Two distinct systems of production preceded the factory. First, the system of isolated handicraft labor, and second, the system of cottage industry, which we have already considered and in which the several members of a family participated,—this, too, was handicraft. The craftsman, as we have seen, worked with his family in his own cottage; he owned his loom and the other simple machinery necessary for the production of cloth, and either he owned his raw material or received it from the master manufacturer to be returned in the form of finished fabric. But in either case, the craftsman was his own master and sold cloth not labor. With the establishment of the factory, these conditions were completely changed. The master manufacturer not only owned the factory building and the machinery, but he owned the raw material. Moreover to him the operative sold his labor which thereby became a commodity quite as completely as the cotton he wove into cloth. This latter circumstance is important because it became the source of the vast social discontent which, in the end, aided powerfully in revolutionizing the structure of British society. To the consideration of this event we shall soon return. For the moment we must consider briefly the most characteristic distinction in the process of manufacture under the new system—the extension of the principle of division of labor. The principle itself was in no wise new, for the first application of it was made in a very early stage in the evolution of society. At the very dawn of civilization it must have become apparent that more comforts and conveniences could be acquired by one man restricting his occupation to a single craft—and the development of independent arts was in itself a division of labor. The same principle was then carried into the different trades, and at last we find it fully developed in the cottage system of industry. Thus we find carding, spinning, and weaving carried on by separate members of the family. Carding and spinning, which required less bodily strength, was performed by the women, while the more laborious work of weaving was given over to the men. With the establishment of the factory and the introduction of machinery, means were supplied by which this system could attain its highest development. The advantages resulting from the division of labor are evident. When the whole work in any art is executed by one person, that person must possess sufficient skill to perform the most difficult, and sufficient strength to perform the most laborious, of the processes; but by employing a division of labor several persons may be kept at work executing that part of the whole for which he is best fitted.