But
to feel their souls withering within them, unthanked, to find their
whole being sunk into an unrecognized abyss, to be counted off into a
heap of mechanism, numbered with its wheels, and weighed with its
hammer strokes;--this nature bade not,--this God blesses not,--this
humanity for no long time is able to endure.
We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized
invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It
is not, truly speaking; the labour that is divided; but the
men:--Divided into mere segments of men--broken into small fragments
and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that
is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts
itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now it is a
good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we
could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished,--sand
of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what
it is,--we should think there might be some loss in it also. And the
great cry that rises from all our manufacturing cities, louder than
their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this,--that we manufacture
everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel,
and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to
refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our
estimate of advantages.
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