Inquiry into the Nature and Causes

Smith, A. (1937). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. New York Modem Library. (Original work published 1776)... 

Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter 10. 

Xenophon is mostly remembered today as the author of the Anabasis, where he records the story of the 10 000 Greek soldiers from Cyrus s army that he led back home after the unsuccessful war with Artaxerxes. However, he has other calls on onr attention, the most relevant to this book being that he wrote the Oeconomicus, probably the world s first textbook of economics. It contains ideas that formed the basis, more than 2000 years later, of the first serious attempt to analyze economic phenomena, which was made by Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Xenophon noted that there is a relation between the number of blacksmiths in a region and the prices that they can charge if there are too many, the price of their work falls, causing some to go out of business and helping to restore the value of the work of those that remain. This is effectively the first expression of what we now call the law of supply and demand. 

Adam Smith (1977) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited by Edwin Cannan, University of Chicago Press, Chicago. [A facsimile of the 1904 edition. Several other editions are available from other pnblishers.]... 

Smith, A., 1776. An Inquiry into die Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1st Edition, in The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, edited by R.H. Campbell, A.S. Skinner and W.B. Todd, Vol. n, Oxford University Press, Oxford. 

We are told that the use of marihuana causes crime. But as yet no one has been produced from the Bureau of Prisons to show the number of persons addicted to marihuana. An informal inquiry shows that the Bureau of Prisons has no information to this point. You have been told that school children are great users of marihuana cigarettes. No one has been summoned from the Children s Bureau to show the nature and extent of the habit among children. Inquiry into the Office of Education, and they certainly should know something of the prevalence of the habit among school children of this country, if there is a prevalent habit, indicates that they had not occasion to investigate it and know nothing of it. 

The author has followed and used the four rules in his scientific inquiry of the nature of the Earth s interior. Therefore, he has investigated the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake (M8.0) and found that the cause of earthquakes is due to the rapid migration and expansion of highly compressed natural (methane) gas from its deep trap in lower crustal rocks with higher compressive pressure into the middle and upper crustal rocks with lower compressive pressures. 

In the UK chemicals strategy the statement The Government is very concerned that we do not have adequate information about the hazards of most chemicals released into the environment in large quantities is emphasized in bold in section 1.7 (DETR, 1999). The EU strategy states that The lack of knowledge about the impact of many chemicals on human health and the environment is a cause for concern (CEC, 2001, p4). The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution held an inquiry into chemicals that reported in 2003. They consider that our failure to understand the interactions between synthetic chemicals and the natural environment, and most of all our failure to compile even the most basic information about the behaviour of chemicals in the environment, is a serious matter (RCEP, 2003, pi). 

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