CHAPTER XXIII. INVENTION OF PRINTING.-EFFECTS OF THAT ART. A DAILY NEWSPAPER. PAGE 402 CHAPTER XXIV. POWER OF SKILL-CHEAP PRODUCTION.-POPULATION AND PRODUC- CHAPTER XXV. ACCUMULATION.-PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE CONSUMPTION.- 420 438 CHAPTER XXVI. NATURAL LAWS OF WAGES. STATE-LAWS REGULATING WAGES.-ENACTMENTS REGULATING CONSUMPTION. THE LABOR-FUND AND THE WANT-FUND.-RATIO OF CAPITAL TO THE POPULATION.-STATE OF INDUSTRY AT THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.-RISE OF MANUFACTURES.-WAGES AND PRICES.-TURNING OVER CAPITAL... 460 CHAPTER XXVII. WHAT POLITICAL ECONOMY TEACHES.-SKILLED LABOR AND TRUSTED List of Illustrations. PAGE SAVAGES KINDLING A FIRE. 33 DANIEL DEFOE.... ROBINSON CRUSOE, (FROM A DESIGN BY STOTHAUL)... TRADING WITH THE INDIANS.... 42 44 56 ASTOR LIBRARY, NEW YORK CITY....... READING THE BIBLE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.. ANCIENT ENGLISH CHAIR. 140 141 145 KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. CHAPTER I. ROUSSEAU'S OPINION ON OBSERVING.-FAMILIARITY WITH THE DETAILS OF A PURSUIT OFTEN OCCASIONS INDIFFERENCE CONCERNING ITS PRINCIPLES.-THE CONDITION OF NATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS NOT DEPENDENT ON ACCIDENT.-MAN AMENABLE TO LAW.-POLITICAL ECONOMY.-WANTS OF MAN.-HIS NATURAL POWERS.WEALTH, DEFINITION OF.-OBJECT OF THE PRESENT WORK. OPPOSITION TO LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY.-WHITWORTH'S REPORT.-FULTON'S STEAMBOAT.— ERICSSON.WHAT IS SCIENCE.-CAPITAL.-MONEY.-EXCHANGES.-DIVISION OF LABOR.-GENERAL SUMMARY. Ir has been wisely said by an eminent French writer (Rousseau) who scattered sound and foolish opinions with a nearly equal hand, "that it requires a great deal of philosophy to observe once what may be seen every day." This remark is particularly applicable to those branches of knowledge which relate to, and are intimately connected with, the pursuits of every-day life—to the various occupations and employments which have their origin in the wants of man, and are the means and agencies by which those wants are supplied and satisfied. Familiarity with the details of any subject or business does not necessarily presuppose or require an acquaintance with the principles upon which such subject or business is founded-pay, more-familiarity generally gives rise to indifference. If a particular result is satisfactory to a pecu niary degree, the sluggish mind is too apt to rest satisfied, without caring to inquire as to the cause by which the result is produced, or whether it is capable of further improvement. The gun-smith may accurately fashion, day by day, in continued routine, a particular portion of the mus ket, without knowing or caring to know the reason why he is required to shape the metal to a particular form, or the relation which such form sustains to the whole. The gunsmith may be an excellent workman and a good citizen, but an unthinking, unreflecting mind renders him a machineno better, and in some respects inferior to his fellow-machine that, with muscles of iron and sinews of steel, fashions the rough block into the complicated and irregular gunstock more accurately and more rapidly than the human machine could achieve the same labor. This indifference to causes and first principles, which we unhesitatingly condemn in the unreflecting mechanic, finds a parallel with most men in all the ordinary transactions and labors of life which we call business. The majority of civilized, and even educated men, are content with the fact that a certain amount of labor, properly directed, produces a certain gain, and that gain or its representative, money, will produce in exchange the luxuries and necessities of life; beyond this few seek to inquire or to comprehend those laws and principles which underlie every transaction involving labor and exchange, production and consumption, and in accordance with which alone industrial effort is able to produce its greatest profitable effect. It is no chance system that returns to the Hindoo artizan a penny and to the American laborer a dollar for their daily toil, that makes Mexico, with its mineral wealth, poor, and New England, with its granite and ice, rich, that bids the elements in one country become subservient to the wants of man, and in another to sport idly and run to waste-it is no acci |