8. Certainly, it will be said, the employer should be paid for his
mental labour, but why at so enormously higher a rate than the manual
labourers? If we say, "because his labour is more valuable," some
Socialists would join issue on the score that labour is valuable
according to the time that it takes, and the employer works shorter
hours than his men. But this taking account of _quantity_ alone in
labour is an ignoring of the distinction which we have drawn of two
_qualities_ or _orders_ of labour, mental and manual; one more
valuable than the other as being scarcer and in greater demand, so
that a short time of one may be set against a long time of another,
like a little gold against a heap of brass. Any man accustomed to both
orders of labour must have observed, that while he can work with his
hands at almost any time when he is well, the highest labour of his
intellect can be done only at rare intervals, and that in one happy
hour he will sometimes accomplish more than in a day. As the same man
differs from himself at different times, so does one man from another
in the average value of his mental efforts: this value is not measured
by time.
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