KNOWLEDGE IS POWER:

A VIEW OF

THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES OF MODERN SOCIETY,

AND THE

RESULTS OF LABOUR, CAPITAL, AND SKILL.

BY CHARLES KNIGHT.

Illustrated with numerous Woodcuts.

"The empire of man over material things has for its only foundation the sciences and the arts."—Bacon.

THE SECOND EDITION.

WITH TWENTY-FOUR ADDITIONAL CUTS OF MANUFACTURING PROCESSES.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1859.

The right of Translation is reserved.

EXTRACT FROM THE INTRODUCTION.

"Without attempting to give this volume the formal shape of a treatise on Political Economy, it is the wish of the author to convey the broad parts of that science in a somewhat desultory manner, but one which is not altogether devoid of logical arrangement. He desires especially to be understood by the young; for upon their right appreciation of the principles which govern society will depend much of the security and happiness of our own and the coming time."

LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD-STREET,
AND CHARING CROSS.

TO

NEIL ARNOTT, ESQ., M.D.,

WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION OF THE DISINTERESTED SPIRIT IN WHICH HE HAS DEVOTED HIS SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE TO THE PUBLIC GOOD; AND IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS NEVER-FAILING KINDNESS DURING A LONG FRIENDSHIP,

THIS VOLUME

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
[Pg iv]
[Pg v]

CONTENTS.

• IntroductionPage 1
• CHAPTER I.
  

  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

• CHAPTER II.
  

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

• CHAPTER III.
  

  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

• CHAPTER IV.
  

  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

• CHAPTER V.
  

  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

• CHAPTER VI.
  

  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

• CHAPTER VII.
  

  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

• CHAPTER VIII.
  

  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

• CHAPTER IX.
  

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

• CHAPTER X.
  

  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

• CHAPTER XI.
  

  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

• CHAPTER XII.
  

  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

• CHAPTER XIII.
  

  Conveyance and extended use of