Excerpt from Economic Principles: Or How Wealth Is Produced and How It Is Distributed In the fifteenth century man began to study the globe upon which he lived. Kings pawned their crowns; princes ex hansted their resources in fitting out ships to explore distant lands. Gold and silver were then supposed to be the only form of wealth; and so, wild dreams of discovering a golden El Dorado, with inexhaustible treasures, fired the heart; and this zeal, coupled with a religious enthusiasm, gave the move ment the impetus of a new crusade. 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.