The creation and the use of wealth are everywhere governed by natural laws, and these, as discovered and stated, constitute the science of Economics. Some of them come into operation only when men live in more or less civilized societies and work in an organized way, while others are operative wherever men work at all. Every man who lives must have something that can be called wealth, and, unless it is given to him, he must do something in order to get it. A solitary hunter, living in a cave, eating the flesh of animals and clothing himself in their skins, would create wealth and use it; but he would not take part in a social kind of industry. What he does could not be described as a bit of "social," "national," or "political" economy. Yet the gaining of his living would be an economic operation and would involve a creating and using of wealth. A statement of the laws governing the processes by which such a man makes the earth yield to him means of support and comfort would constitute a Science of the Economy of Isolated Life, which is a part of the general Science of Economics. _Primitive Capital._--If an isolated man hunts with good implements, he gets more game than he would have done if he had not used some of his time in making such implements. It pays such a man to interrupt his hunting long enough to make a spear or a bow and arrows. This amounts to saying that it is an advantage to him to become, in a simple way, a capitalist as well as a laborer; for the primitive implements of the chase are forms of _productive_ wealth, or capital. Moreover, if he possesses foresight, he will keep enough food within reach to tide him over periods when game is not to be had, and such a store is another form of capital. _The Field of General Economics._--The economy of a man who works only for himself is subject to laws that are based on his own nature and the character of his material environment. Because he is what he is and because nature is what it is there is a certain way in which he must proceed, if he will live at all, and there are certain conditions which must exist, if he is to live well. The inherent productive power of labor and of capital is of vital concern to him, since he is both a laborer and a capitalist; but he is in no way interested in what we commonly call the relations of labor and capital, since that expression always suggests the dealings of one class of men, who labor, with another class, who own or control productive wealth. The study of such relations takes us at once into the domain of _Social_ Economy; but we can study certain universal laws of wealth without at all entering that domain. When we speak of the power that resides in a bow and arrow, we refer to a truth of _General_ Economics and one which illustrates the inherent power of capital, though we may be far from thinking of lenders and borrowers in a modern "money market" or of dealings of any one class of men with any other.