ABSTRACT
At this point it may be well to remind the reader that the three Books into which this work is divided, like the distinction between Dominations and Powers itself, are not to be taken for separate natural processes, such as history or natural science might distinguish; for all events arise according to the Generative Order of Nature, whether by involuntary growth or by militant or rational action; and all liberal arts, materially considered, form a part of the economic articulation of society. The distinctions which I establish are made in view, not of any distinct forces imagined to be at work in the world, but in view of the different moral results generated by the concourse of all natural forces. Politics are a part of morals, as morals, for a philosopher like Aristotle, are a part of politics; both are names for the human physiognomy that natural life acquires at certain junctures, or for the natural conditions that cause that moral physiognomy to change. So the material process by which a man makes an axe, when he uses it to fell a tree, becomes an economic art; but if he uses it to kill a wild beast or an enemy, the axe, without ceasing to be a product of economic art, becomes a weapon and an instrument in the arts of defence and destruction. How easily the moral function of industry can be transformed in this way, suddenly and on a vast scale, recent wars have shown us, when great works and whole populations have been turned from manufacturing locomotives and motor-cars to manufacturing bombing aeroplanes and tanks.
