ession in the saying: "All men are equal before the machine." So
far as machinery actually shifts upon natural forces work which
otherwise would tax the muscular energy, it undoubtedly tends to put
upon a level workers of different muscular capacity. Moreover, by
taking over work which requires great precision of movement, there is
a sense in which it is true that machinery tends to reduce the workers
to a common level of skill, or even of un-skill.

"Whenever a process requires peculiar dexterity and steadiness of
hand, it is withdrawn as soon as possible from the cunning workman,
who is prone to irregularities of many kinds, and it is placed in
charge of a peculiar mechanism, so self-regulating that a child can
superintend it."[221]

That this is not true of the most highly-skilled or qualitative work
must be conceded, but it applies with great force to the bulk of
lower-skilled labour. By the aid of machinery--_i.e._, of the
condensed embodiment of the inventor's skill, the clumsy or weak
worker is rendered capable of assisting the nicest movements on a
closer equality with the more skilled worker. Of course piece-work, as
practised in textile and hardware industries, shows that the most
complete machinery has not nearly abolished the individual differences
between one worker and another. But assuming that the difference in
recorded piece wages accurately represents difference in skill or
capacity of work--which is not quite the case--it seems evident that
there is less variation in capacity among machine-workers than among
workers engaged in employments where the work is more muscular, or is
conducted by human skill with simpler implements. The difference in
productive capacity between an English and a Hindoo navvy is
considerably greater than the difference between a Lancashire mill
operative and an operative in an equally well-equipped and organised
Bombay mill.

But this is by no means all that is signified by the "equality of
workers before the machine." It is the adaptability of the machine to
the weaker muscles and intelligence of women and children that is
perhaps the most important factor. The machine in its development
tends to give less and less prominence to muscle and high individual
skill in the mass of workers, more and more to certain qualities of
body and mind which not only differ less widely in different men, but
in which women and children are more nearly on a level with men. It is
of course t