ctly shows itself even in the most complicated activities. The
naturalist is inclined to fancy that the study of a philologist must
be endlessly monotonous, and the philologist is convinced that it must
be utterly tiresome to devote one's self a life lone to some minute
questions of natural science. Only when one stands in the midst of the
work is he aware of its unlimited manifoldness, and feels how every
single case is somehow different from every other.

In the situation of the industrial workman, the attention may be
directed toward some small differences which can only be recognized
after long familiarity with the particular field. Certainly this field
is small, as every workman must specialize, but whether he
manufactures a whole machine, or only a little wheel, makes no
essential difference in the attitude. The attraction of newness is
quickly lost also in the case of the most complicated machine. On the
other hand, the fact that such a machine has an independent function
does not give an independent attraction to the work. Or we might
rather say, as far as the work on a whole machine is of independent
value, the work of perfecting the little wheel is an independent task
also and offers equal value by its own possibilities. Whoever has
recognized the finest variations among the single little wheels and
has become aware of how they are produced sometimes better, sometimes
worse, sometimes more quickly, sometimes more slowly, becomes as much
interested in the perfecting of the minute part as another man in the
manufacture of the complex machine. It is true that the laborer does
not feel interest in the little wheel itself, but in the production of
the wheel. Every new movement necessary for it has a perfectly new
chance and stands in new relations, which have nothing to do with the
repetition. As a matter of course this interest in the always new best
possible method of production is still strongly increased where
piece-wages are introduced. The laborer knows that the amount of his
earning depends upon the rapidity with which he finishes faultless
products. Under this stimulus he is in a continuous race with himself,
and thus has every reason to prefer the externally uniform and
therefore perfectly familiar work to another kind which may bring
alternation, but which also brings ever new demands.

For a long while I have tried to discover in every large factory which
I have visited the particular job which from the