Which Have Influenced the History of the World/English Edition
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Principles of Economics
Reconstruction in Philosophy
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Two Treatises of Government
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

BOOK I, CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION.
1. Political Economy or Economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life; it examines that part of individual and social action which is most closely connected with the attainment and with the use of the material requisites of wellbeing.
Thus it is on the one side a study of wealth; and on the other, and more important side, a part of the study of man. For man's character has been moulded by his every-day work, and the material resources which he thereby procures, more than by any other influence unless it be that of his religious ideals; and the two great forming agencies of the world's history have been the religious and the economic. Here and there the ardour of the military or the artistic spirit has been for a while predominant: but religious and economic influences have nowhere been displaced from the front rank even for a time; and they have nearly always been more important than all others put together. Religious motives are more intense than economic, but their direct action seldom extends over so large a part of life. For the business by which a person earns his livelihood generally fills his thoughts during by far the greater part of those hours in which his mind is at its best; during them his character is being formed by the way in which he uses his faculties in his work, by the thoughts and the feelings which it suggests, and by his relations to his associates in work, his employers or his employees.
And very often the influence exerted on a person's character by the amount of his income is hardly less, if it is less, than that exerted by the way in which it is earned. It may make little difference to the fulness of life of a family whether its yearly income is ?000 or ?000; but it makes a very great difference whether the income is ?0 or ?50: for with ?50 the family has, with ?0 it has not, the material conditions of a complete life. It is true that in religion, in the family
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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH EDITION
Book I. Preliminary Survey.
I.I Introduction.
I.II The Substance of Economics.
I.III Economic Generalizations or Laws.
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Which Have Influenced the History of the World/English Edition
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation
Principles of Economics
Reconstruction in Philosophy
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Two Treatises of Government
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money