THE METAPHYSICS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY 141
I can attribute to no other motive than this the silence of a writer too rich in his own treasures to need to disavow so modest a loan.” (Lemontey, “CEuvres Completes,” Vol. I., p. 245, Paris, 1840.)
Let us render him this justice: Lemontey has in- tellectually explained the evil consequences of the division of labor, as it is constituted in our days, and M. Proud- hon found nothing to add thereto. But since, by the faults of M. Proudhon, we are now engaged in this question of priority, we may say in passing that long before M. Lemontey, and seventeen years before Adam Smith, the pupil of A. Ferguson, the latter clearly ex- plained the subject in a chapter treating specially of the division of labor.
“There will ever be doubts as to whether the general capacity of a nation grows in proportion to the progress of the arts. Many mechanical arts.... succeed perfectly when they are totally destitute of the assistance of reason or sentiment, and ignorance is the mother of industry as well as of superstition. Reflection and imagination are likely to go astray, but the habit of moving the hand or foot depends upon neither the one or the other. Thus, we might say that perfection, as regards manufacture, consists in its being able to be dismissed from the mind, in such a manner that without an effort of the brain the workshop may be operated like a machine, of which the parts are men.... The general officer may be very accomplished in the art of war while all the merit of the soldier is limited to executing certain movements of the foot or hand. The one may have gained what the other has lost..... In a period where all is separated, the art of thinking may itself form a separate function.” (A. Ferguson, “Essai sur Vhistoire de la Socété Civile,” Paris, 1783.) ‘
