100 THE EFFECTS OF 



CHAP, XX. 



cases would be small. Whilst this process of the 

 declining value of money was going on, those who 

 were in debt would discharge the demands upon 

 them, in proportion to the length of credit, with 

 considerable gain ; whilst, on the other hand, the 

 creditors would receive payment in money of less 

 value than that at the time when they had given 

 the credit. In this case, taken thus, the creditor 

 would suffer a loss, and the debtor would have a 

 gain ; but as commonly the " borrower is servant 

 to the lender," the latter would be more than 

 indemnified by taking a rate of interest so much 

 higher as to cover the anticipated decline in the 

 value of money; for after a few years of the course 

 here supposed all vyould act from analogy, and 

 upon the principle that as commodities had been 

 gradually increasing, so they would continue to 

 increase, or, which is the same thing, that the 

 value of money would continue to decline. Thus 

 Bishop Latimer, preaching in 1548, anticipated 

 that before long a pig would be worth a pound, 

 an expectation that was verified when the " Con- 

 ceipte" was written, in 1581. 



This mode of acting, if not of reasoning, from 

 analogy is the most influential and the most 

 universal, and to it we owe the regular succession 

 of agricultural labours; for the farmer ploughs and 

 sows on no other principle but that because the 

 summers of past years have brought his corn to 

 perfection, so that the next summer will produce 



