tinctions between classes there are, but separation there cannot be, because all aim at securing the common good; and this makes each class what it is in the social whole. The common good at which each separately aims is also what holds all together. (2) The interests of social order, of morality, and the interests of labour are bound up together. The interests of labour are not merely the interests of its own class or of other classes, they are the interests of the moral life, the moral order of the whole of society. To further and secure the well-being of labour is therefore to further the well-being of society as a whole. And the only way to treat the problems of labour adequately is to treat them from the point of view of their true ethical significance. In short, labour problems are in the long run strictly moral problems, and the furtherance of the well-being of labour and labourers is essential to the attainment of the well-being of a community.
Again, we said that the labour a man does is an expression of his own individual will and has a value for himself. We cannot separate what a man does from the spirit in which he does it. Not merely does a man's work react on the man,—as is so often said in connection with the effect of machinery on the labourer,—it is equally true that a man's character, mind, and will determine the character of his labour, no matter what the labour be, whether it be sweeping the streets, or sailing the seas. Carlyle once said of a bad workman engaged on a job in Carlyle's house, that he broke the whole decalogue with every stroke of his hammer. And the remark goes to the root of the meaning of labour, so far as the labourer is concerned. We cannot separate the way a man does a task from the task which he does. The result will inevitably vary with what the man is and the way he does it. No doubt we may, and for practical purposes do, neglect the differences between men or the differences between their work: but only when it is practically convenient for us to neglect them, or when the differences do not count. Thus we might say that a number of men are doing the same work when each is breaking stones, or building a wall. But each is really, when you come to analyse the situation, building the wall in a different way from another, according to the man each is; and
