Excerpt from Inroduction to Ecomic Science The words Elementary Principles in the title of this book indicate the limits of its scope; the book is intended to be elementary, t advanced, and to be concerned with ecomic principles, t their applications. First, being elementary, it does t attempt to unravel the most difficult tangles of ecomic theory or to introduce controversial matter. For such studies it should be succeeded by more extensive treatises (e.g., my own: Nature of Capital arid Income, Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices, Purchasing Power of Money, and Rate of Interest, which follow out the same general system of thought and exposition as adopted in this book). Secondly, being devoted to principles, the book is confined to that part or aspect of ecomics which is w coming to be recognized as capable of scientific treatment in the sense, for instance, in which that term may be applied to physics or biology. The fundamental distinction of a scientific principle is that it is always conditional; its form of statement is: If A is true, then B is true. Science is primarily concerned with the formulation of such principles or laws. The aim of this book is to formulate some of the fundamental laws relating to ecomics. The method and order of treatment are t altogether traditional. The time-hored order of topics - production, exchange, distribution, consumption - has been found impracticable. 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 techlogy 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.