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Civilization, an Historical Review of Its Elements
Civilization an Historical Review of Its Elements Author:Charles Morris General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1890 Original Publisher: S. C. Griggs and company Subjects: Civilization History / General History / Historiography History / World History / Civilization History / Essays Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and th... more »ere may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER XVII. THE WEALTH OP NATIONS. TTTITH the subjects treated in the preceding chap- ' ter is closely bound up another, that of the accumulation of wealth. This word wealth is one of extensive affinities, and might properly be made to include much to which it is not usually applied. Its restricted form, capital, means only that portion of man's possessions which is employed in the production of new possessions. But, in its complete sense, wealth may be taken to include all that supplies human necessities, comforts, and luxuries, or in any way is of use to man as a physical product of the earth. There is a vast accumulation of mental wealth as well, the result of long centuries of human effort. A modern language, for instance, is such a valuable possession, wrought into shape by ages of mental labor. Yet these treasures of the intellect are not usually classed with the world's wealth, whose scope is ordinarily limited to physical possessions, including the direct product of nature and the results of human strength and intelligence as applied in manufacturing processes. If we may judge from archaeological indications, the possessions of mankind were for ages limited to articles of wrought stone and bone, which had a value as domestic implements, or as hunting and warlike weapons. At a comparatively recent date these stores ofwealth were greatly increased. Hand-built habitations of some sort replaced man's early homes in caves and...« less