he has them. The governing impulse is simple race-preservation, mingled with the self-preserving instincts; egoism and familism cover his range of interests. Hope, fear, desire,—all are for self or family.
So we find in the individual animal, his efficiency is limited by (a) his personal mechanism, (b) his personal nerve force, and (c) his personal interests. For such an agent work—continuous expression of energy—would indeed be difficult. But now examine the position of the human being.
Man’s tools do not grow on him. He has been able to evolve improved tools without sacrificing a thousand slow generations to breed them. He adds to his executive ability, (a) the power of numbers, and of the “relay race” (wild dogs have this), (b) the power of division of labour, (ants and bees have this), (c) the tool, detachable and exchangeable.
In this comes at once an enormous saving of energy. Where the mole has to spend not only his immediate strength in digging, but his whole racial tendency in being modified to digging, the man with a spade can do far more work in proportion to his strength, and still be able to do other things. The executive efficiency of the man is multiplied, first, by association, again by division of labour, and again by the tool. The tool being not a personal adjunct like the claw, but a separate thing, usable by many, the efficiency is again increased by the exchange of tools. It is multiplied, fourth, by the development of the tool into the machine, and fifth, by the application to the machine of extra-personal power, of the forces of nature direct. Thus where one man alone as a separate naked animal could accomplish something equal to, say 5: as a member of society his efficiency is squared by association = 25; cubed by the division of labour = 125; raised to the fourth power by the tool = 625; to the fifth, by the machine = 3125; and to the sixth, by the use of natural forces = 15,625.
In view of even this much of our human efficiency, the exertion requisite for a human creature to do his share of our human work is so slight in proportion to our wealth of power that it is exquisitely absurd for us to speak of it as an expense of energy. Where an individual animal has to pour out his full stock of strength in hunting his prey, or, if graminivorous, in wandering over great areas after grass; man, collective, can produce and distribute food for a thousand by the specialised services of ten men with machinery. The executive efficiency of humanity is raised to such an enormous height that the spectacle of human beings still spending their personal energy at long hours of exhausting labour is an incredible paradox.
As far as power goes, one human being should be easily able to “pay for his keep” for life in a year’s work or less. But we are by no means done with the increase of efficiency. This five-times multiplied enginery of ours would still be comparatively futile, if the governing agent, man, had only the stimuli of the beast. The separate animal has his own supply of cerebral energy. It is something. It enables him to co-ordinate his forces, such as they are, and to undertake extreme exertion when he has to, such as it is. He maintains this energy by breathing, eating, and sleeping. Men can do these things too. Men, as separate animals, have each his own supply of cerebral energy. But Man has more.
Social energy is quite a different thing from individual energy. By as much as the dynamic force of an elephant is greater than that of the elephant’s bulk in monads, so is the dynamic force of a society greater than that of the mere sum of its individual constituents,—and more. Social energy has been accumulating in humanity from its birth. It is not only that co-ordinate action allows the transmission of wider waves of force than individual action, but that society in its organic function continually stores force in material products, and so establishes an ever enlarging magazine of power. This is where the social body so aids and furthers the action of the social soul. Each material object, so that it be a normal product, embodies and continually transmits the force that made it.
We are supplied, by virtue of our social relation, with a large complex brain area; the organ of social life. That great life we partake of in using the social body, in the immediately effective tools, utensils, and machines, and necessary material conveniences of life; but even more as we have access to the great social battery, the work of art. A human brain has not only the existent sum of social energy to draw on, but the stored energy of all the past.