Feeble resources of civilized man in a desert—Ross Cox, Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron—A Moskito Indian on Juan Fernandez—Conditions necessary for the production of utility6

Society a system of exchanges—Security of individual property the principle of exchange—Alexander Selkirk and Robinson Crusoe—Imperfect appropriation and unprofitable labour14

Adventures of John Tanner—Habits of the American Indians—Their sufferings from famine, and from the absence among them of the principle of division of labour—Evils of irregular labour—Respect to property—Their present improved condition—Hudson's Bay Indians23

The Prodigal—Advantages of the poorest man in civilized life over the richest savage—Savings-banks, deposits, and interest—Progress of accumulation—Insecurity of capital, its causes and results—Property, its constituents—Accumulation of capital38

Common interests of Capital and Labour—Labour directed by Accumulation—Capital enhanced by Labour—Balance of rights and duties—Relation of demand and supply—Money exchanges—Intrinsic and representative value of money49

Importance of capital to the profitable employment of labour—Contrast between the prodigal and the prudent man: the Dukes of Buckingham and Bridgewater—Making good for trade—Unprofitable consumption—War against capital in the middle ages—Evils of corporate privileges—Condition of the people under Henry VIII.60

Rights of labour—Effects of slavery on production—Condition of the Anglo Saxons—Progress of freedom in England—Laws regulating labour—Wages and prices—Poor-law—Law of settlement71

Possessions of the different classes in England—Condition of Colchester in 1301—Tools, stock-in-trade, furniture, &c.—Supply of food—Comparative duration of human life—Want of facilities for commerce—Plenty and civilization not productive of effeminacy—Colchester in the present day82

Certainty the stimulus to industry—Effects of insecurity—Instances of unprofitable labour—Former notions of commerce—National and class prejudices, and their remedy96

Employment of machinery in manufactures and agriculture—Erroneous notions formerly prevalent on this subject—Its advantages to the labourer—Spade-husbandry—The principle of machinery—Machines and tools—Change in the condition of England consequent on the introduction of machinery—Modern New Zealanders and ancient Greeks—Hand-mills and water-mills106

Present and former condition of the country—Progress of cultivation—Evil influence of feudalism—State of agriculture in the sixteenth century—Modern improvements—Prices of wheat—Increased breadth of land under cultivation—Average consumption of wheat—Implements of agriculture now in use—Number of agriculturists in Great Britain124

Production of a knife—Manufacture of iron—Raising coal—The hot-blast—Iron bridges—Rolling bar-iron—Making steel—Sheffield manufactures—Mining in Great Britain—Numbers engaged in mines and metal manufactures139

Conveyance and extended use of coal—Consumption at various periods—Condition of the roads in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Advantages of good roads—Want of roads in Australia—Turnpike-roads—Canals—Railway of 1680—Railway statistics157

Houses—The Pyramids—Mechanical power—Carpenters' tools—American machinery for building—Bricks—Slate—Household fittings and furniture—Paper-hangings—Carpets—Glass—Pottery—Improvements effected through the reduction or repeal of duties on domestic requirements174

Dwellings of the people—Oberlin—The Highlander's candlesticks—Supply of water—London waterworks—Street-lights—Sewers199

Early intercourse with foreign nations—Progress of the cotton manufacture—Hand-spinning—Arkwright—Crompton—Power-loom—Cartwright—Especial benefits of machinery in this manufacture213

The woollen manufacture—Divisions of employment—Early history—Prohibitory laws—The Jacquard loom—Middle-age legislation—Sumptuary laws—The silk manufacture—Ribbon-weaving—The linen manufacture—Cloth-printing—Bleaching233

Hosiery manufacture—The stocking-frame—The circular hosiery-machine—Hats—Gloves—Boots and shoes—Straw-plat—Artificial flowers—Fans—Lace—Bobbin-net machine—Pins—Needles—Buttons—Toys—Lucifer-matches—Envelopes255

Labour-saving contrivances—The nick in Types—Tags of laces—Casting shot—Candle-dipping—Tiring a wheel—Globe-making—Domestic aids to labour—Aids to mental labour—Effects of severe bodily labour on health and duration of life276

Influences of knowledge in the direction of labour and capital—Astronomy: Chronometer—Mariner's compass—Scientific travellers—New materials of manufactures—India-rubber—Gutta-percha—Palm-oil—Geology—Inventions that diminish risk—Science raising up new employments—Electricity—Galvanism—Sun-light—Mental labourers—Enlightened public sentiment295

Invention of printing—Effects of that art—A daily newspaper—Provincial newspapers—News-writing of former periods—Changes in the character of newspapers—Steam conveyance—Electric telegraph—Organization of a London newspaper-office—The printing-machine—The paper-machine—Bookbinding—Paper-duty323

Power of skill—Cheap production—Population and production—Partial and temporary evils—Intelligent labour—Division of labour—General knowledge—'The Lowell Offering'—Union of forces344

Accumulation—Productive and unproductive consumption—Use of capital—Credit—Securit of property—Production applied to the satisfaction of common wants—Increase of comforts—Relations of capitalist and labourer361

Natural law of wages—State-laws regulating wages—Enactments regulating consumption—The labour-fund and the want-fund—Ratio of capital to population—State of industry at the end of the seventeenth century—Rise of manufactures—Wages and prices—Turning over capital381

What political economy teaches—Skilled labour and trusted labour—Competition of unskilled labour—Competition of uncapitalled labour—Itinerant traders—The contrast of organized industry—Factory-labour and garret-labour—Communism—Proposals for state organization of labour—Social Publishing Establishment—Practical co-operation398