PROFESSIONAL DUTIES.
SUMMARY.
Professional duties: founded on the division of social work.
The absence of a profession—Leisure.—Is it a duty to have a profession? Rules for the choice of a profession.
Division of social professions.—Plato’s theory; the Saint Simonian theory; Fichte’s theory. Résumé and synthesis of these theories.
Mechanic and industrial professions.—Employers and employees.—Workmen and farmers.
Military duties.
Public functions.—Elective functions; the magistracy and the bar.
Science.—Teaching.—Medicine.—The arts and letters.
93. Division of social work.—Independently of the general duties to which man is held, as man or member of a particular group (family, country), there are still others relating to the situation he holds in society, to the part he plays therein, to his particular line of work. Society is, in fact, a sort of great enterprise where all pursue a common end, namely, the greatest happiness or the greatest morality of the human species; but as this end is very complex, it is necessary that the parts to be played toward reaching it be divided; and, as in industrial pursuits, unity of purpose, rapidity of execution, perfection of work, cannot be obtained except by division of labor, so is there also in society a sort of social division of labor, which allots to each his share of the common work. The special work each is appointed to accomplish in society is what is called a profession, and the peculiar duties of each profession are the professional duties.