Excerpt from Elementary Principles of Economics: Together With a Short Sketch of Economic History First of all, it has been deemed well to present to the stu dent in the opening chapter an idea of what the science is, and to show him, as is being done in the present chapter, what are the main topics with which the science is con cerned. In another introductory chapter there is pre sented a discussion of some of the fundamental institutions in our social order. In the second place, it is thought advisable to give in a few chapters a skeleton outline of the economic history of mankind, with more particular attention to those late developments in English and American economic history which have given rise to existing economic conditions. This part of the subject is often omitted from elementary text-books, and therefore a word of explanation is here in place. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.