Knowledge is power

Feeble resources of civilized man in a desert--Ross Cox, Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron--A Moskito Indian on Juan Fernandez--Conditions necessary for the production of utility 6

CHAPTER II.

Society a system of exchanges--Security of individual property the principle of exchange--Alexander Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe--Imperfect appropriation and unprofitable labour 14

CHAPTER III.

Adventures of John Tanner--Habits of the American Indians--Their sufferings from famine, and from the absence among them of the principle of division of labour--Evils of irregular labour--Respect to property--Their present improved condition--Hudson's Bay Indians 23

CHAPTER IV.

The Prodigal--Advantages of the poorest man in civilized life over the richest savage--Savings-banks, deposits, and interest--Progress of accumulation--Insecurity of capital, its causes and results--Property, its constituents-- Accumulation of capital 38

CHAPTER V.

Common interests of Capital and Labour--Labour directed by Accumulation--Capital enhanced by Labour--Balance of rights and duties--Relation of demand and supply--Money exchanges--Intrinsic and representative value of money 49

CHAPTER VI.

Importance of capital to the profitable employment of labour--Contrast between the prodigal and the prudent man: the Dukes of Buckingham and Bridgewater--Making good for trade--Unprofitable consumption--War against capital in the middle ages--Evils of corporate privileges--Condition of the people under Henry VIII. 60

CHAPTER VII.

Rights of labour--Effects of slavery on production--Condition of the Anglo Saxons--Progress of freedom in England--Laws regulating labour--Wages and prices--Poor-law--Law of settlement 71

CHAPTER VIII.

Possessions of the different classes in England--Condition of Colchester in 1301--Tools, stock-in-trade, furniture, &c.--Supply of food--Comparative duration of human life--Want of facilities for commerce--Plenty and civilization not productive of effeminacy--Colchester in the present day 82

CHAPTER IX.

Certainty the stimulus to industry--Effects of insecurity--Instances of unprofitable labour--Former notions of commerce--National and class prejudices, and their remedy 96

CHAPTER X.

Employment of machinery in manufactures and agriculture--Erroneous notions formerly prevalent on this subject--Its advantages to the labourer--Spade-husbandry--The principle of machinery--Machines and tools--Change in the condition of England consequent on the introduction of machinery--Modern New Zealanders and ancient Greeks-- Hand-mills and water-mills 106

CHAPTER XI.

Present and former condition of the country--Progress of cultivation--Evil influence of feudalism--State of agriculture in the sixteenth century--Modern improvements--Prices of wheat--Increased breadth of land under cultivation--Average consumption of wheat--Implements of agriculture now in use--Number of agriculturists in Great Britain 124

CHAPTER XII.

Production of a knife--Manufacture of iron--Raising coal--The hot-blast--Iron bridges--Rolling bar-iron--Making steel--Sheffield manufactures--Mining in Great Britain--Numbers engaged in mines and metal manufactures 139

CHAPTER XIII.

Conveyance and extended use of coal--Consumption at various periods--Condition of the roads in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--Advantages of good roads--Want of roads in Australia--Turnpike-roads--Canals--Railway of 1680--Railway statistics 157