An abridged history of the progress of political economy

First epoch It has been said that the present is pregnant with the future;2 one could have remarked before that it is the child of the past. Human societies had to pass through different states, to be subjected to numerous vicissitudes, to feel long suffering and short moments of joy, in order to come to understand them. It is only by degrees that their organs manifested themselves and that the observer was able to perceive their function and effects.