thus be brought into
prominence as well as the reaction by which, through the various
social avenues of law, public opinion, and private organised activity,
these intellectual forces have operated in their turn upon the
industrial structure.

The crowning difficulty of an adequate scientific treatment consists in
the fact that each and all of these scientific objects ought to be
pursued simultaneously; that is to say, the whole of the
phenomena--industrial, intellectual, political, moral, aesthetic--should
be presented in their just but ever-changing proportions.

This larger philosophic treatment is only named in order that it may
be realised how narrow and incomplete would be even the amplest
fulfilment of the purpose indicated in the title of this book.

Sec. 2. Industrial science has not yet sufficiently advanced to enable a
full treatment of the objective phenomena to be attempted.

The method here adopted is to take for our intellectual objective one
important factor in modern industrial movements, to study the laws of
its development and activity, and by observing the relations which
subsist between it and other leading factors or forces in industry to
obtain some clearer appreciation and understanding of the structure of
industry as a whole and its relation to the evolution of human
society. This central factor is indicated by the descriptive title
peculiarly applied to modern industry, Capitalism. A clear view of the
phenomena grouped together under the head of the Industrial Revolution
cannot fail to give prominence to the changes that have taken place in
the structure and functional character of Capital. Whatever
transformations have taken place in the character of land, the raw
material of industrial wealth, and of labour, or those abilities and
faculties of man which operate upon the raw material, have occurred
chiefly and directly through the agency of the enlarged and more
complex use of those forms of material wealth which, while embodying
some element of human effort, are not directly serviceable in
satisfying human want.

Writers upon Political Economy have brought much metaphysical acumen
to bear upon definitions of Capital, and have reached very widely
divergent conclusions as to what the term ought to mean, ignoring the
clear and fairly consistent meaning the term actually possesses in the
business world around them. The business world has indeed two views of
Capital, but they are consistent