In order to determine the ethical significance of the division of labor, we must know what function it fulfils. Its function, in M. Durkheim's view, is to effect the transformation of social solidarity. Such transformation takes place from an inferior society whose similar components, like the crystals of a quartz rock, are, by virtue of their very homogeneity, bound together in a condition of "mechanical solidarity" to a superior society whose highly differentiated components are each, like the cells of a plant, dependent on the cooperation of the others in "organic solidarity, or solidarity due to the division of labor." A chief proof of this transformation of social solidarity the author finds in the history of law. Mechanical solidarity is reflected by repressive law, based on the prevalence throughout a homogenous society of certain definite and uniform sentiments, variations from which are punished. Organic solidarity is reflected by contractual or restitutive law based on differing sentiments of various individuals. As social bonds due to differentiation supersede those due to homogeneity, that is to say as the "segmentary type" of society makes way for the "organized type," the penal law declines in relative importance, the restitutive law grows.
The segmentary type of society, so long as it exists intact, opposes an insurmountable barrier to any division of labor whatever. The division of labor, therefore, must be, at its beginning, the effect, not the cause of the regression of the segmentary type. The effect, may, indeed, react upon the cause. But it does not thereby lose its character as effect. The reaction is at most but a secondary cause. The primary causes of the effacement of the segmentary social type are, the increase in the volume of society and the increase in its "dynamic or moral density," i.e., the multiplication of points of social contact due to the concentration of society and to the growth of cities and of means of transport and communication. The growth of society in volume and in density intensifies the struggle for existence, always fiercest between organisms most nearly alike, and thus forces progressive division of labor. Economic progress is indeed the result of the division of labor, but by no means the end in view of which it takes place. "If we specialize, it is not to produce more, but it is to be able to live under the new conditions which are made for us."
What ethical import, then, does the division of labor bear? Since it is the chief source of social solidarity, whose form determines morality, the division of labor must be also the foundation of the moral order. It does not produce social solidarity simply, as some economists have held, by making each individual an exchanger: it creates rather new rights and new duties. Under its influence profound changes in the structure of our societies have taken place in a very brief time. With the gradual
