88 THE EFFECTS OF 



CHAP. XX. 



necessary that the increase should on the whole 

 course of those years be at the rate of five per cent, 

 annually. Every addition would reduce the ratio 

 of the succeeding addition, acting as compound 

 interest does on money. If we take as an example 

 the sum of all commodities to be ten millions of 

 pounds, and add to it two per cent, the first year, 

 and to the sum so obtained, ten million two hun- 

 dred thousand pounds, at the end of the second 

 year, with the addition of two per cent., will 

 be ten million two hundred and four thousand 

 pounds. In this way the prices of the commodi- 

 ties would be double, or twenty millions, in some- 

 what less than thirty-six years. In the next thirty- 

 six years, at the same ratio of addition, the prices 

 would be again double, or forty millions. The 

 next twenty-eight years would be more than suf- 

 ficient to raise the prices of the commodities to 

 five times as much as at the beginning of the hun- 

 dred years. 



This view of the subject, thus expressed so as 

 to make it intelligible without any algebraic opera- 

 tion, seems necessary to account for the little notice 

 taken of the great advance in prices between 1483 

 and 1583 \ An advance of somewhat less than 

 two per cent, is scarcely perceptible till some years 

 have elapsed ; and those who do happen to observe 

 it would be satisfied by attributing it to some local 

 or temporary cause, rather than to so distant an 



1 The^exact annual addition of 1-J per cent, to any sum will 

 in one hundred years increase the original sum fivefold. 



