uarter of a mile away from him, and he has in most cases no idea
whatever of how the two pieces of work are related to each other. Each
labourer has simply to perform his work in accordance with directions
which emanate from some mind other than his own, and the whole practical
value of what the labourers do depends on the quality of the directions
which are thus given to each.

In other words, in proportion as the industrial process is enhanced in
productivity by the concentration on it of the higher faculties of
mankind, there is an increasing fission of this process as a whole into
two kinds of activity represented by two different groups. We have no
longer _merely_--although we have this _still_--an increasing division
of labour; but we have the labourers of all kinds and grades separating
themselves into one group on the one hand, and the men who direct their
labour, as a separate group, on the other hand.

The function of the directive faculties, as applied thus to the
operations of modern labour, can perhaps be most easily illustrated by
the case of a printed book. Let us take two editions of ten thousand
copies each, similarly printed, and priced at six shillings a copy; the
one being an edition of a book so dull that but twenty copies can be
sold of it, the other of a book so interesting that the public buys the
whole ten thousand. Now, apart from its negligible value as so many tons
of waste paper, each pile of books represents economic wealth only in
proportion to the quantity of it for which the vendors can find
purchasers. Hence we have in the present case two piles of printed paper
which, regarded as paper patterned with printer's ink, are similar, but
one of which is wealth to the extent of three thousand pounds, while the
other is wealth to the extent of no more than six pounds. And to what is
the difference between these two values due? It obviously cannot be due
to the manual labour of the compositors, for this, both in kind and
quantity, is in each case the same. It is due to the special directions
under which the labour of the compositors is performed. But these
directions do not emanate from the men by whose hands the types are
arranged in a given order.

They come from the author, who conveys them to the compositors through
his manuscript; which manuscript, considered under its economic aspect,
is neither more nor less than a series of minute orders, which modify
from second to second every movem