Excerpt from First Principles of Political Economy: With Reference to Statesmanship and the Progress The world is so full of books on all subjects that it is expected of any one who adds another to the number already existing, that he will offer some apology for the new demand he is making upon public attention. And the Preface seems to be the place and the occasion where he is expected to make it. Having been called some fifteen or twenty years ago to teach Political Economy - in consequence of there being no one else that had leisure to do so - I soon began to prepare the way for the use of the text books I had chosen, by certain elementary definitions and statements, like what are contained in the earlier chapters of the ensuing pages. Gradually, however, the elementary definitions which had thus been commenced, grew into nearly all that is contained in this work. 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.