This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects. Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_. This volume contains three texts, each with its own title page and pagination. There is a table of contents for all three at the opening of the volume, The second and third both include a redundant table of contents, which have been retained. Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation. ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. BY HARRIET MARTINEAU. ——●—— LIFE IN THE WILDS. THE HILL AND THE VALLEY. BROOKE AND BROOKE FARM. ——●—— _IN NINE VOLUMES._ VOL. I. ——●—— LONDON: CHARLES FOX, PATERNOSTER-ROW. ——●—— MDCCCXXXIV. LONDON. Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES, Duke-street, Lambeth. CONTENTS. LIFE IN THE WILDS. CHAP. PAGE 1. What have they left us? 1001 2. What is Wealth? 1022 3. Earn your Bread before you eat it 1030 4. Hand-Work and Head-Work 1043 5. Heart-Work 1055 6. Many Hands make quick Work 1070 7. Getting up in the World 1083 8. A bright Sunset 1099 9. Signs of the Times 1109 THE HILL AND THE VALLEY. 1. Every Man his Whim 2001 2. Much may come of Little 2017 3. The harm of a Whim 2030 4. Prosperity 2049 5. How to use Prosperity 2070 6. Disasters 2084 7. Discontents 2103 8. Uproar 2117 9. All quiet again 2133 BROOKE AND BROOKE FARM. 1. Brooke and its Politicians 3001 2. George Gray’s Way of Living 3016 3. George Gray in the Way to Prosper 3028 4. A Conversation under the Limes 3040 5. Past, Present, and to Come 3056 6. Sergeant Rayne’s Story 3072 7. Great Changes at Brooke 3083 8. Small Farming 3092 9. Great Joy at Brooke 3106 10. What Joe Harper saw Abroad 3114 11. What must come at last 3127 12. Prosperity to Brooke! 3132 PREFACE. -------------- In an enlightened nation like our own, there are followers of every science which has been marked out for human pursuit. There is no study which has met with entire neglect from all classes of our countrymen. There are men of all ranks and every shade of opinion, who study the laws of Divine Providence and human duty. There are many more who inquire how the universe was formed and under what rules its movements proceed. Others look back to the records of society and study the history of their race. Others examine and compare the languages of many nations. Others study the principles on which civil laws are founded, and try to discover what there has been of good as well as of evil in the governments under which men have lived from the time of the patriarchs till now. Others—but they are very few—inquire into the principles which regulate the production and distribution of the necessaries and comforts of life in society. It is a common and true observation that every man is apt to think his own principal pursuit the most important in the world. It is a persuasion which we all smile at in one another and justify in ourselves. This is one of the least mischievous of human weaknesses; since, as nobody questions that some pursuits are really more important than others, there will always be a majority of testimonies in favour of those which are so, only subject to a reservation which acts equally upon all. If, for instance, votes were taken as to the comparative value of the study of medicine, the divine would say that...